The Wanderers by Richard Price

First edition of The Wanderers published by Houghton Mifflin in 1974

The Wanderers is Richard Price's first novel and one of his best; praised by everyone from William S. Burroughs to John Fowles particularly for it's realistic dialogue and accurate street vernacular, the story revolves around a group of teen gangs in the 1960's Bronx, New York City. One of the central characters is Richie Gennaro, leader of the Wanderers gang, and the story mainly follows his development, among other gang members, as he is forced to grow up and confront the real world in various ways. The Wanderers features an incredibly colorful cast of characters from around their neighborhood and rival gangs they must deal with like the Pips and the Baldies. This first edition has amazing cover art done by veteran jacket artists Batten & Kreloff, but The Wanderers is well worth the read no matter what edition you come across.

Perfect Rigor by Masha Gessen

First edition of Perfect Rigor published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2009

Perfect Rigor is an interesting biography in that it recounts the life of famed, reclusive mathematician Grigori Perelman, but was written completely without any interviews or information of any kind from Perelman (who is still living). Perelman became famous in the last decade for his solving of the Poincare Conjecture, one of the world's more famous unsolved problems and one of several Clay Millenium Problems whose solution earns the winner a million dollars. Perelman oddly posted his solutions on the internet in three relatively brief papers that took years for others to digest, and was ultimately correct. He is particularly famous for rejecting a Fields Medal and the million dollar prize, among other things, and retreated back to Russia to live in a depressing flat block with his mother. Perelman has also since ceased trimming his beard or fingernails. Gessen's biography recounts Perelman's upbringing as a bright math prodigy and Jew behind the Iron Curtain, through the collapse of the Soviet Union and his eventual migration to America to begin teaching. Told mostly through interviews with contemporaries and people who've known and worked closely with Perelman, Gessen's book paints a seemingly accurate portrait of a genius who has no interest in others knowing about his life, and is enthralling to read. With book design by Brian Moore, this edition is surprisingly inoffensive for a more recent hardcover publication and is currently still in print.