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The year was 1957, the month September, and I had just turned eight years old. Dwight Eisenhower was President, but in my life it was the diminutive, intense Sister Mary Lurana who ruled, at least in the third-grade class where I was held captive. For reasons you will soon understand, my parents had remanded me to the penal institution of St. Brigid’s School in Westbury, New York, a cruel and unusual punishment if there ever was one.

Already, I had barely survived my first two years at St. Brigid’s because I was, well, a little nitwit. Not satisfied with memorizing the Baltimore Catechism’s fine prose, which featured passages like “God made me to show his goodness and to make me happy with him in heaven,” I was constantly annoying my classmates and, of course, the no-nonsense Sister Lurana. With sixty overactive students in her class, she was understandably short on patience. For survival, she had also become quick on the draw.

Then it happened. One day I blurted out some dumb remark, and Sister Lurana was on me like a panther. Her black habit blocked out all distractions as she leaned down, looked me in the eye, and uttered words I have never forgotten: “William, you are a bold, fresh piece of humanity.”

And she was dead-on.

One day in 1957, in the third-grade classroom of St. Brigid’s parochial school, an exasperated Sister Mary Lurana bent over a restless young William O’Reilly and said, “William, you are a bold, fresh piece of humanity.” Little did she know that she was, early in his career as a troublemaker, defining the essence of Bill O’Reilly and providing him with the title of his brash and entertaining issues-based memoir.

And this time it’s personal. In his most intimate book yet, O’Reilly goes back in time to examine the people, places, and experiences that launched him on his journey from working-class kid to immensely influential television personality and bestselling author. Readers will learn how his traditional outlook was formed in the crucible of his family, his neighborhood, his church, and his schools, and how his views on America’s proper role in the world emerged from covering four wars on five continents over three-plus decades as a news correspondent. What will delight his numerous fans and surprise many others is the humor and self-deprecation with which he handles one of his core subjects: himself, and just how O’Reilly became O’Reilly.

Barack Obama’s run for president touched something profound in America, awakening a civic engagement, pride, and passion that many had perhaps given up on. In the course of his campaign, Obama inspired millions of Americans - young and old, rich and poor, rural and urban, and from every racial and ethnic background.

These images, by the only photographer who covered his entire campaign from start to finish, pay heed not only to the man who would be President, but also the people who came to see him, hear him, and vote for him. Yes We Can is a rich portrait of Obama’s historic campaign — a campaign that is as much about Americans and their hopes and dreams as it is about the man that gave them voice.

A Look Inside Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign with Photographer Scout Tufankjian

The first time I photographed Barack Obama, I really didn’t want to go. I knew who he was and was interested in him, but I had plans for that weekend — plans that did not involve driving five hours to New Hampshire to photograph what I assumed would be a deadly dull event. But when Kelly Price, my editor at Polaris Images, told me the German newsmagazine Stern would pay me to make that five hour drive, I canceled my plans, climbed into my Camry, and drove up to Portsmouth. It was probably the best decision I ever made. To some extent, my predictions had been accurate. The book signing was a photographer’s nightmare. The building was huge, dark, cavernous, and impossible to find. I showed up late and in a panic. Looking around, I was convinced that there was no way I was going to be able to make a decent picture in that room. When Obama walked into the room, my aesthetic issues with the room became immediately irrelevant. The crowd was transfixed. Hell, some of the other news photographers were transfixed. And this was New Hampshire! New Hampshire photographers are not impressed by politicians. Ever. Immediately after the event was over, even before filing my pictures, I called Kelly and told her that I was going to cover the Obama presidential campaign. I did not offer her a choice. The fact that he wasn’t technically running yet was immaterial. I knew that this was going to be important and I wanted to be there. Despite my complete lack of “on-the-bus” experience, the national editor at Newsweek took a huge risk and assigned me to cover Barack Obama’s announcement tour. For the first two days of the campaign I would be a part of the traveling press corps. I would have to learn fast. And I did. For the next twenty-three months, I followed Obama from event to event, only heading home for quick breaks to meet with editors and to remind my boyfriend what I looked like. I followed him into coffee shops and diners, auto manufacturing plants and bowling alleys. I followed him in a rental car and I flew in his charter jet. I photographed Obama wooing potential voters in huge, expensive houses and on poverty-stricken Indian reservations. I covered small events, where I was the only photographer present, and I covered massive rallies with more than 75,000 people in cities like Denver and Berlin. Even as the campaign stretched from one year to two, and as I marked my third winter photographing the Senator, I have not lost interest in this campaign and the people that have supported it. Whether the audience included a skeptical old farmer from Tama, Iowa, who was surprised to slowly realize that he had something in common with this young black politician from Hawaii or an eight-year-old boy from LA who couldn’t stop saying “He is going to be President! He looks like me and he is going to be President!” the people’s reaction to the Senator and his campaign have fueled my work. The looks on their faces, the questions on their lips, and the ways that they hang on his every word, are a constant reminder of how lucky I have been to document this moment in history. -Scout Tufankjian The Journey of an American Icon: Excerpts from Yes We Can

In this moving memoir, Robert J. Wagner opens his heart to share the romances, the drama, and the humor of an incredible life

He grew up in Bel Air next door to a golf course that changed his life. As a young boy, he saw a foursome playing one morning featuring none other than Fred Astaire, Clark Gable, Randolph Scott, and Cary Grant. Seeing these giants of the silver screen awed him and fueled his dreams of becoming a movie star. Battling a revolving door of boarding schools and a father who wanted him to forget Hollywood and join the family business, sixteen-year-old Wagner started like any naïve kid would—walking along Sunset Boulevard, hoping that a producer or director would notice him.

Under the mentorship of stars like Spencer Tracy, he would become a salaried actor in Hollywood's studio system among other hot actors of the moment such as his friends Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis. Working with studio mogul Darryl Zanuck, Wagner began to appear in a number of films alongside the most beautiful starlets—but his first love was Barbara Stanwyck, an actress twice his age. As his career blossomed, and after he separated from Stanwyck, he met the woman who would change his life forever, Natalie Wood. They fell instantly and deeply in love and stayed together until the stress of their careers—hers marching upward, his inexplicably deflating—drove them to divorce.

Trying to forget the pain, he made more movies and spent his time in Europe with the likes of Steve McQueen, Sophia Loren, Peter Sellers, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Liz Taylor, and Joan Collins. He would meet and marry the beautiful former model and actress Marion Marshall. Together they had a daughter and made their way back to America, where he found himself at the beginning of a new era in Hollywood—the blossoming of television. Lew Wasserman and later Aaron Spelling would work with Wagner as he produced and starred in some of the most successful programs in history.

Despite his newfound success, his marriage to Marion fell apart. He looked no further than Natalie Wood, for whom he still pined. To the world's surprise, they fell in love all over again, this time more deeply and with maturity. As she settled into a domestic life, raising their own daughter, Courtney, as well as their children from previous marriages, Wagner became the sole provider, reaping the riches of television success. Their life together was cut tragically short, though, when Wood died after falling from their yacht.

For the first time, Wagner writes about that tremendously painful time. After a serious bout with depression, he finally resurfaced and eventually married Jill St. John, who helped keep his family and his fractured heart together.

With color photographs and never-before-told stories, this is a quintessentially American story of one of the great sons of Hollywood.

Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, they’d only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.

Finding your place in the world can be the longest trip home . . .

In his debut bestseller, Marley & Me, John Grogan showed how a dog can become an extraordinary presence in the life of one family. Now, in his highly anticipated follow-up, Grogan again works his magic, bringing us the story of what came first.

Before there was Marley, there was a gleefully mischievous boy growing up in a devout Catholic home outside Detroit in the 1960s and '70s. Despite his loving parents' best efforts, John's attempts to meet their expectations failed spectacularly. Whether it was his disastrous first confession, the use of his hobby telescope to take in the bronzed Mrs. Selahowski sunbathing next door, the purloined swigs of sacramental wine, or, as he got older, the fumbled attempts to sneak contraband past his father and score with girls beneath his mother's vigilant radar, John was figuring out that the faith and fervor that came so effortlessly to his parents somehow had eluded him.

And then one day, a strong-willed young woman named Jenny walked into his life. As their love grew, John began the painful, funny, and poignant journey into adulthood—away from his parents' orbit and into a life of his own. It would take a fateful call and the onset of illness to lead him on the final leg of his journey—the trip home again.

The Longest Trip Home is a book for any son or daughter who has sought to forge an identity at odds with their parents', and for every parent who has struggled to understand the values of their children. It is a book about mortality and grace, spirit and faith, and the powerful love of family. With his trademark blend of humor and pathos that made Marley & Me beloved by millions, John Grogan traces the universal journey each of us must take to find our unique place in the world.

Filled with revelation and laugh-out-loud humor, The Longest Trip Home will capture your heart—but mostly it will make you want to reach out to those you love.