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Kepler's Witch
Kepler's Witch
Connor, James A.
¥88.56
Set against the backdrop of the witchcraft trial of his mother, this lively biography of Johannes Kepler the Protestant Galileo' and 16th century mathematician and astronomer reveals the surprisingly spiritual nature of the quest of early modern science. In the style of Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter, Connor's book brings to life the tidal forces of Reformation, Counter Reformation, and social upheaval. Johannes Kepler, who discovered the three basic laws of planetary motion, was persecuted for his support of the Copernican system. After a neighbour accused his mother of witchcraft, Kepler quit his post as the Imperial mathematician to defend her. James Connor tells Kepler's story as a pilgrimage, a spiritual journey into the modern world through war and disease and terrible injustice, a journey reflected in the evolution of Kepler's geometrical model of the cosmos into a musical model, harmony into greater harmony. The leitmotif of the witch trial adds a third dimension to Kepler's biography by setting his personal life within his own times. The acts of this trial, including Kepler's letters and the accounts of the witnesses, although published in their original German dialects, had never before been translated into English. Echoing some of Dava Sobel's work for Galileo's Daughter, Connor has translated the witch trial documents into English. With a great respect for the history of these times and the life of this man, Connor's accessible story illuminates the life of Kepler, the man of science, but also Kepler, a man of uncommon faith and vision.
Stasiland
Stasiland
Funder, Anna
¥88.56
In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterward the two Germanys reunited, and East Germany ceased to exist. Anna Funder's bestselling Stasiland brings us extraordinary tales of real lives in the former East Germany. She meets Miriam, who tried to escape to West Berlin as a sixteen-year-old; hears the heartbreaking story of Frau Paul, who was separated from her baby by the Berlin Wall; and gets drunk with the legendary Mik Jegger of the East, once declared by the authorities to his face no longer to exist. And she meets the Stasi men themselves, still proud of their surveillance methods. Funder's powerful account of that brutal world has become a contemporary classic.
Pain, Parties, Work
Pain, Parties, Work
Winder, Elizabeth
¥88.56
I dreamed of New York, I am going there.On May 31, 1953, twenty-year-old Sylvia Plath arrived in New York City for a one-month stint at the intellectual fashion magazine Mademoiselle to be a guest editor for its prestigious annual college issue. Over the next twenty-six days, the bright, blond New England collegian lived at the Barbizon Hotel, attended Balanchine ballets, watched a game at Yankee Stadium, and danced at the West Side Tennis Club. She typed rejection letters to writers from The New Yorker and ate an entire bowl of caviar at an advertising luncheon. She stalked Dylan Thomas and fought off an aggressive diamond-wielding delegate from the United Nations. She took hot baths, had her hair done, and discovered her signature drink (vodka, no ice). Young, beautiful, and on the cusp of an advantageous career, she was supposed to be having the time of her life.Drawing on in-depth interviews with fellow guest editors whose memories infuse these pages, Elizabeth Winder reveals how these twenty-six days indelibly altered how Plath saw herself, her mother, her friendships, and her romantic relationships, and how this period shaped her emerging identity as a woman and as a writer. Pain, Parties, Work the three words Plath used to describe that time shows how Manhattan's alien atmosphere unleashed an anxiety that would stay with her for the rest of her all-too-short life.Thoughtful and illuminating, this captivating portrait invites us to see Sylvia Plath before The Bell Jar, before she became an icon a young woman with everything to live for.
Waiting to Be Heard
Waiting to Be Heard
Knox, Amanda
¥88.56
In March 2015, the Supreme Court of Italy exonerated Amanda Knox, author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Waiting To Be Heard. In an afterward to this newly issued paperback edition, Amanda updates readers on her life since 2011, introduces the individuals who helped her persevere as her case continued through the Italian courts, and shares her plans for helping others who have also been wrongfully convicted. In November 2007, 20 year-old Amanda Knox had only been studying in Perugia, Italy, for a few weeks when her friend and roommate, British student Meredith Kercher, was murdered. The investigation made headlines around the world, and Amanda's arrest placed her at the center of a media firestorm. After an extremely controversial trial, she was convicted of murder in 2009. She spent four years in an Italian prison until a new court, which appointed independent experts to review the prosecution’s DNA evidence, affirmatively found her innocent in 2011. She returned home to Seattle, Washington. But just when Amanda thought her legal nightmare had ended, it began all over again. In March 2013, Italy’s highest court annulled the acquittal and sent the case to the lower courts for further proceedings. Even though no new evidence was introduced against her, Amanda was found guilty and sentenced to 28years in prison in January, 2014. This decision was overturned by the Italian Supreme Court, which exonerated her of the murder charge. In Waiting to Be Heard, Amanda speaks about what it was like to find herself imprisoned in a foreign country for a crime she did not commit, and how much she relied on the unwavering support of her family and friends, many of whom made extraordinary sacrifices on her behalf. Waiting to Be Heard is an unflinching, heartfelt coming-of-age narrative like no other—now with a new afterword, in which Amanda describes the heart-stopping final twists in her fight for freedom, and her hopes for the future.
Jason Priestley
Jason Priestley
Priestley, Jason
¥88.56
Tales told out of school Jason Priestley: A Memoir tells the honest, compelling, and often humorous details of Priestley's up-and-down life, from his childhood in Canada to his adult life as a husband and father. Priestley shares his best stories of life as a young, unknown actor and later as a star; some of his compadres were Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper, Tiffani Amber Thiessen, and Ashley Judd, and he divulges never-before-revealed anecdotes about their early days as actors. But even with his engaging insights and terrific sense of humor, Priestley does not avoid the tough subjects. In 2000, he had a brush with the law and was briefly in jail. His longtime passion for auto racing led to a devastating injury in 2002, during a practice run at the Kentucky Speedway when he crashed his race car into a wall at nearly 190 miles an hour. (Luke Perry, who was and still is one of his best friends, rushed to his side after the crash.) Eventually Priestley made a full recovery. In Jason Priestley: A Memoir, Priestley shares the delights and difficulties of living a real life that is better than any fiction.
All Things Possible
All Things Possible
Warner, Kurt
¥88.56
NFL sensation Kurt Warner tells the incredible story of faith and perseverance that captured the hearts of millions and rocketed him from obscurity to become MVP and Super Bowl champion.
Lady at the O.K. Corral
Lady at the O.K. Corral
Kirschner, Ann
¥88.56
The author of the acclaimed Sala's Gift delivers a definitive biography of Josephine Marcus Earp, a Jewish woman from New York who became the common-law wife of famed lawman and gambler Wyatt Earp. For nearly fifty years, Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp lived with the most famous lawman of the Old West. How did this aspiring actress and dancer—a Jewish girl from New York—land in Tombstone, Arizona, and steal the heart of Wyatt EarpIn this fascinating biography, Ann Kirschner brings Josephine out of the shadows of history to tell her full story—a spirited and colorful tale of ambition, adventure, self-invention, and romance. Kirschner offers a rare look at a woman's life on the frontier and sheds new light on the iconic gunfight that made Wyatt Earp a legend, revealing Josephine's place at its center. Lady at the O.K. Corral introduces a vivacious woman with a magnetic personality who was equally at home in the deserts of the American Southwest and the boomtowns of the Alaskan Gold Rush; in the opulent hotels of San Francisco; in mining camps, casinos, racetracks, and boxing arenas; and on Hollywood back lots visiting Cecil B. DeMille and Samuel Goldwyn. Spanning more than half a century, this engaging narrative biography brings Josephine to the forefront of her own story and offers a fresh look at a remarkable era in American history.
Dear Senator
Dear Senator
Washington-Williams, Essie Mae
¥88.56
Breaking nearly eight decades of silence, Essie Mae Washington Williams comes forward with a story of unique historical magnitude and incredible human drama. Her father, the late Strom Thurmond, was once the nation's leading voice for racial segregation (one of his signature political achievements was his 24 hour filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, done in the name of saving the South from "mongrelization"). Her mother, however, was a black teenager named Carrie Butler who worked as a maid on the Thurmond family's South Carolina plantation. Set against the explosively changing times of the civil rights movement, this poignant memoir recalls how she struggled with the discrepancy between the father she knew one who was financially generous, supportive of her education, even affectionate and the Old Southern politician, railing against greater racial equality, who refused to acknowledge her publicly. From her richly told narrative, as well as the letters she and Thurmond wrote to each other over the years, emerges a nuanced, fascinating portrait of a father who counseled his daughter about her dreams and goals, and supported her in reaching them but who was unwilling to break with the values of his Dixiecrat constituents. With elegance, dignity, and candor, Washington Williams gives us a chapter of American history as it has never been written before told in a voice that will be heard and cherished by future generations.
The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance
The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance
Walker, Paul Robert
¥88.56
A lively and intriguing tale of the competition between two artists culminating in the construction of the Duomo in Florence this is also the story of a city on the verge of greatness and the dawn of the Renaissance when everything artistic would change. Florence's Duomo the dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral is one of the most enduring symbols of the Italian Renaissance an equal in influence and fame to Leonardo and Michaelangelo's works. It was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi the temperamental architect who rediscovered the techniques of mathematical perspective. He was the dome's 'inventor' whose secret methods for building remain a mystery as compelling to architects as Fermat's Last Theorem once was to mathematicians. Yet Brunelleschi didn't direct the construction of the dome alone. He was forced to share the commission with his arch rival the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti whose 'Paradise Doors' are also masterworks. This is the story of these two men a tale of artistic genius and individual triumph.
Gaspipe
Gaspipe
Carlo, Philip
¥88.56
The boss of New York's infamous Lucchese crime family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso's life in the Mafia was preordained from birth. His rare talent for "earning" concocting ingenious schemes to hijack trucks, rob banks, and bring vast quantities of drugs into New York fueled his unstoppable rise up the ladder of organized crime. A mafioso responsible for at least fifty murders, Casso lived large, with a beautiful wife and money to burn. When the law finally caught up with him in 1994, Casso became the thing he hated most an informer.From his blood feud with John Gotti to his dealings with the "Mafia cops," decorated NYPD officers Lou Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, to the Windows case, which marked the beginning of the end for the New York Mob, Gaspipe is Anthony Casso's shocking story a roller-coaster ride into an exclusive netherworld that reveals the true inner workings of the Mafia, from its inception to the present time.
Symmetry
Symmetry
du Sautoy, Marcus
¥88.56
Symmetry is all around us. Of fundamental significance to the way we interpret the world, this unique, pervasive phenomenon indicates a dynamic relationship between objects. Combining a rich historical narrative with his own personal journey as a mathematician, Marcus du Sautoy takes a unique look into the mathematical mind as he explores deep conjectures about symmetry and brings us face-to-face with the oddball mathematicians, both past and present, who have battled to understand symmetry's elusive qualities.
A Pearl in the Storm
A Pearl in the Storm
McClure, Tori Murden
¥88.56
"In the end," writes Tori McClure, "I know I rowed across the Atlantic to find my heart, but in the beginning, I wasn't aware that it was missing." During June 1998, Tori McClure set out to row across the Atlantic Ocean by herself in a twenty-three-foot plywood boat with no motor or sail. Within days she lost all communication with shore, but nevertheless she decided to keep going. Not only did she lose the sound of a friendly voice, she lost updates on the location of the Gulf Stream and on the weather. Unfortunately for Tori, 1998 is still on record as the worst hurricane season in the North Atlantic. In deep solitude and perilous conditions, she was nonetheless determined to prove what one person with a mission can do. When she was finally brought to her knees by a series of violent storms that nearly killed her, she had to signal for help and go home in what felt like complete disgrace.Back in Kentucky, however, Tori's life began to change in unexpected ways. She fell in love. At the age of thirty-five, she embarked on a serious relationship for the first time, making her feel even more vulnerable than sitting alone in a tiny boat in the middle of the Atlantic. She went to work for Muhammad Ali, who told her that she did not want to be known as the woman who "almost" rowed across the Atlantic Ocean. And she knew that he was right.In this thrilling story of high adventure and romantic quest, Tori McClure discovers through her favorite way the hard way that the most important thing in life is not to prove you are superhuman but to fully to embrace your own humanity. With a wry sense of humor and a strong voice, she gives us a true memoir of an explorer who maps her world with rare emotional honesty.
Paddy Whacked
Paddy Whacked
English, T. J.
¥88.56
Here is the shocking true saga of the Irish American mob. In Paddy Whacked, bestselling author and organized crime expert T. J. English brings to life nearly two centuries of Irish American gangsterism, which spawned such unforgettable characters as Mike "King Mike" McDonald, Chicago's subterranean godfather; Big Bill Dwyer, New York's most notorious rumrunner during Prohibition; Mickey Featherstone, troubled Vietnam vet turned Westies gang leader; and James "Whitey" Bulger, the ruthless and untouchable Southie legend. Stretching from the earliest New York and New Orleans street wars through decades of bootlegging scams, union strikes, gang wars, and FBI investigations, Paddy Whacked is a riveting tour de force that restores the Irish American gangster to his rightful preeminent place in our criminal history -- and penetrates to the heart of the American experience.
Ghosts of 42nd Street
Ghosts of 42nd Street
Bianco, Anthony
¥88.56
Imagine shuffling down Broadway through the hustle and bustle right into the nonstop, neon heart of New York City: 42nd Street.Once a quiet neighborhood of brownstones and churches, the area wastransformed in the early 1900s into an entertainment hub unlike any in theworld. No place has ever evoked the glamour and romantic possibility of bigcity nightlife as vividly as did 42nd Street. It was the dazzle of "naughty, bawdy, gaudy" 42nd Street that put Times Square on the map and turned the Broadway theater district into the Great White Way. Ghosts of 42nd Street stirs your imagination as it takes you on a historical journey of this glamorized strip still known today as the Crossroads of the World. From the bold innovations of Oscar Hammerstein and Florenz Ziegfeld through the porn-laden 1960s and 1970s to the present-day "Disneyfication" of New York's bright lights district, Ghosts of 42nd Street is as fascinating as a tabloid frozen in time.
37 Seconds
37 Seconds
Arnold, Stephanie
¥88.56
Pregnant with her second child, Stephanie Arnold began receiving mysterious but strong premonitions that she would die during the delivery. Distressed, Stephanie did everything she could to inform the medical team and her family about what she knew was coming. No one believed her, but Stephanie knew they were wrong. When she gave birth to her son, Stephanie flatlined and died on the operating table for 37 seconds, during which time she had a spiritual experience she would never forget.After reading what Stephanie discovered in her search to make sense of what happened to her, you will never look at life, death, and the afterlife the same way again.
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Castor, Helen
¥88.56
The acclaimed historian Helen Castor bestselling author and BBC broadcaster of She-Wolves, the story of England's queens before Elizabeth I returns with the incredible story of Joan of Arc, as only a biographer of Castor's enormous talents can tell it.Helen Castor brings us afresh a gripping life of Joan of Arc. Instead of the icon, she gives us a living, breathing young woman, a roaring girl fighting the English and taking sides in a bloody civil war that was tearing apart fifteenth-century France.Here is a portrait of a nineteen-year-old peasant who hears voices from God; a teenager transformed into a warrior, leading an army to victory in an age that believed women should not fight. And it is also the story behind the myth we all know, a myth that began to take hold at her trial: that of the Maid of Orleans, the savior of France, a young woman burned at the stake as a heretic, a woman who, five hundred years later, would be declared a saint.Joan and her world are brought vividly to life in this startling new take on the medieval world.Castor brings us to the heart of the action, to a woman and a country in turmoil, a world where no one, not Joan herself or the people around her princes, bishops, soldiers, or peasants knew what would happen next.Adding complexity, depth, and fresh insight into Joan's life, showing her confronting the challenges of faith and doubt in a superstitious age, Castor's Joan of Arc is a rich history and biography that allows us to better understand this remarkable woman and her world.
A Thousand Times More Fair
A Thousand Times More Fair
Yoshino, Kenji
¥88.56
A provocative exploration of justice in our time through fresh readings of Shakespeare's greatest plays Celebrated legal scholar Kenji Yoshino's first book, Covering, was acclaimed from the New York Times Book Review to O, The Oprah Magazine to the American Lawyer for its elegant prose, its good humor, and its brilliant insights into civil rights and discrimination law. Now, in A Thousand Times More Fair, Yoshino turns his attention to the broad question of what makes a fair and just society, and he delves deep into a surprising source to answer it: Shakespeare's greatest plays.An enormously creative and provocative book, A Thousand Times More Fair addresses fundamental questions we ask about our world today: Why is the rule of law better than revengeHow much mercy should we show a wrongdoerWhat does it mean to "prove" guilt or innocenceAs Yoshino argues, a searching examination of Shakespeare's plays and the many advocates, judges, criminals, and vigilantes who populate them can elucidate some of the most troubling issues in contemporary life.With a great ear for Shakespeare and an eye trained steadily on current affairs, Yoshino considers how competing models of judging presented in Measure for Measure resurfaced around the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor; how the revenge cycle of Titus Andronicus illuminates the "war on terror" and our military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq; how the white handkerchief in Othello and the black glove in the O. J. Simpson trial reflect forms of proof that overwhelm all other evidence; and how the spectacle of an omnipotent ruler voluntarily surrendering power in The Tempest, as Cincinnatus did before him and George Washington did after him, informs regime change in our own time.A Thousand Times More Fair is an altogether original book about Shakespeare and the law, and an ideal starting point to explore the nature of a just society and our own.
The Family Crucible
The Family Crucible
Napier, Augustus Y.
¥88.56
This extraordinary book presents scenarios of one family's therapy experience and explains what underlies each encounter. You will discover the general patterns that are common to all families-stress, polarization and escalation, scapegoating, triangulation, blaming, and the diffusion of identity--and you will gain a vivid understanding of the intriguing field of family therapy.
The Drillmaster of Valley Forge
The Drillmaster of Valley Forge
Lockhart, Paul
¥88.56
A failure in midlife, the Baron de Steuben uprooted himself from his native Europe to seek one last chance at glory and fame in the New World. Steeped in the traditions of the Prussian army of Frederick the Great the most ruthlessly effective in Europe he taught the demoralized soldiers of the Continental Army how to fight like Europeans. His guiding hand shaped the fighting force that triumphed over the British at Monmouth, Stony Point, and Yorktown. But his influence did not end with the Revolution. Steuben was instrumental in creating West Point and in writing the first official regulations of the American army, and his principles have guided the American armed forces to this day.In The Drillmaster at Valley Forge, Paul Lockhart tells the remarkable story of an extraordinary man bringing to flesh and blood life the hitherto little-known figure whose image has long been part of the iconography of our Revolutionary heritage.
Fifty-nine in '84
Fifty-nine in '84
Achorn, Edward
¥88.56
In 1884, Providence Grays pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn won an astounding fifty-nine games more than anyone in major-league history ever had before, or has since. He then went on to win all three games of baseball's first World Series.Fifty-nine in '84 tells the dramatic story not only of that amazing feat of grit but also of big-league baseball two decades after the Civil War a brutal, bloody sport played barehanded, the profession of uneducated, hard-drinking men who thought little of cheating outrageously or maiming an opponent to win.It is the tale, too, of the woman Radbourn loved, Carrie Stanhope, the alluring proprietress of a boarding-house with shady overtones, a married lady who was said to have personally known every man in the National League.Wonderfully entertaining, Fifty-nine in '84 is an indelible portrait of a legendary player and a fascinating, little-known era of the national pastime.
The House on First Street
The House on First Street
Reed, Julia
¥88.56
After fifteen years of living like a vagabond on her reporter's schedule, Julia Reed got married and bought a house in the historic Garden District. Four weeks after she moved in, Hurricane Katrina struck. The House on First Street is the chronicle of Reed's remarkable and often hilarious homecoming, as well as a thoroughly original tribute to our country's most original city.