For readers of Rules of Civility and The Marriage Plot, Joanna Hershon's A Dual Inheritance is an engrossing novel of passion, friendship, betrayal, and class--and their reverberations across generations. Autumn 1962: Ed Cantowitz and Hugh Shipley meet in their final year at Harvard. Ed is far removed from Hugh's privileged upbringing as a Boston Brahmin, yet his drive and ambition outpace Hugh's ambivalence about his own life. These two young men form an unlikely friendship, bolstered by a fierce shared desire to transcend their circumstances. But in just a few short years, not only do their paths diverge--one rising on Wall Street, the other becoming a kind of global humanitarian--but their friendship ends abruptly, with only one of them understanding why. Can a friendship define your view of the world? Spanning from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the present-day stock market collapse, with locations as diverse as Dar es Salaam,... Views: 23
From the top of his faultlessly groomed head to the tips of his fashionable shoes, Lord Andrew Childe was every inch the perfect gentleman. Views: 23
In the aftermath of Hugo Chávez's death, the inside story of his life, his Venezuela, and his legacy.Hugo Chávez was a phenomenon. He has been compared to Napoléon, Nasser, Perón, and Castro, but the truth is there has never been a leader like him. He was democratically elected, reigned like a monarch from a digital throne, and provoked adoration and revulsion in equal measure. Future historians will study his rule for what it says about the early twenty-first century. How did a charismatic autocrat seduce not just a nation but a significant part of world opinion? How did he make people laugh and weep and applaud, as if on command? And how did he continue to stay in power despite the crumbling of Venezuela?When he first came to power in 1999, Chávez promised a democratic revolution to transform his country. In Venezuela and elsewhere, he became a symbol of hope and freedom for his people. Yet in his thirteen years as president, Chávez seized control of the hugely lucrative Venezuelan oil industry, consolidated government authority under the presidency, allowed basic government functions to wither, jailed and excommunicated political opponents, created a personality cult, and courted Castro and Ahmadinejad, all while occupying much of Venezuela’s airwaves with his long-running television show, ¡Alo Presidente!In Comandante, acclaimed journalist Rory Carroll breaches the walls of Miraflores Palace to tell the inside story of Chávez's life and his political court in Caracas. Based on interviews with ministers, aides, courtiers, and citizens, this intimate piece of reportage chronicles a unique experiment in power, which veers among enlightenment, tyranny, comedy, and farce. Carroll investigates the almost religious devotion of millions of Venezuelans who still regard Chávez as a savior and the loathing of those who brand him a dictator. In beautiful prose that blends the lyricism and strangeness of magical realism with the brutal, ugly truth of authoritarianism—a powerful combination reminiscent of Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Emperor—Rory Carroll has written a cautionary tale for our times.Review"Comandante provides an impressively well-researched and readable portrait... Carroll's book should serve as a useful reminder of what el Comandante did and didn't achieve, how he got away with it and the danger of statesmen-as-showmen whose promises are too good to be true."—The New York Times Book Review"Carroll shows how Chavez’s shoddy understanding and willful manipulation of the economy ended by raining misery on the very people he meant to save. We see, in this vivid narrative, a government that is Shakespearean in its failings. By 2000, one year after Chavez was installed, a campaign everyone could believe in — rout the corrupt! elevate the poor! invigorate the nation! — had produced a clone of Cuba’s faltering communist state... [a] deeply informative, sprightly chronicle of Venezuela’s dizzying journey under its Comandante. ... Here is a lively portrait of a new Latin American genus: the democratically elected caudillo. As Garcia Marquez so presciently said a few years ago: 'The dictator is the only mythological figure Latin America has ever produced; and his legacy is far from over.'"—Washington Post"Deftly retells the familiar narrative and then adds something new: Hugo Chávez was a terrible boss, radiating administrative chaos from his desk at the presidential palace. The toll of this mismanagement will define post-Chávez Venezuela."—The New Republic "Rory Carroll’s engaging, highly readable Comandante ... convey[s] the small, tectonic shifts beneath Chávez’s revolution... Carroll’s access, garnered over seven years reporting in Caracas for The Guardian, is showcased through the characters readers meet. From a fashion designer who works with newly elite “Boligarchs” (Bolivarian revolutionaries plus oligarchs) and sees the same issues of corruption and elitism as in administrations past, to the president’s personal librarian who could rattle off quotes from Chávez’s revolutionary hero Simón Bolivar, to the drug trafficker whose fate illustrates the speed with which one could rise and fall in grace in today’s Venezuela, readers are helped to see just how challenging it is to bundle Chávez and his revolution into a nutshell."—The Christian Science Monitor "The best things in Rory Carroll’s fine, timely book are the small details: that dripping lift, the law passed to make the horse on the nation’s coat-of-arms face left, the panic among flunkeys when Mr. Chávez briefly decided that there was too much red around and started wearing yellow. These snippets, collected by Mr. Carroll while he was reporting for the Guardian, are woven into a compelling story that comes close to answering the riddle of Mr Chávez; an autocrat, a self-proclaimed champion of his country’s poor and a clown."—The Economist"The global media have never been sure what to make of this '21st-century socialist' and his Bolivarian Revolution... Rory Carroll is well positioned to provide a verdict…What emerges is a more intimate image of Chavez than his own propaganda allows... The book also excels in showing what happens when a self-believing ideologue grasps the reins of government and determines not to let go... Chavez, the master narrator, knows that true drama lies not in a story's ending but in the twists and turns it takes to get there. On those terms, Comandante delivers."—The Independent (UK)"In this incisive portrait of a histrionic ruler who brooks little criticism, Carroll, the Guardian’s Latin American bureau chief, captures the tragic absurdity of life in a country flush with petrodollars but where many go without adequate health care, and where 'Out of Order' signs are switched out for ones promising 'Socialist Modernization' as broken-down elevators languish. Readers who know Chávez mainly for his anti-U.S. bluster will find some surprises in the true-life black comedy surrounding this mercurial leader."—Publishers Weekly"Rory Carroll is an excellent journalist and gifted storyteller, and in this book, he tells the tale of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez with admirable style and insight. A pleasurable read; highly recommended."—Jon Lee Anderson, author of The Fall of Baghdad"Rory Carroll's brilliant portrait of Chávez reads like a fast-paced novel of ego run amok, an ego that happens to be attached to a masterful politician, a dynamo of energy and charisma, and a colossus of managerial ineptitude. Comandante is by turns heartbreaking, maddening, absurd, and surreal, a truly epic story of promise squandered and opportunities lost. It's one thing for the general to be lost in his labyrinth, quite another when he drags the entire country with him into the maze."—Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Haftime Walk and Brief Encounters with Che Guevara "With new information and sharp-eyed reporting, Comandante is a riveting account of how Hugo Chávez has held his country in his thrall for 15 years. Rory Carroll has stripped away the propaganda surrounding Chávez's 'Bolivarian Revolution' to reveal its core of serial incompetence, corruption and cynicism."—Michael Reid, author of Forgotten Continent "This is a terrific read; funny, constantly informative about Hugo Chávez and the Venezuela he has created, and sure to annoy a great many people."—Alma Guillermoprieto, author of Dancing with Cuba"In cool, lucid prose, Rory Carroll unpicks the threads that weave together to form a modern-day dictatorship, no less sinister for its relative absence of bloodshed. The portrait of Venezuela that emerges is as nuanced as it is ultimately chilling. Hugo Chávez’s story perfectly illustrates the fact that all that is necessary for the triumph of demagoguery is for good men to do nothing."—Michela Wrong, author of In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz"A close, well informed and concerned look at the most controversial yet fascinating figure in Latin American politics today. Rory Carroll intelligently lays out the puzzle of Chavez’s idiosyncratic populism for us to judge."—Gioconda Belli, author of The Country Under My Skin“Rory Carroll was once harangued by Hugo Chávez on his weekly television show, Alo Presidente. These sharp-eyed sketches of ‘El Commandante’s’ acolytes, former supporters and courtiers form Carroll’s occasionally mischievous reply. Informed and often funny, it is also a chilling portrait of the cynicism and corruption that has come to characterize Mr. Chávez’s once-charismatic Venezuelan revolution.”—John Paul Rathbone, author of The Sugar King of Havana“Comandante is a trenchant, remarkably colorful book about Hugo Chávez. In sparkling prose, Rory Carroll goes beyond Chávez’s seductive rhetoric, Manichean mindset, and huge appetite for power to highlight the tragic consequences of virtual one-man rule in Venezuela. More Chávez profiles are sure to come, but I doubt they will measure up to such a witty, cogent and exquisite account. An immensely gifted journalist, Carroll has broken new ground with this splendid political biography.”—Michael Shifter, President, Inter-American DialogueAbout the AuthorVeteran journalist and former chief of the Latin American bureau for the Guardian, Rory Carroll has covered war zones, survived a kidnapping in Iraq, and reported on the transition to full democracy in South Africa. Now in California, he was stationed in Caracas for the research and writing of Comandante. His wife is a native Venezuelan. Views: 23
If you don't learn from history . . .You're destined to repeat it Not without you, she'd said. And I'd let her down... Hollywood, 1961: when beautiful, much-loved movie star Eve Noel vanishes at the height of her fame, no-one knows where, much less why. Fifty years later, another young British actress, Sophie Leigh, lives in Eve's house high in the Hollywood Hills. Eve Noel was her inspiration and Sophie, disenchanted with her life in LA, finds herself becoming increasingly obsessed with the mystery of her idol's disappearance. And the more she finds out, the more she realises Eve's life is linked with her own. As Eve's tragic past and the present start to collide, Sophie needs to unravel the truth to save them both -- but is she already too late? Becoming increasingly entangled in Eve's world, Sophie must decide whose life she is really living . . . Views: 23
When Gavin sees Aolani with his brother, Malcolm, he thinks he's lost her forever. Flying into a rage, he loses control, fighting his own kin in a contest for her heart. But instead of winning her over, his outburst only drives her further away. She leaves in the night, leaving him a note, saying only that she's flying back to her family in Hawaii to get some space.Gavin Fletcher has loved and lost before, and now knows more than ever, that he must fight for her, or lose the love of his life forever. But can Aolani let herself trust the man who's broken her heart?This 9800 word story is the emotionally gripping series finale of the erotic romance LUSH CURVES by best-selling author Delilah Fawkes. Views: 23
Emily Winters was kidnapped as a teenager by Psi-Tech, a corrupt and power hungry corporation that learned of her precognitive ability. Imprisoned for years and forced to use her talent to help a company thrive, she now reaches a point where she must escape or die. A natural disaster will cause chaos, death, and destruction throughout the entire world while transforming most of the survivors into psychics.
After this happens, Psi-Tech will kill all of their prisoners to hide the evidence of their horrific crimes. Knowing how the disaster will affect her captors gives Emily one slim chance to escape. Emily must seize this opportunity to save not only herself but her brother as well who will die without a medical treatment that doesn’t yet exist.
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The Best Travel Writing 2011 is the eighth volume in the annual Travelers' Tales series launched in 2004 to celebrate the world's best travel writing — from Nobel Prize winners to emerging new writers. The points of view and perspectives are global, and themes encompass high adventure, spiritual growth, romance, hilarity and misadventure, service to humanity, and encounters with exotic cuisine. Sweat, suffer, and fall in love in Guyana, meet a traveler who conducts his own detente in Russian baths, and encounter the light of a stranger in Burma. Further tales include methods on comprehending the nuances of bargaining in Senegal and an archaeologist who digs up her own past in Greece. Views: 23
Snow White Must Die by Nele Neuhaus is a tremendous new contemporary mystery series and huge international bestseller—with more than 3.5 million copies in print!On a rainy November day police detectives Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein are summoned to a mysterious traffic accident: A woman has fallen from a pedestrian bridge onto a car driving underneath. According to a witness, the woman may have been pushed. The investigation leads Pia and Oliver to a small village, and the home of the victim, Rita Cramer.On a September evening eleven years earlier, two seventeen-year-old girls vanished from the village without a trace. In a trial based only on circumstantial evidence, twenty-year-old Tobias Sartorius, Rita Cramer’s son, was sentenced to ten years in prison. Bodenstein and Kirchhoff discover that Tobias, after serving his sentence, has now returned to his home town. Did the attack on his mother have something to do with his return?In the village, Pia and Oliver encounter a wall of silence. When another young girl disappears, the events of the past seem to be repeating themselves in a disastrous manner. The investigation turns into a race against time, because for the villagers it is soon clear who the perpetrator is—and this time they are determined to take matters into their own hands.An atmospheric, character-driven and suspenseful mystery set in a small town that could be anywhere, dealing with issues of gossip, power, and keeping up appearances. Views: 23
SF Author Stanley G. Weinbaum died from cancer at 33, in December 1935. Short though his career was, his scientific imagination, smooth characterization, and humor completely revolutionized the field, and profoundly influenced his contemporaries. Among his many imitators was English writer John Russell Fearn. Although Fearn's own distinctive work was very popular, he wanted to increase his number of acceptances by writing under pseudonyms--Thornton Ayre and Polton Cross--with a change of style imitating Weinbaum! These exciting and highly entertaining pastiches, first published in such magazines as Astounding Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories, are here collected for the very first time in book form, with fascinating historical background notes. The first of two must-have volumes for collectors, the second being VALLEY OF PRETENDERS. Great adventure reading from the classic period of the SF pulps! Views: 23
Selected as the first Book in Common at Mississippi University for Women, this compelling story helped trigger campus-wide discussions on race relations and child abuse. Lonely Feena Harvey, a teenager who cannot stand by and watch bad things happen, sees a toddler being slapped and kicked, then abandoned by his mother. When Feena kidnaps the baby to save him, she finds an unlikely ally in Raylene Watson, popular, outgoing, and African American. The two girls, miles apart, socially and emotionally, skip school to take care of Christopher. But how long can this mismatched pair of guardians keep their secret? Especially once the police join the search for the baby? Views: 23
