Ja, No Man


Book Description

Ja, No, Man is an eerily familiar portrayal of the life of an ordinary white South African growing up during Apartheid-era South Africa. Told with extraordinary humour and self-awareness, Poplak's story brings his gradual understanding of the difference between his country and the rest of the world vividly to life. A startlingly original memoir that veers sharply from the quotidian to the bizarre and back again, Ja, No, Man is an enlightening, darkly hilarious, and, at times, disturbing read.




Continental Shift


Book Description

AFRICA IS FAILING. AFRICA IS SUCCEEDING. Africa is betraying its citizens. Africa is a place of starvation, corruption, disease. African economies are soaring faster than any on earth. Africa is squandering its bountiful resources. Africa is a roadmap for global development. Africa is turbulent. Africa is stabilising. Africa is doomed. Africa is the future. All of these pronouncements prove equally true and false, as South African journalists Richard Poplak and Kevin Bloom discover on their 9-year roadtrip through the paradoxical continent they call home. From pillaged mines in Zimbabwe to the creation of an economic marketplace in Ethiopia; from Namibia's middle class to the technological challenges facing Nollywood in the 21st Century; from China's investment in Botswana to the rush for resources in the Congo; and from the birth of Africa's newest country, South Sudan, to the worsening conflict in CAR, here are eight adventures on the trail of a new Africa. Part detective story, part report from this economic frontier, Continental Shift follows the money as it flows through Chinese coffers to international conglomerates, to heads of state, to ordinary African citizens, all of whom are intent on defining a metamorphosing continent.




Our Way


Book Description

Nathan Mercer, the only man in my life.Loving him was never an option.We met ten years ago, when we started at the same company on the same day. Both new in town and with nobody else to rely on, we quickly became friends.And while Nathan went on to rule San Francisco, I'm still doing the same job with the same people.We finish each other's sentences, we spend Christmas together and he sleeps at my house more than his.He's beautiful.... beyond belief.In another life, he's probably my soul mate.However, lately things have changed. He's started looking at me differently.His eyes drop to my lips as I speak.His hugs are tighter.... longer.Our fights are more passionate, his jealousy insane.I know it's all in my head....it has to be.They say to never love someone who treats you like you're ordinary.I don't. To him I'm a queen.But our story is complicated.And as much as I love Nathan Mercer with all of my heart. . .He's the one man I can never have.




The Fluid Envelope of our Planet


Book Description

Oceans have had a mysterious allure for centuries, inspiring fears, myths, and poetic imaginations. By the early twentieth century, however, scientists began to see oceans as physical phenomena that could be understood through mathematical geophysics. The Fluid Envelope of Our Planet explores the scientific developments from the early middle ages to the twentieth century that illuminated the once murky depths of oceanography. Tracing the transition from descriptive to mathematical analyses of the oceans, Eric Mills examines sailors' and explorers' observations of the oceans, the influence of Scandinavian techniques on German-speaking geographers, and the eventual development of shared quantitative practices and ideas. A detailed and beautifully written account of the history of oceanography, The Fluid Envelope of Our Planet is also an engaging account of the emergence of a scientific discipline.




Hot and Sexy


Book Description

She has him just where she wants him... Joelle Sommers is very good at her job as a PI and bail recovery agent, but she’s definitely out of her element when she arrests sexy businessman Dean Colter in a case of mistaken identity. Because unlike her usual fugitives, Dean is cooperative, accommodating, and hot as sin . . . and not at all guilty as charged. But this bad boy isn’t so innocent either, and she finds it increasingly hard to resist his seductive charm, and their mutual attraction. After years of working himself to the point of having no life outside the office, Dean Colter is in the mood for an adventure. But being kidnapped by a gorgeous bounty hunter—one he discovers is into bondage, to boot—isn't exactly what he had in mind. Still, it doesn’t take long for him to realize that being a willing captive has its advantages. Jo might be the one with the handcuffs, but Dean's about to discover the key to unleashing the passionate, uninhibited woman beneath the tough, stubborn facade. And when he does, all bets are off.




Kitchens


Book Description

'Kitchens' takes the reader into the robust, overheated, backstage world of the contemporary restaurant. In this portrait of the real lives of kitchen workers, the author brings their experiences, challenges, and satisfactions to life.




Culinary Capital


Book Description

TV cookery shows hosted by celebrity chefs. Meal prep kitchens. Online grocers and restaurant review sites. Competitive eating contests, carnivals and fairs, and junk food websites and blogs. What do all of them have in common? According to authors Kathleen LeBesco and Peter Naccarato, they each serve as productive sites for understanding the role of culinary capital in shaping individual and group identities in contemporary culture. Beyond providing sustenance, food and food practices play an important social role, offering status to individuals who conform to their culture's culinary norms and expectations while also providing a means of resisting them. Culinary Capital analyzes this phenomenon in action across the landscape of contemporary culture. The authors examine how each of the sites listed above promises viewers and consumers status through the acquisition of culinary capital and, as they do so, intersect with a range of cultural values and ideologies, particularly those of gender and economic class.




At the Chef's Table


Book Description

This book is about the creative work of chefs at top restaurants in New York and San Francisco. Based on interviews with chefs and observation in restaurant kitchens, the book explores the question of how and why chefs make choices about the dishes they put on their menus. It answers this question by examining a whole range of areas, including chefs' careers, restaurant ratings and reviews, social networks, how chefs think about food and go about creating new dishes, and how status influences their work and careers. Chefs at top restaurants face competing pressures to deliver complex and creative dishes, and navigate market forces to run a profitable business in an industry with exceptionally high costs and low profit margins. Creating a distinctive and original culinary style allows them to stand out in the market, but making the familiar food that many customers want ensures that they can stay in business. Chefs must make choices between these competing pressures. In explaining how they do so, this book uses the case study of high cuisine to analyze, more generally, how people in creative occupations navigate a context that is rife with uncertainty, high pressures, and contradicting forces.




Jaguars Ripped My Flesh


Book Description

Tim Cahill has clambered up Mount Roraima in the Guyana highlands, searching for the site of Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World. He's dined on baked turtle lung in the desolate northeast of Australia and harvested poisonous sea snakes in the Philippines. He's watched a wrestling match between a shark and an "underwater zombie" during a horror movie shoot off the coast of Mexico. In this classic collection of adventure travel writing, Tim Cahill writes evocatively and often hilariously about these close encounters. He also briefs us on gorilla etiquette, porcupine vendettas, and the loathsome fate awaiting those who disturb ruins in the jungles of the Amazon. JAGUARS RIPPED MY FLESH is an exhilarating roller-coaster of a book, by a writer who gives new meaning to the expression "going to extremes".




American Plastic


Book Description

"(Meikle) traces the course of plastics from 19th-century celluloid and the first wholly synthetic bakelite, in 1907, through the proliferation of compounds (vinyls, acrylics, nylon, etc.) and recent ecological concerns".--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. Winner of the 1996 Dexter Prize from the Society for the History of Technology and a 1996 CHOICE Oustanding Academic Book. 70 illustrations.