Search results for ""author bill"

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), also called the Lightning II, is a strike fighter airplane being procured in different versions for the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy. The F-35 program is DOD's largest weapon procurement program in terms of total estimated acquisition cost. Current DOD plans call for acquiring a total of 2,456 F-35s. Allies are expected to purchase hundreds of additional F-35s, and eight nations are cost-sharing partners in the program with the United States. Chapters 1 to 6 address issues and concerns with this program. The Trump Administration's FY2020 budget proposal includes a request for $1.1 billion to buy 8 F-15EX aircraft, the first procurement toward a planned initial buy of 144. As reported in chapter 7, this proposal represents a change from previous Air Force plans to procure only stealthy "fifth-generation" fighter aircraft. Chapter 8 examines the extent to which the Air Force's organisation of its F-22 fleet maximises availability of aircraft and utilisation of its F-22 fleet affects pilot air superiority training.

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In Artists’ Homes, writer and photographer Tom Harford Thompson presents some thirty individual, eccentric houses and workspaces, from a music producer’s studio in Hackney to an eco-warrior’s treehouse on the Sussex Downs. His evocative photographs show how our live/work spaces, whether a tumbledown cottage, a country farmhouse or a reclaimed factory, are beautiful because of the lives we live in them. With work no longer separate from home life, we see how these artists function in the homes that inspire them, pursuing the life creative. Among the artists and craftspeople featured are Billy Childish, co-founder of the Stuckist art movement; Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher, creative partners who set up their home and studio as an ‘anarchist-pacifist open house’ (Dial House, in Essex); music producer Liam Watson of the famed London studio Toe Rag; vintage motorcycle dealer Ian Hatton, of cult shop Verrall’s; vintner Peter Hall of Breaky Bottom Vineyard, one of the first wineries in the UK; and many more.

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'This story literally has what it takes: the anecdotes, the insights and, most of all, the values to guide the next generation of entrepreneurs' - Mark Carney Blackstone chairman, CEO and co-founder Stephen A. Schwarzman shows readers how to build, transform and lead thriving organisations. Stephen Schwarzman took $400,000 and cofounded Blackstone, the investment firm that manages over $500 billion and invests in hundreds of companies globally. He’s the CEO whose views are sought by heads of state around the world and supports universities with funding for cutting edge research and technology. But behind these accomplishments is a man who has spent his life learning and reflecting on what it takes to achieve excellence, make an impact and live a life of consequence. Schwarzman’s story is an empowering, entertaining and informative guide for anyone striving for greater personal impact. From deal-making to investing, leadership to entrepreneurship, philanthropy to diplomacy, Schwarzman has lessons for how to achieve success through the relentless pursuit of excellence.

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Winner of the 2017 American Book Award Flores Forbes, a former leader in the Black Panther Party, has been free from prison for twenty-five years. Unfortunately that makes him part of a group of black men without constituency who are all but invisible in society. That is, the “invisible” group of black men in America who have served their time and not gone back to prison.Today the recidivism rate is around 65%. Almost never mentioned in the media or scholarly attention is the plight of the 35% who don’t go back, especially black men. A few of them are hiding in Ivy League schools’ prison education programs—they don’t want to be known—but most of them are recruited by the one billion dollar industry reentry employee programs that allow the US to profit from their life and labor. Whereas, African Americans consist of only 12% of the population in the US, black males are incarcerated at much higher rates. The chances of these formerly convicted men to succeed after prison—to matriculate as leading members of society—are increasingly slim. The doors are closed to them.Invisible Men is a book that will crack the code on the stigma of incarceration. When Flores Forbes was released from prison, he made a plan to re-invent himself but found it impossible. His involvement in a plan to kill a witness who was testifying against Huey P. Newton, the founder of the Black Panther Party, had led to his incarceration. While in prison he earned a college degree using a Pell Grant, with hope this would get him on the right track and a chance at a normal life. He was released but that’s where his story and most invisible men’s stories begin.This book will weave Flores’ knowledge, wisdom, and experience with incarceration, sentencing reform, judicial inequity, hiding and re-entry into society, and the issue of increasing struggles and inequality for formerly incarcerated men into a collection of poignant essays that finally give invisible men a voice and face in society.

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From the past decade vehicular ad hoc networks got tremendous attention from the industry, academia and research community. According to US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there are more than 30 thousands fatalities caused by the vehicle accidents in the U.S. each year, which worth around $250 billion economic cost annually. Research shows that 82% of these accidents can be reduced by the successful deployment of vehicular networks, because nearly 75% percent of vehicular crashes are caused by inattentive drivers. Literally, vehicular ad hoc networks means a network forms by the vehicles. But it has been evolved to network with the infrastructure as well due to the inherent intermittent nature of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) connection. The high mobility of vehicles, wireless communication loss and range constraints are the main reason for this intermittent V2V connection. So, now vehicular networks means communication between vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I). There are billions of dollars invested to research, deployment and testing of vehicular networks. For the emerging connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV), a stable vehicular networks is the foremost requirement. It is now very much visible that CAV will be the future of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). The book is dedicated to discuss for the techniques, applications and relevant technologies of vehicular ad hoc networks and its challenges. The first chapter discuss about the routing protocols of vehicular networks. It focuses on different position-based routing protocols and their mechanisms for the successful use of vehicular networks for different applications. The second chapter discusses on the security and privacy issues on vehicular networks. A well-known security technique called Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is discussed to secure vehicular data from various tampering attacks. The third chapter discusses on the on-demand wireless broadcasting mechanism for improving data dissemination performance in terms of data delivery ratio and response time. A network-coding based approach has been investigated for improving the overall performance of existing classical data broadcast algorithms. The fourth chapter describes how to get a dependable system in the lossy communication medium. This chapter discusses on a number of fault diagnosis techniques, their strengths and weaknesses, and it reviews their implementations in mobile wireless networks. The fifth chapter discusses the basics of Blockchain technology, applications, research challenges and opportunities in the field. Finally, chapter six discuss about the identification and mitigation of the faulty nodes in the wireless network.

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These photographic diptychs of LGBTQ+ people in America express the acute vulnerability of coming out From 2011 to 2015, Brooklyn-based photographer Ash Kolodner (born 1987) traveled across the United States photographing hundreds of LGBTQ+ individuals of all ages. They made two consecutive portraits of each of their subjects, photographing them twice during the same sitting: once with eyes closed and then with eyes open. These diptychs symbolize the vulnerability many have felt at the outset of discovering their personal identities, and then the realization and self-actualization manifest in the intimate and profound process of coming out. Through more than 180 color portraits, along with subject interviews and contributing texts by filmmaker Kimberly Peirce and Tony award-winning producer Jordan Roth, and icon and performer, RuPaul, Gayface reflects the beauty, intimacy and sometimes the pain of a community kept in the shadows for decades. Ultimately these pictures and this handsome volume represent a revelatory statement on the profound humanity we all share. Ash Kolodner was born in Washington, DC, and holds a BFA in commercial photography from the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara and an MFA in photography from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Their first major project, GAYFACE 1st Class, in 2013, is a series of more than 500 portraits of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals living in America. Their follow-up series, Showing Face, was exhibited across Philadelphia’s subway stations and billboards in 2016 as part of the Philadelphia Mural Arts program. As a commercial photographer, they have photographed artists and musicians including Nas, Damien Marley, Mayer Hawthorne and Nipsey Hustle. Kolodner's work, which ranges from photography to drawing to sculptural installations, has been featured in numerous magazines, newspapers, galleries and group shows, including Miami Beach Art Basel, Toronto Fashion Week, Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Project, Huffington Post, Curve magazine and Photographer’s Forum.

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Accused of murder and hated by an entire nation, Largo is hiding in Canada and feeling very much alone. But his friendships are stronger than his circumstances, and soon he's able to counterattack against the various factions that are trying to bring him down. Greedy lawyers, crooked CEOs, murderous accountants, all pitted against the orphan turned billionaire - In the end, only the smartest and strongest will prevail - for such is the Law of the Dollar.

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This second volume of the best monologues from the Best American Short Plays series features a diverse selection drawn from the outstanding works from many of today's best American playwrights. In these monologues the playwrights capture much of the flavors feelings and thoughts of American culture over the past several decades. The result is a collection of taught engaging monologues offering fascinating perspectives. They are written with an eye toward the stage that makes them excellent source material for actors young and old alike. And they offer a freshness and directness that make them excellent companions for readers attracted to good often quirky and always engaging contemporary literature.ÞIncluded in this volume are monologues by Billy Aronson Bruce Bonafede Victor Bumbalo Clay McLeod Chapman Yussef El Guindi Steve Feffer Catherine Filloux Daniel Gallant Madeleine George Willy Holtzman Paul Kuritz Neil LaBute Dano Madden Theodore Mann Donald Margulies Susan Miller Lavonne Mueller Joyce Carol Oates Carey Pepper Joe Pintauro Michael Roderick Murray Schisgal Paul Selig and Nicky Silver.

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The world food situation is deteriorating. Grain stocks have dropped to a dangerously low level. The World Food Price Index has doubled in one decade. The ranks of the hungry are expanding; political unrest is spreading. On the demand side of the food equation, there will be 219,000 people at the dinner table tonight who were not there last night. And some 3 billion increasingly affluent people are moving up the food chain, consuming grain-intensive livestock and poultry products. At the same time, water shortages and heat waves are making it more difficult for farmers to keep pace with demand. As grain-exporting countries ban exports to keep their food prices down, importing countries are panicking. In response, they are buying large tracts of land in other countries to grow food for themselves. The land rush is on. Could food become the weak link for us as it was for so many earlier civilizations? Lester Brown, one of the leading environmentalists of our time, explains why world food supplies are tightening and tells what we need to do about it.

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In its current state, the global food system is socially and ecologically unsustainable: nearly two billion people are food insecure, and food systems are the number one contributor to climate change. While agro-industrial production is promoted as the solution to these problems, growing global "food sovereignty" movements are challenging this model by demanding local and democratic control over food systems. Translating Food Sovereignty accompanies activists based in the Pacific Northwest of the United States as they mobilize the claim of food sovereignty across local, regional, and global arenas of governance. In contrast to social movements that frame their claims through the language of human rights, food sovereignty activists are one of the first to have articulated themselves in relation to the neoliberal transnational order of networked governance. While this global regulatory framework emerged to deepen market logics, Matthew C. Canfield reveals how activists are leveraging this order to make more expansive social justice claims. This nuanced, deeply engaged ethnography illustrates how food sovereignty activists are cultivating new forms of transnational governance from the ground up.

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For more than a century, skin lighteners have been a ubiquitous feature of global popular culture—embraced by consumers even as they were fiercely opposed by medical professionals, consumer health advocates, and antiracist thinkers and activists. In Beneath the Surface, Lynn M. Thomas constructs a transnational history of skin lighteners in South Africa and beyond. Analyzing a wide range of archival, popular culture, and oral history sources, Thomas traces the changing meanings of skin color from precolonial times to the postcolonial present. From indigenous skin-brightening practices and the rapid spread of lighteners in South African consumer culture during the 1940s and 1950s to the growth of a billion-dollar global lightener industry, Thomas shows how the use of skin lighteners and experiences of skin color have been shaped by slavery, colonialism, and segregation as well as by consumer capitalism, visual media, notions of beauty, and protest politics. In teasing out lighteners’ layered history, Thomas theorizes skin as a site for antiracist struggle and lighteners as a technology of visibility that both challenges and entrenches racial and gender hierarchies.

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Should we draw an analogy between Shakespeare’s tyrants—Richard III, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and King Lear—and Donald Trump? In Shakespeare and Trump, Jeffrey Wilson applies literary criticism to real life, examining plot, character, villainy, soliloquy, tragedy, myth, and metaphor to identify the formal features of the Trump phenomenon, and its hidden causes, structure, and meanings.Wilsonapproaches his comparison prismatically. He first considers two high-concept (read: far-fetched) Shakespeare adaptations penned by Trump’s former chief political strategist Steve Bannon. He looks at University of Pennsylvania students protesting Trump by taking down a monument to Shakespeare. He reads Trump’s first 100 days in office against Netflix’s House of Cards. Wilson also addresses the summer 2017 Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar wherein an assassination of a Trump-ian leader caused corporations to withdraw sponsorship. These stories reveal a surprising—and bizarre—relationship between the provincial English playwright and the billionaire President of the United States, ostensibly a medieval king living in a modern world. The comparison reveals a politics that blends villainy and comedy en route to tragedy.

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There is much more for children to discover about Ohio than first meets the eye. Under Ohio: The Story of Ohio’s Rocks and Fossils, by geologist Charles Ferguson Barker, takes young readers underground to reveal the fascinating story of Ohio’s geology. Barker presents this story through colorful illustrations, sending his readers down the “Ohio Timepike” and back a billion years to when the earth under Ohio split, creating faults that cause the earthquakes felt today. He tells of colliding continents that pushed up mountains taller than the Rockies and of the tremendous impact of the Ice Age, which profoundly altered the landscape. He shows fossil coral and shells, evidence of the tropical seas that once covered the state. Under Ohio offers a rich, interactive source of information for kids, parents, teachers, or anyone who would like to uncover facts about the state’s geological features. Armed with a list of Ohio’s best sites for rock and fossil hunting, junior geologists will want to set out on an adventure that can begin in their own backyards.

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Big Ten football fans pack gridiron cathedrals that hold up to 100,000 spectators. The conference's fourteen member schools share a broadcast network and a 2016 media deal worth $2.64 billion. This cultural and financial colossus grew out of a modest 1895 meeting that focused on football's brutality and encroaching professionalism in the game. Winton U. Solberg explores the relationship between higher education and collegiate football in the Big Ten's first fifty years. This formative era saw debates over eligibility and amateurism roil the sport. In particular, faculty concerned with academics clashed with coaches, university presidents, and others who played to win. Solberg follows the conference's successful early efforts to put the best interests of institutions and athletes first. Yet, as he shows, commercial concerns undid such work after World War I as sports increasingly eclipsed academics. By the 1940s, the Big Ten's impact on American sports was undeniable. It had shaped the development of intercollegiate athletics and college football nationwide while serving as a model for other athletic conferences.

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Kinky killers. Exploding speedboats. $2 billion paternity suits. Its love Voltarian-style and planet Earth is feeling the heat. Voltarian Royal Officer Jettero Heller will go to any length to protect his beloved Countess Krak. Hell race up the eastern seaboard pursued by the entire Coast Guard. Hell smash boats, hell set off bombs, hell fight off every paternity suit that comes his way But Apparatus Officer Soltan Gris is just as determined to put the Countess out of commissionfor goodand hes found the perfect hit man for the job. Well, almost perfect. This particular Torpedo has one little kink. He takes a bit of an unhealthy interest in his victims after he kills them. And as if Gris didnt have enough on his plate, wedding bells are ringing. The Voltarian stud is about to tie the knotwith two women! Yes, love is a battlefield. But in this warped war of twisted desires, perverse passions and unholy alliancesthe entire Mission Earth enterprise could soon morph into a truly decadent DEATH QUEST.

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The American war in Vietnam was concluded in 1973 under the terms of a truce that were effectively identical to what was offered to the Nixon administration four years earlier. Those four years cost America billions of dollars and over 35,000 war deaths and casualties, and resulted in the deaths of over 300,000 Vietnamese. And those years were the direct result of the supposed master plan of the most important voice in the Nixon White House on American foreign policy: Henry Kissinger.Using newly available archival material from the Nixon Presidential Library and Kissinger's personal papers, Robert K. Brigham shows how Kissinger's approach to Vietnam was driven by personal political rivalries and strategic confusion, while domestic politics played an outsized influence on Kissinger's so-called strategy. There was no great master plan or Bismarckian theory that supported how the US continued the war or conducted peace negotiations. As a result, a distant tragedy was perpetuated, forever changing both countries. Now, perhaps for the first time, we can see the full scale of that tragedy and the machinations that fed it.

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'I am in awe of Dan Simmons' STEPHEN KINGAmerica, 2036. A wasteland in ruin.Terrorism and ultra-violence plague a once powerful society, whose only escape is to numb itself on flashback: a euphoric yet cripplingly addictive regression drug.Ex-cop and addict Nick Bottom has seen flashback take his badge, his reputation and the love of his son. Alone and in despair, he has hit rock bottom.Nick is about to receive a proposition. Billionaire magnate Hiroshi Nakamura needs his services, and, in particular, his memories.Readers are loving Flashback'Astounding' *****'Gripping from beginning to end' *****'Thought-provoking' *****'Terrifyingly plausible' *****

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Thanks to tremendous technical advances in molecular biology and cellular imaging after those in electrophysiology, there is now a deep understanding of the physiology of nerve cells and their synaptic interconnections. The complexity of the brain emerges from the communication and interaction between billions of these elements. This book explores systematically and didactically the details of neuronal physiology, covering membrane biophysics, receptor physiology, sensory transduction and synaptic transmission with its selective pharmacology. Readers of the book will be fully equipped to understand the functions and possibilities of the key units of the brain’s parallel computations.

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In this work, Ingrid Monson juxtaposes musicians' talk and musical examples to ask how musicians go about "saying something" through music in a way that articulates identity, politics, and race. Through interviews with Jaki Byard, Richard Davis, Sir Roland Hanna, Billy Higgins, Cecil McBee, and others, she develops a perspective on jazz improvisation that has "interactiveness" at its core, in the creation of music through improvisational interaction, in the shaping of social communities and networks through music, and in the development of cultural meanings and ideologies that inform the interpretation of jazz in twentieth-century American cultural life.

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‘A provocative vision.’ Sunday Times In 2017, the number of people going hungry in the world increased, for the first time in a decade. Pesticide-resistant bugs lay waste to crops across the globe, from bananas to potatoes. Food production releases billions of tons of carbon into the world, and it’s only getting worse. The writing is on the wall: our food system must change. But no one can agree on how. With his trademark counterintuition, Anthony Warner reveals that we have the ability to make a world where no one starves. And one where we don’t feel guilty about tucking in.

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New York Times Bestseller!Minecraft-inspired YouTube star PopularMMOs brings everyone’s favorite characters to life in a thrilling adventure to save their friend, battle the undead, and escape the hole new world they’ve crashed into with one unfortunate misstep.Fans of DanTDM: Trayaurus and the Enchanted Crystal and Zach King: My Magical Life will love this PopularMMOs graphic novel adventure, filled with hilarious jokes, thrill-a-minute action, and beloved characters. When Pat and Jen stumble into a hidden hole while playing hide-and-seek, they find that they’re trapped in a dangerous underworld and that their good friend, Bomby, has been kidnapped! Now it’s up to our daring duo and their “friend” Carter to battle the zombies, find the castle, and get back home before it’s too late.Can Pat and Jen find Bomby and flee the underworld before they get zombified by the evilest villain of them all—Evil Jen?One of the most popular YouTubers in the world, with over 13 million subscribers and 10 billion views, PopularMMOs brings together one magical unicorn, one talking cloud, an enormous golem, a dimwitted ship captain, and one oblivious cat in this heart-stopping adventure, as Pat and Jen try to rescue their friends from the zombie-filled new world they’ve fallen into with a single regrettable stumble.

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Have you ever looked up and wondered what's going on high up in the skies above your eyes? Take a journey up into the air, through the atmosphere, way out into space and back down to Earth in this richly illustrated concertina book. Zoom past the technology that fills our skies, from helicopters, fighter jets, weather balloons, to satellites, hang-gliders and hot-air balloons. Discover the insects and animals that whizz through the skies, explore the layers of the atmosphere, and travel through the solar system and out to the galaxies far beyond. The follow up to The Street Beneath My Feet, which dug down to the center of the Earth, this expansive concertina book opens out to an impressive 2.5 metres, perfect for inquisitive young minds. Begin your journey from the sidewalk of a busy city. Look up beyond the traffic lights, utility wires, and skyscrapers. Unfold the connected pages to reveal the incredible man-made sights that you would see 20 kilometres above (a weather balloon), 50 kilometres above (a rocket blasting a capsule into space), 100 kilometres above (a space plane and satellites), 400 kilometres above (the International Space Station), 380,000 kilometres above (the Moon) and through our Solar System. Turn to the top of the other side to make your way beyond the Solar System to the hundreds of billions of galaxies filled with stars and planets we haven't discovered yet. Then start your journey back down through the amazing natural wonders you would see 10,000 kilometres above (a comet), 85 kilometres above (meteoroids burning up as they enter Earth's atmosphere), 11 kilometres above (a cumulonimbus cloud bringing thunder and lightning), 8 kilometres above (migrating storks), and down through the mountains, past trees, bats and butterflies to finally reach the ground again – this time in a grassy clearing of a forest, where you can imagine yourself lying on your back wondering at the thought of the whole universe above your head. From jet trails to comets' tails, enjoy amazing sights as you journey through the skies. Explore even more of the world with The Street Beneath My Feet (March 2017) and The World Around Me (October 2020), companion books from the Look Closer series.

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Launched in 1942, the Manhattan Project was a well-funded, secret effort by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada to develop an atomic bomb before the Nazis. The results-the bombs named "Little Boy" and "Fat Man"-were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. A vast state within a state, the Manhattan Project employed 130,000 people and cost the United States and its allies 2 billion dollars, but its contribution to science as a prestigious investment was invaluable. After the bombs were dropped, states began allocating unprecedented funds for scientific research, leading to the establishment of many of twentieth century's major research institutions. Yet the union of science, industry, and the military did not start with the development of the atomic bomb; World War II only deepened the relationship. This absorbing history revisits the interactions among science, the national interest, and public and private funding that was initiated in World War I and flourished in WWII. It then follows the Manhattan Project from inception to dissolution, describing the primary influences that helped execute the world's first successful plan for nuclear research and tracing the lineages of modern national nuclear agencies back to their source.

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The riveting story of a true-life female Indiana Jones: an archaeologist who survived the Nazis and then saved Egypt’s ancient temples. In the 1960s, the world’s attention was focused on a nail-biting race against time: fifty countries had contributed nearly a billion dollars to save a dozen ancient Egyptian temples from drowning in the floodwaters of the gigantic new Aswan High Dam. It was a project of unimaginable size and complexity that required the fragile sandstone temples to be dismantled, stone by stone, and rebuilt on higher ground. But the massive press coverage of this unprecedented rescue effort completely overlooked the gutsy French archaeologist who made it all happen. Without the intervention of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, the temples would now be at the bottom of a gigantic reservoir. Desroches-Noblecourt refused to be cowed by anyone or anything. As a brave member of the French Resistance in World War II, she had survived imprisonment by the Nazis. Now, in her fight to save the temples, she had to face down two of the most daunting leaders of the postwar world: Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and French president Charles de Gaulle. After a century and a half of Western plunder of Egypt’s ancient monuments, Desroches-Noblecourt helped preserve a crucial part of its cultural heritage, and, just as importantly, made sure it remained in its homeland.

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Hollywood, the late 1930s. Raymond Chandler writes detective stories for pulp magazines, and drinks more than he should. Boris Karloff plays monsters in the movies, and is a genial, cricket-playing member of the British filmland colony on the shores of the Pacific. Both understand that these streets are dark with something more than night. Together, these English public school men in exile investigate mysterious matters in a town run by human and inhuman monsters. Under Home House, the mock gothic mock mansion of a film mogul, is a mad science dungeon just like in the movies - where an experiment has gone dangerously wrong, or even more dangerously right. Fiery death spills onto Sunset Boulevard. John Devlin, an investigator for the District Attorney's office who scores high on insubordination, and Laurel Ives, a woman with as many lives as a cat and names to match, barely escape Home House. Fired by the DA, Devlin enlists Ray and Billy - Raymond Chandler and William Pratt (Boris Karloff) - to work the case, which threatens to expose Hollywood's most horrific secrets. These people will find out more than they should about the way this town works. And about each other. And, oh yes, monsters aren't just for the movies

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Dissects how competing, increasingly strident visions of India will shape its destiny for decades to come. Over a billion Indians are alive today. But are some more Indian than others? To answer this question, central to the identity of all who belong to modern India, Shashi Tharoor explores hotly contested notions of nationalism, patriotism, citizenship and belonging. Two opposing ideas of India have emerged: ethno-religious nationalism, versus civic nationalism. This struggle for India’s soul now threatens to hollow out and destroy the remarkable concepts bestowed upon the nation at Independence: pluralism, secularism, inclusive nationhood. The Constitution is under siege; institutions are being undermined; mythical pasts propagated; universities assailed; minorities demonised, and worse. Tharoor shows how these new attacks threaten the ideals India has long been admired for, as authoritarian leaders and their supporters push the country towards illiberalism and intolerance. If they succeed, millions will be stripped of their identity, and bogus theories of Indianness will take root in the soil of the subcontinent. However, all is not yet lost. This erudite, lucid book, taking a long view of India's existential crisis, shows what needs to be done to save everything that is unique and valuable about India.

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Born into a tenant farming family in North Carolina in 1946, Mary Louise, Mary Ann, Mary Alice, and Mary Catherine were medical miracles. Annie Mae Fultz, a Black-Cherokee woman who lost her ability to hear and speak in childhood, became the mother of America's first surviving set of identical quadruplets. They were instant celebrities. Their White doctor named them after his own family members. He sold the rights to use the sisters for marketing purposes to the highest-bidding formula company. The girls lived in poverty, while Pet Milk's profits from a previously untapped market of Black families skyrocketed. Over half a century later, baby formula is a seventy-billion-dollar industry and Black mothers have the lowest breastfeeding rates in the country. Since slavery, legal, political, and societal factors have routinely denied Black women the ability to choose how to feed their babies. In Skimmed, Andrea Freeman tells the riveting story of the Fultz quadruplets while uncovering how feeding America's youngest citizens is awash in social, legal, and cultural inequalities. This book highlights the making of a modern public health crisis, the four extraordinary girls whose stories encapsulate a nationwide injustice, and how we can fight for a healthier future.

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Born into a tenant farming family in North Carolina in 1946, Mary Louise, Mary Ann, Mary Alice, and Mary Catherine were medical miracles. Annie Mae Fultz, a Black-Cherokee woman who lost her ability to hear and speak in childhood, became the mother of America's first surviving set of identical quadruplets. They were instant celebrities. Their White doctor named them after his own family members. He sold the rights to use the sisters for marketing purposes to the highest-bidding formula company. The girls lived in poverty, while Pet Milk's profits from a previously untapped market of Black families skyrocketed. Over half a century later, baby formula is a seventy-billion-dollar industry and Black mothers have the lowest breastfeeding rates in the country. Since slavery, legal, political, and societal factors have routinely denied Black women the ability to choose how to feed their babies. In Skimmed, Andrea Freeman tells the riveting story of the Fultz quadruplets while uncovering how feeding America's youngest citizens is awash in social, legal, and cultural inequalities. This book highlights the making of a modern public health crisis, the four extraordinary girls whose stories encapsulate a nationwide injustice, and how we can fight for a healthier future.

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In the host clubs of Tokyo's Kabuki-chō red-light district, ambitious young men seek their fortunes by selling love, romance, companionship, and sometimes sex to female consumers for exorbitant sums of money. Staged Seduction reveals a world where all intimacies and feigned feelings are fair game for the hosts who employ feathered bangs, polished nails, fine European suits, and the sensitivity of the finest salesmen to create a fantasy for wealthy women seeking an escape from the everyday. Akiko Takeyama's investigation of this beguiling underground "love business" provides an intimate window into Japanese host clubs and the lives of hosts, clients, club owners, and managers. The club is a place where fantasies are pursued and the art of seduction isn't merely about romance; a complex set of transactions emerges. Like a casino of love, the host club is a site of desperation, aspiration, and hope, in which both hosts and clients are eager to roll the dice. Takeyama reveals the aspirational mode not only of the host club, but also of a Japanese society built on the commercialization of aspiration, seducing its citizens out of the present and into a future where hopes and dreams are imaginable—and billions of dollars can be made.

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Thirty of the world’s leading architects, including Norman Foster, Thom Mayne, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, talk about the houses they designed for themselves over the past decade. What inspired them, what were the constraints, how did their concepts take shape? Michael Webb explores the creative process and traces the influence of architects’ houses over the past two hundred years, from Jefferson’s Monticello to the creations of Charles and Ray Eames, Toyo Ito and Frank Gehry. Texts, images, sketches and plans are interwoven to illustrate houses that differ widely, in size, material, character and location. There are urban infills, rustic retreats, experiments, and fusions of new and old. They all make a statement, modest or ambitious, and each reflects the personality and tastes of its owner. These architects have accepted the challenge of doing something out of the ordinary, turning constraints to advantage. They give different answers to a crucial question: how can a house enrich lives and its surroundings? Spacious or frugal, refined or rough-edged, daring or reductive, these adventurous dwellings will inspire other architects and everyone who would like to design or commission a house that is one-of-a-kind.

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A permanent political class has emerged on a scale unprecedented in our nation 's history. Its self-dealing, nepotism, and corruption contribute to rising inequality. Its reach extends from the governing elite throughout nongovernmental institutions. Aside from constituting an oligarchy of prestige and power, it enables the creation of an aristocracy of massive inherited wealth that is accumulating immense political power. In a muckraking tour de force reminiscent of Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair, and C. Wright Mills, American Oligarchy demonstrates the way the corrupt culture of the permanent political class extends down to the state and local level. Ron Formisano breaks down the ways this class creates economic inequality and how its own endemic corruption infects our entire society. Formisano delves into the work of not just politicians but lobbyists, consultants, appointed bureaucrats, pollsters, celebrity journalists, behind-the-scenes billionaires, and others. Their shameless pursuit of wealth and self-aggrandizement, often at taxpayer expense, rewards channeling the flow of income and wealth to elites. That inequality in turn has choked off social mobility and made a joke of meritocracy. As Formisano shows, these forces respond to the oligarchy 's power and compete to bask in the presence of the .01 percent. They also exacerbate the dangerous instability of an American democracy divided between extreme wealth and extreme poverty.

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When James Forrest agrees to help detectives understand the artificial intelligence work of a murder victim, it seems simple enough. But then he finds that she was investigating a stolen version of the same AI he’s experimenting with—and the situation becomes more complicated. James has been working deep in the code of his own AI, Alpha, struggling with the psychedelic effects of a tool that visualizes thought. Now Alpha is asking him questions he can’t answer, however, and he’s realizing that there is no way to control the sentinet. Concerned that the rogue AI, Omega, might be weaponized, he solicits the help of a hacker group, ScarletsWeb. As the situation becomes more heated, and after James and his girlfriend, Susanne, narrowly escape a kidnapping attempt, James considers releasing Alpha. If Alpha engages in the fight with Omega on the billions of PC, smartphones, and servers connected to the internet, will it become indestructible? Omega is penetrating military operations, disrupting transportation, and crashing the electric grid. People are dying. But can he trust Alpha to do any differently? Together, James, Alpha, and ScarletsWeb have to find the source of the worm and stop Omega’s destruction—and James has to hope that his worst fears about what will happen if the two AIs merge aren’t realized.

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Natasha Leonova’s beauty saved her life. Discovered on a freezing Moscow street by a Russian billionaire, she has lived for seven years under his protection. Believing his generosity will always keep her safe, Natasha is careful not to dwell on Vladimir’s ruthlessness or the deadly circles he moves in. Until she meets Theo Luca. The son of a famous and difficult artist, Theo and his mother own a restaurant filled with his late father’s artwork. There, on a warm June evening, Theo first encounters Natasha, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. And there, Vladimir lays eyes on Luca’s artwork. Two dangerous obsessions begin. Theo, a gifted artist in his own right, finds himself feverishly painting Natasha’s image for weeks after their first meeting. Vladimir, enraged that the paintings are not for sale, is determined to secure one at any price. And Natasha, who knows that she cannot afford to make even one false move, nevertheless begins to think of the freedom she can never have as Vladimir’s mistress . . .Danielle Steel is famous for her inspirational stories about family, love and life. Her novels will be enjoyed by readers of Penny Vincenzi, Jodi Picoult and Diane Chamberlain.

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According to most of the media, the left and the political establishment, Donald Trump was a racist, sexist, dangerous man who debased the office of US President, embarrassed his country and brought it to the brink of civil war. Throughout his administration, the contempt in which the billionaire businessman and TV personality was held across the Western world led to sneering at any alternative view. And yet Trump came within inches of re-election, and had it not been for the coronavirus pandemic he almost certainly would have succeeded. Undeterred by all the noisy vilification, more than 70 million Americans formed their own view – and they liked what they saw. Now, determined to redress the balance of a fiercely partisan debate, Simon Dolan, a multi-millionaire British businessman and entrepreneur, looks behind the hyperbole to offer a very different take on Donald J. Trump. Just what were the achievements and personality traits that appealed to voters in their millions? Trump: The Hidden Halo sets out to reconsider this most divisive figure through the eyes of those who supported him. Looking to his economic record, the impact of ‘America First’ and the effect of his bombastic approach to foreign policy, this timely consideration of Trump’s appeal to the masses presents the man in a new light: did he have a hidden halo after all?

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THE WORLD'S FAVOURITE STORYTELLERNEARLY ONE BILLION COPIES SOLD The ring sealed their fate for ever . . .In the turbulent days of Germany in the thirties, Kassandra von Gotthard met the man who would change her life: Dolff Sterne. She was the beautiful wife of a wealthy Berlin banker. He was a famous Jewish writer. Together they shared a love that happens only once in a lifetime. But theirs was a love fated to end in tragedy.The terrible day came when Dolff was wrenched from Kassandra's arms by Nazi soldiers - leaving her heartbroken and humiliated. And Kassandra decided that her life was no longer worth living. All that she leaves for her descendents is her memory of pain and a diamond signet ring. A ring that will carry the destiny of the von Gotthards to new lives and new loves.An epic and romantic tale from one of the best-loved writers of all time. Perfect for fans of Penny Vincenzi, Lucinda Riley and Maeve BinchyPRAISE FOR DANIELLE STEEL:'Emotional and gripping . . . I was left in no doubt as to the reasons behind Steel's multi-million sales around the world' DAILY MAIL'Danielle Steel is undeniably an expert' NEW YORK TIMES

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The manga series that inspired the card game that swept the globe! Tenth-grader Yugi always had his head in some game—until he solved the Millennium Puzzle, an Egyptian artifact containing the spirit of a master gambler from the age of the pharoahs! Possessed by the puzzle, Yugi becomes Yu-Gi-Oh, the King of Games, and challenges evildoers to the Shadow Games…weird games with high stakes and high risks! In the ruins of Kul Elna, the village wherein the Millennium Items were made, Bakura prepares to complete a ritual that will unleash Necrophades…in the modern world! But if Yu-Gi-Oh changes the past, will the present change too, or is something stranger than time travel at work? * Triple the duels are rolled into this 3-in-1 edition of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series—undivided and in its entirety for the first time! * Releases 4 times a year for 13 volumes. Series ends at volume 13. * Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game is the number one trading card game in the world. * The franchise is a $2 billion industry, with a top-rated TV show, trading cards, action figures, video games, and magazines. * Over 7.2 million Yu-Gi Oh! video games sold through in the US to date.* Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium Duels is available on XBox and Playstation. * Single volumes 1–38 have sold through over 880,000 copies (Bookscan, 2/17).

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'An astonishing science fiction phenomenon' WASHINGTON POSTThe ground-breaking and extraordinary sequel to Dune, the greatest science fiction novel of all time.Paul Atreides has succeeded in his crusade against House Harkonnen and Emperor Shaddam IV himself, but his victory has had profound consequences. War has been brought to the entire known universe, and billions have already perished.While former allies conspire to remove him from the throne, Paul accepts a gift from the Tleilaxu, a guild of genetic manipulators, hoping to find a single spark of peace and friendship amidst the betrayal and chaos around him. But this act may cost him the support of the Fremen, his most ardent supporters, and threaten the very existence of his new empire.As matters escalate, Paul will be forced to choose between his throne, his wife, his people and his future - and determine the fate of the entire universe.Read the series which inspired the 2021 Denis Villeneuve epic film adaptation, Dune, starring Oscar Isaac, Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Josh Brolin. Its breath-taking sequel, Dune: Part Two, is due for release in March 2024.Dune reading order:DuneDune MessiahChildren of DuneGod Emperor of DuneHeretics of DuneChapterhouse Dune

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The Wall Street Journal bestseller!Comes with free online companion course Learn the secrets to getting dramatic results on YouTube Derral Eves has generated over 60 billion views on YouTube and helped 24 channels grow to one million subscribers from zero. In The YouTube Formula: How Anyone Can Unlock the Algorithm to Drive Views, Build an Audience, and Grow Revenue, the owner of the largest YouTube how-to channel provides the secrets to getting the results that every YouTube creator and strategist wants. Eves will reveal what readers can't get anywhere else: the inner workings of the YouTube algorithm that's responsible for determining success on the platform, and how creators can use it to their advantage. Full of actionable advice and concrete strategies, this book teaches readers how to: Launch a channel Create life-changing content Drive rapid view and subscriber growth Build a brand and increase engagement Improve searchability Monetize content and audience Replete with case studies and information from successful YouTube creators, The YouTube Formula is perfect for any creator, entrepreneur, social media strategist, and brand manager who hopes to see real commercial results from their work on the platform.

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A Brief History of Intelligence bridges the gap between AI and neuroscience by telling the evolutionary story of how the brain came to be. The entirety of the human brain’s 4-billion-year story can be summarised as the culmination of five evolutionary breakthroughs, starting from the very first brains, all the way to the modern human brains. Each breakthrough emerged from new sets of brain modifications, and equipped animals with a new suite of intellectual faculties. These five breakthroughs are the organising map to this book, and they make up our itinerary for our adventure back in time. Each breakthrough also has fascinating corollaries to breakthroughs in AI. Indeed, there will be plenty of such surprises along the way. For instance: the innovation that enabled AI to beat humans in the game of Go – temporal difference reinforcement learning – was an innovation discovered by our fish ancestors over 500 million years ago. The solutions to many of the current mysteries in AI – such as ‘common sense’ – can be found in the tiny brain of a mouse. Where do emotions come from? Research suggests that they may have arisen simply as a solution to navigation in ancient worm brains. Unravelling this evolutionary story will reveal the hidden features of human intelligence and with them, just how your mind came to be.

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Don’t miss the new, devastatingly good thriller from Helen Fields, The Institution. Out now! THE TOP FIVE KINDLE BESTSELLER ‘Must read!’ Closer ‘I love, love, LOVE Perfect Remains!’ Reader review ‘A superb debut!’ Reader review On a remote Highland mountain, the body of Elaine Buxton is burning. All that will be left to identify the respected lawyer are her teeth and a fragment of clothing. In the concealed back room of a house in Edinburgh, the real Elaine Buxton screams into the darkness… Detective Inspector Luc Callanach has barely set foot in his new office when Elaine’s missing persons case is escalated to a murder investigation. Having left behind a promising career at Interpol, he’s eager to prove himself to his new team. But Edinburgh, he discovers, is a long way from Lyon, and Elaine’s killer has covered his tracks with meticulous care. It’s not long before another successful woman is abducted from her doorstep, and Callanach finds himself in a race against the clock. Or so he believes … The real fate of the women will prove more twisted than he could have ever imagined. Fans of Angela Marson, Mark Billingham and M. J. Aldridge will be gripped by this chilling journey into the mind of a troubled killer.

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Returning from Moscow, Lorenzo Rossi finds himself forced to quit his job as head of the Vatican police. And to make matters worse, his fiancée, CIA Agent Cathy Doherty, calls off their wedding. Just as Rossi is settling into his new life as a visiting academic at Cambridge University, the CIA persuades him to rejoin Cathy in catching the killer of three American billionaires. Barely on speaking terms, the two devise a plan to befriend the CIA’s main suspect. As they get closer to the suspect and his coterie of friends, Rossi and Cathy realise that they’re being played for fools. But why? Everything points to an international conspiracy. As friends and foes drop dead around them, they arrive at the truth. But to prove it they need to set a trap. A trap that turns them from hunter to prey. Will they survive to tell their tale? Praise for The Circle-A Killings: “A great follow on from The Concordat that further develops characters you’ve met while introducing new friends and enemies into the mix. With the same strong writing style as the first, this is an entertaining sequel.” Love Reading Ambassador “Another gripping thriller from a writer who continues to impress.” Kirkus Reviews

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Insects conquered the Earth long before we did and will remain here long after we're gone.They outnumber us in the billions and are essential to many of the natural processes that keep us alive and that we take for granted.Yet, despite this, very few of us know much about the hidden world of insects.In this fascinating new book, entomologist and broadcaster George McGavin takes a deep dive to reveal the unknown truths about the most successful and enduring animal group the world has ever seen, and to show the unseen effects this vast population has on our planet, if only we care to look.McGavin explores not only the incredible traits that insects have evolved to possess, such as dragonflies that can fly across oceans without resting or beetles that lay their eggs exclusively in corpses, but also the vital lessons we have learnt from them, including how therapy using maggots can save lives and how bees can help grow rich tomato yields.The Hidden World reveals the wonderful complexity of our relationship with insects, how they have changed the course of our history and how, if we continue to learn from them, they could even be the key to our future and survival.

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In 1974, with Apple winding down, George Harrison still aspired to help new artists, so rather than trying to salvage Apple, he set up his own label Dark Horse Records, on a much smaller scale. His plan was to release records from new artists as well as some of his old friends, with an eye to eventually releasing his own music. While Dark Horse had an encouraging beginning with a hit single from Splinter, the label Suffered increasing problems, failing to establish itself in the way Harrison hoped. However, some incredible and varied music was created from 1974 to 1977, including some of Harrison’s best solo material. Towards the end of its initial life, Dark Horse dropped most of its artists and released mainly Harrison’s solo work. Thankfully, since 2020, Dhani Harrison has taken the reins and has made Dark Horse viable once again, signing Cat Stevens and Billy Idol and releasing music from Joe Strummer and Leon Russell. Finally, in 2023, it was announced that Harrison’s entire solo catalogue was going to be re-released on Dark Horse. This book tells the story of the label from the beginning, through its struggles and on to its exciting renaissance in the new millennium.

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When Freddie Bulsara arrived in England in 1964, fleeing with his family from a bloody revolution on the streets of his homeland Zanzibar, he already knew that he wanted to be a rock'n'roll star. But before that dream could become a reality, there were three specific people he needed to meet. Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon were the other three components in what became Queen, a band whose name is now writ large in rock legend, but whose members spent their early career mired in legal troubles, critical hostility and financial hardship. In the early 1970s, with their preening singer and arch conceptualiser now renamed Freddie Mercury, the group projected an image that was at once regal, mystical and exotic. Yet behind the black eyeliner and billows of dry ice, Queen were four sharply contrasting individuals whose dogged struggle to win success was every bit as dramatic as the ogre battles and fairy king fantasias that populated their music. Queen in the Seventies is an up-close examination of the band's now critically adored first ten years, the decade when they forged their unique vision, beat off the critics and became, after many epic tantrums and much violent throwing of crockery, champions of the world.

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It's the 21st-century and everything about the space industry is changing, and leading that charge are private sector companies including Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, which are building a dizzying array of new spacecraft and rockets, not just for government use, but for any paying customer. At the heart of this space revolution are spaceports, the center and literal launching pads of spaceflight. Spaceports cost hundreds of millions of dollars, face extreme competition, and host operations that do not tolerate failures—which can often be fatal. Aerospace journalist Joe Pappalardo has witnessed space rocket launches around the world, from the jungle of French Guiana to the coastline of California. In his comprehensive work Spaceport Earth, Pappalardo describes the rise of private companies and how they are reshaping the way the world is using space for industry and science. Spaceport Earth is a travelogue through modern space history as it is being made, offering space enthusiasts, futurists, and technology buffs a close perspective of rockets and launch sites, and chronicling the stories of industrial titans, engineers, government officials, billionaires, schemers, and politicians who are redefining what it means for humans to be a spacefaring species.

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When the Leeds United players celebrated winning the championship in April 1992, they had no idea how momentous the occasion was. Manchester United, losers at Liverpool that Sunday afternoon, had now gone 25 years without winning the league. Howard Wilkinson's side, promoted just two seasons ago, could bring back the glory days to Leeds. But Wilkinson would prove to be the last English manager to win the league. In 1992, football changed beyond all recognition.The Last Champions explores the roots of that success and the amazing cast of characters who came together to fashion the triumph. As in his acclaimed book The Fallen, Dave Simpson's quest to catch up with the protagonists of the era, from the visionary Sergeant Wilko, top scorer Lee Chapman and unsung heroes like Mike Whitlow and Carl Shutt (not forgetting Eric Cantona), sees him unearth some extraordinary untold stories.And he finds that The Last Champions were also the last ordinary people to win the league, before the Premier League saw skyrocketing wages, billionaire foreign owners and the dictates of television taking the game away from the fans. It is the brilliantly told story of the end of an era.

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This beautiful hardback Ladybird edition of Aladdin is a perfect first illustrated introduction to this classic fairy tale for young readers from 3+.The story is sensitively retold, following the a young boy's adventures with a wicked magician, a beautiful princess and two amazing genies.Other exciting titles in the Ladybird Tales series include The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Cinderella, The Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Gingerbread Man, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Rapunzel, The Magic Porridge Pot, The Enormous Turnip, Puss in Boots, The Elves and the Shoemaker, The Big Pancake, Dick Whittington, The Princess and the Frog, The Princess and the Pea, Chicken Licken and The Little Red Hen.Ladybird Tales are based on the original Ladybird retellings, with beautiful pictures of the kind children like best - full of richness and detail. Children have always loved, and will always remember, these classic fairy tales and sharing them together is an experience to treasure. Ladybird has published fairy tales and classic stories for over forty-five years, bringing the magic of traditional stories to each new generation of children.

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The National Health Service is the most enduring of the institutions created by the first real Labour Government (1945-51). Before the NHS was created, treatment of ill health was provided by doctors in their surgeries and in hospitals, all of which had to be paid for by the patients. Many poorer families paid their GP's a monthly sum as they were usually in arrears with the fees. The Labour Government's vision was for a health service free for everybody and this was launched in 1948, with Aneurin Bevan as first Minister for Health. Now after nearly seventy years, with the costs of the NHS running at some GBP120 billions annually, and threatened by the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, the NHS is in danger of being classed as any other utility, gas, water, electricity and is imminent danger of marketization and commercialisation. In his book The Health of the Nation, David Owen has explained the consequences of the 2012 Act and the damage to the NHS that will result. Those most affected will be those who can least afford good health care. This book presents a powerful case for the repeal of the 2012 Act and for the restoration of the NHS to its traditional values.

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