Mariner Books

Many people take math in high school and promptly forget much of it. But math plays a part in all of our lives all of the time, whether we know it or not. In "The Joy of" x, Steven Strogatz expands on his hit "New York Times "series to explain the big ideas of math gently and clearly, with wit, insight, and brilliant illustrations.""Whether he is illuminating how often you should flip your mattress to get the maximum lifespan from it or determining how many people you should date before settling down, Strogatz shows how math connects to every aspect of life. Discussing pop culture, medicine, law, philosophy, art, and business, Strogatz is the math teacher you wish you'd had, and "The Joy of "x""is the book you'll want to give to all your smart and curious friends.

In 1886, Ludwig II, the fairytale king of Bavaria, was deposed after being declared insane by doctors who had never met him. He died mysteriously soon thereafter, his eccentric and beautiful castles his only legacy. Master of historical suspense Oliver Potzsch brings the Mad King back to life in The Ludwig Conspiracy. An encoded diary by one of Ludwig's confidants falls into the hands of modern-day rare-book dealer Steven Lukas, who soon realizes that the diary may bring him more misery than money. Lukas teams up with a beautiful art detective, Sara Lengfeld, to investigate each of Ludwig's three famous castles for clues to crack the diary's code as mysterious thugs and Ludwig's fanatical followers chase them at every step. Just what in the diary could be so explosive?

Underscores the writer s profound erudition, lively wit, and passion for ideas of all shapes and sizes . . . Eco s pleasure in such explorations is obvious and contagious. "Booklist" " Inventing the Enemy" covers a wide range of topics on which Eco has written and lectured over the past ten years: from a disquisition on the theme that runs through his recent novel "The Prague Cemetery" every country needs an enemy, and if it doesn t have one, must invent it to a discussion of ideas that have inspired his earlier novels (and in the process he takes us on an exploration of lost islands, mythical realms, and the medieval world); from indignant reviews of James Joyce s "Ulysses "by fascist journalists of the 1920s and 1930s, to an examination of Saint Thomas Aquinas s notions about the soul of an unborn child, to censorship and violence and WikiLeaks. These are essays full of passion, curiosity, and obsession by one of the world s most esteemed scholars and critically acclaimed, best-selling novelists. True wit and wisdom coexist with fierce scholarship inside Umberto Eco, a writer who actually knows a thing or two about being truly human. "Buffalo News" "Thought provoking . . . nuanced . . . the collection amply shows off Eco's sophisticated, agile mind." " Publishers Weekly""

Umberto Eco s first novel, an international sensation and winner of the Premio Strega and the Prix Medicis Etranger awards The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon all sharpened to a glistening edge by wry humor and a ferocious curiosity. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey, where the most interesting things happen at night. Like the labyrinthine library at its heart, this brilliant novel has many cunning passages and secret chambers . . . Fascinating . . . ingenious . . . dazzling. "Newsweek

The #1 international bestseller, from Umberto Eco, author of "The Name of the Rose" Vintage Eco . . . the book is a triumph. "New York Review of Books" Nineteenth-century Europe from Turin to Prague to Paris abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. Italian republicans strangle priests with their own intestines. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate Black Masses at night. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres. Conspiracies rule history. From the unification of Italy to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Europe is in tumult and everyone needs a scapegoat. But what if, behind all of these conspiracies, both real and imagined, lay one lone man? [Eco] demonstrates once again that his is a voice that compels our attention "San Francisco Chronicle" Choreographed by a truth that is itself so strange a novelist need hardly expand on it to produce a wondrous tale . . . Eco is to be applauded for bringing this stranger-than-fiction truth vividly to life. "New York Times" Classic Eco, with a difference. "Los Angeles Times".

From quiet, elegiac, contemporary tales to far-future, deep-space sagas, the stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Karen Joy Fowler for The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 demonstrate the vast spectrum of what science fiction and fantasy aims to illuminate, displaying the full gamut of the human experience, interrogating our hopes and our fears--of not just what we can accomplish or destroy as a person, but what we can accomplish or destroy as a people--and throwing us into strange new worlds that can only be explored when we shed the shackles of reality. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 includes Rachel Swirsky, Sofia Samatar, Charlie Jane Anders, Ted Chiang, Kelly Link, Maria Dahvana Headley, Kij Johnson, Catherynne M. Valente, Dexter Palmer and others KAREN JOY FOWLER, guest editor, is the author of six novels and four short story collections, including We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. She is the winner of the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award, a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, and has won numerous Nebula and World Fantasy awards. JOHN JOSEPH ADAMS, series editor, is the best-selling editor of more than two dozen anthologies, including Brave New Worlds and Wastelands. He is the editor and publisher of the digital magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare and is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, a new science fiction/fantasy novel imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Why do I travel? Why does anyone of us travel? Bill Bryson poses these questions in his introduction to The Best American Travel Writing 2016, and though he admits, -I wasn't at all sure I knew the answer, - they are questions worthy of examination. While the various contributors to this collection all travel for different reasons, one thing is for certain--they come back with stories. Whether traversing the Arctic by dogsled, attending a surreal film festival in North Korea, or strolling the streets of a fast-changing Havana, their insights into the world and the human condition are illuminating and enthralling, providing an answer: This is why I like to travel. The Best American Travel Writing 2016 includes Michael Chabon, Alice Gregory, Paul Theroux, Dave Eggers, Helen Macdonald, Sara Corbett, Stephanie Pearson, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Pico Iyer, and others BILL BRYSON, guest editor, is the best-selling author of A Walk in the Woods; A Short History of Nearly Everything; One Summer: America, 1927; The Road to Little Dribbling; and numerous other books. JASON WILSON, series editor, is the author of Boozehound: On the Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated in Spirits; Spaghetti on the Wall; and the forthcoming Why Wine Matters. He has written for the Washington Post Magazine, The New Yorker, the New York Times, and many other publications, and has won awards for Best Food Column from the Association of Food Journalists four times.

A true essay is something hazarded, not definitive, not authoritative; something ventured on the basis of the author s personal experience and subjectivity, writes guest editor Jonathan Franzen in his introduction. However, his main criterion for selecting The Best American Essays 2016 was, in a word, risk. Whether the risks involved championing an unpopular opinion, the possibility of ruining a professional career, or irrevocably offending family, for Franzen, the writer has to be like the firefighter, whose job, while everyone else is fleeing the flames, is to run straight into them. The Best American Essays 2016 includes ALEXANDER CHEE, PAUL CRENSHAW, JAQUIRA DIAZ, LAURA KIPNIS, AMITAVA KUMAR, SEBASTIAN JUNGER, JOYCE CAROL OATES, OLIVER SACKS, THOMAS CHATTERTON WILLIAMS and others JONATHAN FRANZEN, guest editor, is the author of five novels, most recently Purity, and five works of nonfiction and translation, including Farther Away and The Kraus Project. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the German Akademie der Kunste, and the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. ROBERT ATWAN, the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986, has published on a wide variety of subjects, from American advertising and early photography to ancient divination and Shakespeare. His criticism, essays, humor, poetry, and fiction have appeared in numerous periodicals nationwide.

-What you'll find in this volume are stories that demonstrate a mastery of plotting; stories that compel you to keep turning the pages because of plot and because of setting; stories that wield suspense like a sword; stories of people getting their comeuppance; stories that utilize superb point of view; stories that plumb one particular and unfortunate attribute of a character, - promises guest editor Elizabeth George in her introduction. The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 is a feast of both literary crime and hard-boiled detection, featuring a seemingly innocent murderer, a drug dealer in love, a drunken prank gone terribly wrong, and plenty of other surprising twists and turns. The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 includes STEVE ALMOND, MEGAN ABBOTT, MATT BELL, LYDIA FITZPATRICK, TOM FRANKLIN, STEPHEN KING, ELMORE LEONARD, KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH and others ELIZABETH GEORGE, guest editor, is the New York Times and internationally best-selling author of twenty British crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his unconventional partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. Her crime novels have been translated into thirty languages and featured on television by the BBC. OTTO PENZLER, series editor, is a renowned mystery editor, publisher, columnist, and owner of New York's The Mysterious Bookshop, the oldest and largest bookstores solely dedicated to mystery fiction. He has edited more than fifty crime-fiction anthologies.

"The literary 'Oscars' features twenty outstanding examples of the best of the best in American short stories." --Shelf Awareness for Readers The Best American Short Stories 2016 will be selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz. He brings "one of the most distinctive and magnetic voices in contemporary fiction: limber, streetwise, caffeinated and wonderfully eclectic" (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times) to the collection.

"One could imagine it becoming required reading on Wall Street."--New York Times Book Review So, you've earned a seat at the table. What happens next? We all face hard decisions every day and the choices we make, and how others perceive them, can be life-changing. There are countless books on how to make those tough calls, but How Women Decide is the first to examine a much overlooked truth: men and women approach decisions differently, and often in surprising ways. Stress? It makes women more focused. Confidence? Caution can lead to stronger decisions. And despite popular misconceptions, women are just as decisive as men--though they may pay for it. Pulling from the latest science on decision-making, as well as lively stories of real women and their experiences, cognitive scientist Therese Huston teaches us how we can best shape our habits, perceptions, and strategies, not just to make the most of our own opportunities, but to reshape the culture and bring out the best decisions--regardless of who's making them. "I thought I had read everything I needed to read on gender differences, but, as a CEO, this book showed me a new and critically important area in which we need to be very aware of our biases and take the steps Huston recommends to address them."--Anne-Marie Slaughter, author of Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family and president and CEO of New America.

From one of Korea's literary stars, a novel about two orphans from the streets of Seoul: one becomes the head of a powerful motorcycle gang, and the other follows him at all costs In South Korea, underground motorcycle gangs attract society's castoffs. They form groups of hundreds and speed wildly through cities at night. For Jae and Dongyu, two orphans, their motorcycles are a way of survival. Jae is born in a bathroom stall at the Seoul Express Bus Terminal. And Dongyu is born mute--unable to communicate with anyone except Jae. Both boys grow up on the streets of Seoul among runaway teenagers, con men, prostitutes, religious fanatics, and thieves. After years navigating the streets, Jae becomes an icon for uprooted teenagers, bringing an urgent message to them and making his way to the top of the gang. Under his leadership, the group grows more aggressive and violent--and soon becomes the police's central target. A novel of friendship--worship and betrayal, love and loathing--and a searing portrait of what it means to come of age with nothing to call your own, I Hear Your Voice resonates with mythic power. Here is acclaimed author Young-ha Kim's most daring novel to date.

Male literary friendships are the stuff of legend, but what about the friendships of women writers? A Secret Sisterhood, drawing on letters and diaries, some never published before, brings to light a wealth of surprising female collaborations: the friendship between Jane Austen and one of the family servants, amateur playwright Anne Sharp; the daring feminist author Mary Taylor, who shaped the work of Charlotte Brontë; the transatlantic friendship of the seemingly aloof George Eliot and the ebullient Harriet Beecher Stowe; and Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield, most often portrayed as bitter foes, but who, in fact, enjoyed a complex friendship. They were sometimes scandalous and volatile, sometimes supportive and inspiring, but always--until now--tantalizingly consigned to the shadows.

Reading this book should be at the top of your To Do list. Life Adminwill give you many hours of your life back. Every day an unseen form of labor creeps into our livesstealing precious moments of free time, placing a strain on our schedules and our relationships, and earning neither appreciation nor compensation in return. This labor is life admin: the kind of secretarial and managerial work necessary to run a life and a household. Elizabeth Emens was a working mother with two young children, swamped like so many of us, when she realized that this invisible labor was consuming her. Desperate to survive and to help others along the way, she conducted interviews and focus groups to gather favorite tips and tricks, admin confessions, and the secrets of admin-happy households. Life Admintackles the problem of admin in all its forms, from everyday tasks like scheduling doctors appointments and paying bills, to life-cycle events like planning a wedding, a birth, a funeral. Emens explores how this labor is created, how it affects our lives, and how we might avoid, reduce, and redistribute admin whenever possibleas individuals and as a society. Life Adminis the book that will teach us all how to do less of it, and to do it better.

A candid guide for ambitious women who want to succeed without losing themselves in the process Fran Hauser deconstructs the negative perception of "niceness" that many women struggle with in the business world. If women are nice, they are seen as weak and ineffective, but if they are tough, they are labeled a bitch. Hauser proves that women don't have to sacrifice their values or hide their authentic personalities to be successful. Sharing a wealth of personal anecdotes and time-tested strategies, she shows women how to reclaim "nice" and sidestep regressive stereotypes about what a strong leader looks like. Her accessible advice and hard-won wisdom detail how to balance being empathetic with being decisive, how to rise above the double standards that can box you in, how to cultivate authentic confidence that projects throughout a room, and much more. THE MYTH OF THE NICE GIRL is a refreshing dose of forward-looking feminism that will resonate with smart, professional women who know what they want and are looking for real advice to take their career to the next level without losing themselves in the process.

Gustav Klimt gave Alma her first kiss. Gustav Mahler fell in love with her at first sight and proposed only a few weeks later. Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius abandoned all reason to pursue her. Poet and novelist Franz Werfel described her as "one of the very few magical women that exist." But who was this woman who brought these most eminent of men to their knees? In Ecstasy, Mary Sharratt finally gives one of the most controversial and complex women of her time the centre stage. Coming of age in the midst of a creative and cultural whirlwind, young, beautiful Alma Schindler yearns to make her mark as a composer. A brand-new era of possibility for women is dawning and she is determined to make the most of it. But Alma loses her heart to the great composer Gustav Mahler, nearly twenty years her senior. He demands that she give up her music as a condition for their marriage. Torn by her love and in awe of his genius, how will she remain true to herself and her artistic passion?Part cautionary tale, part triumph of the feminist spirit, Ecstasy reveals the true Alma Mahler: composer, author, daughter, sister, mother, wife, lover, and muse.