Amazon.com ReviewOn the night of December 3, 1984, a cyanide cloud drifted over the streets of Bhopal, India, set loose by a leak in a nearby chemical plant. When the deadly fog lifted untold numbers of the city's residents--perhaps as many as 30,000, by some accounts--lay dead, while half a million others were injured. Dominique Lapierre, a French journalist and longtime champion of India's poor, joins with Spanish writer Javier Moro to recount the terrors of that night, about which the whole truth may never be known. The deaths are but one part of the authors' long, sometimes elaborate tale, which relates how the industrial conglomerate Union Carbide had come to build its vast chemical complex at Bhopal, one meant to be a glory of technology and, ironically, to save thousands of lives brought low by insect-wrought starvation. There are few villains but many heroes in the authors' account, which explores the margins at which good intentions conflict with the profit motive, at which cost-cutting omissions yield horrifically unintended consequences. It all makes for a thoughtful and disturbing book. --Gregory McNameeFrom Publishers WeeklyAs with Lapierre's City of Hope, this latest project, co-written with Spanish travel writer and journalist Moro (The Jaipur Foot), is part historical documentation and part dramatization, a modern fable depicting the communities that weathered the effects of early globalization in India. After DDT was banned in 1973, American chemical giant Union Carbide began to push Sevin, a pesticide that calls for highly toxic and unstable ingredients in its production. They built a processing plant in Bhopal, India, where a combination of poor supervision and penny-pinching tactics eventually led to the world's worst industrial disaster: on December 3, 1984, the plant sprung a leak during routine maintenance procedures. The resulting noxious vapors killed between 16,000 and 30,000 and left 500,000 permanently injured. As Lapierre and Moro recount the disaster, they weave in the story of a family of peasants forced to leave their farmland and move to the Bhopal region, where their fate intersected tragically with that of the plant. The moral of the story is familiar (what's good for Union Carbide is not so good for the world), but it still packs a bitterly ironic punch. With their canned dialogue and patronizing tone, the close-ups of Indian life are not as effective as the authors' straightforward history of the accident. Nevertheless, the inherent drama of the story keeps the pages turning, and its lessons make the book well worth picking up. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Views: 29
Her Second Chance is the long-awaited contemporary African American romance from Romantic Times Career Achievement Award winning author, Bette Ford.A fiercely independent woman...Trenna McAdams's main goal in life is independence. After a tragic (and tragically wrong!) marriage, she's finally realized her dream of running a prestigious preschool, bringing her closer than she ever thought possible to being truly happy. If only she wasn't constantly distracted by the attentions of the charming, dynamic Darrin Morgan. Sure, she likes the way he fills out the shoulders of his custom-made suits, but there're also those rumors in their office building about his womanizing ways. Surely, he could get any woman he wants. And Trenna isn't interested in being a notch on anyone's bedpost.A successful, smooth-talking man...Four years ago, Darrin Morgan's life changed the moment he laid eyes on Trenna McAdams. With every fiber of... Views: 29
In her very wild diary, V tells all as she watches her husband stray into the arms of a younger woman. But payback - in the shape of a man - will be hers. Views: 29
Raped and reduced to working in a brothel to keep her baby, unwed, teenage mother, Lizzie, forges a new life for herself and her child in the Kimberley region of Australia. But can she evade her persecutors and ultimately bring to them to justice? Views: 29
A brilliant and darkly comic novel from the Man Booker Prize longlisted author of 'Netherland'. Fourteen years ago Mary Breeze was killed by lightning – it should have been all the bad luck that the Breeze family were due but, as John Breeze is about to find out, this couldn't be further from the truth. 'The Breezes' is John Breeze's account of his family's most hellish fortnight – when insurance policies, security systems and lucky underpants are pitted against redundancy, burglary and relegation – and lose. John (a failing chair-maker) and his father (railway manager and rubbish football referee) are only feebly equipped with shaky religious notions, management maxims and cynical postures as they try to come to terms with the absurd unfairness of lightning striking twice… From the conflict between blind optimism and cynicism, to the urge to pretend that things just aren't happening, 'The Breezes' is wonderfully clever and comic novel about desperately trying to cope with the... Views: 29
Catherine Williams, midwife and widowed shipowner, takes in two Quaker siblings, Jane and Roger Whitcomb. When a sailor is found dead, and then there’s contention at the Puritan services, the Quakers are suspect. Catherine’s Native American assistant, Massaquoit, saves Roger’s life once, but someone is determined. And Catherine is determined to find out who the killer is. Third in the Colonial American mystery trilogy by Stephen Lewis; originally published by Berkley Views: 29
FBI agent Max Calder is working undercover to bring down a Russian Mafia ring, which is running an elaborate scam staging accidents and bilking insurance companies. He's disguised as a Russian immigrant, Anatoly Kuzmina, and has successfully--or so he hopes--infiltrated the group. Gaby Peris, an attractive widow, inadvertently ends up in the middle of one of these accidents. Is she an innocent victim or part of the scam? Does she know who he really is? Max has to find out--because he's starting to fall for her and fall hard. Views: 29
Fiona Sweeney wants to do something that matters, and she chooses to make her mark in the arid bush of northeastern Kenya. By helping to start a traveling library, she hopes to bring the words of Homer, Hemingway, and Dr. Seuss to far-flung tiny communities where people live daily with drought, hunger, and disease. Her intentions are honorable, and her rules are firm: due to the limited number of donated books, if any one of them is not returned, the bookmobile will not return.But, encumbered by her Western values, Fi does not understand the people she seeks to help. And in the impoverished small community of Mididima, she finds herself caught in the middle of a volatile local struggle when the bookmobile's presence sparks a dangerous feud between the proponents of modernization and those who fear the loss of traditional ways. Views: 29
Logan ventures into the big city in this third book of a wholesome series that’s like Little House on the Prairie for younger readers.Welcome to Sherman! Logan can’t wait to leave “boring” Maple Ridge and enter the exciting city. While Pa is at his job interview, Logan explores Sherman with his cousin Freddy. But after spending a day among the hustle and bustle of urban life, Logan realizes that the quiet, familiar surroundings of his hometown are not so bad after all.With easy-to-read language and illustrations on almost every page, the Tales from Maple Ridge chapter books are perfect for beginning readers. Views: 29
