ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library

A call to arms to every voter to remember what it means to live in a free democracy, and a reminder that it's possible for ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things-to get inspired and make a difference on their own.

A historian and legal scholar tells the compelling saga of the Hemings family, whose close blood ties to our third president have been systemically expunged from American history until very recently.

Two Los Angeles-based novelists explore the rise and fall of human lives in their brilliant fictions.

One of the world's leading intellectuals revisits his political roots, scrutinizes the totalitarianisms of the past, as well as those on the horizon, and argues powerfully for a new political and moral vision for our times.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter parts the curtains of secrecy to show how and why Dick Cheney operated and reflects on the legacy Cheney and the Bush administration as a whole will leave as they exit office.

Two pre-eminent war correspondents offer a visceral understanding of America's overseas involvement-from the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan to the heat of the battle in Iraq, from Marine battalions in Ramadi to ordinary Iraqis whose voices have remained eerily silent.

Detective Inspector Ray Lennox of the Edinburgh P.D., on leave for mental, finds himself in the underbelly of American party culture. A macabre and unorthodox thriller by the author of Trainspotting.

A reporter in the New York Times London bureau offers a hilarious and incisive look at her adopted home. \"Lyall will now be hailed as one of England's supreme analysts, preparatory to her being executed on Tower Green.\" (Clive James)

A philosopher and cultural critic-whose thought challenges traditional trajectories- takes on the signal issue of violence and inverts our pre-conceived and popular notions about its causes.

Coinciding with Banned Books Week is the revelatory story behind the 1939 burning and banning of Steinbeck's book in Kern County, Calif., home of the fictional Joads.