NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MICHIKO KAKUTANI, THE NEW YORK TIMES • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MORE THAN 45 PUBLICATIONS, INCLUDING The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • NPR • The New Yorker • San Francisco Chronicle • The Economist • The Atlantic • Newsday • Salon • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Guardian • Esquire (UK) • GQ (UK) Little Failure is the all too true story of an immigrant family betting its future on America, as told by a lifelong misfit who finally finds a place for himself in the world through books and words. In 1979, a little boy dragging a ginormous fur hat and an overcoat made from the skin of some Soviet woodland creature steps off the plane at New York’s JFK International Airport and into his new American life. His troubles are just beginning. For the former Igor Shteyngart, coming to the United States from the Soviet Union is like stumbling off a monochromatic cliff and landing in a pool of Technicolor. Careening between his Soviet home life and his American aspirations, he finds himself living in two contradictory worlds, wishing for a real home in one. He becomes so strange to his parents that his mother stops bickering with his father long enough to coin the phrase failurchka—“little failure”—which she applies to her once-promising son. With affection. Mostly. From the terrors of Hebrew School to a crash course in first love to a return visit to the homeland that is no longer home, Gary Shteyngart has crafted a ruthlessly brave and funny memoir of searching for every kind of love—family, romantic, and of the self. BONUS: This edition includes a reading group guide. Praise for Little Failure “Hilarious and moving . . . The army of readers who love Gary Shteyngart is about to get bigger.”—The New York Times Book Review “A memoir for the ages . . . brilliant and unflinching.”—Mary Karr “Dazzling . . . a rich, nuanced memoir . . . It’s an immigrant story, a coming-of-age story, a becoming-a-writer story, and a becoming-a-mensch story, and in all these ways it is, unambivalently, a success.”—Meg Wolitzer, NPR “Literary gold . . . [a] bruisingly funny memoir.”—Vogue “A giant success.”—Entertainment Weekly

Based on a detailed examination of New York case law, this pathbreaking book shows how law, politics, and ideology in the state changed in tandem between 1920 and 1980. Early twentieth-century New York was the scene of intense struggle between white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant upper and middle classes located primarily in the upstate region and the impoverished, mainly Jewish and Roman Catholic, immigrant underclass centered in New York City. Beginning in the 1920s, however, judges such as Benjamin N. Cardozo, Henry J. Friendly, Learned Hand, and Harlan Fiske Stone used law to facilitate the entry of the underclass into the economic and social mainstream and to promote tolerance among all New Yorkers. Ultimately, says William Nelson, a new legal ideology was created. By the late 1930s, New Yorkers had begun to reconceptualize social conflict not along class lines but in terms of the power of majorities and the rights of minorities. In the process, they constructed a new approach to law and politics. Though doctrinal change began to slow by the 1960s, the main ambitions of the legalist reformation--liberty, equality, human dignity, and entrepreneurial opportunity--remain the aspirations of nearly all Americans, and of much of the rest of the world, today.

On January 20, 1942, black oil mill worker Cleo Wright assaulted a white woman in her home and nearly killed the first police officer who tried to arrest him. An angry mob then hauled Wright out of jail and dragged him through the streets of Sikeston, Missouri, before burning him alive. Wright's death was, unfortunately, not unique in American history, but what his death meant in the larger context of life in the United States in the twentieth-century is an important and compelling story. After the lynching, the U.S. Justice Department was forced to become involved in civil rights concerns for.

Verification in an Age of Insecurity takes the reader into some of the most urgent arms control issues facing the world community, including the nuclear activities of rogue states and threats from sophisticated non-state actors. In the book, national security expert Philip D. O'Neill, Jr. identifies and addresses issues from the resuscitated disarmament agenda, from the comprehensive test ban to fissile material and biological weapons. O'Neill examines the need for shifts in verification standards and policy suitable for our volatile era and beyond it. He surveys recent history to show how established verification procedures fail to produce the certainty necessary to meet today's threats. Verification in an Age of Insecurity goes beyond a discussion of rogue states like North Korea to offer suggestions on how best to bring compliance policy up to date with modern threats.

Chastity Bono is now Chaz. Her decision to “become” a man made headlines around the world, but she is not alone. Transgender men and women frequently appear on television talk shows and reality programs to share their stories. By doing so, they inevitably get the attention they seek, but not necessarily the kind of attention they want. While some come forth in an effort to promote tolerance, acceptance and understanding in mainstream society, their decision to live as—or in some cases have surgery to become—the opposite gender often sparks curiosity and more visceral reactions born out of ignorance. But this is the other side of the story. Truth Be Told: Adam Becomes Audrey is a tragedy, a comedy, and a love story. It is my story. In vivid detail, I recall how I met, fell in love with, and married the man of my dreams, only to find that he self-identified as and wanted to become a woman. Read what happened after I learned the truth.

'A biography as gripping as one of Lee Child's own bestsellers' Ian Rankin 'Very enjoyable' The Times 'Vivid and entertaining' Telegraph Lee Child is the enigmatic powerhouse behind the phenomenally successful Jack Reacher novels. With devoted fans across the globe, and over a hundred million copies of his books sold in more than forty languages, he is that rarity, a writer who is both critically acclaimed and adored by readers. And yet curiously little has been written about the man himself. The Reacher Guy shows us for the first time the young man behind the invention of Jack Reacher. Through parallels drawn between Child and his literary creation, it tells the story of how a lost and lonely boy from Birmingham with a ferocious appetite for reading grew up to become a high-flying TV executive, before coming full circle and establishing himself as an internationally bestselling author. Heather Martin explores Child's lifelong fascination with America - and shows how the Reacher novels fed and fuelled this obsession. Drawing on exclusive correspondence and conversations with Child over a number of years, she forensically pieces together his life, from Northern Ireland and County Durham to New York and Hollywood. This is the definitive account of the man behind one of the most iconic series of our times.

The Global Corruption Report 2007 looks at how, why and where corruption mars judicial processes, and to reflect on remedies for corruption-tainted systems. The book focuses on judges and courts but situates them within the broader justice system - police, prosecutors, lawyers and agencies responsible for enforcing judicial decisions. It also looks at the social context of the judiciary and shows how societal expectations, the existence of non-state justice mechanisms and the strength of informal networks that circumvent the justice system, all have a bearing on judicial corruption. The book takes a close look at the two main judicial corruption problems: political interference and petty bribery by court personnel. The 37 country case studies and a series of concrete recommendations for judges, political powers, businesses, lawyers, prosecutors, academics, NGOs and donors are supplemented by 15 empirical studies of corruption in various sectors, including the justice sector.

"This book is the result of a study in which the authors identified all of the American women who earned PhD's in mathematics before 1940, and collected extensive biographical and bibliographical information about each of them. By reconstructing as complete a picture as possible of this group of women, Green and LaDuke reveal insights into the larger scientific and cultural communities in which they lived and worked." "The book contains an extended introductory essay, as well as biographical entries for each of the 228 women in the study. The authors examine family backgrounds, education, careers, and other professional activities. They show that there were many more women earning PhD's in mathematics before 1940 than is commonly thought." "The material will be of interest to researchers, teachers, and students in mathematics, history of mathematics, history of science, women's studies, and sociology."--BOOK JACKET.

Named one of the Best Books of 2009 by the San Francisco Chronicle A Los Angeles Times Notable Book