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Seasons in Basilicata
Seasons in Basilicata
Yeadon, David
¥88.56
Award-winning travel writer and illustrator, David Yeadon embarks with his wife, Anne on an exploration of the "lost word" of Basilicata, in the arch of Italy's boot. What is intended as a brief sojourn turns into an intriguing residency in the ancient hill village of Aliano, where Carlo Levi, author of the world-renowned memoir Christ Stopped at Eboli, was imprisoned by Mussolini for anti-Fascist activities. As the Yeadons become immersed in Aliano's rich tapestry of people, traditions, and festivals, reveling in the rituals and rhythms of the grape and olive harvests, the culinary delights, and other peculiarities of place, they discover that much of the pagan strangeness that Carlo Levi and other notable authors revealed still lurks beneath the beguiling surface of Basilicata.
Warped Passages
Warped Passages
Randall, Lisa
¥100.71
The universe has many secrets. It may hide additional dimensions of space other than the familier three we recognize. There might even be another universe adjacent to ours, invisible and unattainable . . . for now.Warped Passages is a brilliantly readable and altogether exhilarating journey that tracks the arc of discovery from early twentieth-century physics to the razor's edge of modern scientific theory. One of the world's leading theoretical physicists, Lisa Randall provides astonishing scientific possibilities that, until recently, were restricted to the realm of science fiction. Unraveling the twisted threads of the most current debates on relativity, quantum mechanics, and gravity, she explores some of the most fundamental questions posed by Nature taking us into the warped, hidden dimensions underpinning the universe we live in, demystifying the science of the myriad worlds that may exist just beyond our own.
A Splintered History of Wood
A Splintered History of Wood
Carlsen, Spike
¥88.56
In a world without wood, we might not be here at all. Without wood, we wouldn't have had the fire, heat, and shelter that allowed us to expand into the colder regions of the planet. If civilization somehow did develop, our daily lives still would be vastly different: there would be no violins, baseball bats, chopsticks, or wine corks. The book you are now holding wouldn't exist. At the same time, many of us are removed from the world where wood is shaped and celebrated every day. That world is inhabited by a unique assortment of eccentric craftsmen and passionate enthusiasts who have created some of the world's most beloved musical instruments, feared weapons, dazzling architecture, sacred relics, and bizarre forms of transportation. In A Splintered History of Wood, Spike Carlsen has uncovered the most outlandish characters and examples, from world-champion chainsaw carvers to blind woodworkers, the Miraculous Staircase to the Lindbergh kidnapping case, and many more, in a passionate and personal exploration of nature's greatest gift.
The Bedwetter
The Bedwetter
Silverman, Sarah
¥94.10
Warning from publisher to reader: At HarperCollins, we are committed to customer satisfaction. Before proceeding with your purchase, please take the following questionnaire to determine your likelihood of enjoying this book:1. Which of the following do you appreciate?(a) Women with somewhat horse-ish facial features.(b) Women who, while not super Jew-y, are more identifiably Jewish than, say, Natalie Portman.(c) Frequent discussion of unwanted body hair. 2. Are you offended by the following behavior?(a) Instructing one's grandmother to place baked goods in her rectal cavity.(b) Stripping naked in public eleven times in a row.(c) Stabbing one's boss in the head with a writing implement. 3. The best way to treat an emotionally fragile young girl is:(a) Murder the main course of her Thanksgiving dinner before her very eyes.(b) Tell her that her older sister is prettier than she, and then immediately die.(c) Prevent her suicide by recommending she stay away from open windows. If you read the above questions without getting nauseous or forming a hate Web site, you are ready to buy this book! Please proceed to the cashier.
The Weather of the Future
The Weather of the Future
Cullen, Heidi
¥90.77
Droughts. Floods.Climate refugees.Global warming isn't just about polar bears anymore. Let's assume we do nothing about climate change. Imagine that we just continue to emit carbon at our current levels or even exceed those levels. How would our weather changeWhat would our forecast beWelcome to The Weather of the Future. In this groundbreaking work, Dr. Heidi Cullen, one of the world's foremost climatologists and environmental journalists, puts a vivid face on climate change, offering a new way of seeing this phenomenon not just as an event set to happen in the distant future but as something happening right now in our own backyards. Arguing that we must connect the weather of today with the climate change of tomorrow, Cullen combines the latest research from scientists on the ground with state-of-the-art climate-model projections to create climate-change scenarios for seven of the most at-risk locations around the world.From the Central Valley of California, where coming droughts will jeopardize the entire state's water supply, to Greenland, where warmer temperatures will give access to mineral wealth buried beneath ice sheets for millennia, Cullen illustrates how, if left unabated, climate change will transform every corner of the world by midcentury. What emerges is a mosaic of changing weather patterns that collectively spell out the range of risks posed by global warming whether it's New York City, whose infrastructure is extremely vulnerable to even a relatively weak category 3 hurricane, or Bangladesh, a country so low-lying that millions of people could become climate refugees due to rising sea levels.Provocative and convincing, The Weather of the Future makes climate change local, showing how no two regions of the country or the world will be affected in quite the same way, and demonstrating that melting ice is just the beginning.
Men at Work
Men at Work
Will, George F.
¥88.56
In his classic tribute to America's pastime now with a new introduction political commentator, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and lifelong sports enthusiast George F. Will travels from the baseball field to the dugout to the locker room to get to the root of the game we all love. He breaks down the sport to its four basic components, managing, pitching, hitting, and fielding, and analyzes the way four of its notables, manager Tony La Russa, pitcher Orel Hershiser, outfielder Tony Gwynn, and shortstop Cal Ripken Jr., approach the game. One of the most acclaimed sports books ever written, Men at Work is a revelatory, and often surprising, study of professional baseball.
Science Is Culture
Science Is Culture
Bly, Adam
¥90.77
Seed magazine brings together a unique gathering of prominent scientists, artists, novelists, philosophers + other thinkers who are tearing down the wall between science + culture. We are on the cusp of a twenty-first-century scientific renaissance. Science is driving our culture and conversation unlike ever before, transforming the social, political, economic, aesthetic, and intellectual landscape of our time. Today, science is culture. As global issues like energy and health become increasingly interconnected, and as our curiosities like how the mind works or why the universe is expanding become more complex, we need a new way of looking at the world that blurs the lines between scientific disciplines and the borders between the sciences and the arts and humanities. In this spirit, the award-winning science magazine Seed has paired scientists with nonscientists to explore ideas of common interest to us all. This book is the result of these illuminating Seed Salon conversations, edited and with an introduction by Seedfounder and editor in chief Adam Bly. Science Is Culture includes:E. O. Wilson + Daniel C. DennetSteven Pinker + Rebecca GoldsteinNoam Chomsky + Robert TriversDavid Byrne + Daniel LevitinJonathan Lethem + Janna LevinBenoit Mandelbrot + Paola AntonelliLisa Randall + Chuck Hoberman Michel Gondry + Robert StickgoldAlan Lightman + Richard Colton Laurie David + Stephen SchneiderTom Wolfe + Michael GazzanigaMarc Hauser + Errol Morris
Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages
Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages
Gies, Frances
¥88.56
A compelling, lucid, and highly readable chronicle of medieval life written by the authors of the bestselling Life in a Medieval Castle and Life in a Medieval City Historians have only recently awakened to the importance of the family, the basic social unit throughout human history. This book traces the development of marriage and the family from the Middle Ages to the early modern era. It describes how the Roman and barbarian cultural streams merged under the influence of the Christian church to forge new concepts, customs, laws, and practices. Century by century it follows the development -- sometimes gradual, at other times revolutionary -- of significant elements in the history of the family: The basic functions of the family as production unit, as well as its religious, social, judicial, and educational roles. The shift of marriage from private arrangement between families to public ceremony between individuals, and the adjustments in dowry, bride-price, and counter-dowry. The development of consanguinity rules and incest taboos in church law and lay custom. The peasant family in its varying condition of being free or unfree, poor, middling, or rich. The aristocratic estate, the problem of the younger son, and the disinheritance of daughters. The Black Death and its long-term effects on the family. Sex attitudes and customs: the effects of variations in age of men and women at marriage. The changing physical environment of noble, peasant, and urban families. Arrangements by families for old age and retirement.
There Will Be Rainbows
There Will Be Rainbows
Lake, Kirk
¥90.73
No contemporary pop performer's work mixes innovation and tradition like Rufus Wainwright's. He is the son of singer, songwriter, actor Loudon Wainwright III and legendary Canadian folk singer Kate McGarrigle whose story is one of towering highs and rock bottom lows in which family influences, sexual experimentation, and a crystal meth addiction in the early 2000s have greatly contributed to his creative process.In seeking to explain how Wainwright works and where his place lies in a great tradition, rock journalist Kirk Lake entered into many odd and diverse worlds Canadian folk, neo-Conservatism, drug addiction, gay liberation, Hollywood musicals as he followed Wainwright's journey from Van Dyke Parks to rehab to Carnegie Hall. The product of in-depth interviews with musicians, producers, filmmakers, family friends, There Will Be Rainbows is a fascinating, sometimes troubling study of the glorious enigma that is Rufus Wainwright.
Stairway To Heaven
Stairway To Heaven
Cole, Richard
¥101.00
No one knew Led Zeppelin like Richard Cole. The band's tour manager for more than a decade, Cole was there when they burst onto the music scene, achieved cult status, cut platinum records, and transformed popular music. Second only to the Beatles in sales for years, Led Zeppelin was rock's premier group. But unlike the boys from Liverpool, the excitement of this band"s music was matched by the fever pitch of their antics on and off the stage....In hotel rooms and stadiums, in a customized private Boeing 707 jet and country estates, Richard Cole saw it all -- and here he tells it all in this close-up, down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred account that records the highs, the lows, and the occasional in-betweens. This revised edition brings fans up to date on the band members' lives and careers, which may be a little quieter now, but their songs remain the same.
Found
Found
O'Neal, Tatum
¥88.56
In this powerful follow-up to her New York Times bestselling memoir, A Paper Life, Academy Award?-winning actress Tatum O’Neal returns with an extraordinary chronicle of family, forgiveness, redemption, and commitment—a remarkable story told with honesty, humility, determination, and above all . . . love The golden child of a glamorous Hollywood couple, Tatum O’Neal had a childhood that looked, from the outside, to be fairy-tale perfect. The reality was far from perfect, and in A Paper Life, Tatum shared her poignant, painful experiences of growing up in—and away from—a dysfunctional show-business family. Now, in Found, she digs even deeper and explores the tough issues that resonate in most women’s lives. It is a story of taking two steps forward and one step back, of learning to understand what forgiveness really means—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—and how to live it every day. With candor and grace, Tatum chronicles the challenges and joys of being a single mother to three grown children, an ex-wife, a working actress, and a woman who has lived her life in the public eye for the better part of forty-five years. She speaks frankly about the persistence it took to beat her addictions to drugs and alcohol, and the hard work of staying clean and sober, including dealing with the deep emotional void that illicit substances falsely promise to fill. Tatum details her ongoing efforts to negotiate friends, family, aging, money, love, loss, and Hollywood, while the specter of her past continues to lurk, a reminder of her battle and a testament to her will to survive. And she honors the people whose perseverance and courage in overcoming their own dark troubles have inspired her. Found is also a father-daughter love story: a portrait of a fragile, tentative reconciliation between a parent and a child who, as documented in the OWN television docuseries The O’Neals: Ryan and Tatum, try to heal the hurt and pain of a lifetime. Tatum O’Neal has done the hard work necessary to get her life on track and come to terms with the person she is. Finally, she shares her whole story. Her moving and inspirational saga reminds us all that no matter what has happened in our own lives, we must keep moving forward to the light and the future, step by step, day by day. Only then may we find the true path home.
The Life of Andrew Jackson
The Life of Andrew Jackson
Remini, Robert V.
¥105.17
Robert V. Remini's prize-winning, three-volume biography Life of Andrew Jackson won the National Book Award on its completion in 1984 and is recognized as one of the greatest lives of a U.S. President. In this meticulously crafted single-volume abridgment, Remini captures the essence of the life and career of the seventh president of the United States. As president, from 1829-1837, Jackson was a significant force in the nations's expansion, the growth of presidential power, and the transition from republicanism to democracy. Jackson is a highly controversial figure who is undergoing historical reconsideration today. He is known as spurring the emergence of the modern American political division of Republican and Democractic parties, for the infamous Indian removal on the Trail of Tears, and for his brave victory against the British as Major General at the Battle of New Orleans. Never an apologist, Remini portrays Jackson as a foreceful, sometimes tragic, hero--a man whose strength and flaws were larger than life, a president whose conviction provided the nation with one of the most influential, colorful, and controversial administrations in our history.
Let the Trumpet Sound
Let the Trumpet Sound
Oates, Stephen B.
¥110.71
Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award and the Christopher Award, this brilliant examination of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. portrays a very real man and his dream that shaped America's history.
Taking the Quantum Leap
Taking the Quantum Leap
Wolf, Fred A.
¥111.91
This book entertainingly traces the history of physics from the observations of the early Greeks through the discoveries of Galileo and Newton to the dazzling theories of such scientists as Planck, Einstein, Bohr, and Bohm. This humanized view of science opens up the mind-stretching visions of how quantum mechanics, God, human thought, and will are related, and provides profound implications for our understanding of the nature of reality and our relationship to the cosmos.
Notes from a Small Island
Notes from a Small Island
Bryson, Bill
¥90.51
Veering from the ludicrous to the endearing and back again, Notes From a Small Island is a delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation that has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie's Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey.
The Italian American Reader
The Italian American Reader
Tonelli, Bill
¥95.39
This anthology -- the first general-reader collection of writing by Italian American authors -- is part manifesto, part Sunday dinner. A gathering of voices old and new, some speak in the accents of another age, some completely contemporary and assured, and all together for the first time. To stand with all the other popular media images we represent, now, at last, one exists in written form, the literature of Italian American life.Inside, there are excerpts from novels, memoirs, short stories, essays, and poems -- by the living and the dead, the famous and the obscure. The excerpts are variously moving, funny, poignant, lusty, biting, reverent, witty, loving, angry, and wise, dealing in the most profound aspects of our lives no matter who we are: home, love, sex, family, food, work, God, death.Characters range from gangsters to grandmas, lovers to fighters, thinkers to doers, sinners to saints, with special appearances by Frank Sinatra and the Virgin Mary.
Who Turned Out the Lights?
Who Turned Out the Lights?
Bittle, Scott
¥95.39
From the editors of Public Agenda.org, an entertaining, irreverent, and absolutely essential nonpartisan guide to the energy crisis Energy: It's a problem that never goes away (despite our best efforts as a nation to ignore it). Why has there been so much talk and so little actionIn Who Turned Out the LightsScott Bittle and Jean Johnson offer a much-needed reality check: The "Drill, Baby, Drill" versus "Every Day Is Earth Day" battle is not solving our problems, and the finger-pointing is just holding us up.Sorting through the political posturing and confusing techno-speak, they provide a fair-minded, "let's skip the jargon" explanation of the choices we face. And chapters such as "It's All Right Now (In Fact, It's a Gas)" prove that, while the problem is serious, getting a grip on it doesn't have to be. In the end, the authors present options from the right, left, and center but take just one position: The country must change the way it gets and uses energy, and the first step is to understand the choices.
Waking Giant
Waking Giant
Reynolds, David S.
¥94.10
America experienced unprecedented growth and turmoil in the years between 1815 and 1848. It was an age when Andrew Jackson redefined the presidency and James K. Polk expanded the nation's territory. Bancroft Prize–winning historian and literary critic David S. Reynolds captures the turbulence of a democracy caught in the throes of the controversy over slavery, the rise of capitalism, and the birth of urbanization. He brings to life the reformers, abolitionists, and temperance advocates who struggled to correct America's worst social ills, and he reveals the shocking phenomena that marked the age: violent mobs, P. T. Barnum's freaks, all-seeing mesmerists, polygamous prophets, and rabble-rousing feminists. Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Waking Giant is a brilliant chronicle of America's vibrant and tumultuous rise.
How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken
How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken
Mendelsohn, Daniel
¥94.10
Whether he's on Broadway or at the movies, considering a new bestseller or revisiting a literary classic, Daniel Mendelsohn's judgments over the past fifteen years have provoked and dazzled with their deep erudition, disarming emotionality, and tart wit. Now How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken reveals all at once the enormous stature of Mendelsohn's achievement and demonstrates why he is considered one of our greatest critics. Writing with a lively intelligence and arresting originality, he brings his distinctive combination of scholarly rigor and conversational ease to bear across eras, cultures, and genres, from Roman games to video games.His interpretations of our most talked-about films from the work of Pedro Almodóvar to Brokeback Mountain, from United 93 and World Trade Center to 300, Marie Antoinette, and The Hours have sparked debate and changed the way we watch movies. Just as stunning and influential are his dispatches on theater and literature, from The Producers to Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, from The Lovely Bones to the works of Harold Pinter. Together these thirty brilliant and engaging essays passionately articulate the themes that have made Daniel Mendelsohn a crucial voice in today's cultural conversation: the aesthetic and indeed political dangers of imposing contemporary attitudes on the great classics; the ruinous effect of sentimentality on the national consciousness in the post-9/11 world; the vital importance of the great literature of the past for a meaningful life in the present.How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken makes it clear that no other contemporary thinker is as engaged with as many aspects of our culture and its influences as Mendelsohn is, and no one practices the vanishing art of popular criticism with more acuity, humor, and feeling.
Reggie Jackson
Reggie Jackson
Perry, Dayn
¥95.39
Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson earned the nickname "Mr. October" for the crucial clutch hitting that led his teams to the World Series six times and won him two series MVP awards, and this skill at the plate is perhaps what he is best remembered for. But behind the bat was a man many don't know a man struggling to find his place in the world, at home, and in the sport that made him a star. Now, in the first biography of Jackson in more than twenty-five years and the first to cover his entire career as a player FOXSports.com columnist Dayn Perry provides an intimate, honest, and never-before-seen glimpse into the life and times of one of baseball's all-time greats. A cantankerous man full of swagger with a fearsome talent to match, Jackson was an outspoken iconoclast as a player a gift that made him friends and enemies of some of the most colorful characters in the game. As large a presence on the field as he was outside the ballpark, Jackson backed up his talk by establishing himself as one of the best sluggers the sport has ever seen.Yet Jackson's story is about more than sports prowess. His life reflects a time, between Jackie Robinson and Ken Griffey, Jr., when black ballplayers were accepted but still considered inferior to their white teammates. There were unspoken rules to keep the racial waters still; Jackson not only ignored such conventions, he demolished them paving the way for true equality for all black players.From his childhood in a predominantly white neighborhood to heroics at the plate, from relationships with legendary players such as "Catfish" Hunter and Thurman Munson to battles with some of the sport's most powerful figures, including notoriously cheap Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley and the irascible George Steinbrenner, Reggie Jackson tells the full story of the man who was one of the first black baseball superstars and one of the greatest players of all time.
Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making
Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making
Curran, John
¥95.11
As he did in the Edgar-nominated and Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards winning Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, Christie expert and archivist John Curran once again examines the unpublished notebooks of the world's bestselling author to explore the techniques she used to surprise and entertain generations of readers.Drawing on Christie's personal papers and letters, he reveals how more than twenty of her novels, as well as stage *s, short stories, and some more personal items, evolved. Here are wonderful gems, including Christie's essay on her famous detective, Hercule Poirot, written for a British national newspaper in the 1930s; a previously unseen version of a "Miss Marple" short story; and a courtroom chapter from her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which was edited out of the published version in 1920; plus an insightful, well-reasoned analysis of her final unfinished novel, based on the author's notes and Curran's own deep knowledge of Christie and her work.A must-read for every Christie aficionado, Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making is a fascinating look into the mind and craft of one of the world's most prolific and beloved authors.