Immodest Acts

Sample

Michael Gates Gill

In his fifties, Michael Gates Gill had it all: a big house, a loving family, and a six-figure salary. By sixty, he had lost everything: downsized at work, divorced at home, and diagnosed with a slow-growing brain tumor, Gill had no money, no insurance, and no prospects. He took a job at Starbucks, and for the first time in his life, he was a minority--the only older white guy working with a team of young African-Americans. He was forced to acknowledge his prejudices and admit that his new job was hard. And his younger coworkers, despite half the education and twice the personal difficulties, were running circles around him. Crossing over the Starbucks bar was the beginning of a transformation that cracked his world wide open. When all of his defenses and the armor of entitlement had been stripped away, a humbler, happier and gentler man remained.--From publisher description.

Sample

Richard Woodfield

To the extent that any art historian becomes "famous," Sir Ernst Gombrich is the most famous art historian in the world. He is the author of the seminal work The Story of Art, a staunch champion of the traditional canon, and a perceptive analyst of artistry and illusion. This massive collection includes essays, excerpts from the groundbreaking Art and Illusion, autobiographical notes, and reflections on artists from Raphael to Saul Steinberg. Gombrich is not a modernist, and he has been criticized for his misunderstanding of abstract painting; but his conceptions of art encompass modern psychology and history, the study of gesture and ornament, and the social history of art. Above all, Gombrich stands against sweeping generalizations, maintaining that works of art "are not the results of some mysterious activity, but objects made by human beings for human beings."

Sample

David Finkel

"Finkel, a journalist, follows the soldiers who serve in the Iraq War as they struggle to reintegrate into American society"--

Sample

Luis Carlos Montalván

"Tuesday has a personality that shines. I am not kidding when I say it is common for people to pull out their cell phones and take pictures of and with him. Tuesday is that kind of dog. And then, in passing, they notice me, the big man with the tight haircut. There is nothing about me--even the straight, stiff way I carry myself--that signals disabled. Until people notice the cane in my left hand, that is, and the way I lean on it every few steps. Then they realize my stiff walk and straight posture aren't just pride, and that Tuesday isn't just an ordinary dog. He walks directly beside me, for instance, so that my right leg always bisects his body. He nuzzles me when my breathing changes, and he moves immediately between me and the object--a cat, an overeager child, a suspiciously closed door--any time I feel apprehensive. Because beautiful, happy-go-lucky, favorite-of-the-neighborhood Tuesday isn't my pet; he's my service dog." Captain Luis Montalvan returned home from his second tour of duty in Iraq, having survived stab wounds, a traumatic brain injury, and three broken vertebrae. But the pressures of civilian life and his injuries proved too much to bear. Physical disabilities, agoraphobia, and crippling PTSD drove him to the edge of suicide. That's when he met Tuesday - his best friend forever. Tuesday came with his own history of challenges: from the Puppies Behind Bars program, to a home for troubled boys, to the streets of Manhattan, Tuesday blessed many lives on his way to Luis. Until Tuesday unforgettably twines the story of man and dog"--