An American Bum in China: Featuring the Bumblingly Brilliant Escapes of Expatriate Matthew Evans


Book Description

Down on his luck and disabled, cancer survivor Matthew Evans had nothing to lose by fleeing the farmsteads of Muscatine, Iowa, at age 21 to pursue his Chinese Dream. With all the makings of a classic folk tale, his curiosity became an epic five-year adventure that would find him homeless, stateless, posing as a professor, imprisoned, deported, and caught in the middle of the 2014 Hong Kong protests.




Love and Other Moods


Book Description

Naomi uproots her life from New York when her fiancé's company transfers him to Shanghai. After a disastrous turn of events, she finds herself with no job, no boyfriend, and nowhere to live in a foreign country. Logan is a womanizing restaurateur looking for love in all the wrong places. Shanghai socialite Joss leads an enviable life but must take great pains to harbor the secrets of her husband, Tay. Silver-aged Jinsung and Zhangjie struggle with adapting to the ever-changing faces of their city. Dante, who had just returned to China after spending years overseas, must choose between being filial and being in love. All their dreams and aspirations interweave within the sprawling web of Shanghai, amidst the city welcoming millions of workers and visitors to the 2010 World Expo. A sweeping, multilayered novel exploring a kaleidoscope of relationships-familial friction, amorous entanglements, volatile friendships-this lustrous meditation on love is a paean to one of the most dynamic metropolises of the twenty-first century. Review Quotes: "This heartfelt, transporting story sparkles with a constellation of characters who call this city home while pursuing their China dream. As multifaceted as Shanghai itself, this novel follows overlapping narratives about the complexities of adulting, of parenting, of the urban quest for love and finding one's place in the world." -EMILY TING, film director of Go Back to China and Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong "Awash with cosmopolitan expats and jet-setting locals, Love and Other Moods shimmers like the diamonds adorning China's glitterati, while exposing haunting personal histories and intergenerational strife. With dazzling twirls around Shanghai's World Expo, glitzy fashion shows, art deco architecture, jazz clubs, gourmet restaurants, and disappearing food stalls, this novel compellingly pulls the reader into the pleasures and pains of becoming an adult in a city soaring to global status." -JENNY LIN, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Southern California and author of Above sea: Contemporary art, urban culture, and the fashioning of global Shanghai




The Essential Cult TV Reader


Book Description

The Essential Cult TV Reader is a collection of insightful essays that examine television shows that amass engaged, active fan bases by employing an imaginative approach to programming. Once defined by limited viewership, cult TV has developed its own identity, with some shows gaining large, mainstream audiences. By exploring the defining characteristics of cult TV, The Essential Cult TV Reader traces the development of this once obscure form and explains how cult TV achieved its current status as legitimate television. The essays explore a wide range of cult programs, from early shows such as Star Trek, The Avengers, Dark Shadows, and The Twilight Zone to popular contemporary shows such as Lost, Dexter, and 24, addressing the cultural context that allowed the development of the phenomenon. The contributors investigate the obligations of cult series to their fans, the relationship of camp and cult, the effects of DVD releases and the Internet, and the globalization of cult TV. The Essential Cult TV Reader answers many of the questions surrounding the form while revealing emerging debates on its future.




You Lucky Dog


Book Description

An accidental dog swap unleashes an unexpected love match in this new romantic comedy from New York Times bestselling author Julia London. Carly Kennedy's life is in a spiral. She is drowning in work, her divorced parents are going through their midlife crises, and somehow Carly's sister convinces her to foster Baxter--a basset hound rescue with a bad case of the blues. When Carly comes home late from work one day to discover that the dog walker has accidentally switched out Baxter for another perkier, friendlier basset hound, she has reached the end of her leash. When Max Sheffington finds a depressed male basset hound in place of his cheerful Hazel, he is bewildered. But when cute, fiery Carly arrives on his doorstep, he is intrigued. He was expecting the dog walker, not a pretty woman with firm ideas about dog discipline. And Carly was not expecting a handsome, bespectacled man to be feeding her dog mac and cheese. Baxter is besotted with Hazel, and Carly realizes she may have found the key to her puppy’s happiness. For his sake, she starts to spend more time with Hazel and Max, until she begins to understand the appeal of falling for your polar opposite.




The Imperial Presidency


Book Description

Publisher Description




Genre Studies in Mass Media


Book Description

The study of various types of programming is essential for critical analysis of the media and also offers revealing perspectives on society's cultural values, preoccupations, behavior, and myths. This handbook provides a systematic, in-depth approach to the study of media genres - including reality programs, game shows, situation comedies, soap operas, film noir, news programs, and more. The author addresses such questions as: Have there been shifts in the formula of particular genres over time? What do these shifts reveal about changes in culture? How and why do new genres - such as reality TV shows - appear? Are there differences in genres from one country to another? Combining theoretical approaches with concrete examples, the book reinforces one's understanding of the importance of genre to the creation, evolution, and consumption of media content. Each chapter in this reader-friendly book contains a detailed discussion of one of the theoretical approaches to genre studies, followed by Lines of Inquiry, which summarizes the major points of the discussion and suggests directions for analysis and further study. Each chapter also includes an example that illustrates how the particular theoretical approach can be applied in the analysis of genre. The author's careful linkage of different genres to the real world makes the book widely useful for those interested in genre study as well as media and culture, television studies, film studies, and media literacy.




The Occupation of Iraq


Book Description

Involved for over thirty years in the politics of Iraq, Ali A. Allawi was a long-time opposition leader against the Baathist regime. In the post-Saddam years he has held important government positions and participated in crucial national decisions and events. In this book, the former Minister of Defense and Finance draws on his unique personal experience, extensive relationships with members of the main political groups and parties in Iraq, and deep understanding of the history and society of his country to answer the baffling questions that persist about its current crises. What really led the United States to invade Iraq, and why have events failed to unfold as planned? The Occupation of Iraq examines what the United States did and didn't know at the time of the invasion, the reasons for the confused and contradictory policies that were enacted, and the emergence of the Iraqi political class during the difficult transition process. The book tracks the growth of the insurgency and illuminates the complex relationships among Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds. Bringing the discussion forward to the reconfiguration of political forces in 2006, Allawi provides in these pages the clearest view to date of the modern history of Iraq and the invasion that changed its course in unpredicted ways.




Unsavory Elements


Book Description

Featuring entirely original writings written exclusively for this work, this anthology is filled with 28 essays from foreigners who live or have lived in China for a significant period of time. The book contains beautiful and enlightening stories about China from such noteworthy writers as Simon Winchester, Peter Hessler, Susan Conley, and Alan Paul, among others. Through their personal stories, they illustrate the many sides of Chinese life--the weird, the fascinating, and the appalling--and share what it's like to live, learn, and love as an outsider in a land unlike any other in the world.




A Terrible Mistake


Book Description

Following nearly a decade of research, this account solves the mysterious death of biochemist Frank Olson, revealing the identities of his murderers in shocking detail. It offers a unique and unprecedented look into the backgrounds of many former CIA, FBI, and Federal Narcotics Bureau officials—including several who actually oversaw the CIA's mind-control programs from the 1950s to the 1970s. In retracing these programs, a frequently bizarre and always frightening world is introduced, colored and dominated by many factors—Cold War fears, the secret relationship between the nation's drug enforcement agencies and the CIA, and the government's close collaboration with the Mafia.




South China Morning Blues


Book Description

From Canton to Hong Kong, the booming megalopolis of the Pearl River Delta has endless stories to tell. Who finds themselves in rapidly changing 21st-century China? There's Marco, a businessman with a penchant for call girls; Danny, a culture-shocked young traveler; Sheila, a local club girl caught up in family politics; Terry, an alcoholic journalist; and Ting Ting, an artist with a chip on her shoulder. Their lives intertwine in unexpected ways.