Search results for ""Cune Press,US""
Cune Press,US Afghanistan and Beyond: Confronting the War on Terror
Linda Sartor takes us behind the headlines. She hopes that her stories will inspire readers to confront fear, to follow their hearts, and to believe that ordinary people can ultimately undermine and reform the harsh imperial and economic systems that are too often accepted as a baseline "reality" when the nations of the world exercise power."I came back from Afghanistan in 2011 with 70 pages of notes and no clarity about demanding US withdrawal." In the wake of the 9-11 attacks in 2001, Linda Sartor was dismayed to see her country responding in ways that punish civilians in foreign lands, lending credibility to Al Qaeda's depiction of the US as an imperial state and an enemy of Islam.For the next decade Linda engaged in self-styled citizen diplomacy, traveling to six war-torn countries to see for herself, and to do what she could to provide unarmed civilian protective support to locals in their efforts to attain peace and justice.Besides Afghanistan, Linda traveled to Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Iran, and Bahrain with several different Peace and Justice organizations.
£11.99
Cune Press,US Congo Prophet: The Arrest of Simon Kimbangu
Frederic Hunter takes us to Belgian Congo, portraying colonial administration of millions of Congolese and the uprising instigated by a healer who has broken no laws, yet directly challenges the authority of the ruling Belgian government. Governor-general Count Lippens must deal with this challenge and appease the ruling class in the Congo.
£12.82
Cune Press,US 13th Boy: A Memoir of Education & Abuse
"It sounds like a horror movie". That's what Stephen Fife's friend said when he told her what happened at his private prep school in New York City. "Fifteen teachers messing with students at the same high school?....How is that even possible?" she asked. Indeed. When one man abused 11 boys at Penn State, there was shock and horror both inside the university community and out, and legal action swiftly followed. But at Horace Mann School, where teachers regularly abused boys over three decades, no formal acknowledgement or independent investigation has taken place. And because of the restrictive statute of limitations in New York, no lawsuits can be filed. Stephen Fife, a poet, playwright, and screenwriter, whose most recent screenplay, "Blue Kiss", was just optioned by Fable Entertainment (to be packaged by Paradigm), was one of these abused boys. He has written a compelling, soul-baring account of his experience. Fife's mentor, an English teacher who praised his writing and told him he could be a famous poet (if he worked closely with him and did everything he advised), used his power over the teenage boy to sexually attack him in a hotel room on a school-sponsored trip. Later he lured Fife to his apartment repeatedly, where the abuse continued. This was 1970-71, before the days of iphones and selfies. When 17 year-old Fife finally found the courage to report the abuse to the associate headmaster, he was told that without solid evidence, he had better keep quiet. An accusation without hard proof, said the associate headmaster, would put Fife's stellar college recommendation letters in jeopardy. To go public would mean risking his Ivy League aspirations and his future as a writer, as well as informing his parents. At the time, Fife did not know he was one of many victims. Nor did he know that Mr Berman, the teacher who abused him, was just one of many teachers at Horace Mann molesting students. Only years later, after an article in the New York Times Magazine named other teachers as well as some administrators (and didn't mention Mr Berman), did Fife realize the extent of the abuse. Hoping to provide insight into what happened at Horace Mann (including suicide by many of the victims, and obsessive suicidal thoughts of his own), Fife is trying to compel Horace Mann to cooperate in an independent investigation. With the publication of this book he also seeks to change the statute of limitations laws, so that future victims will not be prevented from going to court; and to provide moral support for his fellow victims, who were betrayed by adults they trusted. The book also provides practical advice to parents: how to recognise the threat of predatory adults and the signs of molestation, and how to handle the emotional fall out, if abuse does occur.
£32.39
Cune Press,US The Dusk Visitor: Stories from Syria
A collection of 36 short stories from a Raqqa, Syria native whose home was commandeered by ISIS and later destroyed by coalition airstrikes.Musa Al-Halool developed these stories based on a sense of embitterment toward the Syrian regime. Now, after his country has fallen from the grips of an obtuse and rigidly bureaucratic state into the uncertainties of war . . . he presents his stories as the response of one still-same voice in the midst of madness.Musa Al-Halool’s stories depict a Kafkaesque Middle Eastern world. The collection opens with eight political fables in a chapter titled Ratistan . . . or the country of Rats. These fables introduce themes which are picked up and developed in the later stories or simply serve as counterpoint to the longer pieces.The Dusk Visitor is an object lesson for Western readers. In just a few words, it invokes the warnings of Ernest Hemingway about the dangers of Fascism in 1920s Italy and the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s . . . that resulted in WWII. The author shows in compelling detail that Middle East dictators and the upside down world of security state rule in the Middle East are the reward for functioning civil societies where a few too many ”good people” find it more convenient to collaborate rather than to resist.Western readers, in their arrogance, are accustomed to pity such dysfunctional societies. In The Dusk Visitor, the tables are turned. Musa Al-Halool forces us to look in the mirror: Middle Eastern style comical inanity and inefficiency as well as torture, mass murder, and other human rights horrors are just around the corner for the EU, UK, US, and other societies where it is OK to raise half-truths, lies, and exaggeration above traditional journalism, dilute the judiciary, gerrymander the election system, usher in strongmen who prefer to be rulers for life, and threaten legal action against one’s political opponents.The Dusk Visitor is a MUST-READ for anyone concerned about the growth of subtle and overt fascism within modern civil society.
£11.99
Cune Press,US Escape to Aswan: A Novel
On a brief visit to Cairo to support an investigation her fiancé, a Jewish American journalist, has undertaken, Salma is caught up in the machinations of a new, radical Islamist group with a vendetta against her father, a man with his own dark side. A former lover and Islamist, kidnaps her. He forces her to flee with him from Cairo to Aswan in the far south of Egypt. As they navigate the backroads, Salma, a privileged Egyptian-American, finds herself hiding under a burqa, running desert sandstorms and relying on the goodwill of poor villagers.A page-turner, Escape to Aswan is not only a political thriller but a dramatic telling of the clashes of culture and class in the Arab world.
£12.96
Cune Press,US Confessions of a Knight Errant: Drifters, Thieves, and Ali Baba's Treasure
Confessions of a Knight Errant is a comedic, picaresque novel in the tradition of Don Quixote with a flamboyant cast of characters. Dr. Gary Watson is the picaro, a radical environmentalist and wannabe novelist who has been accused of masterminding a computer hack that wiped out the files of a major publishing company. His Sancho Panza is Kharalombos, a fat, gluttonous Greek dancing teacher, who is wanted by the secret police for cavorting with the daughter of the Big Man of Egypt. Self-preservation necessitates a hurried journey to the refuge of a girls’ camp in rural Texas. Then a body turns up nearby that is connected to Middle East antiquities, and they are on the run once more.
£11.99
Cune Press,US Arab Boy Delivered: A Novel
Michael Haddad, the teenage son of Palestinian immigrants, comes of age during the tumultuous sixties in his family’s neighborhood grocery store in New York City.In 1967 Michael maneuvers through the working-class neighborhood delivering groceries and enters the homes and lives of his customers. He’s confronted by the violence of racist bullies and falls for the radical college coed who teaches him about sex, love, and protest. Michael grieves with the mother whose only son died in the Vietnam War and is embraced by the first black couple who move into the neighborhood. They all shape him, and through the conflict of hate, acts of kindness, and his sexual awakening, Michael struggles to figure out who this dutiful son of an immigrant family is. Michael’s life is buffeted by the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr, and the death, two months later, of Bobby Kennedy. His girlfriend opens his eyes to the ongoing struggle to test national ideals against the growing diversity of America. But when Michael experiences a sudden personal tragedy, he must learn to get past his fears, come to terms with his heritage, and set himself free.
£15.99
Cune Press,US Muslims Arabs and ArabAmericans
Muslims, Arabs, and Arab-Americans is based on Author Nawar Shora''s time-tested seminar program that has reached law enforcement, the intelligence community, church groups, academic institutions, and private corporations for the past two decades. His combinations of quick-witted humor and approachable simple methods to explain complex and often intimidating topics have made him a nationally recognized authority on Muslims, Arabs, and Arab-Americans. The book with its new title is the third edition of what was The Arab American Handbook and has been updated with additional information, anecdotes, and examples. This non-politicized book is perfect for anyone interested in learning more about the people, culture, faiths, geography, and social and behavioral norms and mores of Muslim and Arab people. The book will help everyone from novices on the topic, to experienced academics who are curious to achieve greater understanding of these cultu
£11.99
Cune Press,US Arab Boy Delivered
Michael Haddad, the teenage son of Palestinian immigrants, comes of age during the tumultuous sixties in his family’s neighborhood grocery store in New York City.In 1967 Michael maneuvers through the working-class neighborhood delivering groceries and enters the homes and lives of his customers. He’s confronted by the violence of racist bullies and falls for the radical college coed who teaches him about sex, love, and protest. Michael grieves with the mother whose only son died in the Vietnam War and is embraced by the first black couple who move into the neighborhood. They all shape him, and through the conflict of hate, acts of kindness, and his sexual awakening, Michael struggles to figure out who this dutiful son of an immigrant family is. Michael’s life is buffeted by the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr,
£11.99
Cune Press,US Road from Damascus: An American Travelling Alone Meets Smugglers, Mystics, Revolutionaries, Bedouins, Wise Men, Secret Police -- & Other Ordinary Syrians
In February 2001 Scott C. Davis flew to Damascus, attended raucous political salons, talked all night, and sat in local cafés debating the nature of the evolving Syrian nation. Such openness was new in Syria. Was it a sign of things to come? Would the Damascene Curtain fall as heavily and permanently as did the Berlin Wall? Would Damascus become another tourist trap bursting with American franchise restaurants, another Amman? To answer these questions, and to give a feel for the real country beneath the rapidly changing surfaces, Davis tells a story of an earlier time when Syrians did not discuss politics for fear of the 'mukhabarat' and when some hesitated, in their own homes, even to mention the name of the Syrian president. Fourteen years earlier, in October 1987, Davis had come to Damascus and begun a slow, difficult journey through Syrian society. He met artists and intellectuals, wealthy landowners, retired mystics, and also slept on the floor beside humble peasants and working folk. The times were quiet, jobs scarce, and ordinary folk could take a few moments for tea with a guest. Many of those Davis met took pride in their own simplicity. Denied political power and wealth, they aspired instead to wisdom -- or at least to perfecting a sardonic wit. This tale of grace, humour, and humanity turns on the author's search for truth and, also, for a few good quotes for his book -- a search that took him across Syria in the footsteps of Alexander to the ancient Roman Bridge over the Tigris River in the far eastern tip of the country -- and then brought him racing back to Damascus to find the Patriarch of Antioch.
£27.89
Cune Press,US Best Revenge: How the Theater Saved My Life (and Has Been Killing Me Ever Since)
A middle-aged playwright -- in conflict with his ex-wife, his current girlfriend, and a legion of creditors -- journeys from Hollywood to Atlanta to work with his youthful idol, legendary avant-garde director Joseph Chaikin. Thus begins a roller coaster ride of a very unusual sort, combining personal revelations with theatrical obsessions, a step-by-step disclosure of a master director's rehearsal process with a search for spiritual truth (and a decent night's sleep). Just hop aboard and get a backstage pass to the 'holding-on-by-your-fingernails' reality of the contemporary American theatre.
£17.09
Cune Press,US Glow in the Dark
This startlingly edgy, seductive debut collection of short stores, travels from New York to Northern California, Mexico, Los Angeles and Paris, dropping us dead centre into the lives of those whose extreme behaviour has led them to the threshold of significant transition. Among the many intriguing, unique individuals, there is Marty wrestling with sobriety and his unspeakable obsession; Gita trying to conduct the love triangle she orchestrated; the frustrated lover, Tim, attempting to wedge himself between his girlfriend and her brother; and the surf chick, Magda, tightrope-walking in her circus of drugs, opportunistic men and the waves of Baja California. Finely crafted and painstakingly written, each of these twelve stories is a stunningly powerful, dynamic look into lives at the breaking point.
£11.69
Cune Press,US Syria - A Decade of Lost Chances: Repression & Revolution from Damascus Spring to Arab Spring
When Arab Spring swept the region, Syria s President Bashar al-Asad thought that he was safe. Over the previous five years, the moderate opposition had been crushed. Unlike Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya, Syria had taken an anti-US stance since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Syrians were used to living under sanctions and being called terrorists. Asad told movie stars Brad and Angelina when they visited Damascus that he did not need personal security, because ordinary Syrians were protecting him. The Syrian president was convinced that Syrians loved him. And not only Syrians. Vogue agreed in its March 2011 puff piece that described Asad's wife as a Rose in the Desert. What of Syrian naysayers? Asad counted on his ruthless and all-seeing mukhabarat to keep them in line. Tackling politics, society, religion, and economy, Syria - A Decade of Lost Chances explores the eleven years of Asad s rule between the clampdown on Damascus Spring in 2001 and the challenge of escalating street protests in the wake of the Arab Spring in 2011 and 2012. Author Carsten Wieland interviewed the major opposition figures year by year over this decade. A valuable complement to the growing body of indigenous reporting (youtube videos, blog commentary), Syria - A Decade of Lost Chances provides context and expert insight that reveals the essential struggle and untold barbarity unfolding here in what Syrian government tourist brochures call the cradle of civilization.
£32.39
Cune Press,US The Greatest Spy: The True Story of the Secret Agent that Inspired James Bond 007
Audacious, brilliant, chameleon. All these words could be used to describe the man that became Britain’s greatest spy, a man known by several names and who came from many places, depending on who was asking and when. Was he from Poland? Or was he the son of an Irish clergyman? Many believe he was born in Odessa, Ukraine, a place hot in today’s headlines. He certainly had the ability to be convincing to anyone he met, including the head of Britain’s intelligence services. Sidney Reilly, one of many names he was known by, was the most successful spy in history. His adventures first came to light during the Russian Revolution in 1917 when he was tasked by Britain’s Secret Service with overthrowing the Bolsheviks after they had formed a new government. He had already succeeded in stealing the plans of the Kaiser’s new and modern fleet of battleships from Krupp, to help Britain and her allies win World War I, and was awarded the Military Cross in 1919.In 1953, novelist Ian Fleming used Reilly’s secret Admiralty Intelligence file to write his novels about a fictional secret agent he called James Bond 007. But Reilly’s true exploits were even more thrilling and fantastic than those of the fictional James Bond. Reilly was Britain’s best spy—but was he also a Soviet double-agent?Author John Harte retells Reilly’s story as it really was, in fast-moving prose with an eye for telling detail—and provides a twist: He tells us what really happened to Reilly after he vanished in Soviet Russia in 1925 and was assumed to have been murdered by Stalin’s secret police. Apparently not!
£17.99
Cune Press,US Fluid: Stories
The short stories in FLUID are set in California, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, Northern England, and Namibia, taking a deep dive into the vastly differing perspectives of an intriguingly diverse collage of characters, who are navigating lives within society’s most challenging contemporary issues.
£11.99
Cune Press,US Joss, the Ambassador's Wife
When international correspondent Tom Craig travels to Malawi to report on a mysterious string of murders terrorizing the tiny country, he discovers another mystery that must be solved, this one very close to his heart. He decides to revisit Joss, a woman with whom he had a passionate affair some years back and who is married to the newly arrived American ambassador to Malawi. Although they last parted vowing never to meet again, he is secretly hoping to see her. But he discovers that the woman at the ambassador’s side is an imposter. He also learns he’s had a daughter by Joss who is in mortal danger. As he struggles to find out what happened to Joss and save his daughter, Tom is also solving the mystery of the string of murders with possible political links, reportedly being committed by a leopard-man. His view of life evolves as he confronts African myth very much alive in Malawi, threats to his own life, and deep desire for justice and family.
£11.99
Cune Press,US Girl Fighters: A Tale of Strife in Yemen
Girl Fighters is a novel based on a true account of two girls who passed as men and fought in Yemen’s 1960’s civil war.The characters in our story are two cousins who dress as males and are known as Mohammed and Ali. The men in their family have died in war. The girls feel it is their duty to seek revenge, the code of honor in tribal society. However in Yemen girls are hidden from public view—behind walls, doors, and veils. When Mohammed and Ali decide to seek revenge, they ironically violate another tribal expectation: that fighters be males.At first, Mohammed and Ali are inspired by their act of resistance. The war was compelling, a “noble cause.” Later, they come to realize that war benefits corrupt political leaders and business interests, both local and international. Against the backdrop of war they gain new perspectives. Taking off veils and dressing as men opens their eyes to gender inequities. They question female roles in tribal society. For example, boys can be educated at mosques, but girls cannot attend schools.Mohammed plans to open a girl’s school when the war ends. Ali is a military medic. When Ali is killed, Mohammed confronts loss and guilt. She cannot return to her former life. The dream of educating girls cannot happen as a “man.” In tribal society, as “a woman” she must marry and produce children. Against the odds, Mohammed reshapes her life as leader in the community.
£15.99
Cune Press,US Explore the Old City of Aleppo: Come with Tamim to a World Heritage Site
Khaldoun Fansa is an Aleppo native who was displaced by the Syrian Civil War. For many years he worked as an architect who managed restoration of Aleppo's Old City for private owners as well acting as a consultant for the Aga Khan Trust. Visit the Old City of Aleppo is Fansa's effort to keep Syrian culture alive in a difficult time and to prepare for the day when the cannons are silent and women and men of good will can begin to rebuild their city and their lives.Visit the Old City of Aleppo is a book for children as well as a book for adults who may choose to read aloud to a child. The narrative follows young Tamim and his father on their explorations of the Old City, pre civil war.Accent pages provide insights from 5,000 years of culture and history reflected in the houses, covered markets, and narrow alleyways. Aleppo was a major trading center built of Roman stone that continued to flourish in the time of Marco Polo and later served as the favored British trading route to India. Aleppo's Old city is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.
£17.99
Cune Press,US Loving Holly
40-somethings filmmaker David Lang and cabaret singer Holly Markham seem to have finally reached the end of their turbulent relationship when Holly discovers that she’s pregnant. David has a mystical experience that causes him to become the unborn baby’s protector. But Holly—well, that’s another story.
£11.99
Cune Press,US An Ear to the Ground: Presenting Writers From 2 Coasts
Personal essays on the theme "local truth". Piquant, surprising, unpredictable prose from 75 of the finest emerging writers of the East and West Coasts. These men and women speak to particular subcultures and localities. Their words have sharp edges. Their thinking is strong, deeply felt, rooted-a welcome change from the pabulum that is produced for a mass audience. Learn of our future as is passes from the heat and passion of local discourse into national debate. Listen to men and women who, for all their individuality, share Cune's notion that literature, by its excellence as art tends to orient, heal, and uplift.
£18.89
Cune Press,US Number Phonics: A Complete Learn-by-Numbers Reading Program for Easy One-on-One Tutoring of Children
This is a revolutionary phonics system for teaching children to read. It will also be effective in teaching reading to illiterate or semi-literate adults. The author is a reading expert who home-schooled her own seven children. She used every available phonics system, and found them all wanting. She realised that 30% of children are left behind by traditional phonics systems. She found that children are quick to use number clues to identify the different sounds of each letter. By tagging the letters with a number, she prompts the student to recall the specific sound of this letter. And she applies this system to all the 84 major sounds in English. Who should use Number Phonics? Home-schoolers. Parents who want to give their children a jump start. Parents whose children are struggling. Classroom teachers and reading specialists.
£18.89
Cune Press,US Leaving Syria: Seeking Refuge in Greece
A dispatch from the front lines of the world's most pressing humanitarian crisis. Meet the children, women, and men who have given up untenable lives in Syrian conflict zones for the risk of travel as refugees, to Greece. Editors Bill Dienst, MD and Madi Williamson and their contributors -- most of whom have served on the ground with the ngo SCM Medical -- report from the refugee camps of Greece on the crisis of refugees, primarily Syrian refugees, who have fled the violence and are now caught in military style detention camps with no end in sight.
£18.89
Cune Press,US Inside Syria -- A Physician's Memoir: My Life as a Child, a Student & an MD in an Era of War
This is a street level view of Syria from 1965 that is far more nuanced than most reports in the US media. Tarif Bakdash, MD, was born and raised in Syria. He went to school with Bashar al-Assad, worked with Bashars wife Asma, butted heads with Baath Party bureaucrats, lost friends to anti-Islamic purges. Tarif tells his story: a nurturing childhood in a warm family -- against fear of war, the maiming of his mother, jailing of a schoolmate for no reason, the blood-soaked ground of Hama in 1982, omnipresent security services, Soviet-style thinking, old-fashioned graft, and official doubletalk. Tarif Bakdash shows us history from the inside -- in the life of a child, a student -- a young man struggling to create a life for himself. And then he shows it to us again, in the eyes of a middle-aged MD who, after many years in the US, returns to the city of his birth as an impatient American intent on reforming the Syrian system from within.
£18.89
Cune Press,US Angel's Glance: A Novel
David Lang was once a big deal - a cult hero who wrote and directed the underground horror flick Zombie Film Schooland its two sequels in the late 1980s, earning himself the pop-culture nickname of Zombie Guy. But now it s the late 1990s and David often feels like a real zombie guy, just another Hollywood script doctor living off his former glory. The only thing that makes David feel really alive is his love for Holly Markham, a beautiful, brilliant and complicated cabaret singer and writer an unstable planet, David calls her, as sometimes they make love for days, while other times she freezes him out completely. David and Holly seem to have finally reached the end of their relationship s twists and turns when Holly at 42 discovers that she s pregnant. Even David isn't sure that going forward with the pregnancy is a good idea and Holly has no doubt that it could never work. Then again, Holly may never have another chance to be a mom. And who is that otherworldly being that David thinks he sees on their bed?
£17.09
Cune Press,US Gülens Dialogue on Education: A Caravanserai of Ideas
Professor Tom Gage portrays eight modern educators and the development of their theories viewed from personal, cultural, and historical perspectives. He links their ideas to those of Fethullah Gülen, a highly influential educator of today who draws on an entirely different tradition.
£20.69
Cune Press,US 13th Boy: A Memoir of Education & Abuse
"It sounds like a horror movie". That's what Stephen Fife's friend said when he told her what happened at his private prep school in New York City. "Fifteen teachers messing with students at the same high school?....How is that even possible?" she asked. Indeed. When one man abused 11 boys at Penn State, there was shock and horror both inside the university community and out, and legal action swiftly followed. But at Horace Mann School, where teachers regularly abused boys over three decades, no formal acknowledgement or independent investigation has taken place. And because of the restrictive statute of limitations in New York, no lawsuits can be filed. Stephen Fife, a poet, playwright, and screenwriter, whose most recent screenplay, "Blue Kiss", was just optioned by Fable Entertainment (to be packaged by Paradigm), was one of these abused boys. He has written a compelling, soul-baring account of his experience. Fife's mentor, an English teacher who praised his writing and told him he could be a famous poet (if he worked closely with him and did everything he advised), used his power over the teenage boy to sexually attack him in a hotel room on a school-sponsored trip. Later he lured Fife to his apartment repeatedly, where the abuse continued. This was 1970-71, before the days of iphones and selfies. When 17 year-old Fife finally found the courage to report the abuse to the associate headmaster, he was told that without solid evidence, he had better keep quiet. An accusation without hard proof, said the associate headmaster, would put Fife's stellar college recommendation letters in jeopardy. To go public would mean risking his Ivy League aspirations and his future as a writer, as well as informing his parents. At the time, Fife did not know he was one of many victims. Nor did he know that Mr Berman, the teacher who abused him, was just one of many teachers at Horace Mann molesting students. Only years later, after an article in the New York Times Magazine named other teachers as well as some administrators (and didn't mention Mr Berman), did Fife realize the extent of the abuse. Hoping to provide insight into what happened at Horace Mann (including suicide by many of the victims, and obsessive suicidal thoughts of his own), Fife is trying to compel Horace Mann to cooperate in an independent investigation. With the publication of this book he also seeks to change the statute of limitations laws, so that future victims will not be prevented from going to court; and to provide moral support for his fellow victims, who were betrayed by adults they trusted. The book also provides practical advice to parents: how to recognise the threat of predatory adults and the signs of molestation, and how to handle the emotional fall out, if abuse does occur.
£18.89
Cune Press,US Plain of Dead Cities: A Syrian Memoir
Three years of war. One hundred-fifty thousand dead. One million refugees. No end in sight. This is the grim reality of the conflict in Syria, one of the great tragedies of the modern era. Yet many people remain confused as to what the fighting is all about. The Plain Of Dead Cities makes sense of this complex scenario, by delving deep into the wells of Syrian history and examining the vital role that Syria has played in human development over the past 5000 years. Using a unique approach "The Plain of Dead Cities" takes the reader of a virtual tour of Syria. The narrator carries you across the country, through the history books and archaeological sites, revealing the political, religious, social, geographical and historical complexities that have led to the current military conflagration. The Plain Of Dead Cities is as unconventional as the land it describes, part non-fictional memoir and part fiction. "The Plain of Dead Cities" is an adventure and a tale, but above all is a tribute to Syria, that most mystical of lands.
£18.89
Cune Press,US Sand Paper Stone
Sand Paper Stone is the story of a British man from Liverpool living in London where he works in a decent job, with good friends from different backgrounds, yet as a muslim convert and with a landmark moment in his life approaching he finds himself compelled to embark on his pilgrimage to Mecca. Despite encountering obstacles at the consulate in London and also on arrival at Jeddah he is taken in as a ‘wayfarer’ by a large extended family who assist in instructing him in the rituals and requirements of attendance at Islam’s holiest shrine and watch on at his astonishment at the scenes that they witness together. However, just at the moment when he begins to come close to realising the spiritual ambitions of his journey, the practicalities of life invade the peace in the form of what seems petty officialdom and he finds himself launched into a bureaucratic maze, at first trapped in baffling meetings with lofty government ministers and lethargi
£11.99
Cune Press,US The Soldier, the Builder, and the Diplomat: Custer, the Titanic, and World War I
Contemporary readers, who wonder at the British and American knack for misguided adventure, will enjoy these three essays on Custer, the Titanic, and the onset of World War I.The American adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan have finally wound down after incurring enormous costs. One wonders if we have forgotten the lessons of history, and in particular of World War I? It is far easier to enter into armed conflict than it is to withdraw the troops and heal the wounds.The Soldier, the Builder, and the Diplomat consists of rapier-like literary thrusts into the lives of General George Armstrong Custer, Thomas Andrews (the builder of the Titanic), and Edward Grey (British Foreign Secretary before World War I.However spectacular their failures, it's generally agreed that these men (or, in the case of Edward Grey, the men around him) could have avoided disaster except for arrogance - a flaw that has long characterized the imperial ambition of leaders from both countries.One shudders to think where such a mentality will take us in a nuclear age.Steven Schlesser's readable study is more than entertainment or scholarship, it is a plea for balance, probity, and reason in an era when a single fit of arrogance by a world leader can devastate hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and imperil the very project of civilized human existence on this planet.It's difficult to overstate the importance of The Soldier, the Builder, and the Diplomat.
£11.99
Cune Press,US Jinwar and Other Stories
Alex Poppe’s characters celebrate the fragile grandeur of living an independent life in the aftermath of violence. Deeply rooted in place, these stories are about identity, hope, and redemption as fierce and flawed women rebuild their lives in the wake of war. The young women sparking through these pages are surprising, funny, and devastating: the essence of womanhood.The title piece, “Jinwar,” is a funny, yet heartbreaking story of an American woman who survived rape in the military, was denied due process, and found herself working in a food truck shaped like a hot dog during the Kavanaugh hearings.Her struggle to rebuild her life takes her across the globe to the Middle East, to Jinwar, an all-female village in Rojava, northeastern Syria. Here, survivors of war, patriarchy, and genocide un-make violence and search for ways to heal.Timely and prescient, Jinwar is a story for the #YesAllWoman world.
£11.99
Cune Press,US Nietzsche Awakens!: A Modern Life Re-imagined
Farid Younes makes his home in Byblos, a coastal town in northern Lebanon. He lived through both the Lebanese and now the Syrian civil wars. Like all Lebanese, he has plenty of “serious” in his life. The need for him and other Lebanese is to find the distance needed to cope and if possible to move events and circumstances in a better direction. His answer was to create a book that is a literary imitation of a coffee house with an open mic like the famous “Haven—The Cabin” that rests on a Byblos hilltop looking out over the Mediterranean.The author's neighbors meditate over their chess boards or gather in a back corner spinning epic tales of conspiracy as a way of passing time before the next spoken word performance . . . and as a way of making sense of the carnage of war and strife beyond Lebanese borders and the women and children-Syrian refugees-who line the streets in the major cities.Nietzsche Awakens! is a game, yet it ultimately reaches past clever word play and the razor sharp slicing of meaning to depths that Nietzsche experienced in his own life, depths akin to those that Farid Younes has seen face-to-face among his fellow citizens.At a certain point, the parlor game of this book becomes a controlled yet also a thrashing, desperate effort to survive-for one's mind to survive against the ravages of age, and also for the culture as a whole to survive the inanity of rigid thinking, blatant self-dealing, and the other idiocies that prevent us from addressing the primary challenges of our time.
£11.99
Cune Press,US Africa, Africa!: Fifteen Stories
A collection of stories that depict Westerners encountering Africa -- its people, its mysteries, its beauty and bafflements. Often those encounters change the Westerners, leading some to wisdom, others to heartache. The stories take the reader from the heart of the Congo to modern Madagascar, from a village in Nairobi to the mountain-top palace of the Mwami of Kabare, from a train in South Africa to a dinner party in Ouagadougou. Journalists, diplomats, and teachers experience the problems and fascinations of life in Africa.
£17.99
Cune Press,US Dam Foolishness: & Other Recollections
The stories in Dam Foolishness are based on the author's life experiences that began in the small village of Carthage, New York, tucked away in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. Carthage lays no claim to uniqueness or any remarkable attributes that would distinguish it from thousands of such hamlets all across America. The author's reminiscences, which led him to pen the short stories contained in Dam Foolishness, were prompted by the memories nearly all of us have as we grow older and ponder our past lives. Anyone who has lived in small town America will likely recognise, or recall, many of the characters written about in this book. As they peruse these well-written tales, readers will also be prompted to take their own journeys into the past and remember the quaintness their own hometowns and the people that populated them.
£26.09
Cune Press,US Soldier, the Builder & the Diplomat: Custer, the Titanic & World War One
Contemporary readers, who wonder at the British and American knack for misguided adventure, will enjoy these three essays on Custer, the Titanic, and the onset of World War I. The book consists of rapier-like literary thrusts into the lives of General George Armstrong Custer, Thomas Andrews (the builder of the Titanic), and Edward Grey (British Foreign Secretary before World War I). However spectacular their failures, it's generally agreed that these men (or, in the case of Edward Grey, the men around them) could have avoided disaster except for arrogance -- a flaw that has long characterised the imperial ambition of leaders from both countries. One shudders to think where such a mentality will take us in a nuclear age. Schlesser's readable study is more than entertainment or scholarship, it is a plea for balance, probity, and reason in an era when a single fit of arrogance by a world leader can devastate hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and imperil the very project of civilised human existence on this planet. It's difficult to overstate the importance of this unassuming book. Essays on the problem of pride and avoidable failure.
£27.89
Cune Press,US Soldier, the Builder & the Diplomat: Custer, the Titanic & World War One
Contemporary readers, who wonder at the British and American knack for misguided adventure, will enjoy these three essays on Custer, the Titanic, and the onset of World War I. The book consists of rapier-like literary thrusts into the lives of General George Armstrong Custer, Thomas Andrews (the builder of the Titanic), and Edward Grey (British Foreign Secretary before World War I). However spectacular their failures, it's generally agreed that these men (or, in the case of Edward Grey, the men around them) could have avoided disaster except for arrogance -- a flaw that has long characterised the imperial ambition of leaders from both countries. One shudders to think where such a mentality will take us in a nuclear age. Schlesser's readable study is more than entertainment or scholarship, it is a plea for balance, probity, and reason in an era when a single fit of arrogance by a world leader can devastate hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and imperil the very project of civilised human existence on this planet. It's difficult to overstate the importance of this unassuming book. Essays on the problem of pride and avoidable failure.
£17.09
Cune Press,US Biblical Time Out of Mind: Maps, Myths & Memories
The modern Middle East often seems like a web of problems none of which has proven more intractable over the last half century than the Israeli-Arab conflict. One of the core issues is the Israeli claim to ownership of modern-day real estate based on ancient stories that have been enshrined in scripture, promoted by politicians, and buttressed by Hollywood. In this book two revisionist thinkers expose what they argue are the tenuous underpinnings of these claims. Was the Exodus of scripture actually a Hebrew exodus. Was the Moses depicted by Charlton Heston actually a Hebrew leader? Or were they echoes of a much earlier exodus of Hyksos, the invasive people to first conquer and reign over Egyptians? The authors argue that neither Moses nor the Hebrews were in Egypt until around 1000 BCE -- 500 years after the earlier Exodus is known to have taken place. They go on to sift through research of an Hyksos evacuation of Egypt led by an Eastern leader who is far different than the Moses with whom we are familiar.
£20.69
Cune Press,US Girl Ran Away: A Story from Africa
Elizabeth Jenkins, 17, raised on a Congo mission station, is under intense pressure to marry the station doctor, twenty years her senior. Hours before the wedding, Elizabeth flees. She runs toward the wider world beyond the station. She reaches Nairobi, a place of danger for a single woman without a protecting clan. Can she survive? This novel chronicles the journey of Liz across two continents, in and out of the arms of three lovers, to find a life she can call her own.
£18.89
Cune Press,US Tossing Around Ideas: A Comprehensive Course in Art Composition for Instructors & Students
This book develops concepts from The Design Code ®, an idea-generating system developed by Northwest artist and educator, Fred Griffin. It is a remedy for the artist's equivalent of writer's block, because this system makes it possible to turn out fresh ideas and great designs on deadline. Tossing Around Ideas is the second book in the series. It explores examples from the first book, this time using an ocean theme. This volume introduces basic information on colour theory. And the use of the ocean theme gives the reader an opportunity to compare concepts that were illustrated in the first book using an apple. The Design Code ® is a three-book series that provides an in-depth course in art composition and idea-generation. It is for two types of readers: those with an understanding of design and experience in the field -- and those with interest and entry level skills who have never studied design. For experienced artists and designers, this book is a tool to lift oneself out of a creative dry spell. For those who are new to thinking to design, it also serves as a primer in the basics of composition. For either type of reader, these are books that you can return to again and again for inspiration and practical guidance.
£23.39
Cune Press,US Find Your Voice in the Visual Arts: Doodles & Other Creative Paths
This book is about raw visual imagination and the essential creative practice that's required to be a visual artist. The book is broken into three sections: Doodles, Sketchbooks, and Creative Tips. A fourth section is a Gallery of the author's paintings and illustrations ... with the story behind each. The Doodle section is devoted to some of the author's 500-piece doodle collection -- accumulated over many years, grouped according to subject and style. The Sketchbook section is about the ups and downs of keeping a sketchbook -- everyone does it differently but there are tips and rules of thumb that make the sketchbook an effective tool in personal and professional artistic development. The book offers encouragement and urges artists to overcome perfectionism in the interest of producing in a large enough volume to find one's native themes and to develop an individual style. Also includes a 90 day sketchbook journey -- with a different sketch for each day. Creative Tips is where the author examines the value of art and offers different ways to build your creative muscles.
£23.39
Cune Press,US To Breathe Without Choking
Being the new kid is always hard, but try starting the year with a name like Mohammed Omar Mohammed Abu Srour, with a homemade lunch of humus and za’atar. On top of that, on the very first day of school, a kid tells his older hijab-wearing sister to “go back where you came from.” Mohammed and his sister love their grandmother, but she thinks her stories about life in Palestine will help them with their problems. What does Grandmother’s ancient history have to do with classroom bullies? She never learned to read and Mohammed can’t even find Palestine on a map. Feels like fourth grade’s going to last forever.Nine-year old Mohammed is facing his first week in a new city and the fourth grade at a new school. He's lonley and his desire for acceptance is threatened by a classroom bully and the intrusive curiosity of his classmates. As the week unfolds, Mohammed befriends Noah, a Chinese-American boy, and together they figure out their school survival strategies and bond over their unusual lunches, immigrant families, band practice, and love of soccer. Mohammed’s tough and defiant older sister Zaynab, who wears a hijab and is also faced with harassment from other students, is torn by her desire to fit in and be a “normal” American teenager while staying true to her religion. Mohammed reaches a crisis when his fourth-grade class begins a segment on family histories. He finds himself puzzling over the absence of Palestine on the world map. Zaynab, agonizing over the dress code rules for the swim team, is on the brink of taking off her hijab. At home their grandmother, (Sitti) who came to the US from a refugee camp in Bethlehem, notices they are struggling and decides to share her story. Each day after school, through a series of vivid flashbacks told in the first person, she describes living in a peasant village west of Jerusalem in 1943, fleeing as a ten-year-old girl in 1948, and struggling for survival in a refugee camp until she decides to leave to join her oldest son in the United States. As Mohammed develops an understanding of his family, he learns that he is grounded in the US and in Palestine and comes to understand all the gifts he has received from Sitti, the stories, the food, the sense of place and dignity, the love and yearning for the land.
£11.99
Cune Press,US The Passionate Spies: How Gertrude Bell, St. John Philby and Lawrence of Arabia Led the Arab Revolt. And How Saudi Arabia Was Founded
This is the true story of how three British Secret Service agents from the Arab Bureau in Cairo helped General Allenby defeat Germany’s ally, the Turks, and end World War One. Lawrence of Arabia reignited a failing Arab Revolt by training and leading a guerrilla force of Arab irregulars to take the port of Aqaba on the Red Sea. John Harte’s book - as well as focusing on a critical moment that David Lean featured in his famous film in which young Captain Lawrence discovers a secret back door into the Turkish interior - also describes the forgotten nomadic life of the Bedouin tribes and their raiding parties, the founding of oil-rich Saudi Arabia led by King Ibn Saud, and his double-agent, the treacherous Major St John Philby whom spymaster Major Gertrude Bell of the SIS had trained in spy-craft.
£16.99
Cune Press,US Music Has No Boundaries: The Saga of 93.6 RAM FM and the Birth of NISSA FM in Palestine and Israel
Radio broadcasts don't respect borders or walls. Told for the very first time – the real story of 93.6 RAM FM, a pioneering English-language radio station in Palestine/Israel. Starting from the ground up in a most difficult geo-political environment, to the eventual launch, and the impact it made by sharing narratives of the "other" and with music. RAM FM was breaking boundaries and unfurling bridges of common ground, at a time when walls of separation were being constructed.The story, which includes the author’s return to radio to be the host of the ONLY political talk show that brought both sides to talk on a common platform in a neutral language (English) is most unique. He created a marriage of diplomacy and radio, charting his journey from being an Ambassador to a DJ/talk show host and eventually a Radio Peace Envoy.The story of the huge audience the station built, the positive impact it made, the struggle to remain ‘on air’ and its eventual demise is told for the first time. Rising from its ashes is the story of the birth of - Radio Nissa FM, the first women radio station in the Arab world - which today provides a voice to empower women in a male-dominated society in Palestine. Selected photographs included.
£11.99
Cune Press,US Kivu: Journeys in the Eastern Congo: Journeys Through Eastern Congo in a Time of Rebellion & Cold War
This memoir is gentle, insightful, and spirited by turns. It offers glimpses of a lost fragment of Africa that has since been overcome by circumstance and conflict. Kivu still lives, but it lives now in memory.Amidst the chaos that followed independence from Belgium in 1960, Kivu was spared . . . and survived. It was a "little paradise" as strife and disorder drew ever nearer.Frederic Hunter sketches local characters, both whimsical and profound, probes the inanities of US Foreign Policy, and paints the darkness gathering beyond Kivu, forces that would inevitably overwhelm this quaint, quirky realm of hope and humanity.As a young Foreign Service officer, Frederic Hunter was assigned to the Congo in 1963, three years after independence. He expected to encounter heat, jungle, hardship, violence. Instead he found the Kivu, a kind of paradise, nestled among Rift Valley lakes. The climate was benign, the beauty extraordinary. It was peaceful, the people were splendid and got along. He lived in Bukavu, a town that occupied five peninsulas jutting into Lake Kivu. Furthermore, an African king lived atop the nearby green and often fog-bound mountains.This memoir lets you accompany these Kivu adventures. We get to know Hunter’s Number One Congolese colleague, a womanizing rogue. We meet local politicians who all attend a luncheon and discuss strategies for victory in the coming election—seemingly oblivious to the point that they were competing against one another for the post. There are expats: an American academic intoxicated by Africa, a missionary woman who has lost track of time. Hunter’s truck sank in a mud pit at night and he was soon surrounded by a herd of the most dangerous animals in Africa: hippos. Hunter risks more, however, when a local Kivu woman catches his eye and then steals his heart.
£11.99
Cune Press,US Learning First in Black & White (2nd Edition)
Graphic designers combat the equivalent of "writer's block" with this system for creating fresh ideas and great designs on deadline. Learning First in Black and White introduces The Design Code ®, an idea-generating system developed by Northwest artist and educator, Fred Griffin. It is a remedy for the artist’s equivalent of writer’s block, those times when the well of ideas runs dry. This system makes it possible to find fresh ideas and execute great designs on deadline. Through many years of teaching design principles, Griffin found that if students worked first in black and white their grasp of basic design principles was much clearer than if they were dealing with the confusion of color. Color, a study unto itself, introduces an element of distraction—hence the title, Learning First in Black and White. In this book, each lesson is explained with geometric shapes, followed by illustrations of an apple visually repeating the concepts. At the end of the book is a section that gives tips on how to dig deeper for better ideas. It's an answer to the question, "Where do ideas come from?"
£14.99
Cune Press,US Road from Damascus: An American Travelling Alone Meets Smugglers, Mystics, Revolutionaries, Bedouins, Wise Men, Secret Police -- & Other Ordinary Syrians
In February 2001 Scott C. Davis flew to Damascus, attended raucous political salons, talked all night, and sat in local cafés debating the nature of the evolving Syrian nation. Such openness was new in Syria. Was it a sign of things to come? Would the Damascene Curtain fall as heavily and permanently as did the Berlin Wall? Would Damascus become another tourist trap bursting with American franchise restaurants, another Amman? To answer these questions, and to give a feel for the real country beneath the rapidly changing surfaces, Davis tells a story of an earlier time when Syrians did not discuss politics for fear of the 'mukhabarat' and when some hesitated, in their own homes, even to mention the name of the Syrian president. Fourteen years earlier, in October 1987, Davis had come to Damascus and begun a slow, difficult journey through Syrian society. He met artists and intellectuals, wealthy landowners, retired mystics, and also slept on the floor beside humble peasants and working folk. The times were quiet, jobs scarce, and ordinary folk could take a few moments for tea with a guest. Many of those Davis met took pride in their own simplicity. Denied political power and wealth, they aspired instead to wisdom -- or at least to perfecting a sardonic wit. This tale of grace, humour, and humanity turns on the author's search for truth and, also, for a few good quotes for his book -- a search that took him across Syria in the footsteps of Alexander to the ancient Roman Bridge over the Tigris River in the far eastern tip of the country -- and then brought him racing back to Damascus to find the Patriarch of Antioch.
£17.09
Cune Press,US Africa, Africa!: Fifteen Stories
A collection of stories that depict Westerners encountering Africa -- its people, its mysteries, its beauty and bafflements. Often those encounters change the Westerners, leading some to wisdom, others to heartache. The stories take the reader from the heart of the Congo to modern Madagascar, from a village in Nairobi to the mountain-top palace of the Mwami of Kabare, from a train in South Africa to a dinner party in Ouagadougou. Journalists, diplomats, and teachers experience the problems and fascinations of life in Africa.
£11.69
Cune Press,US Curse of the Achille Lauro: The Story of Abu al-Abbas
Abu al-Abbas was one of Yasser Arafat's top generals. His name is forever linked to an operation in 1985 that sparked an international crisis: the hijacking of an Italian cruise liner named the Achille Lauro and the death of Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly American tourist. This memoir by the wife of Abu al-Abbas recalls an era of Palestinian resistance, the hard realities of a cause that faced impossible odds, and the irony that the death of a single man should outweigh all arguments of right and wrong.
£20.69
Cune Press,US Number Phonics: A Complete Learn-by-Numbers Reading Program for Easy One-on-One Tutoring of Children
This is a revolutionary phonics system for teaching children to read. It will also be effective in teaching reading to illiterate or semi-literate adults. The author is a reading expert who home-schooled her own seven children. She used every available phonics system, and found them all wanting. She realised that 30% of children are left behind by traditional phonics systems. She found that children are quick to use number clues to identify the different sounds of each letter. By tagging the letters with a number, she prompts the student to recall the specific sound of this letter. And she applies this system to all the 84 major sounds in English. Who should use Number Phonics? Home-schoolers. Parents who want to give their children a jump start. Parents whose children are struggling. Classroom teachers and reading specialists.
£27.89