In the "quietest magnificent book IUve ever read" (Jim Harrison, author of "Legends of the Fall") Ted Kooser describes with exquisite detail and humor the place he calls home in the rolling hills of southeastern Nebraska--an area known as the Bohemian Alps--where nothing is too big or too small for his attention.

A freewheeling, small-town attorney takes on a national murder trial when an out-of-town client is accused of killing a federal judge in Texas. “A spectacular courtroom thriller that kept me turning pages like the best of Grisham or Turow." —Michelle King, co-creator of The Good Wife, The Good Fight, and Evil The town of Marshall, Texas, is the epicenter of intellectual property law in the US—renowned for its speedy trials and massive payouts. One of its best lawyers is James Euchre. His newest client, Amir Zawar, is a CEO forced to defend his life’s work against a patent infringement claim. But when a beloved hometown hero is murdered, all signs point to Zawar, an outsider with no alibi. With the help of a former federal prosecutor and a local PI, Euchre hopes to uncover the truth. In his first criminal case, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Euchre fears either an innocent man will be sent to death row, or he’ll help set a murderer free. The Local is a small-town thriller crackling with courtroom tension right up to the final verdict.

A sparkling and eye-opening history of the Broadway musical that changed the world In the half-century since its premiere, Fiddler on the Roof has had an astonishing global impact. Beloved by audiences the world over, performed from rural high schools to grand state theaters, Fiddler is a supremely potent cultural landmark. In a history as captivating as its subject, award-winning drama critic Alisa Solomon traces how and why the story of Tevye the milkman, the creation of the great Yiddish writer Sholem-Aleichem, was reborn as blockbuster entertainment and a cultural touchstone, not only for Jews and not only in America. It is a story of the theater, following Tevye from his humble appearance on the New York Yiddish stage, through his adoption by leftist dramatists as a symbol of oppression, to his Broadway debut in one of the last big book musicals, and his ultimate destination—a major Hollywood picture. Solomon reveals how the show spoke to the deepest conflicts and desires of its time: the fraying of tradition, generational tension, the loss of roots. Audiences everywhere found in Fiddler immediate resonance and a usable past, whether in Warsaw, where it unlocked the taboo subject of Jewish history, or in Tokyo, where the producer asked how Americans could understand a story that is "so Japanese." Rich, entertaining, and original, Wonder of Wonders reveals the surprising and enduring legacy of a show about tradition that itself became a tradition. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.

"Wonders of the Annamites" takes readers on a journey through one of the wildest and most biodiverse parts of the world¿a range of rugged mountains bordering Laos and Vietnam known as the Annamites. Relatively unexplored until recent decades, the Annamites are now a hotspot for wildlife discoveries new to science. This is the first children's book to focus exclusively on the animal wonders of this little known region. The story follows a local father, daughter and son on a trek to visit their grandmother in this ancient, almost mystical, mountain landscape. Join them as they journey along rivers and through bamboo, up rocky cliffs and down into steamy tropical forests¿and discover a wondrous world of wildlife along the way. Learn about the rare and recently discovered animal species restricted to the Annamites such as the Saola, White-Cheeked Gibbon, Crested Argus, Red-Shanked Douc and other incredible iconic species of Southeast Asia.

"This book is the definitive study of imperial Chinese local gazetteers, one of the most important sources for premodern Chinese studies. Methodologically innovative, it represents a major contribution to the history of books, publishing, reading, and society. By examining how gazetteers were read, Joseph R. Dennis illustrates their significance in local societies and national discourses. His analysis of how gazetteers were initiated and produced reconceptualizes the geography of imperial Chinese publishing. Whereas previous studies argued that publishing, and thus cultural and intellectual power, were concentrated in the southeast, Dennis shows that publishing and book ownership were widely dispersed throughout China and books were found even in isolated locales. Adding a dynamic element to our earlier understanding of the publishing industry, Dennis tracks the movements of manuscripts to printers and print labor to production sites. By reconstructing printer business zones, he demonstrates that publishers operated across long distances in trans-regional markets. He also creates the first substantial data set on publishing costs in early modern China—a foundational breakthrough in understanding the world of Chinese books. Dennis’s work reveals areas for future research on newly-identified regional publishing centers and the economics of book production."

Life’s Wonders By: Perry L. Westmoreland A basic human’s personal need is to live a full life, and that desire includes many diverse things that we take for granted. Such essentials include having access to clean water and fresh air, having ample food and sleep, being sheltered in a pleasant environment, and having ready access to medical facilities. While our personal habits have a lot to do with how we live, our major personal choices decide how we live, how our lives play out, and what access we have to the things that matter. It has to do with what we want to achieve that we often do not clearly address. This book describes some major historical events. While those events covered perilous times, we are again facing similar events that in many ways mirror the past.

Why do people follow a leader, particularly a religious leader? Is it because of personality, or a particular vision or set of values, or perhaps a felt need for direction or authority? And why, given that Americans are still an overwhelmingly religious people, is the clergy declining in influence? Sherwin argues that what is missing is the perception that religious leaders today are capable of working wonders. Sherwin supports his claim by showing that throughout the history of the Jewish people, certain leaders were regarded as having wonder-working ability; this was an essential feature of a "holy person." Sherwin leads the reader through five periods of Jewish history: the era of biblical prophets, Jesus and first-century Israel; Babylonian rabbis of the third and fourth centuries; the east European Hasidic Masters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and twentieth century North African rabbis. In all cases, the moral authority of the leaders came primarily from popular belief in their power to work wonders for the people. Sherwin applies history to the current situation. If the clergy is to be re-empowered, to reclaim leadership and authority as holy people, they must reassert the ability to work wonders. This does not require dramatic miracles, but deeds that might well be perceived by people as nothing short of miraculous: saving a marriage, finding someone a job, finding homes for the homeless, bringing hope to the hopeless. This is a book that every member of the clergy and every religious leader should read, ponder and take to heart.

Publishes research in all areas of the plant sciences.