NONFICTION

NONFICTION
"The Orientalist": Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life
Part history, part cultural biography, and part literary mystery, "The Orientalist" traces the life of Lev Nussimbaum, a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince and became a best-selling author in Nazi Germany.
Born in 1905 to a wealthy family in the oil-boom city of Baku, at the edge of the czarist empire, Lev escaped the Russian Revolution in a camel caravan. He found refuge in Germany, where, writing under the names Essad Bey and Kurban Said, his remarkable books about Islam, desert adventures, and global revolution, became celebrated across fascist Europe. His enduring masterpiece, Ali and Nino-a story of love across ethnic and religious boundaries, published on the eve of the Holocaust-is still in print today.
But Lev's life grew wilder than his wildest stories. He married an international heiress who had no idea of his true identity -- until she divorced him in a tabloid scandal. His closest friend in New York, George Sylvester Viereck -- also a friend of both Freud's and Einstein's -- was arrested as the leading Nazi agent in the United States. Lev was invited to be Mussolini's official biographer -- until the Fascists discovered his "true" identity. Under house arrest in the Amalfi cliff town of Positano, Lev wrote his last book-discovered in a half a dozen notebooks never before read by anyone -- helped by a mysterious half-German salon hostess, an Algerian weapons-smuggler and the poet Ezra Pound.
The result is a thoroughly unexpected picture of the twentieth century -- of the origins of our ideas about race and religious self-definition, and of the roots of modern fanaticism and terrorism. Written with grace and infused with wonder, "The Orientalist" is an astonishing book.
FICTION
"Your Favorite Seuss": A Baker's Dozen from the One and only Dr. Seuss
"Today is your day. Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way." Since "Dr. Seuss" debuted in 1950, millions of young readers have gained their word-climbing skills under his gentle guidance. Your Favorite Seuss is a celebration of the wizardry of Theodore Seuss Geisel (1904-91). This family-pleasing anthology contains 13 classic Dr. Seuss stories, including "The Cat in the Hat", "Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Story", "Horton Hears a Who!", "If I Ran the Zoo", "Yertle the Turtle", "Green Eggs and Ham", "The Lorax" and more. Each story is prefaced by a short essay by a Seussian enthusiast. Among the contributors are Stan and Jan Berenstain; John Lithgow; Pete Seeger; Christopher Cerf; and Audrey Geisel, Dr. Seuss' widow.