The American decade known as "The Roaring Twenties" continues to hold our collective fascination. But how did this surge of innovation and cultural milestones emerge from the ashes of The Great War? Eric Burns examines the crucial year of 1920, the first full year of armistice. From prohibition to immigration, the vote for women, the birth of jazz, the rise of expatriate literature, and the original Ponzi scheme, 1920 was a year like no other.

Award-winning journalist Hannah Nordhaus attempts to uncover the truth about her great-great-grandmother, whose ghost is said to haunt an elegant hotel in Santa Fe. Julia Schuster Staab died nearly a century before the hauntings were reported at La Posada, once the grand home of Julia and her Jewish merchant husband. Tracing the strands of Julia's life and unsettled afterlife, Nordhaus delivers a spellbinding exploration of myth, family history, and...

"For Ta-Nehisi Coates, history has always been personal. At every stage of his life, he's sought in his explorations of history answers to the mysteries that surrounded him -- most urgently, why he, and other black people he knew, seemed to live in fear. What were they afraid of? In Tremble for My Country, Coates takes readers along on his journey through America's history of race and its contemporary resonances through a series of awakenings -- moments...

"While getting into his car on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA's Moscow station was handed an envelope by an unknown Russian. Its contents stunned the Americans: details of top-secret Soviet research and development in military technology that was totally unknown to the United States. From 1979 to 1985, Adolf Tolkachev, an engineer at a military research center, cracked open the secret Soviet military research establishment,...

"The story of two decorated combat veterans linked by tragedy, who came home from the Middle East and found a new way to save their comrades and heal their country. This is one of the most hopeful stories to emerge from Iraq and Afghanistan--a saga of lives saved, not wasted. Greitens and Wood believe that the military virtues of discipline and selflessness, of sacrifice for the greater good, can save lives--and not just the lives of their fellow...

Jimmy Carter, thirty-ninth President, Nobel Peace Prize winner, international humanitarian, fisherman, reflects on his full and happy life with pride, humor, and a few second thoughts. At ninety, Carter reflects on his public and private life with a frankness that is disarming. He adds detail and emotion about his youth in rural Georgia that he described in his earlier memoir An Hour Before Daylight. He writes about racism and the isolation of the...

Before becoming the world's most notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's Ministry for Propaganda and its film studios. Conceiving every movie made, he acted as producer and screenwriter. Despite this control, he was underwhelmed by the available talent and took drastic steps, ordering the kidnapping of Choi Eun-Hee (Madam Choi), South Korea's most famous actress, and her ex-husband Shin Sang-Ok, the country's most famous filmmaker. Madam...

"Rosenfelt's latest work of nonfiction has a slightly misleading title; although Tara, the author's first dog, takes center stage, other dogs--a handful of the hundreds the author and his wife have taken in over the years--do make some appearances. The book's theme is pretty straightforward: here are some of the things I've learned about myself through my dogs. Grieving after Tara's death, for example, allowed Rosenfelt to open up a more emotional...

"As David Maraniss captures it with power and affection, Detroit summed up America's path to music and prosperity that was already past history. It's 1963 and Detroit is on top of the world. The city's leaders are among the most visionary in America: Grandson of the first Ford; Henry Ford II; influential labor leader Walter Reuther; Motown's founder Berry Gordy; the Reverend C.L. Franklin and his daughter, the amazing Aretha; Governor George Romney,...

"Part memoir, part travelogue, part love letter to the people who live and work on a magical street in Paris. Elaine Sciolino, the former Paris bureau chief for the New York Times, invites us on a tour of her favorite Parisian street, offering an homage to street life and the pleasures of Parisian living. 'I can never be sad on the rue des Martyrs,' Sciolino explains, as she celebrates the neighborhood's rich history and vibrant lives. While many...