It's 1939, in New York City. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat - smuggling himself out of Hitler's Prague.

As a journalist, historian, and novelist born into a family that included two past presidents of the United States, Henry Adams was constantly focused on the American experiment.

With refreshing objectivity, Waldman narrates the real story of how the nation's Founders forged a new approach to religious liberty, a revolutionary formula that promoted faith--by leaving it alone.

Professor Lindenbrock and his nephew Axel, the story's narrator, on a quest to reach the very core of the earth, gain access to the interior by travelling north to cold and barren Iceland, where they enter the subterranean regions through the cone of the extinct volcano Sneffels.

Out of Mao's Shadow offers a startling perspective on China and its remarkable transformation, challenging conventional wisdom about the political apathy of the Chinese people and the notion that prosperity leads automatically to freedom.

Chabon writes with a wry, vulnerable wit that cleaves open the minds of his wondeful characters while his clean prose keeps the madcap story going so well that you'll want it to never end.