The spring of 1863 found the strategic city of Vicksburg on the Mississippi under attack from Grant’s forces, leading to a six-week trial by siege, starvation, and devastation that led to its ultimate surrender. Author Jeff Shaara brings the stories of both soldiers and civilians to vivid life.

Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey recount one of the epic tales of history, a timeless chronicle of war and passion, heroism and human folly, men and gods. Explore these classic works from the perspective of the latest scholarship and recent archaeological findings.

Witty and enigmatic, Vladimir Nabokov’s produced some of the last century’s most celebrated and notorious fiction. Using newly declassified intelligence files and recovered military reports, author Andrea Pitzer argues that far from being an advocate of art for art's sake, Vladimir Nabokov managed to hide disturbing real-life history in his works.

A romantic archaeologist, a brilliant classical scholar, and a haunted architect were linked by an obsession: an unknown language whose secrets held the key to a vanished civilization that flourished a millennium before Greece’s Classical Age. Author Margalit Fox tells a true story that spans 3,500 years.

Animals and humans get the same diseases. Drawing on the latest in medical and veterinary science as well as evolutionary and molecular biology, the authors of a new book explore how jaguar breast cancer, dolphin diabetes, flamingo heart attacks, and more cross-species ailments are transforming human medicine.

Celebrate the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice by spending a splendid day immersed in all things Jane Austen (and with sherry and biscuits, too). Sandy Lerner, author and founder of Chawton House Library in Hampshire, England, offers an entertaining look at Regency-era daily life as it might have been experienced by Austen’s most romantic couple.