| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
› Find signed collectible books: '1984'
Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmare vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life--the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language--and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written. [via]
More editions of 1984:
› Find signed collectible books: '1984'
Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmare vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life--the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language--and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written. [via]
More editions of 1984:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Batman'
The Killing Joke, one of my favorite Batman stories ever, stirred a bit of controversy because the story involves the Joker brutally, pointlessly shooting Commissioner Gordon's daughter in the spine. This is a no-holds-barred take on a truly insane criminal mind, masterfully written by British comics writer Alan Moore. The art by Brian Bolland is so appealing that his depiction of the Joker became a standard and was imitated by many artists to follow. [via]
More editions of Batman:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World'
Part philosophical meditation, part cultural critique, The Body in Pain is a profoundly original study that has already stirred excitement in a wide range of intellectual circles. The book is an analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vacabularies and cultural forces--literary, political, philosophical, medical, religious--that confront it.
Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury trials, and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Kissinger, She weaves these into her discussion with an eloquence, humanity, and insight that recall the writings of Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Scarry begins with the fact of pain's inexpressibility. Not only is physical pain enormously difficult to describe in words--confronted with it, Virginia Woolf once noted, "language runs dry"--it also actively destroys language, reducing sufferers in the most extreme instances to an inatriculate state of cries and moans. Scarry analyzes the political ramifications of deliberately inflicted pain, specifically in the cases of torture and warfare, and shows how to be fictive. From these actions of "unmaking" Scarry turns finally to the actions of "making"--the examples of artistic and cultural creation that work against pain and the debased uses that are made of it. Challenging and inventive, The Body in Pain is landmark work that promises to spark widespread debate.
About the Author:
Elaine Scarry is Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. [via]
More editions of The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Book of Execution : An Encyclopedia of Methods of Judicial Execution'
This is a collection of gruesome executions, from being eaten by animals, boiled alive and burned at the stake to the electric chair, hanging, the iron maiden and torn apart by horses. [via]
More editions of The Book of Execution : An Encyclopedia of Methods of Judicial Execution:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Carrie'
More editions of Carrie:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Chain Of Command: The Road From 9/11 To ABU Ghraib'
Seymour Hersh has been a legendary investigative reporter since 1969 when he broke the My Lai story in Vietnam. His considerable skill and well-placed sources inside the government, intelligence community, military, and the diplomatic corps have allowed him access to a wide range of information unavailable to most reporters. Chain of Command is packed with specific details and thoughtful analysis of events since the attacks of September 11, 2001, including intelligence failures prior to 9/11; postwar planning regarding Afghanistan and Iraq; the corruption of the Saudi family; Pakistan's nuclear program, which spread nuclear technology via the black market (and admitted as such); influence peddling at the highest levels; and the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib prison, among other topics. The book collects and elaborates on stories Hersh wrote for The New Yorker, and includes an introduction by the magazine's editor, David Remnick, on Hersh's background and his sources.
Part of Hersh's skill lies in uncovering official reports that have been buried because government or military leaders find them too revealing or embarrassing. Chain of Command is filled with such stories, particularly regarding the manner in which sensitive intelligence was gathered and disseminated within the Bush administration. Hersh details how serious decisions were made in secret by a small handful of people, often based on selective information. Part of the problem was, and remains, a lack of human intelligence in critical parts of the Middle East, but it also has much to do with the considerable infighting within the administration by those trying to make intelligence fit preconceived conclusions. A prime example of this is the story about the files that surfaced allegedly detailing how Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger in order to build nuclear weapons. Though the files were soon proven to be forgeries, the Bush administration still used them as evidence against Saddam Hussein and therefore part of the reason for invading Iraq. In these pages, Hersh offers readers a clearer understanding of what has happened since September 11, and what we might expect in the future. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
More editions of Chain Of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Dark Justice: A History of Punishment and Torture'
More editions of Dark Justice: A History of Punishment and Torture:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Dew Breaker'
From the universally acclaimed author of Breath, Eyes, Memory and Krik? Krak!, a brilliant, deeply moving work of fiction that explores the world of a dew breakera torturera man whose brutal crimes in the country of his birth lie hidden beneath his new American reality.
We meet him late in his life. He is a quiet man, a husband and father, a hardworking barber, a kindly landlord to the men who live in a basement apartment in his home. He is a fixture in his Brooklyn neighborhood, recognizable by the terrifying scar on his face. As the book unfolds, moving seamlessly between Haiti in the 1960s and New York City today, we enter the lives of those around him: his devoted wife and rebellious daughter; his sometimes unsuspecting, sometimes apprehensive neighbors, tenants, and clients. And we meet some of his victims.
In the books powerful denouement, we return to the Haiti of the dew breakers past, to his last, desperate act of violence, and to his first encounter with the woman who will offer him a form of redemptionalbeit imperfectthat will change him forever.
The Dew Breaker is a book of interconnected livesa book of love, remorse, and hope; of rebellions both personal and political; of the compromises we often make in order to move beyond the most intimate brushes with history. Unforgettable, deeply resonant, The Dew Breaker proves once more that in Edwidge Danticat we have a major American writer. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Gate'
French ethnologist Francois Bizot's The Gate is a unique insight into the rise of the Khmer Rouge. In 1971 Bizot was studying ancient Buddhist traditions and living with his khmer partner and daughter in a small village in the environs of the Angkor temple complex. The Khmer Rouge was fighting a guerilla war in rural Cambodia and during a routine visit to a nearby temple, Bizot and his two khmer colleagues were captured by them and imprisoned deep in the jungle on suspicion of working for the CIA. On trial for his life, over the next three months Bizot developed a strong relationship with his captor, Comrade Douch, who would later become the Khmer Rouge's chief interrogator and commandant of the horrifying Tuol Sleng prison where thousands of captives were tortured prior to execution. The portrait Bizot gives of the young schoolteacher-turned revolutionary and their interaction is simultaneously fascinating and terrifying.
Finally freed after Douch had pleaded his case with the leadership, Bizot became the only western captive of the Khmer Rouge ever to be released alive, but his story does not end there. On his return to Phnom Penh, due to his fluency in khmer, he was appointed interpreter between the occupying forces and the remaining western nationals holed up in the French embassy. As the interlocutor at the eponymous gate, he relates with dreadful resignation the moment when the khmer nationals in the compound were ordered out by the Khmer Rouge forces for "resettlement".
Bizot's is a touching and gripping account of one of the darkest moments in modern history and it is told with a unique voice. As a Cambodian resident, a lover of Cambodia and a fluent khmer speaker, Bizot shows an understanding of the prevailing mood in the country that other western commentators have failed to capture effectively, while as a western academic he is able to see the forces at work and how Cambodia fits into the bigger picture of South East Asian conflict. What emerges is a tale of a land plunged into insanity and Bizot tells it like a eulogy for a dead friend and a confrontation of old demons. The Gate is a stunning book and a must for anyone interested in this grim period of Asian history. --Duncan Thomson [via]
![[???]: George Orwell Complete & Unabridged [???]: George Orwell Complete & Unabridged](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0905712048.01._SL160_SCLZZZZZZZ__.jpg)
More editions of George Orwell Complete & Unabridged:

› Find signed collectible books: 'George Orwell's 1984'
More editions of George Orwell's 1984:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Hamlyn History of Punishment and Torture'
More editions of Hamlyn History of Punishment and Torture:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The History of Torture'
This remarkable work discusses not only the history of torture but its moral implications as well. Everyone interested in the long and difficult course of human rights, personal and political freedom and in the history of crime and punishment will find the book fascinating and enlightening.
More editions of The History of Torture:
The classic tale that introduced the legendary Le Comte de Saint-Germain, first published in 1978 and spawning 14 titles in the Saint-Germain epic, is now available in paperback. A fixture in 1740s Parisian society, Saint-Germain is a perfect gentleman--and a vampire. When the fiery young Madeline falls in love with him, a group of evil sorcerers targets her for their black mass--and only Saint-Germain can save her soul. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Inquisition: The Hammer of Heresy/1803857'
The Inquisition inspired fear for centuries. This clear and objective account of the most notorious institutions of medieval Europe now called "The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith" covers its activities in Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Latin America. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Instruments of Torture'
More editions of The Instruments of Torture:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Kite Runner'
The New York Times bestseller and international classic loved by millions of readers. The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons-their love, their sacrifices, their lies. A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic. [via]
More editions of The Kite Runner:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Kite Runner: Bookclub-in-a-box Presents the Discussion Companion for Khaled Hosseini's Novel'
The "kite runner" of Khaled Hosseini's deeply moving fiction debut is an illiterate Afghan boy with an uncanny instinct for predicting exactly where a downed kite will land. Growing up in the city of Kabul in the early 1970s, Hassan was narrator Amir's closest friend even though the loyal 11-year-old with "a face like a Chinese doll" was the son of Amir's father's servant and a member of Afghanistan's despised Hazara minority. But in 1975, on the day of Kabul's annual kite-fighting tournament, something unspeakable happened between the two boys.
Narrated by Amir as a 40-year-old novelist living in California, The Kite Runner tells the gripping story of a boyhood friendship destroyed by jealousy, fear, and the kind of ruthless evil that transcends mere politics. Running parallel to this personal narrative of loss and redemption is the story of modern Afghanistan and of Amir's equally guilt-ridden relationship with the war-torn city of his birth. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah's 40-year reign and traces the country's fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban. When Amir returns to Kabul to rescue Hassan's orphaned child, the personal and the political get tangled together in a plot that is as suspenseful as it is taut with feeling.
The son of an Afghan diplomat whose family received political asylum in the United States in 1980, Hosseini combines the unflinching realism of a war correspondent with the satisfying emotional pull of master storytellers such as Rohinton Mistry. Like the kite that is its central image, the story line of this mesmerizing first novel occasionally dips and seems almost to dive to the ground. But Hosseini ultimately keeps everything airborne until his heartrending conclusion in an American picnic park. --Lisa Alward [via]
More editions of The Kite Runner: Bookclub-in-a-box Presents the Discussion Companion for Khaled Hosseini's Novel:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Maus a Survivors Tale: And Here My Troubles Begin'
***WINNER OF THE 1992 PULIZTER PRIZE***Acclaimed as a quiet triumph and a brutally moving work of art, the first volume of Art Spiegelman's Mausintroduced readers to Vladek Spieglman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist trying to come to terms with his father, his father's terrifying story, and History itself. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), succeeds perfectly in shocking us out of any lingering sense of familiarity with the events described, approaching, as it does, the unspeakable through the diminutive.This second volume, subtitled And Here My Troubles Began, moves us from the barracks of Auschwitz to the bungalows of the Catskills. Genuinely tragic and comic by turns, it attains a complexity of theme and a precision of thought new to comics and rare in any medium. Mausties together two powerful stories: Vladek's harrowing take of survival against all odds, delineating the paradox of family life in the death camps, and the author's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. At every level this is the ultimate survivor's tale-and that too of the children who somehow survive even the survivors. [via]
More editions of Maus: A Survivors's Tale/Here My Troubles Began:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Midnight in Death: Library Edition'
More editions of Midnight in Death: Library Edition:

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Miracle, a Universe : Settling Accounts with Torturers'
More editions of A Miracle, a Universe : Settling Accounts with Torturers:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Misery'
Can a best-selling author escape from a psychotic nurse who wants him to respect her favorite literary character?. [via]
More editions of Misery:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Night Watch'
Set in Ankh-Morpork one of the most thoroughly imagined cities in fantasy, Night Watch is the story of Sam Vimes, running hero of the Guards sequence, who finds himself cast back in time to the Ankh-Morpork of his youth. With a psychopath from his own time rising in the vile ranks of the Cable Street Unmentionables complicating things, Vimes has to ensure that history takes its course so that he will have the right future to go back to, and to keep his younger self alive.
› Find signed collectible books: 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'
Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmare vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life--the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language--and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written. [via]
More editions of Nineteen Eighty-Four:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Oath Betrayed: Military Medicine and the War on Terror'
More editions of Oath Betrayed: Military Medicine and the War on Terror:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: Text, Sources, Criticism'
Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmare vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life--the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language--and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written. [via]
More editions of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: Text, Sources, Criticism:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Plague Dogs'
"Thousands and thousands of people will love this book!"
THE BOSTON GLOBE
A lyrical, engrossing tale, by the author of WATERSHIP DOWN, Richard Adams creates a lyrical and engrossing tale, a remarkable journey into the hearts and minds of two canine heroes, Snitter and Rowf, fugitives from the horrors of an animal research center who escape into the isolation--and terror--of the wilderness. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Princess Bride'
The Princess Bride is a true fantasy classic. William Goldman describes it as a "good parts version" of "S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure." Morgenstern's original was filled with details of Florinese history, court etiquette, and Mrs. Morgenstern's mostly complimentary views of the text. Much admired by academics, the "Classic Tale" nonetheless obscured what Mr. Goldman feels is a story that has everything: "Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles."
Goldman frames the fairy tale with an "autobiographical" story: his father, who came from Florin, abridged the book as he read it to his son. Now, Goldman is publishing an abridged version, interspersed with comments on the parts he cut out.
Is The Princess Bride a critique of classics like Ivanhoe and The Three Musketeers, that smother a ripping yarn under elaborate prose? A wry look at the differences between fairy tales and real life? Simply a funny, frenetic adventure? No matter how you read it, you'll put it on your "keeper" shelf. --Nona Vero [via]
More editions of Princess Bride:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Rack, Rope and Red-Hot Pincers: A History of Torture and Its Instruments'
More editions of Rack, Rope and Red-Hot Pincers: A History of Torture and Its Instruments:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Shadow of the Torturer'
Severian is a torturer, born to the guild and with an exceptionally promising career ahead of him . . . until he falls in love with one of his victims, a beautiful young noblewoman. Her excruciations are delayed for some months and, out of love, Severian helps her commit suicide and escape her fate. For a torturer, there is no more unforgivable act. In punishment he is exiled from the guild and his home city to the distant metropolis of Thrax with little more than Terminus Est, a fabled sword, to his name. Along the way he has to learn to survive in a wider world without the guild - a world in which he has already made both allies and enemies. And a strange gem is about to fall into his possession, which will only make his enemies pursue him with ever-more determination . . . [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Survival in the Killing Fields'
More editions of Survival in the Killing Fields:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ'
In this engrossing analysis, Cavanaugh contends that the Eucharist is the Church's response to the use of torture as a social discipline. [via]
More editions of Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror'
More editions of Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Truth, Torture, and the American Way: The History and Consequences of U.S. Involvement in Torture'
More editions of Truth, Torture, and the American Way: The History and Consequences of U.S. Involvement in Torture:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture'
A compelling investigation of three incidents of torture in the Western world and what they tell us about how ordinary people can become torturers, about the rationalizations societies adopt to justify torture, about the potential in each of us for acting unspeakably.
Using firsthand interviews, official documents, and newspaper accounts, John Conroy examines interrogation practices in a Chicago police station, two raids conducted by the Israeli army, and the case of Northern Ireland's "hooded men," who were tortured by British forces. He takes us inside the experience of the victim, the mind of the torturer, and the seeming indifference of the bystander.
In the spirit of Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, Conroy visits with former torturers, describes their training and family backgrounds, and examines the justifications they and their societies offer for the systematic abuse of men, women, and children. He interviews survivors of torture and learns of the coping mechanisms they deployed and the long-term effects of their ordeals. He draws on those meetings and on previous studies, such as Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority, to help us understand the dynamics of torture.
Recent events -- particularly the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and well-publicized cases of police brutality in our own country -- make it essential that we understand such acts of violence, as the first step in eradicating them. Lucid and unblinking, Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary
People takes us further toward this goal than any book we have had yet. [via]
More editions of Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture:
› Find signed collectible books: 'V for Vendetta'
V for Vendetta is, like its author's later Watchmen, a landmark in comic-book writing. Alan Moore has led the field in intelligent, politically astute (if slightly paranoid), complex adult comic-book writing since the early 1980s. He began V back in 1981 and it constituted one of his first attempts (along with the criminally neglected but equally superb Miracleman) at writing an ongoing series. It is 1998 (which was the future back then!) and a Fascist government has taken over the UK. The only blot on its particular landscape is a lone terrorist who is systematically killing all the government personnel associated with a now destroyed secret concentration camp. Codename V is out for vengeance ... and an awful lot more. V feels slightly dated like all past premonitions do. The original series was black and white and that added to the grittiness of the feel while the colouring here in the graphic novel sometimes blurs David Lloyd's fine drawing. But these are small concerns. Skilfully plotted, V is an essential read for all those who love comics and the freedom, as a medium, they allow a writer as skilled as Moore. The graphic novel contains all the V series plus two additional stories concerning V that were originally considered "interludes". This edition also contains an essay from Moore dating from 1983 explaining the creation process. For any comic fan it's a must-have. --Mark Thwaite [via]
More editions of V for Vendetta:

› Find signed collectible books: 'V for Vendetta'
More editions of V for Vendetta:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Wizard's First Rule'
Science fiction: intrigue, futuristic events, danger, creativity. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: '1984'
En esta novela encontramos al lider unico cuya presencia es ante todo una abstraccion, la negacion del individuo, la sustraccion de la informacion: el Gran Hermano. Es, al mismo tiempo, una advertencia y un deseo. El autor ha construido una metafora del imaginario social del siglo XX, al describir un pais carcelario, vigilado por un lugar desde donde se ve a el y a todos. [via]
More editions of 1984:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Cometas En El Cielo / The Kite Runner'
More editions of Cometas En El Cielo / The Kite Runner:

› Find signed collectible books: 'LA Muerte Y LA Doncella / Death And The Lady'
More editions of LA Muerte Y LA Doncella / Death And The Lady:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Nineteen Eighty-four'
En esta novela encontramos al lider unico cuya presencia es ante todo una abstraccion, la negacion del individuo, la sustraccion de la informacion: el Gran Hermano. Es, al mismo tiempo, una advertencia y un deseo. El autor ha construido una metafora del imaginario social del siglo XX, al describir un pais carcelario, vigilado por un lugar desde donde se ve a el y a todos. [via]
More editions of Nineteen Eighty-four:
› Find signed collectible books: 'La Princesa Prometida'
More editions of La Princesa Prometida:
