William Alexander

New York Times bestselling author William Alexander takes readers on the surprisingly twisty journey of the beloved tomato in this fascinating and erudite microhistory. The tomato gets no respect. Never has. Lost in the dustbin of history for centuries, accused of being vile and poisonous, subjected to being picked hard-green and gassed, even used as a projectile, the poor tomato has become the avatar for our disaffection with industrial foods -- while becoming the most popular vegetable in America (and, in fact, the world). Each summer, tomato festivals crop up across the country; the Heinz ketchup bottle, instantly recognizable, has earned a spot in the Smithsonian; and now the tomato is redefining the very nature of farming, moving from fields into climate-controlled mega-greenhouses the size of New England villages. Supported by meticulous research and told in a lively, accessible voice, Ten Tomatoes That Changed the World seamlessly weaves travel, history, humor, and a little adventure (and misadventure) to follow the tomato's trail through history. A fascinating story complete with heroes, con artists, conquistadors, and--no surprise--the Mafia, this book is a mouth-watering, informative, and entertaining guide to the food that has captured our hearts for generations.

A History

Ten Tomatoes That Changed the World

"In a world full of ghosts, Rosa and Jasper live in the only unhaunted town--but must spring to action when they realize the ghosts are lying in wait to take the town back"--

A Properly Unhaunted Place

In the National Book Award–winning Goblin Secrets, a boy joins a theatrical troupe of goblins to find his missing brother. In the town of Zombay, there is a witch named Graba who has clockwork chicken legs and moves her house around—much like the fairy tale figure of Baba Yaga. Graba takes in stray children, and Rownie is the youngest boy in her household. Rownie’s only real relative is his older brother Rowan, who is an actor. But acting is outlawed in Zombay, and Rowan has disappeared. Desperate to find him, Rownie joins up with a troupe of goblins who skirt the law to put on plays. But their plays are not only for entertainment, and the masks they use are for more than make-believe. The goblins also want to find Rowan—because Rowan might be the only person who can save the town from being flooded by a mighty river. This accessible, atmospheric fantasy takes a gentle look at love, loss, and family while delivering a fast-paced adventure that is sure to satisfy.

Goblin Secrets

“A delightful and courageous tale and a romping good read. Voila!” —Mark Greenside, author of I’ll Never Be French (No Matter What I Do) William Alexander is more than a Francophile. He wants to be French. There’s one small obstacle though: he doesn’t speak la langue française. In Flirting with French, Alexander sets out to conquer the language he loves. But will it love him back? Alexander eats, breathes, and sleeps French (even conjugating in his dreams). He travels to France, where mistranslations send him bicycling off in all sorts of wrong directions, and he nearly drowns in an immersion class in Provence, where, faced with the riddle of masculine breasts, feminine beards, and a turkey cutlet of uncertain gender, he starts to wonder whether he should’ve taken up golf instead of French. While playing hooky from grammar lessons and memory techniques, Alexander reports on the riotous workings of the Académie française, the four-hundred-year-old institution charged with keeping the language pure; explores the science of human communication, learning why it’s harder for fifty-year-olds to learn a second language than it is for five-year-olds; and, frustrated with his progress, explores an IBM research lab, where he trades barbs with a futuristic hand-held translator. Does he succeed in becoming fluent? Readers will be as surprised as Alexander is to discover that, in a fascinating twist, studying French may have had a far greater impact on his life than actually learning to speak it ever would. “A blend of passion and neuroscience, this literary love affair offers surprise insights into the human brain and the benefits of learning a second language. Reading William Alexander’s book is akin to having an MRI of the soul.” —Laura Shaine Cunningham, author of Sleeping Arrangements “Alexander proves that learning a new language is an adventure of its own--with all the unexpected obstacles, surprising breakthroughs and moments of sublime pleasure traveling brings.” —Julie Barlow, author of Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong

How a Language Charmed Me, Seduced Me, and Nearly Broke My Heart

Flirting with French

A wry gardening memoir furnishes advice from a backyard gardener on growing everything from apples to zucchini, and presents his gardening experiences and the realization that the love of gardening often drove him to use costly and time-consuming methods. Reprint.

How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden

The $64 Tomato

Charts the author's attempts to bake the perfect loaf of bread, including growing, harvesting, and milling his own wheat.

One Man's Relentless Pursuit of Truth, Meaning, and a Perfect Crust

52 Loaves

New York Times bestselling author William Alexander takes readers on a surprisingly twisty journey through the history of the beloved tomato in this fascinating and erudite microhistory. The tomato gets no respect. Never has. Stored in the dustbin of history for centuries, accused of being vile and poisonous, appropriated as wartime propaganda, subjected to being picked hard-green and gassed, even used as a projectile, the poor tomato is the Rodney Dangerfield of foods. Yet, the tomato is the most popular vegetable in America (and, in fact, the world). It holds a place in America's soul like no other vegetable, and few other foods. Each summer, tomato festivals crop up across the country; John Denver had a hit single titled "homegrown Tomatoes;" and the Heinz tomato ketchup bottle, instantly recognizable, is in the Smithsonian. Author William Alexander is on a mission to get tomatoes the respect they deserve. Supported by meticulous research but told in a lively, accessible voice, Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World will seamlessly weave travel, history, humor, and a little adventure (and misadventure) to follow the tomato's trail through history. A fascinating story complete with heroes, con artists, conquistadors and, no surprise, the Mafia, this book is a mouth-watering, informative, and entertaining guide to the good that has captured our hearts for generations.

Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World

National Book Award winner William Alexander conjures up a spooky adventure full of excitement in this entertaining sequel to A Properly Unhaunted Place. Rosa Ramona Diaz, the ghost appeasing assistant librarian, has unleashed all the ghosts who were previously shut out of the small town of Ingot. Now ghosts are everywhere, and the town’s living residents are either learning to cope or trying to do the one thing no one can successfully do—banish the ghosts. At school, something supernatural is stealing kids’ voices and leaving them speechless. And it’s Rosa’s job to solve the mystery and set things right. Meanwhile her best friend Jasper is dealing with what remains of the Renaissance Festival, where ghosts from Ingot’s past are now battling it out with the ghosts of the Renaissance reenactors. And Rosa is experiencing a haunting of her own—could her father’s ghost have followed her here? Somehow Rosa and Jasper are going to have to find a way to bring Ingot back to normal—in a world where the living are now residing side-by-side with the dearly departed.

A Festival of Ghosts

Gabe Fuentes is in for the ride of his life when he becomes Earth’s ambassador to the galaxy in this alien sci-fi adventure from the National Book Award–winning author of Goblin Secrets. Gabe Fuentes is reading under the covers one summer night when he is interrupted by a creature who looks like a purple sock puppet. The sock puppet introduces himself as the Envoy and asks if Gabe wants to be Earth’s ambassador to the galaxy. What sane eleven-year-old could refuse? Some ingenious tinkering with the washing machine sends Gabe’s “entangled” self out to the center of the galaxy. There he finds that Earth is in the path of a destructive alien force—and Gabe himself is the target of an assassination plot. Exactly who wants him out of the way? And why? Back home, Gabe discovers that his undocumented immigrant parents are in danger of being deported. Can Gabe survive long enough to solve two sets of “alien” problems? He runs for his life, through Minneapolis and outer space, in this fast-paced adventure from a National Book Award–winning author. “Physics lovers will enjoy this clever series opener—but so will those who enjoy comedy, politics, diplomacy or strange-looking aliens” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Ambassador

When the music of a bone flute given to her by a goblin separates Kaile's shadow from herself, her family believes she has died and become a ghoul, and Kaile must set out to prove that she still lives.

Ghoulish Song

Fran Wilde

Rachel Swirsky

Nisi Shawl

Katharine Duckett

A. Merc Rustad

Jennifer Brozek

A.T. Greenblatt

Marissa Lingen

The September/October 2018 issue of Hugo Award-winning Uncanny Magazine. Our Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction Special Issue! Guest edited by Dominik Parisen and Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, Nicolette Barischoff, S. Qioyi Lu, and Judith Tarr. Featuring new fiction by William Alexander, Rachel Swirsky, Jennifer Brozek, A.T. Greenblatt, A. Merc Rustad, Katharine Duckett, Nisi Shawl, Stu West, P.H. Lee, Fran Wilde, and Marissa Lingen, essays by Andi C. Buchanan, Fran Wilde, Zaynab Shahar, John Wiswell, A.J. Hackwith, Ira Gladkova, Gemma Noon, teri.zin, and Marieke Nijkamp, and poetry by Rita Chen, Rose Lemberg, Genevieve DeGuzman, Robin M. Eames, Sarah Gailey, Alicia Cole, Khairani Barokka, Bogi Takács, and Julia Watts Belser, interviews with Rachel Swirsky and Marissa Lingen by Sandra Odell, a cover by Likhain, and an editorial by Dominik Parisien and Elsa Sjunneson-Henry.

Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction September/October 2018

Uncanny Magazine Issue 24

Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk in the parish of Pyketillim [by W. Alexander].

And Other Poems

The Finding of the Book

The witness of the Psalms to Christ and Christianity, eight lectures

St. Augustine's Holiday and Other Poems

The published work of William Alexander is the surest contemporary guide to the social history of the countryside of North-East Scotland in the nineteenth century. In this selection of his writing, which includes essays from the Aberdeenshire Free Press and chapters from his masterpiece Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk, Ian Carter shows how Alexander's writing reflected the lives that real people enjoyed and endured in the countryside of Victorian Scotland and thus contributed to vital debates about the proper shape of that countryside. Taken as a whole, Alexander's writing is a matchless account of the aspirations of a peasantry resisting full integration into capitalist agriculture. It runs directly counter to the policies that we have taken for granted for two generations, and this selection may encourage North-East folk - and other Scots - to challenge these assumptions. It will certainly help them reclaim some of their history.

Rural Life in Victorian Aberdeenshire

A brave girl flees a ghoul while trying to save her city in this lively companion to Goblin Secrets, the National Book Award winner that Kirkus Reviews calls “humorous, poignant, and convincing.” Kaile lives in Zombay, an astonishing city where goblins walk the streets and witches work their charms and curses. Kaile wants to be a musician and is delighted when a goblin gives her a flute carved out of bone. But the flute’s single, mournful song has a dangerous consequence: it separates Kaile and her shadow. Anyone without a shadow is considered dead, and despite Kaile’s protests that she’s alive and breathing, her family forces her to leave so she can’t haunt their home. Kaile and her shadow soon learn that the troublesome flute is tied to a terrifying ghoul made from the bones of those who drowned in the Zombay River. With the ghoul chasing her and the river threatening to flood, Kaile has an important role to play in keeping Zombay safe. Will Kaile and her shadow be able to learn the right tune in time? Set in the delightful and dangerous world of Goblin Secrets, Ghoulish Song is a gripping adventure laced with humor and mystery from National Book Award–winning author William Alexander. His “graceful prose weaves an engaging fantasy that embraces the power of music” (Publishers Weekly).

Helaine Bader

Susan Garfield

Alexander

Judith H. LaRosa

Appropriate for undergraduate students studying health education, nursing and women's studies, New Dimensions in Women's Health, Seventh Edition is a comprehensive, modern text that offers students the tools to understand the health of women of all cultures, races, ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and sexual orientations.

New Dimensions in Women's Health

Claudia Romo Edelman

Read about "La Reina de la Salsa" in Hispanic Star: Celia Cruz, and learn the most groundbreaking, iconic Hispanic and Latinx heroes that have shaped our culture and the world in this gripping biography series for young readers, perfect for fans of the Who Was series. If you can see it, you can be it. Meet the Queen of Salsa, Celia Cruz—once just a girl from Havana, Cuba, who loved to sing. Her soulful voice, compelling charm, and unstoppable determination led to her meteoric rise to fame, opening the door for Latinx performers everywhere. Her booming career took her from the Sonora Matancera to the Fania All-Stars, with the rising popularity of salsa, a genre born of Afro-Cuban musical stylings. Six decades and more than seventy albums later, Celia’s influence still has an undeniable hold on today’s music. Hispanic Star proudly celebrates Hispanic and Latinx heroes who have made remarkable contributions to American culture and have been undeniable forces in shaping its future.

William Alexander

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