Gifts for the Holidays

Jay Allison, the host and curator of This I Believe, is an independent broadcast journalist. His work appears often on NPR and has earned him five Peabody Awards. He is the founder of the public radio stations that serve Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and Cape Cod, where he... more

Jay Allison, the host and curator of This I Believe, is an independent broadcast journalist. His work appears often on NPR and has earned him five Peabody Awards. He is the founder of the public radio stations that serve Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and Cape Cod, where he... more

Mignon Fogarty is the creator of Grammar Girl and founder of the Quick and Dirty Tips Network. A technical writer and entrepreneur, she has served as an editor and producer at a number of health and science Web sites. She has a B.A. in English from the University of... more

Thomas Frank is the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? and One Market Under God. The founding editor of The Baffler and a contributing editor at Harper’s, Frank has received a Lannan award and been a guest columnist for The New York Times. He lives, of course, in... more

Ben Ratliff has been a jazz critic at The New York Times since 1996. The author of Coltrane and The New York Times Essential Library: Jazz, he lives in Manhattan with his wife and two sons. more

Tenzin Gyatzo, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and is the temporal and spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. The author of The Art of Happiness, among many other books, he is the head of the Tibetan government in exile and resides in... more

Rose George is a freelance writer and journalist who regularly contributes to Slate, The Guardian, The Independent, and the Financial Times. She lives in London. more

Rick Atkinson was a staff writer and senior editor at The Washington Post for more than twenty years. He is the bestselling author of An Army at Dawn, The Long Gray Line, In the Company of Soldiers, and Crusade. His many awards include Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and... more

Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of colonel. He is the author of The New American Militarism, among other books. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic... more

Catherine O’Flynn was born in Birmingham, England, in 1970, where she grew up in and around her parents’ candy store.  She has been a teacher, Web editor, and mystery customer—and this, her first novel, draws on her experience of working in record stores. After spending... more

Paul Auster is the bestselling author of Travels in the Scriptorium, The Brooklyn Follies, and Oracle Night. I Thought My Father Was God, the NPR National Story Project anthology, which he edited, was also a national bestseller. His work has been translated into thirty... more

Bill Murphy Jr. worked as Bob Woodward’s research assistant on the bestselling State of Denial. A lawyer and former Army Reserve officer, he reported from Iraq for The Washington Post in 2007. He lives in Washington, D.C. more

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of fourteen books, including This Land Is Their Land and the New York Times bestsellers Bait and Switch and Fear of Falling. A frequent contributor to Harper’s and The Nation, she has also been a columnist at The New York Times and Time... more

Jacqueline Winspear is the author of four previous Maisie Dobbs novels. The Maisie Dobbs series has won the Agatha, Alex, and Macavity Awards. Originally from the United Kingdom, Winspear now lives in California. more

Benjamin Black is the pen name of acclaimed author John Banville, who was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. His novels have won numerous awards, most recently the Man Booker Prize in 2005 for The Sea. He lives in Dublin. more

Chandler Burr is the New York Times perfume critic and author of The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Perfume, Obsession, and the Last Mystery of the Senses and A Separate Creation. Burr, who earned a master’s in international economics and Japan studies from the Paul H. Nitze... more

Paul Fisher comes from a family of writers and has taught American literature at Harvard, Yale, Wesleyan, Boston University, and Wellesley. He lives in Boston. more

Mary Swan is the winner of the 2001 O. Henry Award for short fiction and is the author of the collection The Deep and Other Stories (Random House). Her work has appeared in several Canadian literary magazines, including The Malahat Review, the Ontario Review, and Best... more

Michael Shermer is the author of nine previous books, including the bestselling Why People Believe Weird Things. He is a columnist for Scientific American, the publisher of Skeptic magazine, and the founder and director of the international Skeptics Society. He lives in... more

BRENT GHELFI has served as a clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals, been a partner in a Phoenix-headquartered law firm, and now owns and operates several businesses. He has traveled extensively in Russia, and lives in Phoenix with his wife and two sons. He is currently working... more

Jay Rayner is the restaurant critic for the London Observer, a regular contributor to Gourmet, and has written for both Saveur and Food & Wine in the United States. He has also written novels, most recently The Oyster House Seige. Rayner began his acclaimed journalism... more

Steve Hely writes for the Fox animated comedy American Dad! He was twice president of The Harvard Lampoon, and has been a writer and performer on Last Call with Carson Daly and a writer for The Late Show with David Letterman, the latter earning him an Emmy Award nomination... more

Nick Heil first wrote about the 2006 climbing season for Men’s Journal. Now a freelance journalist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he was a senior editor at Outside from 1999 to 2006. He has also worked as a climbing and skiing instructor, and has traveled extensively in... more

Jonathan Mooney graduated from Brown University with an honors degree in English. A recipient of the Truman Fellowship for graduate study in creative writing and disability studies, he is also the co-author of Learning Outside the Lines. more