Here's a popular history of the Baby Boom Generation told through the vignettes, quotes, quips, sayings and slogans that characterized and shaped an era. A fascinating roller-coaster ride through the first four decades of the Baby Boom, Don't Trust Anyone Over Thirty paints an indelible portrait of those days. Historian Howard Smead brilliantly chronicles America's stormy generation and its stormy times with a refreshing approach that uses the expressions Boomers themselves loved and lived by. From Spock babies and the Golden 50s, through protest and change, Vietnam, Woodstock and the disco 70s, to the rise of the conservative right and the arrival of the Reagan Era, the glory days are all here. For Boomers and others interested in this effusive and influential generation, this signature work is a must.

Our language is full of hundreds of quotations that are often cited but seldom confirmed. Ralph Keyes's The Quote Verifier considers not only classic misquotes such as "Nice guys finish last," and "Play it again, Sam," but more surprising ones such as "Ain't I a woman?" and "Golf is a good walk spoiled," as well as the origins of popular sayings such as "The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings," "No one washes a rented car," and "Make my day." Keyes's in-depth research routinely confounds widespread assumptions about who said what, where, and when. Organized in easy-to-access dictionary form, The Quote Verifier also contains special sections highlighting commonly misquoted people and genres, such as Yogi Berra and Oscar Wilde, famous last words, and misremembered movie lines. An invaluable resource for not just those with a professional need to quote accurately, but anyone at all who is interested in the roots of words and phrases, The Quote Verifier is not only a fascinating piece of literary sleuthing, but also a great read.

This shocking, surprisingly entertaining romp into the intellectual nether regions of today's underthirty set reveals the disturbing and, ultimately, incontrovertible truth: cyberculture is turning us into a society of know-nothings. The Dumbest Generation is a dire report on the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its impact on American democracy and culture. For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down popular culture available to young people and the impact it has on their futures. But at the dawn of the digital age, many thought they saw an answer: the internet, email, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children. The terms “information superhighway” and “knowledge economy” entered the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their knowledge and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the vanguards of this new digital era. That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn’t happen. The technology that was supposed to make young adults more aware, diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the opposite effect. According to recent reports from the National Endowment for the Arts, most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums, or vote. They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on a map. The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future is a startling examination of the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its impact on American culture and democracy. Over the last few decades, how we view adolescence itself has changed, growing from a pitstop on the road to adulthood to its own space in society, wholly separate from adult life. This change in adolescent culture has gone hand in hand with an insidious infantilization of our culture at large; as adolescents continue to disengage from the adult world, they have built their own, acquiring more spending money, steering classrooms and culture towards their own needs and interests, and now using the technology once promoted as the greatest hope for their futures to indulge in diversions, from MySpace to multiplayer video games, 24/7. Can a nation continue to enjoy political and economic predominance if its citizens refuse to grow up? Drawing upon exhaustive research, personal anecdotes, and historical and social analysis, The Dumbest Generation presents a portrait of the young American mind at this critical juncture, and lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies. The Dumbest Generation pulls no punches as it reveals the true cost of the digital age—and our last chance to fix it.

On July 4, 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved into the cabin he had built on the shore of Walden Pond, thus beginning the most famous experiment in simple living in American history. On the 150th anniversary of that event, Houghton Mifflin, successor to Thoreau's original publisher, is proud to publish a new edition of Walden, annotated by the distinguished Thoreau scholar Walter Harding and illustrated with Thoreau's own drawings. Even those who have read Walden many times will find much that is new in this edition, and those reading the book for the first time will discover why it has changed the lives of generations of readers.

Here is the first biography of Mario Savio, the brilliant leader of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement, the largest and most disruptive student rebellion in American history. Savio risked his life to register black voters in Mississippi in the Freedom Summer of 1964 and did more than anyone to bring daring forms of non-violent protest from the civil rights movement to the struggle for free speech and academic freedom on American campuses. Drawing upon previously unavailable Savio papers, as well as oral histories from friends and fellow movement leaders, Freedom's Orator illuminates Mario's egalitarian leadership style, his remarkable eloquence, and the many ways he embodied the youthful idealism of the 1960s. The book also narrates, for the first time, his second phase of activism against "Reaganite Imperialism" in Central America and the corporatization of higher education. Including a generous selection of Savio's speeches, Freedom's Orator speaks with special relevance to a new generation of activists and to all who cherish the '60s and democratic ideals for which Savio fought so selflessly.

The Baby Boom generation has always been known as a demographic anomaly and these 77 million Americans have dominated our society for the past 60 years, setting trends and revolutionizing entire industries. They didn't just date, they transformed sex roles and practices. They didn't just go to the doctor, they reinvented healthcare. And now retirement and aging will never be the same as the oldest boomers move into their 60s with no thoughts of traditional retirement or old-age homes! Featuring insightful interviews and essays from Baby Boomers like Dr. Andrew Weill, Erica Jong, Eve Ensler, Rob Reiner, Oliver Stone, Lester Thurow, and Tony Snow, THE BOOMER CENTURY is an entertaining, historical and cultural look at a truly amazing generation.