Elizabeth Gilbert exclusive video on Eat, Pray, Love books by Elizabeth Gilbert »

Eat, Pray, Love is a beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures, Gilbert explored the art of pleasure in Italy and the art of devotion in India, and then a balance between the two on the Indonesian island of Bali. By turns rapturous and rueful, this wise and funny author (whom Booklist calls "Anne Lamott's hip, yoga- practicing, footloose younger sister") is poised to garner yet more adoring fans.

		Dinaw Mengestu exclusive video on The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears books by Dinaw Mengestu »

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is the literary debut by Dinaw Mengestu, hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "a great American novel." Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution for a new start in the United States. Now he finds himself running a failing grocery store in a poor African-American section of Washington, D.C., his only companions two fellow African immigrants who share his bitter nostalgia and longing for his home continent. Years ago and worlds away Sepha could never have imagined a life of such isolation. As his environment begins to change, hope comes in the form of a friendship with new neighbors Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter. But when a series of racial incidents disturbs the community, Sepha may lose everything all over again.

		Alan Greenspan exclusive video on The Age of Turbulence (complete video - 126 MB) partial video clip books by Alan Greenspan »

The Age of Turbulence is Alan Greenspan's incomparable reckoning with the nature of this new world—how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill-channeled through his own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure. He begins his account on that September 11th morning, but then leaps back to his childhood, and follows the arc of his remarkable life's journey through to his more than 18-year tenure as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, from 1987 to 2006, during a time of transforming change. The distillation of a life's worth of wisdom and insight into an elegant expression of a coherent worldview, The Age of Turbulence will stand as Alan Greenspan's personal and intellectual legacy.

		Khaled Hosseini exclusive video on A Thousand Splendid Suns exclusive video on The Kite Runner books by Khaled Hosseini »

A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption, and it is also about the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies. Here, Khaled Hosseini explains the premise of his debut novel.

 

		William Gibson exclusive video on Spook Country books by William Gibson »

In 1984, Gibson became the first author to win the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award in a single year for his debut novel Neuromancer. He is credited with having coined the term "cyberspace," and for having envisioned both the Internet (complete with viruses and hackers) and virtual reality before either existed. In subsequent novels—Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Idoru and the best-sellers Virtual Light and Pattern Recognition—he foresaw ongoing advances in nanotechnology, information control, identity theft, and the culture of on-line chat rooms. Gibson has also written a collaborative novel, The Difference Engine, with Bruce Sterling. His short stories are collected in Burning Chrome. Spook Country, like Pattern Recognition before it, takes place in our own day and time, in a world with which we are all too familiar.

 

		A. Scott Berg exclusive video of A. Scott Berg books by A. Scott Berg »

A. Scott Berg graduated from Princeton University in 1971 and is the author of Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, Goldwyn: A Biography, and Lindbergh, for which he received the National Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Pulitzer Prize respectively.

 

		Tom Clancy Tom Clancy on the truth Tom Clancy on being a writer Tom Clancy on literacy books by Tom Clancy »

Twenty years ago Tom Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. Years before he had been an English major at Baltimore's Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, The Hunt for Red October sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it "the perfect yarn." Since then Clancy has established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense.

 

		James McBride exclusive video of James McBride books by James McBride »

James McBride is an award-winning writer and composer. His critically acclaimed and award-winning memoir, The Color of Water, spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, selling more than 1.5 million copies in the United States alone. It is now required reading at numerous colleges and high schools. McBride is a former staff writer for The Washington Post, People Magazine, and The Boston Globe. His work has also appeared in Essence, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times.

 

		Robert B. Parker exclusive video of Robert Parker books by Robert Parker »

Robert B. Parker's novels featuring the wise-cracking, street-smart Boston private-eye Spenser have earned him a devoted following and reams of critical acclaim, typified by R.W.B. Lewis' comment, "We are witnessing one of the great series in the history of the American detective story" (The New York Times). Parker began writing his Spenser novels in 1971 while teaching at Northeastern University. Little did he suspect then that his witty, literate prose and psychological insights would make him keeper-of-the-flame of America's rich tradition of detective fiction. Parker was recently named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, an honor shared with earlier masters such as Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen.