Books published by Random House USA Inc

Its tires are over five feet tall. It is as heavy as an elephant. And it can jump, race, and crush like a monster! It's a monster truck! Whether racing over ramps, plowing through mud, or crushing cars, monster trucks are the biggest and baddest trucks out there! The bestselling and award-winning team that brought you Choppers! and Motorcycles!, author Susan E. Goodman and photographer Michael J. Doolittle, show readers how these beasts came to be, how they work, how they get ready for a show, and some of the exciting tricks that only monster trucks can do. This action-packed Step 3 Step into Reading beginning reader is filled with you-are-there color photographs! Informative and fast-paced, this book is perfect for boys and girls who love everything on wheels!

We think we're relating to other people-but actually we're all playing games.Forty years ago, Games People Play revolutionized our understanding of what really goes on during our most basic social interactions. More than five million copies later, Dr. Eric Berne's classic is as astonishing-and revealing-as it was on the day it was first published. This anniversary edition features a new introduction by Dr. James R. Allen, president of the International Transactional Analysis Association, and Kurt Vonnegut's brilliant Life magazine review from 1965.We play games all the time-sexual games, marital games, power games with our bosses, and competitive games with our friends. Detailing status contests like "Martini” (I know a better way), to lethal couples combat like "If It Weren't For You” and "Uproar,” to flirtation favorites like "The Stocking Game” and "Let's You and Him Fight,” Dr. Berne exposes the secret ploys and unconscious maneuvers that rule our intimate lives.Explosive when it first appeared, Games People Play is now widely recognized as the most original and influential popular psychology book of our time. It's as powerful and eye-opening as ever.

Follow the world's greatest detective, Nero Wolfe, on a trail of money, mayhem, and murder in three cases of capital crime.The trail of bodies begins with the death of a self-made millionaire, a fortune in uranium, and the perfect weapon . . . which no longer exists. Then it's on to a rural lodge to teach two arrogant billionaires, a foreign ambassador, and a famous diplomat that murder is bad for business. Finally, it's a case of politics making the strangest of bedfellows when a fake millionaire becomes a real corpse in the state capital and the evidence has Nero and Archie in the hot seat. Introduction by Sharyn McCrumb "It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore."-The New York Times Book Review A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America's greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together, Stout and Wolfe have entertained-and puzzled-millions of mystery fans around the world. Now, with his perambulatory man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth is back in the original seventy-three cases of crime and detection written by the inimitable master himself, Rex Stout.

Simply the best and most complete mushroom field guide and reference book, MUSHROOMS DEMYSTIFIED includes descriptions and keys to more than 2,000 species of mushrooms, with more than 950 photographs. Mushroom authority David Arora provides a beginner's checklist of the 70 most distinctive and common mushrooms, plus detailed chapters on terminology, classification, habitats, mushroom cookery, mushroom toxins, and the meanings of scientific mushroom names. Beginning and experienced mushroom hunters everywhere will find MUSHROOMS DEMYSTIFIED a delightful, informative, and indispensible companion.

The now classic work on Buddhism and business from the foremost American teacher of Tibetan Buddhism-reissued in a tenth anniversary edition with compelling case studies that showcase its principles in action around the globe.With a unique combination of ancient and contemporary wisdom from Tibetan Buddhism, The Diamond Cutter presents readers with empowering strategies for success in their personal and professional lives. The book is presented in three layers. The first is a translation of The Diamond Sutra, an ancient text of conversations between the Buddha and his close disciple, Subhuti. The second contains quotes from some of the best commentaries in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. And the third layer, the main text, is the practical application of Buddhist philosophies to the world of business, based upon Geshe Michael Roach's seventeen-years of experience as an employee of the Andin International Diamond Corporation, a company that grew during his tenure from four employees to a world leader in the jewelry industry. Roach's easy style and spiritual understanding make The Diamond Cutter an invaluable source of timeless wisdom for those familiar or unfamiliar with Tibetan Buddhism. His focus on practical personal and business applications has resonated with and changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals the world over since its original publication.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"Son, we're going to Hell." The navigator of the USS Houston confided these prophetic words to a young officer as he and his captain charted a course into U.S. naval legend. Renowned as FDR's favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. It wasn't a fair fight, but the men of the Houston would wage it to the death. Hornfischer brings to life the awesome terror of nighttime naval battles that turned decks into strobe-lit slaughterhouses, the deadly rain of fire from Japanese bombers, and the almost superhuman effort of the crew as they miraculously escaped disaster again and again-until their luck ran out during a daring action in Sunda Strait. There, hopelessly outnumbered, the Houston was finally sunk and its survivors taken prisoner. For more than three years their fate would be a mystery to families waiting at home. In the brutal privation of jungle POW camps dubiously immortalized in such films as The Bridge on the River Kwai, the war continued for the men of the Houston-a life-and-death struggle to survive forced labor, starvation, disease, and psychological torture. Here is the gritty, unvarnished story of the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway glamorized by Hollywood, but which in reality mercilessly reduced men to little more than animals, who fought back against their dehumanization with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, will-power-and the undying faith that their country would prevail. Using journals and letters, rare historical documents, including testimony from postwar Japanese war crimes tribunals, and the eyewitness accounts of Houston's survivors, James Hornfischer has crafted an account of human valor so riveting and awe-inspiring, it's easy to forget that every single word is true.

The Good Old Days-were they really good? On the surface they appear to be so-especially the period to which this term is most often applied, the years from the end of the Civil War to the early 1900's. This period of history has receded into a benevolent haze, leaving us with the image of an ebullient, carefree America, the fun and charm of the Gilded Age, the Gay Nineties. But this gaiety was only a brittle veneer that covered widespread turmoil and suffering. The good old days were good for but the privileged few. For the farmer, the laborer, the average breadwinner, life was an unremitting hardship. This segment of the populace was exploited or lived in the shadow of total neglect. And youth had no voice. These are the people, the mass of Americans, whose adversities this book attempts to chronicle.

Angels have been with us in every time and culture, and in many religious traditions. Ask Your Angels vividly chronicles how they are currently reaching out to every one of us in a totally new way, bridging our physical reality with their pure spiritual energy. From historical writings and widespread contemporary experience that includes their own workshops, the authors show us how we can draw on the power of angels to reconnect with our lost inner selves and to achieve our goals, whether they be better relationships, healing an illness, or recovery from addictionTo align with the angelic energy field, you will use five simple steps, as well as exercises, meditations, and visualizations, to learn how to talk with your angels-in your mind, in letters, in dreams, on a computer-and ask their guidance in matters from the inspired to the mundane.From Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Uriel to the angels of birth and death, from the Earth Angel to the guardian or companion angel who is your personal teacher, comforter, and intimate friend, this guide will introduce you to humor, wisdom, and companionship that come from contact with angels, for they are a doorway to the Divine within us.

Mercer Mayer's Little Critter has a brand-new puppy in this classic, funny, and heartwarming book. Whether he's teaching the new pup tricks, giving him a bath, or curling up with him at bedtime, both parents and children alike will relate to this beloved story. A perfect way to teach children about the responsibility of caring for a pet!

A year's worth of fear-facing prompts and mottoes of encouragement will motivate you to jot down one thing a day and make a daily habit of thinking courageously. Each day is an opportunity to perform one small act of bravery; singing out loud, asking for help, admitting a mistake, pitching an idea, accepting a compliment, changing your hair, going for the prize, failing spectacularly and trying agin. This journal contains a year's worth of fear-facing prompts and mottoes of encouragement. It provides space to jot down daily examples of your own courage--the small steps that culminate in one bold year. Jotting down one thing a day, especially on fortifying subjects like gratitude and happiness, is an enormously popular journaling practice (one that is recommended by nearly every best-selling self-help author). Bravery is another key ingredient of self-actualization, so why not make a daily habit of thinking courageously? This journal is perfect for recent graduates, milestone birthdays, or as a year-end holiday gift to kick off "New Year, New You" projects.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this "ambitious and challenging" (The New York Review of Books) work, the bestselling author of Monsoon and Balkan Ghosts offers a revelatory prism through which to view global upheavals and to understand what lies ahead for continents and countries around the world.In The Revenge of Geography, Robert D. Kaplan builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the near and distant past to look back at critical pivots in history and then to look forward at the evolving global scene. Kaplan traces the history of the world's hot spots by examining their climates, topographies, and proximities to other embattled lands. The Russian steppe's pitiless climate and limited vegetation bred hard and cruel men bent on destruction, for example, while Nazi geopoliticians distorted geopolitics entirely, calculating that space on the globe used by the British Empire and the Soviet Union could be swallowed by a greater German homeland.Kaplan then applies the lessons learned to the present crises in Europe, Russia, China, the Indian subcontinent, Turkey, Iran, and the Arab Middle East. The result is a holistic interpretation of the next cycle of conflict throughout Eurasia. Remarkably, the future can be understood in the context of temperature, land allotment, and other physical certainties: China, able to feed only 23 percent of its people from land that is only 7 percent arable, has sought energy, minerals, and metals from such brutal regimes as Burma, Iran, and Zimbabwe, putting it in moral conflict with the United States. Afghanistan's porous borders will keep it the principal invasion route into India, and a vital rear base for Pakistan, India's main enemy. Iran will exploit the advantage of being the only country that straddles both energy-producing areas of the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. Finally, Kaplan posits that the United States might rue engaging in far-flung conflicts with Iraq and Afghanistan rather than tending to its direct neighbor Mexico, which is on the verge of becoming a semifailed state due to drug cartel carnage.A brilliant rebuttal to thinkers who suggest that globalism will trump geography, this indispensable work shows how timeless truths and natural facts can help prevent this century's looming cataclysms.

Translated by Audie E. Bock."A first rate book and a joy to read.... It''s doubtful that a complete understanding of the director''s artistry can be obtained without reading this book.... Also indispensable for budding directors are the addenda, in which Kurosawa lays out his beliefs on the primacy of a good script, on scriptwriting as an essential tool for directors, on directing actors, on camera placement, and on the value of steeping oneself in literature, from great novels to detective fiction."--Variety"For the lover of Kurosawa''s movies...this is nothing short of must reading...a fitting companion piece to his many dynamic and absorbing screen entertainments."--Washington Post Book World

"Quite simply the best financial self-help book."--Money Book Club, Book-of-the-Month ClubEven if you consider yourself a financial "basket case," Chilton explains how you can easily put an effective financial plan into action.In this third edition of one of the biggest-selling financial-planning books ever, David Chilton simplifies the complex puzzles of personal finance and helps you achieve financial independence. With the help of his fictional barber, Roy, and a large dose of humor, Chilton shows you how to take control of your financial future--slowly, steadily, and with sure success. Chilton's plan (detailed in an entertaining story) is no get-rich-quick scheme, but it does make financial independence possible on nothing more than an average salary. This third edition has been updated with assistance from the Arthur Andersen Corporation.

Coming Apart - an acclaimed bestseller that explains why white America has become fractured and divided in education and class.In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way of driving home the fact that the trends he describes do not break along lines of race or ethnicity. Drawing on five decades of statistics and research, Coming Apart demonstrates that a new upper class and a new lower class have diverged so far in core behaviors and values that they barely recognize their underlying American kinship—divergence that has nothing to do with income inequality and that has grown during good economic times and bad. The top and bottom of white America increasingly live in different cultures, Murray argues, with the powerful upper class living in enclaves surrounded by their own kind, ignorant about life in mainstream America, and the lower class suffering from erosions of family and community life that strike at the heart of the pursuit of happiness. That divergence puts the success of the American project at risk. The evidence in Coming Apart is about white America. Its message is about all of America.

In this astonishing work of scholarship that reads like an edge-of-your-seat adventure thriller, acclaimed historian Buddy Levy records the last days of the Aztec empire and the two men at the center of an epic clash of cultures perhaps unequaled to this day. It was a moment unique in human history, the face-to-face meeting between two men from civilizations a world apart. In 1519, Hernán Cortés arrived on the shores of Mexico, determined not only to expand the Spanish empire but to convert the natives to Catholicism and carry off a fortune in gold. That he saw nothing paradoxical in carrying out his intentions by virtually annihilating a proud and accomplished native people is one of the most remarkable and tragic aspects of this unforgettable story. In Tenochtitlán Cortés met his Aztec counterpart, Montezuma: king, divinity, commander of the most powerful military machine in the Americas and ruler of a city whose splendor equaled anything in Europe. Yet in less than two years, Cortés defeated the entire Aztec nation in one of the most astounding battles ever waged. The story of a lost kingdom, a relentless conqueror, and a doomed warrior, Conquistador is history at its most riveting.

"Dr. Gundry has crafted a wise program with a powerful track record." -Mehmet Oz, M.D.Does losing weight and staying healthy feel like a battle? Well, it's really a war. Your enemies are your own genes, backed by millions of years of evolution, and the only way to win is to outsmart them. Renowned surgeon and founder of Gundry MD, Dr. Steven Gundry's revolutionary book shares the health secrets other doctors won't tell you:• Why plants are "good" for you because they're "bad" for you, and meat is "bad" because it's "good" for you• Why plateauing on this diet is actually a sign that you're on the right track• Why artificial sweeteners have the same effects as sugar on your health and your waistline• Why taking antacids, statins, and drugs for high blood pressure and arthritis masks health issues instead of addressing themAlong with the meal planner, 70 delicious recipes, and inspirational stories, Dr. Gundry's easy-to-memorize tips will keep you healthy and on course.

It has been more than a decade since Carolyne Roehm first shared her love of gardening and flower arranging. Now, for the first time ever, she turns her own photographic lens to that passion with Flowers, showcasing more than 300 images of the varieties in her abundant gardens, all captured at their most vibrant and exquisite moments throughout the season. With a gardener’s intimate understanding and a designer’s elegant eye, Roehm shows us the flowers she has cultivated for decades in and around Weatherstone, her historic Connecticut home. While alternating dramatic close-ups with portraits of lovely arrangements and sweeping views of her land, Roehm writes with wit, emotion, and affection of what flowers have meant to her, as well as of the joys and travails of the committed gardener’s life.What began as a casual hobby ultimately became a multi-year endeavor, as Roehm used her camera to explore the special relationship a gardener enjoys with her carefully nurtured beauties. The outcome is a remarkably personal visual essay: sumptuous, surprising, and as revealing of the sensibility behind the camera as the magnificent species that stand before it. This beautiful objet d’art—a flower garden in a book—is Carolyne Roehm’s most significant and singular volume yet.

Tolstoy's final work-a gripping novella about the struggle between the Muslim Chechens and their inept occupiers-is a powerful moral fable for our time. Inspired by a historical figure Tolstoy heard about while serving in the Caucasus, this story brings to life the famed warrior Hadji Murat, a Chechen rebel who has fought fiercely and courageously against the Russian empire. After a feud with his commander he defects to the Russians, only to find that he is now trusted by neither side. He is first welcomed but then imprisoned by the Russians under suspicion of being a spy, and when he hears news of his wife and son held captive by the Chechens, Murat risks all to try to save his family. In the award-winning Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, Hadji Murat is a thrilling and provocative portrait of a tragic figure that has lost none of its relevance.

The personal account of a guerrilla fighter in the French Foreign Legion, reveals the Nazi Battalion's inhumanities to Indochinese villagers.

Here''s the second book in the beloved and hilarious Alvin Ho chapter book series, which has been compared to Diary of a Wimpy Kid and is perfect for both beginning and reluctant readers. Alvin, an Asian American second grader who''s afraid of everything, is back, and his worst fear has come true: he has to go camping. What will he do exposed in the wilderness with bears and darkness and . . . pit toilets? Luckily, he’s got his night-vision goggles and water purifying tablets and super-duper heavy-duty flashlight to keep him safe. And he’s got his dad, too. From Lenore Look and New York Times bestselling illustrator LeUyen Pham comes a drop-dead-funny and touching series with a truly unforgettable character.“Shares with Diary of a Wimpy Kid the humor that stems from trying to manipulate the world.” —Newsday “Alvin’s a winner.” —New York Post

They Came Before Columbus reveals a compelling, dramatic, and superbly detailed documentation of the presence and legacy of Africans in ancient America. Examining navigation and shipbuilding; cultural analogies between Native Americans and Africans; the transportation of plants, animals, and textiles between the continents; and the diaries, journals, and oral accounts of the explorers themselves, Ivan Van Sertima builds a pyramid of evidence to support his claim of an African presence in the New World centuries before Columbus. Combining impressive scholarship with a novelist’s gift for storytelling, Van Sertima re-creates some of the most powerful scenes of human history: the launching of the great ships of Mali in 1310 (two hundred master boats and two hundred supply boats), the sea expedition of the Mandingo king in 1311, and many others. In They Came Before Columbus, we see clearly the unmistakable face and handprint of black Africans in pre-Columbian America, and their overwhelming impact on the civilizations they encountered.

In this daring book, internationally acclaimed author and playwright Eve Ensler offers fictional monologues and stories inspired by girls around the globe. Fierce, tender, and smart, I Am an Emotional Creature is a celebration of the authentic voice inside every girl and an inspiring call to action for girls everywhere to speak up, follow their dreams, and become the women they were always meant to be. This paperback edition features new material about starting a discussion group based on the book.