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Why would two poets invent a fake writer, complete with a fake oeuvre and compelling life story, and then submit their fabrication to a literary magazine? Why might a biographer claim to have interviewed Howard Hughes and collaborated on the reclusive billionaire’s autobiography despite never having met him? Why would a journalist concoct an eight-year-old junkie and then write an article about him, later winning a Pulitzer Prize for her invention? Why might memoirists pretend to be a Holocaust survivor, a gang member, and a recovered addict with a prison record? And why do we believe such wild fictions that masquerade as the truth? Why are we forever getting fooled by frauds?

Paul Maliszewski explores the teeming varieties of fakery, from its historical roots in satire and con artistry to its current boom, starring James Frey and his false memories of drug-addled dissolution and the author formerly known as JT LeRoy with his fake rural tough talk. Journeying into the heart of our fake world, Maliszewski tells tales of the New York Sun‘s 1835 moon hoax as well as his own satiric contributions to a newspaper—pieces written, unbeknownst to its editor, while the author worked there as a reporter. For anyone who has ever lied or been lied to, Fakers tells us much about what we believe and why we still get conned.

The essays in Fakers explore:

• Jayson Blair’s faked New York Times stories, about Jessica Lynch and much else
• Early American con artists
• Oscar Hartzell and the longrunning Drake’s fortune scam
• Internet hoaxes about man-eating bears
• Han van Meegeren’s forged Vermeers
• Clifford Irving’s fake autobiography of Howard Hughes
• Michael Chabon’s fictionalized version of his early years
• Binjamin Wilkomirski’s fabricated Holocaust memoir
• In-depth interviews with three fakers: journalist Michael Finkel, painter Sandow Birk, and performance artist Joey Skaggs

John Leonard, “the fastest wit in the East” (The New York Times Book Review), is back with the offbeat, wide-ranging style that earned his last book, When the Kissing Had to Stop, a place among the Voice Literary Supplement‘s “25 Favorites of 1999.” Now, with an eye to the social and political experience of writers, Leonard adopts a broad definition of exile.

He addresses Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, where exile manifests itself in solitary bowling, a reflection of a declining sense of community. He considers Salman Rushdie as rock’n’roll Orpheus, who—after ten years in fatwa-enforced exile—bears a striking resemblance to his continually disappearing characters. And Leonard also explores Primo Levi’s exile of survival, Bruce Chatwin’s self-imposed exile in travel, as well as the work of Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Phillip Roth, Barbara Kingsolver, and Don DeLillo, among others.

As always, Leonard’s writing jumps off the page, engaging the reader in what the Washington Post calls his “laugh-out-loud magic with words.”

In a series of celebrated books, the eminent photographer and sociologist Camilo José Vergara has observed and recorded the evolution of America’s inner cities for over twenty years, documenting the effects of time, commercialism, culture, and neglect on the built environment, with an aesthetic vision that has been hailed by the New York Times as “persuasive and moving.”

Here, in a unique collaboration with Timothy Samuelson, Chicago’s leading architectural historian, Vergara probes the power and resonance of one of America’s greatest cities. Unexpected Chicagoland includes over two hundred stunning color photographs, accompanied by a fascinating original narrative of the hidden history of Chicago’s renowned architectural past. Vergara’s photographs are a treasure trove of historically and visually interesting buildings and environments, most of them on the abandoned urban fringes. Included are examples of rarely seen work by some of the greatest architects of the twentieth century, such as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and William Burley Griffin, as well as dazzling examples of Art Deco design.

Unexpected Chicagoland presents an authentic and gritty view of the metropolis at a time when the public’s understanding of all American cities has become increasingly sanitized and homogenized. The book itself, in a large format and exquisitely designed, is packaged to be a lasting visual treasure.

In recent years, photographic images have been blamed for everything from heroin chic and meaningless politics to women’s distorted body images and the death of Princess Diana. In Over Exposed, a group of distinguished photographers, critics, and cultural historians examine the many roles of photography in contemporary western culture, covering questions about representation, sexual politics, public policy, and cultural activism.

Taking up where her widely praised first collection, The Critical Image, left off, Carol Squiers, senior editor of American Photo, collects writing on the most important issues in contemporary photography including those raised by the new digital photography and the Web.

Contributors include:

• Geoffrey Batchen
• Deborah Bright
• Victor Burgin
• Rosalyn Deutsche
• Timothy Druckrey
• Jan Zita Grover
• Andy Grundberg
• Therese Harlan
• Silvia Kolbowski
• Rosalind Krauss
• Kobena Mercer
• Christian Metz
• Kathy Myers
• Griselda Pollock
• Abigail Solomon-Godeau
• Carol Squiers

In the years after World War II, California, always regarded as an experiment for the American future, became an encouraging model for the nation. It was admired and envied for the quality of its education system, its environment, and its progressive social outlook. However, beginning with the passage of the tax-cutting Proposition 13 in 1978, and continuing through a barrage of voter initiatives, the state has pursued a determined course of retrenchment and reaction, sending it tumbling to the bottom of the nation’s”quality of life” ratings.

In Paradise Lost, Peter Schrag examines the relationship between the politics of that retrenchment and the great demographic changes of recent decades. His book makes a powerful case for reinvigorating our traditional structures of representative government against the increasing power of “populism” that is often disdainful of minority rights and interests. It shows that California is still a test for the nation, and a frightening indicator of our society’s readiness to assimilate and serve its new citizens.

Ancient Egypt has always been an endless source of fascination and inspiration. Drawing on the exceptional holdings of Egyptian antiquities from The Brooklyn Museum, The Art of Ancient Egypt covers more than four millennia of Egyptian history while exploring the most intriguing themes surrounding ancient Egyptian artifacts.