Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

A Leader Becomes a Leader: Inspirational Stories of Leadership for a New Generation

A Leader Becomes a Leader: Inspirational Stories of Leadership for a New Generation

by J. Kevin Sheehan

A Leader Becomes a Leader opens with a window on history: Henry David Thoreau riding a borrowed horse and wagon into the woods around Concord, Massachusetts to Walden Pond in 1845. There, he writes a classic work that has a powerful effect on the lives and philosophies of seminal leaders in the next century as diverse as Mohandas Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela. Thoreau believed that a... (more)

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf: A Novel

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf: A Novel

by Victor Pelevin, Andrew Bromfield

Paranormal meets transcendental in this provocative and hilarious novel . Victor Pelevin has established a reputation as one of the most brilliant writers at work today; his comic inventiveness has won him comparisons to Kafka, Calvino, and Gogol, and Time has described him as a “psychedelic Nabokov for the cyberage.” Pelevin’s new novel, his first in six years, is both a supernatural love story and a satirical... (more)

D.V.

by George Plimpton, Diana Vreeland

The best-selling autobiography of this century's most formidable arbiter of elegance, Diana Vreeland. As fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar and editor-in-chief of Vogue , Diana Vreeland--and her passion, charm, insouciance, and genius for style--energized and inspired the fashion world for fifty years. In this glittering autobiography she takes us around the world with her, revealing her obsession with fashion... (more)

Music for Chameleons

by Truman Capote

In these gems of reportage Truman Capote takes true stories and real people and renders then with the stylistic brio we expect from great fiction. Here we encounter an exquisitely preserved Creole aristocrat sipping absinthe in her Martinique salon; an enigmatic killer who sends his victims announcements of their forthcoming demise; and a proper Connecticut householder with a ruinous obsession for a... (more)

Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing In America, The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster; And In Watermelon Sugar

Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing In America, The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster; And In Watermelon Sugar

by Richard Brautigan

A Brautigan omnibus, reissued in paperback in celebration of its twentieth anniversary, this one-volume edition includes three contemporary classics that embody the spirit of the 1960s.

M : The Man Who Became Caravaggio

by Peter Robb

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year As vividly and unflinchingly presented herein with "blood and bone and sinew" ( Times Literary Supplement ) by Peter Robb, Caravaggio's wild and tempestuous life was a provocation to a culture in a state of siege. The end of the sixteenth century was marked by the Inquisition and Counter-Reformation, a background of ideological war against which, despite all odds,... (more)

Seven Gothic Tales (Vintage International)

Seven Gothic Tales (Vintage International)

by Isak Dinesen

Originally published in 1934, Seven Gothic Tales, the first book by "one of the finest and most singular artists of our time" (The Atlantic), is a modern classic. Here are seven exquisite tales combining the keen psychological insight characteristic of the modern short story with the haunting mystery of the nineteenth-century Gothic tale, in the tradition of writers such as Goethe, Hoffmann, and Poe. "These tales... (more)

Southern Discomfort

by Rita Mae Brown, Alexander Walker

Only Rita Mae Brown, author of Rubyfruit Jungle , could have written a novel as passionately delightful as Southern Discomfort . Here is a witty, warm and pentrating tale of two decades in Montgomery Alabama--a world where all is not what it seems. Meet Hortensia Reedmuller Banastre, a beautiful woman entrenched on old money, white magnolia and a loveless marriage--until she meets an utterly gorgeous young... (more)

This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century

This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century

by David Bowman

A fascinating glimpse behind the big suits and deadpan looks to the heart and soul of a band that made it big by playing it cool With their minimalist beats, sophisticated lyrics, and stoic mien, the Talking Heads were indisputably one of the most influential and intriguing bands of their time. Rising from the ashes of punk and the smoldering embers of the disco inferno, they effectively straddled the... (more)

Davy (Collier Nucleus Fantasy & Science Fiction)

Davy (Collier Nucleus Fantasy & Science Fiction)

by Edgar Pangborn

Burr: A Novel (Vintage International)

by Gore Vidal, Edgar Box

Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to the post-World War II years. With their broad canvas and large cast of fictional and historical characters, the novels in this series present a panorama of the American political and imperial experience as interpreted by one of its most worldly, knowing, and ironic observers. Burr is a portrait of perhaps the... (more)

1876: A Novel (Vintage International)

by Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to the post-World War II years. With their broad canvas and large cast of fictional and historical characters, the novels in this series present a panorama of the American political and imperial experience as interpreted by one of its most worldly, knowing, and ironic observers. The centennial of the United States... (more)

Saint Jack

by Paul Theroux

At one time, expatriate Jack Flowers was the youngest drinker at Singapore's Bandung Club. Now, at 53, he is a fixture. But he is beginning to fear death, alone and vulnerable in the alien tropics. And Jack still dreams of success. How can he convert his "perfect dream of magic" into reality, away from the seamy waterfront that has become his home? A funny and sophisticated novel from an acclaimed and popular... (more)

The Cloud Sketcher: A Novel

by Richard Rayner

In a tiny village in Finland, Esko Vaananen is at the brink of despair -- he loves a woman he can never have. Suddenly, in the magical light of the aurora borealis, he has a vision of an impossibly tall building rising gracefully from the frozen lake and disappearing into the clouds above him. This pilvenpiirtaja -- "cloud sketcher" or skyscraper -- sparks a lifelong quest for beauty in Esko. He will pursue and... (more)

Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties

Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties

by Noel Riley Fitch

Noel Riley Fitch has written a perfect book, full to the brim with literary history, correct and whole-hearted both in statement and in implication. She makes me feel and remember a good many things that happened before and after my time. I'm glad to have lived long enough to read it. --Glenway Wescott .

Bob Dylan: A Biography

by Anthony Scaduto

Reissue of definitive biography that covers Dylan's rise from James Dean-obsessed teenager to Woody Guthrie acolyte, through the Greenwich folk days to the rock super-stardom of "Like A Rolling Stone" and onwards. The author draws exclusively on first hand interviews with Dylan himself-unlike all subsequent biographies-as well as Joan Baez, Phil Ochs and other friends and insiders.

Kate Martinelli: Book 2

To Play the Fool

by Laurie R. King

Celebrated author Laurie R. King dazzles mystery lovers once again in this, her second Kate Martinelli mystery. The story unfolds as a band of homeless people cremate a beloved dog in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. When it comes to incidents like this, the authorities are willing to overlook a few broken regulations. But three weeks later, after the dog's owner gets the same fiery send-off, the SFPD knows it... (more)

On Wings of Eagles

by Ken Follett

Number-one bestselling author Ken Follett tells the inspiring, true story of the Middle East hostage crisis that began in 1979, and of the unconventional means Ross Perot used to save his countrymen.

A Right to Die (A Nero Wolf Novel)

by Rex Stout

Nero Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie, are entangled in the murder case of a beautiful young socialite with too many lovers and one too many enemies--but Wolfe is sure the police are wrong to arrest her fiance+a7. Reissue.

The Black Mountain

by Rex Stout, Michael Prichard

Vowing to avenge the murder of his dear friend, Marko Vukcic, Nero Wolfe, along with his faithful partner, Archie Goodwin, journey to the hazardous mountains of Montenegro. Reissue. NYT.

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