Some of My Best Books
Discover some of the best books handpicked for avid readers. Explore must-read titles across genres to inspire, educate, and entertain. Find your next favorite book today!
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The Blind Watchmaker
by Richard Dawkins
Reprint of the 1987 original with a new introduction and preface. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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Wild Swans
by Jung Chang
Memoir of three Chinese women, Jung Chang, her mother, and her grandmother in twentieth-century China.
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The Good Women of China
by Xinran
When Deng Xiaopingâs efforts to âopen upâ China took root in the late 1980s, Xinran recognized an invaluable opportunity. As an employee for the state radio system, she had long wanted to help improve the lives of Chinese women. But when she was given clearance to host a radio call-in show, she barely anticipated the enthusiasm it would quickly generate. Operating within the constraints imposed by government censors, âWords on the Night Breezeâ sparked a tremendous outpouring, and the hours of tape on her answering machines were soon filled every night. Whether angry or muted, posing questions or simply relating experiences, these anonymous women bore witness to decades of civil strife, and of halting attempts at self-understanding in a painfully restrictive society. In this collection, by turns heartrending and inspiring, Xinran brings us the stories that affected her most, and offers a graphically detailed, altogether unprecedented work of oral history.
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Mao
by Jung Chang
The most authoritative life of the Chinese leader every written, Mao: The Unknown Story is based on a decade of research, and on interviews with many of Maoâs close circle in China who have never talked before â and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao: he was not driven by idealism or ideology; his intimate and intricate relationship with Stalin went back to the 1920s, ultimately bringing him to power; he welcomed Japanese occupation of much of China; and he schemed, poisoned, and blackmailed to get his way. After Mao conquered China in 1949, his secret goal was to dominate the world. In chasing this dream he caused the deaths of 38 million people in the greatest famine in history. In all, well over 70 million Chinese perished under Maoâs rule â in peacetime.
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Genius
by James Gleick
To his colleagues, Richard Feynman was not so much a genius as he was a full-blown magician: someone who âdoes things that nobody else could do and that seem completely unexpected.â The path he cleared for twentieth-century physics led from the making of the atomic bomb to a Nobel Prize-winning theory of quantam electrodynamics to his devastating exposĂ© of the Challenger space shuttle disaster. At the same time, the ebullient Feynman established a reputation as an eccentric showman, a master safe cracker and bongo player, and a wizard of seduction. Now James Gleick, author of the bestselling Chaos, unravels teh dense skein of Feynmanâs thought as well as the paradoxes of his character in a biographyâwhich was nominated for a National Book Awardâof outstanding lucidity and compassion.
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The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
by Oliver Sacks
Explores neurological disorders and their effects upon the minds and lives of those affected with an entertaining voice.
