This first major biography of the most romanticized icon in jazz thrillingly recounts his wild ride. From his emergence in the 1950s--when an uncannily beautiful young man from Oklahoma appeard on the West Coast to become, seemingly overnight, the prince of "cool" jazz--until his violent, drug-related death in Amsterdam in 1988, Chet Baker lived a life that has become an American myth. Here, drawing on hundreds of interviews and previously untapped sources, James Gavin gives a hair-raising account of the trumpeter's dark journey.

In New York City, at a time of great changes, a disillusioned young woman seeks escape from the broken civilization she has become trapped in. The untimely death of her estranged father casts doubt on everything she thought she knew about her family and a disquieting inheritance falls into her unsteady hands. Puzzling discoveries are made at her ancestral home, ultimately leading her into an untamed wilderness seeking answers to her mounting questions. Once there, she is drawn toward an ancient Native American shrine where her arrival is eagerly awaited and all is not what it seems. A trio of diverse companions make the trek at her side: James; a drug-addled New Yorker struggling to be reborn, Danielle; a free-spirited California girl whose love knows no bounds, and Kevin; a thick-skulled, thick-skinned good ol' boy from the hills of upstate New York. Though each of them joins the expedition for reasons of their own, it is not long before a greater purpose emerges. It quickly becomes apparent that the power of choice is both a blessing and a curse as the supernatural journey of self-discovery takes a deadly turn. The adventurers are forced to evolve or die in a confrontation with an antediluvian terror, even as they strive to discover their roles in the continuing evolution of mankind and the uncertain future that lies ahead. One thing alone is certain: the changes taking place within them have an external counterpart, and the world they left behind is not the world the survivors will return to.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Rising from humble beginnings, the life of Neil Harl shows that with hard work and perseverance anything is possible. About the Author Dr. Neil E. Harl is a Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture and Life Sciences and Emeritus Professor of Economics at Iowa State University. He received a bachelor of science degree from Iowa State in 1955, a Juris Doctor (law) from the from the University of Iowa in 1961, and a PhD in economics from Iowa State University in 1965. He served as director of the Center for International Agricultural Economics Association Foundation. He served as president of the American Agricultural Law Association, the American Agricultural Economics Association, and the American Agricultural Economics Association Foundation. He served as director of the Center for International Agricultural Finance from its founding in 1990 through 2004. He served on six federal commissions, including the task force on Farm Tax Policy (1967); the Advisory Committee to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue (1979-80) the Advisory Committee on Agricultural Biotechnology (2000-2002), and the Commission on the Application of Payment Limitations for Agriculture (2003). Dr. Harl was named the first Farm Leader of the Year by the Des Moines Register and received the Iowa Distinguished Service Award from the State of Iowa, The Distinguished Service to State Government Award from the National Governors’ Association, and the designation of Fellow from the American Agricultural Economics Association. In 2006, Dr. Harl received the Award for Service to American and World Agriculture from the National Association of County Agricultural Agents. Dr. Harl is the author or co-author of more than 450 publications in legal and economic journals and bulletins, and more than a thousand in various farm and financial publications. He has spoken widely on income tax, estate planning, debtor-creditor relations, and organization of the farm business, with more than 3,400 speaking appearances in forty-three states and seventeen foreign countries. He has received two national awards in retirement-one Estate planning Hall of Fame by the National Association of Estate Planners and Councils and the other National Farmers Union. This is his thirty-first published book.

Marked by continuity, renewal, and expansion, the image of the Dream, Jillson contends, has been remarkably constant since well before the American Revolution - an image of a nation offering a better chance for prosperity than any other. His book reveals how that Dream has motivated our nation s leaders and common citizens to move, sometimes grudgingly, toward a more open, diverse, and genuinely competitive society.

What is the meaning of the American Dream? In My Path to an American Dream, M. D. Polidori uses his childhood experiences and wisdom gained throughout the years to reveal the story of his life and the pursuit of his dream. Covering his childhood in Italy, his experiences in America, and continuing through his time in the Second World War and beyond, Polidori details his attempts to find — and fully live — his American Dream.

Ambitious, but ill-educated, naïve, and immature, Clyde Griffiths is raised by poor and devoutly religious parents to help in their street missionary work. As a young adult, Clyde must, to help support his family, take menial jobs as a soda jerk, then a bellhop at a prestigious Kansas City hotel. There, his more sophisticated colleagues introduce him to bouts of social drinking and sex with prostitutes. Enjoying his new lifestyle, Clyde becomes infatuated with manipulative Hortense Briggs, who takes advantage of him. After being in a car accident in which a young girl loses her life, Clyde is forced to run away from the town in search for the new life.