A memoir of loss, friendship, and literature explores how the author and her husband, devastated by the deaths of family members and the loss of their home in Hurricane Katrina, established a reading group with friends who also endured difficult life setbacks.

"An eye-opening exploration of "book hunger"--the unmet need for books in underserved communities-and efforts to universalize access to print. Worldwide, billions of people suffer from book hunger. For them, books are too few, too expensive, or do not even exist in their languages. Lea Shaver argues that this is an educational crisis: the most reliable predictor of children's achievement is the size of their families' book collections. This book highlights...

"Books, even obscure ones, are readily available online in the age of digital retail. As bookstores attempt to find their identity in a new era, some have survived by selling everything from toys to socks, coffee to stationery. In this short book, Jeff Deutsch, the director of the Seminary Co-op Bookstores in Chicago, aims to make the case for the value of spaces devoted to books and the value of the time spent browsing their stacks. It is a defense...