How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior Hardcover by Laura Kipnis

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

We all relish a good scandal. Why do people feel compelled to act out their tangled psychodramas on the national stage, and why do we so enjoy watching them? The motifs are classic—revenge, betrayal, ambition, madness—though the pitfalls are ones we all negotiate daily. After all, every one of us is a potential scandal in the making: failed self-knowledge and colossal self-deception—the necessary ingredients—are our collective plight. How to Become a Scandal is “an extremely smart, funny, acid, and beautifully written meditation on a scary truth that we all try desperately to ignore” (David Shields, author of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto).

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Two very public downfalls and two very public uproars guide us through the contemporary infernal regions of scandal: the downfall of the lovelorn astronaut, Lisa Nowak, and an unreasonable judge, Sol Wachter, and the uproar set off by Linda Tripp and James Frey. Familiar as they may be, Kipnis (Against Love) freshly illuminates her subjects' plights, while scrutinizing the public delight in their misfortune, wearing her learning so lightly that the reader is easily seduced by her quick wit and her camouflaged erudition. Kipnis ties psychoanalysis and reality TV, detectives and literary critics, talk show hosts and sociologists, along with the scandalizers and the scandalized into a persuasive bundle: Scandals aren't just fiascoes other people get themselves embroiled in while the rest of us go innocently about our business, she argues. e all have crucial roles to play. A deliciously flippant tone serves the reader the juicy details we savor so about scandal, while tossing in some timeless questions and speculations about the deeper meaning of it all ( free will, moral luck, the stranglehold of desire, the difference between right and wrong ) as though they were mere garniture. This is a dead serious book that's an utter lark to read.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The MCSE and MCSE + Internet are the hottest certifications in networking, and all candidates for these certifications must pass two or more elective exams. This guide covers five of the exams: TCP/IP, SQL Server 7, Internet Explorer 4 Administration Kit, Internet Information Server 4, and Exchange 5.5.

Some people think Al Gore is as corrupt as any politician has ever been for preaching one thing but acting out another. His reason transactions -- refusing to sell his share of stock in cable, to an American conservative, to turn around and sell it to oil-based, Israeli-hating-propanda-preaching nations, goes beyond his duty to give everyone a fair 'peace' (or piece, as it were). This Noel Peace Prize Lecture is as valid today as it was in 2007... even more so.

Al Gore was the forty-fifth Vice President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore also served in the U. S. House of Representatives (1977–85) and the U. S. Senate (1985–93), representing Tennessee. Gore was the Democratic nominee for president in the 2000 election.  He has never been held accountable for his crimes.

Independent Film Distribution : How to Make a Successful End Run Around the Big Guys by Phil Hall 2nd Edition

This new updated edition provides a wide range of interviews with filmmakers, distributors, festival programmers, marketing experts, and critics. Independent Film Distribution takes the reader deep into the process of positioning a film for distribution. Unique case studies and exclusive commentary from the top names in independent cinema – including Mark Cuban, Hal Hartley, Bill Plympton, Liz Garbus, and Arthur Dong – help provide a hands-on approach to the subject.

With a quarter-century of experience in the film business, Phil Hall has been recognized for his work as a journalist, publicist, festival programmer, lecturer, and historian. He is the author of five books, including the acclaimed The History of Independent Cinema, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wired Magazine and Film Threat.

A new edition of the popular guide to using and applying the famous spiritual study program A Course in Miracles--from the foremost lecturer and teacher of the course.

Tara Singh was known as a teacher, author, poet and humanitarian. Born in 1919, he spent the early years of his life in a small village in Punjab, India. From this sheltered environment his family then traveled and lived in Europe and Central America. At 22, his search for the truth led him to the Himalayas where he lived for four years as an ascetic. He described this time as his outgrowing of conventional religion, where he discovered “that a mind conditioned by religious or secular beliefs is always limited.”

He subsequently responded to the poverty of India through participation in that country's postwar industrialization and international affairs. He became a close friend of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and other great leaders who helped to frame India’s constitution.

After the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, he came to America to observe the impact of science on society and to learn how technology could benefit a free India. Even though he had less than three years of formal education, he met and associated with key thinkers, leaders and educators in America. Eleanor Roosevelt, Pearl Buck and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas among others, helped introduce Mr. Singh to the West. Living in New York, he served as an executive of C.A.R.E., refusing to accept a salary although he himself was often without funds.

It was during the 1950’s, as he outgrew his involvement with political and economic systems, that he became inspired by his associations with Mr. J. Krishnamurti and the teacher of the Dalai Lama. He discovered that “humanity’s problems cannot be solved externally.”

He became more and more removed from worldly affairs and devoted several years of his life to the study and practice of yoga. The discipline imparted through yoga helped make possible a three-year period of silent retreat in Carmel, California in the early 1970s.

As he emerged from the years of silence in 1976, he came into contact with the contemporary scripture A Course in Miracles. Its impact on him was profound. He recognized it “as an answer to man's urgent need for direct contact with Truth.” There followed a close relationship with its scribe, Dr. Helen Schucman. From then on, the Course was the focal point of his life.

His love of the Course inspired him to share it with thousands of people in workshops and retreats throughout the United States. He recognized and presented the Course as “thoughts of God” and correlated it with the great spiritual teachings and religions of the world.

From Easter 1983 to Easter 1984, he conducted the One Year Non-Commercialized Retreat: A Serious Study of A Course of Miracles. It was an unprecedented, in-depth exploration of the Course. No tuition was charged.

For over 30 years, Tara Singh worked with students on the issues of inner transformation. His work was described as “a call to wisdom” and encompassed the ancient knowledge of the East as well as the ethics of America’s forefathers. In his teaching, he shared his inspiration for the truth he found in all religions and for many great beings who brought light into the world.

He was the author of numerous books, including A Gift For All Mankind, "Love Holds No Grievances," Awakening A Child From Within, The Voice That Precedes Thought, How to Learn from A Course In Miracles, and Moments Outside of Time. He has been featured on many audio and video recordings in which he discusses the action of bringing order into one's life, freeing oneself from past conditioning, and living the principles of A Course In Miracles.

In 1993, Mr. Singh founded the Joseph Plan Foundation, a non-profit educational and charitable foundation dedicated to inspiring individuals and the general public to achieve fulfillment through service.

Known for the wisdom he freely imparted, he is remembered for the virtue of a noble life and the lasting friendship he openly extended to all he met.

The Bible, as we hold it today, is esteemed by many religious institutions and especially Conservative Christians to be the inspired, inerrant Word of God. This doctrinal position affirms that the Bible is unlike all other books or collections of works in that it is free of error due to having been given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). While no other text can claim this same unique authority, the Book of Enoch is an ancient Jewish religious work, ascribed by tradition to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah, which played a crucial role in forming the worldview of the authors of the New Testament, who were not only familiar with it but quoted it in the New Testament, Epistle of Jude, Jude 1:14 15, and is attributed there to "Enoch the Seventh from Adam" (1 En 60:8)

The text was also utilized by the community that originally collected and studied the Dead Sea Scrolls. While some churches today include Enoch as part of the biblical canon (for example the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church), other Christian denominations and scholars accept it only as having historical or theological non-canonical interest and frequently use or assigned it as supplemental materials within academic settings to help students and scholars discover or better understand cultural and historical context of the early Christian Church.

The Book of Enoch provides commentators valuable insight into what many ancient Jews and early Christians believed when, God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets (Heb. 1:1). As Dr. Michael S. Heiser in the Introduction to his important book Reversing Hermon so powerfully notes: For those to whom 1 Enoch sounds unfamiliar, this is the ancient apocalyptic literary work known popularly (but imprecisely) as the Book of Enoch.

Most scholars believe that 1 Enoch was originally written in Aramaic perhaps as early as the 3rd century B.C. The oldest fragments of the book were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and dated to roughly the second century B.C. This places the book squarely in the middle of what scholars call the Second Temple Period (ca. 500 B.C. 70 A.D.), an era more commonly referred to as the Intertestamental Period. This book will use the more academic designation ( Second Temple Period ) [...] The Watcher story of 1 Enoch, as many readers will recall, is an expansion of the episode described in Genesis 6:1-4, where the sons of God (Hebrew: beney ha- elohim) came in to the daughters of man (Gen 6:4; ESV). Consequently, Watchers is the Enochian term of choice (among others) for the divine sons of God. While the story of this supernatural rebellion occupies scant space in Genesis, it received considerable attention during the Second Temple Period [...] The Enochian version of the events of Gen 6:1-4 preserves and transmits the original Mesopotamian context for the first four verses of the flood account. Every element of Gen 6:1-4 has a Mesopotamian counterpoint a theological target that provides the rationale for why these four verses wound up in the inspired text in the first place. Connections to that backstory can be found in the Old Testament, but they are scattered and unsystematically presented. This is not the case with Second Temple Jewish literature like 1 Enoch. Books like 1 Enoch preserve all of the Mesopotamian touchpoints with Gen 6:1-4 when presenting their expanded retelling of the events of that biblical passage. The Book of Enoch is therefore intended to be an important supplemental resource for assisting serious researchers and students in the study of the Bible.

Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech by Craig Silverman  and Jeff Jarvis

We regret the error: it’s a phrase that appears in newspapers almost daily, the standard notice that something went terribly wrong in the reporting, editing, or printing of an article. From Craig Silverman, the proprietor of www.RegretTheError.com, one of the Internet’s most popular media-related websites, comes a collection of funny, shocking, and sometimes disturbing journalistic slip-ups and corrections. On display are all types of media inaccuracy—from “fuzzy math” to “obiticide” (printing the obituary of a person very much alive and well) to complete and utter ethical lapses. While some of the errors can be laugh-out-loud funny, the book contains a sobering journey through the history of media mistakes (including the outrageous hoaxes that dominated newspapers during the circulation wars of the 19th-century) and a serious muckraking investigation of contemporary journalism’s lack of accountability to the public. It shines a spotlight on the media’s carelessness and the sometimes tragic and calamitous consequences of weak or non-existent fact checking. 

From Publishers Weekly

Blogger Silverman is a man obsessed with pointing out the mistakes of others, though he dreams of a world in which he didn't have to. If media outlets printed their own corrections more thoroughly, amending online content appropriately, embracing their mistakes wholeheartedly, he argues, he wouldn't have to collect and publicize them with such devotion. Having founded regrettheerror.com to tally inaccuracies and corrections in the press, Silverman has set out to chronicle and categorize these errors in his first book. The result is a winding journey through the most glaring, damaging and humorous typos, misprints, misidentifications, fuzzy numbers and obiticides in the history of journalism, from the accidental to the malicious. These chapters are chock-full of amusing historical anecdotes, including the story behind the incorrect headline Dewey Defeats Truman, the case of mistaken identity that galvanized Nobel to create his prestigious awards, and the oft-presumed dead but still living Abe Vigoda. Silverman injects plenty of humor, but mostly he is deeply concerned about the science of journalism, and at the heart of this romp is an argument for increased public participation in the news cycle.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

What is the unique and most important feature that distinguishes man from all other living beings?

Why is it that, contrary to the instinct of self-preservation, a parent will throw themselves headlong into fire or water to save their child?

Why do people get married and why do they get divorced? Why do people have extra-marital affairs and why do two people in a couple become jealous of one another? What is Love?

When and why did the type of sex emerge among human beings that is free of any reproductive function?

Why are the social and behavioural distinctions between men and women being rapidly erased?

Why, despite everything, is the world becoming more tolerant than it was in previous centuries?

People are born with different intellectual, spiritual and physical capabilities. So why do we assert that all people are equal?

Can the world without violence exist? If not, under what circumstances and to what kind of violence does man have a right? Wherein lies the origin of this right?

Where is the root of our morality? Why do our moral values change over time? Do absolute moral values exist?

Why has Man, on the whole, never observed (or perhaps is incapable of observing) a set of various religious commandments? Should we observe them? Are they the decree of God?

By which “commandments” do we really live our lives and is it possible to formulate them in such a way that we could realistically observe them?

What is Good? And what is Evil? Is there a simple criterion by which one may distinguish Good from Evil?

In which direction is humanity evolving and is it governed by some universal law?

Is there any meaning to life?

Is it possible to give a clear and straightforward answer to all these questions?

It is, in fact, possible!

“The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer” provides a clear and scientifically elegant answer to all the questions listed above. The answer which will cause the reader to reconsider many established moral principles and notions about the world around us. The answer which will help the reader to understand the nature of human actions, dilemmas, dramas and passions, in their true light. The answer which will elucidate the current stage in the development of human civilisation and offer unexpected predictions for its future.

“The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer” is aimed at a wide audience and does not require any specialised knowledge. The author’s thoughts and reflections are presented here in the form of a fictional conversation with God which unfolds over the course of just two hundred pages. The author (PhD in Physics and Mathematics) gives concise and clearly expressed explanations and evidence for his ideas. He cites abundant examples from the world around us which are drawn from his extensive travels through Russia, America, Europe, Africa and Central Asia.

All this makes for an accessible and enjoyable read.

A Stoner McTavish Mystery

There were dark forces afoot in the sleepy little New Age town of Shelburne Falls, hungry ghosts who had chosen Aunt Hermione as their prey. Stoner McTavish, lesbian travel agent and reluctant detective, her lover Gwen, and her best friend and business partner Marylou, must stop them before it's too late. But who are they? What do they want, and why? And how do you stop an enemy you can't even find? Stoner embarks on a journey that forces her to face her worst fears. And they just might come true.

Sarah Dreher is the author of the well-loved Stoner McTavish Mystery Series as well as many award winning plays. She attended Wellesley College and went on to earn a PH.D. in clinical psychology from Purdue University.
At the age of 17, she was threatened with expulsion from Wellesley College for “being too fond of other girls.” In an interview, Sarah reveals,

“I was accused of being a lesbian, though I wasn’t ‘out’ at the time,” she recalls. “I felt like killing myself. One of the rules of being gay in the 1950’s was that you should hate yourself. It took me 15 years to get over it; it took the women’s movement really, to get me past it.”

Sarah’s play “Alumnae News” parallels this experience in her life. As in all of her work, the poignancy and bristling energy are leavened by humor, and by the author’s empathy with her characters.
Sarah passed away to writer’s heaven at her home on April 2nd, 2012, just one week after celebrating her 75th birthday.

It began four million years ago when a gleaming black monolith cast its shadow on the stark African savanna *an inexplicable apparition that ignited the spark of human consciousness, transforming ape into man.

It continued at the dawn of the 21st century when an identical black monolith was excavated on the moon *propelling Dave Bowman and his deputy Frank Poole on a mission to Jupiter that ended in the mutiny of the supercomputer HAL. 

Only Dave Bowman would survive to encounter a third, and far more massive monolith on Jupiter's moon Europa *and be forever transformed into the star child.

It is the world of 2001: A Space Odyssey. And now, the odyssey enters its perilous ultimate stage. In 3001, the human race, incredibly, has survived, yet lives in baffled fear of the trio of monoliths that dominate the solar system--until a ray of light beams forth from a totally unexpected source. The body of Frank Poole, believed dead for a thousand years, is recovered from the frozen reaches of the galaxy, restored to conscious life, and readied to resume the voyage that HAL abruptly terminated a thousand years back. He knows he cannot proceed until he reestablishes contact with Dave Bowman. But first he must fathom the terrifying truth of what Bowman *and HAL *have become inside the monolith.

In 3001: The Final Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke brings the greatest and most successful science fiction series of all time to its magnificent, stunningly unforeseen conclusion. As we hurtle toward the new millennium in real time, Clarke brilliantly, daringly leaps one thousand years into the future to reveal a truth we are only now capable of comprehending. An epic masterpiece at once dazzlingly imaginative and grounded in scientific actuality, 3001 is a story that only Arthur C. Clarke could tell.

Be ready the next time the spotlight is on you!

She’s interviewed “glamazons,” watched stars shine (Sharon Stone in a Gap T-shirt at the Oscars) and bomb (Jennifer Aniston in dreadlocks, Cher in an Egyptian headdress), and witnessed many a celebrity rise to the top only to come crashing down a mere year later. And she’s both reveled in kudos and despaired over criticism of herself.

As the daughter of Joan Rivers and with years of face time with the Hollywood elite, Melissa has learned far more than your average person about what it takes to be a star—not just on the red carpet, but in life. For the first time, she shares the lessons she’s learned along the way and teaches you how to embrace your big moments, be it a graduation, a first date, a job interview, a prom, or a wedding. 

Pulling from inspirational and humorous tales from her probing chats with red-carpet royalty and episodes in her own life, she lays out nine essential rules to seize momentous times with graciousness, fun, preparedness, confidence—and, of course, drop-dead gorgeous style that flatters you. (Hint: It’s not always the top designer brand that’ll scream stardom.) The walk down the red carpet, as Rivers so colorfully relates, can teach us all some basic but essential lessons in fashion and in life.

With miles of red carpet under her belt, Melissa Rivers has seen it all, from the biggest oops! moments to those unforgettable times when a star truly did shine. She knows exactly what it takes to be a star—both on the red carpet and in life.

Based on her insider knowledge and her personal experience under Hollywood’s glare, Melissa shares tips and techniques for embracing your momentous times and being at your best when the focus is on you, including:

•  The simple trick to being the hit of every party

•  How to escape from a date that’s become a train wreck

•  The celebrity secret to looking radiant, rain or shine

•  A success strategy that beats pure talent every time

•  The one rule about people even the superstars are afraid to break

•  How to apologize or run into your ex and keep your cool

Acclaimed in five prior editions, this text covers all of the standard topics for any introductory logic course in neatly-packaged capsules of learning. Known for its concise, direct style emphasizing clarity, Hurley avoids the peculiar quirks, technicalities, and wordiness of other texts. The material is integrated in such a way that elements fit together as in a puzzle so students can assemble a broad picture of the subject. Visual aids and color are used to reinforce key points and concepts. Additionally, key terms are boldfaced, hundreds of examples serve to illustrate ideas, and more than 2000 carefully selected exercises sharpen student understanding and skill. The adept presentation of the subject matter leads to mastery, even by students with poorer academic preparation.

Patrick Hurley was born in Spokane, Washington in 1942. He received his bachelor's degree in mathematics (with a Physics minor) from Gonzaga University in 1964 and his Ph.D. in philosophy of science with an emphasis in history of philosophy from Saint Louis University in 1973. In 1972 he began teaching at the University of San Diego, where his courses have included logic, philosophy of science, metaphysics, process philosophy, and legal ethics. In 1987 he received his J.D. from the University of San Diego and he is currently a member of the California Bar Association. He retired from teaching in 2008, but continues his research and writing. His interests include music, art, opera, environmental issues, fishing, and skiing.

A challenging, clear-eyed, and authoritative history of American conservatism and its grave effect on our country's foreign policy

In this compelling and sometimes alarming analysis, J. Peter Scoblic, executive editor of The New Republic, traces the history of American foreign policy and how it has evolved from the Cold War conservatism of the 1950s to today. The belligerence, intransigence, and disinclination for diplomacy that mars the right wing once brought us to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. More recently it has failed to meet the post-9/11 challenges posed by Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Scoblic argues forcefully that the only way to face these new threats practically and seriously is by adopting an approach exactly opposite to that suggested by conservatism. By diagnosing the origins of Bush's foreign policy, U.S. vs. Them illuminates the path to renewed American leadership in the twenty-first century as the most serious danger ever faced looms before us: nuclear terrorism.

Martha Heydrich lives in a very big, very expensive house in Waldorf Pines, a very rich, very gated community west of Philadelphia. She drives a flashy pink sports car, joins all the local commitees, sticks her nose in everyone's business―and gets on everyone's nerves. She is also, it is rumored, to be having an affair with a local teenager. The very same teenager who is discovered one night―by Martha's husband―floating dead in the community pool…

Besides blood in the water, there's a fire in the pool house―and another corpse. The police assume the charred remains belong to Martha Heydrich, since she's nowhere to be found. But when DNA tests reveal it isn't Martha at all, but an unknown man, they turn to ex-FBI agent Gregor Demarkian to get to the bottom of it. The killer could be a jealous husband, runaway wife, or psychotic neighbor. But whoever is guilty, Demarkian wants to make sure their next gated community is a maximum security prison…

Black Beauty is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate best-seller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, but long enough to see her only novel become a success. With fifty million copies sold, Black Beauty is one of the best-selling books of all time. While forthrightly teaching animal welfare, it also teaches how to treat people with kindness, sympathy, and respect. Black Beauty became a forerunner to the pony book genre of children's literature. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 58 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.

Who's Your City?  How the Creative Economy is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life by Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class

It’s a mantra of the age of globalization that where we live doesn’t matter. We can innovate just as easily from a ski chalet in Aspen or a beachhouse in Provence as in the office of a Silicon Valley startup.

According to Richard Florida, this is wrong. Globalization is not flattening the world; in fact, place is increasingly relevant to the global economy and our individual lives. Where we live determines the jobs and careers we have access to, the people we meet, and the “mating markets” in which we participate. And everything we think we know about cities and their economic roles is up for grabs.

Who’s Your City? offers the first available city rankings by life-stage, rating the best places for singles, families, and empty-nesters to reside. Florida’s insights and data provide an essential guide for the more than 40 million Americans who move each year, illuminating everything from what those choices mean for our everyday lives to how we should go about making them.

Author of the bestselling The Rise of the Creative Class and Who's Your City? Richard Florida is a regular columnist for The Atlantic. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and other publications. His multiple awards and accolades include the Harvard Business Review's Breakthrough Idea of the Year. He was named one of Esquire magazine's Best and Brightest (2005) and one of BusinessWeek's Voices of Innovation (2006). He lives in Toronto, Canada.

A Vindication of Love by Cristina Nehring
Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-First Century

"A fierce and lively book. . . .This is one of those rare books that could make people think about their intimate lives in a new way." — New York Times Book Review

“A rousing defense of imprudent ardor and romantic excess. . . . It’s difficult to deny that [Nehring] is on to something.” — Wall Street Journal

A thinking person’s “guide” that makes the case for love in an age both cynical about and fearful of strong passion. Bold and challenging, A Vindication of Love has inspired praise and controversy, and brilliantly reinvigorated the romance debate. A perfect choice for readers of Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life and Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.

From Publishers Weekly

Nehring's opening assertion that she argues by provocation and aims to anger reveals the rhetorical nature of her argument that our tepid age needs a return to true Eros. Just what she advocates is unclear, since her examples range from the chaste passion of Emily Dickinson through the frenzied sexuality of Edna St. Vincent Millay to the open relationship of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Nehring does regret the collateral damage of this last pairing (a couple of cases of insanity and one suicide among their other lovers) and acknowledges that most of her case studies demonstrate excesses not to be emulated. That reduces her call for boldness in love to familiar clichés: absence makes the heart grow fonder; play hard to get; and defy social conventions in love (what is more of a postmodern cliché than advocating transgression?). Nehring, who has written for Harper's and the Atlantic among others, is a keen, empathic reader of literary texts, drawing attention to undervalued love writings like the letters of Horace Walpole and Madame du Deffand, and offering an astute reading of Dickinson's much-debated Master letters.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In this riveting, ultra-realistic novel from J.L. Bourne, a man struggles to survive after the US infrastructure collapses and martial law engulfs the streets of America.

In the not-too-distant future, during an unacknowledged mission inside the Syrian border, a government operative unwittingly triggers an incredible event that alters the course of society. A terrible weapon has been unleashed—a weapon that, left to run its course, will destroy the moral fabric of humanity.

In the midst of crisis, the population struggles to survive in a world short on vital resources. Inflation cripples the US economy and post-war armored military vehicles patrol the streets.

One man stands up to push back the overwhelming wave of tyranny triggered by the onset of nationwide martial law. How can he possibly succeed against a high tech and tyrannical enemy that is hell-bent on ripping liberty from the pages of future history?

From the author and military expert who brought readers the riveting horror series Day by Day Armageddon, Tomorrow War is a compelling account of an alternate dystopian America located just down the tracks of oblivion.

From the Author

This is not a novel about zombies, or at least undead zombies. For that tale, please point your e-readers or feet to my Day by Day Armageddon series. Although we are not overrun by real living dead (yet), some experts say the world economy may be on the brink of collapse. In a few moments, I hope you will embark on a journey down a similar dark road, one that wholly diverges from rosy predictions, gushing mainstream optimism, and suspicious government economic statistics.

What if this complex yet fragile socioeconomic system were to tumble uncontrollably like an animal on a frozen pond? Consider the Eurozone turmoil, the recent NYSE and United Airlines "glitches" and the frequent long periods of artificially frozen national debt. Complex systems cannot be controlled or even predicted; first world nations' leaders only perform in a political theater of public deception; someone is at the helm and everything will be fine, just be a good citizen or subject and go back to your favorite sitcom, football team, or reality TV program.

At the time of this novel, elected leaders are calling for abolition of our debt ceiling, draconian gun control, the use of armed drones in the skies above us, banning history, and are openly engaging in warrantless NSA pilfering of our private e-mails, text messages, persons, and effects. Where might this dangerous road lead? Has it ever been about your safety and security? The thought crime ahead goes beyond the paradigm of right, left, Democrat, or Republican, the outdated behavioral placement control mechanisms, forcing us to choose between two heads of the same serpent.

Slay the beast, get this book, and choose liberty.

J.L. Bourne
Pensacola, Florida 

J.L. Bourne is a commissioned military officer and acclaimed author of the horror/Sci-Fi series DAY BY DAY ARMAGEDDON (Simon & Schuster), and dystopian thriller, TOMORROW WAR (Simon & Schuster). With twenty years of active military and intelligence community service behind him, J.L. brands a realistic and unique style of fiction. He currently resides in Florida.

I wish this brief book be carried forward to many, some of whom may see in it a gift of the observation that it is the Soul that has come into life using a body for its experiences.  How wonderfully different that is than what most believe, should they have even an inkling about it all. -- Hume Cronyn, channeled

It is an honor to have been asked by Hume Cronyn to bring his words through a channel and into print.  In my case, amazingly, it was all done in the month of November 2008 while sitting in my car at a beach park in Southern California with an iPod that can be used as a recorder.  I asked Hume to join me, and he and I became directly connected on a number of different days, as you will see.  Hence, the substance of this book.  It has been left as I heard it....almost verbatim.

This book is a work of the imagination in the sense that I am conveying to my readers the messages that were given to me by the spirit of Hume Cronyn. -- the author

"Few of the countless real-life stories of workplace discrimination suffered by men and women every day are ever told publicly. This book boldly and eloquently rights that wrong, going where no plaintiff testimony could ever dare because these stories are often too raw, honest, ambiguous, and nuanced to be told in court or reported in a newspaper."―from the Foreword by Liza Featherstone

Telling Stories out of Court reaches readers on both an intellectual and an emotional level, helping them to think about, feel, and share the experiences of women who have faced sexism and discrimination at work. It focuses on how the federal courts interpreted Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Offering insights that law texts alone cannot, the short stories collected here―all but two written for this volume―help readers concentrate on the emotional content of the experience with less emphasis on the particulars of the law. 

Grouped into thematic parts titled "In Their Proper Place," "Unfair Treatment," "Sexual Harassment," and "Hidden Obstacles," the narratives are combined with interpretive commentary and legal analysis that anchor the book by revealing the impact this revolutionary law had on women in the workplace.At the same time, the stories succeed on their own terms as compelling works of fiction, from "LaKeesha's Job Interview," in which a woman's ambition to move from welfare to work faces an ironic obstacle, to "Plato, Again," in which a woman undergoing treatment for cancer finds her career crumble under her, to "Vacation Days," which takes the reader inside the daily routine of a nanny who works at the whim of her employer.

The classic anime Wicked City is based on a series of novels by master horror writer Hideyuki Kikuchi. Tor/Seven Seas is pleased to present these novels to the North American audience for the first time, featuring cover art by Christian McGrath (The Dresden Files).

The Black Guard, whose job it is to protect the boundary between our mortal world and the demonic Dark World, has succeeded in preserving the tenuous peace treaty between the two worlds, averting an all-out war. Now a new threat from the Dark World terrorizes humanity, a monster that invades people's dreams and causes them to commit murder.

Black Guard agents Taki, a hardboiled human, and his sexy demon partner, Makie, must work alongside legendary Black Guard agent Miyuki if they are to defeat the creature and save the world.

Like author Hideyuki Kikuchi's well-known and critically-acclaimed Vampire Hunter D novels (Dark Horse), Wicked City is an epic ten-volume tale of supernatural horror and high-octane action.

When George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion more than a half century ago, no one could have predicted his play would eventually be converted into one of the great musicals of our time -- My Fair Lady -- and an Academy Award³-winning motion picture. Generations of readers and theatergoers have found relevance in Shaw's story of speech therapist Henry Higgins, who successfully transforms Liza Doolittle, a "draggle-tailed guttersnipe," into a darling of high society who momentarily upsets his hard-edged reserve. The extraordinary wit of this master dramatist of the twentieth century cuts away at the artificiality of class distinctions to reveal that human clay can be molded into wondrous shapes.

Washington Square Press' Enriched Classics present the great works of world literature enhanced for the contemporary reader. This edition of Pygmalion includes the analysis of Eric Bentley from his book Bernard Shaw. Essential biographical and historical background is provided, together with notes, critical excerpts, and suggestions for further reading. A unique visual essay of period illustrations and photographs helps bring the play to life.

Haunted by mysterious images of hooded figures, Magdalen Lorne, chief Terran operative on Darkover, pursues a quest not only to the frozen ends of the physical world but also to the perilous limits of the spiritual world. And there she is tested by the evil sorcery of the Dark Sisterhood.

Marion Zimmer was born in Albany, NY, on June 3, 1930, and married Robert Alden Bradley in 1949. Mrs. Bradley received her B.A. in 1964 from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, then did graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1965-67.

She was a science fiction/fantasy fan from her middle teens, and made her first sale as an adjunct to an amateur fiction contest in Fantastic/Amazing Stories in 1949. She had written as long as she could remember, but wrote only for school magazines and fanzines until 1952, when she sold her first professional short story to Vortex Science Fiction. She wrote everything from science fiction to Gothics, but is probably best known for her Darkover novels.

In addition to her novels, Mrs. Bradley edited many magazines, amateur and professional, including Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, which she started in 1988. She also edited an annual anthology called Sword and Sorceress for DAW Books.

Over the years she turned more to fantasy; The House Between the Worlds, although a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club, was "fantasy undiluted". She wrote a novel of the women in the Arthurian legends -- Morgan Le Fay, the Lady of the Lake, and others -- entitled Mists of Avalon, which made the NY Times best seller list both in hardcover and trade paperback, and she also wrote The Firebrand, a novel about the women of the Trojan War. Her historical fantasy novels, The Forest House,Lady of Avalon, Mists of Avalon are prequels to Priestess of Avalon

She died in Berkeley, California on September 25, 1999, four days after suffering a major heart attack. She was survived by her brother, Leslie Zimmer; her sons, David Bradley and Patrick Breen; her daughter, Moira Stern; and her grandchildren.

Murder in Italy: The Shocking Slaying of a British Student, the Accused American Girl, and an International Scandal by Candace Dempsey - Mass Market Paperback True Crime USED

MURDER IN ITALY (Penguin/Berkley Books) is the true story of fresh-faced Amanda Knox, the American college student convicted of killing her beautiful British roommate in an Umbrian hilltop town.  

Did Amanda stab Meredith Kercher to death during a marijuana-fueled "sex game gone wrong," as the prosecution claimed? Or could she be innocent?

*Get the real story behind the tabloid headlines and secrets that weren't revealed in court.

This is Eat, Pray, Love gone horribly wrong. Under the Tuscan Sun on the dark side.

John Grisham couldn't invent this plot or cast of characters:

Two lovely young women adore Italy and go there to study.

Only a few months into their Italian dream adventure, one roommate is stabbed to death; the other is sentenced to 26 years for that killing. The prosecutor claims Amanda killed Meredith during a drug-fueled orgy assisted by Knox's rich Italian boyfriend and a drifter she barely knew.

So who killed Meredith Kercher? How did Amanda Knox become the prime suspect? Was justice done?  

Based in Seattle, Knox's hometown, the award-winning, Italian-American journalist Candace Dempsey unravels the mystery, drawing upon trial transcripts, autopsy photos, crime scene videos, prison diaries, Facebook pages and interviews with the key players for the prosecution and the defense in Perugia, Italy, where she flew often to cover the events up close.

Dempsey covered this sensational case from the very beginning on her true crime blog, hosted by seattle pi.com, featured on Newsweek.com and CNN Anderson Cooper 360, and read around the world.

From the publisher:
The true story behind the notorious international murder

In Perugia, Italy, on November 2, 2007, police discovered the body of a British college student stabbed to death in her bedroom. The prosecutor alleged that the brutal murder had occurred during a drug-fueled sex game gone wrong. Her housemate, American honor student Amanda Knox, quickly became the prime suspect and soon found herself the star of a sensational international story, both vilified and eroticized by the tabloids and the Internet.

Award-winning Italian-American journalist Candace Dempsey gives readers a front-row seat at the trial and reveals the real story behind the media frenzy.

In Candice Dow's witty, romantic new novel, a woman whose young husband dies unexpectedly comes up with the perfect plan to find a new man, and learns that writing her own happy ending comes with a few surprises . . . Fatima Mayo had it all-a gorgeous, loving husband; a creative job as a romance editor; and a fabulous home in New York City. But when her husband died suddenly of a heart attack, her life lost its luster. Now after three years of widowhood, she's decided to plunge back into the dating pool. But dating services are enough to put any woman off men forever. Her friend Mya jokingly suggests that Fatima will only find the perfect guy if she writes a script and hires an actor to play the role, and suddenly Fatima has the perfect idea. She will write a script-and Mya, a casting director, will find the ideal leading man. Good-looking, intelligent, and talented, Rashad Watkins's acting career is going nowhere. The money Fatima offers is good-but he realizes immediately that the companionship the sexy young widow offers is even better. What he feels for Fatima is the real thing. But now he has to prove he's not just acting . . .

Candice Dow is a native of Baltimore, MD and graduate of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Johns Hopkins University. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a Software Engineer. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Rho Xi Omega Chapter in Baltimore. Candice is a frequent traveler and loves to analyze love, life, and relationships, and seeks to expose the answers in works of fiction. 

Parable of the Sower is a dystopian classic of terror and hope-the story of an African American teenage girl trying to survive in an all-too-real future-from the "grand dame" of science fiction, Octavia E. Butler.

When unattended environmental and economic crises lead to social chaos, not even gated communities are safe. In a night of fire and death, Lauren Olamina, an empath and the daughter of a minister, loses her family and home and ventures out into the unprotected American landscape. But what begins as a flight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny...and the birth of a new faith, as Lauren becomes a prophet carrying the hope of a new world and a revoltionary idea christened "Earthseed".

Chilling and thought-provoking for adult and young adult readers alike, "...there isn't a page in this vivid and frightening story that fails to grip the reader" (San Jose Mercury News).

The Patternist novels details a secret history continuing from the Ancient Egyptian period to the far future that involves telepathic mind control and an extraterrestrial plague.

Octavia E. Butler was the first black woman to come to international prominence as a science fiction writer. Incorporating powerful, spare language and rich, well-developed characters, her work tackled race, gender, religion, poverty, power, politics, and science in a way that touched readers of all backgrounds. Butler was a towering figure in life and in her art and the world noticed; highly acclaimed by reviewers, she received numerous awards, including a MacArthur "genius" grant, both the Hugo and Nebula awards, the Langston Hughes Medal, as well as a PEN Lifetime Achievement award.

"Prepare to fall in love with Binti." ―Neil Gaiman

Winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novella!

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.

If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself ― but first she has to make it there, alive.

PRAISE FOR BINTI

"Binti is a supreme read about a sexy, edgy Afropolitan in space! It's a wondrous combination of extra-terrestrial adventure and age-old African diplomacy. Unforgettable!" ― Wanuri Kahiu, award-winning Kenyan film director of Punzi and From a Whisper

An award-winning literary author enters the world of magical realism with her World Fantasy Award-winning novel of a remarkable woman in post-apocalyptic Africa.

In a post-apocalyptic Africa, the world has changed in many ways; yet in one region genocide between tribes still bloodies the land. A woman who has survived the annihilation of her village and a terrible rape by an enemy general wanders into the desert, hoping to die. Instead, she gives birth to an angry baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand. Gripped by the certainty that her daughter is different—special—she names her Onyesonwu, which means "Who fears death?" in an ancient language.

It doesn't take long for Onye to understand that she is physically and socially marked by the circumstances of her conception. She is Ewu—a child of rape who is expected to live a life of violence, a half-breed rejected by her community. But Onye is not the average Ewu. Even as a child, she manifests the beginnings of a remarkable and unique magic. As she grows, so do her abilities, and during an inadvertent visit to the spirit realm, she learns something terrifying: someone powerful is trying to kill her.

Desperate to elude her would-be murderer and to understand her own nature, she embarks on a journey in which she grapples with nature, tradition, history, true love, and the spiritual mysteries of her culture, and ultimately learns why she was given the name she bears: Who Fears Death.

"She's a powerful writer with an imagination that most of us would kill for. I have read everything she has written and am in awe of her many gifts. And her protagonists are unforgettable--formidable haunted women drawn with an almost unbearable honesty." --Junot Diaz

BROWN GIRL IN THE RING

The rich and privileged have fled the city, barricaded it behind roadblocks, and left it to crumble. The inner city has had to rediscover old ways--farming, barter, herb lore. But now the monied need a harvest of bodies, and so they prey upon the helpless of the streets. With nowhere to turn, a young woman must open herself to ancient truths, eternal powers, and the tragic mystery surrounding her mother and grandmother.

She must bargain with gods, and give birth to new legends.

For over a decade, Marty Venker went wherever the President went, his eyes moving all the time, his body bristling with lethal energy and alertness. In this funny, candid behind-the-scenes look at life with some of the world's most powerful men and women--Nixon, Ford, Carter, Imelda Marcos, and others--Venker reveals how the Secret Service scopes out a crowd, and more.

Russell's Guide to Interdimensional Entities lifts the veil of darkness surrounding the Strange Beings that exist unseen all around us. Revealed are their True Forms in a scientific manner that is accompanied by beautifully detailed images, a concise taxonomy, vivid descriptions, and witness observations. Prepare yourself to see what lurks just beyond your consciousness.