The Penguin Press

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

by Michael Pollan

In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements-fire, water, air, and earth-to transform the stuff...

There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra

by Chinua Achebe

From the legendary author of Things Fall Apart comes a longawaited memoir about coming of age with a fragile new nation, then watching it torn asunder in a tragic civil war

The defining experience of Chinua...

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't

by Nate Silver

"Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise is The Soul of a New Machine for the 21st century."

—Rachel Maddow, author of Drift

Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted...

Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

by Roy F. Baumeister & John Tierney

Pioneering research psychologist Roy F. Baumeister collaborates with New York Times science writer John Tierney to revolutionize our understanding of the most coveted human virtue: self-control. Drawing on cutting-edge...

The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth

by Mark Mazzetti

A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter's riveting account of the transformation of the CIA and America's special operations forces into man-hunting and killing machines in the world's dark spaces: the new American...

Detroit: An American Autopsy

by Charlie LeDuff

New York Times Bestseller

"A book full of both literary grace and hard-won world-weariness... Iggy Pop meets Jim Carroll and Charles Bukowski" -Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW

Back in his broken hometown, Pulitzer Prize-winning...

Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting

by Pamela Druckerman

The secret behind France's astonishingly well-behaved children.

When American journalist Pamela Druckerman has a baby in Paris, she doesn't aspire to become a "French parent." French parenting isn't a known...

The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain: 1789-1837

by Ben Wilson

Ben Wilson's The Making of Victorian Values is the history of an era rather like our own-a time when dissenters and rebels were hemmed in by conformists and hardheaded authoritarians, a time when a nation on...

Chasing the Flame

by Samantha Power

From Pulitzer Prize winner Samantha Power, an epic tale-part thriller, part tragedy-for our age, the political career and tragic death of the incomparable humanitarian Sergio Vieira de Mello If there is a single...

Geek Abroad

Geek High #2

by Piper Banks

The Wisdom Trail: In the Footsteps of Remarkable Women

by Janet Lieberman

An invitation to eavesdrop on a remarkable group of women who in their eighth and ninth decades reflect with candor and insight on the common threads in their well-lived lives The Wisdom Trail follows the life...

The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea

by Michael Harney

The country's leading connoisseur presents a comprehensive guide for developing your tea palate. The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea transforms tea drinkers into tea experts. Written by one of the country's leading...

Lexicon

by Max Barry

At an exclusive school somewhere outside of Arlington, Virginia, students aren't taught history, geography, or mathematics-at least not in the usual ways. Instead, they are taught to persuade. Here the art of...

The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II

by Charles Glass

"[A]n impressive achievement: a boot-level take on the conflict that is fresh without being cynically revisionist." --The New Republic

A groundbreaking history of ordinary soldiers struggling on the front lines,...

The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die

by Niall Ferguson

From renowned historian Niall Ferguson, a searching and provocative examination of the widespread institutional rot that threatens our collective future

What causes rich countries to lose their way? Symptoms...

The Dark Road: A Novel

by Ma Jian & Flora Drew

From one of world literature's most courageous voices, a novel about the human cost of China's one-child policy through the lens of one rural family on the run from its reach

Far away from the Chinese economic...

You Are One of Them

by Elliott Holt

Sarah Zuckerman and Jennifer Jones are best friends in an upscale part of Washington, D.C., in the politically charged 1980s.  Sarah is the shy, wary product of an unhappy home: her father abandoned the family...

Midnight in Mexico: A Reporter's Journey Through a Country's Descent into Darkness

by Alfredo Corchado

In the last six years, more than eighty thousand people have been killed in the Mexican drug war, and drug trafficking there is a multibillion-dollar business. In a country where the powerful are rarely scrutinized,...

Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Lookingat Animals in America

by Jon Mooallem

Journalist Jon Mooallem has watched his little daughter's world overflow with animals butterfly pajamas, appliquéd owls-while the actual world she's inheriting slides into a great storm of extinction. Half...

Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success

by Phil Jackson & Hugh Delehanty

During his storied career as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, Phil Jackson won more championships than any coach in the history of professional sports. Even more important, he succeeded...