A “beguiling and unnerving” novel of a young man haunted by an act of violence, from the award-winning author of An Unfinished Season (Booklist, starred review). As a small-town boy in the early twentieth century, Lee Goodell learned about a brutal crime—and the efforts of his father, a judge, to help cover it up. Lee would go on to attend a private boys’ school, become a sculptor, become familiar with both Chicago’s gritty South Side and its wealthy, intellectual Hyde Park, and get married. But it is his reunion with a girl from his childhood, a victim of a sexual assault she cannot remember, that will spur him to contemplate the event that marked the end of his boyhood and the beginning of his understanding of the world, in this sprawling, powerful novel by “one of the most accomplished and admirable American writers” (The Washington Post Book World). “An achievement . . . [that] fuses the romanticism of the early Kerouac and his mentor, Thomas Wolfe, with the wry humor of Richard Yates.” —The New York Times Book Review “Rodin’s Debutante is a surprising story, never going where you expect it to, and Just’s spare prose packs a solid emotional punch.” —Entertainment Weekly

The Political Fiction of Ward Just: Class, Theories of Representation, and Imagining a Ruling Elite uses three theoretical frameworks of representation—literary, political, and diplomatic—to demonstrate how the upper-class status of the ruling elites in Ward Just’s political fiction influences the way they govern. He illustrates how Just’s ruling elites develop a coherent “upper class” form of consciousness that limits their ability as elected officials to adequately represent the interests of all the nation’s citizens domestically—especially the poor and working class—and their ability as diplomats to adequately represent the interests of the nation as a whole internationally. In his conclusion, the author offers suggestions for ways to make our ruling elites more representative of the interests of the working class and underprivileged groups at home and more sensitive to the cultures of the countries in which they serve abroad.

It didn t take long for Barack Obama to make his mark as the biggest political star to ever occupy the White House.

From Cicero to Snooki, the cultural influences on our American presidents are powerful and plentiful. Thomas Jefferson famously said "I cannot live without books," and his library backed up the claim, later becoming the backbone of the new Library of Congress. Jimmy Carter watched hundreds of movies in his White House, while Ronald Reagan starred in a few in his own time. Lincoln was a theater-goer, while Obama kicked back at home to a few episodes of HBO's "The Wire." America is a country built by thinkers on a foundation of ideas. Alongside classic works of philosophy and ethics, however, our presidents have been influenced by the books, movies, TV shows, viral videos, and social media sensations of their day. In What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Popular Culturen in the White House presidential scholar and former White House aide Tevi Troy combines research with witty observation to tell the story of how our presidents have been shaped by popular culture.

On the surface, they are allies, two of the most powerful Democratic families on the political landscape, shaping American policy for years to come. Behind the scenes, they are bitter enemies, rivals fueled by great personal animosity. #1 New York Times bestselling author Edward Klein unveils the jealousy, hostility, and outright rancor that divide the Clintons and Obamas. Now, as the Clintons attempt to maneuver their way back into the White House, Blood Feud, the bestseller that toppled Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices from the #1 New York Times slot, sheds new light on the political spectacle to come. ·The secret Hillary Clinton is keeping that could make it impossible for her to be president ·How Barack Obama set up Hillary Clinton to take the blame for the Benghazi debacle ·Why Michelle Obama’s political ambitions could rival Hillary Clinton’s ·How the only White House dinner between the Obamas and the Clintons simmered with tension and contempt ·The true power behind president Obama is not Michelle, but her closest friend… Praise for the #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Edward Klein “The press is not curious about what Klein is saying. They are circling the wagons, trying to defend Hillary.”—Rush Limbaugh on The Truth about Hillary “A serious political and psychological biography of the most likely next Democratic nominee for president—and thus, quite plausibly I fear, the next president of the United States.”—The Washington Times on The Truth about Hillary “Absolutely read this book.”—Glenn Beck on The Amateur

For four hundred years, explorers, traders, and settlers plundered North American wildlife in an escalating rampage, but in the twentieth century an incredible turnaround took place. Conservationists created wildlife sanctuaries, restored habitats, and imposed regulations on hunters and trappers. Over decades, they nursed many wild populations back to health. Then, after World War II, something happened that conservationists hadn’t foreseen: sprawl. People moved into suburbs, and then kept moving outward. All the while, well-meaning efforts to protect animals allowed wild populations to burgeon out of control, causing damage costing billions, degrading ecosystems, and touching off disputes that polarized communities. The result is a mix of people and wildlife that should be an animal-lover’s dream, but often turns into a sprawl-dweller’s nightmare. Deeply researched, eloquently written, and perceptively humorous, Nature Wars expresses the need for organic reconnection with our natural ecosystem by offering a provocative look at how Americans created an inadvertent mess.

The Midwest has produced a robust literary heritage. Its authors have won half of the nation's Nobel Prizes for Literature plus a significant number of Pulitzer Prizes. This volume explores the rich racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the region. It also contains entries on 35 pivotal Midwestern literary works, literary genres, literary, cultural, historical, and social movements, state and city literatures, literary journals and magazines, as well as entries on science fiction, film, comic strips, graphic novels, and environmental writing. Prepared by a team of scholars, this second volume of the Dictionary of Midwestern Literature is a comprehensive resource that demonstrates the Midwest's continuing cultural vitality and the stature and distinctiveness of its literature.

Praise for the print edition:" ... no other reference work on American fiction brings together such an array of authors and texts as this.

While on duty as a young foreign service officer in Indochina in the 1960s, Harry Sanders briefly meets a young German woman who changes the course of his life.

A novel about journalism and one man’s moral choices, “evoking the rhythms of Ernest Hemingway’s early fiction . . . A quietly affecting, mournful achievement” (Richmond Times-Dispatch). Ned Ayres has never wanted anything but a newspaper career. His defining moment comes early, when Ned is city editor of his hometown paper. One of his beat reporters fields a tip: William Grant, the town haberdasher, married to the bank president’s daughter and the father of two children, once served six years in Joliet. The story runs—Ned offers no resistance to his publisher’s argument that the public has a right to know. The consequences, swift and shocking, haunt him throughout a long career—until eventually, as the editor of a major newspaper in post-Kennedy Washington, DC, Ned has reason to return to the question of privacy and its many violations.