Search results for ""author bill"

The sequel nobody wants. After a decade of the Tories, could it get any worse? Spoiler it does. Towards the end of 2021, Britain had been frogmarched into an escalating series of surreal calamities. Brexit was a disaster, the NHS was in crisis, the government was bathed head-to-toe in impropriety, senior Tories were still acting as though the public purse was their personal feed-trough, and the air crackled with anger about PartyGate. All of which led to an inglorious start to 2022: the year the UK saw two monarchs, three prime ministers and four chancellors. From Boris Johnson, who trashed our international reputation and handed billions to his mates so they could ineptly fight a pandemic while he stayed at home, shagging and acting as a super-spreader; to Liz Truss, a drive-by prime minister who managed to kill off the queen and crash the economy in a single week. And now we're led by Rishi Sunak, who doesn't know how to use a credit card,

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In Oxford Street, Accra, Ato Quayson analyzes the dynamics of Ghana's capital city through a focus on Oxford Street, part of Accra's most vibrant and globalized commercial district. He traces the city's evolution from its settlement in the mid-seventeenth century to the present day. He combines his impressions of the sights, sounds, interactions, and distribution of space with broader dynamics, including the histories of colonial and postcolonial town planning and the marks of transnationalism evident in Accra's salsa scene, gym culture, and commercial billboards. Quayson finds that the various planning systems that have shaped the city—and had their stratifying effects intensified by the IMF-mandated structural adjustment programs of the late 1980s—prepared the way for the early-1990s transformation of a largely residential neighborhood into a kinetic shopping district. With an intense commercialism overlying, or coexisting with, stark economic inequalities, Oxford Street is a microcosm of historical and urban processes that have made Accra the variegated and contradictory metropolis that it is today.

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Hadrian Marlowe, a man revered as a hero and despised as a murderer, chronicles his tale in the galaxy-spanning debut of the Sun Eater series, merging the best of space opera and epic fantasy.It was not his war.The galaxy remembers him as a hero: the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a monster: the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives—even the Emperor himself—against Imperial orders.But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier.On the wrong planet, at the right time, for the best reasons, Hadrian Marlowe starts down a path that can only end in fire. He flees his father and a future as a torturer only to be left stranded on a strange, backwater world.Forced to fight as a gladiator and navigate the intrigues of a foreign planetary court, Hadrian must fight a war he did not start, for an Empire he does not love, against an enemy he will never understand.

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'Top Bins! A personal best, a lap record and a hole in one for when rain has stopped play.' ALAN DAVIESHop, skip and jump into this wonderfully curious grand tour of the world of sports, brought to you by QI Elves James Harkin and Anna Ptaszynski.From sport's weirdest rules to its most unlikely heroes, via comically large cricket bats, pole-vaulting priests, creative football chants and exploding billiard balls, each chapter of Everything to Play For is brimming with surprising facts and intriguing stories.Even if you've never asked yourself what David Attenborough has to do with yellow tennis balls, why Victorian doctors feared the outbreak of 'bicycle face' or what led ancient Egyptian athletes to have their spleens removed, this book will give you the astonishing answers - and plenty more besides.**For more from the team behind QI's hit TV show, check out the QI FACTS series of books, @qikipedia, their weekly podcast at nosuchthingasafish.com or visit qi.com.

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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTELLERUtterly brilliant. We all need to read this book' CLAUDIA WINKLEMAN''Patrick's book is fascinating and sobering and makes a compelling argument for going back to basics' JOE LYCETTWe used to care a lot about our clothes. We didn't have many but those we had were important to us. We'd cherish them, repair them and pass them on. And making them provided fulfilling work for millions of skilled people locally. ?Today the average person has nearly five times as many clothes as they did just 50 years ago. Last year, 100 billion garments were produced worldwide, most made from oil, 30% of which were not even sold, and the equivalent of one bin lorry full of clothing is dumped in landfill or burned every single second. Our wardrobes are full to bursting with clothes we never wear so why do we keep buying more?In this passionate and revealing book about loving clothes but despairing of a broken global system Patrick Grant considers the crisis of consumption and quality

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The must-have Back to School dictionary for Year 10. The most up-to-date and information-packed dictionary of its size available. With spelling, grammar and pronunciation help, plus a practical writing guide, the Pocket Dictionary gives you all the everyday words you need – at your fingertips. Up-to-date language coverage along with practical guidance on effective English for everyday use. The text is compiled using the latest information on current English from Collins Corpus – our unique and constantly updated 4.5-billion-word database – ensuring the most up-to-date language coverage available. And, with all entry words and spelling forms in clear type, modern definitions, you can be sure to find all the information you need in the quickest time possible. 85,000 words, meanings, and phrases Collins have been pioneers in dictionary publishing since 1819. We are proud to offer an extensive range of dictionaries in multiple formats and languages for all leisure, travel and educational needs.

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FOLLOWING FROM THE ENORMOUS SUCCESS OF WORDS AND PICTURES AND BEYOND THE PAGE , THIS THIRD VOLUME CONTINUES A NARRATIVE OF VISUAL ADVENTURES OF UNUSUAL DIVERSITY. Pens Ink & Places contains a wealth of new material, ranging from touching series of vignettes for Great Ormond Street Hospital to gigantic drawings for the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings; from the sombre apocalyptic landscapes of Riddley Walker to the energetic fantasy of Billy and the Minpins. This beautiful volume also includes Blake's unique illustrations made to accompany accompany the works of John Ruskin, La Fontaine, Lucius Apuleius and Beatrix Potter. Blake's commentary - straight, as it were, from the drawing board - explores the challenges and opportunities in the creation of drawings known around the world, as well as others seen here for the first time. It is clear from every page of this informative and richly illustrated volume that there has been no slackening of brio in the scratchy pen nib of an artist who has been called the `Godfather of Illustration'.

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Forty thousand people died trying to cross international borders in the past decade, with the high-profile deaths along the shores of Europe only accounting for half of the grisly total.Reece Jones argues that these deaths are not exceptional, but rather the result of state attempts to contain populations and control access to resources and opportunities. "We may live in an era of globalization," he writes, "but much of the world is increasingly focused on limiting the free movement of people."In Violent Borders, Jones crosses the migrant trails of the world, documenting the billions of dollars spent on border security projects and their dire consequences for countless millions. While the poor are restricted by the lottery of birth to slum dwellings in the aftershocks of decolonization, the wealthy travel without constraint, exploiting pools of cheap labor and lax environmental regulations. With the growth of borders and resource enclosures, the deaths of migrants in search of a better life are intimately connected to climate change, environmental degradation, and the growth of global wealth inequality.

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The warring states of this day are warming around the new fires of a grand war, freed from half a decade in shackles of so-called peace. On such seven great lands and seas of deranged humanity are all but controlled by two elements. Eifer and kei. They give birth to the wrath of the species. In life. In battle. And had bred new sin. With the ever growing threat of the prosperous Confederate titan looming over Yurupe, the ailing alliance of Aelon lies on an endless path of futile resistance in the face of the vastest invasion. Of the billions, Arminius Reichner, a schoolboy, is trapped in the casing of shells and corpses. There is but one exit. That is into the pits of No Man's Lands. For every sane person desired the praise of heroism they would endure for the people of their kingdoms, none knew how a childish dream would shatter the most resolute of minds. Victory has become a forgotten word. In a cruel world called paradise, hell sits not so far.

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'Shirley is a time traveller, a conduit for essential human aches, one of the greatest artists who ever lived' Stewart Lee'Without doubt one of England's greatest cultural treasures' Billy BraggIn America Over the Water, celebrated English folksinger Shirley Collins offers an affecting account of her year-long stint as assistant to legendary musical historian and folklorist Alan Lomax. Together, they travelled to Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Georgia, discovering Mississippi Fred McDowell and many others, in their tireless work to uncover the traditional music of America's heartland. Blending the personal story of Shirley Collins' relationship with Lomax and offering a unique first-hand account of a country on the brink of the civil rights era, America Over the Water cuts right to the heart of the blues in a fascinating account of Collins' and Lomax's ground-breaking journey across the southern states of the USA to record the music that started it all. Originally published over fifteen years ago, this definitive edition includes a new introduction by Shirley Collins.

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'A novel full of surprises... It's vintage Paretsky, and hard to put down' - The Sunday Times Named Top 10 Thriller of 2020 by KirkusChicago is the city of broad shoulders, but V.I. Warshawski knows its politics: "Pay to Play". Money changes hands in the middle of the night; by morning, buildings and parks have been replaced by billion-dollar projects.Private investigator V.I. gets pulled into one of these clandestine deals when her impetuous goddaughter Bernie tries to rescue a famed singer-songwriter, now living on the streets. Thanks to Bernie, V.I. finds herself in the path of some developers whose negotiating strategy is simple: they bulldoze - or kill - any obstacle in their way.Questions pile up almost as fast as the dead bodies. When she tries to answer them, the detective finds a terrifying conspiracy stretching from Chicago's parks to a cover-up of the dark chapters in the American government's interference in South American politics. Before finds answer, V.I. will be pushed closed to breaking point. People who pay to play take no prisoners.

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NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JULIETTE BINOCHE AND ANTONIO BANDERASTHE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST'Riveting ...The best book I've read all year.' Ann Patchett'An astonishing tale of survival' Spectator THE STORY THAT GRIPPED THE GLOBEAugust 2010: the San Jose mine in Chile collapses trapping 33 men half a mile underground for 69 days. Faced with the possibility of starvation and even death, the miners make a pact: if they survive, they will only share their story collectively, as 'the 33'.1 billion people watch the international rescue mission. Somehow, all 33 men make it out alive, in one of the most daring and dramatic rescue efforts even seen.Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Héctor Tobar is the man they choose to tell their story.' An eloquent testament to the human spirit' The Times'A masterful account of exile and human longing, of triumph in the face of all odds.' Los Angeles Times

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A retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears for early readers from Ladybird.Based on the traditional fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears, this vibrantly illustrated story is sure to become a favourite in every home. Follow the naughty Goldilocks into the house of the three bears, and see what happens when they come home and find her! This hardback book contains lots of funny rhythm and rhyme to delight young children. Ideal for reading aloud and sharing with 2-4 year olds.This book is part of Ladybird's First Favourite Tales series - these retellings are perfect for introducing young children to classic stories and fairy tales, and the books are just right for those just learning to read.Look out for other books in the series:The Elves and the Shoemaker; Goldilocks and the Three Bears; The Gingerbread Man; Little Red Riding Hood; The Three Little Pigs; The Three Billy Goats Gruff

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As part of Motown’s legendary songwriting and production team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, Lamont Dozier is responsible for such classics as “Baby I Need Your Loving,” “You Can’t Hurry Love,” “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch),” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” “Heat Wave,” “Baby Love,” “It’s the Same Old Song,” “Nowhere to Run,” “You Keep Me Hanging On,” “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You),” and many more. After leaving Motown, he continued to make his mark as an influential songwriter, artist, and producer with hits such as “Give Me Just a Little More Time,” “Band of Gold,” and “Two Hearts,” a chart-topping Phil Collins single that earned the pair an Academy Award nomination and a Grammy win. In How Sweet It Is Lamont takes us behind the scenes of the Motown machine, sharing personal stories of his encounters with such icons as Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, and Berry Gordy. He reveals the moments that inspired some of his timeless songs—and pulls back the curtain on the studio secrets that helped him and his colleagues create “the sound of young America.” From his early years of struggle growing up in Detroit to the triumphs and tragedies that have marked his personal and professional path, at the center of Lamont’s story is the heart of a true songwriter. Though he’s racked up well over 100 Top 10 singles on the Billboard charts, been inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and has been named among Rolling Stone magazine’s “100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time,” Lamont continues to write music every day. Having pursued the mystery of the songwriting muse for many years, his stories are interwoven with invaluable insights and wisdom on the art and craft of songwriting that will inspire the creative spark in all of us.

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Return to the world of Neil Gaiman s seminal epic The Sandman, in a new series starring fan-favorite character the Corinthian, and written by horror comics superstar James Tynion IV! Sometimes, Nightmares walk the Earth. Dream of the Endless is the unquestioned lord of all that happens when we sleep including his most solemn duty, the creation of nightmares. It was his hand that formed the Corinthian, patron saint of serial murder, whose ravenous mouths have tasted the blood of sleepers for centuries. Once, years ago, the Corinthian escaped the Dreaming and entered the waking world and the body count was vast. Dream eventually put that injustice to rights and un-created the Corinthian, remaking him as a more pliable nightmare, and bringing him back to his appointed task. But now a new nightmare has escaped into the real world. Art student Madison Flynn sees this Smiling Man in her waking hours and she s not alone. What s more, this monster is somehow, improbably, impossibly, a nightmare that Dream of the Endless did not create. And when he realizes this fact, the Corinthian will slip once more onto our plane and start a hunt for this mockery but heaven help us all when his memories of his past hunts begin to return! Megahit New York Times bestselling horror writer James Tynion IV (Batman, Something Is Killing the Children, The Department of Truth) joins with artist Lisandro Estherren (Redneck, Strange Skies Over East Berlin) and an array of superstar guests to expand the legendary world of The Sandman and chronicle a terrifying descent into America s uncontrolled id, where outsider artists, gruesome collectors, billionaire prophets, and homegrown angels merge their minds to give birth to a wholly new and wholly horrific American dream! Collects The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country #1-6.

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We were created by love, for love, to love and to be loved. And we are at our best when we live in God's love. And I believe deep down, it's what we all want. We don't want hatred. We don't want the abyss. We want Beloved Community. The way of love is how to live it.When Prince Harry married Meghan Markle in 2018, two billion people watched around the world. For one brief moment, love recreated the cosmos, the world came together. And the Bishop Michael Curry preached his revolutionary sermon on the power of love. In this book, Bishop Curry shares his deep faith that characterised that cultural moment: the way of love. It is the underappreciated, all-but-forgotten understanding of agape, the love that uplifts, liberates and changes the world. Though some might believe the world has to be the same, this way has the power to change things for the better. In his warm and accessible style Bishop Curry holds out the hope of love in troubling times.

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In this riveting popular history, the creator of You Must Remember This probes the inner workings of Hollywood’s glamorous golden age through the stories of some of the dozens of actresses pursued by Howard Hughes, to reveal how the millionaire mogul’s obsessions with sex, power and publicity trapped, abused, or benefitted women who dreamt of screen stardom.In recent months, the media has reported on scores of entertainment figures who used their power and money in Hollywood to sexually harass and coerce some of the most talented women in cinema and television. But as Karina Longworth reminds us, long before the Harvey Weinsteins there was Howard Hughes—the Texas millionaire, pilot, and filmmaker whose reputation as a cinematic provocateur was matched only by that as a prolific womanizer.His supposed conquests between his first divorce in the late 1920s and his marriage to actress Jean Peters in 1957 included many of Hollywood’s most famous actresses, among them Billie Dove, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and Lana Turner. From promoting bombshells like Jean Harlow and Jane Russell to his contentious battles with the censors, Hughes—perhaps more than any other filmmaker of his era—commoditized male desire as he objectified and sexualized women. Yet there were also numerous women pulled into Hughes’s grasp who never made it to the screen, sometimes virtually imprisoned by an increasingly paranoid and disturbed Hughes, who retained multitudes of private investigators, security personnel, and informers to make certain these actresses would not escape his clutches.Vivid, perceptive, timely, and ridiculously entertaining, The Seducer is a landmark work that examines women, sex, and male power in Hollywood during its golden age—a legacy that endures nearly a century later.

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‘An essential part of the library for anyone interested in the great political and military upheavals in the 15th century.’ – Graeme Rimer, Retired Former Academic Director of the Royal Armouries‘A creditable effort to examine a neglected aspect of medieval warfare.’ – Jim Bradbury, Cambridge University Press ‘Everything you need to know about being a soldier in the Wars of the Roses.’ – The Mail BookshopWhat was it like to fight in a Wars of the Roses battle? What kind of men fought at St Albans, Northampton, Wakefield, Towton, Tewkesbury and Bosworth? How was the medieval soldier recruited, paid, equipped, fed and billeted? And how was a battle contested once both sides resorted to all-out conflict?First published in 1998, this classic study of the medieval soldier in the Wars of the Roses examines these and other questions using various documentary sources and recent evidence. Eyewitness accounts, contemporary chronicles, personal letters, civic records, archaeology and surviving military equipment are used to paint a fascinating picture of the medieval soldier. Evidence gleaned from the mass war grave found close to the battlefield of Towton in North Yorkshire sheds new light on those that lived and died in the civil wars. But what do we know about the psychology of those involved? And how did soldiers feel about killing their fellow Englishmen?Andrew Boardman explores the grim reality of medieval soldiering on land and sea during this crucial period of aristocratic violence and dynastic upheaval. He makes us question the current historical record, such as it is, and our perceptions of chivalry and warfare in Lancastrian and Yorkist England. The text is supported by many contemporary illustrations, diagrams and maps, making this updated work an indispensable guide to medieval soldiering in the late fifteenth century.

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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERRelive the delusional fever-dream of the modern era.'Thank f*ck for Marina Hyde: the most lethal, vital, screamingly funny truth-teller of our time.'PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE'The most brilliantly funny columnist of our time.'GARY LINEKER'It's a scientific FACT: Marina Hyde is Britain's funniest writer.'CAITLIN MORANNo other writer is more suited to chronicling the absurd times in which we live.In What Just Happened?! Marina Hyde slashes her way through the hellscape of post-referendum politics, where the chaos never stops. Clamber aboard as we relive every inspirational moment of magic, from David Cameron to Theresa May to Boris Johnson. Marvel at the sights, from Trumpian WTF-ery to celebrity twattery. And boggle at the cast of characters: Hollywood sex offenders, populists, sporting heroes (and villains), dastardly dukes, media barons, movie stars, reality TV monsters, billionaires, police officers, various princes and princesses, wicked advisers, philanthropists, fauxlanthropists, telly chefs, and (naturally) Gwyneth Paltrow. It's the full state banquet of crazy - and you're most cordially invited.Drawn from her spectacularly funny Guardian columns, What Just Happened?! is a welcome blast of humour and sanity in a world where reality has become stranger than fiction.'A joyous rallying voice in British journalism.'GRAYSON PERRY'An infinite number of gag-writers, working all day in a gag factory, couldn't come up with any of the perfectly-formed one-liners that populate Marina Hyde's hilarious writing . . . But behind the wit lurks real anger, argument, exasperation and intelligence. Her writing is more than a gentle poke in the ribs: it's a well-wrought and deftly aimed smash in the teeth.'ARMANDO IANNUCCI

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From a certain perspective, the biggest political story of 2016 was how the candidate who bought three-quarters of the political ads lost to the one whose every provocative Tweet set the agenda for the day’s news coverage. With the arrival of bot farms, microtargeted Facebook ads, and Cambridge Analytica, isn’t the age of political ads on local TV coming to a close? You might think. But you’d be wrong to the tune of $4.4 billion just in 2016. In U.S. elections, there’s a lot more at stake than the presidency. TV spending has gone up dramatically since 2006, for both presidential and down-ballot races for congressional seats, governorships, and state legislatures—and the 2020 campaign shows no signs of bucking this trend. When candidates don’t enjoy the name recognition and celebrity of the presidential contenders, it’s very much business as usual. They rely on the local TV newscasts, watched by 30 million people every day—not Tweets—to convey their messages to an audience more fragmented than ever. At the same time, the nationalization of news and consolidation of local stations under juggernauts like Nexstar Media and Sinclair Broadcasting mean a decreasing share of time devoted to down-ballot politics—almost 90 percent of 2016’s local political stories focused on the presidential race. Without coverage of local issues and races, ad buys are the only chance most candidates have to get their messages in front of a broadcast audience. On local TV news, political ads create the reality of local races—a reality that is not meant to inform voters but to persuade them. Voters are left to their own devices to fill in the space between what the ads say—the bought reality—and what political stories used to cover.

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The first comprehensive on-the-ground investigation of the global market for citizenship, examining the wealthy elites who buy passports, the states and brokers who sell them, and the normalization of a once shadowy practice.Our lives are in countless ways defined by our citizenship. The country we belong to affects our rights, our travel possibilities, and ultimately our chances in life. Obtaining a new citizenship is rarely easy. But for those with the means—billionaires like Peter Thiel and Jho Low, but also countless unknown multimillionaires—it’s just a question of price.More than a dozen countries, many of them small islands in the Mediterranean, Caribbean, and South Pacific, sell citizenship to 50,000 people annually. Through six years of fieldwork on four continents, Kristin Surak discovered how the initially dubious sale of passports has transformed into a full-blown citizenship industry that thrives on global inequalities. Some “investor citizens” hope to parlay their new passport into visa-free travel—or use it as a stepping stone to residence in countries like the United States. Other buyers take out a new citizenship as an insurance policy or to escape state control at home. Almost none, though, intend to move to their selected country and live among their new compatriots, whose relationship with these global elites is complex.A groundbreaking study of a contentious practice that has become popular among the nouveaux riches, The Golden Passport takes readers from the details of the application process to the geopolitical hydraulics of the citizenship industry. It’s a business that thrives on uncertainty and imbalances of power between big, globalized economies and tiny states desperate for investment. In between are the fascinating stories of buyers, brokers, and sellers, all ready to profit from the citizenship trade.

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In this engrossing and accessible book, Doug Macdougall explores the causes and effects of ice ages that have gripped our planet throughout its history, from the earliest known glaciation - nearly three billion years ago - to the present. Following the development of scientific ideas about these dramatic events, Macdougall traces the lives of many of the brilliant and intriguing characters who have contributed to the evolving understanding of how ice ages come about. As it explains how the great Pleistocene Ice Age has shaped the earth's landscape and influenced the course of human evolution, "Frozen Earth" also provides a fascinating look at how science is done, how the excitement of discovery drives scientists to explore and investigate, and how timing and chance play a part in the acceptance of new scientific ideas. Macdougall describes the awesome power of cataclysmic floods that marked the melting of the glaciers of the Pleistocene Ice Age. He probes the chilling evidence for "Snowball Earth," an episode far back in the earth's past that may have seen our planet encased in ice from pole to pole. He discusses the accumulating evidence from deep-sea sediment cores, as well as ice cores from Greenland and the Antarctic, that suggests fast-changing ice age climates may have directly impacted the evolution of our species and the course of human migration and civilization. "Frozen Earth" also chronicles how the concept of the ice age has gripped the imagination of scientists for almost two centuries. It offers an absorbing consideration of how current studies of Pleistocene climate may help us understand earth's future climate changes, including the question of when the next glacial interval will occur.

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Cool. It was a new word and a new way to be, and in a single generation, it became the supreme compliment of American culture. The Origins of Cool in Postwar America uncovers the hidden history of this concept and its new set of codes that came to define a global attitude and style. As Joel Dinerstein reveals in this dynamic book, cool began as a stylish defiance of racism, a challenge to suppressed sexuality, a philosophy of individual rebellion, and a youthful search for social change. Through eye-opening portraits of iconic figures, Dinerstein illuminates the cultural connections and artistic innovations among Lester Young, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Marlon Brando, and James Dean, among others. We eavesdrop on conversations among Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Miles Davis, and on a forgotten debate between Lorraine Hansberry and Norman Mailer over the "white Negro" and black cool. We come to understand how the cool worlds of Beat writers and Method actors emerged from the intersections of film noir, jazz, and existentialism. Out of this mix, Dinerstein sketches nuanced definitions of cool that unite concepts from African-American and Euro-American culture: the stylish stoicism of the ethical rebel loner; the relaxed intensity of the improvising jazz musician; the effortless, physical grace of the Method actor. To be cool is not to be hip and to be hot is definitely not to be cool. This is the first work to trace the history of cool during the Cold War by exploring the intersections of film noir, jazz, existential literature, Method acting, blues, and rock and roll. Dinerstein reveals that they came together to create something completely new—and that something is cool.

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In 2017 the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. But is it a real da Vinci? In a thrilling narrative built on formidable research, Ben Lewis tracks the extraordinary journey of a masterpiece lost and found, lied and fought over across the centuries. In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting, the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as saviour of the world is ‘the rarest thing on the planet by the greatest human being who ever lived’. Its dazzling price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting. For two centuries art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo’s assistants in the first half of the sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself? In November 2017, Christie’s auction house announced they had it. But did they? The Last Leonardo tells a thrilling tale of a spellbinding icon invested with the power to make or break the reputations of scholars, billionaires, kings and sheikhs. Lewis takes us to Leonardo’s studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Holland, Moscow and Louisiana; to the galleries, salerooms and restorer’s workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly, emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across five centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, where we’re never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth.

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A New York Times, New Yorker, Washington Post, Newsweek, TIME Book of the Year 2023 ‘Fabulously entertaining’ Daily Telegraph ‘Perfect for fans of Frank Abignale Jr.’s Catch Me If You Can’ Publishers Weekly The astounding, never-before-told story of how an ingenious Ghanaian con artist ran one of the 20th century’s longest and most audacious frauds. When Ghana declared independence from Britain in 1957, it immediately became a target for opportunists determined to lay hold of whatever assets colonialism hadn’t already stripped. The military ousted the new nation’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of stealing the country’s gold and hiding it overseas. Into this story stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, John Ackah Blay-Miezah – a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi. Born into poverty, Blay-Miezah declared himself the custodian of an alleged Nkrumah trust fund worth billions. You, too, could claim a piece, if only you would help him rescue it – with a small investment. Over the 1970s and ’80s, he grew his scam to epic proportions, amassing hundreds of millions of pounds from thousands of marks all over the world. He baffled Henry Kissinger, scandalised Shirley Temple-Black, and had Nixon’s former attorney-general at his beck and call. Many tried to stop him, but Blay-Miezah continued to live in luxury, protected by ex-SAS soldiers while he deceived lawyers, businessmen and investigators around the globe. In Anansi’s Gold, Yepoka Yeebo chases the ever-wilder trail of Blay-Miezah – and unfolds a riveting account of Cold War entanglements and African dreams – revealing the untold story of the grifter who beat the West at its own thieving game.

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Have you tried every diet or weight loss plan under the sun, but still can't manage to lose weight and keep it off? You aren't alone. Each year, Americans spend billions of dollars on weight-loss products, yet we continue to have the highest obesity rate in the world. After trying and failing countless times, you have to begin to wonder, "What am I doing wrong?"The problem with most fad diets is that they only attack the symptom of the problem, not the cause. No matter how much you try to deny yourself the food you crave, you always end up reverting back to bad habits. You might even lose weight initially, but more often than not you'll gain it back-with a couple extra pounds to boot! In order to make real change in your life, you need to change the way you think about food, weight, and what's most important to you.The Diet Trap offers proven-effective methods based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help you develop mindful eating habits, self-compassion, and a greater understanding of what it means to live a valued life. ACT is a values-based therapy that has been proven effective for the treatment of weight loss. Because ACT encourages you to accept and experience uncomfortable emotions-rather than succumb to emotional eating-it helps you to stay on your path to lose weight, while also helping you develop compassion toward yourself, no matter how much you weigh.Written by two researchers in the field of ACT, this book offers evidence-based solutions to help you fundamentally change the way you think about food, so that you can successfully lose weight, get healthy, and live a happy, fulfilling life without costly and frustrating fad diets.

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Investigates the connections between jazz, sexual identity, and radical black politics In his controversial essay on white jazz musician Burton Greene, Amiri Baraka asserted that jazz was exclusively an African American art form and explicitly fused the idea of a black aesthetic with radical political traditions of the African diaspora. In the Break is an extended riff on “The Burton Greene Affair,” exploring the tangled relationship between black avant-garde in music and literature in the 1950s and 1960s, the emergence of a distinct form of black cultural nationalism, and the complex engagement with and disavowal of homoeroticism that bridges the two. Fred Moten focuses in particular on the brilliant improvisatory jazz of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, and others, arguing that all black performance—culture, politics, sexuality, identity, and blackness itself—is improvisation. For Moten, improvisation provides a unique epistemological standpoint from which to investigate the provocative connections between black aesthetics and Western philosophy. He engages in a strenuous critical analysis of Western philosophy (Heidegger, Kant, Husserl, Wittgenstein, and Derrida) through the prism of radical black thought and culture. As the critical, lyrical, and disruptive performance of the human, Moten’s concept of blackness also brings such figures as Frederick Douglass and Karl Marx, Cecil Taylor and Samuel R. Delany, Billie Holiday and William Shakespeare into conversation with each other. Stylistically brilliant and challenging, much like the music he writes about, Moten’s wide-ranging discussion embraces a variety of disciplines—semiotics, deconstruction, genre theory, social history, and psychoanalysis—to understand the politicized sexuality, particularly homoeroticism, underpinning black radicalism. In the Break is the inaugural volume in Moten’s ambitious intellectual project-to establish an aesthetic genealogy of the black radical tradition

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This short book calls to account the government misrulers and corporate criminals who made suffering from the global coronavirus pandemic more acute. Modeled on a famous 1940 bestseller--a pamphlet exposing appeasers of Nazi Germany--Guilty Men shows how the crisis has been stoked by the callous and opportunistic decisions of powerful men. The rogues gallery begins with Donald Trump, who deliberately downplayed the crisis despite knowing its dangers, as well as his international political allies, above all Boris Johnson. Billionaire politicians like Georgia senator Kelly Loeffler moved stocks at the same time they were telling Americans all was well . Political charlatans like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos undermined public safety in order to advance their agenda, Trump-controlled agencies, led by the ever-crooked Federal Reserve, bailed out Wall Street while failing to provide basic relief for workers. Libertarian "think tanks" like the Ayn Rand Institute decried public expenditures but were first in line to get bailout checks. Pharmaceutical companies gamed the vaccine race, and the most rapacious global corporations like Facebook, Visa, and Pfizer have found the pandemic to be very profitable indeed, vastly enriching the already grotesquely bloated fortunes of trillionaires like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Charles Koch. Guilty Men closes with a call for a version of the Pecora Commission, initiated by newly elected Franklin Roosevelt, that took aim at what FDR called "speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, and profiteering" that stoked the Depression. The commission led to some of the most far-reaching reforms in US history, as well as sensational hearings that led to the fall of the leading bankers and financiers of that era.

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America's first line of defense - Brad McLanahan and the heroes of the Iron Wolf Squadron - must counter a dangerous Russian strike from within the homeland in this cutting-edge tale from the New York Times master of the high-tech military thriller, Dale Brown.On a remote island estate, a billionaire investor sells his air freight company to a mysterious new owner. The purchaser is none other than the President of Russia, Gennadiy Gryzlov. The Russians will use these private planes to secretly transport dangerous cargo into the United States.The inept American President Stacy Anne Barbeau has failed to account for the Russian threat. But others have been vigilant and will not leave America defenseless. Brad McLanahan and the Iron Wolf Squadron have joined forces with the newly formed Alliance of Free Nations in Eastern Europe, to prepare for the attack they know is imminent. Working with the most cutting-edge technology, the team will deploy CIDs-Cybernetic Infantry Devices-twelve-foot-tall humanoid combat robots, each armed with more firepower than a conventional platoon.But their state-of-the-art weapons may not be enough to combat the threat. The Russians have managed to reverse engineer their own combat robots nearly decimated in a previous attack, and have slowly begun smuggling them across America's borders. Dealing with an unprecedented danger and a feckless president and congress, McLanahan and the Iron Wolf Squadron will once again put their own lives on the line to check this new Russian peril and keep the home of the brave and the free world safe.

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Despite popular belief to the contrary, entrepreneurship in the United States is dying. It has been since before the Great Recession of 2008, and the negative trend in American entrepreneurship has been accelerated by the Covid pandemic. New firms are being started at a slower rate, are employing fewer workers, and are being formed disproportionately in just a few major cities in the U.S. At the same time, large chains are opening more locations. Companies such as Amazon with their "deliver everything and anything" are rapidly displacing Main Street businesses. In The New Builders, we tell the stories of the next generation of entrepreneurs -- and argue for the future of American entrepreneurship. That future lies in surprising places -- and will in particular rely on the success of women, black and brown entrepreneurs. Our country hasn't yet even recognized the identities of the New Builders, let alone developed strategies to support them. Our misunderstanding is driven by a core misperception. Consider a "typical" American entrepreneur. Think about the entrepreneur who appears on TV, the business leader making headlines during the pandemic. Think of the type of businesses she or he is building, the college or business school they attended, the place they grew up. The image you probably conjured is that of a young, white male starting a technology business. He's likely in Silicon Valley. Possibly New York or Boston. He's self-confident, versed in the ins and outs of business funding and has an extensive (Ivy League?) network of peers and mentors eager to help his business thrive, grow and make millions, if not billions. You’d think entrepreneurship is thriving, and helping the United States maintain its economic power. You'd be almost completely wrong. The dominant image of an entrepreneur as a young white man starting a tech business on the coasts isn't correct at all. Today's American entrepreneurs, the people who drive critical parts of our economy, are more likely to be female and non-white. In fact, the number of women-owned businesses has increased 31 times between 1972 and 2018 according to the Kauffman Foundation (in 1972, women-owned businesses accounted for just 4.6% of all firms; in 2018 that figure was 40%). The fastest-growing group of female entrepreneurs are women of color, who are responsible for 64% of new women-owned businesses being created. In a few years, we believe women will make up more than half of the entrepreneurs in America. The age of the average American entrepreneur also belies conventional wisdom: It's 42. The average age of the most successful entrepreneurs -- those in the top .01% in terms of their company's growth in the first five years -- is 45. These are the New Builders. Women, people of color, immigrants and people over 40. We're failing them. And by doing so, we are failing ourselves. In this book, you'll learn: How the definition of business success in America today has grown corporate and around the concepts of growth, size, and consumption. Why and how our collective understanding of "entrepreneurship" has dangerously narrowed. Once a broad term including people starting businesses of all types, entrepreneurship has come to describe only the brash technology founders on the way to becoming big. Who are the fastest growing groups of entrepreneurs? What are they working on? What drives them? The real engine that drove Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs. The government had a much bigger role than is widely known The extent to which entrepreneurs and small businesses are woven through our history, and the ways we have forgotten women and people of color who owned small businesses in the past. How we're increasingly afraid to fail The role small businesses are playing saving the wilderness, small towns and redlined communities What we can do to turn the decline in entrepreneurship around, especially be supporting the people who are courageously starting small companies today.

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Digital platforms are changing the rules of competition in the global economy. Until recently, it took Fortune 500 companies an average of 20 years to reach billion-dollar market valuations. Successful platforms now reach that milestone in an average of four years. In The Platform Paradox: How Digital Businesses Succeed in an Ever-Changing Global Marketplace, Wharton professor Mauro F. Guillén highlights a key incongruity in this new world. Most platforms considered to be successful have triumphed in only some, rather than all, parts of the world. There are very few truly global digital platforms. In more than three decades of studying multinational firms, Guillén has found they often misunderstand key aspects of what it takes to succeed globally, from culture and institutions to local competitive dynamics and pursuing markets in a logical sequence. Seeing multibillion-dollar companies like Amazon flounder in certain markets has led Guillén to research what it takes to create a successful global strategy. In The Platform Paradox, Guillén details: How the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitization and forced companies like Airbnb to pivot and adapt; How platforms like Tinder and Uber have used local advantages to grow rapidly in different countries; How traditional companies have transformed themselves into digital platforms, like Lego undertaking a digital revolution to emerge from bankruptcy and become the "Apple of toys"; and The possibilities and limits to global expansion, as illustrated by companies like Zoom and Skype. In The Platform Paradox, Guillén offers an integrated framework for these platforms to identify and implement a digital platform strategy on a truly global scale.

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Given the ongoing climate and socio-ecological emergencies, it is paramount to support a socially just rethinking of the world we inhabit, which is intrinsically dependent on the health of the earth’s systems. This requires a radical transformation of the role of environmental designers in developing propositions, mitigation strategies and advocacy initiatives. This issue of AD explores the principles behind the Green New Deal and how they apply to the architectural and landscape professions. Whatever form the Green New Deal will take and is taking, it will be materialised through infrastructure, buildings, landscapes and various other constructed forms. The contributors to this AD examine the theoretical frameworks and design practices within which the protocols of the Green New Deal could be integrated. Initially, such a goal requires a survey of the available design tools and methodologies necessary to achieve a transition to a decarbonised economy in an equitable manner. The articles feature design practices who are transforming their existing modes of operation to work in environments were fossil fuels are kept well below ground, and to explore renewable forms of local, regional and planetary urbanisation. Contributors: Lindsay Bremner; Miriam Brett and Mathew Lawrence; Billy Fleming, Christina Geros, Jon Goodbun and Godofredo Enes; Kai Heron and Alex Heffron; Jane Hutton; Daniel Kiss and Swadheet Chaturvedi, Elena Luciano, Yasmine Yehia and Rafael Martinez, Liam Mouritz and Alex Breedon; Clara Oloriz; Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió; and Troy Vettese, Drew Pendergrass and Filip Mesko. Featured architects: Groundlab, Monsoon Assemblages, and Julian Siravo.

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Wal-Mart is America’s largest retailer. The national chain of stores is a powerful stand-in of both the promise and perils of free market capitalism. Yet it is also often the target of public outcry for its labor practices, to say nothing of class-action lawsuits, and a central symbol in America’s increasingly polarized political discourse over consumption, capitalism and government regulations. In many ways the battle over Wal-Mart is the battle between “Main Street” and “Wall Street” as the fate of workers under globalization and the ability of the private market to effectively distribute precious goods like health care take center stage. In Wal-Mart Wars, Rebekah Massengill shows that the economic debates are not about dollars and cents, but instead represent a conflict over the deployment of deeper symbolic ideas about freedom, community, family, and citizenship. Wal-Mart Wars argues that the family is not just a culture wars issue to be debated with regard to same-sex marriage or the limits of abortion rights; rather, the family is also an idea that shapes the ways in which both conservative and progressive activists talk about economic issues, and in the process, construct different moral frameworks for evaluating capitalism and its most troubling inequalities. With particular attention to political activism and the role of big business to the overall economy, Massengill shows that the fight over the practices of this multi-billion dollar corporation can provide us with important insight into the dreams and realities of American capitalism.

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In the early days of filmmaking, before many of Hollywood’s elaborate sets and soundstages had been built, it was common for movies to be shot on location. Decades later, Hollywood filmmakers rediscovered the practice of using real locations and documentary footage in their narrative features. Why did this happen? What caused this sudden change? Renowned film scholar R. Barton Palmer answers this question in Shot on Location by exploring the historical, ideological, economic, and technological developments that led Hollywood to head back outside in order to capture footage of real places. His groundbreaking research reveals that wartime newsreels had a massive influence on postwar Hollywood film, although there are key distinctions to be made between these movies and their closest contemporaries, Italian neorealist films. Considering how these practices were used in everything from war movies like Twelve O’Clock High to westerns like The Searchers, Palmer explores how the blurring of the formal boundaries between cinematic journalism and fiction lent a “reality effect” to otherwise implausible stories. Shot on Location describes how the period’s greatest directors, from Alfred Hitchcock to Billy Wilder, increasingly moved beyond the confines of the studio. At the same time, the book acknowledges the collaborative nature of moviemaking, identifying key roles that screenwriters, art designers, location scouts, and editors played in incorporating actual geographical locales and social milieus within a fictional framework. Palmer thus offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how Hollywood transformed the way we view real spaces.

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'Extraordinarily inventive, witty, moving and profound.' Bernardine Evaristo'If you read one novel this year, let it be Top Doll. This is innovative, exquisitely crafted storytelling at its finest.' Malika BookerWhen reclusive billionaire Huguette Clark dies age 104, she leaves behind a suite of New York apartments, a meticulously upkept California mansion, at least one Monet and her vast collection of antique dolls. Having barely been outside for 50 years, the elusive Clark spoke to few--in this highly unreliable, semi-fictional miniature epic, the dolls tell all.Theirs is a tale that takes us from their lavish Park Avenue home back in time to the slave plantations of Virginia and the palaces of Imperial Japan via the addictive hedonism of 1930s queer LA.Joyfully irreverent, Top Doll is a story of love, betrayal, Barbies and ultimately, what it means to be human.'An astonishing combination of depth, compassion and beauty. A constant series of delicious surprises.' Leone Ross***Praise for An Aviary of Small Birds:'Beautiful, painful, pitch-perfect . . . McCarthy Woolf's tuning fork always rings true.' Guardian'I loved Karen McCarthy Woolf's technically perfect poems of winged heartbreak.' Maggie Gee, The ObserverPraise for Seasonal Disturbances:'A strange and stunning collection from a true writer. Vulnerable, hilarious and wise.' Warsan Shire'An unclassifiable book, revolutionary in its engagement with form, stunning in its intersectional politics, and an extraordinary achievement . . . It will break you, in a good way.' Poetry School Books of the Year 2017

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In 1974, the Hughes Glomar Explorer, ostensibly an advanced deep-sea mining vessel owned by reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, lowered a claw-like contraption to the floor of the Pacific Ocean. This high-tech venture was only a cover story for an even more improbable scheme: a CIA mission to retrieve a sunken Soviet submarine. Like a Jules Verne novel with an Ian Fleming twist, the saga of the Glomar Explorer features underwater espionage, impossible gadgetry, and high-stakes international drama. It also marks a key moment in the history of transparency—and not just for what became known as the Glomar response: “We can neither confirm nor deny. . . . ”M. Todd Bennett plumbs the depths of government secrecy in this new account of the Glomar mission and its consequences. Trawling through recently declassified documents, he explores the logistics, media fallout, and geopolitical significance of one of the most ambitious operations in intelligence history. Glomar, Bennett argues, played a pivotal but underappreciated role in helping the CIA ward off oversight amid a push for transparency and accountability. He reframes the operation’s history to offer an alternative perspective on the 1970s, a decade known for expansive openness, as well as the persistent tension between the demands of democracy and the need for secrecy in foreign policy. Combining keen historical analysis and gripping storytelling, Neither Confirm nor Deny brings to the surface fresh insights into the history of the security state, the politics of intelligence, and the CIA’s relationship with the media and the public.

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Editor's Choice - The Bookseller"...the latest addition to the genre is the most stylish yet, comprising images from 1950s Vogue....Even in monochrome the Vogue Colouring Book is a masterful creation, transporting you back to the billowing layers, long gloves and poised hats of the 1950s." Stella magazine.This, the first colouring book from British VOGUE, has been created by award-winning writer, fashion editor, curator and Royal College of Art Professor, Iain R Webb. Celebrating the centenary of British VOGUE, these hand-drawn artworks are inspired by iconic images from the magazine in the 1950s - an era of hats and matching gloves, haughty elegance and hourglass silhouettes (a period that continues to inspire contemporary designers including Miuccia Prada and Dolce & Gabbana).The book features a glamorous dream wardrobe of luxurious ballgowns and soigné cocktail dresses, smart suits and dramatic accessories by key designers including Christian Dior, Balenciaga, Givenchy and Chanel. The accompanying captions offer fashion and style tips (often highly amusing in hindsight) and are taken from the original pages of British VOGUE. The c90 artworks can be coloured in in the spirit of the original images that inspired them or embellished with whatever colours and patterns take the reader's fancy. The colouring book is the perfect present for all those who love vintage fashion and will be published in time for VOGUE's centenary celebrations in 2016, which begin with a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

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“Talking turkey” about the bird you thought you knewFondly remembered as the centerpiece of family Thanksgiving reunions, the turkey is a cultural symbol as well as a multi-billion dollar industry. As a bird, dinner, commodity, and as a national icon, the turkey has become as American as the bald eagle (with which it actually competed for supremacy on national insignias). Food historian Andrew F. Smith’s sweeping and multifaceted history of Meleagris gallopavo separates fact from fiction, serving as both a solid historical reference and a fascinating general read. With his characteristic wit and insatiable curiosity, Smith presents the turkey in ten courses, beginning with the bird itself (actually several different species of turkey) flying through the wild. The Turkey subsequently includes discussions of practically every aspect of the iconic bird, including the wild turkey in early America, how it came to be called “turkey,” domestication, turkey mating habits, expansion into Europe, stuffing, conditions in modern industrial turkey factories, its surprising commercial history of boom and bust, and its eventual ascension to holiday mainstay. As one of the easiest of foods to cook, the turkey’s culinary possibilities have been widely explored if little noted. The second half of the book collects an amazing array of over one hundred historical and modern turkey recipes from across America and Europe. From sandwiches to salmagundi, you’ll find detailed instructions on nearly every variation on the turkey. Historians will enjoy a look back at the varied appetites of their ancestors and seasoned cooks will have an opportunity to reintroduce a familiar food in forgotten ways.

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We live in a visual age where everyone considers him- or herself to be a photographer, and 1.8 billion images are posted online each day. User-generated content has been used in a myriad of high-profile advertisements. Like a lottery winner, the amateur photographer may achieve a one-off lucky shot by being in the right place at the right time. This feeds the illusion that professional photographs can be achieved without any great effort and that anyone can do it. Arcaid Images is a world-leading resource for imagery of the built environment and is used globally by advertisers, architects, publishers and educators. It represents a diverse range of photographers worldwide who focus their cameras on architecture, homes, heritage and destinations. Arcaid images was founded on the work of architect-turned-photographer Richard Bryant, making the photography of architecture of particular interest. The Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards aims to draw attention to the expertise of this specialist, architectural, area of photography. And the World Architecture Festival exemplifies the need for the best architectural photography. Over 2000 professionals from more than 145 countries gather annually to show and appraise each others work. The overriding common language is the photographic image. Projects with better images make strong initial impact, and the more prosaic the building type, the more important it is to capture the essence of the scheme and not merely record it. Photography has long been the means of communicating architecture. The earliest known photograph by French scientist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, taken with a camera obscura in the late 1820s, was architectural. This photograph, taken from an upstairs window of the family home, was a record of the courtyard and outbuildings an architectural subject. The medium may have changed from a bitumen-coated plate to a memory card, but the technology is only a means to an end. It is the interpretation, the eye and the creativity of the photographer that the Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards are focusing on. The World Architecture Festival had the vision to see the value of the awards by giving it a platform, and working with the Sto company has extended the overall visibility of the awards. This book seeks to record, celebrate and give a permanence to the first four years of the Arcaid Architectural Photography Awards. Whilst attending an exhibition of images from the awards offers members of the public a time-limited opportunity to share in appreciation of the selected images, the physicality of a book extends that opportunity both temporally and geographically. Lynne Bryant is director of Arcaid Images, Amy Croft is curator of Sto Werkstatt and Paul Finch is editorial director of the The Architectural Review and programme director of the World Architecture Festival.

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THE ALIENS ARE AMONG US! “Where is everybody?” Nobel Prize–winning physicist Enrico Fermi once asked after a discussion about the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. To sum up the Fermi Paradox, if the billions of stars in our galaxy have planets with intelligent life on them, why hasn’t anyone visited us? But maybe they have, and we just haven’t noticed—and that’s the way they want it. And if they are here in secret, why are they here? Are they tourists? Anthropologists, perhaps? Or journalists sending stories back about the quaint habits of the primitives? Or maybe the extraterrestrial equivalent of hunters or fishermen? (Any odd disappearances in your neighborhood lately?) An enemy already within the gates? Or a refugee seeking sanctuary? Gourmets looking for exotic foreign food? Alien criminals hiding out? Alien cops looking for those alien criminals? No missionaries—at least not yet—and there doesn’t seem to be a Galactic Peace Corps. They might happen to look close enough to human to pass, or they might be masters of disguise. Or they might be so incomprehensibly different that we don’t even notice that they’re here. The secret visitors are revealed by such luminaries as Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Spider Robinson, William Tenn, and more. And if any alien visitors want to check out the local natives’ speculations herein, feel free. Please pay with local currency, of course.

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This authentic account of the Big Band Era and the Age of Swing is alive with firsthand dialogue by Chris Griffin. Vaché traces the events spanning Griffin's career from his time in the Benny Goodman band with Harry James and Ziggy Elman in what Duke Ellington dubbed the best brass section of its day through his freelance years in radio, television and records where he recorded with legendary musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Tony Bennett, and Frank Sinatra. Griffin's honesty and humor shine through the text as he recalls a time when talent and dedication to quality were supreme. Seventeen photographs and an excellent discography provided by Ed Berger further the understanding of Griffin as a man and an artist. This book is ideal for music lovers, especially those with a keen interest in the big bands of the 1930s and the lives of the era's most memorable musicians.

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Like the North Star, pointing you in the right direction, Lodestar by Jim McCann and George S. Everly, Jr. PhD, FAPA is your essential guide to learning the key components of success and applying them to your life. A ONE-STOP SHOP FOR THE BEST OF SELF-HELP The innate drive to “do better” and to “be better” seems to be hard-wired in most individuals. In fact, the $10 billion self-help industry would seem a compelling testament to that conclusion. It has produced libraries of priceless insight from gurus and everyday folks, celebrities and prodigies, millionaires and poets. There’s plenty of advice out there to get you almost anywhere you want to go—and more than enough to get lost in. So, where do you begin? That’s where Jim McCann and George S. Everly, Jr., PhD, FAPA come in. Together, the 1-800-FLOWERS.com founder and the esteemed psychologist have combined the practical with the scientific to exp

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Fraud costs the United Kingdom a reported 190 billion per year. Making up 40 percent of all crime reported, fraud is now the most prevalent crime type across the UK, with an estimated 3.3 million incidents of fraud committed annually. Whether you are a new or an experienced counter-fraud professional, Blackstone''s Counter Fraud Professional''s Handbook offers a detailed understanding of all the relevant law, practice, theory, and procedure that you will need. Developed from first hand insights from those involved in the development of the Government Counter Fraud Profession, it will help you to understand and deploy prevention, risk assessment, and measurement techniques to improve your overall response. The book''s practical, straightforward advice will help you build awareness and plan your effective response in the following areas: • Bribery & Corruption insight and investigation techniques • Leadership skills, integrity, and effectiveness • Investigation models and

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Boeing Max 737's twin crashes, Volkswagen's Dieselgate scandal, worms in Cadbury's chocolates, cyanide in Tylenol, the #MeToo movement In the past 2448 hours, chances are you have read about a brand believed to have transgressed in some part of the world. These and other transgressions real or perceived plague company brands and, as in the case of the #MeToo movement, human brands, routinely and globally. And they often come with serious consequences: consumer injury, billions of dollars in recovery and restitution, legal nightmares, bankruptcy, and damage to the brand. Despite their universal prevalence, negative outcomes, and the justified media frenzy around their occurrence, in-depth, thorough, and critical reflections on brand transgressions are scarce. Consequently, barring the lens of some quick-fix solution, managers lack a precise understanding of how to handle such potentially explosive situations. Managing Brand Transgressions: 8 Principles to Transform Your Brand presen

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A critical analysis of the poetic representations and legacies of five landmark blues artistsThe Blues Muse: Race, Gender, and Musical Celebrity in American Poetry focuses on five key blues musicians and singers—Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Robert Johnson, and Lead Belly—and traces the ways in which these artists and their personas have been invoked and developed throughout American poetry. This study spans nearly one hundred years of literary and musical history, from the New Negro Renaissance to the present. Emily Ruth Rutter not only examines blues musicians as literary touchstones or poetic devices, but also investigates the relationship between poetic constructions of blues icons and shifting discourses of race and gender. Rutter’s nuanced analysis is clear, compelling, and rich in critical assessments of these writers’ portraits of the musical artists, attending to their strategies and oversights.

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In the last 40 years or so, we have seen an astounding rise in the prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (DM2) in most western and 'developing' countries. National data suggests a six-fold increase from around 1% of the population in 1980 to over 6% in 2020. There are thought to be nearly 4 million people with the disease in the UK, and close on half a billion affected worldwide. In parts of the USA and China over 10% of the population have DM2. Traditionally thought of as a disease of mid-life and old age, both DM2 and the metabolic markers of future disease are now increasingly being seen in young people, children and even infants. What is happening?  The burden of this disease is huge at all levels - for health care spend and for added risk of other medical problems. Its overall impact on health is at least as great as that of Type 1 Diabetes - it's certainly not the 'mild Diabetes' it was once called. In addition, other than its physical i

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Join the little girl in the candy-striped dress as Milly-Molly-Mandy does the gardening, gives a party, and goes to a fete – whatever she and her friends are up to, you're sure to have fun when they're around!The much-loved stories of Milly-Molly-Mandy and her everyday adventures in the countryside have charmed generations of children since their first publication in 1928. Perfect for reading aloud, these thirteen stories will bring back happy memories for parents and grandparents, and introduce younger readers to an enduringly popular heroine and her friends little-friend-Susan, Billy Blunt and Toby the dog. Gloriously illustrated with Joyce Lankester Brisley's original line drawings, Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories is a truly special gift to treasure.Enjoy more of Milly-Molly-Mandy's fun adventures with More of Milly-Molly-Mandy and Further Doings of Milly-Molly-Mandy.

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Storytelling is pop culture’s `weapon’ of choice to connect, engage and ultimately convince. Every TV ad a compelling movie? Every Facebook post a contagious piece of content? Every infographic a work of art? Yes, please. Tell me where to sign up! Right now, this very minute, a junior copywriter is adding “storyteller” to his Facebook profile. There is a gaming developer doing the same on LinkedIn. A PR agent is casually including “teller of stories” in his Twitter bio. Graphic designers, journalists, editors, broadcasters, coders, model makers, set designers, ginormous brands, ocean explorers, astronauts, schoolteachers, CEOs, marketing directors, creative consultants and trend watchers are peppering their websites, blogs and email signatures with the word “storytelling.” In Storytelling on Steroids, editor and adman John Weich finds out why. Where did all this storytelling come from? Why are so many professionals suddenly so eager to spread the storytelling gospel? And who blazed the trail for an Age of Storytelling in mainstream communication? In his compact, fast-moving book, Weich explores the iconic brands, cultural movements and social technologies that have contributed most to storytelling’s rise in mainstream creativity and communication. Along the way, he calls out countless pop culture darlings to make his case: Batman, Banksy, Tomb Raider, TED Talks, Radiohead, Jay-Z, BMW and New York Times infographics. He even raves about a powerful little campaign about the worst hotel in the world. What we’re experiencing isn’t a radical new movement but a storytelling renaissance, one fueled by addictive technologies, the abundance of choice and … you! You and the billion others engaged in the most massive and shamelessly personal storytelling experiment in the history of humankind: social media.

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