In his first novel in ten years, Ernest Gaines, the highly acclaimed author of the best-selling The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, brings us a wrenching story of death and identity in a small Cajun Louisiana community in the late 1940s. A young black named Jefferson is a reluctant party in a shoot-out in a liquor store in which the three other men involved are all killed, including the white store owner. Jefferson, the only survivor, is accused...

"30,000-year-old handprints, animal scent, celebrity autographs, air trapped in Antarctic ice, and graffiti tags are all signatures-a seldom explored form of marking that reveals something fundamental about what it means to have a body"--

"Even in our age of emails, texts, and tweets, there is a growing fascination with the simple act of putting pen to paper. Associations such as the International Association of Master Penmen and The Society for Italic Handwriting keep the traditions of calligraphy and penmanship alive, script typefaces continue to be bestsellers, and hand-drawn display type and packaging of all sorts are having their own renaissance. The Art of Handwriting builds...

As a child Great-aunt Alice Rumphius resolved that when she grew up she would go to faraway places, live by the sea in her old age, and do something to make the world more beautiful--and she does all those things, the last being the most difficult of all.