NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Anna Quindlen presents a “swift and compelling paean to the joys of books” (Booklist).

“Like the columns she used to write for the New York Times, [How Reading Changed My Life] is tart, smart, full of quirky insights, lapidary, and a pleasure to read.”—Publishers Weekly

“Reading has always been my home,...

Discusses the life and works of well-known author Robert Cormier.

Published in 1956, Peyton Place became a bestseller and a literary phenomenon. A lurid and gripping story of murder, incest, female desire, and social injustice, it was consumed as avidly by readers as it was condemned by critics and the clergy. Its author, Grace Metalious, a housewife who grew up in poverty in a New Hampshire mill town and had aspired to be a writer from childhood, loosely based the novel's setting, characters, and incidents on real-life...

Whether curled up on a sofa with a good mystery, lounging by the pool with a steamy romance, or brooding over a classic novel, Americans love to read. Despite the distractions of modern living, nothing quite satisfies many individuals more than a really good book. And regardless of how one accesses that book-through a tablet, a smart phone, or a good, old-fashioned hardcover-those choices have been tallied for decades. In Bestseller: A Century of...

"Despite dire predictions in the late twentieth century that public libraries would not survive the turn of the millennium, their numbers have only increased. Two of three Americans frequent a public library at least once a year, and nearly that many are registered borrowers. Although library authorities have argued that the public library functions primarily as a civic institution necessary for maintaining democracy, generations of library patrons...

"An extraordinary, path-breaking, and penetrating book on the life and work and creative inspirations of the great children's book genius Maurice Sendak, who since his death in 2012 has only grown in his stature and recognition as a major American artist, period. Polymath and master interviewer Jonathan Cott first interviewed Maurice Sendak in 1976 for Rolling Stone, just at the time when Outside Over There, the concluding and by far the strangest...

A biography of the author of many popular novels and plays for both adults and children, including the well-known "Little Lord Fauntleroy" and "The Secret Garden."