Bob Hope is a household name. However, as Richard Zoglin shows in this revelatory biography, there is still much to be learned about this most public of figures --- from his secret first marriage and his stint in reform school, to his indiscriminate womanizing and his ambivalent relationship with Bing Crosby and Johnny Carson. Hope could be cold, self-centered, tight with a buck, and perhaps the least introspective man in Hollywood. But he was also a dogged worker, gracious with fans and generous with friends.

Compiled by Norman Mailer’s authorized biographer, J. Michael Lennon, and organized by decade, SELECTED LETTERS OF NORMAN MAILER features the most fascinating of Mailer’s missives from 1940 to 2007 --- letters to his family and friends, to fans and fellow writers (including Truman Capote, James Baldwin and Philip Roth), to political figures from Henry Kissinger to Bill and Hillary Clinton, and to such cultural icons as John Lennon, Marlon Brando and even Monica Lewinsky.

Rachel Cooke goes back in time to offer an entertaining and iconoclastic look at 10 women in the 1950s --- pioneers whose professional careers and complicated private lives helped to create the opportunities available to today's women. These plucky and ambitious individuals --- among them a film director, a cook, an architect, an editor, an archaeologist and a race car driver --- left the house, discovered the bliss of work, and ushered in the era of the working woman.

On the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s death, Boris Johnson celebrates the singular brilliance of one of the most important leaders of the 20th century. Taking on the myths and misconceptions along with the outsized reality, he portrays --- with characteristic wit and passion --- a man of contagious bravery, breathtaking eloquence, matchless strategizing and deep humanity.

In JOAN OF ARC: A LIFE TRANSFIGURED, Kathryn Harrison gives us a Joan for our time --- a shining exemplar of unshakable faith, extraordinary courage and self-confidence during a brutally rigged ecclesiastical inquisition and in the face of her death by burning. Deftly weaving historical fact, myth, folklore, artistic representations, and centuries of scholarly and critical interpretation into a compelling narrative, she restores Joan of Arc to her rightful position as one of the greatest heroines in all of human history.

The legendary creator of iconic television programs such as “All in the Family” and "The Jeffersons," Norman Lear remade our television culture --- while leading a life of unparalleled political, civic and social involvement. EVEN THIS I GET TO EXPERIENCE is a memoir as touching and remarkable as the life he has led. Married three times and the father of six children ranging from 19 to 68, Lear’s penetrating look at family life, parenthood and marriage is a volume in itself.

On the Caribbean island of Saint Domingue, an island consumed by the flames of revolution, a senseless attack leaves only one survivor --- an infant girl. What follows is the sweeping tale of Ruth’s life as shaped by her strong-willed mistress and other larger-than-life personalities she encounters in the South. Here is a remarkable story of fortitude, heartbreak and indomitable will --- and a tale that will forever illuminate your reading of GONE WITH THE WIND.

Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz chronicles the life of Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter, a Philadelphia plastic surgeon who revolutionized the face of American surgery and founded a museum of medical oddities. An eccentric innovator, Mütter pioneered the use of ether as anesthesia, the sterilization of surgical tools, and a compassion-based vision for helping the severely deformed. DR. MUTTER'S MARVELS offers both a biography of this unconventional doctor and a revealing portrait of 19th-century medicine.

When author Jeff Hobbs arrived at Yale University, he became fast friends with the man who would be his college roommate for four years, Robert Peace. Robert’s life was rough from the beginning in the crime-ridden streets of Newark in the 1980s. But Robert was a brilliant student, and it was supposed to get easier when he was accepted to Yale. But it didn’t get easier. Robert carried with him the difficult dual nature of his existence, “fronting” in Yale and at home.

The information age is drowning us with an unprecedented deluge of data. At the same time, we’re expected to make more --- and faster --- decisions about our lives than ever before. But somehow some people become quite accomplished at managing information flow. In THE ORGANIZED MIND, Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, uses the latest brain science to demonstrate how those people excel --- and how readers can use their methods to regain a sense of mastery over the way they organize their homes, workplaces and time.