The true story of how the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw -- and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Żabiński began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Another dozen "guests" hid inside the Żabińskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts....

"Nearly a decade after the debut of her best-selling, life-changing classic 'A Year by the Sea', Joan is so busy helping other women search for their true selves and taking care of several generations of her family that she doesn't even realize how out of control her life has become. Ironically, she finds she needs to listen to her own advice more than anyone else does. 'The Second Journey' chronicles Joan's quest to restore her own equilibrium and...

Apart from her bestselling Home Before Dark, a biography of her father, John Cheever, and My Name Is Bill, her penetrating portrait of the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Susan Cheever's most recent and major success, American Bloomsbury, was a hugely popular nonfiction narrative of the writers and artists (including Emerson, Thoreau, and the Alcott family) of Concord, Massachusetts. With more than 35,000 copies of the book sold since, Cheever has...

Allegedly found in the ruins of a bombed-out dog kennel in France during World War I, then brought to Los Angeles by Lee Duncan, the soldier who found and trained him, by 1927 Rin Tin Tin had become Hollywood's number one box-office star. Susan Orlean's book--about the dog and the legend--is a poignant exploration of the enduring bond between humans and animals. It is also a richly textured history of twentieth-century entertainment and entrepreneurship....

At every stage of her life, journalist and author Kati Marton found beauty and excitement in Paris, and now, after the sudden death of husband Richard Holbrooke, the city offers a chance for a new beginning. With intimate and nuanced portraits of Peter Jennings, with whom she had two children in their fifteen-year marriage, and Holbrooke, with whom she found enduring love, Marton offers a vivid account of an adventuresome life in the stream of history....

From 1962 until 1992, Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show and permeated the American consciousness. The country's highest-paid entertainer and its most enigmatic, he was as mercurial off-camera as he was charming and hilarious onstage. Now Carson's longtime lawyer and best friend, Henry Bushkin, shows us Johnny with a breathtaking clarity and depth that nobody else could, revealing not only how Johnny Carson truly was, but why.

"Billy Crystal is turning 65, and he's not happy about it. With his trademark wit and heart, he outlines the absurdities and challenges that come with growing old, from insomnia to memory loss to leaving dinners with half your meal on your shirt. In humorous chapters like "Buying the Plot" and "Nodding Off," Crystal not only catalogues his physical gripes, but offers a road map to his 77 million fellow baby boomers who are arriving at this milestone...

At the turn of the 20th century the invention of the car and the airplane took our imaginations by storm and produced new American heroes: the race car driver and the flying ace. No one did more in these roles than Eddie Rickenbacker, who defied death with such courage and pluck that a generation knew his face better than the president's. This is the unforgettable story of a man who pushed the limits of speed, endurance and courage and emerged as...

"A memoir of author Frances Mayes's coming of age in the Deep South, and of the region's powerful influence on her life. Mayes delves into the power of landscape, the idea of home, and the force of a chaotic and loving family"--

Geobiologist Hope Jahren has spent her life studying trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Lab Girl is her revelatory treatise on plant life?but it is also a celebration of the lifelong curiosity, humility, and passion that drive every scientist. In these pages, Hope takes us back to her Minnesota childhood, where she spent hours in unfettered play in her father?s college laboratory. She tells us how she found a sanctuary in science, learning to perform...