Adult

Growing up on idyllic St. Thomas in the early 1800s, Rachel dreams of life in faraway Paris. She is married off to a widower with three children to save her father’s business. When her husband dies suddenly and his handsome, much younger nephew, Frédérick, arrives from France to settle the estate, Rachel seizes her own life story, beginning a defiant, passionate love affair that sparks a scandal that affects all of her family --- including her favorite son, who will become one of the greatest artists of France.

The legacy of imperial Spain was shaped by many hands. But the dramatic human story of the extraordinary projection of Spanish might in the second half of the 16th century has never been fully told --- until now. In WORLD WITHOUT END, Hugh Thomas chronicles the lives, loves, conflicts and conquests of the complex men and women who carved up the Americas for the glory of Spain.

On July 12, 1862, Abraham Lincoln spoke for the first time of his intention to free the slaves. On January 1, 1863, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, doing precisely that. In between, however, was a tumultuous six months, an episode during which the 16th president fought bitterly with his generals, disappointed his cabinet, and sank into painful bouts of clinical depression. Todd Brewster focuses on this crucial time period to ask: Was it through will or by accident, intention or coincidence, personal achievement or historical determinism that Lincoln freed the slaves?

The years 1939-45 might be the most revered, deplored and replayed in modern history. Yet India’s extraordinary role has been concealed, from itself and from the world. Raghu Karnad retrieves the story of a single family --- a story of love, rebellion, loyalty and uncertainty --- and, with it, the greater revelation that is India’s Second World War. FARTHEST FIELD narrates the lost epic of India’s war, in which the largest volunteer army in history fought for the British Empire, even as its countrymen fought to be free of it.

By the end of the 15th century, Florence was well established as the home of the Renaissance. As generous patrons to the likes of Botticelli and Michelangelo, the ruling Medici embodied the progressive humanist spirit of the age, and in Lorenzo de' Medici they possessed a diplomat capable of guarding the militarily weak city in a climate of constantly shifting allegiances between the major Italian powers. However, in the form of Savonarola, an unprepossessing provincial monk, Lorenzo found his nemesis. The battle between these two men would be a fight to the death, a series of sensational events featuring a cast of the most important and charismatic Renaissance figures.

Since the American Revolution itself, smuggling had tested the patriotism of the American people. Distrusting foreign goods, Congress instituted high tariffs on most imports. Protecting the nation was the custom house, which waged a “war on smuggling,” inspecting every traveler for illicitly imported silk, opium, tobacco, sugar, diamonds and art. The Civil War’s blockade of the Confederacy heightened the obsession with contraband, but smuggling entered its prime during the Gilded Age. CONTRABAND explores the history of smuggling to illuminate the broader history of the United States, its power, its politics and its culture.

COLOR YOUR YEAR: Mindful Coloring Through the Seasons captures the creativity-fulfilling, stress-relieving quality of adult coloring in a calendar. With its gorgeously intricate art and seasonal theme, this calender is an invitation every month to unplug, pick up a pencil, and refresh your mind and spirit through the meditative act of coloring in the beautiful lines. And at the end of the year --- voila, a gallery of your very own.