SUMMARY: Pucci Lewis was used to ferrying fighter planes and undercover work. But it's the dark hours of WWII, and Hollywood's biggest stars, studio moguls, and Washington bureaucrats are working hand-in-glove to merge entertainment and propaganda. Pucci has been dispatched to the First Motion Picture Unit, where a make-or-break documentary on the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) is underway. Pucci is stepping in for a sister-WASP, now hospitalized in critical condition after an all-too-deliberate plane crash. But who's the saboteur? Why the cover-up? Pucci is drawn into a high-profile homicide. A big-name director has been murdered, possibly by Nazi operatives. Military intelligence wants Pucci to learn what she can from her inside position. Bela Lugosi is a frequent visitor to the Beverly Hills mansion where Pucci is temporarily billeted. His "niece," a rising starlet and also the housekeeper, has a history with the Hungarian resistance. But Pucci doesn't trust the girl. Can Pucci steadfastly maneuver through movie land and its narcissistic denizens, finally unraveling the uncertainties to prove she has the right stuff? Views: 14
Chanel doesn't want to wait until the Cheetah Girls strike it rich to earn enough to buy all the clothes she adores, so she starts charging on her mom's credit card. Views: 14
Sam Bahlson doesn’t know what the hell is going on. The FBI storms his workplace, takes him into custody, and then tells him he’s the target of a notorious hitman. Since he’s pretty low maintenance and doesn’t take a lot of risks, he finds it hard to believe. Yet when Agent Jude Cheney whisks him off to protective custody, it’s bullet a grazing chase to the finish line. When Sam discovers that Jude’s hot for him, he’s determined to make protective custody as enjoyable as possible. The bad guys keep coming, and so does Jude. Will they nab the man behind the hit in time, or is Sam’s life going to end at gun point? Views: 14
Beyond the cursing and charisma of the chef best known for Hell's Kitchen is a story of troubled life and a steep, difficult climb to fame Views: 14
'So it's final then, you're not taking James to Melbourne?' Liza asked. 'Are you kidding? Taking a man to Melbourne would be like taking a sandwich to a smorgasbord.' Peta Tully has found her Mr Right - the only trouble is, she's not sure she's ready to settle down. Not just yet, anyway - so when she's offered a twelve-month contract interstate which just might win her the job of her dreams, she puts her Sydney life on hold, packs her bags and jumps on a plane, leaving her doting boyfriend behind. Peta takes a voluntary vow of celibacy, but sticking to it proves harder than she imagines ... This is Anita Heiss's second book about Peta, Alice, Liza and Dannie, four deadly, desirable and dynamic thirty-something chicks from Sydney's eastern beaches. Views: 14
Review"This magnificent book ...is teeming with colourful characters. Over the course of nearly 800pp, we follow faiths; sail with fleets; trade with bankers, financiers and merchants; raid with pirates and observe battles and sieges; watch cities rise and fall and see peoples migrate in triumph and tragedy. But at its heart, this is a history of mankind - gripping, worldly, bloody, playful - that radiates scholarship and a sense of wonder and fun, using the Mediterranean as its medium, its watery road much travelled." -- Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Financial Times "This memorable study, its scholarship tinged with indulgent humour and an authorial eye for bizarre detail, celebrates the swirling changeability at the heart of that wonderful symbiosis of man and nature which once took place long Mediterranean shores" -- Jonathan Keates, Sunday Telegraph "An Everest of a book, brocaded with studious observation and finely-tuned scholarship...the effect is mesmerising, as detail accumulates meticulously." -- Ian Thomson, Independent "David Abulafia's marvellous history of the Mediterranean is an excellent corrective to oversimplified views of geopolitics." -- Economist "New, highly impressive book...magisterial work..." -- ProspectProduct DescriptionFor over three thousand years, the Mediterranean Sea has been one of the great centres of world civilisation. From the time of historical Troy until the middle of the nineteenth century, human activity here decisively shaped much of the course of world history. David Abulafia?s The Great Sea is the first complete history of the Mediterranean from the erection of the mysterious temples on Malta around 3500 BC to the recent reinvention of the Mediterranean?s shores as a tourist destination.Part of the argument of Abulafia?s book is that the great port cities ? Alexandria, Trieste and Salonika and many others ? prospered in part because of their ability to allow many different peoples, religions and identities to co-exist within sometimes very confined spaces. He also brilliantly populates his history with identifiable individuals whose lives illustrate with great immediacy the wider developments he is describing.The Great Sea ranges stupendously across time and the whole extraordinary space of the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Jaffa, Venice to Alexandria. Rather than imposing a false unity on the sea and the teeming human activity it has sustained, the book emphasises diversity ? ethnic, linguistic, religious and political. Anyone who reads it will leave it with their understanding of those societies and their histories enormously enriched. Views: 14
