Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life
by Sari Nusseibeh
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

$27.50
20% off: $22.00

A prominent Palestinian—his father was governor of Jerusalem and he was appointed by Arafat to administer Arab Jerusalem—Nusseibeh writes his life story and the story of the recent history of his country, and of his stead-fast belief in a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. “There is no argument to be made for Nusseibeh’s power—unless one happens to believe in the power of restraint and rational thought.” -David Remnick, The New Yorker

Ralph Ellison: A Biography
by Arnold Rampersad
Knopf

$35.00
20% off: $28.00

The first scholar to be given complete access to EllisonÂ’s papers, Rampersad has written the definitive biography of Ralph Ellison, one of the most important twentieth-century writers, author of Invisible Man, and one of the great American cultural figures of our time.

Julia Child (Penguin Lives)
by Laura Shapiro
Viking Adult

$19.95
20% off: $15.96

Shapiro has written a wonderful biography of our own Julia Child, the “French Chef” who taught Americans to cook and eat with skill and pleasure. Shapiro gracefully chronicles Child’s career: her legendary humor and open-hearted approach to food, her occasional disasters and brilliant recoveries, her unflagging belief that good home cooking matters, and her marriage to Paul Child that was the center of all she did. We think this book would be a wonderful choice for a wedding present!

The Guynd: A Scottish Journal
by Belinda Rathbone
Quantuck Lane

$14.95
20% off: $11.96

“Cambridge author Belinda Rathbone has given us a beautifully written and deeply personal memoir of her marriage to John, a Scottish ‘laird’ and her tempestuous relationship with the 400-acre mansion that came along in the bargain. A fascinating and captivating read, especially for those who loved Under the Tuscan Sun.” –Frank Kramer

Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography
by Gail Levin
Rizzoli

$40.00
20% off: $32.00

The perfect companion to the major Hopper exhibition opening at the MFA this month, LevinÂ’s revised and updated edition of this classic biography of Hopper includes additional chapters and colorplates.

Einstein: His Life and Universe
by Walter Isaacson
Simon & Schuster

$32.00
20% off: $25.60

This is the first full biography since all of EinsteinÂ’s papers have become available. Not only does Isaacson give us a compelling personal story of EinsteinÂ’s life but he gets EinsteinÂ’s science right (with help from an impressive group of physicists) and makes it accessible to general readers, a rare accomplishment.

Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations
by Georgina Howell
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

$27.50
20% off: $22.00

Howell has drawn an exciting, rich portrait of an adventurous woman who transcended restrictions of her times and class. Born in 1868 into a privileged world, Bell read history at Oxford and went on to become an archaeologist, Arabist, linguist, spy, author, legendary traveler and mountaineer, and a nation builder who became the driving force behind the creation of modern-day Iraq.

The Diary of Petr Ginz
by Chava Pressburger
Atlantic Monthly Press

$24.00
20% off: $19.20

As a fourteen-year-old Jewish boy in the early 1940s, Ginz kept diaries that “reveal a budding Czech literary and artistic genius whose life was cut short by the Nazis….and offer keen insights into the reality of everyday life of Jews in wartime Prague.” -International Herald Tribune

Edith Wharton
by Hermione Lee
Knopf

$35.00
20% off: $28.00

Lee, a literature professor at Oxford, received great acclaim for her major biography of Virginia Woolf. Here, using previously untapped sources, Lee writes a biography that interweaves WhartonÂ’s life and the evolution of her writing, giving us a new appreciation of one of AmericaÂ’s great novelists.