From one of Russia’s greatest writers, Anton Chekhov, an indispensable collection of stories, full of humor, truth, and vast insight, selected and introduced by modern American virtuoso Richard Ford, available in a deluxe paperback edition—part of the Ecco Art of the Story series.

One of the most beloved Russian writers, Anton Chekov had an indelible influence on many revered modern writers, including Richard Ford, Raymond Carver, Robert Stone, Nadine Gordimer, William Maxwell, and Ernest Hemingway. In this superb anthology, Ford, a master of short fiction in his own right, has chosen twenty of his personal favorites from among more than two hundred of Chekhov’s tales and short novels.

Though they were composed more than a century ago, Chekhov’s stories hold timeless lessons and insights invaluable in our own age.The Essential Tales of Chekhov Deluxe Edition includes familiar masterpieces “The Kiss,” “The Darling,” and “The Lady with the Dog,” as well as several brilliant lesser-known tales—“A Blunder,” “Hush!,” and “Champagne.” These stories, ordered chronologically from 1886 to 1899, are drawn from Chekhov’s most fruitful years as a short story writer. The translation is done by the renowned Constance Garnett, who also brought Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Turgenev to the English-speaking world.

Denied a place on their ancestral lands, the original Snake River-Palouse people were forced to scatter, and maintaining their cultural identity became increasingly difficult. Still, elders passed down oral histories to their descendants, insisting youngsters listen with rapt attention. Beginning in the 1970s and continuing over three decades, Naxiyamtáma elders—in particular Mary Jim, Andrew George, Gordon Fisher, and Emily Peone—chose to share their stories with a research team. The four had ties to the Plateau people's leadership families and had lived in the traditional way—gathering, hunting, and fishing. They hoped to teach American Indian history in a traditional manner and refute inaccuracies. Multiple themes emerged—a pervasive spirituality tied to the Creator and environment; a covenant relationship and sacred trust to protect and preserve their traditional lands; storytelling as a revered art form that reveals life lessons, and finally, belief in cyclical time and blood memory.

Most people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. But most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, biology, and history, Ian Morris, author of the best-selling Why the West Rules—for Now, explains why. The result is a compelling new argument about the evolution of human values, one that has far-reaching implications for how we understand the past—and for what might happen next.

Fundamental long-term changes in values, Morris argues, are driven by the most basic force of all: energy. Humans have found three main ways to get the energy they need—from foraging, farming, and fossil fuels. Each energy source sets strict limits on what kinds of societies can succeed, and each kind of society rewards specific values. In tiny forager bands, people who value equality but are ready to settle problems violently do better than those who aren’t; in large farming societies, people who value hierarchy and are less willing to use violence do best; and in huge fossil-fuel societies, the pendulum has swung back toward equality but even further away from violence.

But if our fossil-fuel world favors democratic, open societies, the ongoing revolution in energy capture means that our most cherished values are very likely to turn out—at some point fairly soon—not to be useful any more.

Originating as the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, the book includes challenging responses by novelist Margaret Atwood, philosopher Christine Korsgaard, classicist Richard Seaford, and historian of China Jonathan Spence.

DER WOMANIZER - FORD RICHARD - DTV

Frank Bascombe ha vissuto una vita non più avventurosa di quella di tanti altri americani. Giornalista sportivo, agente immobiliare, due matrimoni, due figli grandi che vivono lontano, molti traslochi. A sessantotto anni, Frank si è ritirato a vita privata, ha venduto la casa sull'oceano dove si era trasferito con la seconda moglie ed è tornato a Haddam, la città che forse racchiude il segreto di tutti i suoi dispiaceri. L'uragano che un giorno d'autunno si abbatte sulla costa del New Jersey distruggendo la ridente stazione balneare dove Frank aveva creduto di poter esorcizzare i suoi fantasmi ne diventa in un lampo il principale evocatore. Il passato ritorna e parla con la voce di amici falsi, traditori o moribondi. Se la vita è davvero, come riflette Frank, 'una questione di sottrazione graduale', che altro ti resta quando una catastrofe naturale ti ha sottratto tutto, compresa la casa dove hai trascorso i migliori anni della tua esistenza? L'ultimo romanzo di Richard Ford è il bilancio, non privo di sorprese e di humour, di una vita che potrebbe non essere poi così diversa dalla nostra.

'Prima di tutto parlerò della rapina commessa dai nostri genitori. Poi degli omicidi, che avvennero più tardi.' Ai nostri giorni, a distanza di mezzo secolo dai fatti, il professor Dell Parsons, americano trapiantato in Canada e alla vigilia della pensione, ricorda i due avvenimenti che hanno impresso una svolta decisiva alla sua vita e a quella di Berner, la sua gemella. Nel 1960, l'anno dei fatti criminosi, Dell e Berner hanno quindici anni e i Parsons sono una famiglia americana assolutamente normale, da cui sarebbe stato assurdo aspettarsi cose simili. Ma, come scrive Richard Ford, 'il preludio a cose molto brutte può essere ridicolo, ma può anche essere casuale e insignificante. Cosa che merita di essere riconosciuta perché indica il punto da cui possono originarsi eventi disastrosi: a un pelo dalla vita di tutti i giorni'.

Frank Bascombe (già protagonista di 'Sportswriter') ha 44 anni, fa l'agente immobiliare e chiama 'Ann' la ex moglie. Considera la vita inconcludente e i rapporti umani difficili. Lo troviamo, in occasione della festa dell'Indipendenza del 4 luglio, con il progetto di incontrare la fidanzata Sally e di trascorrere un po' di tempo con il figlio Paul, appena accusato di aver rubato tre confezioni di preservativi giganti e di aver insultato e assalito il commesso del negozio che l'ha sorpreso.

The Structure of Schooling: Readings in the Sociology of Education by Richard Arum, Irenee Beattie, and Karly Ford exposes students to examples of sociological research on schools, with a focus on the school as community. Now in its Third Edition, this engaging reader has broadened its scope even more, presenting additional readings in particular related to the sociology of higher education. The book draws from classic and contemporary scholarship to examine current issues and diverse theoretical approaches to studying the effects of schooling on individuals and society. In addition to covering traditional areas such as stratification and racial inequality, the book also veers off the beaten path, including readings on such contemporary topics as bullying, school shootings, school choice, and teen social media use.

A brilliant new work that returns Richard Ford to the hallowed territory that sealed his reputation as an American master: the world of Frank Bascombe, and the landscape of his celebrated novels The Sportswriter, the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner winning Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land.

In his trio of world-acclaimed novels portraying the life of an entire American generation, Richard Ford has imagined one of the most indelible and widely discussed characters in modern literature, Frank Bascombe. Through Bascombe—protean, funny, profane, wise, often inappropriate—we’ve witnessed the aspirations, sorrows, longings, achievements and failings of an American life in the twilight of the twentieth century.

Now, in Let Me Be Frank with You, Ford reinvents Bascombe in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In four richly luminous narratives, Bascombe (and Ford) attempts to reconcile, interpret and console a world undone by calamity. It is a moving and wondrous and extremely funny odyssey through the America we live in at this moment. Ford is here again working with the maturity and brilliance of a writer at the absolute height of his powers.

A brilliant new work that returns Richard Ford to the hallowed territory that sealed his reputation as an American master: the world of Frank Bascombe, and the landscape of his celebrated novels The Sportswriter, the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner winning Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land.

In his trio of world-acclaimed novels portraying the life of an entire American generation, Richard Ford has imagined one of the most indelible and widely discussed characters in modern literature, Frank Bascombe. Through Bascombe—protean, funny, profane, wise, often inappropriate—we’ve witnessed the aspirations, sorrows, longings, achievements and failings of an American life in the twilight of the twentieth century.

Now, in Let Me Be Frank with You, Ford reinvents Bascombe in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In four richly luminous narratives, Bascombe (and Ford) attempts to reconcile, interpret and console a world undone by calamity. It is a moving and wondrous and extremely funny odyssey through the America we live in at this moment. Ford is here again working with the maturity and brilliance of a writer at the absolute height of his powers.

In the flawless style of Deborah Needleman’s Domino comes the interior design book of the decade, from HGTV star, virtual sensation, and Canadian design queen Sarah Richardson.

Ever wondered how to transform your laundry room from drab to fab? Your kitchen from prison to paradise? Your bedroom from boring to beautiful?

Now you can, in this comprehensive interior design tome by design maven extraordinaire Sarah Richardson. Within these beautiful, full-color pages and photographs, Sarah walks you through each room in your home, from the master bedroom to the kids’ rooms, to the kitchen, the bathroom, and everywhere in between, showing you how to turn a house into a home—Sarah style.

Featuring full-page design spreads with stunning attention to detail, Sarah Style is a cache of creative, unique ideas for transforming your living spaces. You can make your dream home a reality, and the inspiration—and complete know-how—is right here in this premier source for all things interior design!

The definitive guide to the contemporary craft cocktail movement, from one of the highest-profile, most critically lauded, and influential bars in the world.

Death & Co is the most important, influential, and oft-imitated bar to emerge from the contemporary craft cocktail movement. Since its opening in 2006, Death & Co has been a must-visit destination for serious drinkers and cocktail enthusiasts, and the winner of every major industry award—including America’s Best Cocktail Bar and Best Cocktail Menu at the Tales of the Cocktail convention. Boasting a supremely talented and creative bar staff—the best in the industry—Death & Co is also the birthplace of some of the modern era’s most iconic drinks, such as the Oaxaca Old-Fashioned, Naked and Famous, and the Conference.

Destined to become a definitive reference on craft cocktails, Death & Co features more than 500 of the bar’s most innovative and sought-after cocktails. But more than just a collection of recipes, Death & Co is also a complete cocktail education, with information on the theory and philosophy of drink making, a complete guide to buying and using spirits, and step-by-step instructions for mastering key bartending techniques. Filled with beautiful, evocative photography; illustrative charts and infographics; and colorful essays about the characters who fill the bar each night; Death & Co—like its namesake bar—is bold, elegant, and setting the pace for mixologists around the world.

An NYRB Classics Original

Just before his death, Sanford Friedman completed this, his final novel, something entirely different from anything he, or for that matter anyone, had written before— Conversations with Beethoven, a moving meditation on greatness and pettiness, vulnerability and genius, that is as elegiac as it is witty and engaging.

Beethoven compensated for his deafness by having other people write down their questions and comments in a notebook, and in Conversations with Beethoven Friedman dramatizes the last year of Beethoven’s life through these entries. We observe Beethoven primarily through the responses of friends, family, and others to his erratic, profane, even violent outbursts. Friedman paints a vivid portrait of the aging composer, struggling against illness, struggling with his music, and perpetually worried about his wayward ward and nephew, Karl. A delight to read, with a full cast of Dickensian characters ranging from the bibulous hanger-on Holtz, the oleaginous biographer Schindler, and Beethoven’s cheapskate country brother, Conversations with Beethoven slowly deepens to make a profound and memorable music of its own.