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The Charm School
Brief Summary
Something very strange -- and sinister -- is going on in the Russian woods at Borodino. In a place called Mrs. Ivanova's Charm School, young KGB agents are being taught by American POW's how to be model citizens of the USA.
The Soviet goal -- to infiltrate the United States undetected. When an unsuspecting American tourist stumbles upon this secret, he sets in motion a CIA investigation that will reveal horrifying police state savagery and superpower treachery.
ISBN:9780751531183
Author:Nelson DeMille
Up Country
Brief Summary
The last thing Paul Brenner wanted to do was return to work for the Army's Criminal Investigative Division, an organization that thanked him for his many years of dedicated service by forcing him into early retirement.
But when his former boss calls in a career's worth of favors, Paul finds himself investigating a murder that took place back in Vietnam thirty years before.
Now, returning to a time and place that still haunts him, Paul is swept up in the battle of his life as he struggles to find justice.
ISBN:9780446611916
Author:Nelson DeMille
The Gate House
Brief Summary
When John Sutter's aristocratic wife killed her mafia don lover, John left America and set out in his sailboat on a three-year journey around the world, eventually settling in London. Now, ten years later, he has come home to the Gold Coast, that stretch of land on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America, to attend the imminent funeral of an old family servant.
Taking up temporary residence in the gatehouse of Stanhope Hall, John finds himself living only a quarter of a mile from Susan who has also returned to Long Island. But Susan isn't the only person from John's past who has reemerged: Though Frank Bellarosa, infamous Mafia don and Susan's ex-lover, is long dead, his son, Anthony, is alive and well, and intent on two missions: Drawing John back into the violent world of the Bellarosa family, and exacting revenge on his father's murderer--Susan Sutter.
At the same time, John and Susan's mutual attraction resurfaces and old passions begin to reignite, and John finds himself pulled deeper into a familiar web of seduction and betrayal. In THE GATE HOUSE, acclaimed author Nelson Demille brings us back to that fabled spot on the North Shore -- a place where past, present, and future collides with often unexpected results.
ISBN:9780446533423
Author:Nelson DeMille
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo’s tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, when, owing to a case of mistaken identity, another man is arrested in his place; and by the relentless investigations of the dogged policeman Javert.
It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.
A compelling and compassionate view of the victims of early nineteenth-century French society, Les Misérables is a novel on an epic scale, moving inexorably from the eve of the battle of Waterloo to the July Revolution of 1830.
Norman Denny’s introduction to his lively English translation discusses Hugo’s political and artistic aims in writing Les Misérables.
The In Between World of Vikram Lall
Brief Summary
Vikram Lall comes of age in 1950s Kenya, at the same time that the colony is struggling towards independence. Against the unsettling backdrop of Mau Mau violence, Vic and his sister Deepa, the grandchildren of an Indian railroad worker, search for their place in a world sharply divided between Kenyans and the British.
We follow Vic from a changing Africa in the fifties, to the hope of the sixties, and through the corruption and fear of the seventies and eighties. Hauntingly told in the voice of the now exiled Vic, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall is an acute and bittersweet novel of identity and family, of lost love and abiding friendship, and of the insidious legacy of the British Empire.
ISBN:9781400076567
Author:M.G. Vassanji
So the Path Does Not Die
Brief Summary
Long after Fina has left Sierra Leone for America, memories of a broken initiation still haunt her. She longs to return, to find her grandmother and right the path that has been set for young girl’s centuries past.
Her journey from the streets of Freetown to Washington echo with the tensions, ambiguities, and fragmentation of the diaspora.
Fina's inner turmoil and feelings of 'otherness', persist as she travels further from home.
Ultimately, the broken path of her childhood brings Fina back to Sierra Leone, to a life she had never imagined for herself.
So the Path Does Not Die is a tender and gently observed novel exploring attitudes towards female circumcision, and a beautifully rendered novel, rom an exciting new voice in African literature.
ISBN:9781280127502
Author:Pede Hollist
The Year of the Flood
Brief Summary
The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners--a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life--has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it.
Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.
Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers...
Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, and the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam one and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away...
By turn’s dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, "The Year of the Flood" is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.
ISBN:9780385528771
Author:Margaret Atwood
An Imperfect Offering Humanitarian Ac...
Brief Summary
An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century
In 1988, James Orbinski, then a medical student in his twenties, embarked on a year-long research trip to Rwanda, a trip that would change who he would be as a doctor and as a man. Investigating the conditions of pediatric AIDS in Rwanda, James confronted widespread pain and suffering, much of it preventable, much of it occasioned by political and economic corruption.
Fuelled by the injustice of what he had seen in Rwanda, Orbinski helped establish the Canadian chapter of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders/MSF). As a member of MSF he travelled to Peru during a cholera epidemic, to Somalia during the famine and civil war, and to Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
In April 1994, James answered a call from the MSF Amsterdam office. Rwandan government soldiers and armed militias of extremist Hutus had begun systematically to murder Tutsis. While other foreigners were evacuated from Rwanda, Orbinski agreed to serve as Chef de Mission for MSF in Kigali. As Rwanda descended into a hell of civil war and genocide, he and his team worked tirelessly, tending to thousands upon thousands of casualties. In fourteen weeks 800,000 men, women and children were exterminated.
Half a million people were injured, and millions were displaced. The Rwandan genocide was Orbinski’s undoing. Confronted by indescribable cruelty, he struggled to regain his footing as a doctor, a humanitarian and a man. In the end he chose not to retreat from the world, but resumed his work with MSF, and was the organization’s president when it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.
An Imperfect Offering is a deeply personal, deeply political book. With unstinting candor, Orbinski explores the nature of humanitarian action in the twenty-first century, and asserts the fundamental imperative of seeing as human those whose political systems have most brutally failed. He insists that in responding to the suffering of others, we must never lose sight of the dignity of those being helped or deny them the right to act as agents in their own lives.
He takes readers on a journey to some of the darkest places of our history but finds there unimaginable acts of courage and empathy. Here he is doctor as witness, recording voices that must be heard around the world; calling on others to meet their responsibility.
ISBN:9780385660693
Author:James Orbinski
Errornomics Why We Make Mistakes
Brief Summary
Errornomics: Why We Make Mistakes and What We Can Do To Avoid Them
How did security staff at LA International Airport miss 75% of bomb-making materials that went through screening? Which way should you turn before joining a supermarket queue? Why should a woman hope it was a man who witnessed her bag being snatched? And what possessed Burt Reynolds to punch a guy with no legs?
Human beings can be stubbornly irrational and wilfully blind ... but at least we're predictably wrong. From minor lapses (why we're so likely to forget passwords) to life-threatening blunders (why anesthetists used to maim their patients), Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Joseph T. Hallinan explains the everyday mistakes that shape our lives, and what we can do to prevent them happening.
ISBN:9780091932633
Author:Joseph T. Hallinan
Sorry The English and Their Manners
Brief Summary
Most of us know a bit about what passes for good manners - holding doors open, sending thank-you notes, and no elbows on the table. We certainly know bad manners when we see them. But where has this patchwork of beliefs and behaviors come from? How did manners develop? How do they change? And why do they matter so much to us? In examining our manners, Henry Hitchings delves into the English character and investigates our notions of Englishness.
Sorry! Presents an amusing, illuminating and quirky audit of English manners. From basic table manners to appropriate sexual conduct, via hospitality, chivalry, faux pas and online etiquette, Hitchings traces the history of our country's customs and courtesies.
Putting under the microscope some of our most astute observers of humanity, including Jane Austen and Samuel Pepys, he uses their lives and writings to pry open the often downright peculiar secrets of the English character. Hitchings' blend of history, anthropology and personal journey helps us understand our bizarre and contested cultural baggage - and ourselves.
ISBN:9781848546646
Author:Henry Hitchings
The Fix How Bankers Lied Cheated and ...
Brief Summary
The Fix: How Bankers Lied, Cheated and Colluded to Rig the World's Most Important Number.
In the midst of the financial crisis, Tom Hayes and his network of traders and brokers from Wall Street's leading firms set to work engineering the biggest financial conspiracy ever seen. As the rest of the world burned, they came together on secret chat rooms and late night phone calls to hatch an audacious plan to rig Libor, the 'world's most important number' and the basis for $350 trillion of securities from mortgages to loans to derivatives. Without the persistence of a rag-tag team of investigators from the U.S., they would have got away with it....
The Fix by award-winning Bloomberg journalists Liam Vaughan and Gavin Finch, is the inside story of the Libor scandal, told through the journey of the man at the center of it: a young, scruffy, socially awkward misfit from England whose genius for math and obsessive personality made him a trading phenomenon, but ultimately paved the way for his own downfall.
Based on hundreds of interviews, and unprecedented access to the traders and brokers involved, and the investigators who caught up with them, The Fix provides a rare look into the dark heart of global finance at the start of the 21st Century.
ISBN:9781118995723
Author:Liam Vaughan and Gavin Finch
Chicken Soup for the Soul Stories of ...
Brief Summary
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Stories of Faith: Inspirational Stories of Hope, Devotion, Faith and Miracles.
This Chicken Soup book focuses on stories of faith, hope, miracles, and devotion. The heartfelt true stories written by regular people will amaze, inspire, and amuse readers.
Many of them are stories of prayers answered miraculously, amazing coincidences, rediscovered faith, and the serenity that comes from believing in a greater power.
ISBN:9781935096146
Author:Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
The Book of Chocolate Saints
Brief Summary
The Book of Chocolate Saints follows the unforgettable character Xavier and his journey towards salvation - or damnation - or perhaps both.
In the swooningly hypnotic prose for which his Man Booker Prize-shortlisted novel was acclaimed, Jeet Thayil paints a hallucinatory portrait of an ambiguous soul: a self-destructive figure, a charismatic contrarian, and a tortured damned artist battling with his conflicting instincts.
Vividly set in both Delhi and Manhattan, The Book of Chocolate Saints explores our deepest urges in a novel that is sexy, dangerous, and entirely uncompromising. This is intoxicating, blazingly intelligent literary fiction that will consolidate Jeet Thayil's reputation as one of the most promising writers of his generation.
ISBN:9780571336104
Author:Jeet Thayil
Fifty Things that Made the Modern Eco...
Brief Summary
Who thought up paper money? How did the contraceptive pill change the face of the legal profession? Why was the horse collar as important for human progress as the steam engine? How did the humble spreadsheet turn the world of finance upside-down?
The world economy defies comprehension. A continuously-changing system of immense complexity, it offers over ten billion distinct products and services, doubles in size every fifteen years, and links almost every one of the planet's seven billion people.
It delivers astonishing luxury to hundreds of millions. It also leaves hundreds of millions behind, puts tremendous strains on the ecosystem, and has an alarming habit of stalling. Nobody is in charge of it. Indeed, no individual understands more than a fraction of what's going on.
How can we make sense of this bewildering system on which our lives depend?
From the tally-stick to Bitcoin, the canal lock to the jumbo jet, each invention in Tim Harford's fascinating new book has its own curious, surprising and memorable story, a vignette against a grand backdrop. Step by step, readers will start to understand where we are, how we got here, and where we might be going next.
Hidden connections will be laid bare: how the barcode undermined family corner shops; why the gramophone widened inequality; how barbed wire shaped America. We'll meet the characters who developed some of these inventions, profited from them, or were ruined by them. We'll trace the economic principles that help to explain their transformative effects. And we'll ask what lessons we can learn to make wise use of future inventions, in a world where the pace of innovation will only accelerate.
ISBN:9781408709115
Author:Tim Harford
The Girls Guide to Being a Boss Witho...
Brief summary
The Girl's Guide to Being a Boss (Without Being a Bitch): Valuable Lessons, Smart Suggestions, and True Stories for Succeeding as the Chick-in-Charge.
As women, we haven’t always had the best role models at work. We’ve either worked for men or we’ve had female bosses who are, well, big bitches. Woman still don’t have much of a road map right now when it comes to taking charge at the office, so the team who brought you the national bestseller The Girl’s Guide to Starting Your Own Business is drawing one for us.
Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio will teach you to be powerful without being possessive, to be opinionated without being brassy, and to have a strong voice without micromanaging. You’ll learn just how to own the role of queen bee in a positive way so that you can be more mentor than manager, one who leads, inspires, and motivates.
So, you finally got that promotion. You’re the boss now. The supervisor. The manager. The captain. The taskmaster. Those days of taking orders, running errands, and clock-watching are over. As exciting as all this might seem, once the rush of the promotion is over, you might be scratching your head wondering exactly what to do.
Being the boss is never easy, but it's twice as hard for a woman. It seems like there's no middle ground. Either you're the dragon lady who rules with an iron fist or the mousey girl who gets drowned out at every meeting. When a woman wields authority and dares to make tough decisions, how often is the "B-word" bandied about by her employees? How can she strike that balance between pushover and dictator?
Fear not. You can do the job. All you need is a little helpful advice to send you on your way. Whether you supervise two as a shift manager or lord over an entire corporate empire, Caitlin Friedman and Kim Yorio will show you how to step gracefully into your new position of power. They’ll teach you how to motivate your team without alienating them, how to delegate without feeling guilty, how to deal with office politics and how to handle evaluations, promotions, and even firings. And for those of you who are already running the show, they can help you become the mentor your employees deserve.
Inside, there are self-assessment questionnaires to help you find out where you land on the bitch or wimp scale; interviews with prominent female bosses, human-resources directors, and therapists; and advice from a whole host of experts. In addition, there are funny and informative checklists and tips to make sure you’re the Good Witch around the office and not the Big Bitch.And, most important, Caitlin and Kim will teach you the secrets to owning your role and loving it. You’ve earned your promotion, so enjoy it!
ISBN:9780767922852
Author:Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio
Rat Roads One Mans Incredible Journey
Brief summary
In this extraordinary book, celebrated journalist Jacques Pauw gives a human face to some of the most tumultuous events in recent African history. Rat Roads chronicles the remarkable journey of Kennedy Gihana, a young Tutsi man who fought against the genocidaires in Rwanda, but was part of an army that committed horrifying atrocities in Africa’s bloodiest conflict.
Seeking education instead of war, he walked thousands of kilometers to South Africa, where he slept in parks, lived on the street and worked as a low-paid security guard until he had saved enough money to enroll for a law degree. In 2011 he took the podium at the University of Pretoria to receive a master’s degree in international law.
Rat Roads combines many strands of life in Africa. Besides being the chronicle of one man’s incredible journey, it addresses issues such as civil conflict, xenophobia and the plight of refugees. It also explores the nature of war crimes and guilt, and gives insight into present-day Rwanda, showing how one tyranny has replaced another.
Rat Roads is a searing story of hardship and survival, and an unforgettable tale of courage and triumph.
ISBN:9781770223370
Author:Jacques Pauw
Bring Me Back
Brief summary
Finn and Layla are young, in love, and on vacation. They’re driving along the highway when Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom. He hops out of the car, locks the doors behind him, and goes inside. When he returns Layla is gone—never to be seen again. That is the story Finn told to the police. But it is not the whole story.
Ten years later Finn is engaged to Layla’s sister, Ellen. Their shared grief over what happened to Layla drew them close and now they intend to remain together. Still, there’s something about Ellen that Finn has never fully understood. His heart wants to believe that she is the one for him...even though a sixth sense tells him not to trust her.
Then, not long before he and Ellen are to be married, Finn gets a phone call. Someone from his past has seen Layla—hiding in plain sight. There are other odd occurrences: Long-lost items from Layla’s past that keep turning up around Finn and Ellen’s house. Emails from strangers who seem to know too much. Secret messages, clues, warnings. If Layla is alive—and on Finn’s trail—what does she want? And how much does she know?
A tour de force of psychological suspense, Bring Me Back will have you questioning everything and everyone until its stunning climax.
ISBN:9781250151339
Author:B.A. Paris
It Ends With Us by Collen Hoover
Sometimes it is the one who loves you who hurts you the most.
Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up
— she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.
Ryle is assertive, stubborn, and maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his "no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.
As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan — her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.
The Psychology of Wealth by Charles R...
The Psychology of Wealth: Understanding Your Relationship with Money and Achieve Prosperity.
Why do some people feel a perpetual state of lack and fear about money, while others feel genuinely prosperous, regardless of the size of their bank accounts? Why do some people shudder with dread when it comes to setting financial goals, while others embrace it with enthusiasm and confidence?
What makes the difference? Could it be in their relationship with money itself?
People who enjoy a healthy relationship with money share common habits and traits. So, how do they think, and what do they do differently? Are these behaviors hardwired in an individual's psyche, or can they be learned?
In this provocative book, psychotherapist Dr. Charles Richards provides unexpected and encouraging answers to these questions. Based on his research and expert interviews, Dr. Richards shows how each of us can develop a thriving relationship with money and create a rich and rewarding life.
A t the book's heart are the stories of people who have faced adversity with courage and created extraordinary lives. Their accounts--along with Dr. Richards' interviews with finance professors, legislators, entrepreneurs, and mavens of success--pave a path to a brighter future for us all.
Today we live in a trying economic environment. Every day, popular financial advisors exhort us to hunker down, play it safe, and protect ourselves from an uncertain future. To the voices who promote fear and doubt, Dr. Richards answers with balance, wisdom, and optimism.
The Psychology of Wealth is for anyone interested in succeeding personally or professionally, and in achieving true prosperity. It offers golden steps on the path to a better life.
The Bonfire of the Vanities
Brief Summary
Tom Wolfe's modern American satire tells the story of Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street "Master of the Universe" who has it all - a Park Avenue apartment, a job that brings wealth, power and prestige, a beautiful wife, an even more beautiful mistress.
Suddenly, one wrong turn makes it all go wrong, and Sherman spirals downward in a sudden fall from grace that sucks him into the ravenous heart of a New York City gone mad during the go-go, racially turbulent, socially hilarious 1980s.
ISBN:9780553381344
Author:Tom Wolfe
