万本电子书0元读

万本电子书0元读

Epitaph for a Peach
Epitaph for a Peach
Masumoto, David M.
¥88.56
A lyrical, sensuous and thoroughly engrossing memoir of one critical year in the life of an organic peach farmer, Epitaph for a Peach is "a delightful narrative . . . with poetic flair and a sense of humor" (Library Journal). Line drawings.
Truck: A Love Story
Truck: A Love Story
Perry, Michael
¥88.56
The author of Population: 485 returns, delivering a truckload of humor, heart, and . . . gardening tipsThink Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, complete with stock cars, sexy vegetables, and a laugh track."All I wanted to do was fix my old pickup truck," says Michael Perry. "That, and plant my garden. Then I met this woman. . . ." Truck: A Love Story recounts a year in which Perry struggles to grow his own food ("Seed catalogs are responsible for more unfulfilled fantasies than Enron and Penthouse combined"), live peaceably with his neighbors (one test-fires his black powder rifle in the alley; another's best Sunday shirt reads 100 PERCENT WHUP-ASS), and sort out his love life. But along the way, he sets his hair on fire, is attacked by wild turkeys, takes a date to the fire department chicken dinner, and proposes marriage to a woman in New Orleans. As with Population: 485, much of the spirit of Truck: A Love Story may be found in the characters Perry meets: a one-eyed land surveyor, a paraplegic biker who rigs a sidecar so that his quadriplegic pal can ride along, a bartender who refuses to sell light beer, an enchanting woman who never existed, and half the staff of National Public Radio.By turns hilarious and heartfelt, a tale that begins on a pile of sheep manure, detours to the Whitney Museum of American Art, and returns to the deer-hunting swamps of northern Wisconsin, Truck: A Love Story becomes a testament to the surprising and unintended consequences of love.1006
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.
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.
The Fence
The Fence
Lehr, Dick
¥88.56
A riveting, true-life account of violence, racial injustice, and betrayal within the ranks of the Boston Police Department The Boston police officers who brutally beat Michael Cox at a deserted fence one icy night in 1995 knew right away that they had made a terrible mistake. The badge and handgun under Cox's bloodied parka proved it: He was not a black gang member but a plainclothes officer who had been chasing the same murder suspect they were. While Cox was being beaten, Officer Kenny Conley chased down and captured the suspect. Afterward, as Cox waited for an apology from his department, federal prosecutors accused Conley of lying when he denied witnessing Cox's beating. Both Cox and Conley grew up in Boston and had dedicated their lives to serving the Boston Police Department, but when they needed its support, they were abandoned.A remarkable work of investigative journalism, The Fence details the shocking story of the attack, the attempted cover-up by police officers beholden to a "blue wall of silence," and the bitter repercussions on the lives of those involved. It follows Cox's 1998 federal civil rights trial against the Boston Police Department and features a diverse cast of characters, including the victims, their families, the officers accused in the beating, city officials, and the actual murder suspect all set against the rich backdrop of Boston. Like J. Anthony Lukas's 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning classic Common Ground, The Fence examines Boston's race relations and the unwritten police code of covering up through the intimate lens of those who experienced the crime directly. By coming to know the officers and criminals brought together that night at the fence and the families whose lives were changed forever as a result we sense how deeply the strains of prejudice run in this city still haunted by tribalism and racial tension.Boston journalist Dick Lehr has written a gritty, captivating true-crime story with unusual depth a chilling exploration of what happens when fear of admitting mistakes combines with a police culture of lying to undermine justice.
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.
Clever Girl
Clever Girl
Kessler, Lauren
¥88.56
Communists vilified her as a raging neurotic. Leftists dismissed her as a confused idealist. Her family pitied her as an exploited lover. Some said she was a traitor, a stooge, a mercenary and a grandstander. To others she was a true American heroine fearless, principled, bold and resolute. Congressional committees loved her. The FBI hailed her as an avenging angel. The Catholics embraced her. But the fact is, more than half a century after she captured the headlines as the "Red Spy Queen," Elizabeth Bentley remains a mystery.New England-born, conservatively raised, and Vassar-educated, Bentley was groomed for a quiet life, a small life, which she explored briefly in the 1920s as a teacher, instructing well-heeled young women on the beauty of Romance languages at an east coast boarding school. But in her mid-twenties, she rejected both past and future and set herself on an entirely new course. In the 1930s she embraced communism and fell in love with an undercover KGB agent who initiated her into the world of espionage. By the time America plunged into WWII, Elizabeth Bentley was directing the operations of the two largest spy rings in America. Eventually, she had eighty people in her secret apparatus, half of them employees of the federal government. Her sources were everywhere: in the departments of Treasury and Commerce, in New Deal agencies, in the top-secret OSS (the precursor to the CIA), on Congressional committees, even in the Oval Office.When she defected in 1945 and told her story first to the FBI and then at a series of public hearings and trials she was catapulted to tabloid fame as the "Red Spy Queen," ushering in, almost single-handedly, the McCarthy Era. She was the government’s star witness, the FBI’s most important informer, and the darling of the Catholic anti-Communist movement. Her disclosures and accusations put a halt to Russian spying for years and helped to set the tone of American postwar political life.But who was sheA smart, independent woman who made her choices freely, right and wrong, and had the strength of character to see them throughOr was she used and manipulated by othersClever Girl is the definitive biography of a conflicted American woman and her controversial legacy. Set against the backdrop of the political drama that defined mid-twentieth century America, it explores the spy case whose explosive domestic and foreign policy repercussions have been debated for decades but not fully revealed until now.
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.
Last Night at the Viper Room
Last Night at the Viper Room
Edwards, Gavin
¥88.56
At the dawn of the 1990s, a new crew of leading men Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage, Keanu Reeves, and Brad Pitt was rocketing toward stardom. River Phoenix, however, stood in front of the pack. But behind Phoenix's talent and beautiful public face was a young man who had been raised in a cult by nonconformist parents, who was burdened with supporting his family from a young age, and who eventually succumbed to addiction, dying of an overdose in front of the Viper Room, West Hollywood's storied club, at twenty-three.Last Night at the Viper Room is part biography, part cultural history of the 1990s, and part celebration of a Hollywood icon gone too soon. Full of interviews from his fellow actors, directors, friends, and family, Last Night at the Viper Room shows the role River Phoenix played in creating the place of the actor in our modern culture and the impact his work still makes today.
The Blitzkrieg Myth
The Blitzkrieg Myth
Mosier, John
¥88.56
A bold reinterpretation of some of the most decisive battles of World War II, showing that the outcomes had less to do with popular new technology than old fashioned, on the ground warfare. The military myths of World War II were based on the assumption that the new technology of the airplane and the tank would cause rapid and massive breakthroughs on the battlefield, or demoralization of the enemy by intensive bombing resulting in destruction, or surrender in a matter of weeks. The two apostles for these new theories were the Englishman J.C.F. Fuller for armoured warfare, and the Italian Emilio Drouhet for airpower. Hitler, Rommel, von Manstein, Montgomery and Patton were all seduced by the breakthrough myth or blitzkrieg as the decisive way to victory. Mosier shows how the Polish campaign in fall 1939 and the fall of France in spring 1940 were not the blitzkrieg victories as proclaimed. He also reinterprets Rommel's North African campaigns, Day and the Normandy campaign, Patton's attempted breakthrough into the Saar and Germany, Montgomery's flawed breakthrough at Arnhem, and Hitler's last desperate breakthrough effort to Antwerp in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. All of these actions saw the clash of the breakthrough theories with the realities of conventional military tactics, and Mosier's novel analysis of these campaigns, the failure of airpower, and the military leaders on both sides, is a challenging reassessment of the military history of World War II. The book includes maps and photos.
The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno
The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno
Bonanno, Bill
¥88.56
Born into a powerful mob family, Salvatore Bill Bonanno was privy to a private world that existed just outside the law for decades in America a world ruled by the tenets of loyalty, secrecy, brotherhood, and survival at any cost: the Mafia.The son of Joe Bonanno the Godfather-like head of one of the original five New york Crime Families Bill Bonanno came of age in the Golden Age of the Mafia. In this fascinating final testament he ushers readers into that cloistered world, from its origins in medieval Sicilian and Italian history to its rise, tumultuous peak, and precipitous fall in America. Told from the inside and complete with rare unpublished photographs of candid moments, major players, rituals, and ceremonies The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno is the ultimate insider's final word on one of the most secretive and misunderstood phenomena of our time.
The Dance of Intimacy
The Dance of Intimacy
Lerner, Harriet
¥88.56
In The Dance of Intimacy, the bestselling author of The Dance of Anger outlines the steps to take so that good relationships can be strengthened and difficult ones can be healed. Taking a careful look at those relationships where intimacy is most challenged--by distance, intensity, or pain--she teaches us about the specific changes we can make to achieve a more solid sense of self and a more intimate connectedness with others. Combining clear advice with vivid case examples, Dr. Lerner offers us the most solid, helpful book on intimate relationships that both women and men may ever encounter.
A Perfect Red
A Perfect Red
Greenfield, Amy Butler
¥88.56
A Perfect Red recounts the colorful history of cochineal, a legendary red dye that was once one of the world's most precious commodities. Treasured by the ancient Mexicans, cochineal was sold in the great Aztec marketplaces, where it attracted the attention of the Spanish conquistadors in 1519. Shipped to Europe, the dye created a sensation, producing the brightest, strongest red the world had ever seen. Soon Spain's cochineal monopoly was worth a fortune. Desperate to find their own sources of the elusive dye, the English, French, Dutch, and other Europeans tried to crack the enigma of cochineal. Did it come from a worm, a berry, a seedCould it be stolen from Mexico and transplanted to their own coloniesPirates, explorers, alchemists, scientists, and spies -- all joined the chase for cochineal, a chase that lasted more than three centuries. A Perfect Red tells their stories -- true-life tales of mystery, empire, and adventure, in pursuit of the most desirable color on earth.
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.
Red and Me
Red and Me
Russell, Bill
¥88.56
Red Auerbach, one of the greatest coaches in sports history, died on October 28, 2006. Bill Russell, the five-time MVP and star center on the Auerbach teams that won eleven championships in thirteen years, said little in public at the time. His relationship with his coach had been so deeply personal that he could not express it with a brief comment.In fact, little known to the public, Auerbach and Russell one a short, brash Jew from Brooklyn, the other a tall, intense African-American from Louisiana and Oakland were far more than just coach and player. Through thirteen years of building a sports dynasty together, one that remains among the greatest of all time, their relationship evolved into a rare, telling example of deep male friendship: confident, supportive, understanding, founded in common goals, even as their feelings remained largely unspoken. They stayed close for the rest of Auerbach's life, despite physical distance and far fewer chances to be together. True male friends are always there for each other, whenever the need or occasion arises. Red and Me is an extraordinary book: an homage to a peerless coach, showing how he produced results unlike any other; an inspiring story of mutual success, in which each man gave his all, and gained back even more; above all, it may be the best depiction of male friendship ever put on the page. Who would have guessed that such different men could have become such a tightly bonded pairFew did guess it. Now Russell tells it.
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.
Breakfast at the Victory
Breakfast at the Victory
Carse, James P.
¥88.56
"This was true mystical vision. This I could never have anticipated. But I knew that we were both on the same galactic journey into the great void that contains us all. I was standing before a boundlessness that could swallow the stars in a heartbeat."--from Breakfast at the Victory
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.
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.
In a Dark Wood
In a Dark Wood
Luzzi, Joseph
¥88.56
When you lose your whole world in a moment, where do you turn?On a cold November morning, Joseph Luzzi, a Dante scholar and professor at Bard College, found himself racing to the hospital his wife, Katherine, eight-and-a-half months pregnant, had been in a horrible car accident. In one terrible instant, Luzzi became both a widower and a first-time father. In the aftermath of unthinkable tragedy, Luzzi relied on the support of his Italian immigrant family, returning to his childhood home to grieve and care for his infant daughter. But it wasn't until he turned to The Divine Comedy a poem he had devoted his life to studying and teaching that he learned how to resurrect his life. Following the same structure as Dante's epic poem, Luzzi is shepherded out of his own "dark wood," passing through the grief-stricken Inferno, the Purgatory of healing, and ultimately stepping into the Paradise of rediscovered love. Beautifully written, poignant, insightful, and unflinchingly honest, In a Dark Wood is a hybrid of heartrending memoir and a meditation on the power of great art to give us strength in our darkest moments. Drawing us into hell and back, it is Dante's journey, Joseph Luzzi's, and our very own.