Houghton: 1009 books

Written by the medical officer of the Mariposa Battalion, the first group of Euro-Americans ever to enter Yosemite Valley, the book chronicles a number of key historical events beginning in 1851 including discovery, the Yosemite Indian conflicts, the naming of various landmarks and more. And what makes it so valuable is Dr. Bunnell's first-person perspective.

A horrifying journey through a devastated city, an eighty-year voyage to an Earth-like exoplanet: set in the last decades of the twenty-second century, Another World features one man's struggle to survive against all the odds, as the clock counts down to the coming Apocalypse.

A corpse is resurrected and apprenticed to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for seven days. During the course of the week, he tries to remember how he died, accompanies Death on his daily round, and learns what it means to be undead. Printed editions: The Apprentice (UK, 1999); Damned If You Do...

Poetry about places—from a supermarket to a strip club to a suburban home—from a poet who “seeks what lies at the deepest level of the human heart” (Chicago Tribune).   In Night of the Republic, Alan Shapiro takes us on an unsettling night tour of America’s public places—a gas station...

An American woman determined to learn the Arabic language travels to the Middle East to pursue her dream in this “witty memoir” (Us Weekly). The shadda is the key difference between a pigeon (hamam) and a bathroom (hammam). Be careful, our professor advised, that you don’t ask a waiter,...

From the author of Gettysburg: A “valuable” collection of the letters of this controversial Civil War general (James M. McPherson, The New York Review of Books).   No one played as many major roles during the Civil War as Gen. George B. McClellan, nor did any other figure write such candid letters...

A novel about a wine enthusiast’s descent into addiction, and “the cheerful face that money can put on an unhappy life” (Publishers Weekly).   After dedicating countless hours to building his software company—an effort that yields him a fortune—Wilberforce walks into a London restaurant,...

An obsessively readable memoir about the passions—and perils—of collecting, from the New York Times–bestselling author of Just My Type.   From the Penny Red to the Blue Mauritius, generations of collectors have been drawn to the mystique of rare stamps. Once a widespread pastime of schoolboys,...

In 1631 Elizabeth Winthrop, newly widowed with an infant daughter, set sail for the New World. In those days of hardship, famine, and Indian attack, there was only one way, in the minds of the governors of the Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut colonies, to hold together the sanity and identity of...

This journalist’s portrait of life in Iran just after the Revolution is “a book of great economy and power [with] a supreme sense of the absurd” (New Republic). Iran, 1980: the revolutionaries have taken charge. In a deserted Teheran hotel, Ryszard Kapuściński tries to make journalistic...

The first-ever collection of prizewinning Bake-Off dessert recipes For more than 50 years, the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest has showcased the most delicious, exciting and uniquely American recipes our country's home cooks have to offer. Now this all-in-one collection of desserts from this legendary...

This true, up-close account of a volcano’s eruption “artfully blends science writing and history with pure, heart-pounding action” (Mark Bowden, bestselling author of Black Hawk Down). In 1993, Stanley Williams, an eminent volcanologist, was standing on top of a Colombian volcano called...

This “sophisticated collection of 100 cookie recipes” from the legendary pastry chef will take you “well beyond the basic chocolate chip cookie” (Publishers Weekly). For three generations, François Payard’s family has been pleasing palates with mouth-watering pastries and confectionaries....

This small but concise book provides two powerful components of language learning. First, a brief introduction describes how each individual is hardwired for language learning and gives tips to tap into this natural language ability. This introduction is further broken out into sections: “Why this...