The New York Times bestselling work of undercover reportage from our sharpest and most original social critic, with a new foreword by Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job—any job—can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you int to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity—a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. And now, in a new foreword, Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, explains why, twenty years on in America, Nickel and Dimed is more relevant than ever.

At the heart of John Gardner's Nickel Mountain is an uncommon love story set in a small Catskill community in the 1950s: when, at forty-two, the obese, gentle, and anxious Henry Soames marries seventeen-year-old Callie Wells -- who is pregnant with the child of a local boy -- it is much more than age that defines the gulf between them. The plot turns on tragic events -- they might be accidents or they might be acts of will -- involving a cast of rural eccentrics that includes a lonely amputee veteran, a religious hysteric (thought by some to be the devil himself), and an itinerant "Goat Lady." Questions of guilt and innocence, and even murder, are ulitmately eclipsed by Henry Soame's quiet discovery of grace. Novelist William H. Gass, a friend and colleague fo the author, has wirtten an introduction that shines new light on the work and career of the much praised and often misunderstood John Gardner.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this Pulitzer Prize-winning follow-up to The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades. Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers and “should further cement Whitehead as one of his generation's best" (Entertainment Weekly). Look for Colson Whitehead’s bestselling new novel, Harlem Shuffle!

The legendary commentator recounts his adventuresome life in the ever-changing world of sport broadcasting in this lively memoir: “I couldn’t put it down” (John McEnroe). Tim Ryan is no doubt the only sportscaster who has crash-landed in the Namib desert, been charged by a rhino in Zimbabwe, herded sheep at the beginning of a Winter Olympics telecast, and dodged flying bottles at a professional boxing match. In his new memoir, Ryan recounts all of these tales and more in the personable, trustworthy voice that sports fans will recognize from his countless television appearances. Armchair travelers and sports enthusiasts alike will be taken on a riveting journey as Ryan shares anecdotes from his adventures in broadcasting that span thirty sports in more than twenty countries over fifty years. And while the events themselves are impressive—ten Olympic Games, more than three hundred championship boxing matches, Wimbledon and US Open tennis, World Cup Skiing, just to name a few—it’s the lesser-known stories that happened along the way that really stand out in Ryan’s telling. As he details how he came to call the first Ali-Frazier fight for the Armed Forces Network, or hosted a tennis tournament featuring the McEnroe brothers to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Association, Ryan shines a light on sports and the world beyond sports—the world of family, friends, colleagues, and connections that endure when the game has been won and the mic turned off.

Begun in Little Britches and Man of the Family, this is the continuing saga of Ralph Moody. In 1918, young Moody and his buddy Lonnie travel through the Southwest in an old Ford named Shiftless, camp in an Arizona canyon and "shake the nickel bush" by sculpting busts of lawyers and bankers.

The story of how an independent railroad fought for its life throughout its competitive history. Presents the history of the famed New York. Chicago & St. Louis Railroad with a system map, division profiles, illustrated rosters, chapter maps and more. By John A. Rehor. 8 1/2 x 11; 484 pgs.; 527 b&w photos and 15 illus.; includes dust jacket.

Perfect for fans of Jerry Spinelli and Gary D. Schmidt, this heartfelt coming-of-age story will make you believe in the power of second chances. Eleven-year-old Sam Brattle is already having the worst Christmas ever – his dad’s bakery is going bankrupt and his mom is spending the holidays with her new family. To make things worse, Nickel Bay Nick, the anonymous Good Samaritan who leaves hundred-dollar bills around Nickel Bay at Christmastime, is a no-show, so this year the rest of the town is as miserable as Sam. When he stumbles upon the secret identity of this mysterious do-gooder, Sam is stunned to learn that he might now be his town’s only hope. But before he can rescue Nickel Bay, Sam has to learn the skills of a spy and unravel some even darker secrets that will change his life forever.