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Her Brilliant Career
Her Brilliant Career
Cooke, Rachel
¥88.56
In Her Brilliant Career, acclaimed journalist Rachel Cooke goes back in time to offer an entertaining and iconoclastic look at ten women in the 1950s pioneers whose professional careers and complicated private lives helped to create the opportunities available to today's women. These intrepid and ambitious individuals among them a film director, a cook, an architect, an editor, an archaeologist, and a race car driver left the house, discovered the bliss of work, and ushered in the era of the working woman.Daring and independent, these remarkable, unsung heroines whose obscurity makes their accomplishments all the more astonishing and relevant loved passionately, challenged men's control, made their own mistakes, and took life on their own terms, breaking new ground and offering inspiration. Their individual portraits gradually form a landscape of 1950s culture, and of women's unique and rapidly evolving role.Before there could be a Danica Patrick, there had to be a Sheila van Damm; before there was Barbara Walters, there was Nancy Spain; before Kathryn Bigelow came Muriel Box. The pioneers of Her Brilliant Career forever changed the fabric of culture, society, and the workforce. This is the Fifties retold: vivid, surprising, and, most of all, modern.
Deconstructing Sammy
Deconstructing Sammy
Birkbeck, Matt
¥88.56
Sammy Davis Jr. lived a storied life. Adored by millions over a six-decade-long career, he was considered an entertainment icon and a national treasure. But despite lifetime earnings that topped $50 million, Sammy died in 1990 near bankruptcy. His estate was declared insolvent, and there was no possibility of itever using Sammy's name or likeness again. It was as if Sammy had never existed. Years later his wife, Altovise, a once-vivacious woman and heir to one of the greatest entertainment legacies of the twentieth century, was living in poverty, and with nowhere else to go, she turned to a former federal prosecutor, Albert "Sonny" Murray, to make one last attempt to resolve Sammy's debts, restore his estate, and revive his legacy. For seven years Sonny probed Sammy's life to understand how someone of great notoriety and wealth could have lost everything, and in the process he came to understand Sammy as a man whose complexity makes for a riveting work of celebrity biography as cultural history.Matt Birkbeck's serious work of investigative journalism unveils the extraordinary story of an international celebrity at the center of a confluence of entertainment, politics, and organized crime, and shows how even Sammy's outsized talent couldn't save him from himself.
The Wilderness of Ruin
The Wilderness of Ruin
Montillo, Roseanne
¥88.56
“Supremely creepy. . . . As thrilling as it is disturbing.” —Boston Globe In 1871, young children were disappearing from Boston’s working-class neighborhoods. The few who returned told desperate tales of being taken to the woods and tortured by a boy not much older than themselves. The police were skeptical—these children were from poor families, so their testimony was easily discounted. And after the Great Boston Fire of 1872 reduced much of downtown to rubble, the city had more pressing concerns. Finally, when the police apprehended Jesse Pomeroy for the crimes, he, like any twelve-year-old, was sent off to reform school. Little thought was given to the danger he might pose to society, despite victims’ chilling reports of this affectless Boy Torturer. Sixteen months later, Jesse was released in the care of his mother, and within months a ten-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy went missing, their mutilated bodies later discovered by police. This set off a frantic hunt for Pomeroy, who was now proclaimed America’s youngest serial killer. When he was captured and brought to trial, his case transfixed the nation, and two public figures—Herman Melville and Oliver Wendell Holmes—each probed the depths of Pomeroy’s character in a search for the meaning behind his madness. Roseanne Montillo takes us inside those harrowing years, as a city reeling from great disaster reckoned with the moral quandaries posed by Pomeroy’s spree.
Call Me Debbie
Call Me Debbie
Voigt, Deborah
¥88.56
In Call Me Debbie, internationally renowned opera singer Deborah Voigt describes her journey to become one of the world's most celebrated artists. In a strikingly unguarded and revelatory memoir, Voigt writes not just about the excitement and glamor of her musical career, but describes in often harrowing detail her private battles with addictions to food and alcohol, and a myriad of other self-destructive tendencies that nearly destroyed her, threatening to ruin her professional reputation and personal well-being.Voigt reveals here, for the first time, the troubling sequence of addictive behavior that led to her being fired from a London opera production for being too large to fit into the little black dress demanded by the role, and her subsequent gastric bypass surgery and its dramatic aftermath. She speaks openly of the cross-addiction that led to severe alcoholism, frightening all-night blackouts, and suicide attempts. Here, too, is the story of how she achieved complete sobriety, thanks to a twelve-step program and a recommitment to her Christian faith.Highlighting hilarious anecdotes and juicy gossip that illuminate what really goes on backstage, Voigt talks candidly about the impresarios, singers, and conductors with whom she's worked. She offers fascinating insight into the roles she has played and the characters she loves, including Strauss's Ariadne and Salome, Puccini's Minnie, and Wagner's Sieglinde, Isolde, and Brnnhilde, sharing her inspiration and her preparation for playing them. Complete with eight pages of color photographs, Call Me Debbie is a heartfelt, inspirational story that offers a unique look into the life of an incredible artist and a remarkable woman, one who overcame terrible demons before she could regain her self-respect and achieve peace. Powerfully honest and utterly compelling, this is a remarkable memoir.
William Morrow
William Morrow
Montillo, Roseanne
¥88.56
Told with the verve and ghoulish fun of a Tim Burton film, The Lady and Her Monsters is a highly entertaining blend of literary history, lore, and early scientific exploration that traces the origins of the greatest horror story of all time Mary Shelley's FrankensteinExploring the frightful milieu in which Frankenstein was written, Roseanne Montillo, an exciting new literary talent, recounts how Shelley's Victor Frankenstein mirrored actual scientists of the period. Montillo paints a rich portrait of Shelley and her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their contemporaries and their friend Lord Byron. Intellectually curious, they were artists, poets, and philosophers, united in captivation with the occultists and daring scientists risking their reputations and their immortal souls to advance our understanding of human anatomy and medicine.These remarkable investigations could not be undertaken without the cutthroat grave robbers who prowled cemeteries for a supply of fresh corpses. The newly dead were used for both private and very public autopsies and dissections, as well as the most daring trials of all: attempts at human reanimation through the application of electricity.Juxtaposing monstrous mechanization and rising industrialism with the sublime beauty and decadence of the legendary Romantics who defined the age, Montillo takes us into a world where poets become legends in salons and boudoirs; where fame-hungry doctors conduct shocking performances for rabid, wide-eyed audiences; and where maniacal body snatchers secretly toil in castle dungeons.
The Red Limit
The Red Limit
Ferris, Timothy
¥88.56
For centuries, it was assumed that our universe was static. In the late 1920s, astronomers defeated this assumption with a startling new discovery. From Earth, the light of distant galaxies appeared to be red, meaning that those galaxies were receding from us. This led to the revolutionary realization that the universe is expanding. The Red Limit is the tale of this discovery, its ramifications, and the passionately competitive astronomers who charted the past, present, and future of the cosmos.
The Siege Winter
The Siege Winter
Franklin, Ariana
¥88.56
England, 1141. The countryside is devastated by a long civil war as the English king, Stephen, and his cousin, the Empress Matilda, battle for the crown. . . .Emma is the eleven-year-old redheaded daughter of a peasant family. When mercenaries pass through their town, they bring with them a monk with a deadly interest in young redheaded girls. Emma is left for dead in a burned-out church until Gwil, an archer, finds her by chance. Gwil takes Emma with him, dressing her as a boy to avoid attention. Emma becomes Penda—and Penda turns out to have a killer instinct with a bow and arrow.Maud is the fifteen-year-old chatelaine of Kenniford, a small but strategically important castle she’s determined to protect. But when Maud provides refuge for the empress, Stephen’s armies lay siege to Kenniford Castle. Aided by a garrison of mercenaries—including Gwil and his odd, redheaded apprentice—they must survive a long winter under siege. It’s a brutal season that brings everyone to Kenniford—including the sinister monk who has never stopped hunting the redheaded girl. . . .“Enthralling. . . . A grand yet intimate historical adventure”.—Library Journal“[A] thoroughly captivating tale.”—Kirkus Reviews
The Enchanted
The Enchanted
Denfeld, Rene
¥88.56
The lady, an investigator who excels at uncovering information to save her clients from execution . . . The fallen priest, beaten down by his guilt over a terrible sin and its tragic consequences . . . The warden, a kind man within a cruel system . . . The mute prisoner, sensing what others cannot in what he calls "this enchanted place" . . .The enchanted place is an ancient stone prison. Two outsiders walk here: a woman known only as the lady, and a fallen priest. The lady comes to the prison when she has a job to do. She's skilled at finding the secrets that get men off death row. This gift threatens her career—and complicates her life—when she takes on the case of York, a killer whose date of execution looms. York is different from the lady's former clients: he wants to die. Going against the condemned man's wishes, the lady begins her work. What she uncovers about York's birth and upbringing rings chillingly familiar. In York's shocking and shameful childhood, the lady sees the shadows of her own.The lady is watched by a death row inmate who finds escape in the books he reads from the prison library and by reimagining the world he inhabits—a world of majestic golden horses that stampede underground and of tiny men who hammer away inside stone walls. He is not named, nor do we know his crime. But he listens. He listens to York's story. He sees the lady fall in love with the priest and wonders how such warmth is possible in these crumbling corridors. As tensions in "this enchanted place" build, he sees the corruption and the danger. And he waits as the hour of his own destiny approaches.The Enchanted is a magical novel about redemption, the poetry that can exist within the unfathomable, and the human capacity to transcend and survive even the most nightmarish reality. Beautiful and unexpected, this is a memorable story.
Elizabeth Is Missing
Elizabeth Is Missing
Healey, Emma
¥88.56
In this darkly riveting debut novel, a sophisticated psychological mystery, one woman will stop at nothing to fiFInd her best friend, who seems to have gone missing. . . .?Despite Maud's growing anxiety about Elizabeth's welfare, no one takes her concerns seriously—not her frustrated daughter, not her caretakers, not the police, and especially not Elizabeth's mercurial son—because Maud suffers from dementia. But even as her memory disintegrates and she becomes increasingly dependent on the trail of handwritten notes she leaves for herself in her pockets and around her house, Maud cannot forget her best friend. Armed with only an overwhelming feeling that Elizabeth needs her help, Maud resolves to discover the truth—no matter what it takes.As this singular obsession forms a cornerstone of Maud's rapidly dissolving present, the clues she uncovers lead her deeper into her past, to another unsolved disappearance: that of her sister, Sukey, who vanished shortly after World War II. As vivid memories of a tragedy that occurred more than fifty years ago come flooding back, Maud's search for Elizabeth develops a frantic momentum. Whom can she trustCan she trust herself?A page-turning novel of suspense, Elizabeth Is Missing also hauntingly reminds us that we are all at the mercy of our memory. Always compelling, often poignant, and at times even blackly witty, this is an absolutely unforgettable novel.
Proteinaholic
Proteinaholic
Davis, Garth, M.D.
¥88.56
An acclaimed surgeon specializing in weight loss delivers a paradigm-shifting examination of the diet and health industry’s focus on protein, explaining why it is detrimental to our health, and can prevent us from losing weight.Whether you are seeing a doctor, nutritionist, or a trainer, all of them advise to eat more protein. Foods, drinks, and supplements are loaded with extra protein. Many people use protein for weight control, to gain or lose pounds, while others believe it gives them more energy and is essential for a longer, healthier life. Now, Dr. Garth Davis, an expert in weight loss asks, “Is all this protein making us healthier?”The answer, he emphatically argues, is NO. Too much protein is actually making us sick, fat, and tired, according to Dr. Davis. If you are getting adequate calories in your diet, there is no such thing as protein deficiency. The healthiest countries in the world eat far less protein than we do and yet we have an entire nation on a protein binge getting sicker by the day.As a surgeon treating obese patients, Dr. Davis was frustrated by the ever-increasing number of sick and overweight patients, but it wasn't until his own health scare that he realized he could do something about it. Combining cutting-edge research, with his hands-on patient experience and his years dedicated to analyzing studies of the world’s longest-lived populations, this explosive, groundbreaking book reveals the truth about the dangers of protein and shares a proven approach to weight loss, health, and longevity.
Tampa
Tampa
Nutting, Alissa
¥88.56
Celeste Price is an eighth-grade English teacher in suburban Tampa. She's undeniably attractive. She drives a red Corvette with tinted windows. Her husband, Ford, is rich, square-jawed, and devoted to her. But Celeste's devotion lies elsewhere. She has a singular sexual obsession—fourteen-year-old boys. Celeste pursues her craving with sociopathic meticulousness and forethought; her sole purpose in becoming a teacher is to fulfill her passion and provide her access to her compulsion. As the novel opens, fall semester at Jefferson Jr. High is beginning.In mere weeks, Celeste has chosen and lured the lusciously naive Jack Patrick into her web. Jack is enthralled and in awe of his teacher, and, most important, willing to accept Celeste's terms for a secret relationship—car rides after school; rendezvous at Jack's house while his single father works late; body-slamming encounters in Celeste's empty classroom between periods. Ever mindful of the danger—the perpetual risk of exposure, Jack's father's own attraction to her, and the ticking clock as Jack leaves innocent boyhood behind—the hyperbolically insatiable Celeste bypasses each hurdle with swift thinking and shameless determination, even when the solutions involve greater misdeeds than the affair itself. In slaking her sexual thirst, Celeste Price is remorseless and deviously free of hesitation, a monstress driven by pure motivation. She deceives everyone, and cares nothing for anyone or anything but her own pleasure.With crackling, rampantly unadulterated prose, Tampa is a grand, uncompromising, seriocomic examination of want and a scorching literary debut.
Fourth of July Creek
Fourth of July Creek
Henderson, Smith
¥88.56
After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral eleven-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face-to-face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times.But as Pete's own family spins out of control, Pearl's activities spark the full-blown interest of the FBI, putting Pete at the center of a massive manhunt from which no one will emerge unscathed.In this shattering and iconic American novel, Smith Henderson explores the complexities of freedom, community, grace, suspicion, and anarchy, brilliantly depicting our nation's disquieting and violent contradictions. Fourth of July Creek is an unforgettable, unflinching debut that marks the arrival of a major literary talent.
The Invasion of the Tearling
The Invasion of the Tearling
Johansen, Erika
¥88.56
In this riveting sequel to the national bestseller The Queen of the Tearling, the evil kingdom of Mortmesne invades the Tearling, with dire consequences for Queen Kelsea and her realm.With each passing day, Kelsea Glynn is growing into her new responsibilities as Queen of the Tearling. By stopping the shipments of slaves to the neighboring kingdom of Mortmesne, Kelsea has crossed the brutal Red Queen, who derives her power from dark magic and who is sending her fearsome army into the Tearling to take what she claims is hers. And nothing can stop the invasion.But as the Mort army draws ever closer, Kelsea develops a mysterious connection to a time before the Crossing. She finds herself relying on a strange and possibly dangerous ally: a woman named Lily, fighting for her life in a world where being female can feel like a crime. Soon Kelsea herself begins to change; she does not recognize either her reflection in the mirror or the extraordinary power she now commands. The fate of the Tearling—and that of Kelsea's own soul—may rest with Lily and her story, but Queen Kelsea is running out of time.In this second volume of the compelling trilogy begun with her bestselling The Queen of the Tearling, Erika Johansen brings back favorite characters and introduces unforgettable new players, adding exciting layers to her multidimensional tale of magic, mystery, and a fierce young heroine.
The Book of You
The Book of You
Kendal, Claire
¥88.56
"No other man can do to you what I can. No other man will love you like I do. . . . "His name is Rafe, and he is everywhere Clarissa turns.At the university where she works. At her favorite sewing shop. At the train station. Outside her apartment. His messages choke her voice mail; his unwanted gifts keep arriving at her door. Since that one regrettable night, his obsession with her has grown, becoming more consuming with each passing day. And as he has made clear, he will never let her go.With Rafe in pursuit, Clarissa's only sanctuary is the courtroom in which she is serving jury duty. The rhythm of the trial allows her a sense of normalcy and the space to make new friends, including Robert, an attractive widower. But Clarissa's deepening relationship with Robert—a source of hope she so desperately needs in her life—will not remain unnoticed for long. As a chilling tale of predator and prey unfolds in front of Clarissa on the stand, Rafe's relentless fixation, fueled by jealousy, escalates. Her only chance of escape lies in exposing his intentions for what they really are, even if it means immortalizing every moment she so desperately wants to forget.Conceiving a plan, Clarissa begins collecting the evidence of Rafe's madness to use against him. Strand by strand, she pulls apart the twisted, macabre fairy tale he has spun around them and discovers that the happy ending he envisions is more horrifying than her darkest fears. Masterly constructed, filled with exquisite tension and a pervasive sense of menace, The Book of You is a darkly sophisticated, utterly compelling debut that explores what happens when the lines between love and compulsion, fantasy and reality, become dangerously blurred.
Charlie Martz and Other Stories
Charlie Martz and Other Stories
Leonard, Elmore
¥88.56
A highly entertaining collection of never-before-seen stories and several previously published pieces from the bestselling master of crime fiction Elmore LeonardOver his long and illustrious career, Elmore Leonard was recognized as one of the greatest crime writers of all time, the author of dozens of bestselling books—many adapted for the big screen—as well as a master of short fiction. A superb stylist whose crisp, tight prose crackles with trademark wit and sharp dialogue, Leonard remains the standard for popular fiction and a literary model for writers of every genre.Marked by his unmistakable humor and grit, the stories in this collection—produced early in his career, when he was making his name particularly with westerns—reveal a writer in transition. In these tales Leonard explores new voices and locations, from the bars of small border towns in New Mexico to the seedy clubs of Detroit, from a film set in Hollywood where a struggling actor collapses in a valiant death again and again to a hotel in Southern Spain where oblivious, vacationing American couples drink the night away, and even to a military base in Kuala Lumpur and a small town in Mississippi during the Civil War. The stories also introduce us to classic Leonard characters, such as aging lawman Charlie Martz, who must face an old rival who returns seeking revenge, and weary former matador Eladio Montoya, who spends exhausting days working as a migrant farmer.Devoted Leonard aficionados and fans new to his fiction will marvel at these early works that reveal a developing artist on the cusp of greatness.
American Woman
American Woman
Choi, Susan
¥88.56
Susan Choi's first novel, The Foreign Student, was published to remarkable critical acclaim. The New Yorker called it "an auspicious debut," and the Los Angeles Times touted it as "a novel of extraordinary sensibility and transforming strangeness," naming it one of the ten best books of the year. American Woman, this gifted writer's second book, is a novel of even greater scope and dramatic complexity, about a young Japanese-American radical caught in the militant underground of the mid-1970s.When 25-year-old Jenny Shimada steps out of the Rhinecliff train station in New York's Hudson Valley, the last person she expects to see is Rob Frazer, a shadowy figure from her previous life. On the lam for an act of violence against the American government, Jenny agrees to take on the job of caring for three younger fugitives whom Frazer has spirited out of California. One of them, the granddaughter of a wealthy newspaper magnate in San Francisco, has become a national celebrity. Kidnapped by a homegrown revolutionary group, Pauline shocked America when she embraced her captors' ideology, denouncing family and class to enlist in their radical cell.American Woman unfolds the story of Jenny and her charges -- Pauline, Juan, and Yvonne, the remains of the busted revolutionary cadre -- as they pursue their destinies from an old farmhouse in upstate New York back to California. Provocative, suspenseful, and often wickedly comic, the novel explores the psychology of the young radicals -- outsiders all -- as isolation and paranoia inevitably undermine their ideals. American Woman is a tour de force with chilling resonance for readers today.
The Naked Truth
The Naked Truth
Brown, Marvelyn
¥88.56
The surprisingly hopeful story of how a straight, nonpromiscuous, everyday girl contracted HIV and how she manages to stay upbeat, inspired, and more positive about life than ever before At nineteen years of age, Marvelyn Brown was lying in a stark white hospital bed at Tennessee Christian Medical Center, feeling hopeless. A former top track and basketball athlete, she was in the best shape of her life, but she was battling a sudden illness in the intensive care unit. Doctors had no idea what was going on. It never occurred to Brown that she might be HIV positive.Having unprotected sex with her Prince Charming had set into swift motion a set of circumstances that not only landed her in the fight of her life, but also alienated her from her community. Rather than give up, however, Brown found a reason to fight and a reason to live. The Naked Truth is an inspirational memoir that shares how an everyday teen refused to give up on herself, even as others would forsake her. More, it's a cautionary tale that every parent, guidance counselor, and young adult should read.
Seldom Disappointed
Seldom Disappointed
Hillerman, Tony
¥88.56
When Tony Hillerman looks back at seventy-six years spent getting from hardtimes farm boy to bestselling author, he sees lots of evidence that Providence was poking him along. For example, when an absentminded Army clerk left him off the hospital ship taking the wounded home from France, the mishap put him on a collision course with a curing ceremony held for two Navajo Marines, thereby providing the grist for a writing career that now sees his books published in sixteen languages around the world and often on bestseller lists. Or, for example, when his agent told him his first novel was so bad that it would hurt both of their reputations, he nonetheless sent it to an editor, and that editor happened to like the Navajo stuff. In this wry and whimsical memoir, Hillerman offers frequent backward glances at where he found ideas for plots of his books and the characters that inhabit them. He takes us with him to death row, where he interviews a man about to die in the gas chamber and details how this murderer became Colton Wolf in one of his novels. He relates how flushing a solitary heron from a sandbar caused him to convert Joe Leaphorn from husband to widower, and how his self-confessed bias against the social elite solved the key plot problem in A Thief of Time. No child abuse stories here: The worst Hillerman can recall is being sent off to first grade (in a boarding school for Indian girls) clad in cute blue coveralls instead of the manly overalls his farm-boy peers all wore. Instead we get a good-natured trip through hard times in college; an infantry career in which he "rose twice to Private First Class" and also won a Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart; and, afterward, work as a truck driver, chain dragger, journalist, professor, and "doer of undignified deeds" for two university presidents. All this is colored by a love affair (now in its fifty-fourth year) with Marie, which involved raising six children, most of them adopted. Using the gifts of a talented novelist and reporter, seventy-six-year-old Tony Hillerman draws a brilliant portrait not just of his life but of the world around him.
Professors' Guide(TM) to Getting Good Grades in College
Professors' Guide(TM) to Getting Good Grades in College
Jacobs, Lynn F.
¥88.56
The Professors' Guide to Getting Good Grades in College is the first book to reveal the insider secrets about how professors really grade. The book offers high-value, practical tips about how to succeed at each of the five "grade-bearing" moments of the semester: (1) The Start (2) The Class (3) The Exam (4) The Paper and (5) The Last Month of the Semester. Fast-paced, entertaining, and easy-to-follow, the Professors' Guide will help you get truly excellent grades in college.
Hell's Angel
Hell's Angel
Barger, Sonny
¥88.56
Due to copyright restrictions, this eBook may not contain all of the images available in the print edition.Narrated by the visionary founding member, Hell's Angel provides a fascinating all-access pass to the secret world of the notorious Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club. Sonny Barger recounts the birth of the original Oakland Hell's Angels and the four turbulent decades that followed. Hell's Angel also chronicles the way the HAMC revolutionized the look of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle and built what has become a worldwide bike-riding fraternity, a beacon for freedom-seekers the world over.Dozens of photos, including many from private collections and from noted photographers, provide visual documentation to this extraordinary tale. Never simply a story about motorcycles, colorful characters, and high-speed thrills, Hell's Angel is the ultimate outlaw's tale of loyalty and betrayal, subcultures and brotherhood, and the real price of freedom.
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Dillard, Annie
¥88.56
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is the story of a dramatic year in Virginia's Blue Ridge valley. Annie Dillard sets out to see what she can see. What she sees are astonishing incidents of "mystery, death, beauty, violence."