Books

Five biographies of dynamic -- sometimes despotic -- female leaders.

Cats: They're furry, they're playful, and even if they don't seem to need us, they do sometimes knead us. Editor Diana Secker Tesdell has pulled together stories that celebrate our feline friends by authors including P. G. Wodehouse, Doris Lessing, Dam...

Readers can now add these newly compiled snapshots of Captain Robert Scott's doomed polar expedition to the treasure trove of you-are-there historical photos. Taken by Scott himself in the early stages of the trip and curated by David M. Wilson, a...

Classic works of fiction and nonfiction from the broadcaster's bookshelf.

Carrie Fisher's follow-up to her best-selling Wishful Drinking shuttles us through stories about her roller-coaster relationships with her father, Eddie Fisher, as well as with fame (brought on by her role as Princess Leia in the Star Wars films), drug...

New and time-tested guides to loading the family table with seasonal riches.

The musician and memoirist recommends classic page-turners from Dumas, Stevenson, and Herbert.

A romantic tale of intrigue as stylish as a bespoke gown. The epic story of Sira Quiroga, a young seamstress who reinvents herself, first as a couturier and then as a spy, is woven against the vivid backdrops of Madrid and Morocco during World War II. ...

Every family has its quirks, but wait until you meet Meir Shalev's Grandma Tonia. This warm, delightful memoir by the Israeli author of the novel A Pigeon and a Boy introduces readers to an unforgettable woman whose battle with dirt mirrors the struggl...

Some cities have so much personality, they're practically people. And in Simon Sebag Montefiore's new history of that elderly entity dubbed Jerusalem, we discover a complex character eternally at the heart of Western civilization. Highlighting the 3000...

Swine flu. Bird flu. SARS. Influenza and even ebola. Nathan Wolfe, globe-trotting Stanford biologist, surveys the modern pandemic landscape, offering grim lessons on mankind's relationship with the various microbes that routinely threaten civilization ...

Perhaps most famous for her debut novel, The Sunne in Splendour, about Richard III, Penman now turns her attentions further back to that king's namesake, Richard I, the Lionheart. Dividing her plot between affairs of state and heart in England and Rich...