In 1973, when a renowned Canadian behavioral psychologist pursues his latest research project-- an experiment to determine whether chimpanzees can acquire advanced language skills-- he brings home a baby chimp named Zan and asks his thirteen-year-old son to treat Zan like a little brother.

A collection of poems reflecting the experiences of a little English boy growing up in the early part of the twentieth century.

An autobiographical journey of discovery gathers together fragments of memory, experience, and family history in order to understand the meaning of his parents' legacy and his own heritage.

Recounts the author's life-long obsession with Graham Greene's writings on the experiences of being an outsider, which informed both the author's travels and his private explorations of his relationship with his elusive father.

Danticat came to think of her uncle Joseph, a charismatic pastor, as her "second father" when she was placed in his care at age four when her parents left Haiti for America. So she experiences a jumble of emotions when, at twelve, she joins her parents in New York City, whom she struggles to remember--she has left behind Joseph and the only home she's ever known. The story of a new life in a new country while fearing for those still in Haiti soon...

Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by" -- metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them. --from publisher description.

The author melds personal history with frank biological data about every stage of life, creating an "autobiography about my body" that seeks meaning in death, but moreover, life. Shields filters his frank--and usually foreboding--data through his own experience as a 51-year-old father with burgeoning back pain, contrasting his own gloomy tendencies with the defiant perspective of his own 97-year-old father, a man who has waged a lifelong, urgent battle...

Alice McDermott's powerful novel is a vivid portrait of an American family in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Witty, compassionate, and wry, it captures the social, political, and spiritual upheavals of those decades through the experiences of a middle-class couple, their four children, and the changing worlds in which they live. While Michael and Annie Keane taste the alternately intoxicating and bitter first fruits of the sexual revolution,...

Describes the author's experiences as a middle-aged mom whose initial resolve to train for and complete the Iditarod failed when her dogs refused to finish the race, detailing how she overcame daunting challenges to succeed during a second attempt. --Publisher's description.

From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences. Whether railing against the habits of litterers in the English countryside or marveling over a disembodied human arm in a taxidermist's shop, Sedaris takes us on side-splitting adventures that...