"For more than three millennia the cultures of Mesoamerica flourished, yielding the first cities of the Western Hemisphere and developing writing systems that could rival those of the East in their creativity and efficiency. The Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs reigned over one of the greatest imperial civilizations the Americas had ever seen, and until now their intricate and visually stunning hieroglyphs have been overlooked in the story of writing. In this...

"Many people think prisons are all the same-rows of cells filled with violent men who officials rule with an iron fist. Yet, life behind bars varies in incredible ways. In some facilities, prison officials govern with care and attention to prisoners' needs. In others, officials have remarkably little influence on the everyday life of prisoners, sometimes not even providing necessities like food and clean water. Why does prison social order around...

Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother -- a singer "stolen" to Pyongyang -- and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will...

"In 1966, during the Vietnam War, Joan Hunter, an ordinary housewife, mother of four from the small coastal town of Scituate, MA, spearheads Operation Morale Booster, a mission to ensure that every deployed American G.I. receives mail at weekly mail call. Armed only with her typewriter, she reaches thousands of soldiers and captivates one battle-tested soul, Bob Johnson. She is white, he is black; she is married, he is not. This potentially scandalous...

"Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is sometimes dismissed as an "all in your head" illness, as there are no tests or other physical signs to diagnose it. A diagnosis is given when a health care practitioner has ruled out other causes for the cluster of symptoms. Still individuals with CFS remain frustrated by the lack of belief and support from health care providers, families, and friends. Bringing validation to the one million sufferers of CFS What Nurses...

"Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper. In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable....

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, serving in the household of the enigmatic Commander and his bitter wife. She may go out once a day to shops whose signs are now pictures because women are not allowed to read. She must pray for the Commander to make her pregnant, for in a time of declining birthrates her value lies in her fertility, and failure means exile to the dangerously polluted Colonies. Offred can remember a time when she lived...

"Morris B. Abram (1918-2000) emerged from humble origins in a rural South Georgia town to become one of the leading civil rights lawyers in the United States during the 1950s. While unmasking the Ku Klux Klan and serving as a key intermediary for the release of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. from prison on the eve of the 1960 presidential election, Abram carried out a successful fourteen-year battle to end the discriminatory voting system in...