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万本电子书0元读

A Book Without Photographs
A Book Without Photographs
Sergei Shargunov
¥90.03
Sergei Shargunov’s A Book Without Photographs follows the young journalist and activist through selected snapshots from different periods of his remarkable life. Through memories both sharp and vague, we see scenes from Shargunov’s Soviet childhood, his upbringing in the family of a priest; his experience of growing up during the fall of empire and studying journalism at Moscow State University; his trip to war-torn Chechnya and Kyrgyzstan during the revolution; his first steps towards a fledgling political career. The book reflects the vast social and cultural transformations that colour Russia's recent history and mirrors the experience of an entire generation of Russians whose lives and feelings are inextricably intertwined with the fate of their homeland. Shortlisted for the National Bestseller Prize and a contender for The Big Book Award, A Book Without Photographs showcases the talents of one of the country’s brightest lights; a key player in a generation at the forefront of change in contemporary Russia.
The Shining Light
The Shining Light
Galymkair Mutanov
¥90.03
Poetry has always been in the Kazakh blood, and Galym Mutanov is one of the newly independent nation’s leading poets, a shining light in the Kazakh literary world. In the range of his poetry, Mutanov truly captures the essence of the Kazakh spirit – from the tough and ageless traditions of the wild steppe to moments of tender intimacy. The measured Islamic wisdom and deep sense of morality so intrinsic to Kazakh life of old shines through in verse after verse. The figure of Abai, the 19th century visionary, the deeply spiritual poet of the steppe, looms large over Kazakh poetry. Mutanov takes up the challenge that Abai threw down – to create verse that is both steeped in the Kazakh tradition of oral verse yet rises to a new clarity and spirituality relevant today. Mutanov wrote originally in Kazakh, but many Kazakhs speak only Russian. So his poems were translated into Russian by leading poets Vladimir Buryazev and M. Adibaeva. It is these Russian versions that provided the source for John Farndon’s translations with Olga Nakston for this collection. Galym Mutanov is not only a poet but something of a polymath. He is a hugely distinguished academic, with over 400 scientific papers to his credit, and currently rector of al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Alma-Ata. In 2013, his achievements were recognized in France by the award of a Chevalier L'Ordre des Palmes académiques.
Conversations before Silence: The selected poetry of Oles Ilchenko
Conversations before Silence: The selected poetry of Oles Ilchenko
Oles Ilchenko
¥90.03
An avid reader of English-language poets such as William Carlos Williams and Stanley Kunitz, Ilchenko is one of the best Ukrainian poets writing in free verse today. His poetry is associative, flitting, and fragmentary. At times he does not form complete sentences in his poems and links words together into phrases before shifting into another thought or idea. The language of his poetry has a tendency to collapse into itself, often forcing the reader to reevaluate a word or line, to reread a previous word to focus on the poet’s inner logic. This fragmentary incompleteness and permeability mimics much the way human consciousness works without the filter of the written communicative convention of sentences and grammatical structure. This “slipperiness” and rapid shifting of voice comprises one of the essential invariants in Ilchenko’s poetics. The poet also flaunts many traditional poetic Ukrainian conventions. Like ee cummings he tends to avoid capital letters or punctuation such as exclamation points. One will find only commas and dashes for pauses, and an occasional period in his poems, which do not always end with the finality of that punctuation mark. In doing this, the poet often suggests a fragment or slice of his life broken off on the page and to be continued at some point in time. He is a fascinating poet whose idiom and unique manner of expression translates seamlessly into the poetics of contemporary English.
Die Verwandlung
Die Verwandlung
Franz Kafka
¥88.94
Die Verwandlung
Anatomy of a Ponzi, Scams Past and Present
Anatomy of a Ponzi, Scams Past and Present
Colleen Cross
¥88.77
Anatomy of a Ponzi, Scams Past and Present
The Flying Dutchman
The Flying Dutchman
Anatoly Kudryavitsky
¥88.70
Some time in the 1970s, Konstantin Alpheyev, a well-known Russian musicologist, finds himself in trouble with the KGB, the Russian secret police, after the death of his girlfriend, for which one of their officers may have been responsible. He has to flee from the city and to go into hiding. He rents an old house located on the bank of a big Russian river, and lives there like a recluse observing nature and working on his new book about Wagner. The house, a part of an old barge, undergoes strange metamorphoses rebuilding itself as a medieval schooner, and Alpheyev begins to identify himself with the Flying?Dutchman. Meanwhile, the police locate his new whereabouts and put him under surveillance. A chain of strange events in the nearby village makes the police officer contact the KGB, and the latter figure out who the new tenant of the old house actually is.?
Death of the Snake Catcher
Death of the Snake Catcher
Ak Welsapar
¥88.70
This book features people from one of the most closed countries of today's world, where the passage of time resembles the passage of a caravan through the waterless desert. This world has been recreated by a true-born son of that mysterious country, a Turkmen who, at the will of fate, has now??been living for a quarter of a century in snowy Scandinavia. Is that not why two different worlds come together in?Ryazan horseradish and Tula gingerbread,?to come apart in?Love in Lilac,?in which a student from the non-free world falls in love with a girl from the West? In the story?Death of the Snake Catcher,?an old snake catcher meets one on one with a giant cobra in the heart of the desert. In the dialogue between them the author unveils the age-old interdependence of Man and untamed nature, where the fear and mistrust of the strong and the hopes and apprehensions of the weak change places but co-exist as ever.??Egyptian night of fear,?in which a boy goes to an Eastern bazaar and falls into the clutches of depraved forces, is created in the writer's characteristic style of magical realism, while the novella?Altynai?celebrates first love, radiant and sad, pure as virgin snow. Now mythical, now lyrical, Welsapar's characters face life's injustice with a surprising optimism and fortitude. The intense Asiatic colour not only of nature but of human feelings and relationships, is expressed by the author in striking, expressive language making the reader unable to close the book until the last page.
Hard Times
Hard Times
Ostap Vyshnia
¥88.70
A brilliant satirist, Ostap Vyshnia (1889-1956) sent up the shortcomings of Soviet life and bureaucracy in the 1920s. He was famous in Ukraine almost exclusively for his feuilletons, and achieved enormous popularity in this genre in the 1920s, especially among the peasant population. Called by many the father of contemporary Ukrainian satire, he became the most-read author after Taras Shevchenko. Many village and town cooperatives, schools and farms were spontaneously named in his honour. Over two million copies of his books were sold by 1930. This second revised and expanded edition is introduced by Professor Maxim Tarnawsky (University of Toronto).
Homesick
Homesick
Ward, Sela
¥88.62
The vibrant and beloved star of Once and Again and Sisters offers a story about her journey home to recapture the magic of youth in the deep South for her children and to make peace with the death of her mother.?At a time when much of America is yearning to recapture the spirit and feelings of a more innocent era, comes the paperback edition of this exceptional book, from one of our most beloved actresses: a story of one woman's journey to reconnect with the landscape of her childhood. Though best known today as the star of the television series Once Again and Sisters, Sela Ward considers herself first and foremost a small-town girl. The eldest of four children, she was raised by a father who helped her believe in herself, and by a mother who taught her a sense of the importance of virtues like self-respect, grace, and sacrifice. In her hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, within a tightly-knit community of neighbors and kin, Sela learned ways that would remain with her throughout life humble virtues that were forged in the hearth of a loving home.Long after she had established herself as a successful model and Emmy Award winning actress, Sela started her own family, and found herself pining for the comforts of her small-town childhood. In an effort to balance her children's West Coast upbringing with a taste of a more natural way of life, she and her husband built a second home on a farm in Meridian, Mississippi so that her family could retreat there several times each year.Even as Sela was reconnecting with the rhythms of home, though, her world was rocked by a crisis the family had long anticipated but never quite prepared for the death of her mother. As her family gathered around her mama's bedside, Sela's simple journey home became something far deeper: a turning point in her own life, as she pondered her mother's complicated legacy, and came to terms with just what it was she herself was searching for.Filled with warmth, storytelling, and laughter, Homesick is a book to treasure: an exploration of the lessons we carry away with us from childhood, and a celebration of the bittersweet legacy of home.
Believing Is Seeing
Believing Is Seeing
Jones, Diana Wynne
¥88.62
Believing is seeing, as the title of this outstanding collection of fantasies proclaims. And "reading is seeing more than you've ever imagined when in the masterful hands of acclaimed author Diana Wynne Jones. Here are seven tales—seven doorways to bizarre, yet strangely familiar worlds—to transport one and all. In these worlds are a child born to an ordered society but preordained to spread Dissolution . . . a girl who so loves the sun that she renounces her humanity for eternity . . . a cat and a boy, held captive by an evil magician until they can find a bigger magic of their own . . . a woman imprisoned in a strange country dominated by three ravenous wolves . . . and many other characters and stories just as exceptional. These richly drawn, razor-sharp stories showcase the skills and sheer narrative power of one of the most esteemed fantasy writers of our time.
Losing a Parent
Losing a Parent
Kennedy, Alexandra
¥88.62
Kennedy shares her own story of facing the loss of a parent and offers innovative strategies for healing and transformation.
Confessions Of An Ugly Stepsister
Confessions Of An Ugly Stepsister
Maguire, Gregory
¥88.62
Is this new land a place where magics really happen?From Gregory Maguire, the acclaimed author of Wicked, comes his much-anticipated second novel, a brilliant and provocative retelling of the timeless Cinderella tale.In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings.... When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for human beings to turn into rats....We all have heard the story of Cinderella, the beautiful child cast out to slave among the ashes. But what of her stepsisters, the homely pair exiled into ignominy by the fame of their lovely siblingWhat fate befell those untouched by beauty . . . and what curses accompanied Cinderella's exquisite looks?Extreme beauty is an afflictionSet against the rich backdrop of seventeenth-century Holland, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister tells the story of Iris, an unlikely heroine who finds herself swept from the lowly streets of Haarlem to a strange world of wealth, artifice, and ambition. Iris's path quickly becomes intertwined with that of Clara, the mysterious and unnaturally beautiful girl destined to become her sister.Clara was the prettiest child, but was her life the prettiest tale?While Clara retreats to the cinders of the family hearth, burning all memories of her past, Iris seeks out the shadowy secrets of her new household--and the treacherous truth of her former life.God and Satan snarling at each other like dogs.... Imps and fairy godmotbers trying to undo each other's work. How we try to pin the world between opposite extremes!Far more than a mere fairy-tale, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is a novel of beauty and betrayal, illusion and understanding, reminding us that deception can be unearthed--and love unveiled--in the most unexpected of places.
ADHD Does not Exist
ADHD Does not Exist
Saul, Richard
¥88.56
A radical new response to a widely misunderstood conditionWe are witnessing a global epidemic of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. Millions are suffering from attention issues, while millions more are reliant on stimulant medication to perform at school and at work. Despite decades of advancements in neuroscience, the definition of ADHD has remained essentially unchanged since its introduction in 1980, and its prevalence in the population has skyrocketed.In this controversial and landmark work, Dr. Richard Saul draws from five decades as a practicing physician and researcher in the field to contend that the definition of ADHD as we know it is completely wrong. Instead, he argues that the "disorder" is a cluster of symptoms stemming from more than twenty other conditions, each requiring separate treatment. The detailed list ranges from mild problems like poor eyesight, sleep deprivation, and even boredom in the classroom, to more severe conditions like depression and bipolar disorder.Through the lens of history and into the present day, Dr. Saul examines "ADHD," exploring the rising cultural and medical trends that have birthed the stimulant epidemic. Both comprehensive and illuminative, ADHD Does Not Exist is essential reading for doctors, practitioners, educators, and individuals who are seeking an honest approach to understanding and treating this complex condition.
Neverisms
Neverisms
Grothe, Mardy
¥88.56
"Never let 'em see you sweat." "Never change diapers in mid-stream." "Never let a crisis go to waste." "Never ruin an apology with an excuse." "Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died." When we strongly encourage people to do something, it's called an exhortation. But what is the proper term for strongly discouraging peopleOne candidate is admonition. Another is dehortation, the opposite of exhortation. But perhaps the best term for an emphatic piece of dissuasive advice is neverism. You won't find the term in any dictionary (at least not yet) because quotation anthologist Dr. Mardy Grothe coined it himself for this collection of nearly two thousand quotable cautionary warnings. With the whimsical and witty intermixed with the serious and profound, contributors range from Aesop and Marcus Aurelius to John Wayne and Mae West. Grothe also tells the fascinating "back stories" of scores of classic quotations as well as the history of hundreds more that have never before appeared in a quotation anthology. Organized by topics such as Wit & Wordplay, Politics & Government, Sports, Stage & Screen, and The Literary Life, this is a book about quotations as well as a book of them. Neverisms is sure to delight quotation lovers and language aficionados everywhere.
Instant Mom
Instant Mom
Vardalos, Nia
¥88.56
For the first time, Nia Vardalos, writer and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, tells her hilarious and heartfelt bumpy-road-to-parenting story that eventually leads to her meeting an almost-three-year old girl who she knows instantly is her daughter.Vardalos chronicles it all with her signature wit and candor but also weaves in delicious behind-the-scenes Hollywood stories on the making of her films from working with Tom Hanks to meeting Oprah to having dinner with the Queen of England.In Instant Mom, Vardalos writes how moments after she finds out she has been nominated for an Academy Award, she is alone and en route to a fertility clinic, trying yet again for a chance at motherhood, wondering how long she can continue. When she finally adopts her daughter via American Foster Care, Vardalos reveals what really came next how, with only fourteen hours' notice, she and her husband transitioned their preschool aged daughter into their home. The Appendix includes information on how to adopt from all over the world. Vardalos will donate proceeds from the book sales to charities.In her memoir, Instant Mom, Vardalos reveals how she broke into the movie industry, became a working screenwriter and actress . . . and finally became a mom. Instantly.
Miss Jessie's
Miss Jessie's
Branch, Miko
¥88.56
Miss Jessie's is a memoir and business guide rich with inspirational life lessons and unique business advice from Miko Branch, the Chief Executive Officer of the dynamic Miss Jessie's the company that revolutionized the hair-care industry.When Miko and her sister, Titi, were children, their grandmother Miss Jessie taught them independence and showed them the value of being "do it yourself" women, all while whipping up homemade hair concoctions at her kitchen table. As a co-founder of Miss Jessie's, Miko reveals how she and Titi applied their grandmother's lessons to create a successful business from scratch. Miss Jessie's chronicles the Branch sisters' remarkable story. When they were children, their stern father encouraged them to become self-reliant and not to depend on their looks to get ahead. Taking this message to heart, they blossomed into business owners and leaders in their field, using ingenuity and without borrowing a dime. They soaked up the entrepreneurial and creative culture of the early hip-hop era on the streets of Brooklyn in the late 1990s, and in the high-end salons of Manhattan. They blended these inspirations to establish a business that has gone from their kitchen table to the shelves of major retailers around the globe, revolutionizing the hair-care industry. A charming and enlightening look at the women behind the brand, Miss Jessie's is chock-full of entertaining stories and invaluable instruction that can be applied to any business: an authentic expression that the American Dream is possible.
The Underground Is Massive
The Underground Is Massive
Matos, Michaelangelo
¥88.56
What started as an underground party business—run and dominated by youths and hustlers—grew into the music business's greatest and biggest success. The Underground Is Massive is the first-ever big-picture history of the American electronic dance music underground, viewed through the lens of nineteen parties over thirty years—from the black, gay underground clubs of Chicago and Detroit's elite teen-party scene through nineties "electronica" to today's EDM-festival juggernaut, the book takes in the rise of the Internet and Burning Man, 9/11, and the collapse of the record business—and vividly charts why and how it took nearly three decades after electronic dance music became a global youth soundtrack for it to hit big in the land that birthed it. Through unparalleled insider access to anecdotes, interviews, and history, Michaelangelo Matos demystifies how what once belonged to a devoted audience of casual partiers and diehard dancers has become America's soundtrack of choice and changed the music industry completely. Matos expertly tackles the vast diversity of EDM's musical landscape, its technologically prophetic yet illicit origins, and the path by which underground raves grew into fiercely successful music festivals. Taking in legendary artists from Frankie Knuckles to Moby as well as the biggest names in EDM—Diplo, Skrillex, Deadmau5, David Guetta, Ti?sto, and Daft Punk—Matos's deep mix of sources and wide-lens overview of the culture make every chapter a page-turning revelation.
Machines of Loving Grace
Machines of Loving Grace
Markoff, John
¥88.56
Robots are poised to transform today's society as completely as the Internet did twenty years ago. Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times science writer John Markoff argues that we must decide to design ourselves into our future, or risk being excluded from it altogether.In the past decade, Google introduced us to driverless cars; Apple debuted Siri, a personal assistant that we keep in our pockets; and an Internet of Things connected the smaller tasks of everyday life to the farthest reaches of the Web. Robots have become an integral part of society on the battlefield and the road; in business, education, and health care. Cheap sensors and powerful computers will ensure that in the coming years, these robots will act on their own. This new era offers the promise of immensely powerful machines, but it also reframes a question first raised more than half a century ago, when the intelligent machine was born. Will we control these systems, or will they control us?In Machines of Loving Grace, John Markoff offers a sweeping history of the complicated and evolving relationship between humans and computers. In recent years, the pace of technological change has accelerated dramatically, posing an ethical quandary. If humans delegate decisions to machines, who will be responsible for the consequencesAs Markoff chronicles the history of automation, from the birth of the artificial intelligence and intelligence augmentation communities in the 1950s and 1960s, to the modern-day brain trusts at Google and Apple in Silicon Valley, and on to the expanding robotics economy around Boston, he traces the different ways developers have addressed this fundamental problem and urges them to carefully consider the consequences of their work. We are on the brink of the next stage of the computer revolution, Markoff argues, and robots will profoundly transform modern life. Yet it remains for us to determine whether this new world will be a utopia. Moreover, it is now incumbent upon the designers of these robots to draw a bright line between what is human and what is machine.After nearly forty years covering the tech industry, Markoff offers an unmatched perspective on the most drastic technology-driven societal shifts since the introduction of the Internet. Machines of Loving Grace draws on an extensive array of research and interviews to present an eye-opening history of one of the most pressing questions of our time, and urges us to remember that we still have the opportunity to design ourselves into the future before it's too late.
All Joy and No Fun
All Joy and No Fun
Senior, Jennifer
¥88.56
Thousands of books have examined the effects of parents on their children. But almost none have thought to ask: What are the effects of children on their parentsIn All Joy and No Fun, award-winning journalist Jennifer Senior tries to tackle this question, isolating and analyzing the many ways in which children reshape their parents' lives, whether it's their marriages, their jobs, their habits, their hobbies, their friendships, or their internal senses of self. She argues that changes in the last half century have radically altered the roles of today's mothers and fathers, making their mandates at once more complex and far less clear. Recruiting from a wide variety of sources in history, sociology, economics, psychology, philosophy, and anthropology she dissects both the timeless strains of parenting and the ones that are brand new, and then brings her research to life in the homes of ordinary parents around the country. The result is an unforgettable series of family portraits, starting with parents of young children and progressing to parents of teens. Through lively and accessible storytelling, Senior follows these mothers and fathers as they wrestle with some of parenthood's deepest vexations and luxuriate in some of its fi nest rewards.Meticulously researched yet imbued with emotional intelligence, All Joy and No Fun makes us reconsider some of our culture's most basic beliefs about parenthood, all while illuminating the profound ways children deepen and add purpose to our lives. By focusing on parenthood, rather than parenting, the book is original and essential reading for mothers and fathers of today and tomorrow.
My Name Is Love
My Name Is Love
Love, Darlene
¥88.56
Featured in the film Twenty Feet From Stardom, the woman whose voice the New York Times said is as embedded in the history of rock 'n' roll as Eric Clapton's guitar and Bob Dylan's lyrics tells her story Right out of high school, Darlene Love began singing lead vocals for legendary producer Phil Spector, cutting such classic hits as the number one He's a Rebel, Da Doo Ron Ron, and He's Sure the Boy I Love. As part of the girl group the Blossoms, she held a regular spot on television's Shindig!, and with Bob B. Soxx the Blue Jeans she toured the country.Later, she sang backup and collected numerous scintillating backstage stories with, among others, Dionne Warwick, the Mamas and the Papas, and Sonny and Cher. Now in My Name Is Love, Darlene is ready to tell her tales about Elvis coming on to her backstage during his famous '68 Comeback Special, about wild parties she witnessed at Tom Jones's house, and about her love affair with Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers. She also recalls how she found herself cleaning houses in Beverly Hills, heard herself on the radio, and vowed to make a comeback. That comeback has included roles in all of the Lethal Weapon movies, starring roles on Broadway, and headlining concert appearances worldwide.A dishy, behind-the-scenes showbiz memoir, My Name Is Love is also the inspiring story of a woman who refused to give up.
How to Survive the Titanic
How to Survive the Titanic
Wilson, Frances
¥88.56
A brilliantly original and gripping new look at the sinking of the Titanic through the prism of the life and lost honor of J. Bruce Ismay, the ship's owner Books have been written and films have been made, we have raised the Titanic and watched her go down again on numerous occasions, but out of the wreckage Frances Wilson spins a new epic: when the ship hit the iceberg on April 14, 1912, and one thousand men, lighting their last cigarettes, prepared to die, J. Bruce Ismay, the ship's owner and inheritor of the White Star fortune, jumped into a lifeboat filled with women and children and rowed away to safety. Accused of cowardice and of dictating the Titanic's excessive speed, Ismay became, according to one headline, The Most Talked-of Man in the World.The first victim of a press hate campaign, he never recovered from the damage to his reputation, and while the other survivors pieced together their accounts of the night, Ismay never spoke of his beloved ship again. In the Titanic's mail room was a manu* by that great narrator of the sea, Joseph Conrad, the story of a man who impulsively betrays a code of honor and lives on under the strain of intolerable guilt. But it was Conrad's great novel Lord Jim, in which a sailor abandons a sinking ship, leaving behind hundreds of passengers in his charge, that uncannily predicted Ismay's fate. Conrad, the only major novelist to write about the Titanic, knew more than anyone what ships do to men, and it is with the help of his wisdom that Wilson unravels the reasons behind Ismay's jump and the afterlives of his actions.Using never-before-seen letters written by Ismay to the beautiful Marion Thayer, a first-class passenger with whom he had fallen in love during the voyage, Frances Wilson explores Ismay's desperate need to tell his story, to make sense of the horror of it all, and to find a way of living with the consciousness of lost honor. For those who survived the Titanic, the world was never the same. But as Wilson superbly demonstrates, we all have our own Titanics, and we all need to find ways of surviving them.