In the era of Big Pharma and the never-ending search for better, more targeted drugs, it is easy to forget that the age of pharmaceuticals is still relatively young; the first effective antibiotic, penicillin, was only discovered in... Read More

Any well-informed person who is absolutely convinced that neither they nor any member of their family, nor anyone close to them, will ever have need of a doctor, hospital, or prescription drugs during the next hundred years can ignore... Read More

"June Fourth Elegies" is the first book of poetry translated into English by Chinese political dissident Liu Xiaobo, winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. A leading activist during the Tiananmen Square protests and author of the human... Read More

The issue of immigration, particularly in America’s Southwest, has become so politicized and inflammatory that one often forgets it is an issue of human suffering, struggle, hope, and despair, of life and death. Melinda Palacio’s... Read More

"The Redemption of George Baxter Henry" is a f\#^ing entertaining romp—and if a reader is put off by that description, there’s little chance of enjoying Conor Bowman’s off-handed, tightly structured little book about a middle-aged... Read More

Murderer. Loving mother. Sadomasochist. Animal rescuer. Master manipulator. Talented artist. Each of these identities applies to Carole Alden, the subject of Barbara Oakley’s book Cold-Blooded Kindness. In July 2006, Alden shot and... Read More

The villagers call him the Story Man; the whites know him as the Barefoot Librarian. He walks from one village to the next, carrying loads of books and conducting performances based on the stories he reads. Sometimes he imagines he is... Read More

With sex and profanity on television, and X-rated music just a download click away, it’s hard to imagine a time when entertainers were thrown in jail for words they used on stage. But that’s what happened to comedian George Carlin in... Read More