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The Last Phoenix
The Last Phoenix
Herman, Richard
¥55.31
America is caught in the lethal center of an unwinnable two-front war -- in this gripping and explosive thriller from the master of geopolitical intrigue . . . The war on terrorism has borne bitter fruit, as the radical Islamic states forge an unholy alliance with a surging China, aiming for total control of the Middle East's vast oil reserves and the strategic Strait of Malacca. As a new axis of world power simultaneously launches a devastating double-pronged conflict -- one a depleted American military cannot possibly win -- President Maddy Turner, the first woman ever to occupy the Oval Office, must react swiftly to a global crisis of world-altering proportions. And so she turns to the only man she can trust in the brutal snake pit of Beltway politics: Brigadier General Matt Pontowski. A brilliant flyer and military tactician, and the intimate confidant of the most powerful woman on Earth, he must now undertake a mission at once bold and extraordinary -- and potentially suicidal -- as a desperate nation confronts Armageddon, and its leader approaches what will be either her finest hour . . . or her most tragic mistake.
Affirmative Advocacy
Affirmative Advocacy
Dara Z. Strolovitch
¥247.21
The United States boasts scores of organizations that offer crucial representation for groups that are marginalized in national politics, from women to racial minorities to the poor. Here, in the first systematic study of these organizations, Dara Z. Strolovitch explores the challenges and opportunities they face in the new millennium, as waning legal discrimination coincides with increasing political and economic inequalities within the populations they represent. Drawing on rich new data from a survey of 286 organizations and interviews with forty officials, Strolovitch finds that?groups too often prioritize the interests of their most advantaged members: male rather than female racial minorities, for example, or affluent rather than poor women. But Strolovitch also finds that many organizations try to remedy this inequity, and she concludes by distilling their best practices into a set of principles that she calls affirmative advocacy-a form of representation that aims to overcome the entrenched but often subtle biases against people at the intersection of more than one marginalized group. Intelligently combining political theory with sophisticated empirical methods, Affirmative Advocacy will be required reading for students and scholars of American politics.
Bewitching Development
Bewitching Development
James Howard Smith
¥211.90
These days, development inspires scant trust in the West. For critics who condemn centralized efforts to plan African societies as latter day imperialism,?such plans?too closely reflect their roots in colonial rule and neoliberal economics. But proponents of this pessimistic view often ignore how significant this concept has become for Africans themselves. In Bewitching Development, James Howard Smith presents a close ethnographic account of how people in the Taita Hills of Kenya have appropriated and made sense of development thought and practice, focusing on the complex ways that development connects with changing understandings of witchcraft.Similar to magic, development's promise of a better world elicits both hope and suspicion from Wataita. Smith shows that the unforeseen changes wrought by development-greater wealth for some, dashed hopes for many more-foster moral debates that Taita people express in occult terms. By carefully chronicling the beliefs and actions of this diverse community-from frustrated youths to nostalgic seniors, duplicitous preachers to thought-provoking witch doctors-BewitchingDevelopment vividly depicts the social life of formerly foreign ideas and practices in postcolonial Africa.
The Last War
The Last War
Menendez, Ana
¥85.05
A breathtaking novel of love, war, and betrayalFlash, a photojournalist, chases conflicts around the globe with her war correspondent husband, Brando. Now Brando is in Iraq, awaiting her arrival. Yet instead of racing to join him, Flash idles in Istanbul, vaguely aware that her marriage is faltering.Losing herself in a fog of memory and recrimination, Flash ponders her life with the ambitious and handsome husband she calls "Wonderboy." Her malaise is compounded by the arrival of a mysterious letter informing her that Brando has been unfaithful to her in Baghdad. Devastated and unwilling to confront him over the phone, Flash spirals deeper into regret, anger, and indecision. Were she and Brando ever happy?Wandering the strange, shimmering streets of Istanbul, Flash is followed by a woman in a black abaya—Alexandra, a fierce and captivating colleague who shared dangerous days with the couple in Afghanistan. Their meeting rekindles long-buried secrets and forces Flash to face hard truths about her marriage, her husband, and herself. The Last War is a haunting and intense novel that reveals the personal costs of combat journalism while probing crucial questions of cruelty and violence, love and identity.
The Best Girl
The Best Girl
Harrison, Emma
¥33.18
You Are Cordially Invited . . . to your brother's wedding where he will marry rich, famous Marni Shay, at the River Lodge, the most elite resort in Colorado, the state you chose to go to college in so you could escape your family, except they'll all be there. Enjoy ten fun-filled days of avoiding your mother, who still thinks you're not girly enough; planning your brother's bachelor party, because you are his best man, er, girl; and, oh yeah, trying not to drool all over Hot Connor, who happens to be in your English seminar and work at the River Lodge. Put your best foot forward, and . . . Don't miss the most joyous celebration of the year!Yeah, right.
Politics
Politics
Thirlwell, Adam
¥84.16
Politics is about: a) a threesome; b) politicsMoshe loves Nana. But love can be difficult -- especially if you want to be kind. And Moshe and Nana want to be kind to someone else.They want to be kind to their best friend, Anjali. Politics explores crucial problems of sexual etiquette. What should the sleeping arrangements be in a ménage-à-troisIs it polite to read while two people have sex beside youIs it permissible to be jealous?
Celeste Ascending
Celeste Ascending
Jones, Kaylie
¥79.38
In this splendid novel, Celeste finds herself engaged to Alex, a wealthy man whose standards are as exacting as her own -- or so she thought. As she begins to question their relationship and herself, Celeste is haunted by painful memories: of her past in well-heeled, blue-blooded Connecticut; of the friends and family who seem to have disappeared from her life; and of Nathan, for whom Celeste still carries a lingering passion. At last coming to terms with the lies and illusions that have propelled her forward for years, Celeste must take responsibility for the choices she has made. She decides to be true to herself -- and so challenges her fiancé, her family, and the very society in which she's steeped.
I'll Never Be Long Gone
I'll Never Be Long Gone
Greene, Thomas Christopher
¥90.77
The lives of brothers Charlie and Owen Bender are changed forever on the night their father walks into the Vermont woods with a death wish and a shotgun. The second shock comes when his suicide note bequeaths the family's restaurant to Charlie alone, while leaving Owen with instructions to follow his own path, wherever it may take him.Years later, the restaurant is a success. The void in Charlie's life, created by his beloved brother's absence, is finally filled when a passionate affair becomes a deeply satisfying marriage. And now prodigal son Owen is returning home, to be welcomed back into the family fold. But the cruel legacy that tore a brotherhood apart created wounds not easily healed . . . and there must be reckoning.
Important Things That Don't Matter
Important Things That Don't Matter
Amsden, David
¥79.38
So Dad's around lately. That's it. And I want to tell you things, throw fragments your way that I barely understand. Because it's just funny, flat out, the way someone you don't even know can get up in your face, tweak things that should be so ordinary. Or I think it's funny. Maybe you will too. Hailed by The New Yorker as "a fictional report from the strip-mall front lines of Generation Y," Important Things That Don't Matter is a provocative, moving, darkly funny portrait of family and divorce, a boy and his father, the eighties and nineties, and sex and intimacy that raises vital questions about a generation just now reaching adulthood.
Open All Night
Open All Night
Bukowski, Charles
¥101.00
These 189 posthumously published new poems take us deeper into the raw, wild vein of Bukowski's that extends from the early 1980s up to the time of his death in 1994.
Use Me
Use Me
Schappell, Elissa
¥83.92
The exquisitely artful fiction debut of Vanity Fair columnist Elissa Schappell is a novel told in ten stories that resonate with the most profound experiences in the life of a young woman -- friendship and rivalry, the love for a man, the birth of a child, and the death of a father.
Cabaret
Cabaret
Prior, Lily
¥90.73
struggling mortician in working-class Rome, Freda only married her repulsive ventriloquist husband, Alberto, because it was prophesied that she'd do so. Now that he's vanished mysteriously along with his equally abhorrent dummy (who Freda suspects is actually a midget), she'd like them both to stay missing -- though she's devastated by the simultaneous disappearance of her soul mate, Pierino, her beloved talking parrot. While the police investigate this series of possible crimes, Freda will continue embalming by day, unleashing her caged passions at night in a seedy cabaret (until a tragic fire leaves the proprietor with a tuba stuck on his head), trying to make do with a talking hamster in lieu of dear Pierino . . . and recalling the vagaries of life that led her to this unfortunate juncture.
Bullyville
Bullyville
Prose, Francine
¥56.08
My father was killed on 9/11.When eighth grader Bart Rangely is granted a "mercy" scholarship to an elite private school after his father is killed in the North Tower, doors should have opened. Instead, he is terrorized and bullied by his own mentor. So begins the worst year of his life.
Black Water Rising
Black Water Rising
Locke, Attica
¥83.92
Writing in the tradition of Dennis Lehane and Greg Iles, Attica Locke, a powerful new voice in American fiction, delivers a brilliant debut thriller that readers will not soon forget.Jay Porter is hardly the lawyer he set out to be. His most promising client is a low-rent call girl and he runs his fledgling law practice out of a dingy strip mall. But he's long since made peace with not living the American Dream and carefully tucked away his darkest sins: the guns, the FBI file, the trial that nearly destroyed him. Houston, Texas, 1981. It is here that Jay believes he can make a fresh start. That is, until the night in a boat out on the bayou when he impulsively saves a woman from drowning—and opens a Pandora's box. Her secrets put Jay in danger, ensnaring him in a murder investigation that could cost him his practice, his family, and even his life. But before he can get to the bottom of a tangled mystery that reaches into the upper echelons of Houston's corporate power brokers, Jay must confront the demons of his past.With pacing that captures the reader from the first scene through an exhilarating climax, Black Water Rising marks the arrival of an electrifying new talent.
Angel with Two Faces
Angel with Two Faces
Upson, Nicola
¥77.49
Exhausted and disillusioned with the world of theater in May 1935, Josephine Tey has traveled to Cornwall to spend the summer with her friends the Motleys at their run-down but beautiful country estate. Ready to begin work on her second mystery novel, Tey finds much to inspire her in the landscape and its legends. Meanwhile, the Motleys have become involved in an amateur production at the nearby Minack Theater.Detective Inspector Archie Penrose has returned to his roots in Cornwall to attend the funeral of a family friend, a young estate worker who died in a tragic riding accident. Penrose has a few questions about the circumstances surrounding the fatal occurrence. And when the Minack Theater proves to be the stage for a real-life tragedy, Penrose and Tey together must investigate an audacious murder and confront an evil suggesting that there are darker things than death.
Good Things I Wish You
Good Things I Wish You
Ansay, A. Manette
¥78.55
The acclaimed author of Vinegar Hill returns with a story of two unlikely romances—one historical, the other modern-day—separated by thousands of miles and well over a century. Battling feelings of loss and apathy in the wake of a painful divorce, novelist Jeanette struggles to complete a book about the long-term relationship between Clara Schumann, a celebrated pianist and the wife of the composer Robert Schumann, and her husband's protégé, the handsome young composer Johannes Brahms. Although this legendary love triangle has been studied exhaustively, Jeanette—herself a gifted pianist—wonders about the enduring nature of Clara and Johannes's lifelong attachment. Were they just "best friends," as both steadfastly claimedOr was the relationship complicated by desires that may or may not have been consummatedThrough a chance encounter, Jeanette meets Hart, a mysterious, worldly entrepreneur who is a native of Clara's birthplace, Leipzig, Germany. Hart's casual help with translations quickly blossoms into something more. There are things about men and women, he insists, that do not change. The two embark on a whirlwind emotional journey that leads Jeanette across Germany and Switzerland to a crossroads similar to that faced by Clara Schumann—also a mother, also an artist—more than a century earlier. Accompanied by photographs, sketches, and notes from past and present, A. Manette Ansay's original blend of fiction and history captures the timeless nature of love and friendship between women and men.
Big City, Bad Blood
Big City, Bad Blood
Chercover, Sean
¥55.31
A disillusioned newspaper reporter turned private detective, Ray Dudgeon isn't trying to save the world. He just wants to do an honest job, and do it well. But when doing an honest job threatens society's most powerful and corrupt, Ray's odds for survival make for a sucker's bet. . . .While working on a movie in Chicago, Hollywood locations manager Bob Loniski saw something he shouldn't have. Now he's a prosecution witness against a suspected member of the Chicago Outfit. Petrified, he comes to Ray for protection. Ray's mob contacts insist that they have no interest in Loniski, so he takes the bodyguard gig.Then people start dying and everything goes to hell.Ray's investigation leads to a stash of blackmail files involving the sex trade, Washington political corruption, and a deadly power struggle among Chicago's organized crime bosses—setting the FBI, the Chicago police, and the mob on his tail. He now holds evidence against top-ranking cops and politicians . . . but with the line between good and bad blurring, he doesn't know who he can trust.If he does the right thing, Ray is sure to die. But if he doesn't, how can he live with himself?From the back alleys of Chicago to the man-sions of Beverly Hills to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., Sean Chercover's Big City, Bad Blood propels readers relentlessly forward on a bullet-fast, adrenaline-pumping ride they will not soon forget.
The Scoreless Thai
The Scoreless Thai
Block, Lawrence
¥56.07
Evan Tanner can't sleep. Ever. Which gives him plenty of free time to get involved in lots of interesting endeavors in all sorts of exotic locales.Now Tanner's in Thailand with a partially baked plan and a butterfly net, hoping to snare a beautiful missing chanteuse who's metamorphosed into an international jewel thief. Tanner hopes everyone will buy his disguise as a rare butterfly researcher. And everyone does . . .Except the guerilla band holding him captive. They intend to remove his head when the sun rises, so Tanner must put his fate in the hands of a randy Thai youth who will do anything for a woman, even set a suspected spy free. Soon they're running through the jungle together, chased by bandits, soldiers, and yellow fever, and racing headlong into the heart of darkness—and into the flames of war.
After River
After River
Milner, Donna
¥83.03
He will change their lives forever. . . . At fifteen, Natalie Ward believes her life is perfect. Growing up on a dairy farm in the mountains of British Columbia less than two miles from the American border, she knows little of the outside world. But she knows family. A family so close and loving that they are the envy of the nearby town of Atwood. Friends and neighbors, young and old alike, show up regularly on their farmhouse porch—all willing to share in the never-ending daily chores in exchange for a place at the Ward family table. Natalie cherishes her position as the only daughter of the beautiful Nettie Ward—the pride of the Catholic Ladies Auxiliary—and the town's milkman, Gus Ward—the darling of Atwood housewives. She adores her three brothers, especially the eldest, Boyer, whom she idolizes with a childlike worship. Like her mother, Natalie believes their lives are blessed, as rich and as sweet as the fresh milk that is their livelihood.Everything changes one hot July afternoon in 1966 when a long-haired stranger walks up the winding dirt road to their door. The arrival of this soft-spoken American, a Vietnam War resister, will test the morals and beliefs of the Ward family and their close-knit community. The catastrophic events that are set in motion will leave relationships shattered and Natalie separated from the family she loves in ways that she could never have imagined.Thirty-five years later, Natalie receives a late-night phone call from her now-estranged brother Boyer. Their mother is dying. Torn between the love of her mother and the fear of the past, Natalie returns to the town she has spent her entire adult life avoiding. As she travels back to her childhood home she steels herself against the bittersweet memories of that summer day in 1966 and the tragedy that followed. But before Natalie can find redemption, she must confront the secrets and horrors of a past she has desperately tried to forget.
House of Lords
House of Lords
Rosenberg, Philip
¥52.63
Jeffrey Blaine is a good man, a wealthy and powerful Wall Street broker with impeccable social standing. But his wife—who supports charitable foundations from their Park Avenue townhouse—seems to have lost interest in their marriage, and his daughter, a beautiful debutante ready for Yale University in the fall, has turned sullen and rebellious. Having achieved everything he'd ever dreamed of, Blaine now feels unsettled, stagnant, hungry for a new challenge—a challenge that presents itself suddenly in the person of Chet Fiore, an ambitious entrepreneur rumored to be tied to organized crime. When Blaine rebukes Fiore's offer to participate in an illegal business proposition, he discovers that the mafia lieutenant has laid an elaborate trap to ensure Blaine's cooperation: the abduction of his beloved daughter. To ensure her safe return, Blaine is forced now to become a partner in a money laundering scheme of immense proportions. But once the transaction is completed, Blaine is a changed man, unexpectedly empowered by Fiore's demands, a man ready to shed his staid past for the urgency and risk of a life of crime; and so they form an alliance that forever changes the lives of both men, leading to the demise of one and the corruption of the other.House of Lords is a riveting investigation of power and corruption—part human drama, part thriller—that has the potential both to be a critically acclaimed portrait of our age.
Flirting with Boys
Flirting with Boys
Abbott, Hailey
¥49.79
How to Run a Resort: Make ure employees arrive on time with a positive attitude. (check)Remember that the customer is always ight. (check)Keep your boyfriend and your most valuable guest from trying to kill each other. (oops)Celeste Tippen can't imagine a more perfect summer. Her boyfriend, Travis, has a job at her family's resort, which means lots of quality couple time. Unfortunately, she forgot about Nick Saunders, the hot son of the resort's wealthiest customers. Every year, Nick flirts with Celeste, and apparently this year is no different, despite the boyfriend who's watching their every move. She assures Travis that hanging out with the resident bad boy is the last thing she wants to do. If only she believed that herself. . . .