Explanations

What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There's no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson.

But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.

While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.

Scott says: An explanation of some of the most beautiful & complex concepts of astrophysics in layman’s terms. Get with the Cosmos!

In this "vital, necessary, and beautiful book" (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and "allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to 'bad people' (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

Knots! The Complete Visual Guide is the essential guide to knowing and tying knots for every purpose. From figure-eights to reef knots and highwayman's hitches to monkey's fists, this book includes every knot you ever thought you needed to tie--and more!

Covering more than 100 knots for climbing, sailing, horse riding, survival, and fishing as well as for gardening, DIY, medical, and decorative purposes, the clear layout and photographs of every step will move you up from knot-tying novice in no time. You'll also learn all about the different types of knots and the fascinating stories behind how many of them came into being as well as their original functions.

Knots! The Complete Visual Guide is the ideal book to have on hand for whenever a knot is needed, so grab a copy now and be prepared for every scenario.

With an extensive photographic catalog of more than 400 dog breeds, organized by to FCI groupings, each profile describes the breed's uses and character, lists compatible owner traits, and shares fascinating facts about the breed's origins.

Dog owners, breeders, and fans will also learn about canine anatomy and body systems; instinct and behavior; how dogs interact with humans; and the essentials of good care.

The book gives expert advice on equipment, handling, exercise, play, feeding, grooming, and breeding. Basic dog training is also covered, and an invaluable section on health will enable you to identify problems quickly and know exactly what to do in an emergency.

We all write, all the time: books, blogs, emails. Lots and lots of emails. And we all want to write better. Benjamin Dreyer is here to help.

As Random House's copy chief, Dreyer has upheld the standards of the legendary publisher for more than two decades. He is beloved by authors and editors alike--not to mention his followers on social media--for deconstructing the English language with playful erudition. Now he distills everything he has learned from the myriad books he has copyedited and overseen into a useful guide not just for writers but for everyone who wants to put their best prose foot forward.

As authoritative as it is amusing, Dreyer's English offers lessons on punctuation, from the underloved semicolon to the enigmatic en dash; the rules and nonrules of grammar, including why it's OK to begin a sentence with "And" or "But" and to confidently split an infinitive; and why it's best to avoid the doldrums of the Wan Intensifiers and Throat Clearers, including "very," "rather," "of course," and the dreaded "actually." Dreyer will let you know whether "alright" is all right (sometimes) and even help you brush up on your spelling--though, as he notes, "The problem with mnemonic devices is that I can never remember them."

And yes: "Only godless savages eschew the series comma."

Chockful of advice, insider wisdom, and fun facts, this book will prove to be invaluable to everyone who wants to shore up their writing skills, mandatory for people who spend their time editing and shaping other people's prose, and--perhaps best of all--an utter treat for anyone who simply revels in language.

Praise for Dreyer's English

"Playful, smart, self-conscious, and personal . . . One encounters wisdom and good sense on nearly every page of Dreyer's English."--The Wall Street Journal

"Destined to become a classic."--The Millions

"Dreyer can help you . . . with tips on punctuation and spelling. . . . Even better: He'll entertain you while he's at it."--Newsday

Nora says: Superbly witty and informative! Perfect for Word Nerds and others who love language.

F uck the Fuckity Fuckin' Fucker. Readers of Katherine Dunn won't be surprised that this was her father's favorite sentence, or that, as a young girl, she heard it as a kind of profane poem, a secret song. For many of us, the language of Geek Love carries a similar staying power, born of Dunn's agile use of language and her strange, beautiful diction. And as a true exegete of the expletive, she remained undividedly devoted to obscenity--both as scholar and practitioner.

In On Cussing, Dunn sketches a brief history of swear words and creates something of a field guide to their types and usages, from the common threat ("I'll squash you like a shithouse mouse") to the portmanteau intensifier ("Fan-fucking-tastic"). But she also explores their physiology--the physical impact on the reader or listener--and makes an argument for how and when to cuss with maximum effect. Equal parts informative and hilarious, this volume will delight Dunn's legion of fans, but it's also a must-have for anyone looking to more successfully wield their expletives, be it in writing or in everyday speech.

Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, National Magazine Award winner Ben Ehrenreich "has built a potent memorial to our own ongoing end-times" (The New York Times Book Review).

As inhabitants of the Anthropocene, what might some of our own histories tell us about how to confront apocalypse? And how might the geologies and ecologies of desert spaces inform how we see and act toward time--the pasts we have erased and paved over, this anxious present, the future we have no choice but to build? Desert Notebooks examines how the unprecedented pace of destruction to our environment and an increasingly unstable geopolitical landscape have led us to the brink of a calamity greater than any humankind has confronted before. Ehrenreich draws on the stark grandeur of the desert to ask how we might reckon with the uncertainty that surrounds us and fight off the crises that have already begun.

In the canyons and oases of the Mojave and in Las Vegas's neon apocalypse, Ehrenreich finds beauty, and even hope, surging up in the most unlikely places, from the most barren rocks, and the apparent emptiness of the sky. For readers of Robert Macfarlane or Elizabeth Rush, Desert Notebooks is a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present--unflinching, urgent-- yet timeless and profound.

#1 internationally bestselling author Thomas Erikson shows readers how to identify and avoid the psychopaths around them.

Using the same simple four-color system of behavior classification that made Surrounded by Idiots so popular, Surrounded by Psychopaths teaches readers how to deal with psychopaths in their lives by becoming aware of their own behavior and their weaknesses. Vivid example stories illustrate ways that psychopaths can take advantage of various behavior types, helping readers identify their own weaknesses and be proactive about protecting themselves. Erikson outlines some of the most common forms of manipulation used by psychopaths--and others--to influence those around them. Since manipulation can often be a feature of ordinary, non-psychopathic relationships, the book also includes practical methods and techniques to help readers confront controlling people and rehabilitate negative relationships into mutually respectful ones.

By understanding your behavior as well as the tendencies and strategies of psychopaths, Surrounded by Psychopaths will teach you to protect yourself from manipulative influence in your workplace, social life, and family.

The expansion of capitalism and neoliberal ideologies have delivered economic integration between countries and brought global inter-connectedness to individuals. So why do so many people now feel that they are citizens of nowhere, disparaged by the cosmopolitan elites? Has democracy and the power of nation states been irredeemably weakened by unfettered global finance, opaque forms of global governance, and the power of transnational corporations? Can the huge rise in social and economic inequality be reversed? Can diverse cultural expression be maintained in a globalizing world? In the context of the current nationalist backlash and the momentous impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, this thought-provoking volume considers whether globalization is dead or whether it will survive, and perhaps transform.

Written in a clear and engaging style, the volume traces the development of economic globalization starting from the first wave of colonialization in the 15th century, through the first period of globalization at the end of the 19th century, and up to the contemporary period of globalization that started in the 1980s and appears today to be teetering on the brink of collapse. It explores the impacts of globalization on today's world, from global supply chains and tax havens to rising economic inequality, climate change and pandemics, and assesses the different impacts on rich and poor countries, and on the rich and poor within countries. It then reviews the growing anti-globalization sentiment, starting from the anti-IMF protests that raged through developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s, to the emergence of the transnational anti-globalization movement of the 2000s, to more recent uprisings such as the Arab Spring, The Occupy Movement, the Gilets Jaunes, and to the current populist nationalist backlash led by President Trump and embodied in the 2016 Brexit vote. Sensing that globalization has reached a tipping point, the book considers a range of possible scenarios for the future world order, including nationalism, authoritarianism and democratic globalism. Finally, it explores whether globalization can be democratized in a world in which effective and inclusive global governance is crucial to solving global problems, such as tackling climate change, controlling global pandemics and upholding universal human rights.

Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide to certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal.

He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions--suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise.

As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.

There is no precedent in postwar American history for the destruction of the town of Paradise, California. On November 8, 2018, the community of 27,000 people was swallowed by the ferocious Camp Fire, which razed virtually every home and killed at least 85 people. The catastrophe seared the American imagination, taking the front page of every major national newspaper and top billing on the news networks. It displaced tens of thousands of people, yielding a refugee crisis that continues to unfold.

Fire in Paradise is a dramatic and moving narrative of the disaster based on hundreds of in-depth interviews with residents, firefighters and police, and scientific experts. Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano are California-based journalists who have reported on Paradise since the day the fire began. Together they reveal the heroics of the first responders, the miraculous escapes of those who got out of Paradise, and the horrors experienced by those who were trapped. Their accounts are intimate and unforgettable, including the local who left her home on foot as fire approached while her 82-year-old father stayed to battle it; the firefighter who drove into the heart of the inferno in his bulldozer; the police officer who switched on his body camera to record what he thought would be his final moments as the flames closed in; and the mother who, less than 12 hours after giving birth in the local hospital, thought she would die in the chaotic evacuation with her baby in her lap. Gee and Anguiano also explain the science of wildfires, write powerfully about the role of the power company PG&E in the blaze, and describe the poignant efforts to raise Paradise from the ruins.

This is the story of a town at the forefront of a devastating global shift--of a remarkable landscape sucked ever drier of moisture and becoming inhospitable even to trees, now dying in their tens of millions and turning to kindling. It is also the story of a lost community, one that epitomized a provincial, affordable kind of Californian existence that is increasingly unattainable. It is, finally, a story of a new kind of fire behavior that firefighters have never witnessed before and barely know how to handle. What happened in Paradise was unprecedented in America. Yet according to climate scientists and fire experts, it will surely happen again.

Finalist for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

A "delving, haunted, and poetic debut" (The New York Times Book Review) about the awe-inspiring lives of whales, revealing what they can teach us about ourselves, our planet, and our relationship with other species.

When writer Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beachfront in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales reflect the condition of our oceans. Fathoms: The World in the Whale is "a work of bright and careful genius" (Robert Moor, New York Times bestselling author of On Trails), one that blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore: How do whales experience ecological change? How has whale culture been both understood and changed by human technology? What can observing whales teach us about the complexity, splendor, and fragility of life on earth?

In Fathoms, we learn about whales so rare they have never been named, whale songs that sweep across hemispheres in annual waves of popularity, and whales that have modified the chemical composition of our planet's atmosphere. We travel to Japan to board the ships that hunt whales and delve into the deepest seas to discover how plastic pollution pervades our earth's undersea environment.

With the immediacy of Rachel Carson and the lush prose of Annie Dillard, Giggs gives us a "masterly" (The New Yorker) exploration of the natural world even as she addresses what it means to write about nature at a time of environmental crisis. With depth and clarity, she outlines the challenges we face as we attempt to understand the perspectives of other living beings, and our own place on an evolving planet. Evocative and inspiring, Fathoms "immediately earns its place in the pantheon of classics of the new golden age of environmental writing" (Literary Hub).

James says: Whales and Humans. Beautifully lyrical. A haunted and poetic view that teaches us about ourselves, our planet, and our relationship to other species.

The Irishman is great art . . . but it is not, as we know, great history . . . Frank Sheeran . . . surely didn't kill Hoffa . . . But who pulled the trigger? . . . For some of the real story, and for a great American tale in itself, you want to go to Jack Goldsmith's book, In Hoffa's Shadow." --Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal

In Hoffa's Shadow is compulsively readable, deeply affecting, and truly groundbreaking in its re-examination of the Hoffa case . . . a monumental achievement. --James Rosen, The Wall Street Journal

As a young man, Jack Goldsmith revered his stepfather, longtime Jimmy Hoffa associate Chuckie O'Brien. But as he grew older and pursued a career in law and government, he came to doubt and distance himself from the man long suspected by the FBI of perpetrating Hoffa's disappearance on behalf of the mob. It was only years later, when Goldsmith was serving as assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration and questioning its misuse of surveillance and other powers, that he began to reconsider his stepfather, and to understand Hoffa's true legacy.

In Hoffa's Shadow tells the moving story of how Goldsmith reunited with the stepfather he'd disowned and then set out to unravel one of the twentieth century's most persistent mysteries and Chuckie's role in it. Along the way, Goldsmith explores Hoffa's rise and fall and why the golden age of blue-collar America came to an end, while also casting new light on the century-old surveillance state, the architects of Hoffa's disappearance, and the heartrending complexities of love and loyalty.

William Faulkner, one of America's most iconic writers, is an author who defies easy interpretation. Born in 1897 in Mississippi, Faulkner wrote such classic novels as Absolom, Absolom! and The Sound and The Fury, creating in Yoknapatawpha county one of the most memorable gallery of characters ever assembled in American literature. Yet, as acclaimed literary critic Michael Gorra explains, Faulkner has sustained justified criticism for his failures of racial nuance--his ventriloquism of black characters and his rendering of race relations in a largely unreconstructed South--demanding that we reevaluate the Nobel laureate's life and legacy in the twenty-first century, as we reexamine the junctures of race and literature in works that once rested firmly in the American canon.

Interweaving biography, literary criticism, and rich travelogue, The Saddest Words argues that even despite these contradictions--and perhaps because of them--William Faulkner still needs to be read, and even more, remains central to understanding the contradictions inherent in the American experience itself. Evoking Faulkner's biography and his literary characters, Gorra illuminates what Faulkner maintained was "the South's curse and its separate destiny," a class and racial system built on slavery that was devastated during the Civil War and was reimagined thereafter through the South's revanchism. Driven by currents of violence, a "Lost Cause" romanticism not only defined Faulkner's twentieth century but now even our own age.

Through Gorra's critical lens, Faulkner's mythic Yoknapatawpha County comes alive as his imagined land finds itself entwined in America's history, the characters wrestling with the ghosts of a past that refuses to stay buried, stuck in an unending cycle between those two saddest words, "was" and "again." Upending previous critical traditions, The Saddest Words returns Faulkner to his sociopolitical context, revealing the civil war within him and proving that "the real war lies not only in the physical combat, but also in the war after the war, the war over its memory and meaning."

Filled with vignettes of Civil War battles and generals, vivid scenes from Gorra's travels through the South--including Faulkner's Oxford, Mississippi--and commentaries on Faulkner's fiction, The Saddest Words is a mesmerizing work of literary thought that recontextualizes Faulkner in light of the most plangent cultural issues facing America today.

From the reporter who was there at the very beginning comes the revealing inside story of the partnership between Steve Bannon and Donald Trump--the key to understanding the rise of the alt-right, the fall of Hillary Clinton, and the hidden forces that drove the greatest upset in American political history.

Based on dozens of interviews conducted over six years, Green spins the master narrative of the 2016 campaign from its origins in the far fringes of right-wing politics and reality television to its culmination inside Trump's penthouse on election night.

The shocking elevation of Bannon to head Trump's flagging presidential campaign on August 17, 2016, hit political Washington like a thunderclap and seemed to signal the meltdown of the Republican Party. Bannon was a bomb-throwing pugilist who'd never run a campaign and was despised by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Yet Bannon's hard-edged ethno-nationalism and his elaborate, years-long plot to destroy Hillary Clinton paved the way for Trump's unlikely victory. Trump became the avatar of a dark but powerful worldview that dominated the airwaves and spoke to voters whom others couldn't see. Trump's campaign was the final phase of a populist insurgency that had been building up in America for years, and Bannon, its inscrutable mastermind, believed it was the culmination of a hard-right global uprising that would change the world.

Any study of Trump's rise to the presidency is unavoidably a study of Bannon. Devil's Bargain is a tour-de-force telling of the remarkable confluence of circumstances that decided the election, many of them orchestrated by Bannon and his allies, who really did plot a vast, right-wing conspiracy to stop Clinton. To understand Trump's extraordinary rise and Clinton's fall, you have to weave Trump's story together with Bannon's, or else it doesn't make sense.

Like many people the world over, Viv Groskop wishes she was a little more French. A writer, comedian, and journalist, Groskop studied the language obsessively starting at age 11, and spent every vacation in France, desperate to escape her Englishness and to have some French chic rub off on her. In Au Revoir, Tristesse, Groskop mixes literary history and memoir to explore how the classics of French literature can infuse our lives with joie de vivre and teach us how to say goodbye to sadness. From the frothy hedonism of Colette and the wit of Cyrano de Bergerac to the intoxicating universe of Marguerite Duras and the heady passions of Les Liaisons dangereuses, this is a love letter to great French writers. With chapters on Marcel Proust, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac, Albert Camus, and of course Françoise Sagan, this is a delectable read for book lovers everywhere.

The Republican Party appears to be divided between a tax-cutting old guard and a white-nationalist vanguard--and with Donald Trump's ascendance, the upstarts seem to be winning. Yet how are we to explain that, under Trump, the plutocrats have gotten almost everything they want, including a huge tax cut for corporations and the wealthy, regulation-killing executive actions, and a legion of business-friendly federal judges? Does the GOP represent "forgotten" Americans? Or does it represent the superrich?

In Let Them Eat Tweets, best-selling political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson offer a definitive answer: the Republican Party serves its plutocratic masters to a degree without precedent in modern global history. Conservative parties, by their nature, almost always side with the rich. But when faced with popular resistance, they usually make concessions, allowing some policies that benefit the working and middle classes. After all, how can a political party maintain power in a democracy if it serves only the interests of a narrow and wealthy slice of society?

Today's Republicans have shown the way, doubling down on a truly radical, elite-benefiting economic agenda while at the same time making increasingly incendiary racial and cultural appeals to their almost entirely white base. Telling a forty-year story, Hacker and Pierson demonstrate that since the early 1980s, when inequality started spiking, extreme tax cutting, union busting, and deregulation have gone hand in hand with extreme race-baiting, outrage stoking, and disinformation. Instead of responding to the real challenges facing voters, the Republican Party offers division and distraction--most prominently, in the racist, nativist bile of the president's Twitter feed.

As Hacker and Pierson argue, Trump isn't a break with the GOP's recent past. On the contrary, he embodies its tightening embrace of plutocracy and right-wing extremism--a dynamic Hacker and Pierson call "plutocratic populism." As Trump and his far-right allies spew hatred and lies, Republicans in Congress and in statehouses attack social programs and funnel more and more money to the top 0.1 percent of Americans. Far from being at war with each other, reactionary plutocrats and right-wing populists have become the two faces of a party that now actively undermines democracy to achieve its goals against the will of the majority of Americans.

Drawing on decades of research, Hacker and Pierson authoritatively explain the doom loop of tax cutting and fearmongering that characterizes our era--and reveal how we can fight back.

"Fascinating . . . a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the twenty-first century."--Bill Gates, The New York Times Book Review

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FINANCIAL TIMES AND PAMELA PAUL, KQED

How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children?

Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today's most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive.

In twenty-one accessible chapters that are both provocative and profound, Harari builds on the ideas explored in his previous books, untangling political, technological, social, and existential issues and offering advice on how to prepare for a very different future from the world we now live in: How can we retain freedom of choice when Big Data is watching us? What will the future workforce look like, and how should we ready ourselves for it? How should we deal with the threat of terrorism? Why is liberal democracy in crisis?

Harari's unique ability to make sense of where we have come from and where we are going has captured the imaginations of millions of readers. Here he invites us to consider values, meaning, and personal engagement in a world full of noise and uncertainty. When we are deluged with irrelevant information, clarity is power. Presenting complex contemporary challenges clearly and accessibly, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is essential reading.

"If there were such a thing as a required instruction manual for politicians and thought leaders, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century would deserve serious consideration. In this collection of provocative essays, Harari . . . tackles a daunting array of issues, endeavoring to answer a persistent question: 'What is happening in the world today, and what is the deep meaning of these events?'"--BookPage (top pick)

An explosive exposé that lays out the story behind the Steele Dossier, including Russia's decades-in-the-making political game to upend American democracy and the Trump administration's ties to Moscow.

"Harding...presents a powerful case for Russian interference, and Trump campaign collusion, by collecting years of reporting on Trump's connections to Russia and putting it all together in a coherent narrative." --The Nation

December 2016. Luke Harding, the Guardian reporter and former Moscow bureau chief, quietly meets former MI6 officer Christopher Steele in a London pub to discuss President-elect Donald Trump's Russia connections. A month later, Steele's now-famous dossier sparks what may be the biggest scandal of the modern era. The names of the Americans involved are well-known--Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Jared Kushner, George Papadopoulos, Carter Page--but here Harding also shines a light on powerful Russian figures like Aras Agalarov, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Sergey Kislyak, whose motivations and instructions may have been coming from the highest echelons of the Kremlin.

Drawing on new material and his expert understanding of Moscow and its players, Harding takes the reader through every bizarre and disquieting detail of the "Trump-Russia" story--an event so huge it involves international espionage, off-shore banks, sketchy real estate deals, the Miss Universe pageant, mobsters, money laundering, poisoned dissidents, computer hacking, and the most shocking election in American history.

"A Really Big Lunch showcases Harrison's enthusiastic, funny, and uncompromising views on how to eat, drink, and live well . . . His writing is bodily, bawdy, sharp. The more we have of his voice, the better."--Boston Globe

A national bestseller and an Amazon Best Book of the Month in the Cookbook/Food & Wine category, now in paperback, A Really Big Lunch collects many of New York Times bestselling author Jim Harrison's essays on food for the first time--and taps into his larger-than-life appetite with wit and verve. In these pieces, Harrison muses on the relationship between hunter and prey, interrogates the obscure language of wine reviews, and delivers a manifesto against the bland, mass-produced food of our time, proposing instead what he calls the Vivid Diet. He delights in food from the most outré indulgence (a French lunch that went to thirty-seven courses) to a simple bowl of menudo. Harrison's food writing is a program for living, and A Really Big Lunch is shot through with his pointed aperçus and keen delight in the pleasures of the senses. And between the lines the pieces give glimpses of Harrison's life over the last fifteen years. Lovingly introduced by master chef Mario Batali, A Really Big Lunch is a literary delight that will satisfy every appetite.

"The collection is chockablock with . . . zingers as well as plenty of half-baked, hilarious theories you can ponder while planning your first summer barbecue."--The Paris Review