Nonfiction

When WikiLeaks first came to prominence in 2010 by releasing 2,325,961 top-secret State Department cables, the world saw for the first time what the US really thought about national leaders, friendly dictators and supposed allies. It also discovered the dark truths of national policies, human rights violations, covert operations and cover-ups.

The WikiLeaks Files is the first volume that uses experts to collate the most important cables and shows their historic importance. The book explores in a series of chapters covering the major regions of the world how the US Empire has imposed its will. It reveals how the US imposes its agenda on the world: a new form of imperialism that uses a variety of tactics from torture and military action, to trade deals and "soft power," in order to expand its influence. It shows the details of the close relationship between government and big business in promoting US goods around the world.

The WikiLeaks Files is the most comprehensive analysis of US State department cables to date. The introduction by Julian Assange--for the first time--exposes the on-going debates on freedom of information, international surveillance and justice.

Regional expert contributors include Dan Beeton, Phyllis Bennis, Michael Busch, Peter Certo, Conn Hallinan, Sarah Harrison, Richard Heydarian, Dahr Jamail, Jake Johnston, Alexander Main, Robert Naiman, Francis Njubi Nesbitt, Linda Pearson, Gareth Porter, Tim Shorrock, Russ Wellen, and Stephen Zunes.

A Best Nonfiction Book of 2012: "The Boston Globe," "Entertainment Weekly
"A Best Book of the Year: NPR, "St. Louis Dispatch, Vogue"
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State--and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, "Wild" powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

On an expedition that will last three months, he takes us deep into a remarkable world of swamp and jungle, from the hideouts of runaway slaves to the vegetation-strangled remnants of penal colonies and forts, from "Little Paris" to a settlement built around a satellite launch pad. He recounts the complicated, often surprisingly bloody, history of the region--including the infamous 1978 cult suicide at Jonestown--and introduces us to its inhabitants: from the world's largest ants to fluorescent purple frogs to head-crushing jaguars; from indigenous tribes who still live by sorcery to descendants of African slaves, Dutch conquerors, Hmong refugees, Irish adventurers, and Scottish outlaws; from high-tech pirates to hapless pioneers for whom this stunning, strangely beautiful world ("a sort of X-rated Garden of Eden") has become home by choice or by force.

In Wild Coast, John Gimlette guides us through a fabulously entertaining, eye-opening--and sometimes jaw-dropping--journey.

THE WILD DUCK CHASE is the basis for "The Million Dollar Duck," a documentary feature film, directed by Brian Golden Davis and written by Martin J. Smith, premiering at The Slamdance Film Festival in January 2016. The book takes readers into the peculiar world of competitive duck painting as it played out during the 2010 Federal Duck Stamp Contest-the only juried art competition run by the U.S. government. Since 1934, the duck stamp, which is bought annually by hunters to certify their hunting license, has generated more than $750 million, and 98 cents of each collected dollar has been used to help purchase or lease 5.3 million acres of waterfowl habitat in the United States.

As Martin J. Smith chronicles in his revealing narrative, within the microcosm of the duck stamp contest are intense ideological and cultural clashes between the mostly rural hunters who buy the stamps and the mostly suburban and urban birders and conservationists who decry the hunting of waterfowl. The competition also fuels dynamic tensions between competitors and judges, and among the invariably ambitious, sometimes obsessive and eccentric artists--including Minnesota's three fabled Hautman brothers, the "New York Yankees" of competitive duck painting. Martin Smith takes readers down an arcane and uniquely American rabbit hole into a wonderland of talent, ego, art, controversy, scandal, big money, and migratory waterfowl.

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 of all species could disappear by the end of the century, and scientists now concede that most of America's endangered animals will survive only if conservationists keep rigging the world around them in their favor. So Mooallem ventures into the field, often taking his daughter with him, to move beyond childlike fascination and make those creatures feel more real. Wild Ones is a tour through our environmental moment and the eccentric cultural history of people and wild animals in America that inflects it--from Thomas Jefferson's celebrations of early abundance to the turn-of the-last-century origins of the teddy bear to the whale-loving hippies of the 1970s. With propulsive curiosity and searing wit, and without the easy moralizing and nature worship of environmental journalism's older guard, Wild Ones merges reportage, science, and history into a humane and endearing meditation on what it means to live in, and bring a life into, a broken world.

Told in lively and affectionate prose, this treasure trove of information for a student, librarian, parent, or anyone wondering about the post-Harry Potter children's book biz brings contemporary illumination to the warm-and-fuzzy bunny world we think we know.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The true story behind Jon Krakauer's bestselling novel and Sean Penn's acclaimed film Into the Wild, from the sister of Chris McCandless, filling in questions about Chris' journey of self-discovery and the dysfunctional childhood that pushed him to brave the Alaskan wilderness alone

The Wild Truth is an important book on two fronts: It sets the record straight about a story that has touched thousands of readers, and it opens up a conversation about hideous domestic violence hidden behind a mask of prosperity and propriety.-NPR.org

The spellbinding story of Chris McCandless, who gave away his savings, hitchhiked to Alaska, walked into the wilderness alone, and starved to death in 1992, fascinated not just New York Times bestselling author Jon Krakauer, but also the rest of the nation. Krakauer's book, Into the Wild, became an international bestseller, translated into thirty-one languages, and Sean Penn's inspirational film by the same name further skyrocketed Chris McCandless to global fame. But the real story of Chris's life and his journey has not yet been told - until now. The missing pieces are finally revealed in The Wild Truth, written by Carine McCandless, Chris's beloved and trusted sister. Featured in both the book and film, Carine has wrestled for more than twenty years with the legacy of her brother's journey to self-discovery, and now tells her own story while filling in the blanks of his. Carine was Chris's best friend, the person with whom he had the closest bond, and who witnessed firsthand the dysfunctional and violent family dynamic that made Chris willing to embrace the harsh wilderness of Alaska. Growing up in the same troubled household, Carine speaks candidly about the deeper reality of life in the McCandless family. In the many years since the tragedy of Chris's death, Carine has searched for some kind of redemption. In this touching and deeply personal memoir, she reveals how she has learned that real redemption can only come from speaking the truth.

Part of John Muir's appeal to modern readers is that he not only explored the American West and wrote about its beauties but also fought for their preservation. His successes dot the landscape and are evident in all the natural features that bear his name: forests, lakes, trails, and glaciers. Here collected are some of Muir's finest wilderness essays, ranging in subject matter from Alaska to Yellowstone, from Oregon to the High Sierra.

This book is part of a series that celebrates the tradition of literary naturalists--writers who embrace the natural world as the setting for some of our most euphoric and serious experiences. These books map the intimate connections between the human and the natural world. Literary naturalists transcend political boundaries, social concerns, and historical milieus; they speak for what Henry Beston called the "other nations" of the planet. Their message acquires more weight and urgency as wild places become increasingly scarce.