The story of a recently discovered portrait of a young William Shakespeare traces its origins and history to discuss how it came into being, its possession by the same family for more than four hundred years, the painstaking forensic study that confirmed its age, and the plausibility of its authenticity. 20,000 first printing.

The author offers twenty-eight profiles of African men, women, and children caught up in the AIDS crisis and looks at the relationship among the AIDS epidemic, famine, and the violent internecine conflicts across the continent.

A female world-record-setting pilot, Jerrie Cobb was recruited in 1959 to take the astronaut tests. She excelled, so the doctor who supervised the selection of NASA's Mercury astronauts recruited additional female pilots. Twelve performed exceptionally. Stephanie Nolen tracked down eleven of the surviving 'Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees'' and learned the story of those early days of the space race and the disappointment when, in 1961, the women were grounded.