TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Nonfiction

Week of February 25, 1990

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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LIAR'S POKER
Michael Lewis
Cover of LIAR'S POKER

LIAR'S POKER

by Michael Lewis · Norton

16 wks on list

Selvbiografisk reportage om den unge kunsthistoriker der gjorde lynkarriere i Wall Street i 1980'erne som bankier

4
IT WAS ON FIRE WHEN I LAY DOWN ON IT
Robert Fulghum
Cover of IT WAS ON FIRE WHEN I LAY DOWN ON IT

IT WAS ON FIRE WHEN I LAY DOWN ON IT

by Robert Fulghum · Villard

23 wks on list

From the author to the reader: Show-and-Tell was the very best part of school for me, both as a student and as a teacher. As a kid, I put more into getting ready for my turn to present than I put into the rest of my homework. Show-and-Tell was real in a way that much of what I learned in school was not. It was education that came out of my life experience. As a teacher, I was always surprised by what I learned from these amateur hours. A kid I was sure I knew well would reach down into a paper bag he carried and fish out some odd-shaped treasure and attach meaning to it beyond my most extravagant expectation. Again and again I learned that what I thought was only true for me . . . only valued by me . . . only cared about by me . . . was common property. The principles guiding this book are not far from the spirit of Show-and-Tell. It is stuff from home—that place in my mind and heart where I most truly live. P.S. This volume picks up where I left off in All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, when I promised to tell about the time it was on fire when I lay down on it.

5
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THE TEMPTING OF AMERICA
Robert M. Bork
Cover of THE TEMPTING OF AMERICA

THE TEMPTING OF AMERICA

by Robert M. Bork · Free Press

11 wks on list

In this New York Times bestselling book, Robert H. Bork, our country's most distinguished conservative scholar, offers a prophetic and unprecedented view of a culture in decline, a nation in such serious moral trouble that its very foundation is crumbling: a nation that slouches not towards the Bethlehem envisioned by the poet Yeats in 1919, but towards Gomorrah. Slouching Towards Gomorrah is a penetrating, devastatingly insightful exposé of a country in crisis at the end of the millennium, where the rise of modern liberalism, which stresses the dual forces of radical egalitarianism (the equality of outcomes rather than opportunities) and radical individualism (the drastic reduction of limits to personal gratification), has undermined our culture, our intellect, and our morality. Robert H. Bork sounds a very sobering alarm. We can accept our fate and try to insulate ourselves from the effects of a degenerating culture, or we can choose to halt the beast, to oppose modern liberalism in every arena. In the view of Robert Bork, an understanding of our problem and the will to resist may be our only hope.

11
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME
Stephen W. Hawking
Cover of A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME

by Stephen W. Hawking · Bantam

97 wks on list

Stephen Hawking has earned a reputation as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein. In this landmark volume, Professor Hawking shares his blazing intellect with nonscientists everywhere, guiding us expertly to confront the supreme questions of the nature of time and the universe. Was there a beginning of time? Will there be an end? Is the universe infinite or does it have boundaries? From Galileo and Newton to modern astrophysics, from the breathtakingly cast to the extraordinarily tiny, Professor Hawking leads us on an exhilarating journey to distant galaxies, black holes, alternate dimensions--as close as man has ever ventured to the mind of God. From the vantage point of the wheelchair from which he has spent more than twenty years trapped by Lou Gehrig's disease, Stephen Hawking has transformed our view of the universe. Cogently explained, passionately revealed, "A Brief History of Time is the story of the ultimate quest for knowledge: the ongoing search for the tantalizing secrets at the heart of time and space.

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WHO NEEDS GOD
Harold Kushner
Cover of WHO NEEDS GOD

WHO NEEDS GOD

by Harold Kushner · Summit

6 wks on list

There is a kind of nurishment our souls crave, and without it they remain undeveloped. Kushner turns to another time to show how wise and sensitive people dealt with meaning in their lives.

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NEW
WHAT I SAW AT THE REVOLUTION
Peggy Noonan
Cover of WHAT I SAW AT THE REVOLUTION

WHAT I SAW AT THE REVOLUTION

by Peggy Noonan · Random House

1 wks on list

Peggy Noonan, who earned fame and widespread admiration as the most talented speechwriter of the Reagan-Bush era, writes a witty personal memoir about her life and professional adventures in the middle of American politics.

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HEAD FIRST
Norman Cousins
Cover of HEAD FIRST

HEAD FIRST

by Norman Cousins · Dutton

5 wks on list
15
WONDERFUL LIFE
Stephen Jay Gould
Cover of WONDERFUL LIFE

WONDERFUL LIFE

by Stephen Jay Gould · Norton

10 wks on list

"[An] extraordinary book. . . . Mr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer. . . . He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence."—James Gleick, New York Times Book Review High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.