1. Hamlet: Poem Unlimited
   by Harold Bloom
   price: $19.95
   In his "New York Times" bestseller "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human," Harold Bloom showed readers how Shakespeare shaped human consciousness and addressed the question of authorship in Hamlet. In "Hamlet: Poem Unlimited, " the celebrated critic turns his attention to a reading of the play itself and to Shakespeare's most enigmatic and memorable character.
   
   
   
2. Imagining Numbers: (Particularly the Square Root of Minus Fifteen)
   by Barry Mazur
   price: $22.00
   "Imagining Numbers" is Mazur's invitation to those who take delight in the imaginative work of reading poetry, but may have no background in math, to make a leap of the imagination in mathematics. Then he shows, step by step, how to begin imagining imaginary numbers.
   
   
   
3. Pilgrim's Digress
   by John Spalding
   price: $23.00
   In the hilarious tradition of David Sedaris and David Rakoff, and with Plimpton-esque flavor, John Spalding details in A Pilgrim's Digress his journey as a modern-day "pilgrim" seeking the Celestial City. Loosely organizing his book according to Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's Progress, Spalding describes how he spent three days as a preacher in Times Square ("Excuse me, do you know you're going to hell?"); went to the mat (conversationally) with Omega and Apocalypse, two mainstays of the Christian Wrestling Federation; and talked to a man who practiced the art of trepanation by drilling a hole in his head to make himself permanently happy. He also experienced his own funeral, courtesy of the Dying to Get In Company.
   
   
   
4. The Dante Club
   by Matthew Pearl
   price: $24.95
   When a series of gruesome murders erupts in 1865, only Boston's literary elite realize that the style and form of the killings are derived from Dante's "Inferno." Twenty-six-year-old Pearl brilliantly blends fact and fiction in this debut mystery starring Oliver Wendell Holmes and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
   
   
   
5. When Boston Won the World Series
   by Rob Ryan
   price: $18.95
   This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first World Series, in which the upstart Boston squad of the fledgling American League triumphed over the Pittsburgh Pirates of the time-honored National League. Starring such legendary players as Boston's Cy Young and Bill Dinneen, and Pittsburgh's Honus Wagner and Deacon Phillippe, "When Boston Won the World Series" chronicles with stirring detail the events that led up to baseball's first Fall Classic: the 1901 creation of the American League, its roster "raids" against National League teams, the sea change of public interest that caused the American League to outsell the National by 500,000 tickets, and the subsequent concession of the Nationals. The resulting handshake deal established a season-ending series which would determine the best baseball team in the world.
   
   
   
6. Cosmopolis
   by Don DeLillo
   price: $25.00
   Eric Packer, age twenty-eight, emerges from his $104 million penthouse triplex and settles into his lavishly customized white stretch limo. At age four, Packer figured out what he would weigh on every planet in the solar system. Now he is a billionaire asset manager, and on this April day in the year 2000, he is a man with two missions: to pursue a willfully destructive bet against the yen and to get a haircut across town. "Cosmopolis" is a vivid novel with extraordinary pace. DeLillo's insight into the impact of money on every aspect of culture--from art to real estate to politics to time itself--is stunning.
   
   
   
7. Of Paradise & Power
   by Robert Kagan
   price: $18.00
   From a leading scholar of the country's foreign policy, this is a brilliant essay about America and the world that has caused a storm in international circles. European leaders, increasingly disturbed by U.S. policy and actions abroad, feel they are headed for what the New York Times (July 21, 2002) describes as a “moment of truth.” After years of mutual resentment and tension, there is a sudden recognition that the real interests of America and its allies are diverging sharply and that the trans-atlantic relationship itself has changed, possibly irreversibly. Europe sees the United States as high-handed, unilateralist, and unnecessarily belligerent; the United States sees Europe as spent, unserious, and weak. The anger and mistrust on both sides are hardening into incomprehension.
   
   
   
8. Back Story: A Spenser Novel
   by Robert Parker
   price: $24.95
   Spenser tries to solve a 30-year-old murder as a favor to an old friend in this brilliant new mystery from the Grand Master. The lack of clues and a missing FBI intelligence report force Spenser to reach out in every direction, testing his resourcefulness and his courage.
   
   
   
9. Globalization and Its Discontents
   by Joseph Stiglitz
   price: $24.95
   When it was first published, this national bestseller quickly became a touchstone in the globalization debate. Renowned economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz had a ringside seat for most of the major economic events of the last decade, including stints as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist at the World Bank. Particularly concerned with the plight of the developing nations, he became increasingly disillusioned as he saw the International Monetary Fund and other major institutions put the interests of Wall Street and the financial community ahead of the poorer nations. Rarely do we get such an insider's analysis of the major institutions of globalization as in this penetrating book.
   
   
   
10. To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders
    by Bernard Bailyn
    price: $26.00
    From a premier historian--twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize--comes a set of illuminating sketches of the characteristics, accomplishments, and ambiguities of some of the key figures of the Revolutionary generation. 65 illustrations.
    
    
    

1. Power and Terror
   by Noam Chomsky
   price: $11.95
   Power and Terror, Noam Chomsky's highly anticipated follow-up to 9-11, is drawn from a series of public talks that Chomsky gave during the spring of 2002, as well as a lengthy unpublished interview. It presents Chomsky's latest thinking on terrorism, U.S. foreign policy, and alternatives to militarism and violence as solutions to the world's problems. Chomsky challenges the United States to apply to its own actions the moral standards it demands of others, and arrives at a surprisingly optimistic conclusion rooted in his faith in the power of an informed public.
   
   
   
2. The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Superpower Can't Go It Alone
   by Joseph S. Nye
   price: $13.95
   Nye, former assistant secretary of defense under Clinton, and current dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, offers a prescription for America's new role in the world that calls for a broader, more responsible, and cooperative relationship with the rest of the world.
   
   
   
3. The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth about Corporate Cons, Globalization, and High-Finance Fraudsters
   by Greg Palast
   price: $14.00
   Investigative journalist Greg Palast has uncovered scandal, fraud, corruption, and lies in the highest seats of power—from the White House to corporate America. Known in Britain as “the greatest investigative reporter of our time” (Tribune magazine), Palast has broken some of the biggest stories of the past decade, including: How Bush killed off the FBI's investigation of the bin Laden family prior to 9/11; How the Bush family stole the election in Florida; and, How Enron cheated, lied, and swindled its way into an energy monopoly. These provocative exposés—as well as groundbreaking reports on the World Bank, the IMF, the World Trade Organization, Wal-Mart and more—are included in this collection of Palast’s most incendiary stories. Written in a no-holds-barred, in-your-face style, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy is a must-read for anyone who believes that the First Amendment is important enough to use and that democracy cannot be bought.
   
   
   
4. Bel Canto
   by Ann Patchett
   price: $13.95
   A novel that is as lyrical and profound as it is unforgettable, "Bel Canto" engenders in the reader the very passion for art and the language of music that its characters discover. A virtuoso performance by an important writer.
   
   
   
5. The Nanny Diaries
   by Emma McLaughlin
   price: $13.95
   With more than 650,000 copies currently in print and atop bestseller lists nationwide, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus' biting satire of the glamorous life on Manhattan's Upper East Side offers both an insider's view and a great read to puncture the glamour of Manhattan's upper class, and reveal the truth behind the Park Avenue veneer. Struggling to graduate from New York University and afford her microscopic studio apartment, Nanny takes a job caring for the only son of the wealthy X family. She rapidly learns the insane amount of juggling involved in ensuring that a Park Avenue wife who doesn't work, cook, clean, or raise her own child has a smooth day.
   
   
   
6. Why Do People Hate America?
   by Ziauddin Sardar
   price: $12.95
   An essential book for those trying to understand why America--and Americans--are targets for hate. The controversial bestseller that caused huge waves in the UK! The Indepdent calls it "required reading." Noam Chomsky says it "contains valuable information that we should know, over here, for our own good, and the world's." We call it our biggest book so far and will be backing it from day one with guranteed co-op spending, a national publicity and review blitz, talk radio bookings, various retails sales aids including postcards, and of course the usual full court press on the Web and via email.
   
   
   
7. Fast Food Nation
   by Eric Schlosser
   price: $13.95
   In this provocative exposé Schlosser, an award-winning contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, goes behind the scenes of the nation's fast food chains, where he makes some distinctly unappetizing discoveries. Beginning with Harlan Sanders and the McDonald brothers, founders of the fast food phenomenon, Schlosser examines the repercussions of the industry on the nation's economy and health. From factory farms that raise potatoes and beef, to meatpacking plants that operate with little federal oversight, he makes a thorough tour of an industry characterized by unsanitary procedures and oppressive working conditions. Schlosser also offers a fascinating look at the flavor companies that - literally - shape our tastes. Full of keen commentary, disturbing research and compelling interviews, this unforgettable indictment of fast food culture, reminiscent of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, is sure to make readers rethink their next trip to the drive-through.
   
   
   
8. Dreaming War
   by Gore Vidal
   price: $11.95
   Vidal confronts the Cheney-Bush junta head on in a series of devastating essays that demolish the lies the American Empire lives by, unveiling a counter-history that traces the origins of America's current imperial ambitions to the experience of World War Two and the post-war Truman doctrine. And now, with the Cheney-Bush leading us into permanent war, Vidal asks whose interests are served by this doctrine of pre-emptive war? Was Afghanistan turned to rubble to avenge the 3,000 slaughtered on September 11? Or was "the unlovely Osama chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan?" After all he was abruptly replaced with Saddam Hussein once the Taliban were overthrown. And while "evidence" is now being invented to connect Saddam with 9/11, the current administration are not helped by "stories in the U.S. press about the vast oil wealth of Iraq which must- for the sake of the free world- be reassigned to U.S. consortiums."
   
   
   
9. On Escape: De l'evasion
   by Emmanuel Levinas
   price: $14.95
   First published in 1935, On Escape represents Emmanuel Levinas's first attempt to break with the ontological obsession of the Western tradition. In it, Levinas not only affirms the necessity of an escape from being, but also gives a meaning and a direction to it. Beginning with an analysis of need not as lack or some external limit to a self-sufficient being, but as a positive relation to our being, Levinas moves through a series of brilliant analyses of such phenomena as pleasure, shame, and nausea in order to show a fundamental insufficiency in the human condition. In his critical introduction and annotation, Jacques Rolland places On Escape in its historical and intellectual context, and also within the context of Levinas's entire oeuvre, explaining Levinas's complicated relation to Heidegger, and underscoring the way Levinas's analysis of "being riveted," of the need for escape, is a meditation on the body.
   
   
   
10. Odd Girl Out
    by Rachel Simmons
    price: $14.00
    Dirty looks and taunting notes are just a few examples of girl bullying that girls and women have long suffered through silently and painfully. With this book Rachel Simmons elevated the nation's consciousness and has shown millions of girls, parents, counselors, and teachers how to deal with this devastating problem. Poised to reach a wider audience in paperback, including the teenagers who are its subject, Odd Girl Out puts the spotlight on this issue, using real-life examples from both the perspective of the victim and of the bully.
    
    
    

* The Harvard Book Store generates a bestseller list, and ranks titles to reflect overall sales for the week March 17 - 23.

March 17 - 23, 2003 Bestseller List

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