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books tagged “culture”
books tagged “culture”
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnby Mark TwainISBN 0743487575 (0-7434-8757-5)
Softcover, Pocket Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'Book summary:Originally intended as a sequel to his immensely popular Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn stands on its own as one of America's most important and beloved literary classics.
For generations, young and old alike have delighted in the unforgettable adventures of runaways Huck Finn and Jim, a slave. In vivid, often gripping prose, Twain brings to fife both the beauty and the folly of preCivil War life along the Mississippifrom the radiant dawn on the river to Huck's terrifying encounters with his father, as well as the outrageous antics of the King and the Duke and Tom Sawyer's outlandish plans to free Jim. Told from Huck's point of view, Huckleberry Finn is also the powerful story of a boy's journey toward adulthood.
In the finest work of his distinguished career, Steven Kellogg has created eighteen stunning pictures that capture Twain's timeless blend of humor and suspense. This is truly an edition that readers of all ages will want to return to again and again.
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnby Gary Paulsen, Mark TwainISBN 0689831390 (0-689-83139-0)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'Book summary:A seminal work of American Literature that still commands deep praise and still elicits controversy, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is essential to the understanding of the American soul. The recent discovery of the first half of Twain's manuscript, long thought lost, made front-page news. And this unprecedented edition, which contains for the first time omitted episodes and other variations present in the first half of the handwritten manuscript, as well as facsimile reproductions of thirty manuscript pages, is indispensable to a full understanding of the novel. The changes, deletions, and additions made in the first half of the manuscript indicate that Mark Twain frequently checked his impulse to write an even darker, more confrontational book than the one he finally published. [via]
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The Art of Memoryby YatesISBN 071265545X (0-7126-5545-X)
Softcover, Pimlico
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Art of Memory'Book summary:In this classic study of how people learned to retain vast stores of knowledge before the invention of the printed page, Frances A. Yates traces the art of memory from its treatment by Greek orators, through its Gothic transformations in the Middle Ages, to the occult forms it took in the Renaissance, and finally to its use in the seventeenth century. This book, the first to relate the art of memory to the history of culture as a whole, was revolutionary when it first appeared and continues to mesmerize readers with its lucid and revelatory insights.[via]More editions of The Art of Memory:
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Authentic Transformation: A New Vision of Christ and Cultureby Glen H. Stassen, D. M. Yeager, John Howard YoderISBN 0687022738 (0-687-02273-8)
Softcover, Abingdon Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Authentic Transformation: A New Vision of Christ and Culture'Book summary:The study of Christian ethics in North America has been profoundly influenced during this century by the work of H. Richard Niebuhr. That influence is felt nowhere as keenly as in the widespread use of his classic text, Christ and Culture. Yet certain central flaws exist in Niebuhr's work on Christ and culture, particularly in its lack of concrete norms for the church's transformative engagement with the world. Scholars have long realized that further work must be done in this area if the church is to speak the word of the gospel adequately in the midst of a pluralistic and changing culture. In this book, Glen H. Stassen, D. M. Yeager, and John Howard Yoder push Christian ethical reflection beyond Niebuhr by offering an analysis and critique of Niebuhr's well-known fivefold typology of the relation of Christ to culture. They wrestle with the issue of how the actual, working church goes about being an agent of the transformation of culture. Unlike Niebuhr, whose description of the transformationist ideal had little grounding in the concrete existence of the church, the authors reflect on those practices through which congregations seek both to embody faithfulness to Jesus Christ and to be the church in their culture. As a prologue to this analytical and constructive task, the volume contains a previously unpublished essay by H. Richard Niebuhr, "Types of Christian Ethics", in which he laid out the framework of the typology he would later expand in Christ and Culture. [via]
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Beginning Postmodernismby Tim WoodsISBN 0719052114 (0-7190-5211-4)
Softcover, Manchester Univ Pr
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Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland The Middle Danube to the Iron Gatesby Patrick Leigh FermorISBN 0719542642 (0-7195-4264-2)
Hardcover, J. Murray
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland The Middle Danube to the Iron Gates'Book summary:'Between the Woods and the Water' continues Patrick Leigh Fermor's celebrated epic account of his journey at the age of eighteen, in 1933, from the Hook of Holand to Constantinople. Here he travels down the Danube from Budapest, across the Great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Rumanian border into Transylvania. [via]
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Big Secretsby William PoundstoneISBN 0688048307 (0-688-04830-7)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Big Secrets'Book summary:The Book That Gives the Inside Story on Hundreds of Secrets of American Life --Big Secrets.
Are there really secret backward messages in rock music, or is somebody nuts? We tested suspect tunes at a recording studio to find out.
What goes on at Freemason initiations? Here's the whole story, including -- yes! -- the electric carpet.
Colonel Sanders boasted that Kentucky Fried Chicken's eleven secret herbs and spices "stand on everybody's shelf." We got a sample of the seasoning mix and sent it to a food chemist for analysis.
Feverish rumor has it that Walt Disney's body was frozen and now lies in a secret cryonic vault somewhere beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean exhibit at Disneyland. Read the certified stranger-than-fiction truth.
Don't bother trying to figure out how Doug Henning, David Copperfield, and Harry Blackstone, Jr., perform their illusions. "Big Secrets" has complete explanations and diagrams, nothing left to the imagination.
Blue: The History of a Colorby Michel PastoureauISBN 0691090505 (0-691-09050-5)
Hardcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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The Book of Listsby Irving WallaceISBN 0688035744 (0-688-03574-4)
Hardcover, Smithmark Publishers, Incorporated
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Brave New World Revisitedby Aldous HuxleyISBN 070110791X (0-7011-0791-X)
Hardcover, Chatto and Windus
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Chroniclesby Bob DylanISBN 0743244583 (0-7432-4458-3)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Chronicles'Book summary:As the first volume of Chronicles, Bob Dylans long-anticipated autobiography, finally appears, we are given a forcible reminder how it has never been easy to be a Dylan admirer. How could the fiercely anti-establishment composer of With God on Our Side embrace (in turn) orthodox Judaism, then fundamentalist Christianity two religions absolutely antithetical to his celebration of the unfettered human spirit ? How could the demigod of folk (and disciple of Woody Guthrie) make his controversial move into electric rock? How could this man of the streets become the arch capitalist? If no answers to these questions are to be found within the pages of Chronicles, there is nevertheless a whole host of pleasures to be encountered: literary felicities, brilliantly etched pen portraits of musical personalities he has encountered, the biting wit one might expect not to mention a thousand surprises (how could a man hardly noted for the beauty of his vocal tones be such an admirer of composers whose work he could never tackle, such as Harold Arlen, composer of Over the Rainbow?.
Those who have loved Dylans lyrics (and thats a good chunk of the academic world these days) will find the same coruscating prose here: idea and image fused into brilliant (if often opaque) word pictures, as Dylan takes us back to his early days on the New York folk scene, before he became the face of rebellion in music. There are insights into his reluctance to conform to the image his fans have of him (hence his highly unlikely conversion to religious dogmas?), and this inaugural volume of his autobiography takes the reader up to the moment of his first real celebrity. Its a fascinating and infuriating read, of a piece with Dylan the Enigma. And perhaps answers to those unanswered questions will appear in succeeding volumes. --Barry Forshaw [via]
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Civilization of the Renaissance in Italyby Jacob Burckhardt, Ludwig Goldscheider, S.G.C. MiddlemoreISBN 0714833630 (0-7148-3363-0)
Softcover, Phaidon Inc Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy'Book summary:Jacob Burckhardt was a scholar who had the gift of being able to combine vast knowledge with a vivid imagination and lively creativity. This book, his contribution to cultural history, was first published in 1860, and has long been recognized as a great work of literature as well as history; its range, powerful style, and breadth of vision make it a classic introduction to the study of the Renaissance, and one that is still a source of inspiration. "My starting point has to be a vision,' Burckhardt wrote to a friend, `otherwise I cannot do anything. Vision I call not only optical, but also spiritual realization; for instance, historical vision issuing from the old sources." The work covers the period from the birth of Dante to the death of Michelangelo, and is divided into six sections, covering politics, the rise of individualism, the revival of antiquity, science and humanism, society and festivals, and morality and religion. However, these headings do not do justice to the text, nor to the skill with which the author controls his material and unfolds his vision of the developing Renaissance. Within this framework the author gives an account of a whole range of subjects - from literature and the arts to home life, fashion, and superstition - illuminating all aspects of life in the Renaissance. [via]
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Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Natureby Felipe Fernández-ArmestoISBN 074320249X (0-7432-0249-X)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster, Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Civilizations : Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature'Book summary:"Civilization" is a tricky term, one that means many things to many people. For some, it denotes great buildings, canals, codes of law; for others, it offers a contrast between one group and another, with the advantage always going to the more "civilized" bunch against the "barbaric," "savage," or "primitive."
All such distinctions, writes Oxford University historian Felipe Fernández- Armesto, are arbitrary and laden with subjective value; they speak to unscientific notions of progress, to hidden agendas. What matters, he continues, is the extent to which a culture has developed means to separate itself from nature: "Civilization makes its own habitat. It is civilized in direct proportion to its distance, its difference from the unmodified natural environment." A culture such as the ancient Han Chinese, the medieval highland Maya, or the Renaissance Venetian, then, is highly civilized inasmuch as its members dammed and diverted rivers, drained lakes, stripped forests, and built monumental structures to celebrate their achievements; people content or resigned to "live off the product and inhabit the spaces nature gives them" are markedly less so by virtue of that accommodation.
No culture, Fernández-Armesto writes, is inherently exempt from becoming civilized; nor, he adds, does "civilized" equate to "good." In exploring history as a branch of historical ecology, he sometimes abandons his thesis, intriguing and provocative as it is, to engage in a wide-ranging survey of the world past reminiscent of (but much better written than) Toynbee and Durant, touching on the ancient Greeks here, the herding peoples of the African savanna and Central Asia there, the Moundbuilders of prehistoric North America and the hunting peoples of the Arctic there. Unlike many standard textbooks, his narrative manages to offer something new wherever he turns. Allusive and learned, his book repays close reading--and should inspire plenty of argument along the way. -- Gregory McNamee [via]
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The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Powerby Joel BakanISBN 0743247469 (0-7432-4746-9)
Softcover, Free Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power'Book summary:Over the last 150 years the corporation has risen from relative obscurity to become the world's dominant economic institution. Eminent Canadian law professor and legal theorist Joel Bakan contends that today's corporation is a pathological institution, a dangerous possessor of the great power it wields over people and societies.
In this revolutionary assessment of the history, character, and globalization of the modern business corporation, Bakan backs his premise with the following observations:
- The corporation's legally defined mandate is to pursue relentlessly and without exception its own economic self-interest, regardless of the harmful consequences it might cause to others.
- The corporation's unbridled self-interest victimizes individuals, society, and, when it goes awry, even shareholders and can cause corporations to self-destruct, as recent Wall Street scandals reveal.
- Governments have freed the corporation, despite its flawed character, from legal constraints through deregulation and granted it ever greater authority over society through privatization.
But Bakan believes change is possible and he outlines a far-reaching program of achievable reforms through legal regulation and democratic control.
Featuring in-depth interviews with such wide-ranging figures as Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, business guru Peter Drucker, and cultural critic Noam Chomsky, The Corporation is an extraordinary work that will educate and enlighten students, CEOs, whistle-blowers, power brokers, pawns, pundits, and politicians alike. [via]
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- The corporation's legally defined mandate is to pursue relentlessly and without exception its own economic self-interest, regardless of the harmful consequences it might cause to others.
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Crackpotby John WatersISBN 0743246276 (0-7432-4627-6)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Crackpot'Book summary:Crackpot, originally released in 1986, is John Waters' brilliantly entertaining litany of odd and fascinationg people, places and things. From Baltimore to Los Angeles, from William Castle to Pia Zadora, from the National Enquirer to Ronald Reagan's colon, Waters explores the depths of our culture. And he dispenses useful advice along the way: how not to make a movie, how to become famous (read: infamous), and of course, how to most effectively shock and make our nation's public laugh at the same time. Loaded with bonus features, this new special edition is guaranteed to leave you totally mental. [via]
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Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Culturesby Tyler CowenISBN 0691117837 (0-691-11783-7)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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Cuckoo's Eggby Clifford StollISBN 0743411463 (0-7434-1146-3)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cuckoo's Egg'Book summary:A sentimental favorite, The Cuckoo's Egg seems to have inspired a whole category of books exploring the quest to capture computer criminals. Still, even several years after its initial publication and after much imitation, the book remains a good read with an engaging story line and a critical outlook, as Clifford Stoll becomes, almost unwillingly, a one-man security force trying to track down faceless criminals who've invaded the university computer lab he stewards. What first appears as a 75-cent accounting error in a computer log is eventually revealed to be a ring of industrial espionage, primarily thanks to Stoll's persistence and intellectual tenacity. [via]
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A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols: Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thoughtby Wolfram EberhardISBN 0710201915 (0-7102-0191-5)
Hardcover, Routledge & Kegan Paul
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols: Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thought'Book summary:Explains the esoteric meanings and connections of more than 400 important Chinese symbols. Their use and development in Chinese literature, customs and attitudes to life are traced lucidly and precisely. [via]
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Digging to Americaby Anne TylerISBN 0739326422 (0-7393-2642-2)
Hardcover, Random House Large Print
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Digging to America'Book summary:Anne Tylers richest, most deeply searching novela story about what it is to be an American, and about Iranian-born Maryam Yazdan, who, after 35 years in this country, must finally come to terms with her outsiderness.
Two families, who would otherwise never have come together, meet by chance at the Baltimore airport the Donaldsons, a very American couple, and the Yazdans, Maryams fully assimilated son and his attractive Iranian wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the instant babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate: an arrival party that from then on is repeated every year as the two families become more and more deeply intertwined. Even Maryam is drawn in up to a point. When she finds herself being courted by Bitsy Donaldsons recently widowed father, all the values she cherishes her traditions, her privacy, her othernessare suddenly threatened.
A luminous novel brimming with subtle, funny, and tender observations that immerse us in the challenges of both sides of the American story. [via]More editions of Digging to America:
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Edward Said: A Critical Introductionby Valerie KennedyISBN 0745620191 (0-7456-2019-1)
Softcover, Blackwell Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Edward Said: A Critical Introduction'Book summary:Edward Said is one of the foremost thinkers writing today. His work as a literary and cultural critic, a political commentator, and the champion of the cause of Palestinian rights has given him a unique position in western intellectual life. This new book is a major exploration and assessment of his writings in all these main areas.
Focusing on Said's insistence on the connection between literature, politics and culture, Kennedy offers an overview and assessment of the main strands of Said's work, drawing out the links and contradictions between each area. The book begins with an examination of Orientalism, one of the founding texts of post-colonial studies. Kennedy looks at the book in detail, probing both its strengths and weaknesses, and linking it to its sequel, Culture and Imperialism. She then examines Said's work on the Palestinian people, with his emphasis on the need for a Palestinian narrative to counter pro-Israeli accounts of the Middle East, and his searing criticisms of US, Israeli, and even Arab governments. The book closes with an examination of Said's importance in the field of post-colonial studies, notably colonial discourse analysis and post-colonial theory, and his significance as a public intellectual.
This book will be of great interest to anyone studying post-colonialism, literary theory, politics, and the Middle East, as well as anyone interested in Said's writings. [via]More editions of Edward Said: A Critical Introduction:
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The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Thinkby Robert AungerISBN 0743201507 (0-7432-0150-7)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think'Book summary:From biology to culture to the new new economy, the buzzword on everyone's lips is "meme." How do animals learn things? How does human culture evolve? How does viral marketing work? The answer to these disparate questions and even to what is the nature of thought itself is, simply, the meme. For decades researchers have been convinced that memes were The Next Big Thing for the understanding of society and ourselves. But no one has so far been able to define what they are. Until now.
Here, for the first time, Robert Aunger outlines what a meme physically is, how memes originated, how they developed, and how they have made our brains into their survival systems. They are thoughts. They are parasites. They are in control. A meme is a distinct pattern of electrical charges in a node in our brains that reproduces a thousand times faster than a bacterium. Memes have found ways to leap from one brain to another. A number of them are being replicated in your brain as you read this paragraph.
In 1976 the biologist Richard Dawkins suggested that all animals -- including humans -- are puppets and that genes hold the strings. That is, we are robots serving as life support for the genes that control us. And all they want to do is replicate themselves. But then, we do lots of things that don't seem to help genes replicate. We decide not to have children, we waste our time doing dangerous things like mountain climbing, or boring things like reading, or stupid things like smoking that don't seem to help genes get copied into the next generation. We do all sorts of cultural things for reasons that don't seem to have anything to do with genes. Fashions in sports, books, clothes, ideas, politics, lifestyles come and go and give our lives meaning, so how can we be gene robots?
Dawkins recognized that something else was going on. We communicate with one another and we get ideas, and these ideas seem to have a life of their own. Maybe there was something called memes that were like thought genes. Maybe our bodies were gene robots and our minds were meme robots. That would mean that what we think is not the result of our own creativity, but rather the result of the evolutionary flow of memes as they wash through us.
What is the biological reality of an idea with a life of its own? What is a thought gene? It's a meme. And no one before Robert Aunger has established what it physically must be. This elegant, paradigm-shifting analysis identifies how memes replicate in our brains, how they evolved, and how they use artifacts like books and photographs and advertisements to get from one brain to another. Destined to inflame arguments about free will, open doors to new ways of sharing our thoughts, and provide a revolutionary explanation of consciousness, The Electric Meme will change the way each of us thinks about our minds, our cultures, and our daily choices. [via]
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Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakotaby Chuck KlostermanISBN 0743406567 (0-7434-0656-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota'Book summary:Powered by a sharp and wholly original voice, Chuck Klosterman delivers a real-life High Fidelity in this savvy, deliriously funny memoir of growing up a shameless heavy-metal devotee in 1980s North Dakota. The year is 1983, and Chuck Klosterman just wants to rock. But he's got problems. For one, he's in the fifth grade. For another, he's mired in rural North Dakota. Worst of all, his parents aren't exactly down with the long hairstyle which said rocking requires. Luckily, his brother saves the day when he brings home a bit of manna from metal heaven, Shout at the Devil, Motley Crue's seminal paean to hair-band excess. And so Klosterman's twisted odyssey begins, a journey spent worshipping at the heavy metal altar of Krokus, Ratt and Poison, and a journey from which, clearly, he has never fully recovered. In the hilarious, young man growing up with a soundtrack tradition, Fargo Rock City chronicles Klosterman's formative years through the lens of heavy metal, the irony-deficient genre that, for better or worse, dominated the pop charts throughout the 1980s. For readers of Dave Eggers, Lester Bangs, and Nick Hornby, Klosterman delivers all the goods: from his first dance (with a girl) and his eye-opening trip to Mandan, N.D., with the debate team; to his list of 'essential' albums; and his thoughtful analysis of the similarities between Guns 'n' Roses' 'Lies' and the gospels of the New Testament. [via]
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The Federalist Papersby Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, Cynthia Brantley JohnsonISBN 0743487710 (0-7434-8771-0)
Softcover, Pocket Classics
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Federalist Papers'Book summary:"This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren ... should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties." So wrote John Jay, one of the revolutionary authors of The Federalist Papers, arguing that if the United States was truly to be a single nation, its leaders would have to agree on universally binding rules of governance--in short, a constitution. In a brilliant set of essays, Jay and his colleagues Alexander Hamilton and James Madison explored in minute detail the implications of establishing a kind of rule that would engage as many citizens as possible and that would include a system of checks and balances. Their arguments proved successful in the end, and The Federalist Papers stand as key documents in the founding of the United States. [via]
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Geisha : A Lifeby Mineko IwasakiISBN 0743444299 (0-7434-4429-9)
Softcover, Washington Square Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Geisha, a Life'Book summary:Now in her 50s, Mineko Iwasaki was one of the most famed geishas of her generation (and the chief informant for Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha). Her ascent was difficult, not merely because of the hard, endless training she had to undergo--learning how to speak a hyper-elevated dialect of Japanese and how to sing and dance gracefully while wearing a 44-pound kimono atop six-inch wooden sandals--but also because many of the elaborate, self-effacing rules of the art went against her grain. A geisha "is an exquisite willow tree who bends to the service of others," she writes. "I have always been stubborn and contrary. And very, very proud." And playful, too: one of the funniest moments in this bittersweet book describes a disastrous encounter with the queen of England and her all-too-interested husband.
Revealing the secrets of the geisha's "art of perfection," this graceful memoir documents a disappearing world. --Gregory McNamee [via]
Geisha: La historia secreta de un mundo que desaparese/The Secret History of a Vanishing Worldby Lesley DownerISBN 0747271062 (0-7472-7106-2)
Softcover, Headline
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Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80sby Hunter S. ThompsonISBN 0743250443 (0-7432-5044-3)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s'Book summary:Generation of Swine, the second volume of the legendary Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's bestselling "Gonzo Papers," was first published in 1988 and is now back in print.
Here, against a backdrop of late-night tattoo sessions and soldier-of-fortune trade shows, Dr. Thompson is at his apocalyptic best -- covering emblematic events such as the 1987-88 presidential campaign, with Vice President George Bush, Sr., fighting for his life against Republican competitors like Alexander Haig, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson; detailing the GOP's obsession with drugs and drug abuse; while at the same time capturing momentous social phenomena as they occurred, like the rise of cable, satellite TV, and CNN -- 24 hours of mainline news. Showcasing his inimitable talent for social and political analysis, Generation of Swine is vintage Thompson -- eerily prescient, incisive, and enduring. [via]
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The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violenceby Gavin De BeckerISBN 0747538352 (0-7475-3835-2)
Softcover, Bloomsbury Pub Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence'Book summary:Each hour, 75 women are raped in the United States, and every few seconds, a woman is beaten. Each day, 400 Americans suffer shooting injuries, and another 1,100 face criminals armed with guns. Author Gavin de Becker says victims of violent behavior usually feel a sense of fear before any threat or violence takes place. They may distrust the fear, or it may impel them to some action that saves their lives. A leading expert on predicting violent behavior, de Becker believes we can all learn to recognize these signals of the "universal code of violence," and use them as tools to help us survive. The book teaches how to identify the warning signals of a potential attacker and recommends strategies for dealing with the problem before it becomes life threatening. The case studies are gripping and suspenseful, and include tactics for dealing with similar situations.
People don't just "snap" and become violent, says de Becker, whose clients include federal government agencies, celebrities, police departments, and shelters for battered women. "There is a process as observable, and often as predictable, as water coming to a boil." Learning to predict violence is the cornerstone to preventing it. De Becker is a master of the psychology of violence, and his advice may save your life. --Joan Price
A Q&A with Gavin de Becker
Question: In todays world, where terror and tragedy seem omnipresent, the fear of violence never seems more heightened. Is the world a more violent place than it ever has been?
Gavin de Becker : Your question contains much of the answer: todays world, "where terror and tragedy seem omnipresent..." The key word is "seem." When TV news coverage presents so much on these topics, it elevates the perception of terrorism and tragedy way beyond the reality. In every major city, TV news creates forty hours of original production every day, most of it composed and presented to get our attention with fear. Hence an incident on an airplane in which a man fails to do any damage is treated as if the make-shift bomb actually exploded. It didnt. Imagine having a near miss in your car, avoiding what would have been a serious collision--and then talking about every hour for months after the fact. Welcome to TV news.
To the second part of your question, No, the world is not a more violent place than it has ever been, however we live as if it were. The U.S. is the most powerful nation in world history--and also the most afraid.
Question: You were just on the Oprah show discussing spousal homicide--can you talk about the show, and whether spousal homicide is a growing epidemic?
Gavin de Becker: Through two shows Oprah dedicated to the topic, were conveying a great deal of new information, and most of all, Oprahs announcement that a MOSAIC assessment system developed by my firm will be made available to any person who wants to use it, at no cost, via her website. This will allow anyone to diagnose a relationship to determine if it has the combination of factors most associated with escalated violence, and spousal homicide. Is spousal homicide increasing? It is not; however, the reality is more disturbing than an increase: Spousal homicide has remained a constant in our lives, such that every four hours at least one woman is killed in America by a husband or boyfriend. That uninterrupted and sad statistic can be interrupted and changed--because as explored in The Gift of Fear, spousal homicide is the single most preventable serious crime in America--largely owing to that fact that it always occurs after many warning signs, and after several people are aware of the risk.
Question: Your bestselling book The Gift of Fear gives many examples to help readers recognize what you call pre-incident indicators (PINS) of violence. What role does intuition play in recognizing these signals?
Gavin de Becker: Like every creature on earth, we have an extraordinary defense resource: We dont have the sharpest claws and strongest jaws--but we do have the biggest brains, and intuition is the most impressive process of these brains. It might be hard to accept its importance because intuition is often described as emotional, unreasonable, or inexplicable. Husbands chide their wives about "feminine intuition" and dont take it seriously. If intuition is used by a woman to explain some choice she made or a concern she cant let go of, men roll their eyes and write it off. We much prefer logic, the grounded, explainable, unemotional thought process that ends in a supportable conclusion. In fact, Americans worship logic, even when its wrong, and deny intuition, even when its right. Men, of course, have their own version of intuition, not so light and inconsequential, they tell themselves, as that feminine stuff. Theirs is more viscerally named a "gut feeling," but whatever name we use, it isnt just a feeling. It is a process more extraordinary and ultimately more logical in the natural order than the most fantastic computer calculation. It is our most complex cognitive process and, at the same time, the simplest.
Intuition connects us to the natural world and to our nature. It carries us to predictions we will later marvel at. "Somehow I knew," we will say about the chance meeting we predicted, or about the unexpected phone call from a distant friend, or the unlikely turnaround in someones behavior, or about the violence we steered clear of, or, too often, the violence we elected not to steer clear of. The Gift of Fear offers strategies that help us recognize the signals of intuition--and helps us avoid denial, which is the enemy of safety.
Question: Your latest book, Just 2 Seconds, has been called a "masterpiece" of analysis on the art of preventing assassination. It contains an entire compendium of attacks on protected persons across the globe. What motivated you to put together such a definitive reference? What tenets can be applied to ones everyday life?
Gavin de Becker: Most of all, we wrote the book we needed. My co-authors and I had long looked for an extensive collection of attack summaries from which important new insights could be harvested. Unable to find it, we committed to do the work ourselves, eventually collecting more than 1400 cases to analyze. Many new insights and concepts emerged from the study, and the one most applicable to day to day life, even for people who are not living with unusual risks, is to be in the present; pre-sent, as it were. Now is the only time anything ever happens--now is where the action is. All focus on anything outside the Now (the past, memory, the future, fantasy) detracts focus from whats actually happening in your environment. Human being have the capacity to look right at something and not see it, and in studying such a crisp event--the few seconds during which assassinations have occurred--Just 2 Seconds aims to enhance the readers ability to see the value of the present moment.
(Photo © Avery Helm)
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Globalization and Culture: Global Melangeby Jan Nederveen PieterseISBN 0742528022 (0-7425-2802-2)
Softcover, Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc
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The Good Women of China: Hidden Voicesby Xinran, Esther TyldesleyISBN 0701173459 (0-7011-7345-9)
Hardcover, Chatto & Windus
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices'Book summary:For seven years, Xinran Xue hosted a daily radio phone-in programme for Radio Nanjing during which she discussed women's lives, and invited women to call in and talk about themselves. Broadcast between 10 and 12 at night, Words on the Night Breeze soon became famous all over China for its powerful, honest discussions of what it means to be a woman in today's China. It started in 1990, a time when China seemed to be 'opening up', both for the Chinese and for the world. Xinran's programme revealed aspects of women's lives that had never been talked about in public before. She felt as if she was opening a tiny window into a huge fortress whose inhabitants had never before communicated with the outside world. Soon she was receiving over two hundred letters a day from women telling her their stories. She realised that she knew far less than she had thought about what it means to be a Chinese woman and embarked on a journey of discovery to collect their stories. The stories presented here tell of almost inconceivable suffering: rape, sexual abuse, the separation of parents from their children, the suppression of human emotion in order to survive the Communist regime - never before have the tortured souls of Chinese women been laid so bare. And yet this is also a book about love - about how, despite cruelty, despite politics, the female urge to nurture and cherish remains. And then there is Xinran herself: an extraordinary woman who, despite her own unhappy past, has given her life to saving the stories of Chinese women from oblivion,. [via]
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Grandmothers of the Light: A Medicine Woman's Sourcebookby Paula Gunn AllenISBN 0704343185 (0-7043-4318-5)
Softcover, Womens Pr Ltd
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Grass For His Pillowby Lian HearnISBN 073361566X (0-7336-1566-X)
Softcover, Hodder
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Grass For His Pillow'Book summary:Lian Hearn's second novel in the Tales of the Otori, Grass For His Pillow continues to enrich and expand his mystical imaginings of feudal Japan. Picking up where Across the Nightingale Floor left off, Takeo fulfills his debt of honor and accepts his heritage as a member of the superhuman cabal of assassins known as "The Tribe," and is thus ingested into their plots. But his heart yearns for Kaede, his one true love, and secretly wishes to fulfill the final wishes of his adopted father, Otori Shigaru. Meanwhile, Kaede returns to her homeland to find her father's estate in ruin and her inheritance in jeopardy. The two each encounter vast political machinations and deadly consequences as they unconsciously move toward their overwhelming urges to reunite and defy (or perhaps embrace) fate.
Hearn's second book into the Tales of the Otori series is a more poignant tale than the first, painfully examining the lines between honor, duty, and love. With its calming and satisfying conclusion, the landscape of Hearn's mythical vision of Japan braces for a dazzling storm in the book to come. --Jeremy Pugh [via]
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The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott FitzgeraldISBN 0743273567 (0-7432-7356-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great Gatsby'Book summary:In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.
It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem. [via]
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The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Timeby Hunter S. ThompsonISBN 0743250451 (0-7432-5045-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Guests of the Sheikby Elizabeth Warnock FerneaISBN 0709102313 (0-7091-0231-3)
Hardcover, Hale
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Gulliver's Travelsby Jonathan SwiftISBN 0708981437 (0-7089-8143-7)
Hardcover, Ulverscroft Large Print Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gulliver's Travels'Book summary:This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition" includes a glossary and readers notes to help the modern reader contend with Swifts complex references and vocabulary. First published anonymously in 1727, Jonathan Swifts Gullivers Travels created a storm of criticismfrom those who believed the stories to be true and knew exactly who Lemuel Gulliver was, to those who demanded that the writer of the seditious tales be hunted down and executed for high treason. Even today, Swifts vitriolic attacks on politics, culture, and human nature itself have earned him the reputation of a crazed misanthrope. Swift, through his hero, consistently rails against political whims, human follies, and the bestial behaviors of the human race: In Lilliput, Gulliver is twelve times the size of the European-like natives. In Brobdingnag, he is one-twelfth the size of the primitive but moral inhabitants. In Laputa, buildings collapse and clothing does not fit, although constructed by the most modern and reasonable means. Finally, in the land of the horse-like Houyhnhnms Gulliver realizes that he and his race are nothing but a brood of Yahoos. [via]
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Gulliver's Travelsby Leslie Kimmelman, Jonathan Swift, Nick HarrisISBN 0721456146 (0-7214-5614-6)
Hardcover, Ladybird Books Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gulliver's Travels'Book summary:An Englishman's two voyages carry him to Lilliput, a land of people six inches high, and Brobdingnag, a land of giants. [via]
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The Heart of the Hunterby Laurens Van Der PostISBN 0701003928 (0-7010-0392-8)
Hardcover, Chatto & Windus
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The Hittitesby Oliver Robert GurneyISBN 071390996X (0-7139-0996-X)
Hardcover, Allen Lane
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Human Scaleby Kirkpatrick SaleISBN 0698110137 (0-698-11013-7)
Hardcover, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan
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The Illustrated Out of Africaby Isak DinesenISBN 0712624058 (0-7126-2405-8)
Hardcover, Cresset Press
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Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in Americaby Daniel Joseph Boorstin, Daniel J. Boorstin Collection (Library of Congress)ISBN 0689702809 (0-689-70280-9)
Softcover, Atheneum
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In Ruinsby Christopher WoodwardISBN 070116896X (0-7011-6896-X)
Hardcover, Chatto & Windus
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In the Soviet House of Culture: A Century of Perestroikasby Bruce GrantISBN 0691044325 (0-691-04432-5)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In the Soviet House of Culture: A Century of Perestroikas'Book summary:At the outset of the 20th century, the Nivkhi of Sakhalin Island were a small population of fishermen under Russian dominion and an Asian cultural sway. The turbulence of the decades that followed transformed them dramatically: while Russian missionaries hounded them for their pagan ways, Lenin praised them; while Stalin routed them in purges, Khrushchev gave them respite; and while Brezhnev organized complex re-settlement campaigns, Gorbachev pronounced that they were free to resume a traditional life. But what is tradition after seven decades of building a Soviet world??;pBased on years of research in the former Soviet Union, this book draws upon Nivkh interviews, newly opened archives and rarely translated Soviet ethnographic texts to examine the effects of this remarkable state venture in the construction of identity. It explores the often paradoxical participation by Nivkhi in these shifting waves of Sovietization and poses questions about how cultural identity is constituted and reconstituted, restructured and dismantled. Part chronicle of modernization, part saga of memory and forgetting, this book is an interpretive ethnography of one people's attempts to recapture the past a [via]
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![[???]: Japan](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0717291049.01._SL160_SCLZZZZZZZ__.jpg "[???]: Japan")
JapanISBN 0717291049 (0-7172-9104-9)
Hardcover, Grolier Academic Reference
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Japan, Its History and Cultureby W. Scott MortonISBN 0715357689 (0-7153-5768-9)
Hardcover, David & Charles
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Linked: The New Science of Networksby Alberto-Laszlo BarabasiISBN 0738206679 (0-7382-0667-9)
Hardcover, Perseus Books Group
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Living It Up: America's Love Affair With Luxuryby James B. TwitchellISBN 0743245067 (0-7432-4506-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Locker Room Diaries: The Naked Truth About Women, Body Image, and Re-imagining the "Perfect" Bodyby Leslie GoldmanISBN 0738210951 (0-7382-1095-1)
Softcover, Perseus Books Group
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- Locker Room Diaries : The Naked Truth about Women, Body Image, and Re-imagining the "Perfect" Body: ISBN 0738210420 (0-7382-1042-0)
Hardcover, Perseus Books Group - Locker Room Diaries: The Naked Truth About Women, Body Image, and Re-imagining the "Perfect" Body: ISBN 0738210951 (0-7382-1095-1)
Softcover, Perseus Books Group
- Locker Room Diaries : The Naked Truth about Women, Body Image, and Re-imagining the "Perfect" Body: ISBN 0738210420 (0-7382-1042-0)
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Love and Marriage in the Middle Agesby Georges DubyISBN 0745614795 (0-7456-1479-5)
Softcover, Polity Pr
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Massive Changeby Bruce Mau, Jennifer LeonardISBN 0714844012 (0-7148-4401-2)
Hardcover, Phaidon Inc Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Massive Change'Book summary:Massive Change [Hardcover] by Bruce Mau; Jennifer Leonard [via]
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The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientistby Richard P FeynmanISBN 0738201669 (0-7382-0166-9)
Softcover, Perseus Books Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist'Book summary:In this series of lectures originally given in 1963, which remained unpublished during Richard Feynman's lifetime, the Nobel-winning physicist thinks aloud on several "meta"--questions of science. What is the nature of the tension between science and religious faith? Why does uncertainty play such a crucial role in the scientific imagination? Is this really a scientific age?
Marked by Feynman's characteristic combination of rationality and humor, these lectures provide an intimate glimpse at the man behind the legend. "In case you are beginning to believe," he says at the start of his final lecture, "that some of the things I said before are true because I am a scientist and according to the brochure that you get I won some awards and so forth, instead of your looking at the ideas themselves and judging them directly...I will get rid of that tonight. I dedicate this lecture to showing what ridiculous conclusions and rare statements such a man as myself can make." Rare, perhaps. Irreverent, sure. But ridiculous? Not even close. [via]
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The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Manby Marshall McLuhanISBN 0710028725 (0-7100-2872-5)
Hardcover, Routledge & K. Paul
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The Men Who Stare At Goatsby Jon RonsonISBN 0743270606 (0-7432-7060-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Men Who Stare At Goats'Book summary:Just when you thought every possible conspiracy theory had been exhausted by The X-Files or The Da Vinci Code, along comes The Men Who Stare at Goats. The first line of the book is, "This is a true story." True or not, it is quite astonishing. Author Jon Ronson writes a column about family life for London's Guardian newspaper and has made several acclaimed documentaries. The Men Who Stare at Goats is his bizarre quest into "the most whacked-out corners of George W. Bush's War on Terror," as he puts it. Ronson is inspired when a man who claims to be a former U.S. military psychic spy tells the journalist he has been reactivated following the 9-11 attack. Ronson decides to investigate. His research leads him to the U.S. Army's strange forays into extra-sensory perception and telepathy, which apparently included efforts to kill barnyard animals with nothing more than thought. Ronson meets one ex-Army employee who claims to have killed a goat and his pet hamster by staring at them for prolonged periods of time. Like Ronson's original source, this man also says he has been reactivated for deployment to the Middle East.
Ronson's finely written book strikes a perfect balance between curiosity, incredulity, and humor. His characters are each more bizarre than the last, and Ronson does a wonderful job of depicting the colorful quirks they reveal in their often-comical meetings. Through a charming guile, he manages to elicit many strange and amazing revelations. Ronson meets a general who is frustrated in his frequent attempts to walk through walls. One source says the U.S. military has deployed psychic assassins to the Middle East to hunt down Al Qaeda suspects. Entertaining and disturbing. --Alex Roslin [via]
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The Mommy Myth: The Idealization Of Motherhood And How It Has Undermined All Womenby Meredith W. Michaels, Susan DouglasISBN 0743260465 (0-7432-6046-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mommy Myth: The Idealization Of Motherhood And How It Has Undermined All Women'Book summary:Does Martha Stewart make you feel like you never do enough for your kids? Do "celebrity mom" profiles leave you feeling lumpen and inadequate? That's because they're supposed to, say Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels, authors of The Mommy Myth and self-professed "mothers with an attitude." Both scathing and self-deprecating, their pop-culture critique takes on "the new momism," the media's obsession with motherhood and the impossible standards which that obsession promotes. Today's ideal mom makes June Cleaver seem like a layabout: she may work outside the home, but never too much, always looks at the world through her children's eyes, makes sure to buy only educational, age-appropriate toys, and includes a loving note with each hand-prepared lunch. Meanwhile, the news media hype stories about child abduction, politicians excoriate so-called "welfare queens," and parenting experts advocate wearing your child in a sling until he moves out on his own. Romanticized, commercialized, sensationalized, and demonized by turns, today's mothers are damned if they work and damned if they don't; whats more, the idea that the government might do something to help their plight has come to seem almost quaint. As a history of motherhood in the media from 1970 to the present, The Mommy Myth makes a fun and thought-provoking read. Yet close readings of episodes of thirtysomething don't create quite the call to arms the authors seem to have in mind; no woman likes to think of herself as a media dupe, particularly the kind of woman who will be reading this book. Straightforward policy critiques like their chilling chapter on childcare fare much better, illuminating a culture that seems to have forgotten public institutions' power to correct social ills. --Mary Park [via]
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Muslims Through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Societyby John Richard BowenISBN 0691028702 (0-691-02870-2)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Muslims Through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society'Book summary:In this rich account of a Muslim society in highland Sumatra, Indonesia, John Bowen describes how men and women debate among themselves ideas of what Islam is and should be--as it pertains to all areas of their lives, from work to worship. Whereas many previous anthropological studies have concentrated on the purely local aspects of culture, this book captures and analyzes the tension between the local and universal in everyday life. Current religious differences among the Gayo stem from debates between "traditionalist" and "modernist" scholars that began in the 1930s, and reveal themselves in the ways Gayo discuss and perform worship, sacrifice, healing, and rites of birth and death, all within an Islamic framework.
Bowen considers the power these debates accord to language, especially in arguments over spells, rites of farming, hunting, and healing. Moreover, he traces in these debates a general conception of transacting with spirits that has shaped Gayo practices of sacrifice, worship, and aiding the dead. Bowen concludes by examining the development of competing religious ideas in the highlands, the alternative ritual forms and ideas they have pro-mulgated, and the implications of this phenomenon for the emergence of an Islamic public sphere.
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Naked Pictures of Famous Peopleby Jon StewartISBN 0688171621 (0-688-17162-1)
Softcover, Rob Weisbach Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Naked Pictures of Famous People'Book summary:Sometimes it seems like every standup comedian worth his or her salt just has to do the book thing, and you might feel that yet another warmed-over stage routine is the last thing you need taking up valuable bookshelf space. Jon Stewart's book will come as an extremely pleasant surprise. He eschews the standard standup patter and instead gives us 18 short comic essays in a variety of styles that recall the prose work of Woody Allen, only with a few more references to genitals. Stewart proves himself a remarkably nimble humorist with a sharp eye for parody, whether he's writing "A Very Hanson Christmas" or "Adolf Hitler: The Larry King Interview."
HITLER: ...Larry, look, I was a bad guy. No question. I hate that Hitler. The yelling, the finger pointing, I don't know ... I was a very angry guy.
KING: And this ... new Hitler?
HITLER: I get up at seven, have half a melon, do the jumble in the morning paper and then let the day take me where it will.... Me!! The inventor of the Blitzkrieg... When you stop having to control everything it's very freeing.
Stewart is not afraid to flirt with bad taste, in fact, some of the pieces in this collection do for "flirting with bad taste" what Bill Clinton did for "not having sexual relations." But it's wonderful to see an edgy comedian taking on the traditionally cozy genre of the humorous essay, creating work that combines the wit of Robert Benchley with the energy and attitude of the best modern standup. Naked Pictures of Famous People proves that Jon Stewart is as comfortable, and accomplished, in front of a word processor as he is in front of an audience. --Simon Leake [via]
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The Needs of Strangersby Michael IgnatieffISBN 0701128674 (0-7011-2867-4)
Softcover, Chatto & Windus
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The New Negroby Alain Leroy LockeISBN 0689708211 (0-689-70821-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The New Negro'Book summary:An interpretative anthology that acted as a manifesto for the Harlem Renaissance defines the artistic and social goals of the New Negro Movement of the 1920s. [via]
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On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) In The Future Tenseby David BrooksISBN 0743227395 (0-7432-2739-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) In The Future Tense'Book summary:Take a look at Americans in their natural habitat: men shopping for barbecue grills, doing that special walk men do when in the presence of hardware; super-efficient football mums who chair school auctions, organise the PTAs, and weigh less than their kids; and suburban chain restaurants, the Hard Rock Outback Cantina etc. Are they, or we, as the western world gradually becomes more and more similar, as shallow we look? Many around the world see America as the great bimbo. Naturally, they work hard and are energetic, but is that because they are money-hungry and don't know how to relax? David Brooks probes deeper, and explains that they behave the way they do because they live under the spell of paradise. Aren't we all? The inheritors of a sense of limitless possibilities, raised to think in the future tense and to strive toward the happiness we naturally accept, the fulfilment of our dreams. [via]
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Out of Africaby Isak DinesenISBN 0712610162 (0-7126-1016-2)
Hardcover, Century
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Out of Africa'Book summary:This is an illustrated memoir of Karen Blixen's life in Kenya, where she ran a coffee plantation at Ngong, initially with her husband until their divorce in 1921, and then on her own until the collapse of the coffee market in 1931. Fully illustrated with contemporary paintings and photographs as well as drawings by a present-day Kenyan artist, the book is a portrait of day to day life on a struggling coffee plantation, eccentric European settlers, the Africans and the beauty and wildness of the land. "Out of Africa" was released as a feature film in 1985, starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford and directed by Sydney Pollack. Other works by Karen Blixen published under her pen name Isak Dinesen include "Seven Gothic Tales", "The Angelic Avengers", "Winter's Tales", "Anecdotes of Destiny", "Shadows on the Grass", "Ehrengard" and a collection of her letters, "Letters from Africa". [via]
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Peoples Almanac No 2by Irving WallaceISBN 0688033725 (0-688-03372-5)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Peoples Almanac No 2'Book summary:This informative(1, 416 parge) book by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace is a second issuance regarding little known facts. This book is not a revisal but a brand new book containing over one million new words. Its contents equals ten-normal sized books. It searches behind the facts to offer inside information as well as constant entertainment. [via]
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The Perfect Thing : How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolnessby Steven LevyISBN 0743285220 (0-7432-8522-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Perfect Thing : How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness'Book summary:On October 23, 2001, Apple Computer, a company known for its chic, cutting-edge technology -- if not necessarily for its dominant market share -- launched a product with an enticing promise: You can carry an entire music collection in your pocket. It was called the iPod. What happened next exceeded the company's wildest dreams. Over 50 million people have inserted the device's distinctive white buds into their ears, and the iPod has become a global obsession. "The Perfect Thing" is the definitive account, from design and marketing to startling impact, of Apple's iPod, the signature device of our young century.
Besides being one of the most successful consumer products in decades, the iPod has changed our behavior and even our society. It has transformed Apple from a computer company into a consumer electronics giant. It has remolded the music business, altering not only the means of distribution but even the ways in which people enjoy and think about music. Its ubiquity and its universally acknowledged coolness have made it a symbol for the digital age itself, with commentators remarking on "the iPod generation." Now the iPod is beginning to transform the broadcast industry, too, as podcasting becomes a way to access radio and television programming. Meanwhile millions of Podheads obsess about their gizmo, reveling in the personal soundtrack it offers them, basking in the social cachet it lends them, even wondering whether the device itself has its own musical preferences.
Steven Levy, the chief technology correspondent for "Newsweek" magazine and a longtime Apple watcher, is the ideal writer to tell the iPod's tale. He has had access to all the key players in the iPod story, including Steve Jobs, Apple's charismatic cofounder and CEO, whom Levy has known for over twenty years. Detailing for the first time the complete story of the creation of the iPod, Levy explains why Apple succeeded brilliantly with its version of the MP3 player when other companies didn't get it right, and how Jobs was able to convince the bosses at the big record labels to license their music for Apple's groundbreaking iTunes Store. (We even learn why the iPod is white.) Besides his inside view of Apple, Levy draws on his experiences covering Napster and attending Supreme Court arguments on copyright (as well as his own travels on the iPod's click wheel) to address all of the fascinating issues -- technical, legal, social, and musical -- that the iPod raises.
Borrowing one of the definitive qualities of the iPod itself, "The Perfect Thing" shuffles the book format. Each chapter of this book was written to stand on its own, a deeply researched, wittily observed take on a different aspect of the iPod. The sequence of the chapters in the book has been shuffled in different copies, with only the opening and concluding sections excepted. "Shuffle" is a hallmark of the digital age -- and "The Perfect Thing," via sharp, insightful reporting, is the perfect guide to the deceptively diminutive gadget embodying our era. [via]
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Popular Culture in Early Modern Europeby Peter BurkeISBN 0704505967 (0-7045-0596-7)
Softcover, Wildwood House
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The Quantum Society: Mind, Physics, and a New Social Visionby Danah Zohar, Ian MarshallISBN 068810603X (0-688-10603-X)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Quantum Society: Mind, Physics, and a New Social Vision'Book summary:Draws on the many analogies between quantum reality and the dynamics of self and society to argue that humans can change their social perceptions, values, and behavior based on the nature of the mind and the universe itself. 25,000 first printing. [via]
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Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledgeby Michael Suk-Young ChweISBN 0691114714 (0-691-11471-4)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Haremsby Fatima MernissiISBN 0743412435 (0-7434-1243-5)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems'Book summary:Fatima Mernissi's unclassifiable book, at turns scholarly, playful, watchful, and admonitory, perfectly juxtaposes the relations between men and women in Europe with those in the Muslim world. In Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems, there is a studied casualness in Mernissi's observations, which she presents as a series of discoveries reached through conversations with friends, through reading and travels, and through her own lived experience as a liberated Moroccan woman, a feminist professor of sociology at a Moroccan university. In 1994, Mernissi traveled to 10 Western cities to promote her bestselling book, Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood, a luxury not available to her illiterate grandmother Yasmina, to whom the harem was a prison, rather than the idealized sanctuary of Western myth.
The contrasts Mernissi discovered between East and West were not as simple as one might imagine. In Berlin, for example, she leafed through pornographic German photo books of "harem women," produced for an eager audience of Western men, and in Paris, she accompanied a male friend on a walking tour of his favorite odalisques, from Ingres to Matisse, while he explained how comforting an insecure man found these nude, silent women. While the medieval caliphs tended to prize intelligence and erudition among the women of their harems, Western writers have lauded beauty over every other quality; as Kant put it, a learned woman "might as well even have a beard." In deceptively light prose, Mernissi introduces the sexual politics of Islam to a Western audience, while pointing out the inconsistencies and illogic in the Western tradition. --Regina Marler [via]
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A Time of Giftsby Patrick Leigh FermorISBN 0719533481 (0-7195-3348-1)
Hardcover, J. Murray
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Time of Gifts'Book summary:A 'Time of Gifts' sees patrick Leigh Fermor setting out at the age of eighteen, in 1933, on his epic journeyacross Europe from the Hook of holland to Consantinople. This first volume takes us as far as Hungary. [via]
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The Transformation Of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faithby Alan WolfeISBN 0743228391 (0-7432-2839-1)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedomby David BrinISBN 0738201448 (0-7382-0144-8)
Softcover, Perseus Books Group
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The Way We Live Nowby Richard HoggartISBN 0701165014 (0-7011-6501-4)
Hardcover, Trafalgar Square
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Where Angels Fear to Treadby E. M. ForsterISBN 0713158158 (0-7131-5815-8)
Hardcover, Holmes & Meier Pub
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The World's Great ClassicsISBN 0717200019 (0-7172-0001-9)
Hardcover, Xs Books
Find This BookBook summary:Odyssey, The: The World's Great Classics, by Homer; tr. by S.H. Butcher and Andrew Lang [via]
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Yemen: Travels in Dictionary Landby Tim MacKintosh-Smith, Tim MacIntosh-SmithISBN 0719556228 (0-7195-5622-8)
Hardcover, Trafalgar Square
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El Clan Del Oso Cavernarioby Jean M. AuelISBN 0743233581 (0-7432-3358-1)
Softcover, Fireside
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Clan Del Oso Cavernario'Book summary:Esta novela de gran vigor y asombrosa belleza es una conmovedora saga acerca de los seres humanos, sus relaciones y los límites del amor. A través de la magnifica narrativa de Jean M. Auel, regresamos a los albores de la civilización moderna, y en compañía de una nina Ilamada Ayla, penetramos en la cruda y a la vez hermosa Edad de Hielo y en el mundo que los hombres y mujeres de esa época compartieron con quienes se Ilamaban a si mismos, el Clan del oso cavernario. Un desastre natural deja a la niña errando sola por una tierra desconocida y peligrosa, hasta que la encuentra una mujer que pertenece al Clan, un grupo de gente muy distinta de la suya. A medida que Ayla aprende acerca del modo de vida del Clan y sobre los métodos curativos de Iza, la mayoría acaba por aceptarla y hasta Iza y Creb, el viejo Mog-ur, llegan a quererla. Es el brutal y orgulloso joven, destinado a ser su próximo líder, quien percibe en su manera de ser diferente, una amenaza en contra de su autoridad. Entonces, desarrolla hacia la extraña chica que vive entre ellos y que pertenece a los Otros, un odio constante y profundo, y está decidido a vengarse. [via]
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El Valle De Los Caballosby Jean M. Auel, Leonor Tejada Conde-PelayoISBN 0743236033 (0-7432-3603-3)
Softcover, Fireside
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Valle De Los Caballos'Book summary:Esta inolvidable odisea hacia un pasado lejano nos conduce de nuevo a los asombrosos misterios del mundo exótico y primitivo de El clan del oso cavernario, y a Ayla, convertida ahora en una hermosa y valiente jovencita. Cruelmente expulsada por el nuevo lÍder del antiguo Clan que la adoptó cuando era niña, Ayla deja atrás a sus seres queridos y viaja sola a través de un paisaje abierto y desolado, lleno de animales peligrosos y poco poblado, en busca de los Otros, que son altos y rubios como ella. El breve verano le proporciona escaso tiempo para buscarlos, y cuando encuentra un abrigado valle habitado por una manada de robustos caballos esteparios, decide permanecer allÍ y prepararse para el largo invierno glacial que tiene por delante. Con el Clan, Ayla ha aprendido mucho pero no realmente a cazar. Al final se da cuenta de que puede sobrevivir cuando captura un caballo, el cual le da carne y una piel caliente para el invierno, pero el destino le ha deparado un regalo aún mayor: una potranca huérfana con la que desarrolla una afinidad especial. Un invierno se convierte en varios; Ayla descubre una manera más rápida de hacer fuego, y un cachorro de puma herido se une a su peculiar familia; pero sus queridos animales no satisfacen su inquietante necesidad de tener compañÍa humana. Entonces oye el grito de dolor de un hombre. Le salva la vida al alto y apuesto Jondalar, quien le trae un lenguaje hablado y el despertar del amor y el deseo, pero Ayla está dividida entre el temor de abandonar su valle y la esperanza de vivir junto a su propia gente. [via]
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