Books published by publisher The New York Review of Books, Inc

"A god, a companion to sorceresses at the Witches' Sabbath, a beast who is royal in Siam, who in Japan is called 'the tiger that eats from the hand, ' the adored of Mohammed, Laura's rival with Petrarch, the friend of Richelieu, the favorite of poets"--such are just a few of the feline distinctions that Carl Van Vechten records in this glorious historical overview of humanity's long love affair with the cat. As delightful as it is learned, "Tiger in the House" explores science, art, and history to assemble a treasury of cat lore, while Van Vechten's sumptuous baroque prosemakes the book's every page an inexhaustible pleasure.

A Carnegie Medal Honor Book Twelve-year-old Smith is a denizen of the mean streets of eighteenth-century London, living hand to mouth by virtue of wit and pluck. One day he trails an old gentleman with a bulging pocket, deftly picks it, and as footsteps ring out from the alley by which he had planned to make his escape, finds himself in a tough spot. Taking refuge in a doorway, he sees two men emerge to murder the man who was his mark. They rifle the dead man s pockets and finding them empty, depart in a rage. Smith, terrified, flees the scene of the crime. What has he stolen that is worth the life of a man? "Smith" is a gripping, engrossing, and utterly diverting tale of high adventure related by a writer whose scintillating style is matched only by the dazzle of his plotting. In the words of Lloyd Alexander, Garfield is unmatched for sheer exciting storytelling. The reader simply can t stop reading him. "