Search results for ""Author Bill"

A detailed look at the fast-growing field of Islamic banking and finance The global Islamic finance market is now worth about $700 billion worldwide. Islamic Finance For Dummies helps experienced investors and new entrants into Islamic finance quickly get up to speed on this growing financial sector. Here, you'll find clear and easy-to-understand information on how you can incorporate Islamic finance products into your investment portfolio. You'll quickly and easily: become acquainted with the theory, practice, and limitations of Islamic banking; understand how to develop products for the Islamic financial industry; grasp the objectives and sources of Islamic law and the basic guidelines for business contacts; learn about Islamic fund management and insurance; and much more. Coverage of the role Islamic finance can play in the development of the financial system and of economies Addresses the risks and rewards in Islamic banking The future prospects and opportunities of the Islamic finance industry With the help of Islamic Finance For Dummies, you'll discover the fast and easy way to tap into the booming Islamic finance arena.

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There are few football clubs in the world that attract as much interest in the modern game as Chelsea. Whether it is the latest observations from former coach Maurizio Sarri, his successor Frank Lampard, big-money transfer targets, the style of play or results in Europe, everybody thinks they know what's happening – or at least has an opinion on it. The arrival in 2003 of Russian billionaire tycoon Roman Abramovich as owner turned a glamorous club with a long history of under-achievement, into an international powerhouse. After one championship in 99 years, the Blues have, in a dozen years, won five Premier League titles, plus the UEFA Champions League, two UEFA Europa League titles, five FA Cups and three Football League Cups. The club always was a magnet for well-known names – vaudeville legend George Robey played for the Pensioners in the club's earliest days – and, in the modern era, Stamford Bridge has become home to a dazzling array of world stars. From Ron 'Chopper' Harris and Ken Bates through Ruud Gullit, Roberto Di Matteo and Glenn Hoddle to Jose Mourinho, John Terry, Zola, Diego Costa and Eden Hazard, there is no lack of characters to draw on for quotes.

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When you get a second chance, you don't wait for a third...Simone Solomon lives in a gilded cage. She's been raised to wealth, privilege, and above all, obedience. But one night, on her way to another tedious gala in the back of a limousine, Simone is abducted by a mafioso who intended to steal a car, not a girl...and everything changes.Dante Gallo looks like a beast and behaves like one, too-until he lays eyes on Simone in the rearview mirror and falls hard and fast for his accidental hostage. Their attraction is irresistible, even if it's completely wrong. They're willing to risk everything for each other, but with one disastrous move, they're split apart again.After nine years of ignoring Simone's perfect face on billboards and magazines, Dante thinks he's finally moved on...but then he sees her in the flesh. He hasn't forgotten. Neither has she. And now, fate has granted them a chance to reconnect.But Simone has a secret. A mistake she fears even a beast like Dante will never forgive her for.Perhaps what fate has really given them is the chance to make each other's hearts bleed all over again.

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The New York Times bestseller!FBI Agent Kate O'Hare plays by the rules, but con man Nicholas Fox makes them up as he goes along. Ordered to work together to tackle out-of-bounds cases ordinary FBI agents can't touch, they make a brilliant team, as long as the simmering tension between them is kept under control...Kate and Nick are investigating the suspicious disappearance of Silicon Valley billionaire Richard Wylde. Known as the Big Kahuna, he's famous for creating an artificial intelligence software some people might kill for. Kate thinks those people might include Wylde's model wife and his shady business partner, who seem more interested in gaining control of his company than in finding the Kahuna himself. The only lead is Wylde's drop-out son, who's living the dream in Hawaii. To get close to him, Kate and Nick will have to go undercover in the surfer community. It looks like a dream assignation - but things are about to go badly wrong... Raves for Evanovich's novels:'Romantic and gripping' Good Housekeeping'Pithy, witty and fast-paced' The Sunday Times'A laugh-out-loud page-turner'Heat'Among the great joys of contemporary crime fiction' GQ

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One of the most remarkable episodes of the Second World War was the German attempt to forge currency and trigger the economic collapse of the Allies. The counterfeit operation was one of the largest the world has ever seen and lead to the post-war reissue of sterling. At the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, Jewish prisoners of 13 different nationalities were forced to work on producing counterfeit pound and dollar notes worth billions. The plan was known as Operation Bernhard. The forgeries that were produced were virtually undetectable. Only the most senior forgers were able to spot the fakes - even staff at the Bank of England failed to do so. In this extraordinary memoir, the sole surviving Czech counterfeiter, Adolf Burger, describes his wartime experiences. He recounts the harrowing facts surrounding the murder of his wife Gizela in Auschwitz, as well as his own time as a prisoner in four concentration camps. He was working as a counterfeiter until his liberation from a concentration camp at Ebensee on 5 May 1945. Supported by hitherto unseen documentation and photographs that Burger took of his fellow prisoners after the war, this is a shocking account which sheds fresh light on the calculated barbarity of the Nazi war machine.

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A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURYWINNER OF THE PRIX FEMINA ETRANGER 2020Following on from the critically acclaimed Things I Don't Want to Know, discover the powerful second memoir in Deborah Levy's essential three-part 'Living Autobiography'. 'I can't think of any writer aside from Virginia Woolf who writes better about what it is to be a woman' Observer _________________________________'Life falls apart. We try to get a grip and hold it together. And then we realise we don't want to hold it together . . .' The final instalment in Deborah Levy's critically acclaimed 'Living Autobiography', Real Estate, is available now._________________________________'I just haven't stopped reading it . . . it talks so beautifully about being a woman' Billie Piper on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs'It is the story of every woman throughout history who has expended her love and labour on making a home that turns out to serve the needs of everyone except herself. Wonderful' Guardian 'Wise, subtle and ironic, Levy's every sentence is a masterpiece of clarity and poise . . . a brilliant writer' Daily Telegraph 'A graceful and lyrical rumination on the questions, "What is a woman for? What should a woman be?"' Tatler 'Extraordinary and beautiful, suffused with wit and razor-sharp insights' Financial Times

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Stephen Baxter's highly acclaimed first novel and the beginning of his stunning Xeelee Sequence finally enters the SF Masterwork series!A spaceship from Earth accidentally crossed through a hole in space-time to a universe where the force of gravity is one billion times as strong as the gravity we know. Somehow the crew survived, aided by the fact that they emerged into a cloud of gas surrounding a black hole, which provided a breathable atmosphere. Five hundred years later, their descendants still struggle for existence, divided into two main groups. The Miners live on the Belt, a ramshackle ring of dwellings orbiting the core of a dead star, which they excavate for raw materials. These can be traded for food from the Raft, a structure built from the wreckage of the ship, on which a small group of scientists preserve the ancient knowledge which makes survival possible. Rees is a Miner whose curiosity about his world makes him stow away on a flying tree - just one of the many strange local lifeforms - carrying trade between the Belt and the Raft. And what he finds will change his world...

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*** WINNER OF THE AGATHA AWARD FOR BEST MYSTERY NOVEL 2021*** 'Makes most of her competitors seem like wannabes' THE TIMES There is more to solving a crime than following the clues. Welcome to Chief Inspector Gamache's world of facts and feelings. On their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather for a family dinner with Armand's godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. But the evening ends in horror when Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Armand is convinced is no accident, but a deliberate attempt on an elderly man's life. When a strange key is found in Stephen's possession it sends Armand on a desperate search for the truth that will take him from the top of the Tour Eiffel, to the bowels of the Paris Archives. And as Armand begins to uncover the secrets his godfather has kept hidden for decades, he finds himself ensnared in a web of lies and deceit that threatens to destroy everything - and everyone - he holds dear. For even the City of Light casts long shadows. And in that darkness devils hide . . . Ten million readers. Three pines One inimitable Chief Inspector Gamache 'The series is deep and grand and altogether extraordinary . . . Miraculous' Washington Post

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'A brilliant, authoritative, surprising, captivating introduction to human genetics. You'll be spellbound' Brian CoxThis is a story about you. It is the history of who you are and how you came to be. It is unique to you, as it is to each of the 100 billion modern humans who have ever drawn breath. But it is also our collective story, because in every one of our genomes we each carry the history of our species - births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration and a lot of sex. In this captivating journey through the expanding landscape of genetics, Adam Rutherford reveals what our genes now tell us about human history, and what history can now tell us about our genes. From Neanderthals to murder, from redheads to race, dead kings to plague, evolution to epigenetics, this is a demystifying and illuminating new portrait of who we are and how we came to be.***'A thoroughly entertaining history of Homo sapiens and its DNA in a manner that displays popular science writing at its best' Observer 'Magisterial, informative and delightful' Peter Frankopan'An extraordinary adventure...From the Neanderthals to the Vikings, from the Queen of Sheba to Richard III, Rutherford goes in search of our ancestors, tracing the genetic clues deep into the past' Alice Roberts

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An artistic discussion on the critical potential of African American expressive culture In a major reassessment of African American culture, Phillip Brian Harper intervenes in the ongoing debate about the “proper” depiction of black people. He advocates for African American aesthetic abstractionism—a representational mode whereby an artwork, rather than striving for realist verisimilitude, vigorously asserts its essentially artificial character. Maintaining that realist representation reaffirms the very social facts that it might have been understood to challenge, Harper contends that abstractionism shows up the actual constructedness of those facts, thereby subjecting them to critical scrutiny and making them amenable to transformation. Arguing against the need for “positive” representations, Abstractionist Aesthetics displaces realism as the primary mode of African American representational aesthetics, re-centers literature as a principal site of African American cultural politics, and elevates experimental prose within the domain of African American literature. Drawing on examples across a variety of artistic production, including the visual work of Fred Wilson and Kara Walker, the music of Billie Holiday and Cecil Taylor, and the prose and verse writings of Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, and John Keene, this book poses urgent questions about how racial blackness is made to assume certain social meanings. In the process, African American aesthetics are upended, rendering abstractionism as the most powerful modality for Black representation.

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Winner of the 2014 Diamond Anniversary Book Award Finalist for the 2014 National Communications Association Critical and Cultural Studies Division Book of the Year Award In 2000, the National Human Genome Research Institute announced the completion of a “draft” of the human genome, the sequence information of nearly all 3 billion base pairs of DNA. Since then, interest in the hereditary basis of disease has increased considerably. In The Material Gene, Kelly E. Happe considers the broad implications of this development by treating “heredity” as both a scientific and political concept. Beginning with the argument that eugenics was an ideological project that recast the problems of industrialization as pathologies of gender, race, and class, the book traces the legacy of this ideology in contemporary practices of genomics. Delving into the discrete and often obscure epistemologies and discursive practices of genomic scientists, Happe maps the ways in which the hereditarian body, one that is also normatively gendered and racialized, is the new site whereby economic injustice, environmental pollution, racism, and sexism are implicitly reinterpreted as pathologies of genes and by extension, the bodies they inhabit. Comparing genomic approaches to medicine and public health with discourses of epidemiology, social movements, and humanistic theories of the body and society, The Material Gene reworks our common assumption of what might count as effective, just, and socially transformative notions of health and disease.

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Traces the development of American industrial power and the hurdles that threatened the country's ascendenceC A lively tour of the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, America Ascendant traces the development of America's tremendous industrial power and its commercial deployment, at home and abroad. Emphasizing the contributions of those charismatic presidents who shaped the future of politics—Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt—the book also covers pioneers such as Henry Ford and the Wright brothers, whose technological contributions transformed societies the world over. The book investigates the phenomena that threatened America's ascendance—the Great Red Scare of 1917-20 and the rout of organized labor, the Great Crash of 1929 and the searing depression years, and the apartheid policies that undermined American democratic ideals. Moreover, Sean Dennis Cashman sets the American story within the dramatic context of the rise and fall of political empires in Europe and Asia and two devastating world wars. Enriching the volume is an integrated account of the American cultural scene, replete with such figures as Ernest Hemingway, Frank Lloyd Wright, George Gershwin, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith. Imaginatively conceived, America Ascendant once again reveals Sean Dennis Cashman's flair for bringing American history to life with all its triumphs, drama, and ambiguities.

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J. Richard Gott was among the first cosmologists to propose that the structure of our universe is like a sponge made up of clusters of galaxies intricately connected by filaments of galaxies--a magnificent structure now called the "cosmic web" and mapped extensively by teams of astronomers. Here is his gripping insider's account of how a generation of undaunted theorists and observers solved the mystery of the architecture of our cosmos. The Cosmic Web begins with modern pioneers of extragalactic astronomy, such as Edwin Hubble and Fritz Zwicky. It goes on to describe how, during the Cold War, the American school of cosmology favored a model of the universe where galaxies resided in isolated clusters, whereas the Soviet school favored a honeycomb pattern of galaxies punctuated by giant, isolated voids. Gott tells the stories of how his own path to a solution began with a high-school science project when he was eighteen, and how he and astronomer Mario Juri? measured the Sloan Great Wall of Galaxies, a filament of galaxies that, at 1.37 billion light-years in length, is one of the largest structures in the universe. Drawing on Gott's own experiences working at the frontiers of science with many of today's leading cosmologists, The Cosmic Web shows how ambitious telescope surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey are transforming our understanding of the cosmos, and how the cosmic web holds vital clues to the origins of the universe and the next trillion years that lie ahead.

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We know the universe has a history, but does it also have a story of self-creation to tell? Yes, in Roy R. Gould’s account. He offers a compelling narrative of how the universe—with no instruction other than its own laws—evolved into billions of galaxies and gave rise to life, including humans who have been trying for millennia to comprehend it. Far from being a random accident, the universe is hard at work, extracting order from chaos.Making use of the best current science, Gould turns what many assume to be true about the universe on its head. The cosmos expands inward, not outward. Gravity can drive things apart, not merely together. And the universe seems to defy entropy as it becomes more ordered, rather than the other way around. Strangest of all, the universe is exquisitely hospitable to life, despite its being constructed from undistinguished atoms and a few unexceptional rules of behavior. Universe in Creation explores whether the emergence of life, rather than being a mere cosmic afterthought, may be written into the most basic laws of nature.Offering a fresh take on what brought the world—and us—into being, Gould helps us see the universe as the master of its own creation, not tethered to a singular event but burgeoning as new space and energy continuously stream into existence. It is a very old story, as yet unfinished, with plotlines that twist and churn through infinite space and time.

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One of the greatest film directors America has produced, Sam Peckinpah revolutionized the way movies were made. In this detailed and insightful study, Bernard F. Dukore examines Peckinpah's fourteen feature films as a coherent body of work. He investigates the director's virtuosic editing techniques, thematic preoccupations that persist from his earliest to his last films, and the structure of his dramatic depiction of violence. He also addresses Peckinpah's cognizance of existentialism and the substantial traces this interest has left in the films. At the heart of Dukore's study is an extensive and detailed examination of Peckinpah's distinctive editing techniques. Focusing on representative sequences--including the breakout from the bank and the final battle in The Wild Bunch, the half-hour siege that concludes Straw Dogs, the killing of the title characters of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and combat sequences in Cross of Iron--Dukore provides a shot-by-shot analysis that illuminates Peckinpah's mastery of pacing and mood. Sam Peckinpah's Feature Films demonstrates that Peckinpah's genius as a director and editor marks not only The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, and other classics but also his lesser-known feature films, even those that suffered substantial cuts at the hands of studio producers. Dukore's organic approach to the feature films reveals a highly unified body of work that remains a pointed commentary on power, violence, affection, and moral values.

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While the rise of the charmingly simple, brilliantly evocative haiku is often associated with the seventeenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, the form had already flourished for more than four hundred years before Basho even began to write. These early poems, known as hokku, are identical to haiku in syllable count and structure but function differently as a genre. Whereas each haiku is its own constellation of image and meaning, a hokku opens a series of linked, collaborative stanzas in a sequence called renga. Under the mastery of Basho, hokku first gained its modern independence. His talents contributed to the evolution of the style into the haiku beloved by so many poets around the world--Richard Wright, Jack Kerouac, and Billy Collins being notable devotees. Haiku Before Haiku presents 320 hokku composed between the thirteenth and early eighteenth centuries, from the poems of the courtier Nijo Yoshimoto to those of the genre's first "professional" master, Sogi, and his disciples. It features 20 masterpieces by Basho himself. Steven D. Carter introduces the history of haiku and its aesthetics, classifying these poems according to style and context. His rich commentary and notes on composition and setting illuminate each work, and he provides brief biographies of the poets, the original Japanese text in romanized form, and earlier, classical poems to which some of the hokku allude.

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Let legendary rock manager Simon Napier-Bell take you inside the (dodgy) world of popular music – not just a creative industry, but a business that has made people rich beyond their wildest dreams. He balances seductive anecdotes – pulling back the curtain on the gritty and absurd side of the industry – with an insightful exploration of the relationship between creativity and money. This book describes the evolution of the industry from 1713 – the year parliament granted writers ownership over what they wrote – to today, when a global, 100 billion pound industry is controlled by just three major players: Sony, Universal and Warner. Inside you will uncover some little-known facts about the industry, including: How a formula for writing hit songs in the 1900s helped create 50,000 of the best-known songs of all time. How infighting in the American pre-war music industry shut down traditional radio and created an opening for country music, race records and rock'n'roll. How Jewish immigrants and black jazz musicians dancing cheek-to-cheek created a template for all popular music that followed. How rock tours became the biggest, quickest, sleaziest and most profitable ventures the music industry has ever seen. After reading Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay, you'll never listen to music in the same way again.

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There is much discussion about global poverty and the billions of people living with almost nothing. Why is it that governments, development banks, think-tanks, academics, NGOs and many others can't just fix the problem? Why is it that seemingly obvious reforms never happen? Why are prosperity and equity so elusive? The revised second edition of Economic Development: What Everyone Needs to Know® brings readers right into the trenches of development policies to show what practitioners are actually doing and explains the issues, dilemmas, options, frustrations and opportunities they face, day in and day out. In straightforward language and a question-and-answer format, Marcelo M. Giugale outlines the frontier of the development practice or, as he puts it, "...the point at which knowledge stops and ignorance begins." He takes readers from why it is so difficult to get governments to function, to the basic policies that economies need to work well, the powerful new tools for social assistance, and the challenges of inclusion, education, health, infrastructure, technology, data, and foreign aid. Giugale gives no definitive, universal answers. They don't really exist. Rather, he highlights what works, what doesn't, and what's promising. Drawing from examples across the world, his overall message is clear: economic development, and the poverty reduction that goes with it, have never been more possible for more countries.

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An essential roadmap to help women at every stage of their career feel stronger, more confident, and more intentional in their goalsEven after being rejected 100 times right out of college, Shanna Hocking never strayed from her dream career and now, in One Bold Move a Day, you’ll will benefit from lessons learned, and discover new, life-changing ways to build the confidence you need to succeed on your own terms.In One Bold Move a Day, Hocking shows how a single, measurable act each day provides the daily challenge that will help you truly grow. With insight gleaned from years in multi-billion-dollar nonprofits and running a business to support women leaders, Hocking offers actionable advice and useful tools to facilitate your personal journey. In chapters that range from “Lead from Where You Are” and “Invest in Yourself” to “Putting Your Bold Move Mindset to the Test,” you’ll will discover how even the smallest step in the direction you want to go will help accomplish your biggest goals. Inside you’ll find: Bold Mindset Shifts How to lead from where you are Believing in yourself Bold Move Performance Patterns Progress is Greater than Productivity Networking, and involving others in your growth Communicating courageously and compassionately Showing up for yourself and others, and more

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For many of us, the buzzing of a bee elicits panic. But the next time you hear that low droning sound, look closer: the bee has navigated to this particular spot for a reason using a fascinating set of tools. She may be using her sensitive olfactory organs, which provide a 3D scent map of her surroundings. She may be following visual landmarks or instructions relayed by a hive-mate. She may even be tracking an electrostatic path left by other bees. What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees invites us to follow bees’ mysterious paths and experience their alien world. Although their brains are incredibly small - just one million neurons compared to humans’ 100 billion - bees have remarkable abilities to navigate, learn, communicate, and remember. In What a Bee Knows, entomologist Stephen Buchmann explores a bee’s way of seeing the world and introduces the scientists who make the journey possible. We travel into the field and to the laboratories of noted bee biologists who have spent their careers digging into the questions most of us never thought to ask (for example: Do bees dream? And if so, why?). With each discovery, Buchmann’s insatiable curiosity and sense of wonder is infectious. What a Bee Knows will challenge your idea of a bee’s place in the world - and perhaps our own. This lively journey into a bee’s mind reminds us that the world is more complex than our senses can tell us.

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A riveting investigation of the no-holds-barred battle between Amazon and Walmart to become the king of commerce.For years, Walmart and Amazon operated in separate spheres—one a massive brick-and-mortar retailer, the other an online giant. But in 2016, Walmart aggressively moved into the world of e-commerce, while Amazon made big bets in physical retail.The resulting rivalry is a bare-knuckle power struggle as each titan tries to outmaneuver the other to become the biggest omnichannel retailer in the world. As the two megacorporations have consolidated power, troubling consequences have also emerged—for consumers and small merchants faced with fewer buying and selling options, and for millions of workers paid meager wages for demanding and sometimes dangerous work.Winner Sells All is a tale of disruption and big money moves, with legendary executives and fearless entrepreneurs in a battle—between rival corporations and sometimes even within the same company—to invent the future and cement their own legacies. Veteran journalist Jason Del Rey chronicles the defining business clash of this generation—a war waged for our loyalty and our wallets, with hundreds of billions of dollars at stake and millions of jobs on the line. As both companies continue to expand their empires into new industries, Winner Sells All reveals how this battle will change the ways we shop, live, and work—for decades to come.

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'An electrifying account of gambling addiction ... compelling' The Times 'Mesmerising, superbly written story of despair, decline and redemption ... should be in the hands of anyone who has eyed a bet' Daily Mail 'An extraordinary story ... vital stuff' Adrian Chiles 'Gripping and harrowing ... enough to make any gambling enthusiast think carefully' The Spectator 'I don't think any book has gripped me like Might Bite' Chris Evans The unputdownable story of a life shattered by a secret gambling addiction – and an uplifting tale of recovery – with a foreword by Marcus Trescothick. For more than 12 years, Patrick Foster lived a double life. Turning 31, a popular and sociable young teacher and former professional cricketer, he had a lovely girlfriend and a supportive family. But he was hiding a secret and debilitating gambling addiction from even those closest to him. Huge bets had led to huge debts, thousands of lies, and consequences for his mental health that pushed him to the edge of the platform at Slough station, where he was moments from taking his own life in March 2018. That month Patrick had turned a £30 bet into £28,000, then lost £50,000 on a single horse, Might Bite, in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, watching the race in a silent classroom as his students undertook a mock exam in front of him. In his desperation, he had taken out every possible loan, and borrowed money from family, friends and even the parents of children he taught. Although his life was unravelling around him, he could not stop. You might think that this is just one man’s story. But problem gambling affects 1 in 200 people in the UK alone. Hundreds lose their lives annually as a result. The industry is worth more than £14 billion. Might Bite is a shocking, cautionary tale of just how easy it is to fall victim to the insidious lure of ‘winning big’. And of how recovery is possible from the depths of addiction, no matter how inescapable it seems. ‘As a society, we are only just getting to grips with gambling addiction. Patrick Foster is a trailblazer. His work will help many’ Marcus Trescothick

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En el centenario de su creación, vuelve Hércules Poirot, el detective más famoso y brillante de la historia de la novela negra, que ha conquistado a más de 2 billones de lectores.Irlanda, 1929. Lady Athelinda Playford, una reconocida escritora de novelas de detectives para niños, ha invitado a varias personas a pasar una semana con ella en Lillieoak, su casa de campo. Además de su hijo y su hija con sus respectivas parejas, su secretario personal y la enfermera de éste, también dos abogados, Gathercole y Rolfe, han sido citados, así como los detectives de Scotland Yard, Hércules Poirot y Edward Catchpool. Nadie conoce el motivo a semejante invitación. Sin embargo, el misterio es rápidamente desvelado: Athie anuncia que los herederos de toda su fortuna no serán sus hijos sino Joseph, su secretario, aquejado de una enfermedad terminal. Qué razón ha impulsado a Athie a dejarle todo su dinero a alguien que no es de su familia? Pero todos los invitados deberán hacer frente a otra fatídic

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Está cansado del viejo consejo que dice Ahorre, invierta a largo plazo y diversifique.?Quiere aprender cómo y por qué los inversionistas profesionales aceleran sus operaciones financieras?Sabía usted que la empresa de su asesor financiero gana dinero incluso si usted lo está perdiendo?Entre 2002 y 2003 millones de inversionistas perdieron entre siete y nueve billones de dólares. Por qué? Porque muchos de ellos habían estacionado su dinero en la cuenta bancaria de sus asesores, siguiendo consejos financieros inteligentes. Por eso, antes de que llegue la próxima caída de la Bolsa y de nuevo pierda su dinero, descubra cómo puede mantenerlo en movimiento en lugar de tenerlo parado en la cuenta de otra persona.En la actualidad con la extrema falta de seguridad laboral nunca ha sido más importante tomar el control de su vida financiera. Si está listo para ser más que un inversionista promedio, entonces este libro le mostrará cómo hacer que su dinero trabaje más para usted.

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Un diario para sus pensamientos íntimos, un adorno de porcelana, un billete de diez chelines y un retazo de tela de seda roja para su primer vestido de noche. Éstos son los regalos que Olivia recibe al cumplir diecisiete años. Comienza entonces a soñar con su primer baile, a prepararse para él, a anticiparlo: será un acontecimiento maravilloso, el más importante hasta ahora de su limitada vida social, se dice. Y, sin embargo, también siente algo de miedo: se encuentra, pues, entre la expectación y la incertidumbre. Para su encantadora hermana mayor Kate, ese esperado baile será, sin duda alguna, un triunfo, pero cómo lo vivirá la tímida y algo torpe Olivia?Como en los mejores cuentos de Katherine Mansfield, en los relatos dublineses de Joyce, en las novelas de Virginia Woolf. hay algo de atemporal (esa cualidad eterna y que convierte en sublimes los más pequeños detalles) en el mundo descrito por Rosamond Lehmann en esta novela. Al hablarnos de Olivia, que fantasea, teme y sueña a

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“A funny, thought-provoking, and profound memoir about the intersection of Blackness and health. Gordon’s vision of a more just future feels both inspiring and possible.” — Kirkus Starred ReviewWhat does self-care look like when struggling to make ends meet, living with a disability, or navigating intersectional marginalization? How can you prioritize well-being while divesting from systems built to destroy you? The answer: Hood Wellness, a groundbreaking exploration that challenges the oppressive systems deeply rooted in health and wellness industries in the United States. In a world where self-care is critical to survival, Gordon offers a revolutionary perspective that celebrates individuals'' unique privileges, challenges, and desires. By defying the norms of multi-billion-dollar industries, Hood Wellness illuminates the possibilities that emerge when we prioritize well-being while divesting from harmful structur

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The United States has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in the idea that state-building can make the world “safe for democracy” but the return on that investment has been woeful. Witnessing this failure, many observers hold the view that investment in undemocratic countries should halt. Yet ignoring these troubled countries risks our safety. Drawing on his formidable foreign policy experience, Steve Krasner explains that eliminating corruption or holding free and fair elections is often not possible today in many parts of the world but negotiated compromises and halting large-scale theft is. Better security and some economic growth are possible everywhere. How to Make Love to a Despot defines a new and pragmatic American foreign policy vision that quells terrorism and leads to “good governance” around the globe.

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As an antidote to the destructive culture of consumption dominating American life today, Scott Russell Sanders calls for a culture of conservation that allows us to savor and preserve the world, instead of devouring it. How might we shift to a more durable and responsible way of life? What changes in values and behavior will be required? Ranging geographically from southern Indiana to the Boundary Waters Wilderness and culturally from the Bible to billboards, Sanders extends the visions of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Rachel Carson to our own day. A Conservationist Manifesto shows the crucial relevance of a conservation ethic at a time of mounting concern about global climate change, depletion of natural resources, extinction of species, and the economic inequities between rich and poor nations. The important message of this powerful book is that conservation is not simply a personal virtue but a public one.

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Chapter 1 is focused on oceans and the coastal communities that depend on them. 40 percent of the United States is living in coastal shoreline counties. These communities depend on ocean-related industries like fisheries, tourism, and shipping. Businesses and jobs directly dependent on oceans and Great Lakes resources contribute $352 billion to our GDP. They employ over 3 million Americans. But even if you live far from the coast, the health of oceans should matter to you. It affects the air we breathe, it affects the food we eat, and the livability of our climate. The purpose of chapter 2 is to explore the impacts of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions on our oceans and coasts. This chapter discusses warming, acidification, deoxygenation, and sea level rise with special attention to findings in recently published significant climate reports and the impacts of climate change to a coastal industry.

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"Everyone knows Warren is the greatest investor of our time. . . .This book for the first time captures his genius as a manager." —Jack Welch The first book to reveal the investment and management strategies of the Berkshire Hathaway all-star management team. Much has been written about Warren Buffett and his investment philosophy; little has been made public about the inside management of Berkshire Hathaway. With a market cap exceeding 100 billion , Berkshire Hathaway has a market value surpassing many icons of American business such as Dell, AT&T, Disney, Ford, Gillette, American Express, and GM. Drawing on his personal experiences as well as those of Berkshire's chief executives, officers, and directors interviewed for this book, Berkshire insider Robert P. Miles provides a unique look at the Berkshire Hathaway culture and its management principles.

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The Wild, Wild East recounts the adventures of late-onset Texan and international businessman Tom Meurer over a span of 55 years, from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism. As a freshly commissioned Air Force lieutenant, Tom experienced a build-up to war. But it was only after billionaire H. Ross Perot wooed him into the seemingly starchy world of software engineering that Meurer traveled to wartime Vietnam and Laos, searching for evidence of 1,600 missing U.S. prisoners of war. He found himself negotiating with drug-runners, brothel owners, gold smugglers, and dangerously high-ranking diplomats. What started as a privately funded international spy-ring, ended with a privately funded tickertape parade and star-studded weekend reception in San Francisco. Years later, he returned to Vietnam, looking for oil instead of prisoners.Between trips to Southeast Asia, Meurer began working with the Nixon White House as a presidential advance man. Beyond the obvious challenges of anti-war and civil rights protests, Meurer recounts the perils of camera angles, college football fans, bathroom visits, exotic helicopter rides, and the devastating 1970 Peruvian earthquake, which killed more than 80,000 people.Meurer tells of his longtime friendship and business career with Ray Hunt, of Hunt Oil Company, and the game-changing discovery of oil in Yemen – a country "storming out of the 14th century." Ever the fish-out-of-water, he describes his travels, negotiations, and business developments in "Red China" as it began to turn capitalist in 1979. Through his role in Chinese oil exploration, private equity, personal friendships, and the nascent beef industry, Meurer witnessed the People's Republic of China's meteoric rise over the following 35 years. Along the way, we find him pranking communist border guards, breaking out of curfew-imposed war zone hotels and into U.S. embassies, nearly crash landing in Siberia, arrested for jogging in Albania, vacationing with the family in Karl-Marx-Stadt, and ingesting unspeakably exotic foods. He watched leaders, luminaries, lending practices, and landscapes change and change again (and then again), while collecting hotel soap, memberships to airline VIP lounges, and frequent flyer miles. He often found himself in rooms with presidents, prime ministers, sheikhs, and village chiefs as history was happening.In true Forest Gumpian fashion, The Wild, Wild East is a study in best-case scenario of wit + energized wonder + proximity to wealth. Through the opportunities presented by Perot and Hunt, Dallas billionaires who were employers but became dear family friends, Meurer found himself living his best life, one of worldwide adventure while simply having fun, making an honest living, and helping the truest of people and best of friends.These are stories of one man's life – the career, adventures, and impressive people, friends, axioms, discoveries, events, cultures, and institutions he encountered along the way.

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George Soros is a man with billions at his disposal and one of the most powerful networks in the world, whose motto is: "If I spend enough, I can make it right." But what is "right," according to Soros?George Soros's past as a survivor of World War II is an experience he applies as his primary credential to justify meddling in the political and social affairs of countries around the world. The self-proclaimed agnostic, Soros disputes Israel's right to exist as the Jewish State but exploits the religion he was born into as a tactic to shield him from criticism. For the past four decades, Soros has been using his multibillion-dollar, political-philanthropic global network to impose his Weltanschauung on the world.By 1993, Soros was heralded as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England." He used the praises and publicity to create a network of powerful foundations dedicated to his overriding ambition and objective to reshape the world's only constitutional democratic republic, the United States of America. By 2023 the nation's political and social landscape has changed beyond recognition. The financial speculator's enormous sums of money oiled the Democrat Party's machine that advanced his agenda that turned the American dream into a nightmare. How did he do that?Decades ago, Rachel Ehrenfeld perceptively predicted, "Unchallenged, Soros would change the political landscape of the U.S." Join her on the journey as she exposes the Orwellian lingo, schemes, and strategies Soros has been using to transform America from a thriving, law-and-order democracy into a Sorostian world.

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The Right Financial Information at the Right Time---BEFORE YOU DO THE WRONG THING! If you have ever learned a financial lesson the hard way, you’ve probably said, “I wish I knew that sooner.” Everyone, from small business owners to millionaires and even billionaires, has had the same regrets at one time or another. Now they—and you—have somewhere to turn for no-nonsense, bottom-line financial guidance. In his groundbreaking book, financial expert Sten Morgan will give you the same advice he shares with his clients—advice most “experts” will not. Sten isn’t going to tell you to wait thirty years to achieve financial success; he didn’t. He’s not going to make you feel guilty about buying a latte, and he’ll point out times when spending money on yourself is a good idea. First, he lays out the fundamentals you need for financial success, and then he teaches you the strategies that worked for him and his clients. You’ll learn about the positive power of debt, creative tax strategies, active versus passive investing, and the savvy ways to make money in real estate. With this book as your guide, you will learn to tip the odds in your favor, avoiding poor choices and pitfalls that lead to most financial regrets. Do not wait and look back years from now, wishing you would have known sooner. Take control of your finances today. Your future self will thank you.

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With BPA in baby bottles, mercury in fish, and lead in computer monitors, the world has become a toxic place. But as Emily Monosson demonstrates in her groundbreaking new book, it has always been toxic. When oxygen first developed in Earth's atmosphere, it threatened the very existence of life: now we literally can't live without it. According to Monosson, examining how life adapted to such early threats can teach us a great deal about today's (and tomorrow's) most dangerous contaminants. While the study of evolution has advanced many other sciences, from conservation biology to medicine, the field of toxicology has yet to embrace this critical approach. In "Evolution in a Toxic World", Monosson seeks to change that. She traces the development of life's defence systems - the mechanisms that transform, excrete, and stow away potentially harmful chemicals - from over three billion years ago to today. Beginning with our earliest ancestors' response to ultraviolet radiation, Monosson explores the evolution of chemical defences such as antioxidants, metal binding proteins, detoxification, and cell death. As we alter the world's chemistry, these defences often become overwhelmed faster than our bodies can adapt. But studying how our complex internal defence network currently operates, and how it came to be that way, may allow us to predict how it will react to novel and existing chemicals. This understanding could not only lead to better management and preventative measures, but possibly treatment of current diseases. Development of that knowledge starts with this pioneering book.

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Since the beginning of the New Deal, American liberals have insisted that the government must do more--much more--to help the poor, to increase economic security, to promote social justice and solidarity, to reduce inequality, and to mitigate the harshness of capitalism. Nonetheless, liberals have never answered, or even acknowledged, the corresponding question: What would be the size and nature of a welfare state that was not contemptibly austere, that did not urgently need new programs, bigger budgets, and a broader mandate? Even though the federal government's outlays have doubled every eighteen years since 1940, liberal rhetoric is always addressed to a nation trapped in Groundhog Day, where every year is 1932, and none of the existing welfare state programs that spend tens of billions of dollars matter, or even exist. Never Enough explores the roots and consequences of liberals' aphasia about the welfare state's ultimate size. It assesses what liberalism's lack of a limiting principle says about the long-running argument between liberals and conservatives, and about the policy choices confronting America in a new century. Never Enough argues that the failure to speak clearly and candidly about the welfare state's limits has grave policy consequences. The worst result, however, is the way it has jeopardized the experiment in self-government by encouraging Americans to regard their government as a vehicle for exploiting their fellow-citizens, rather than as a compact for respecting one another's rights and safeguarding the opportunities of future generations.

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Since the beginning of the New Deal, American liberals have insisted that the government must do more--much more--to help the poor, to increase economic security, to promote social justice and solidarity, to reduce inequality, and to mitigate the harshness of capitalism. Nonetheless, liberals have never answered, or even acknowledged, the corresponding question: What would be the size and nature of a welfare state that was not contemptibly austere, that did not urgently need new programs, bigger budgets, and a broader mandate? Even though the federal government's outlays have doubled every eighteen years since 1940, liberal rhetoric is always addressed to a nation trapped in Groundhog Day, where every year is 1932, and none of the existing welfare state programs that spend tens of billions of dollars matter, or even exist. Never Enough explores the roots and consequences of liberals' aphasia about the welfare state's ultimate size. It assesses what liberalism's lack of a limiting principle says about the long-running argument between liberals and conservatives, and about the policy choices confronting America in a new century. Never Enough argues that the failure to speak clearly and candidly about the welfare state's limits has grave policy consequences. The worst result, however, is the way it has jeopardized the experiment in self-government by encouraging Americans to regard their government as a vehicle for exploiting their fellow-citizens, rather than as a compact for respecting one another's rights and safeguarding the opportunities of future generations.

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More than 250 classic American locomotives."Let the country but make the railroads, and the railroads will make the country." — Edward PeaseDuring the mid-1800s, American railroads became the lifeblood of new communities in the West and brought new ways of life and means of commerce to rural communities. Railroads became the shining thread that tied together the tapestry of American life into a land of plenty. The Illustrated Dictionary of North American Locomotives explores the story of railroads and their motive power. Giant beasts of iron and steel once roamed the land. Their descendants still race across the country.This book charts the progress of motive power on America's railroads from 1830 until the present. Its 432 pages illustrate a wide variety of grand and humble locomotives from the steam powered Puffing Billy types of the "Early Days" chapter, to the mighty Allegheny class steamers that were used to haul coal for the American industry in the "Steam in Charge" chapter. Technical specifications are given for each engine type and the book is fully illustrated with both black & white and color photos. The book goes on to show the progress of Diesel Power, including the output of General Electric and General Motors electromotive division (EMD) from the 1920s to the present. Ultimately, the book also explores the Electric Power that powers so many of today's railways.

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On 26 April 1986, the unthinkable happened near the Ukrainian town of Pripyat: two massive steam explosions ruptured No. 4 Reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, immediately killing 30 people and setting off the worst nuclear accident in history. The explosions were followed by an open-air reactor core fire that released huge amounts of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere for the next nine days, spreading across the Soviet Union, parts of Europe, and especially neighbouring Belarus, where around 70% of the waste landed. The following clean-up operation involved more than half a million personnel at a cost of $68 billion, and a further 4,000 people were estimated to have died from disaster-related illnesses in the following 20 years. Some 350,000 people were evacuated as a result of the accident (including 95 villages in Belarus), and much of the area returned to the wild, with the nearby city of Pripyat now a ghost town. Chernobyl provides a photographic exploration of the catastrophe and its aftermath in 180 authentic photos. See the twisted wreckage of No. 4 Reactor, the cause of the nuclear disaster; marvel at historic photos of the clean-up operation, with helicopters spraying decontamination liquid and liquidators manually clearing radioactive debris; see the huge cooling pond used to cool the reactors, and which today is home to abundant wildlife, despite the radiation; explore the ghost town of Pripyat, with its decaying apartment blocks, empty basketball courts, abandoned amusement park, wrecked schools, and deserted streets.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 'Cycling Book of the Year' 2022 The strange and thrilling world of Japanese track racing - a cycling and betting culture unlike anything else on earth The Olympic cycling sport of keirin was invented in Japan more than 70 years ago to raise money to rebuild the country after World War II. Now, fans bet billions of dollars a year on races, with the top riders earning huge sums. In each race, a pacemaker leads nine riders around huge concrete velodromes, then leaves the track with around a lap and a half to go - the cue for a frantic finish as the competitors reach speeds of up to 70 kph. Along the way they block and shove each other, clash heads and occasionally crash (the two Japanese characters used to write keirin mean 'battle' and 'wheel'). To prevent race fixing, the cyclists spend meets living in dorms, with no access to online technology. Their lives are ruled by ritual and fierce competition, from their rookie days at the Japan Keirin School near Mount Fuji to the annual Grand Prix final, whose winner takes home prize money of almost one million dollars. A small number of foreign riders are invited to compete in Japan every year and some, like Shane Perkins, have overcome culture shock to prosper in the home of keirin. Justin McCurry, the Guardian's Japan and Korea correspondent, explores a blue-collar Japan we rarely see and a uniquely fascinating sporting culture.

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Inspired by a remark of Seamus Heaney, Lifesaving Poems began life as notebook, then a blog. How many poems, Heaney wondered, was it possible to recall responding to, over a lifetime? Was it ten, he asked, twenty, fifty, a hundred, or more? Lifesaving Poems is a way of trying to answer that question. Giving himself the constraint of choosing no more than one poem per poet, Anthony began copying poems out, one at a time, as it were for safekeeping. He asked himself: was the poem one he could recall being moved by the moment he first read it? And: could he live without it? Then he posted each poem on his blog and said why he liked it. Word spread and soon his blog had thousands of followers, everyone reading and responding to the poems he talked about - and sharing his posts. Now Lifesaving Poems has turned into an anthology, not one designed to be a perfect list of 'the great and the good', but a gathering of poems he happens to feel passionate about, according to his tastes. As Billy Collins says: 'Good poems are poems that I like'. Anthony's popular personal commentaries are included with the poems. There are Lifesaving Poems by John Ashbery, Elizabeth Bishop, Raymond Carver, Carol Ann Duffy, Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Marie Howe, Jaan Kaplinski, Brendan Kennelly, Jane Kenyon, Galway Kinnell, Philip Levine, Norman MacCaig, Ian McMillan, Derek Mahon, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Jo Shapcott, Tomas Transtromer, Wislawa Szymborska, and many, many others.

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The new biography of President Joe Biden by National Book Award winner and New Yorker staff writer Evan Osnos - A Financial Times, Guardian and Daily Express Book of the Year 'A thoroughly readable primer' Guardian 'Biden has overcome unimaginable tribulation, multiple presidential primary humiliations, a potentially crippling speech impediment and his own mediocrity. Now he carries the hopes of billions upon his shoulders' Sunday Times President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been called both the luckiest man and the unluckiest – fortunate to have sustained a fifty-year political career that reached the White House, but also marked by deep personal losses that he has suffered. Yet even as Biden’s life has been shaped by drama, it has also been powered by a willingness, rare at the top ranks of politics, to confront his shortcomings, errors and reversals of fortune. His trials have forged in him a deep empathy for others in hardship – an essential quality as he addresses a nation at its most dire hour in decades. Blending up-close journalism and broader context, Evan Osnos illuminates Biden’s life and captures the characters and meaning of an extraordinary presidential election. He draws on lengthy interviews with Biden and on revealing conversations with more than a hundred others, including President Barack Obama, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, and a range of progressive activists, advisers, opponents, and Biden family members. In this nuanced portrait, Biden emerges as flawed, yet resolute, and tempered by the flame of tragedy – a man who just may be uncannily suited for his moment in history.

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Almost 15 years ago, in The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman popularized the latest wave of globalization as a world of giant corporate supply chains that tripled world trade between 1990 and 2010. Major corporations such as Apple, Dell, and GE offshored manufacturing to low-cost economies; China became the world's factory, mass-producing and exporting computers and gadgets to Western shoppers. This paradigm of globalization has dominated global trade policy-making and guided hundreds of billions of dollars in business investments and development spending for almost three decades. But we are now on the cusp of a new era. Revolutionizing World Trade argues that technologies such as ecommerce, 3D printing, 5G, the Cloud, blockchain, and artificial intelligence are revolutionizing the economics of trade and global production, empowering businesses of all sizes to make, move, and market products and services worldwide and with greater ease than ever before. The twin forces of digitization and trade are changing the patterns, players, politics, and possibilities of world trade, and can reinvigorate global productivity growth. However, new policy challenges and old regulatory frameworks are stifling the promise of this most dynamic, prosperous, and inclusive wave of globalization yet. This book uses new empirical evidence and policy experiences to examine the clash between emerging possibilities in world trade and outdated policies and institutions, offering several policy recommendations for navigating these obstacles to catalyze growth and development around the world.

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In this age of globalization, many countries and U.S. states are worried about the tax flight of the rich. As income inequality grows and U.S. states consider raising taxes on their wealthiest residents, there is a palpable concern that these high rollers will board their private jets and fly away, taking their wealth with them. Many assume that the importance of location to a person's success is at an all-time low. Cristobal Young, however, makes the surprising argument that location is very important to the world's richest people. Frequently, he says, place has a great deal to do with how they make their millions. In The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight, Young examines a trove of data on millionaires and billionaires—confidential tax returns, Forbes lists, and census records—and distills down surprising insights. While economic elites have the resources and capacity to flee high-tax places, their actual migration is surprisingly limited. For the rich, ongoing economic potential is tied to the place where they become successful—often where they are powerful insiders—and that success ultimately diminishes both the incentive and desire to migrate. This important book debunks a powerful idea that has driven fiscal policy for years, and in doing so it clears the way for a new era. Millionaire taxes, Young argues, could give states the funds to pay for infrastructure, education, and other social programs to attract a group of people who are much more mobile—the younger generation.

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"Stephens writes dramas set in uncaring, uncompromising worlds, whose characters speak in a language at once naturalistic and yet artificially pared-down and whose uncertain attempts to assert their own identities sometimes lead to gratuitous and brutal acts of violence." - Financial Times A fifth collection of plays by one of Britain's most prolific contemporary playwrights, Simon Stephens, charting his work from 2011-2016, ranging from London's Royal Court Theatre, Manchester's Royal Exchange and Broadway. Wastwater (2011) "Metaphoric, allusive, and thoroughly disturbing in its evocation of suspicion and uncertainty, Wastwater is a thought-provoking play whose quiet intensity stays with you for days — its effect is like that of a ugly stone dropped into a pool, which results in constant ripples of dirty water lapping at your subconscious" (Aleks Sierz) Birdland (2014) "Mega-fame and limitless cash can turn a man into a monster, and Simon Stephens's new play excellently evokes its hero's spiritually shrunken world" (Michael Billington, Guardian) Blindsided (2014) “the dialogue has a rare quality of moment-by-moment intensity" (Telegraph) Song From Far Away (2015) "a meditative monologue – a searching study of impotently self-aware emotional insufficiency" (Independent) Heisenberg (2016) "Mr. Stephens ... is an uncannily subtle dramatist who never wears his depths on the surface ... he probes clichés until they fall apart, before reassembling them into solid but transformed shapes, reminding us why such clichés have become enduring elements of our collective mythology." (Ben Brantley, New York Times)

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The year is 2050. Ava and her girlfriend live in what's left of Brooklyn, and though they love each other, it's hard to find happiness while the effects of climate change rapidly eclipse their world. Soon, it won't be safe outside at all. The only people guaranteed survival are the ones whose applications are accepted to The Inside Project, a series of weather-safe, city-sized structures around the world. The director of the Inside being built on the bones of Manhattan is Jacqueline Millender, a reclusive billionaire/women’s rights advocate. Her ideas are unorthodox, yet alluring, challenging the very concept of empowerment. Shelby, a business major from a working-class family, is drawn to Jacqueline’s promises of power and impact. When she lands a job as Jacqueline’s personal assistant, she's swept up into the glamourous world of corporatised feminism. Also drawn into Jacqueline's orbit is Olympia, who Jacqueline recruits to run the health department Inside. The more Olympia learns about the project, though, the more she realizes there's something else at play. As Ava, Olympia, and Shelby start to notice the cracks in the system, Jacqueline tightens her grip, becoming increasingly dangerous in what she is willing to do - and who she is willing to sacrifice - to keep her dream alive. At once a mesmerising story of queer love, betrayal, and chosen family, and an unflinching indictment of cis, corporate feminism, Yours for the Taking holds a mirror to our own world, in all its beauty and horror.

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For decades the high walls of Durham gaol have contained some of the countrys most infamous criminals. Until hanging was abolished in the 1960s it was also the main centre of execution for convicted killers from all over the north east. The history of execution within the walls of Durham Gaol began with the hanging of two labourers side by side in 1869, by the notorious hangman William Calcraft. Over the next ninety years a total of seventy-seven people took the short walk to the gallows - including poisoner Mary Cotton, who for over a century was the worst mass murderer in Great Britain, Gatesheads copycat Jack the Ripper, William Waddell, army deserter Brian Chandler, nineteen-year-old Edward Anderson, who murdered his blind uncle, a Teeside dock worker hanged on Christmas Eve, Carlisle muderer John Vickers, the first man hanged under the 1957 Homocide Act, and a South African sailor who preferred death to ten years in prison. Infamous executionors also played a part in the gaols history - Calcraft, who preferred slow strangulation, Marwood, the pioneer of the 'long drop', bungling Bartholomew Binns, the Billingtons, the Pierrepoint family, and Doncaster hangman Stephen Wade. Steve Fielding's highly readable new book features each of the seventy-five cases in one volume for the first time and is fully illustrated with photographs, news cuttings and engravings. It is bound to appeal to anyone interested in the darker side of County Durhams history.

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The story of a neural impulse and what it reveals about how our brains workWe see the last cookie in the box and think, can I take that? We reach a hand out. In the 2.1 seconds that this impulse travels through our brain, billions of neurons communicate with one another, sending blips of voltage through our sensory and motor regions. Neuroscientists call these blips “spikes.” Spikes enable us to do everything: talk, eat, run, see, plan, and decide. In The Spike, Mark Humphries takes readers on the epic journey of a spike through a single, brief reaction. In vivid language, Humphries tells the story of what happens in our brain, what we know about spikes, and what we still have left to understand about them.Drawing on decades of research in neuroscience, Humphries explores how spikes are born, how they are transmitted, and how they lead us to action. He dives into previously unanswered mysteries: Why are most neurons silent? What causes neurons to fire spikes spontaneously, without input from other neurons or the outside world? Why do most spikes fail to reach any destination? Humphries presents a new vision of the brain, one where fundamental computations are carried out by spontaneous spikes that predict what will happen in the world, helping us to perceive, decide, and react quickly enough for our survival.Traversing neuroscience’s expansive terrain, The Spike follows a single electrical response to illuminate how our extraordinary brains work.

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'This book for me is a warning as well as a reminder. May you never experience what I have experienced.'In April 1993, Stephen Lawrence was murdered by a group of young white men on a street in south-east London. From the first police investigation onwards, the case was badly mishandled. In the end, long after the case against the five suspects had been dropped, the government had to give in to mounting pressure and hold a public inquiry, which became the most explosive in British legal history.These facts leave the reader unprepared for Doreen Lawrence's own story of her son's murder. In this raw, honest book, she writes frankly about her childhood, about her struggle for a decent life for herself and her children and her hopes for her bright, motivated son. Her account of the murder and the botched and insensitive investigation by the Metropolitan Police is deeply moving. She recreates the pain, frustration and bafflement she experienced as she realised that there might never be a moment when she could say to herself that justice had been done.A cold case review led to the discovery of DNA evidence in 2009. In November 2011, two of the alleged members of the gang that killed Stephen were finally brought to trial at the Old Bailey. A guilty verdict was pronounced on 3 January 2012. 'To be put alongside Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom or the works of Maya Angelou.' Andrew Billen, The Times

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