Books with author John A. Williams

Discover an American masterpiece. This unassuming story about the life of a quiet English professor has earned the admiration of readers all over the globe. William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude. John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.

Discover an American masterpiece. This unassuming story about the life of a quiet English professor has earned the admiration of readers all over the globe. William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude. John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.

More than 99 percent of the evidence proves the Shroud of Turin is the authentic burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Only one test says otherwise—the carbon date performed in 1988. A serial killer with a fetish for fire targets the faithful of Tucson, Arizona. Homicide detective, Pete Johnston, works to catch the killer before more clergy are killed, before more churches are burned. His daughter, Amari, is a criminal justice major at the University of Arizona. When the Shroud is carbon dated at her university, the results reveal that the relic is a medieval forgery. Amari investigates this ancient cold case file for a class project and makes a shocking discovery that could alter the fate of Christianity.She teams up with Dr. Kevin Brenner, a brilliant young experimental physicist, and together they gather evidence so they can plead their case to the Vatican—unless the killer can stop them first. Her father desperately tries to protect her and catch the killer before she becomes his next victim.If Ted Dekker and Christy Barritt collaborated on a mystery/suspense novel, it would read like this. .

Discover an American masterpiece. This unassuming story about the life of a quiet English professor has earned the admiration of readers all over the globe.The critic Morris Dickstein has said that John Williams's Stoner "is something much rarer than a great novel - it is a perfect novel," and in the last decade this austere and deeply moving tale of a Midwestern college professor has been embraced by readers all over the world. To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Stoner, NYRB Classics offers a special hardback edition of the book that also includes a previously unpublished correspondence between John Williams and his agent about its writing and publication.

A cult leader’s apocalyptic vision. A preposterous scheme to gain eternal life. A feisty private investigator, fresh out of college . . . Amari Johnston is the daughter of veteran homicide detective, Pete Johnston. After Amari makes the national news by debunking the carbon dating performed on the Shroud of Turin, philanthropist Ernesto Galliano hires her and her father to join his own personal A-team, to right the world’s wrongs, one mission at a time. A schizophrenic UFO cult leader . . . For Calvin Nettles, time is short. The money from his wealthy father’s trust fund is about to run out. Can he and his forty followers find a way to reach the planet of New Canaan before the Great Recycling? Can the Shroud of Turin open a portal to paradise? Or will they release their souls the traditional way? A conman who prefers heaven on earth . . . Adrian Agricola will stop at nothing to steal the remains of Calvin’s trust fund—even if it means every one of the cult members must die. Will Amari stop the cult before they steal the Shroud of Turin? Or will she also fall victim to the cult leader’s suicidal vision? If Ted Dekker and Christy Barritt collaborated on a mystery novel, it would read like this one. Although this novel is Volume 2 in the Amari Johnston series, it can easily be read as a standalone title.

The powerful story of a vibrant African American family torn apart by inner turmoil and the injustices perpetrated by a racist society Sissie Joplin is dying, and her surviving children have come to say good-bye. Estranged from their mother for years, Iris and Ralph have both achieved success—Iris as a jazz singer in Europe and Ralph as a playwright—but the pain of their youth remains forever alive in their memories. Sissie, too, remembers: the bitter struggles and the devastating tragedies; the indignities, cruelties, and deprivations visited upon a strong-willed black woman—and on the once proud men in her life ultimately defeated by a white society that at times seemed devoted to their destruction. Sissie was not always wise or fair, and her actions often did more harm than good, but she survived. And now, at the end of her life, it is time for a reckoning—and one last opportunity to heal. A powerfully affecting family saga and a provocative indictment of racism in America, Sissie is a magnificent achievement by John A. Williams, the award-winning author heralded by Ishmael Reed as “the best African American writer of the century.”

On May 10, 1869, the Golden Spike linked the Central Pacific Railroad with the Union Pacific Railroad at Promontory Point, Utah. The dream of a railroad across America had at last come true. This book tells the story of swaggering men with big plans, of an America emerging from the Civil War and reaching its manifest destiny.The men who imagined the transcontinental railroad were impassioned profiteers, an unlikely, often ruthless band, guilty of both financial double-dealing and ferocious ingenuity. When ice delayed operations in the Sierra Nevadas, the men of the Central Pacific formed the Summit Ice Company and sold their problem to California saloons. When herds of buffalo ripped up the tracks, the men of the Union Pacific brutally slaughtered tens of thousands of them. (Thus the legend of Buffalo Bill was born.) While his partners finagled in Washington and on Wall Street, Jack Casement, a former Union general, dressed in a fur coat, a Cossack hat, and shining cavalry boots and carrying a pistol and a bullwhip, drove the workers of the Union Pacific to new track-laying records. Meanwhile, from the West, thousands of Chinese immigrants blasted, climbed, and inched their way through the perilous California mountains.The railroad transformed the country forever. It decimated the Plains Indian culture by destroying the herds of buffalo that sustained it. It augmented the timber and steel industries; it opened up the West for commerce. Farms grew up along the length of the rails. Thousands of immigrants from Asia and Europe came here to build the iron road. Most important, it united a nation.The story of the railroad is capitalist theater, starring powerful politicians and generals and con artists. Set in opulent parlor cars, well-heeled boardrooms, and rowdy frontier towns, on desolate plains and deadly gorges, it is a story of vision and corruption, of empire building at its most vulgar and glorious.John Williams combines scholarship with personalities, historical analysis with plain old tall tales, to tell a story that will appeal to readers of American history and adventure and to lovers of the American West. The Transcontinental Railroad is an epic of every sense.

For more than 50 years, Mr. Met, the original Major League Baseball mascot, has thrilled New Yorkers and New York Mets fans alike. Take a walk through history with "We'll Call You Mr. Met!" and learn Mr. Met's life story, from the early days at the Polo Grounds, to Shea Stadium and the "Miracle Mets," all the way to Citi Field, where new Mets memories are made every season."We'll Call You Mr. Met!" is a brand new baseball book, officially licensed by Major League Baseball, and makes a great gift for kids and adults of all ages!

Slavery helped finance the Industrial Revolution in England. Plantation owners, shipbuilders, and merchants connected with the slave trade accumulated vast fortunes that established banks and heavy industry in Europe and expanded the reach of capitalism worldwide. Eric Williams advanced these powerful ideas in Capitalism and Slavery, published in 1944. Years ahead of its time, his profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development. Binding an economic view of history with strong moral argument, Williams's study of the role of slavery in financing the Industrial Revolution refuted traditional ideas of economic and moral progress and firmly established the centrality of the African slave trade in European economic development. He also showed that mature industrial capitalism in turn helped destroy the slave system. Establishing the exploitation of commercial capitalism and its link to racial attitudes, Williams employed a historicist vision that set the tone for future studies. In a new introduction, Colin Palmer assesses the lasting impact of Williams's groundbreaking work and analyzes the heated scholarly debates it generated when it first appeared.

Hope for the Hopeless. A Cure at Any Cost. Cystic fibrosis is a progressive disease with no cure. And for one dying little girl with this illness, there is only one hope—an ancient Christian relic with miraculous healing powers.Amari Johnston is a feisty private investigator fresh out of college. Her father is a retired homicide detective. Together, they work as a team for a wealthy philanthropist named Ernesto Galliano.While staying at Ernesto’s estate, Amari befriends an endearing four-year-old foster child named Kathleen. But Kathleen isn’t like the other foster children staying at the estate. She has a severe case of cystic fibrosis, and Amari is desperate to find a cure. She researches the latest medical advances, but after learning that effective treatment is decades away, she nearly gives up hope.Meanwhile, inside the restoration laboratory of the Royal Ontario Museum, a conservator discovers a relic with miraculous healing powers: a woolen scrap of fabric from the cloak of Jesus Christ. When the museum conservator gets fired, and the miracle cloth goes missing, Ernesto sends Amari and her father to investigate the case. As Kathleen lies dying in the intensive care unit, Amari puts her own life on the line in a desperate attempt to find the miracle cloth before it’s too late. Although this novel is volume 3 of the Amari Johnston series, it can easily be read as a standalone title.