A leading expert explains why we fail to understand Iran and offers a new strategy for redefining this crucial relationshipFor more than a quarter of a century, few countries have been as resistant to American influence or understanding as Iran. The United States and Iran have long eyed each other with suspicion, all too eager to jump to conclusions and slam the door. What gets lost along the way is a sense of what is actually happening inside Iran and why it matters. With a new hard-line Iranian president making incendiary pronouncements and pressing for nuclear developments, the consequences of not understanding Iran have never been higher.Ray Takeyh, a leading expert on Iran's politics and history, has written a groundbreaking book that demystifies the Iranian regime and shows how the fault lines of Iran's domestic politics serve to explain its behavior. In Hidden Iran, he explains why this country has so often confounded American... Views: 57
When journalist Nick Mason got a hot tip to investigate the frame-up of a man being executed for murder, he didn’t know what he was in for. At the gas chamber, it was Vessi’s last words that gave Mason the clue to a peculiar cover up at the respectable Mackenzie Fabric Corporation. But when Mason gets warned off by a cold-eyed gunman and a dangerous hooker called Blondie, he would have abandoned the whole investigation… if it weren’t for the irresistible Mardi, the girl from Mackenzie Fabrics who might be able to lead him to the truth. Views: 57
Like most bank managers, Dave Calvin had acquired an irresistible charm that he could switch on whenever he felt the necessity. Underneath it, he was cold, calculating, brutal — a perfect murderer. He cooks up a plan to rob his own bank at Pittsville and make it look as if his secretary, Alice Craig and her boyfriend, had made off with the looted money. Alice, who is a spinster, with no parents, no relatives and nobody to care whether she lived or died…. Dave Calvin knew just how he could make her disappear. And to achieve his plan, he enlisted the support of his own landlady, Kit Loring, who was sensuously beautiful and also an ex- alcoholic. However, Dave Calvin was soon to realise that a woman who is an ex- alcoholic, isn't the most reliable partner for murder… Views: 57
A dark and beautiful tale of a most unusual schoolWolf Walker is the director of the Suicide Academy. Troubled individuals come to his school for just one day and must decide whether to end their lives. As for Wolf himself, he is suffering a kind of death-in-life. The Academy's board members have involved him in a policy skirmish, and the depressed employee he had an affair with is not getting any better. When his ex-wife, Jewel, and her husband come on the scene, ostensibly to make a film about the Academy, he is racked by old jealousies—and he also wonders, might she secretly be checking in?Packed with meaning, The Suicide Academy is a gripping existential parable about souls adrift in modern life. Views: 57
John Rechy, recipient of the Publishing Triangle’s William Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award, wrote City of Night in 1963. This radical and daring work, which launched Rechy’s reputation as one of America’s most courageous novelists, remains the classic document of the garish neon-lit world of hustlers, drag queens, and men on the make who inhabited the homosexual underground of the early sixties. Views: 57
From 1937 to the 1970s the NYPD owned the New York City streets, and the
Irish owned the NYPD. Officers ruled their beat, fighting crime the way
they wanted, and bending the law to take what they could. There was
only one rule - look after your own. When Sergeant Brian O'Malley's
prostitute lover pushes him out of a window, his friends in the police
cover up the details and give him a hero's funeral. His eldest son is
encouraged to join the boys in the force, but as he rises the ranks he
realizes that all favors must be repaid, whatever the repercussions. Views: 57
Luke was working in the garden when Lady Candling's valuable cat was stolen. But could it have been the cat's carer, Miss Harmer, or even Lady Candling's companion Miss Trimble? The Five Find-Outers and Dog are on the case! Views: 57
Translation of Rue Deschambault. Paris, Flammarion.The eighteen stories in Gabrielle Roy’s Street of Riches centre upon the bittersweet experiences of a young girl growing up in the francophone community of St. Boniface, Manitoba. In the persona of her narrator Christine, Roy transfigures the incidents and characters of her own childhood, reflecting with gentle irony upon her youthful awakening to the beauty and the sorrow of life. Acclaimed upon its original publication in French in 1955, this superb collection infuses the authenticity of memoir with the timeliness and universality of the best imaginative art.Street of Riches won the Governor General’s Award for 1957. Views: 57
Late at night in the Senior Common Room of St Thomas's College, Ernst Brendel is persuaded by his companions to relate a tale of murder, blackmail, and corruption. A wager is made, half a crown to the first person to guess the murderer correctly. But the game is not so simple. The crime involves four friends, each with the potential to be the murderer – or the victim.Brendel employs the art of 'pre-detection', uncovering motive and cause before the crime has even been committed. But does he have enough foresight to prevent the dastardly deed from taking place?First published in 1953, The Case of Four Friends explores a world of calculation, wit, and marvellous deduction. Views: 57
Dr. Fell, detective extraordinary, is back again, more amusing and omniscient than ever. In The Eight of Swords he is faced with the sort of problem in which his acute and devious mind delights. When a gay spirit took to playing strange pranks in the haunted bedroom at the Grange and the Bishop was seen sliding down the banisters, Scotland Yard was more amused than disturbed. But when Depping, the harmless old scholar and connoisseur of wines and foods, was found murdered in his study, they sent Dr. Fell down to investigate. As soon as Dr. Fell saw the card representing the eight of swords, the partially eaten dinner on the tray, and the button-hook which had been used to blow the fuses, he knew the murderer. But there was a great deal to be explained before he could prove it, and his solution will remain a classic example of deductive reasoning combined with thrilling plot. The book is also filled with a subtle type of humor that makes it something different in the way of detective novels. Views: 57
Created by an Irish clergyman, Melmoth is one of the most fiendish characters in literature. In a satanic bargain, Melmoth exchanges his soul for immortality. The story of his tortured wanderings through the centuries is pieced together through those who have been implored by Melmoth to take over his pact with the devil. Influenced by the Gothic romances of the late 18th century, Maturin's diabolic tale raised the genre to a new and macabre pitch. Its many admirers include Poe, Balzac, Oscar Wilde and Baudelaire.About the AuthorCharles Robert Maturin was born in Dublin in 1782, and educated at Trinity College. He took orders and was a curate in Loughrea and Dublin, and also, for a time, worked as a teacher until literary success enabled him to give this up. His first novel, The Fatal Revenge (1807), was published under a pseudonym to protect his reputation as a clergyman. A series of other novels followed, and his tragedy Bertram (1816) met with great success when it was produced by Edmund Kean at Drury Lane, after recommendation by Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron. His next plays, Manuel (1817) and Fredolfo (1819) were failures, and Maturin returned to writing novels. Melmoth the Wanderer appeared in 1820, but in the last years of his life his works were neglected, and he died in poverty in 1824. In the 1890s his literary reputation in England was revived, and his works were reprinted in various editions.Maturin's Calvinist upbringing lent to his work a strong sense of the soul's relationship with God, which can also be seen in the work of James Hogg, William Godwin and Godwin's daughter, Mary Shelley. He was also influenced by comic writers of epics and romances, such as Cervantes, Swift, Sterne and Diderot. His strongest influences were the authors of Gothic romances of the late eighteenth century, in particular, Matthew Lewis and Ann Radcliffe. Maturin's tales were, however, always more extravagant and macabre, and led to his reputation as one of the foremost writers of the Gothic school. Views: 57
First published in Infinity Science Fiction magazine in 1955. Views: 57
