Jacob has a special gift--he can fly! When it's time for a family vacation, Jacob chooses to fly himself, having wonderful adventures along the way.

Jacob is a Jewish peddler living in eighteenth-century France; Leslie and Deirdre Senzatimore are a settled American couple; and Masha is an alluring, young, ultra-Orthodox Jew who is gravely ill. In Jacob’s Folly, these four individuals will find their fates intertwined and the courses of their lives irrevocably altered when Jacob is reincarnated as a housefly in contemporary Long Island. Through the unique lens of Jacob’s consciousness, Miller explores transformation in all its different guises—personal, spiritual and literal. As she considers the hold of the past on the present, the power of private hopes and dreams, and the collision of fate and free will, Miller’s world—which is our own, transfigured by her startlingly clear gaze and by her sharp, surprising wit—comes to vibrant life. Leslie’s desire to act as hero and rescuer; Jacob’s disastrous marriage to the childlike Hodle, and his intense obsession with Masha—Miller sketches her characters’ interior lives with compassion, subtlety and an exceptionally light touch. Jacob’s Folly is wildly inventive, and ultimately moving; it will leave the reader, no less than its characters, transformed.

Apollo 7 -- Apollo 8 -- Apollo 9 -- Apollo 10 -- Apollo 11 -- Apollo 12 -- Apollo 13 -- Apollo 14 -- Apollo 15 -- Apollo 16 -- Apollo 17.

Running through the heart of Colombia is a river emblematic of the fascination and tragedy of South America, the Magdalena. Considered by some to be the most dangerous place in the world, travellers along the river - for centuries the only route into the vast South American interior - were at the mercy of tropical disease, dangerous animals and precarious barges. A third of the victims of 'la violencia', Colombia's period of civil conflict which began in the 1950s, ended up in its waters. Townships alongside it have experienced some of the worst massacres in South American history. In 2011, Michael Jacobs travelled its whole length to the river's source high up in Andean moorlands controlled by guerrillas. In spellbinding prose, he charts the dangers he negotiated - including a terrifying three day encounter with the FARC - while uncovering the river's history of pioneering explorations, environmental decline and political violence. As Jacobs delves into the history of destruction and decay along the river, he also makes a deeply personal exploration into memory and its loss: not far from the river's banks lies a group of townships with the highest incidence of early onset Alzheimer's in the world. Jacobs reflects on the lives of his father, and his mother - sufferers respectively from Alzheimer's and dementia - as he travels upstream towards what comes to seem like a heartland of mystery, magic and darkness.

A Spectator Book of the Year It's fashionable to think of the writers of the past as irredeemably tarnished by prejudice. Aristotle despised women. John Milton, the great champion of free speech, wouldn't have granted it to Catholics. Edith Wharton's imaginative sympathies stopped short of her Jewish characters. But what if it is only through the works of such individuals that we can achieve a necessary perspective on the troubles of the present? Join literary scholar Alan Jacobs for a truly nourishing feast of learning. Discover what Homer can teach us about force, what Machiavelli has to say about reading and what Charlotte Brontë reveals about race. Not all the guests are people you might want to invite into your home, but they all bring something precious to the table. In Breaking Bread with the Dead, an omnivorous reader draws us into close and sympathetic engagement with minds across the ages, from Horace to Donna Haraway.