Michael Pollan’s unmatched ability to draw lines of connection between our everyday experiences— whether eating, gardening, or building—and the natural world has been the basis for the popular success of his many works of nonfiction, including the genre-defining bestsellers The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. With this updated edition of his earlier book A Place of My Own, readers can revisit the inspired, intelligent, and often hilarious story of Pollan’s realization of a room of his own—a small, wooden hut, his "shelter for daydreams"—built with his admittedly unhandy hands. Inspired by both Thoreau and Mr. Blandings, A Place of My Own not only works to convey the history and meaning of all human building, it also marks the connections between our bodies, our minds, and the natural world. Views: 15
Vivid narrative-driven account of how current U.S. laws against prostitution harm sex workers, clients, and society Views: 15
Our sharpest and most original social critic goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity.Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job -- any job -- can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is... Views: 15
For over a decade now, the reigning consensus has held that the combination of free markets and democracy would transform the third world and sweep away the ethnic hatred and religious zealotry associated withunderdevelopment. In this astute, original, and surprising investigation of the true impact of globalization, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua explains why many developing countries are in fact consumed by ethnicviolence after adopting free market democracy.
Chua shows how in non-Western countries around the globe, free markets have concentrated starkly disproportionate wealth in the hands of a resented ethnicminority. These "market-dominant minorities" - Chinese in Southeast Asia, Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, whites in Latin America and South Africa, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in WestAfrica, Jews in post-communist Russia - become objects of violent hatred. At the same time, democracy empowers the impoverished majority, unleashing ethnic demagoguery, confiscation, and sometimes genocidalrevenge. She also argues that the United States has become the world's most visible market-dominant minority, a fact that helps explain the rising tide of anti-Americanism around the world. Chua is a friend ofglobalization, but she urges us to find ways to spread its benefits and curb its most destructive aspects. "From the Trade Paperback edition." Views: 14
The Advise and Consent series is a landmark of political fiction, displaying a depth of insider Washington knowledge and a canvas of compelling characters that catapulted each novel to the top of the bestseller lists. At the end of the previous novel, Preserve and Protect, Allen Drury left his readers with one of the greatest cliffhangers of all time. After an assassin’s bullet rings out, we are left to wonder who was killed—the Liberal Vice President Ted Jason, or staunch Conservative Presidential Candidate Orrin Knox? The answer to that question was so large that Pulitzer-Prize winner Drury had to write two novels, one exploring the full ramifications of each outcome. In The Promise of Joy, with his Vice President Ted Jason and his wife Beth Knox dead at the hands of an assassin, newly elected President Orrin Knox contends with a game of one-upmanship between the Soviet Union and China. The United States, guided by Knox’s inflexible will, begins to assist rebels seeking to break away from their Communist overlords, despite mounting pressure from the international community and within the U.S. When nuclear war breaks out between Russia and China, President Orrin Knox, aided and opposed by the media, senators, congressmen, cabinet officials, ambassadors, and the people, must act to safeguard peace and democracy in America and the entire world. Views: 14
‘I am a person of moderate views,’ writes Ramachandra Guha, ‘these sometimes expressed in extreme fashion.’ In this wide-ranging and wonderfully readable collection of essays, Guha defends the liberal centre against the dogmas of left and right, and does so with style, depth, and polemical verve. The book begins with a brilliant overview of the major threats to the Indian republic. Other essays turn a critical eye on Hindutva, the Communist left, and the dynasty-obsessed Congress party. Guha then explores the contemporary relevance of Gandhi’s religious pluralism and analyses the fall in Jawaharlal Nehru’s reputation after his death. The essays in Part II of this book focus on writers and scholars. Guha explains why bilingual intellectuals, once so dominant in India, are now thin on the ground. He presents sensitive portraits of a magazine editor, a bookshop owner, a great publishing house, and a famous historical archive. Whether writing about politics or culture, whether profiling individuals or analysing social trends, Ramachandra Guha displays a masterly touch, confirming his standing as India’s most admired historian and public intellectual. Views: 14
Prose; fiction, Masculine Views: 13
A gripping thriller of international espionage, The Geneva Option by Adam LeBor pits a sexy, young UN staffer against a brutal conspiracy to control Africa’s natural resources.Yael Azoulay does the United Nations’ dirty work. Sent by the UN’s Secretary General to eastern Congo to negotiate with Jean-Pierre Hakizimani, a Hutu warlord wanted for genocide, she offers a deal: surrender to the UN tribunal, in exchange for a short sentence and a return to politics.The plan is to bring stability to the region so the West can exploit the region’s mineral wealth. But Yael soon realizes that the UN is prepared to turn a blind eye to mass murder.Yael finds herself on the run, hunted by the world’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies—and haunted by her past—ultimately learning that salvation means not just saving other’s lives but confronting her own inner demons.Written by Adam LeBor, a high-profile foreign correspondent and critically acclaimed investigative journalist, The Geneva Option takes readers on a nonstop journey through the secret corridors of international power.Review“British journalist Lebor…introduces brilliant and beautiful Yael Azoulay, a behindthe-scenes negotiator for the United Nations, in his gripping debut thriller, the first in a trilogy… [T]hose looking for a strong heroine in the mold of Lisbeth Salander will be satisfied.” (Publishers Weekly)“This thriller’s prologue is a small masterpiece in showing how the seemingly banal–a worker taking a cigarette break on a balcony–can be upended into terror. The rest of the book fulfills the prologue’s promise…. [with] scene after scene of heart-clutching suspense…Must reading.” (Booklist(starred review))“A gripping and atmospheric thriller from a great writer. Yael Azoulay is a character I’m looking forward to reading about again and again.” (Charles Cumming, New York Times bestselling author of The Trinity Six)“Adam LeBor masterfully weaves an international espionage thriller… Five Stars out of Five.” (Examiner) From the Back CoverYael Azoulay does the United Nations' dirty work by cutting deals that most of us never hear about. Equally at home in the caves of Afghanistan, the slums of Gaza, or corporate boardrooms all across the world, Yael believes the ends justify the means...until she's pushed way beyond her breaking point.When Yael is assigned to eastern Congo to negotiate with Jean-Pierre Hakizimani, a Hutu warlord wanted for genocide, she offers him a generous plea bargain. Thanks to Congo's abundance of a valuable mineral used in computer and cell phone production, her number one priority is maintaining regional stability. But when she discovers that Hakizimani is linked to the death of the person she loved the most—and that the UN is prepared to sanction mass murder—Yael soon realizes that salvation means not just saving others' lives but confronting her own inner demons.Spanning New York City, Africa, and Switzerland, The Geneva Option is the first in a series of gripping conspiracy thrillers, a tour de force of international espionage and intrigue. Views: 13
“My first, my incomparable love! Mary! What can existence mean to me now? You were dearer and more precious to me than the very breath of my nostrils. My life was ecstasy. I had found the perfect friendship of John, and—you! I was happy beyond all mortals! I dreamed of a love untouched by jealousy, cruelty, selfishness. I dreamed of a Paradise infinitely more beautiful than Eden. And now—both of you are bewitched by this pseudo-prophet!” … Jesus dragged his feet slowly. The cross, toppling to one side, beat lightly against his side. Suddenly he fell. I bent to lift him. He looked at me, but beckoned to one of the soldiers, saying in faulty Latin: “Help me, Roman!” I was white with anger. Jesus staggered to his feet. Tauntingly I muttered: “Where are your followers? Where is your father in Heaven, you fool? All have forsaken you. Go on! Go faster! Go to your self-chosen doom!” Jesus turned around and looked at me. All meekness had vanished from his face, now ablaze with anger. “I will go, but thou shalt tarry until I return.” As Isaac, or Cartaphilus, as he preferred to be known, watched family and friends grow old and die while he retained his youth, he came to understand the meaning and full import of Jesus’ pronouncement. Wandering through different lands and down the centuries, he met and influenced the people, and witnessed the events that would shape the modern world. And his wandering soon became the pursuit of the elusive and incomparable Salome, and the secret of Unendurable Pleasure Indefinitely Prolonged… “My First Two Thousand Years” is not for the faint of heart. The authors take no prisoners; repeatedly demonstrate that they hold absolutely nothing sacred; and constantly drive home the point that all of our historical figures and grand institutions are first, foremost, and above all else—human. Note: The cover shown is from the 1956 abridged paperback edition, but the text is full and unabridged (from a clothbound edition). Views: 13
Originally published in 1941, Arthur Koestler's modern masterpiece, Darkness At Noon, is a powerful and haunting portrait of a Communist revolutionary caught in the vicious fray of the Moscow show trials of the late 1930s. During Stalin's purges, Nicholas Rubashov, an aging revolutionary, is imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the party he has devoted his life to. Under mounting pressure to confess to crimes he did not commit, Rubashov relives a career that embodies the ironies and betrayals of a revolutionary dictatorship that believes it is an instrument of liberation. A seminal work of twentieth-century literature, Darkness At Noon is a penetrating exploration of the moral danger inherent in a system that is willing to enforce its beliefs by any means necessary. Views: 13
Ginger Donnelly is on the trail of Nazi saboteurs in Sierra Leone. Whilst taking a midnight paddle with a willing woman in a canoe cajoled from a local fisherman, Donnelly sees an enormous seaplane thunder across the sky only to crash in a ball of brilliant flame. It seems like an accident...at least until a second plane explodes in a blistering shower along the same flight path. Views: 12
A new short story by New York Times bestselling thriller writer Ben Coes — with time running out, Dewey Andreas is the last hope for a prominent kidnapping victim.
The newly sworn in Vice President of the United States has a problem. Her son, off in college, doesn't care for his security detail. So when Spring Break comes around, he slips away from his bodyguard, picks up his best friend, and heads to Mexico for an intended week of sun, sand, women, and hoped-for debauchery. But when he arrives at the airport, a team of well-armed kidnappers grab both him and his friend and escape. Now they're demanding that an exorbitant ransom be paid in only a few hours — and if it's not, both boys will be killed.
Dewey Andreas, CIA operative and former Delta, happens to be in Mexico, taking some time away and helping friends Katie Fox and Rob Tacoma with a private job. Hoping to relax, Andreas is now the only hope these two young men have of surviving their misadventure. But Mexico is a big country and, before anything else, Dewey has to find the missing boys. Even then, it's a race against the clock, with a highly-trained group of vicious men waiting at the other end.
An original Dewey Andreas short story by bestseller Ben Coes.
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