TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Nonfiction

Week of December 6, 1992

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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MY LIFE
Earvin (Magic) Johnson with William Novak

MY LIFE

by Earvin (Magic) Johnson with William Novak · Random House

3 wks on list

In an inspirational autobiography, the basketball superstar reflects on his boyhood in Michigan, college career, NBA success, teammates, friends and family, the tragedy of HIV infection, and his new status as a role model.

6
NEW
I CAN'T BELIEVE I SAID THAT!
Kathie Lee Gifford with Jim Jerome
Cover of I CAN'T BELIEVE I SAID THAT!

I CAN'T BELIEVE I SAID THAT!

by Kathie Lee Gifford with Jim Jerome · Pocket

The co-host of the #1-rated morning talk show Live with Regis & Kathie Lee gives her millions of fans a candid and inspiring account of her eventful life on and off the set. She recounts her triumphs and defeats in the world of show business and tells about her life with husband and sports celebrity Frank Gifford. 48-page photo insert.

8
1
BANKRUPTCY 1995
Harry E. Figgie Jr. with Gerald J. Swanson
Cover of BANKRUPTCY 1995

BANKRUPTCY 1995

by Harry E. Figgie Jr. with Gerald J. Swanson · Little, Brown

6 wks on list

Predicting complete national bankruptcy by the year 1995, a noted budget analyst presents the current disastrous fiscal situation of the United States and outlines a specific program for recovery. 60,000 first printing. $250,000 ad/promo. Tour.

9
1
WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Cover of WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES

WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES

by Clarissa Pinkola Estes · Ballantine

17 wks on list

UPDATED, WITH NEW MATERIAL BY THE AUTHOR"WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES isn't just another book. It is a gift of profound insight, wisdom, and love. An oracle from one who knows."--Alice WalkerWithin every woman there lives a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. She is the Wild Woman, who represents the instinctual nature of women. But she is an endangered species. In WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES, Dr. Estes unfolds rich intercultural myths, fairy tales, and stories, many from her own family, in order to help women reconnect with the fierce, healthy, visionary attributes of this instinctual nature. Through the stories and commentaries in this remarkable book, we retrieve, examine, love, and understand the Wild Woman and hold her against our deep psyches as one who is both magic and medicine. Dr. Estes has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul."This volume reminds us that we are nature for all our sophistication, that we are still wild, and the recovery of that vitality will itself set us right in the world."--Thomas Moore Author of Care of the Soul"I am grateful to WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES and to Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes. The work shows the reader how glorious it is to be daring, to be caring, and to be women. Everyone who can read should read this book."--Maya Angelou"An inspiring book, the 'vitamins for the soul' [for] women who are cut off from their intuitive nature."--San Francisco Chronicle"Stands out from the pack . . . A joy and sparkle in [the] prose . . . This book will become a bible for women interested in doing deep work. . . . It is a road map of all the pitfalls, those familiar and those horrifically unexpected, that a woman encounters on the way back to her instinctual self. Wolves . . . is a gift."--Los Angeles Times"A mesmerizing voice . . . Dramatic storytelling she learned at the knees of her [immigrant] aunts."--Newsweek From the Paperback edition.

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4
EARTH IN THE BALANCE
Al Gore
Cover of EARTH IN THE BALANCE

EARTH IN THE BALANCE

by Al Gore · Houghton Mifflin

26 wks on list

A U.S. senator convinced that the global environment is on the brink of disaster draws on the latest research on air, water, and soil pollution to develop a strategic plan for a worldwide clean-up effort

11
THE SILENT PASSAGE
Gail Sheehy
Cover of THE SILENT PASSAGE

THE SILENT PASSAGE

by Gail Sheehy · Random House

28 wks on list

Gail Sheehy's landmark bestseller has become the bible for women concerned about menopause. Since The Silent Passage was originally published in the early 1990s, Gail Sheehy, a member of the board of the New York Menopause Research Foundation, has been at the forefront of the newest research on menopause. She has also continued to interview countless women throughout the country on the subject. In this updated and expanded edition, she presents essential new data in chapters on The Perimenopause Panic, Menopause in the Workplace, Estrogen and Brainpower, and New Frontiers in Treatment. Candid, enlightening, inspiring, and witty, with the latest information on everything from early menopause to Chinese medicine and natural remedies, The Silent Passage is an indispensable reference for every woman.

12
2
THE TE OF PIGLET
Benjamin Hoff
Cover of THE TE OF PIGLET

THE TE OF PIGLET

by Benjamin Hoff · Dutton

11 wks on list

For Taoists everywhere, the New York Times bestseller from the author of The Te of Piglet. Happy 90th birthday (10/14/16), to one of the world's most beloved icons of literature, Winnie-the-Pooh! The how of Pooh? The Tao of who? The Tao of Pooh!?! In which it is revealed that one of the world's great Taoist masters isn't Chinese--or a venerable philosopher--but is in fact none other than that effortlessly calm, still, reflective bear. A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh! While Eeyore frets, and Piglet hesitates, and Rabbit calculates, and Owl pontificates, Pooh just is. And that's a clue to the secret wisdom of the Taoists.

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1
GENIUS
James Gleick
Cover of GENIUS

GENIUS

by James Gleick · Pantheon

5 wks on list

"A genius, a great mathematician once said, performs magic, does things that nobody else could do. To his scientific colleagues, Richard Feynman was a magician of the highest caliber. Architect of quantum theories, enfant terrible of the atomic bomb project, caustic critic of the space shuttle commission, Nobel Prize winner for work that gave physicists a new way of describing and calculating the interactions of subatomic particles, Richard Feynman left his mark on virtually every area of modern physics. Originality was his obsession. Never content with what he knew or with what others knew, Feynman ceaselessly questioned scientific truths. But there was also another side to him, one which made him a legendary figure among scientists. His curiosity moved well beyond things scientific: he taught himself how to play drums, to give massages, to write Chinese, to crack safes. In Genius, James Gleick, author of the acclaimed best-seller Chaos, shows us a Feynman few have seen. He penetrates beyond the gleeful showman depicted in Feynman's own memoirs and reveals a darker Feynman: his ambition, his periods of despair and uncertainty, his intense emotional nature. From his childhood on the beaches and backlots of Far Rockaway and his first tinkering with radios and differential equations to the machine shops at MIT and the early theoretical work at Princeton - work that foreshadowed his famous notion of antiparticles traveling backward in time - to the tragic death of his wife while he was working at Los Alamos, Genius shows how one scientist's vision was formed. As that vision crystallized in work that reinvented quantum mechanics, we see Feynman's impact on the elite particle-physics community, and how Feynman grew to be at odds with the very community that idolized him. Finally, Gleick explores the nature of genius, our obsession with it and why the very idea may belong to another time. Genius records the life of a scientist who has forever changed science - and changed what it means to know something in this uncertain century"--Jacket.

14
NEW
DAVE BARRY DOES JAPAN
Dave Barry
Cover of DAVE BARRY DOES JAPAN

DAVE BARRY DOES JAPAN

by Dave Barry · Random House

1 wks on list

The award-winning author and syndicated columnist shares his humorous observations on his trip to Japan, sharing his thoughts on culture shock in all its numerous forms--from kabuki to public bathing. Reprint.

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YOUNG MEN & FIRE
Norman Maclean
Cover of YOUNG MEN & FIRE

YOUNG MEN & FIRE

by Norman Maclean · University of Chicago Press

14 wks on list

On August 5, 1949, a crew of fifteen Smokejumpers, the United States Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Less than two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or fatally burned. Exactly what happened in Mann Gulch that day has been obscured by years of grief and controversy. Now a master storyteller finally gives the Mann Gulch fire its due as tragedy. Norman Maclean first saw the Mann Gulch fire as it still burned in mid-August 1949, and even then he knew he would one day become a part of its story. Maclean spent the last fourteen years of his life studying and reliving the fire. Young Men and Fire is the long-awaited result, a story of Montana, of the ways of wildfires, firefighters, and fire scientists, and especially of a crew, young and proud, who "hadn't learned to count the odds and to sense they might owe the universe a tragedy." This tale is also Maclean's own, the story of a writer obsessed by a strange and human horror, unable to let the truth die with these young men, searching for the last - and lasting - word. Nature's violence collides with human fallibility in Young Men and Fire. The Smokejumpers in Mann Gulch are trapped by a "blowup," a deadly explosion of flame and wind rarely encountered and little understood at the time. Only seconds ahead of the approaching firestorm, the foreman, R. Wagner Dodge, throws himself into the ashes of an "escape fire "--And survives as his confused men run, their last moments obscured by smoke. The parents of the dead cry murder, charging that the foreman's fire killed their boys. Years later, Maclean returns to the scene with two of the survivors and pursues the mysteries that Mann Gulch has kept hidden since 1949. From the words of witnesses, the evidence of history, and the research of fire scientists, Maclean at last assembles the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy.

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