Dennis Gaffney is an adjunct professor at the University at Albany–SUNY, and also a journalist who has written for The New York Times, Mother Jones, Reader’s Digest, and The American Experience website. Dennis has published Teachers United, about the modern-day teachers’ movement. Peter Gaffney is senior vice-president of Programming, Scheduling, and Acquisitions for History. The first Seven-Day Scholar book written by the Gaffney brothers was on the Civil War.
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February 28, 2011
The Seven-Day Scholar: Exploring History One Week at a Time
Click here for a sample chapter about Fort Sumter and the beginning of the Civil War
Click here for a sample chapter about the end of the Civil War
“A bite of history a day, all year long.”
Flawless storytelling, expert research, and a whole new way of providing history in intriguing, one-page essays makes The Seven-Day Scholar: The Civil War a book that anyone interested in the topic will want on their bookshelf.
This volume in the Seven-Day Scholar series brings to life significant moments in our nation’s heroic tragedy, the Civil War, and coincides with its 150th anniversary. The book is organized into fifty-two chapters, corresponding to the weeks in a year; and each week has a theme—what ignited the war, Antietam, soldiers’ food and drink, the 54th Massachusetts, the Gettysburg Address, Vicksburg, medical care, Lincoln’s assassination, why the North won, and many more. Each chapter includes seven related narrative entries, one for every day of the week. These one-page entries, which read like historical fiction, bring to life crucial political decisions, unforgettable people, key battlefield moments, scholarly debates, and struggles on the home front.
The book also explores many little-known episodes, answering questions such as:
- Why did Jefferson and Varina Davis take in a mixed-race child during the war?
- What were the causes of riots in New York City and Richmond?
- Why was General William Sherman demoted for “insanity”?
- Why did the Union Army turn Robert E. Lee’s estate into a cemetery?
Entries also include follow-up resources where curious readers can learn more.
Readers can sweep through the book from beginning to end, or use it as a reference book, periodically dipping in and out of topics they want to explore. This is the perfect book for history buffs, and for those who missed out on learning about this captivating period in American history.
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth
Also available as a Hyperion Audio book, click for a sample.
In a smart, entertaining, reassuring book that reads like fiction, Alexandra Robbins manages to cross Gossip Girl with Freaks and Geeks and explain the fascinating psychology and science behind popularity and outcasthood. She reveals that the things that set students apart in high school are the things that help them stand out later in life.
Robbins follows seven real people grappling with the uncertainties of high school social life, including:
- The Loner, who has withdrawn from classmates since they persuaded her to unwittingly join her own hate club;
- The Popular Bitch, a cheerleading captain both seduced by and trapped within her clique’s perceived prestige;
- The Nerd, whose differences cause students to laugh at him and his mother to needle him for not being “normal”;
- The New Girl, determined to stay positive as classmates harass her for her mannerisms and target her because of her race;
- The Gamer, an underachiever in danger of not graduating, despite his intellect and his yearning to connect with other students;
- The Weird Girl, who battles discrimination and gossipy politics in school but leads a joyous life outside of it;
- The Band Geek, who is alternately branded too serious and too emo, yet annually runs for class president.
In the middle of the year, Robbins surprises her subjects with a secret challenge—experiments that force them to change how classmates see them.
Robbins intertwines these narratives—often triumphant, occasionally heartbreaking, and always captivating—with essays exploring subjects like the secrets of popularity, being excluded doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you, why outsiders succeed, how schools make the social scene worse—and how to fix it.
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth is not just essential reading for students, teachers, parents, and anyone who deals with teenagers, but for all of us, because at some point in our lives we’ve all been on the outside looking in.
Paul Reiser
As a seasoned actor, writer, and stand-up comedian, Paul Reiser has appeared in many films and television shows, including co-creating and starring in the critically acclaimed NBC series Mad About You. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Couplehood and the follow-up, Babyhood. His new show, The Paul Reiser Show, will air on NBC in 2011. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two kids.
Familyhood
For the longest time, based on no evidence other than our own insecurity and sense of incompetence, my wife and I were convinced that we were the flat-out, no-question-about-it, least-skilled parents in the country. Furthermore, we were convinced that every other set of parents we knew was perfect. They were more thorough in going over their kids’ homework, they set better boundaries than we do, didn’t let their kids watch as many hours of TV as we do, raised kids who are unfailingly polite in public and have a far greater sense of community and public service than our underachieving offspring over there on the couch watching SpongeBob. We were certain everybody else’s kids willingly and joyfully eat nothing but healthy foods, shunning all candy and candy-based products, they all sensibly and automatically put on weather-appropriate clothing, and voluntarily call their grandparents with clockwork regularity, giving fully detailed accounts of their numerous accomplishments, ending with testimonials to their wonderful and perfect parents.
Turns out: not so much. At all.
In the number one New York Times bestseller Couplehood, Paul Reiser wrote about the highs and lows of falling in love and getting married—and the heartbreak and hilarity that comes with it. In Babyhood, he turned his sharply observant eye to the experiences of having a brand-new family. And now in Familyhood, Reiser shares his observations on parenting, marriage, and mid-life with the wit, warmth, and humor that he’s so well-known for.
From the first experience of sending his two boys off to summer camp—the early feelings of gleeful freedom in an empty house, to realizing how empty the house actually was—to maneuvering the minefield of bad words learned at school, this hilarious new book captures the spirit of familyhood, the logical next frontier for Reiser’s trademark perspective on the universal truths of life, love, and relationships.
February 22, 2011
Sweet Jiminy
Read an excerpt from Sweet Jiminy
In the throes of a quarter-life crisis, Jiminy Davis abruptly quits law school and flees Chicago for her grandmother Willa’s farm in rural Mississippi. In search of peace and quiet, Jiminy instead stumbles upon more trouble and turmoil than she could have imagined.
She is shocked to discover that there was once another Jiminy—the daughter of her grandmother’s longtime housekeeper, Lyn—who was murdered along with Lyn’s husband four decades earlier in a civil rights–era hate crime. With the help of Lyn’s nephew, Bo, Jiminy sets out to solve the cold case, to the dismay of those who would prefer to let sleeping dogs lie.
Beautifully written, and with a sure grip on the tensions and social mores of small towns in the South, Sweet Jiminy will captivate its readers, and fans of Kristin Gore’s earlier novels will be intrigued and compelled by this new direction for her fiction.
Praise for Kristin Gore and Her Previous Titles
“A beltway Bridget Jones.” —Elle
“Refreshing and charming.” —USA Today
“Juicy.” —Women’s Health
“A lighthearted, fun read.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Funny . . . illuminating and even inspiring.” —Publishers Weekly
“Gore has a sardonic sense of write-what-you-know dictum.” —The Los Angeles Times
“Sweet, smart, sexy.” —The Washington Post Book World
“Smart yet vulnerable . . . a modern-day Mary Tyler Moore.” —The Chicago Sun Times
“A hilarious and suspenseful romp.” —Bookpage
“A delightful read.” —The New York Post
“Sly plot twists and big laughs, and every word rings true.” —Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons
Judy Dutton
Judy Dutton is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Since graduating from Harvard with a degree in English and American Literature, she’s contributed to Cosmopolitan, Maxim, Glamour, Redbook, and other magazines and websites. She is also the author of Secrets from the Sex Lab, an eye-opening look at the most groundbreaking scientific discoveries in the realm of sexual behavior.
Science Fair Season: Twelve Kids, a Robot Named Scorch . . . and What It Takes to Win
Click here for an excerpt from SCIENCE FAIR SEASON
For further excerpts, please visit Judy Dutton’s site at
www.judy-dutton.com
“We must teach our kids that it’s not just the winner of the Superbowl that needs to be celebrated but the winner of the science fair.”—President Obama, State of the Union Address
This is the engaging true story of kids competing in the high-stakes, high-drama world of international science fairs. Every year the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair brings together 1,500 high schoolers from more than 50 countries to compete for over $4 million dollars in prizes and scholarships. These amazing kids are doing everything from creating bionic prosthetics to conducting groundbreaking stem cell research, from training drug-sniffing cockroaches to building a nuclear reactor. In Science Fair Season, Judy Dutton follows twelve teens looking for science fair greatness and tells the gripping stories of their road to the big competition. Some will win, some will lose, but all of their lives are changed forever.
The Intel International Science & Engineering Fair is the most prominent science fair in the country, and it takes a special blend of drive, heart, and smarts to win there. Dutton goes inside the inner sanctum of science fair competitions and reveals the awe-inspiring projects and the competitors there. Each of the kids—ranging from a young Erin Brokovich who made the FBI watch list for taking on a big corporation, to a quietly driven boy who lives in a run-down trailer on a Navajo reservation, to a wealthy Connecticut girl who dreams of being an actress and finds her calling studying bees, to a troubled teenager in a juvenile detention facility, to the next Bill Gates—take readers on an unforgettable journey.
Along the way, Science Fair Season gives readers a glimpse of America’s brightest young minds and shows how our country is still a place for inventors and dreamers—the “geeks” our future depends upon.
Growing Up Laughing (Paperback)
“. . . this one is special.”
—USA Today
Growing Up Laughing is a compelling autobiographical journey—hilarious and heartfelt, intimate and inspiring. It is a book that only Marlo Thomas could write.
For as long as Thomas can remember, she’s lived with laughter. Born to comedy royalty—TV and nightclub star Danny Thomas—she grew up among legendary funny men, carved much of her career in comedy and, to this day, surrounds herself with people who love and live to make others laugh. Thomas takes us on a funny and heartwarming adventure, from her Beverly Hills childhood, to her groundbreaking creation of That Girl and Free to Be . . . You and Me, to her marriage to talk-show king Phil Donahue.
Her youth was star-studded—Milton Berle performed magic tricks (badly) at her backyard birthday parties. George Burns, Bob Hope, Sid Caesar, Bob Newhart and other great comics passed countless hours gathered around her family’s dinner table. And behind it all was the rich laughter nurtured by a close and loving family.
Growing Up Laughing is not just the story of an iconic entertainer, but also the story of comedy. In a voice that is curious, generous and often gleeful, Thomas not only opens the doors on the funny in her own life, but in a series of insightful and hilarious interviews also explores the comic roots of today’s most celebrated comedians.
February 8, 2011
Making Rounds with Oscar – Paperback
A remarkable cat. A life-changing story.
Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat is the story of a doctor who, at first, doesn’t always listen; of the patients he serves; of their caregivers; and, most importantly, of a cat who teaches by example, embracing moments of life that so many of us shy away from.
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