An erotic romance. Lora catches her friend Mason engaging in a hands-on activity, and offers him a helping hand of her own. Views: 60
A New York Times bestseller: “This terrific new book . . . [explores] the ‘notion of whiteness,’ an idea as dangerous as it is seductive.”—*Boston Globe*Telling perhaps the most important forgotten story in American history, eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter guides us through more than two thousand years of Western civilization, illuminating not only the invention of race but also the frequent praise of “whiteness” for economic, scientific, and political ends. A story filled with towering historical figures, The History of White People closes a huge gap in literature that has long focused on the non-white and forcefully reminds us that the concept of “race” is an all-too-human invention whose meaning, importance, and reality have changed as it has been driven by a long and rich history of events. 70 black-and-white illustrationsFrom Publishers WeeklyWho are white people and where did they come from? Elementary questions with elusive, contradictory, and complicated answers set historian Painter's inquiry into motion. From notions of whiteness in Greek literature to the changing nature of white identity in direct response to Malcolm X and his black power successors, Painter's wide-ranging response is a who's who of racial thinkers and a synoptic guide to their work. Her commodious history of an idea accommodates Caesar; Saint Patrick, history's most famous British slave of the early medieval period; Madame de Staël; and Emerson, the philosopher king of American white race theory. Painter (Sojourner Truth) reviews the diverse cast in their intellectual milieus, linking them to one another across time and language barriers. Conceptions of beauty (ideals of white beauty [became] firmly embedded in the science of race), social science research, and persistent North/South stereotypes prove relevant to defining whiteness. What we can see, the author observes, depends heavily on what our culture has trained us to look for. For the variable, changing, and often capricious definition of whiteness, Painter offers a kaleidoscopic lens. (Mar.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistStarred Review Painter is the author of Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (1996) and several other scholarly works on the history of slavery and race relations in America, most recently Creating Black Americans (2006). Her latest selection examines the history of “whiteness” as a racial category and rhetorical weapon: who is considered to be “white,” who is not, what such distinctions mean, and how notions of whiteness have morphed over time in response to shifting demographics, aesthetic tastes, and political exigencies. After a brief look at how the ancients conceptualized the differences between European peoples, Painter focuses primarily on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There, the artistic idealization of beautiful white slaves from the Caucasus combined with German Romantic racial theories and lots of spurious science to construct an ideology of white superiority which, picked up by Ralph Waldo Emerson and other race-obsessed American intellectuals, quickly became an essential component of the nation’s uniquely racialized discourse about who could be considered an American. Presenting vivid psychological portraits of Emerson and dozens of other figures variously famous and obscure, and carefully mapping the links between them, Painter’s narrative succeeds as an engaging and sophisticated intellectual history, as well as an eloquent reminder of the fluidity (and perhaps futility) of racial categories. --Brendan Driscoll Views: 60
When TV talkshow host Elias Claymore is accused of raping a 19-year-old girl he turns to his friend Alex Sadaka to defend him.But Alex has a fight on his hands, for Claymore – a former Black Power activist – is anything but squeaky clean and this time even the DNA evidence is stacked against him.Forced to share the defence with a lawyer from Claymore’s insurance firm, Alex must battle his way through jury tampering, conflicts of interest and vicious hate mail to uncover the truth.With Claymore a vulnerable target in prison and the prosecution scenting blood, Alex knows that time is running out. Could it be that this time there is No Way Out?Prepare to lose sleep with this breakneck thriller for fans of John Grisham and Jeff Abbott. Views: 60
Lavish parties.Passionate meetings in the night. Bone-chilling murders. Midterms. The day-to-day life of Schuyler Van Alen and her Blue Bloods friends (and enemies) is never boring. But there's oh-so-much more to know about these beautiful and powerful teens.Below the streets of Manhattan, within the walls of the Repository, exists a wealth of revealing information about the vampire elite that dates back before the Mayflower. Ina series of short stories, journal entries, and never-before-seen letters, New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz gives her hungry fansthe keys to the Repository and aneven more in-depth look into the secret world of the Blue Bloods.
Won't you come inside?
Book Details: Format: Hardcover Publication Date: 6/29/2010 Pages: 240 Reading Level: Age 18 and Up Views: 60
Wanted: Bride. Must love children. Mortals need not apply. Carlos Panterra is looking for a mate, a woman who will love and care for the young orphans he's recently taken under his wing (or paw, as the case may be). When the shape shifter spies the beautiful Caitlyn, it's like sunshine amidst the darkness. At last, he's found the perfect woman, except . . . Caitlyn Whelan is mortal. Worse, her father is the head of a CIA agency bent on hunting the undead. Still, Caitlyn knows that Carlos is the man for her, shape shifter or not. So she jumps at the chance when her sister offers her a job to work with him, determined to show Carlos their attraction is more than just animal magnetism. But danger lurks in the night, and their unleashed, untamed passion might just get them both killed . . . Views: 60
From Publishers WeeklyTeran's cinematic fifth novel portrays the 1910 Mexican revolution via the gun sights of an unlikely duo: Rawbone, a hardened smalltime assassin, and John Lourdes, a Bureau of Investigation agent. The two are thrown together when Rawbone is caught smuggling munitions from Texas into Mexico and Rawbone's lawyer arranges a deal: immunity in exchange for Rawbone sharing his criminal intel. A bargain is struck, with Lourdes assigned to accompany Rawbone into the Mexican underground. The twist: Lourdes, unknown to everyone but himself, is Rawbone's son. As the two men make their way through a snake's nest of smugglers, thugs and professional killers, Lourdes must suppress the angst he feels toward his father and focus on surviving another day. While this bit of dramatic irony quickly wears thin, father and son share a sharp wit, cunning instinct and thirst for adventure that make this spy mission the very definition of a thrill. Teran's fast-paced prose reads like it was written for the big screen (Universal scooped up the film rights), and even if the moralizing about U.S. foreign intervention gets heavy-handed, this remains an intelligent page-turner. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ReviewPraise for The Creed of Violence: "Boston Teran's The Creed of Violence is a terrific story and beautifully written. It works as a story about imperialism, and it's also a touching tale of fathers, sons and one very bad man's attempts at regeneration. But most of all it's exciting and tense and you'll probably read it, as I did, in one great sitting." —Robert Ward, author of Red Baker and Four Kinds of Rain “Teran’s considerable skills sneakily transform his characters, who use language like a concealed weapon. His Rawbone, a raconteur straddling the gutter between the old West and belle époque, is a Manila line braided with wit, cold-blooded efficiency, and a surprisingly expansive soul—a romantic cynic too wise to misinterpret derision for insight. The hallucinogenic epic he traverses with young John Lourdes produces one of the most exciting literary pairings since Fagin met Twist.” —Todd Field Praise for God Is a Bullet: “Ranks with Joan Didion’s The White Album . . . and John Ford’s classic film The Searchers.” —_The San Francisco Examiner_ “A millennial morality play . . . that might well have been written by William Blake [and] James Ellroy . . . if they’d all sat around with a few gallons of absinthe.” —_Dallas Morning Herald_ Praise for Never Count Out the Dead: “Cements Teran’s talent as a . . . virtuoso.” —_Publishers Weekly_ Views: 60
SUMMARY: Manhattan's Upper East Side isn't a neighborhood that NYPD detective April Woo and Precinct Captain Mike Sanchez associate with grisly crimes--until the wife of a celebrity chef is slashed to death in her fashionable town-house. The obvious suspect is her longtime nanny. Then the victim's best friend is murdered as well. The suspect in the case--the nanny. As April's investigation unfolds, so do the victims' privileged secrets. And each one of them cuts like a knife. Views: 60
The third novel by the acclaimed author of The River of Kings and Fallen Land.Set in the high country of 1950s North Carolina, Gods of Howl Mountain is a dark and compelling novel of family secrets, whiskey-running, vengeance, and love. Maybelline Docherty, "Granny May," is a folk healer with a dark past. She concocts potions and cures for the people of the mountains—her powers rumored to rival those of a wood witch—while watching over her grandson, Rory Docherty, who has returned from the Korean War with a wooden leg and nightmares of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. Rory runs bootleg whiskey in a high-powered car to roadhouses, brothels, and private clients in the mill town at the foot of the mountains—a hotbed of violence, moonshine, and the burgeoning sport of stock-car racing. Granny May must help her grandson battle rival runners and federal revenue agents, snake-handling pastors, and the mystery of his own... Views: 60
After her parents find clashing answers to life's big questions, it's time for Octavia to make some choices of her own in this poignant, funny, thought-provoking novel. Octavia's best friend, Andrew, wants to know why time runs forward instead of backward, or if it's possible to talk to an alien jellyfish. Octavia has much bigger questions on her mind: Why do bad things happen, like Hurricane Katrina and 9/11? What is the meaning of life? Is there a God? Octavia's artist father, Boone, is convinced that Henry David Thoreau holds the key. Meanwhile, her mother, Ray, has always been seeking the larger meaning of life—until now. Not only have Octavia's parents come up with different answers to the big questions, but their answers are threatening to tear her family apart. Could it be that some questions are too big to have just one answer? Could it be that the universe is far wider than Octavia's—or perhaps anyone's—views of it? Views: 60
