With a hardcover, you get two chances, a year apart, for the book to make an impact - often with a new cover featuring artfully crafted snippets of reviews, a new marketing campaign and maybe even a new publisher.

For a few years, skeins of yarn piled up in baskets around the house. There weren't enough humans in my mother's orbit to wear all the scarves and sweaters and hats she knitted. And then, as suddenly as she started, she lost interest, leaving needles still entwined in half-finished fragments.

It's hard selling books in general: companies are merging, editors being laid off, bricks-and-mortar bookstores closing, large chain bookstores squeezing out independents, and online retailers squeezing out chain bookstores.

My mother was one of the most dynamic and brilliant women I have ever known. She was also mercurial and unfocused.

We can guess that the unacceptable conduct of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib resulted in part from the dangerous state of affairs on the ground in a theater of war.

I had four combat tours, and I never saw death on a scale like I saw in Haiti. A quarter-million people lost their lives.

Bob Gates understands the difficulty of going to war. This is a man who spent almost his entire life working for the government.

I believe in peace. I believe in mercy.