An instant "New York Times "bestseller, this "explosive biography" ("People") of one of the most beloved and mysterious figures of the twentieth century is "as close as we'll ever get to being inside J.D. Salinger's head" ("Entertainment Weekly").
This "revealing" ("The" "New York Times") and "engrossing" ("The" "Wall Street Journal") oral biography, "fascinating and unique" ("The Washington Post") and "an unmitigated success" ("USA TODAY"), has redefined our understanding of one of the most mysterious figures of the twentieth century.
In nine years of work on "Salinger," and especially in the years since the author's death, David Shields and Shane Salerno interviewed more than 200 people on five continents, many of whom had previously refused to go on the record about their relationship with Salinger. This oral biography offers direct eyewitness accounts from Salinger's World War II brothers-in-arms, his family members, his close friends, his lovers, his classmates, his neighbors, his editors, his publishers, his "New Yorker" colleagues, and people with whom he had relationships that were secret even to his own family. Their intimate recollections are supported by more that 175 photos (many never seen before), diaries, legal records, and private documents that are woven throughout; in addition, appearing here for the first time, are Salinger's "lost letters"--ranging from the 1940s to 2008, revealing his intimate views on love, literature, fame, religion, war, and death, and providing a raw and revelatory self-portrait.
The result is "unprecedented" (Associated Press), "genuinely valuable" ("Time"), and "strips away the sheen of Salinger's] exceptionalism, trading in his genius for something much more real" ("Los Angeles Times"). According to the "Sunday Times" of London, "Salinger" is "a stupendous work...I predict with the utmost confidence that, after this, the world will not need another Salinger biography."

With this landmark book, David Shields fast-forwards the discussion of the central artistic issues of our time. "Who owns ideas? How clear is the distinction between fiction and nonfiction? Has the velocity of digital culture rendered traditional modes obsolete?" Exploring these and related questions, Shields orchestrates a chorus of voices, past and present, to reframe debates about the veracity of memoir and the relevance of the novel. He argues that our culture is obsessed with "reality," precisely because we experience hardly any, and urgently calls for new forms that embody and convey the fractured nature of contemporary experience.

The first and most authoritative history of wood type in the United States is now reissued in paperback. This book tells the complete story of wood type, beginning with the history of wood as a printing material, the development of decorated letters and large letters, and the invention of machinery for mass-producing wood letters. The 19th-century heyday of wood type is explored in great detail, including all aspects of design, manufacture, and marketing, and the evolution of styles. Many related trades interacted with wood type production; the book examines the influence of lithography, letterpress, metal-plate and wood engraving, sign painting and calligraphy, poster printing, and type-founding. Long out of print, the book is still regarded by scholars and designers as an invaluable resource for a rich legacy of typographic art. More than 600 specimens of wood type are classified and annotated, as are more than 100 specimens of complete fonts. This reissue includes a new foreword by David Shields, Design Curator of the Rob Roy Kelly Wood Type Collection at the University of Texas at Austin, discussing the renewed interest in the subject since the mid-1990s as well as ongoing research into the history of wood type.

Blending confessional criticism and cultural autobiography, David Shields explores the power of literature to make life survivable, maybe even endurable. Evoking his deeply divided personality, his character flaws, his woes, his serious despair, he wants "literature to assuage human loneliness, but nothing can assuage human loneliness. Literature doesn't lie about this--which is what makes it essential." This is a captivating, thought-provoking, utterly original book about the essential acts of reading and writing.

Welcome to the Yankees, Ichiro An homage to one of the great baseball players of our era, "Baseball Is Just Baseball "is a wide-ranging selection of Ichiro's most startling and provocative observations. Updated to reflect his move to New York in July 2012, the book also includes a revised Introduction by acclaimed nonfiction writer David Shields.When Ichiro was traded to the Yankees on July 23, 2012, the news made headlines around the world. He will finish out the year in pinstripes before becoming a free agent in 2013. Ichiro is a ten-time All-Star, ten-time Gold Glove winner, 2001 AL MVP and Rookie of the Year, and a virtual lock for the Hall of Fame.
"Experience reality rather than your expectation of reality. Believe in yourself. Don't take yourself seriously, but find an activity to be passionate about and take that activity very seriously. Don't buy the hype. Dissolve hate into love. Care more about the process than the product. Find joy in the seeking itself. "Such are some of the simple but profound ideas embodied in this prize of a little book--a document of not only a popular athlete but an impressively thoughtful human being.

Birth is not inevitable. Life certainly isn't. The sole inevitability of existence, the only sure consequence of being alive, is death. In these eloquent and surprising essays, twenty writers face this fact, among them Geoff Dyer, who describes the ghost bikes memorializing those who die in biking accidents; Jonathan Safran Foer, proposing a new way of punctuating dialogue in the face of a family history of heart attacks and decimation by the Holocaust; Mark Doty, whose reflections on the art-porn movie Bijou lead to a meditation on the intersection of sex and death epitomized by the AIDS epidemic; and Joyce Carol Oates, who writes about the loss of her husband and faces her own mortality. Other contributors include Annie Dillard, Diane Ackerman, Peter Straub, and Brenda Hillman.

Mesmerized and somewhat unnerved by his 97-year-old father's vitality and optimism, David Shields undertakes an original investigation of our flesh-and-blood existence, our mortal being.
Weaving together personal anecdote, biological fact, philosophical doubt, cultural criticism, and the wisdom of an eclectic range of writers and thinkers--from Lucretius to Woody Allen--Shields expertly renders both a hilarious family portrait and a truly resonant meditation on mortality.
The Thing About Life provokes us to contemplate the brevity and radiance of our own sojourn on earth and challenges us to rearrange our thinking in crucial and unexpected ways.

In "Body Politic," David Shields looks at contemporary America and its mythology through the lens of professional and college sports. The result is an unusually insightful and provocative book about an empire in denial. Shields relentlessly examines the way we tell our sports stories (both fictional and nonfictional), considers the kinds of athletes we choose as heroes, and delineates the lessons and values we glean from sports. He explores the intricate and telling relationships between players and coaches, black and white players, immigrant and native players, male and female players, players and broadcasters, players and fans, and players and advertisers. In the process, he shows us the stories we Americans tell ourselves about the kind of people we believe ourselves to be.

Reality Hunger questions every assumption we ever made about art, the novel, journalism, poetry, film, TV, rap, stand-up, graffiti, sampling, plagiarism, writing, and reading. In seeking to tear up the old culture in search of something new and more authentic, it is the most vital book of the new century.