New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman showcases why she is one of today's top crime writers in this acclaimed collection of suspenseful stories featuring fierce women--including one never-before-published novella. "A first-rate collection, an obvious must for the legions of Lippman fans, but also great reading for anyone who savors short crime fiction." -- Booklist (starred review) The award-winning master of psychological suspense is in top form in this collection of diverse and diabolically clever stories. In the never-before-published "Just One More," a married couple--longing for that old romantic spark--creates a playful diversion that comes with unexpected consequences. Lippman's beloved Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan keeps a watchful eye on a criminally resourceful single father in "Seasonal Work," while her mother, Judith, realizes that the life of "The Everyday Housewife" is an excellent cover for all kinds of secrets. In "Slow Burner," a husband's secret cell phone proves to be a dicey temptation for a suspicious wife. A father's hidden past piques the curiosity of a young snoop in "The Last of Sheila-Locke Holmes." Plus seven other brilliantly crafted stories of deception, murder, dangerous games, and love gone wrong--irrefutable evidence that Laura Lippman's riveting fiction will more than satisfy any crime reader.

"One day there is life . . . and then, suddenly, it happens there is death". So begins THE INVENTION OF SOLITUDE, Paul Auster's moving and personal meditation on fatherhood. After the death of his own father, Auster discovers a 60-year-old family murder mystery that could account for the old man's elusive character. Later the book shifts from Auster's identity as son to his own role as father.

O, The Oprah Magazine, Time Magazine, Financial Times, Esquire, Bustle, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, Library Journal, Brooklyn Based, Avenue BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR New York Times Editors' Choice "Superb. . . . Krauss's depictions of the nuances of sex and love, intimacy and dependence, call to mind the work of Natalia Ginzburg in their psychological profundity, their intellectual rigor. . . . Krauss's stories capture characters at moments in their lives when they're hungry for experience and open to possibilities, and that openness extends to the stories themselves: narratives too urgent and alive for neat plotlines, simplistic resolutions or easy answers." --Molly Antopol, New York Times Book Review "From a contemporary master, an astounding collection of ten globetrotting stories, each one a powerful dissection of the thorny connections between men and women. . . . Each story is masterfully crafted and deeply contemplative, barreling toward a shimmering, inevitable conclusion, proving once again that Krauss is one of our most formidable talents in fiction." --Esquire In one of her strongest works of fiction yet, Nicole Krauss plunges fearlessly into the struggle to understand what it is to be a man and what it is to be a woman, and the arising tensions that have existed from the very beginning of time. Set in our contemporary moment, and moving across the globe from Switzerland, Japan, and New York City to Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, and South America, the stories in To Be a Man feature male characters as fathers, lovers, friends, children, seducers, and even a lost husband who may never have been a husband at all. The way these stories mirror one other and resonate is beautiful, with a balance so finely tuned that the book almost feels like a novel. Echoes ring through stages of life: aging parents and new-born babies; young women's coming of age and the newfound, somewhat bewildering sexual power that accompanies it; generational gaps and unexpected deliveries of strange new leases on life; mystery and wonder at a life lived or a future waiting to unfold. To Be a Man illuminates with a fierce, unwavering light the forces driving human existence: sex, power, violence, passion, self-discovery, growing older. Profound, poignant, and brilliant, Krauss's stories are at once startling and deeply moving, but always revealing of all-too-human weakness and strength.

For decades now, Adam Gopnik has been one of our most beloved writers, a brilliantly perceptive critic of art, food, France, and more. But recently, he became obsessed by a more fundamental matter, one he had often meditated on in The New Yorker: How do masters learn their miraculous skill, whether it was drawing a museum-ready nude or baking a perfect sourdough loaf? How could anyone become so good at anything? There seemed to be a fundamental mystery to mastery. Was it possible to unravel it? In The Real Work--the term magicians use for the accumulated craft that makes for a great trick--Gopnik becomes a dedicated student of several masters of their craft: a classical painter, a boxer, a dancing instructor, a driving instructor, and others. Rejecting self-help bromides and bullet points, he nevertheless shows that the top people in any field share a set of common qualities and methods. For one, their mastery is always a process of breaking down and building up--of identifying and perfecting the small constituent parts of a skill and the combining them for an overall effect greater than the sum of those parts. For another, mastery almost always involves intentional imperfection--as in music, where vibrato, a way of not quite landing on the right note, carries maximum expressiveness. Gopnik's simplest and most invigorating lesson, however, is that we are surrounded by mastery. Far from rare, mastery is commonplace, if we only know where to look: from the parent who can whip up a professional strudel to the social worker who--in one of the most personally revealing passages Gopnik has ever written--helps him master his own demons. Spirited and profound, The Real Work will help you understand how mastery can happen in your own life--and, significantly, why each of us relentlessly seeks to better ourselves in the first place.

John Feinstein, whom the Boston Globe calls 'the best writer of sports books in America today,' captures the fiercest four days in golf as no other writer could. Chronicling the U.S. Open as it was played, for the first time in history, on a true public golf course-and one of the most challenging courses in the country (only one player, Tiger Woods, finished under par at Bethpage Black)-Feinstein lifts the mystery shrouding golf's most celebrated event and takes the reader through every shot, every trap, every thorny hole, and every bitter rivalry of golf's greatest tournament.

A captivating collection of celestial questions from one of America's most prolific authors. With genius and insight, Isaac Asimov answers questions about science--and about life--with facinating theories and facts that promise to amaze and delight. From the beauty and mystery of a quasar to the dangers of nuclear fusion, Asimov explores both the macrocosm and the microcosm with wit and charm.

“Brilliant . . . The dean of American comic writers showcases his varied talents mocking the public and private lives of politicians, average citizens and himself.”— The Star-Ledger Calvin Trillin has committed blatant acts of funniness all over the place—in The New Yorker, in one-man off-Broadway shows, in his “deadline poetry” for The Nation, in comic novels, and in what USA Today called “simply the funniest regular column in journalism.” Now Trillin selects the best of his funny stuff and organizes it into topics like high finance (“My long-term investment strategy has been criticized as being entirely too dependent on Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes”) and the literary life (“The average shelf life of a book is somewhere between milk and yogurt”). He addresses the horrors of witnessing a voodoo economics ceremony and the mystery of how his mother managed for thirty years to feed her family nothing but leftovers (“We have a team of anthropologists in there now looking for the original meal”). He even skewers deserving political figures in poetry. In this, the definitive collection of his humor, Calvin Trillin is prescient, insightful, and invariably hilarious. “A literary treasure . . . There is only one Calvin Trillin, and if he didn’t exist we would have to invent him.”— The Washington Times “Funny is to Trillin what drinking is to Uncle Jed in Annie Get Your Gun —it’s what he does ‘natur’lly.’ He’s also a lot more than funny. Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin is the twenty-eighth book he’s published over not far short of a half-century, and their range of subjects is remarkable.”—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post “Trillin made his reputation over four decades as the author of ‘U.S. Journal’ in the New Yorker [but he] is incapable of resisting the temptation of comedy. The jokes kept on welling up and Mr. Trillin made a parallel reputation as a writer of funny stuff.”— The Economist “Wry, whip-smart, understated, and entertaining.”— The Miami Herald

Escape into the world of nature with this beautiful collection of essays by Maurice Maeterlinck. The Double Garden explores the wonder and mystery of the natural world through Maeterlinck's signature style of poetic prose. An enchanting read for anyone who finds themselves drawn to the beauty of nature. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

FROM THIRTY YEARSWITH FREUDTHEODOR REIKTRANSLATED FROM THE GERMANCONTENTSPAGEEDITORIAL PREFACE......7PREFACEA PORTRAIT COMES TO LIFE 9PARTIFREUD AND HIS FOLLOWERSCHAPTERI. MEMORIES OF SIGMUND FREUD 13II. LAST VISIT TO FREUD 32III. FREUD AND HIS FOLLOWERS 39IV. STUDENTS OR SORCERERS APPRENTICES? ......50PART HAN UNKNOWN LECTURE OF FREUDSV. AN UNKNOWN LECTURE OF FREUDS 63PART HIFREUD AS A CRITIC OF OUR CULTUREVL CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS 90VII. THE FUTURE OF AN ILLUSION 108VIIL NOTE ON A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 127IX. THE STUDY ON DOSTOYEVSKY 142PART IVESSAYS ON DIVERSE SUBJECTSCHAPTER PAGEX. EMBARRASSMENT IN GREETING 159XL ON THE NATURE OF JEWISH WIT 164XII. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH 174XIIL THE LATENT MEANING OF ELLIPTICALDISTORTION.....188XIV. MANS DUAL NEED FOR SOCIETY ANDSOLITUDE 198XV. THE ECHO OF THE PROVERB 201INDEX 213EDITORIAL PREFACEDESPITE Freuds personal frankness in hiswritings he retained a deep inner reserve andso is likely to remain a man of mystery to futuregenerations, who will greatly like to understandwhat manner of mind it was that was able unaidedto penetrate so profoundly into its own secrets andinto those of humanity. Any scraps of information, therefore, concerning his remarkable personalitywill be welcome, and the present book providessome of undoubted interest. Dr. Reik throws lighton several aspects of Freuds personality, amongwhich special attention may be called to the convincing evidence of Freuds fundamental hopefulness and the falsity of designating him a pessimist.The author would be the last to deny that theglimpses he gives us are but partial ones, and thathe does not pretend to paint a complete picture. Hewould further, I am sure, admit that the passageofyears has brought an increasing risk of strengtheningthe subjective factor in some of his judgements andpossibly also in his memories. Two little instancesoccur to me. He says that after Freuds serious illnessthe only thing noticeable was that he cleared histhroat when he lectured. In fact, Freud neverlectured after that date and only on one occasiondid he ever even attend a meeting of the Society.Clearing the throat was a habit he had always hadwhat the illness brought was the difficulty of articulation. The second instance concerns Dr. Reiksquoting Freuds prohibiting the celebration of hisEDITORIAL PREFACEseventieth birthday with the remark, alluding toKarl Abrahams recent death, one cannot celebrate with a corpse in the house. In fact there wasan important celebration of that birthday I wentto Vienna myself to attend it. And Freuds birthdaywas in May, while Abraham had died in the previousDecember. If Dr. Reiks memory is correct aboutFreuds remark, then it is certainly not to be takenas an expression of conventional piety on Freudspartthis would have been not in the least characteristic of himbut as an illustration of the way hewould snatch at any pretext to avoid, or at leastminimise, a ceremonial occasion.While, therefore, we are grateful to Dr.