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Always Wear Joy
Always Wear Joy
Fales-Hill, Susan
¥95.39
From an inside peek at the inner workings of Hollywood to the backstage drama of Broadway, from a poignant look at the black upper class to an honest look at the WASP elite, this elegantly wrought memoir of an extraordinary family has something for everyone.Growing up with a black Auntie Mame-like mother (who performed with the likes of Lena Horne) and an Anglo sea-faring father, Susan Fales-Hill moved seamlessly between many worlds. But it was from her mother -- a woman who was dressed by Givenchy and sculpted by Alexander Calder, yet rejected by many a casting agent for her "dark," unconventional looks -- that Susan drew inspiration, particularly when she faced challenges in her own career as a television writer in Hollywood, a town that wasn't always receptive to positive images of people of color. As a result the two developed a bond that mothers and daughters everywhere will find inspiring. Both a universally touching mother-daughter story and a portrait of a dazzling American family, Always Wear Joy is a memoir readers won't soon forget.
The Secrets of the Storm Vortex
The Secrets of the Storm Vortex
Cameron, Anne
¥95.39
The funny, fast-paced third book in The Lightning Catcher series! Part Storm Chasers and part The 39 Clues, this school adventure story about twelve-year-old Angus McFangus and his dangerous gift for predicting catastrophic weather combines science, weather, and the fantastical.Angus McFangus and his two best friends, Indigo Midnight and Dougal Dewsnap, are starting their second year at the Perilous Exploratorium for Violent Weather and Vicious Storms, where they are being trained to study and, eventually, become lightning catchers and manage the world's most dangerous weather. They have more than lessons on their minds, however—namely, the fate of Angus's parents, who have been kidnapped by the villain Scabious Dankhart. Angus's parents are kept prisoner in Castle Dankhart, where a violent weather explosion has created a "storm vortex" so that no one can tell what is going on inside. It's Angus, Indigo, and Dougal to the rescue. . . . Will they get there in time and all in one pieceAction-packed, lighthearted, and perfect for reluctant readers!
Moonpenny Island
Moonpenny Island
Springstubb, Tricia
¥95.39
Readers of Kate DiCamillo and Sheila Turnage will love Moonpenny Island, a middle grade novel of friendship and secrets by the beloved and acclaimed Tricia Springstubb.Moonpenny is a tiny island in a great lake. When the summer people leave and the ferries stop running, just the tried-and-true islanders are left behind. Flor and her best, her perfect friend, Sylvie, are the only eleven-year-olds for miles and miles—and Flor couldn't be happier. But come the end of summer, unthinkable things begin to happen. Sylvie is suddenly, mysteriously, whisked away to school on the mainland. Flor's mother leaves to take care of Flor's sick grandmother and doesn't come back. Her big sister has a secret, and Flor fears it's a dangerous one.Meanwhile, a geologist and his peculiar daughter arrive to excavate prehistoric trilobites, one of the first creatures to develop sight. Soon Flor is helping them. As her own ability to see her life on this little lump of limestone evolves, she faces truths about those she loves—and about herself—she never imagined.
1356
1356
Cornwell, Bernard
¥95.39
"The most prolific and successful historical novelist in the world today" (Wall Street Journal) has delivered another blockbuster with this thrilling tale of peril and conquest at the Battle of Poitiers.September 1356. All over France, towns are closing their gates. Crops are burning, and through-out the countryside people are on the alert for danger. The English army—led by the heir to the throne, the Black Prince—is set to invade, while the French, along with their Scottish allies, are ready to hunt them down.But what if there was a weapon that could decide the outcome of the imminent war?Thomas of Hookton, known as le Batard, has orders to uncover the lost sword of Saint Peter, a blade with mystical powers said to grant certain victory to whoever possesses her. The French seek the weapon, too, and so Thomas's quest will be thwarted at every turn by battle and betrayal, by promises made and oaths broken. As the outnumbered English army becomes trapped near Poitiers, Thomas, his troop of archers and men-at-arms, his enemies, and the fate of the sword converge in a maelstrom of violence, action, and heroism.Rich with colorful characters, great adventure, and thrilling conflict, 1356 is a magnificent tale of how the quest for a holy relic with the power to change history may culminate in an epic struggle.
The Queen's Necklace
The Queen's Necklace
Edgerton, Teresa
¥95.39
The ensorceled gems that once held all humans in sway now power a hundred small kingdoms, but the monarchy of Mountfalcon is suddenly in dire peril.For the Queen has unwittingly lost the realm-sustaining, jeweled Chaos Machine—a castastrophe that could tear the kingdom apart.Captain of the Queen's Guard, Wilrowan Blackheart has been entrusted with the Machine's recovery—an undertaking that slowly reveals a horrific conspiracy spreading far beyond Mountfalcon's borders, as the deposed Maglore plot to reduce the unsuspecting human world to rubble and flames. But unbeknownst to him, another has also embarked on the same mission:a determined crusader of strength and substance...the only woman Blackheart has ever loved, but can never possess.
Fish Tails
Fish Tails
Tepper, Sheri S.
¥95.39
In her thirty-fifth novel—a majestic epic rich with beauty and wonder—science fiction legend Sheri S. Tepper boldly weaves together the storylines of eleven of her previous works, from King's Blood Four (1983) to The Waters Rising (2010)In Fish Tails, two of Tepper's beloved characters—Abasio the Dyer and his royal wife, Xulai (A Plague of Angels and The Waters Rising)—are traveling through the scattered villages of the sparsely populated land of Tingawa. Accompanied by their young children, they seek to warn everyone of the dire ecological changes that will alter their lives and those of their children for generations to come.The waters are rising, and will eventually inundate their world, transforming it utterly and irrevocably. Many of those born in the coming century will resemble their son and daughter—sea children who can live without land. Abasio and Xulai also hope to find others interested in adopting their sea-dwelling lifestyle.Along their journey they encounter strange visitors from the far-off world of Lom, characters from Tepper's nine-book True Game series of novels—Mavin Manyshaped, Jinian Star-Eye, and Silkhands the healer—all of whom have been compelled by an interfering, time-traveling, rule-breaking do-gooder to perform one last virtuous act on Earth before its metamorphosis is complete.A grand summation of a long and illustrious career, Fish Tails displays the extraordinary powers of invention of one of the great voices in contemporary science fiction, interweaving the storylines of eleven of her novels written over three decades. Sweeping in scope and vision, full of insights for our own time, it is a masterpiece of imagination, the capstone to a marvelous oeuvre.
Girl in a Band
Girl in a Band
Gordon, Kim
¥95.39
For many, Kim Gordon, vocalist, bassist and founding member of Sonic Youth, has always been the epitome of cool. Sonic Youth is one of the most influential and successful bands to emerge from the post-punk New York scene, and their legacy continues to loom large over the landscape of indie rock and American pop culture. Almost as celebrated as the band's defiantly dissonant sound was the marriage between Gordon and her husband, fellow Sonic Youth founder and lead guitarist Thurston Moore. So when Matador Records released a statement in the fall of 2011 announcing that after twenty-seven years the two were splitting, fans were devastated. In the middle of a crazy world, they'd seemed so solid. What did this meanWhat comes nextWhat came before?In Girl in a Band, the famously reserved superstar speaks candidly about her past and the future. From her childhood in the sunbaked suburbs of Southern California, growing up with a mentally ill sibling who often sapped her family of emotional capital, to New York's downtown art and music scene in the eighties and nineties and the birth of a band that would pave the way for acts like Nirvana, as well as help inspire the Riot Grrl generation, here is an edgy and evocative portrait of a life in art. Exploring the artists, musicians, and writers who influenced Gordon, and the relationship that defined her life for so long, Girl in a Band is filled with the sights and sounds of a pre-Internet world and is a deeply personal portrait of a woman who has become an icon.
Starbounders #2: Rebellion
Starbounders #2: Rebellion
Epstein, Adam Jay
¥95.39
Zachary Night and the Starbounders are back, in the sci-fi adventure series Pseudonymous Bosch calls "a great ride and a great read," from Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, authors of the Familiars series.Zachary Night may have saved Earth, but back at Indigo 8, he's still just a Starbounder-in-training. And unlike his fellow trainees, who are having a blast gearing up for the annual Indigo Games, Zachary has more important things on his mind. He has yet to decipher the cryptic warning Professor Olari left him, and it looks like someone is trying to beat him to it.When all the clues start pointing to a larger conspiracy, Zachary and his friends must once again leave Indigo 8 behind and take matters into their own hands. Their investigation will lead them through the far reaches of space, and it will test their friendship, too. And, oh yeah, did they mention the fate of the outerverse hangs in the balance?With the "winning combination of action and humor" (SLJ, starred review) that earned The Familiars an Indie Next List Pick and eight state-award nominations, Starbounders: Rebellion catapults readers out of this world and onto a deep-space journey that's thrilling from beginning to end.
Finding Fish
Finding Fish
Fisher, Antwone Q.
¥95.39
Baby Boy Fisher was raised in institutions from the moment of his birth in prison to a single mother. He ultimately came to live with a foster family, where he endured near-constant verbal and physical abuse. In his mid-teens he escaped and enlisted in the navy, where he became a man of the world, raised by the family he created for himself.Finding Fish shows how, out of this unlikely mix of deprivation and hope, an artist was born -- first as the child who painted the feelings his words dared not speak, then as a poet and storyteller who would eventually become one of Hollywood's most sought-after screenwriters. A tumultuous and ultimately gratifying tale of self-discovery written in Fisher's gritty yet melodic literary voice, Finding Fish is an unforgettable reading experience.
Narcocorrido
Narcocorrido
Wald, Elijah
¥95.39
In the first full-length exploration of the contemporary and controversial Mexican corrido, award-winning author Elijah Wald blends a travel narrative with his search for the roots of this genre -- a modern outlaw music that fuses the sensibilities of medieval ballads with the edgy grit of gangsta rap.From international superstars to rural singers documenting their local current events in the regions dominated by guerilla war, Wald visited these songwriters in their homes, exploring the heartland of the Mexican drug traffic and traveling to urban centers such as Los Angeles and Mexico City. The corrido genre is famous for its hard-bitten songs of drug traffickers and gunfights, and also functions as a sort of musical newspaper, singing of government corruption, the lives of immigrants in the United States, and the battles of the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas. Though largely unknown to English speakers, corridos top the Latin charts and dominate radio playlists both in the United States and points south. Wald provides in-depth looks at the songwriters who have transformed groups like the popular Tigres del Norte into enduring superstars, as well as the younger artists who are carrying the corrido into the twenty-first century. In searching for the poetry and social protest behind the gaudy lyrics of powerful drug lords, Wald shows how popular music can remain the voice of a people, even in this modern world of globalization, electronic media, and gangsters who ship cocaine in 747s.
Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End
Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End
Worth, Jennifer
¥95.39
The last book in the trilogy begun by Jennifer Worth's New York Times bestseller and the basis for the PBS series Call the MidwifeWhen twenty-two-year-old Jennifer Worth, from a comfortable middle-class upbringing, went to work as a midwife in the poorest section of postwar London, she not only delivered hundreds of babies and touched many lives, she also became the neighborhood's most vivid chronicler. Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End is the last book in Worth's memoir trilogy, which the Times Literary Supplement described as "powerful stories with sweet charm and controlled outrage" in the face of dire circumstances.Here, at last, is the full story of Chummy's delightful courtship and wedding. We also meet Megan'mave, identical twins who share a browbeaten husband, and return to Sister Monica Joan, who is in top eccentric form. As in Worth's first two books, Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times and Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse, the vividly portrayed denizens of a postwar East End contend with the trials of extreme poverty unsanitary conditions, hunger, and disease and find surprising ways to thrive in their tightly knit community.A rich portrait of a bygone era of comradeship and midwifery populated by unforgettable characters, Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End will appeal to readers of Frank McCourt, Katherine Boo, and James Herriot, as well as to the fans of the acclaimed PBS show based on the trilogy.
Harvard Rules
Harvard Rules
Bradley, Richard
¥95.39
It is the richest, most influential, most powerful university in the world, but at the beginning of 2001, Harvard was in crisis. Students complained that a Harvard education had grown mediocre. Professors charged that the university cared more about money than about learning. Harvard may have possessed a $19 billion endowment, but had it lost its soul?The members of Harvard's governing board knew that they had to act. And so they made a bold pick for Harvard's twenty-seventh president: former Treasury Secretary and intellectual prodigy economist Lawrence Summers.Although famously brilliant, Summers was a high-stakes gamble. In the 1990s he had crafted American policies to stabilize the global economy, quietly becoming one of the world's most powerful men. But while many admired Summers, his critics called him elitist, imperialist, and arrogant beyond measure.Today Larry Summers sits atop a university in a state of upheaval, unsure of what it stands for and where it is going. At stake is not just the future of Harvard University but also the way in which Harvard students see the world -- and the manner in which they lead it. Written despite the university's official opposition, Harvard Rules uncovers what really goes on behind Harvard's storied walls -- the politics, sex, ambition, infighting, and intrigue that run rampant within the world's most important university.
Come Back
Come Back
Fontaine, Claire
¥95.39
The unflinching true account of a teenage girl's descent into society's underbelly -- and her mother's desperate and ultimately successful attempts to bring her back.How does an honor student at one of Los Angeles's finest prep schools -- a bright, beautiful girl from a loving home -- trade school uniforms and afternoons at the beach for shooting up in the back of a van in rural IndianaHow does her devoted mother emerge from the shock of finding that her daughter has not only disappeared but had been living a secret life for more than a year?Mother and daughter tell their parallel stories in mesmerizing first-person accounts. Claire Fontaine's story is a parent's worst nightmare, a cautionary tale chronicling her daughter Mia's drug-fueled manipulation of everyone around her as she sought refuge in the seedy underworld of criminals and heroin addicts, the painful childhood secrets that led up to it, and the healing that followed. Her search for Mia was brutal for both mother and daughter, a dizzying series of dead ends, incredible coincidences and, at times, miracles. Ultimately, Mia was forced into harsh-but-loving boot camp schools on two continents while Claire entered a painful but life-changing program of her own. Mia's story includes the jarring culture shock of the extreme and controversial behavior modification school she was in for nearly two years, which helped her overcome depression and self-hatred to emerge a powerful young woman with self-esteem and courage. An unforgettable story of love and transformation, Come Back is a heart-wrenching and humorous portrayal of the primal bond between mother and daughter that will resonate with women everywhere.
Against All Odds
Against All Odds
Brown, Scott
¥95.39
The extraordinary personal journey of a man who, against all odds, rose to become one of America’s most surprising and promising new political figures Scott Brown's greatest win did not occur on a cold January election night in 2010 when he came from behind to capture the U.S. Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for nearly fifty years. It began when he survived a savage beating at the drunken, dirty-fingernail hands of a stepfather when he was barely six years old, while trying to protect his mother.In this gripping memoir of resilience and redemption, Brown tells the story of his difficult, often nomadic childhood, shunted from house to apartment, and town to town, seventeen times over his first eighteen years. He somehow thrived despite a largely absent father, who married four separate times. So did his mother, in relationships frequently stained with alcohol, anger, and even violence. For nearly two decades' growing up, Brown endured innumerable hardships and challenges, even stealing food to eat. He was periodically sent off to live with relatives, his possessions wrapped in a few old blankets. Saved by basketball, he was the boy who shoveled snow from the public courts to shoot hoops alone in the frozen cold.With clear-eyed conviction and unflinching can-dor, Brown tells the story of his own bad-boy days, of the coaches who mentored him, and of how he found a way out of familial chaos through the swish of a ball in the net, winning a starting slot on the Tufts varsity basketball team as a freshman player and becoming the tenth-highest scorer to graduate in the school's history. His rise from there was even more improbable: a first-year law student and member of the Massachusetts National Guard, he was picked as Cosmopolitan magazine's "America's Sexiest Man" and was vaulted into the glamorous world of New York modeling at the height of the 1980s. But the man who was once ushered into the backrooms of Studio 54 returned to Massachusetts to continue with his military and legal training, settle down, raise a family, and soon found an unlikely path that would lead him to national political stardom. Here, too, are the secrets from the unprecedented Senate race that captured the country's imagination and how Scott Brown won his remarkable victory.Poignant, heartfelt, humorous, and profound, this is the story of one man's dream and his determination to fight for a better future.
Punch Your Inner Hippie
Punch Your Inner Hippie
Fleming, Frank J.
¥95.39
Finally, a book that takes on the actual root cause of all failure: the hippie inside us all. In this delightfully sarcastic self-help book, Frank J. Fleming reveals that you don't achieve true improvement through slogans or positive thinking; you achieve it only by punching your inner hippie as hard and as often as possible. Fleming helps you understand the enemy inside you and explains that hippies didn't arise just in the '60s but have been ruining civilizations since the dawn of time, as they will do to the United States if they are not stopped. He reveals the symptoms of hippie-ism laziness, dependence, whining, and protesting so you can gauge the strength of your own inner hippie. And, most important, he explains that there is but one way to deal with that annoying loser who keeps each of us from realizing our full potential: a punch right to his stupid face.Do you doubt this is possibleThat's your inner hippie talking. It's time to shut him up.
Nellie Taft
Nellie Taft
Anthony, Carl Sferrazza
¥95.39
On the morning of William Howard Taft's inauguration, Nellie Taft publicly expressed that theirs would be a joint presidency by shattering precedent and demanding that she ride alongside her husband down Pennsylvania Avenue, a tradition previously held for the outgoing president. In an era before Eleanor Roosevelt, this progressive First Lady was an advocate for higher education and partial suffrage for women, and initiated legislation to improve working conditions for federal employees. She smoked, drank, and gambled without regard to societal judgment, and she freely broke racial and class boundaries.Drawing from previously unpublished diaries, a lifetime of love letters between Will and Nellie, and detailed family correspondence and recollections, critically acclaimed presidential family historian Carl Sferrazza Anthony develops a riveting portrait of Nellie Taft as one of the strongest links in the series of women -- from Abigail Adams to Hillary Rodham Clinton -- often critically declared "copresidents."
The American Future
The American Future
Schama, Simon
¥95.39
Acclaimed historian and award-winning author Simon Schama offers an essential historical perspective on the crucial 2008 presidential election and its importance for reclaiming America's original ideal. It's not business as usual. Cultural hostilities more irreconcilable than any since the Civil War have divided America in two. In November 2008, the American people elected a new president, feeling more anxious about the future of the nation than at any time since Watergate. Our omnipotent military, the cornucopia of material comforts available, the security of our borders, and the global economy can no longer be taken for granted.In The American Future, historian Simon Schama takes a long look at the multiple crises besetting the United States and asks how these problems look in the mirror of time. In four crucial debates on wars, religion, race and immigration, and the relationship between natural resources and prosperity Schama looks back to see more clearly into the future. Full of lost insights, The American Future showcases Schama's acclaimed gift for storytelling, ensuring these voices will be heard again.
This Will End in Tears
This Will End in Tears
Houghtaling, Adam Brent
¥95.39
Sad music moves us like nothing else, and despite its gloomy nature it also has the curious power to make us happy. In This Will End in Tears: The Miserabilist Guide to Music, author Adam Brent Houghtaling explains why, while offering up a compendium of history's masters of melancholy and the greatest sad songs of all time, featuring artists across genres and through time from torch songs to country weepers to emo classics. Loaded with recommended playlists and insights into our favorite sob songs, This Will End in Tears is a fascinating immersion into the "miserabilist" genre, a musical marker with increasing resonance.
The Hacienda
The Hacienda
Hook, Peter
¥95.39
The acclaimed and wildly outlandish inside account of England’s most notorious music club, The Hacienda, from Peter Hook, the New York Times bestselling author of Unknown Pleasures and co-founder of Joy Division and New Order—a story of music, gangsters, drugs, and violence, available for the first time in the United States. During the 1980s, The Hacienda would become one of the most famous venues in the history of clubbing—a celebrated cultural watershed alongside Studio 54, CBGBS, and The Whiskey—until its tragic demise. Founded by New Order and Factory Records, The Hacienda hosted gigs by such legendary acts as the Stone Roses, the Smiths, Bauhaus, Grandmaster Flash, Run DMC, Kurtis Blow, and Happy Mondays; gave birth to the “Madchester” scene; became the cathedral for acid house; and laid the tracks for rave culture and today’s electronic dance music. But over the course of its fifteen-year run, “Madchester” descended into “Gunchester” as gangs, drugs, greed, and a hostile police force decimated the dream. Told in Hook’s uproarious and uncompromising voice, The Hacienda is a funny, horrifying, and outlandish story of success, idealism, na?veté, and greed—of an incredible time and place that would change the face and sound of modern music. The Hacienda includes 32 photographs in 16-page four-color insert.
A Voyage For Madmen
A Voyage For Madmen
Nichols, Peter
¥95.39
In 1968, nine sailors set off on the most daring race ever held: to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe nonstop. It was a feat that had never been accomplished and one that would forever change the face of sailing. Ten months later, only one of the nine men would cross the finish line and earn fame, wealth, and glory. For the others, the reward was madness, failure, and death.In this extraordinary book, Peter Nichols chronicles a contest of the individual against the sea, waged at a time before cell phones, satellite dishes, and electronic positioning systems. A Voyage for Madmen is a tale of sailors driven by their own dreams and demons, of horrific storms in the Southern Ocean, and of those riveting moments when a split-second decision means the difference between life and death.
Beautiful Ruins
Beautiful Ruins
Walter, Jess
¥95.39
The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier. What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow. Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.