Chagas’ disease has become one of the major public-health problems in Latin America. Current estimates are that sixteen to eighteen million people are infected. Caused by a flagellate protozoa carried to humans via the bite of the triatomine or vinchuca bug, it is locally referred to as the “kissing bug” because of its tendency to lodge on victims’ faces during sleep. The protozoa enters neuron tissues in the heart and other organs and causes death by irreversible cardiac and gastrointestinal lesions in thirty to forty percent of all cases, usually lying “dormant” until the debilitating chronic phase during the human host’s mid-life. Because of the long dormant phase, it has generally gone unrecognized, with chronic symptoms often attributed to other causes. Originally preying on forest animals, the vinchuca bug has infested the impoverished housing of displaced Andean migrants as forest lands and animals have been destroyed in South America. Although there is no cure for the chronic stage, the disease vectors can be controlled and possibly eliminated through improved hygiene and living conditions. No longer exclusive to Latin America, Chagas’ disease is spreading to North America and Europe with the migration of infected bugs, hosts, transfusions, and transplant organs. The Kiss of Death is a thorough study of Chagas’ disease with analysis of research involving epidemiology, entomology, parasitology, pathology, and immunology. It emphasizes how humans have created environmental and social conditions for its spread; how Andeans have adapted culturally to the disease with changing conceptions of the body, adaptations to rituals, and herbal medicines; what factors are necessary to design a successful intervention project; and why understanding cultural belief systems is critical to prevention programs. The Kiss of Death also shows that traditional cultural forms can provide valuable strategies for dealing with disease prevention and treatment. This first book-length treatment in English reveals that an examination of Chagas’ disease is a warning of what happens as a result of environmental destruction and is an example of what might be done to prevent such tragedies in other parts of the world. [Contain tables. Best viewed with CoolReader.] Views: 69
In June 1941, German forces swept across Soviet territory in an offensive that finally brought them within twenty-five miles of Moscow. But in August 1942, the overconfident Hitler chose the wrong target, Stalin?s namesake city on the Volga. The battle of Stalingrad is extraordinary in every way: the triumphant invader fought to a standstill; then the Soviet trap sprung, surrounding their attackers; and the terrible siege, with Germans starving and freezing, forced to fight on by a disbelieving Hitler.The story has never been told as Antony Beevor tells it here. He writes of the great Manichaean clash between Stalin and Hitler, and the strategic brilliance and fatal flaws of their generals. Stalingrad is first and foremost the story of the man on the ground, a soldier?s-eye view of fighting house-to-house on an urban battlefield, with helpless civilians caught in the crossfire. Beevor has gained access to Russian reports on desertions and executions that have never been seen by Western scholars, German transcripts of prisoner interrogations, and private letters and diaries. These help re-create the compelling human drama of the most terrible battle in modern warfare. Views: 69
When eighteen-year-old Winter McCall is offered a chance to leave her life of poverty behind on the streets of London, she reluctantly accepts, and moves to a remote part of the south west of England. Here she takes up the job as housekeeper to the young and handsome, yet mysterious, Thaddeus Blake. Warned that he has some curious habits, Winter soon realises that not all is as it firsts appears at the remote mansion where she now lives and works. Blind to the real danger that she is in, Winter finds herself becoming attracted to Thaddeus. With nowhere to run and no one to turn to, she slowly succumbs to his strange requests. But none of them are as strange as his requests for her to stand each night in the moonlight. ‘Moonlight’ Book One in ‘The Moon Trilogy’‘Moonbeam’ Book Two Coming soon! Views: 69
The stunning debut of a spectacularly talented crime novelist—who also writes under the name Richard PriceBack in the bad old days, when Billy Graves worked for an anti-crime unit in Harlem known as the Wild Geese, the NYPD branded him as a cowboy. Now forty, he has somehow survived and become a sergeant in Manhattan Night Watch. Mostly, his team of detectives conducts a series of holding actions—and after years in police purgatory, Billy is content simply to do his job.But soon after he gets a 3:00 a.m. call about the fatal knifing of a drunk in a Third Avenue pub, his investigation moves beyond the usual handoff to the day shift. And when he discovers that the victim was once a suspect in the unsolved murder of a 13-year-old girl, he finds himself drawn back to the late 1990s when the Wild Geese were at their most wayward. Before the case can be closed, it will severely test Billy's new sense of purpose and force him to accept that his troubled... Views: 69
The DetectiveMeet Jo Birmingham. Single mum, streetwise detective, and spiky as hell. Recently promoted, she is one of the few female detective superintendents on the Dublin police force. But with a failed marriage behind her and two young sons at home, trying to strike the right work-life balance has run her ragged. The Serial KillerWhen Jo identifies the missing link in a chain of brutal killings, she comes under fierce scrutiny from her male colleagues in the force, especially her boss and ex-husband Dan Mason. But as the body count rises, so do the body parts. As fear stalks the city, it soon becomes obvious both to the police and to the media that a serial killer is at large. A Terrifying Game of Cat and MouseAnd so Jo embarks on a terrifying psychological journey to find out who the killer is, and how he is choosing his victims. Soon she is involved in a deadly game in which there are no rules.... Views: 69
When Logan's class takes a trip to a math museum, his mischievous friend Benedict is sure it will be a boring day—until he discovers a robot and its creator in an off-limits area. The robot proves feisty, and soon both boys get zapped. They realize only later that they'd left the museum without their math skills. To get back the knowledge they need for school—not to mention buying food at the mall, divvying up dinner at home, and much more—they'll have to get back to the museum and pass a series of math challenges. Being "numbed" will teach Logan and Benedict just how useful, and even fun, math can be. Views: 69
Faith Aycliffe is a woman born before her time. She knows what she needs and refuses to substitute social success for personal happiness. It is Faith, forging her loyalties and utterly unforgettable, who stands at the centre of Flint and Roses – Brenda Jagger's second Barforth novel. The place is Yorkshire in the mid-19th century with its conflict between a new-born middle class and the old landed gentry. The family, the Barforths, woollen manufacturers and mill-owners. Their lives, full of love, hatred and struggle, interweave with Faith's own adventurous spirit in this rich, exciting tapestry of a novel that holds to the very end. Views: 69
Attorney Joe Watson had never been to court except to be sworn in. He did legal research, investigating copyright infringement in video games (addressing such matters as: Did CarnageMaster plagiarize their beheading sequence from Greek SlaughterHouse?). He was a Webhead, a cybernerd doing support work for the lawyers in his firm who did go to court. And he was good at it. He was on track to become one of the youngest partners in the firm, and he was able--by a hair--to support his wife and children in an affluent neighborhood. Then he got notice that the tyrannical Judge Whittaker J. Stang had appointed him to defend James Whitlow, a small-time lowlife with a long rap sheet accused of a double hate crime: killing his wife's deaf black lover. When Watson stubbornly decides not to plead out his client, he is soon evicted from his comfortable life: His boss fires him, his wife leaves him and takes the children, and the Whitlow case begins to consume all of his time. He has only two allies--Rachel Palmquist, a beautiful, brainy neuroscientist with her own designs on his client and on Watson himself, and Myrna Schweich, a punk criminal-defense lawyer with orange hair who swears like a trooper and definitely inhales. Watson's finished. Or is he?To answer that question requires, among many other things, a brain scan for Watson in a state of strapped-down arousal, a Voice Transcription Device to eavesdrop on a dead deaf man's conversation, two chimpanzees who have no choice but to love each other, and a blind news vendor who demonstrates a real touch when it comes to making money. For all the Dickensian energy and humor of this ingenious story, Brain Storm also stands at the center of many modern controversies, from the death penalty and the circus atmosphere of criminal trials to neuroscientific and moral quandaries about sex, crime, and religion. Rachel tells Watson that free will is a fiction: "There's not much you can do about it if you're biologically predisposed to violence or sexual misbehavior. You just have to make the best of it, and try not to get caught." Once a deliberate yes-man at home and in the office, Joe Watson finds himself fighting not only to save his marriage and his career but also to hold intact his conviction that a person is more than a series of chemical reactions. Views: 69
"The literary 'Oscars' features twenty outstanding examples of the best of the best in American short stories." — Shelf Awareness for Readers The Best American Short Stories 2014 will be selected by national best-selling author Jennifer Egan, who won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction for A Visit from the Goon Squad, heralded by Time magazine as "a new classic of American fiction." Egan "possesses a satirist's eye and a romance novelist's heart" (New York Times Book Review). Views: 69
Melody Franklin has developed a facial cream she's ready to launch to the mainstream public, but someone will stop at nothing to make sure that doesn't happen. After a chance encounter months ago, former Navy SEAL and current COBRA Securities Agent, Grant Colton has thought about Melody often. When he learns she's been threatened, he puts it all on the line to protect her, including his life. Views: 69
October 1936. Spanish architect Ignacio Abel arrives at Penn Station, the final stop on his journey from war-torn Madrid, where he has left behind his wife and children, abandoning them to uncertainty. Crossing the fragile borders of Europe, he reflects on months of fratricidal conflict in his embattled country, his own transformation from a bricklayer's son to a respected bourgeois husband and professional, and the all-consuming love affair with an American woman that forever alters his life.Winner of the 2012 Prix Méditerranée Étranger and hailed as a masterpiece, In the Night of Time is a sweeping, grand novel and an indelible portrait of a shattered society, written by one of Spain's most important contemporary novelists. Views: 69
