Nonfiction

For the past six years, Stephanie Nolen has traced AIDS across Africa, and 28 is the result: an unprecedented, uniquely human portrait of the continent in crisis. Through riveting, anecdotal stories, she brings to life men, women, and children involved in every AIDS arena, making them familiar. And she explores the effects of an epidemic that well exceeds the Black Plague in scope, and the reasons why we must care about what happens.

In every instance, Nolen has borne witness to the stories she relates, whether riding with truck driver Mohammed Ali on a journey across Kenya; following Tigist Haile Michael, a smart, shy fourteen-year-old Ethiopian orphan fending for herself and her baby brother on the slum streets of Addis Ababa; chronicling the efforts of Alice Kadzanja, an HIV-positive nurse in Malawi; or interviewing Nelson Mandela's family about coming to terms with his own son's death from AIDS. Nolen's stories reveal how the disease works and spreads; how it is inextricably tied to conflict and famine and to the diverse cultures it has ravaged; how treatment works, and how people who can't get treatment fight to stay alive with courage and dignity against huge odds.

Imagine the entire population of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles combined infected with HIV, and its magnitude in Africa is clear. Writing with power and simplicity, Stephanie Nolen makes us listen, allows us to understand, and inspires us to care. Timely and transformative, 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa is essential reading for anyone concerned about the fate of humankind.

Click here to learn more about Stephanie Nolen and her book, 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa.

Click here to listen to an interview with author Stephanie Nolen, as she talks about some of the people she has met covering AIDS in Africa.

With its wealth of natural attractions, pervasive sense of history, brilliant cuisine and wines, and warm and inviting people, Italy has always held a special place in the hearts of travelers. But Italy offers so much more than its must-see attractions. In this exciting collection, captivating storytellers reveal the possibilities of a long-term stay, covering both the much-loved sites and lesser-known places that unveil the country's heart and soul. Learn what it's like to live with a rural Italian family. Be led behind the scenes of the artisan studios in Florence. Meet Frances Mayes in Cortona and a godfather in Sicily. Discover the glories of a meal that is "only fish" in a Mediterranean village. With its story-a-day format, 30 Days in Italy creates a compelling composite portrait of the distinctive pleasures of this enchanting country.

Peter Carey captures our imagination with a brilliant and unexpected portrait of Sydney.

Bloomsbury is pleased to announce the second title in the phenomenally well-received Writer in the City series-in which some of the world's finest novelists reveal the secrets of the city they know best. In the midst of the 2000 Olympic games, Australia native Peter Carey returns to Sydney after a seventeen-year absence. Examining the urban landscape as both a tourist and a prodigal son, Carey structures his account around the four elements-Earth, Air, Fire, and Water-insisting on the primacy of nature to this unique Australian cityscape.

As his quixotic account unfolds, Carey looks both inward into his past (as well as Sydney's own violent history) and outward onto the city's familiar landmarks and surroundings-the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, the Blue Mountains-achieving just the right alchemy of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water to tell Sydney's extraordinary story.

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Reporter Jonathan Franklin taking notes at Paloma station.

Jonathan Franklin / Addict Village

Faith and Los 33 were never far apart during the rescue of the miners.

Jonathan Franklin / Addict Village

Huge convoys of equipment rolled into Camp Hope nearly every day to help with the rescue.

Ariel Caliban Marinkovic

Tears of joy filled the air when the rescue capsule began saving the lives of the thirty-three men.

Ariel Caliban MarinkovicOn August 5, 2010, at the San Jose mine in northern Chile, 33 men were entombed 2,300 feet below the earth when a slab of rock the size of a skyscraper sheared off the mountain and sealed shut their only access to the surface. The miners were discovered alive 17 days later, and for the next seven weeks after that discovery, as rescuers sought to bring them to the surface, the eyes of the world shifted to this previously obscure corner of South America. More than 2,000 journalists and reporters flooded in to cover the drama. But despite worldwide interest, the media rarely delved to either the front lines of the rescue or below the surface of the tragedy. Locked behind police lines, most reporters were reduced to months of interviewing family members and politicians. However, award-winning journalist Jonathan Franklin was the exception.
The print journalist with the most extensive access and contacts, Franklin reported, recorded, and filmed from the front row of the operation as it unfolded and, as a result, was afforded unprecedented and unique access to the miners and the rescuers. Now, for the first time ever, he tells their full story in "33 Men: Inside the Miraculous Survival and Dramatic Rescue of the Chilean Miners"
Franklin's status as a "local"--he has lived in Chile for 16 years, speaks fluent Spanish, and has six daughters with his Chilean wife--and his 25 years' experience as an investigative reporter provided him access other journalists could only dream of. For almost six weeks he lived on the hillside that served as the rescue operation's nerve center. He sat in on planning meetings, pored over government documents, and recorded sessions between the miners and the psychologists charged with looking after their mental health. He conducted interviews with miners' families, rescue workers, engineers, drill operators, and many others, including President Pinera of Chile. Even before the miners were rescued, while they were still underground, Franklin interviewed them via a makeshift phone that connected them to the surface. "I sat in this container where you could pick up a phone, dial eleven, and the phone would ring down below," says Franklin, who developed such a bond of trust with the miners that they described in great detail the dramatic first 17 days of their confinement. Cut off from the outside..."

A real-life mix of The X-Files and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Mezrich "writes vividly and grippingly...A terrific story...[that] will make a heck of a movie" (The Washington Post). Here is the "fascinating" (Publishers Weekly) true story of a computer programmer who tracks paranormal events in remote areas of the western United States and is drawn deeper and deeper into a mysterious conspiracy.Like Agent Mulder of The X-Files, microchip engineer and sheriff's deputy Chuck Zukowski is obsessed with tracking down UFO reports in Colorado. He even takes the family with him on weekend trips to look for evidence of aliens. But this innocent hobby takes on a sinister urgency when Zukowski learns of mutilated livestock--whose exsanguination is inexplicable by any known human or animal means. Along an expanse of land stretching across the southern borders of Utah, Colorado, and Kansas, Zukowski documents hundreds of bizarre incidences of mutilations, and discovers that they stretch through the heart of America. His pursuit of the truth draws him deeper into a vast conspiracy, and he journeys from Roswell and Area 51 to the Pentagon and beyond; from underground secret military caverns to Native American sacred sites; and to wilderness areas where strange, unexplained lights traverse the sky at extraordinary speeds. Inspiring and terrifying, Mezrich's "dramatic narrative...connects dots we didn't even know existed...Something's clearly happening out there in the high meadows and along desert highways" (Kirkus Reviews). The 37th Parallel will make you, too, wonder if we are really alone.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE - A KIRKUS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR - In this intimate legal and historical detective story, the world-renowned lawyer and acclaimed author of East West Street traces the footsteps of two of the twentieth century's most merciless criminals--accused of genocide and crimes against humanity--testing the limits of immunity and impunity after Nuremberg.

"Though nearly a decade in the making, this book could not arrive at a better time, because its subject is one of the most pressing themes of our era: impunity. . . . Sands has created an indelible and enthralling work of moral witness." --Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing

On the evening of October 16, 1998, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested at a medical clinic in London. After a brutal, seventeen-year reign marked by assassinations, disappearances, and torture--frequently tied to the infamous detention center at the heart of Santiago, Londres 38--Pinochet was being indicted for international crimes and extradition to Spain, opening the door to criminal charges that would follow him to the grave, in 2006.

Three decades earlier, on the evening of December 3, 1962, SS-Commander Walter Rauff was arrested in his home in Punta Arenas, at the southern tip of Chile. As the overseer of the development and use of gas vans in World War II, he was indicted for the mass murder of tens of thousands of Jews and faced extradition to West Germany.

Would these uncommon criminals be held accountable? Were their stories connected? The Nuremberg Trials--where Rauff's crimes had first been read into the record, in 1945--opened the door to universal jurisdiction, and Pinochet's case would be the first effort to ensnare a former head of state.

In this unique blend of memoir, courtroom drama, and travelogue, Philippe Sands gives us a front row seat to the Pinochet trial--where he acted as a barrister for Human Rights Watch--and teases out the dictator's unexpected connection to a leading Nazi who ended up managing a king crab cannery in Patagonia. A decade-long journey exposes the chilling truth behind the lives of two men and their intertwined destinies on 38 Londres Street.

Declared "the best survival book in a decade" by Outside Magazine, 438 Days is the true story of the man who survived fourteen months in a small boat drifting seven thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean.

On November 17, 2012, two men left the coast of Mexico for a weekend fishing trip in the open Pacific. That night, a violent storm ambushed them as they were fishing eighty miles offshore. As gale force winds and ten-foot waves pummeled their small, open boat from all sides and nearly capsized them, captain Salvador Alvarenga and his crewmate cut away a two-mile-long fishing line and began a desperate dash through crashing waves as they sought the safety of port.

Fourteen months later, on January 30, 2014, Alvarenga, now a hairy, wild-bearded and half-mad castaway, washed ashore on a nearly deserted island on the far side of the Pacific. He could barely speak and was unable to walk. He claimed to have drifted from Mexico, a journey of some seven thousand miles.

A "gripping saga," (Daily Mail), 438 Days is the first-ever account of one of the most amazing survival stories in modern times. Based on dozens of hours of exclusive interviews with Alvarenga, his colleagues, search-and-rescue officials, the remote islanders who found him, and the medical team that saved his life, 438 Days is not only "an intense, immensely absorbing read" (Booklist) but an unforgettable study of the resilience, will, ingenuity and determination required for one man to survive more than a year lost and adrift at sea.

A one-of-a-kind guide to fifty of the most important cultural and historic sites in the United States guaranteed to fascinate, educate, and entertain--selected and described by the former director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.From Massachusetts to Florida to Washington to California, 50 Great American Places takes you on a journey through our nation's history. Sharing the inside stories of sites as old as Mesa Verde (Colorado) and Cahokia (Illinois) and as recent as Silicon Valley (California) and the Mall of America (Minnesota), each essay provides the historical context for places that represent fundamental American themes: the compelling story of democracy and self-government; the dramatic impact of military conflict; the powerful role of innovation and enterprise; the inspiring achievements of diverse cultural traditions; and the defining influence of the land and its resources. Expert historian Brent D. Glass explores these themes by connecting places, people, and events and reveals a national narrative that is often surprising, sometimes tragic, and always engaging--complete with photographs, websites for more information, and suggestions for other places nearby worth visiting. Sites you would expect to read about--in Boston, New York, and Washington, DC--are here, as well as plenty of surprises, such as the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, or Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, or the Village Green in Hudson, Ohio; less obvious places that, together with the more well-known destinations, collectively tell the story of America. For families who want to take a trip that is both educational and entertaining, for history enthusiasts, or anyone curious about our country's greatest places, this book is the perfect guide.