'Philip believed he was unsurpassed at what he does. He had worked hard and wasn't going to let himself feel otherwise. But something about the Mbanugo murders made him qualm. Just when he thinks he has the murderer, a lacuna appears to smash all to smithereens. He had heard of them, that didn't bother him. He was after all, the best. Maybe, just maybe he underestimated them. Philip had in his hands, the deadly breed. A SMOOTH OPERATOR!!!'

For twenty-two years, Katherine Bouton had a secret that grew harder to keep every day. An editor at The New York Times, at daily editorial meetings she couldn't hear what her colleagues were saying. She had gone profoundly deaf in her left ear; her right was getting worse. As she once put it, she was "the kind of person who might have used an ear trumpet in the nineteenth century." Audiologists agree that we're experiencing a national epidemic of hearing impairment. At present, 50 million Americans suffer some degree of hearing loss—17 percent of the population. And hearing loss is not exclusively a product of growing old. The usual onset is between the ages of nineteen and forty-four, and in many cases the cause is unknown. Shouting Won't Help is a deftly written, deeply felt look at a widespread and misunderstood phenomenon. In the style of Jerome Groopman and Atul Gawande, and using her experience as a guide, Bouton examines the problem personally, psychologically, and physiologically. She speaks with doctors, audiologists, and neurobiologists, and with a variety of people afflicted with midlife hearing loss, braiding their stories with her own to illuminate the startling effects of the condition. The result is a surprisingly engaging account of what it's like to live with an invisible disability—and a robust prescription for our nation's increasing problem with deafness. A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013

In an increasingly noisy, distracting world, the idea of enjoying silence-healthy silence-has become for many people just a mirage. We talk about ""a little peace and quiet"" not because we experience it regularly, but because it's a joke we tell ourselves when we're overwhelmed. Silence is on the endangered experiences list. Today, if you're lik.

A fable about the power of books and knowledge, “finely balanced between pathos and comedy,” from one of Czechoslovakia’s most popular authors (Los Angeles Times). A New York Times Notable Book Haňtá has been compacting trash for thirty-five years. Every evening, he rescues books from the jaws of his hydraulic press, carries them home, and fills his house with them. Haňtá may be an idiot, as his boss calls him, but he is an idiot with a difference—the ability to quote the Talmud, Hegel, and Lao-Tzu. In this “irresistibly eccentric romp,” the author Milan Kundera has called “our very best writer today” celebrates the power and the indestructibility of the written word (The New York Times Book Review).

This stunning successor to Ouimet’s debut, I Go Quiet, follows a girl learning to express herself and connect with others. When I am swept into the light of life, I get loud. A girl finds her voice and befriends a stranger, who becomes her closest companion. They speak and sing and laugh, their friendship weathering darkness and light, stormy seas and calm waters. Then, embarking on an uncertain journey to a new land with thousands of others, they become separated. The girl worries that her voice alone is too quiet to find her friend and make herself known—but it’s their voices that lead them back to each other, and that preserve their pasts and pave their future in a new home. The companion to David Ouimet’s acclaimed debut, I Go Quiet, I Get Loud is a poetic and arresting fable about the power of expression and human connection in the face of change.

Accustomed to his impoverished life in Bogota+a7, Colombia, Juan Guillermo resents his family and is delighted when a visit to his wealthy grandmother introduces him to the comforts of money, but he learns a savage truth that puts his family in danger.

This illustrated gift book of short comics illuminates author Debbie Tung's experience as an introvert in an extrovert’s world. Presented in a loose narrative style that can be read front to back or dipped into at one’s leisure, the book spans three years of Debbie's life, from the end of college to the present day. In these early years of adulthood, Debbie slowly but finally discovers there is a name for her lifelong need to be alone: she’s an introvert. The first half of the book traces Debbie’s final year in college: socializing with peers, dating, falling in love (with an extrovert!), moving in, getting married, meeting new people, and simply trying to fit in. The second half looks at her life after graduation: finding a job, learning to live with her new husband, trying to understand social obligations when it comes to the in-laws, and navigating office life. Ultimately, Quiet Girl sends a positive, pro-introvert message: our heroine learns to embrace her introversion and finds ways to thrive in the world while fulfilling her need for quiet.