Furnace of this World


Book Description

In the tradition of Roland Barthes' Mythologies and Walter Benjamin's aphoristic Theses on the Philosophy of History, Ed Simon's Furnace of this World is a fragmentary, digressive, impressionistic account of what the radical implications of goodness could possibly be in late capitalism. "Furnace of this World" interrogates the concept of goodness, while arguing that it's always more interesting and radical than its opposite. With neither hubris nor reductionism, Furnace of this World speaks of what it means to pursue justice in a fallen world.




The Demon Spirit


Book Description

In book two of the DemonWars Saga, Elbryan and Pony fervently hope that the tide of darkness is at last receding from the land of Corona—but if evil is on the retreat why are hordes of goblins and bloody-capped powries slashing their way ever deeper into civilized lands? A sinister threat now looms over Corona for the power of the demon dactyl was not entirely vanquished by the sacrifice of the monk Avelyn Desbris. Instead, its darkness has infiltrated the most sacred of places—as a once-admired spiritual leader rededicates his life to the most vicious, most insidious revenge against the forces of good. There may be no stopping the spread of malignant evil. In book two of the DemonWars Saga #1 New York Times bestselling author R. A. Salvatore returns in what Booklist calls “a gripping story…some of his best work.”




Boys in Children's Literature and Popular Culture


Book Description

Boys in Children’s Literature and Popular Culture proposes new theoretical frameworks for understanding the contradictory ways masculinity is represented in popular texts consumed by boys in the United States. The popular texts boys like are often ignored by educators and scholars, or are simply dismissed as garbage that boys should be discouraged from enjoying. However, examining and making visible the ways masculinity functions in these texts is vital to understanding the broad array of works that make up children’s culture and form dominant versions of masculinity. Such popular texts as Harry Potter, Captain Underpants, and Japanese manga and anime often perform rituals of subject formation in overtly grotesque ways that repulse adult readers and attract boys. They often use depictions of the abject – threats to bodily borders – to blur the distinctions between what is outside the body and what is inside, between what is "I" and what is "not I." Because of their reliance on depictions of the abject, those popular texts that most vigorously perform exaggerated versions of masculinity also create opportunities to make dominant masculinity visible as a social construct.




Book Review Digest


Book Description

Excerpts from and citations to reviews of more than 8,000 books each year, drawn from coverage of 109 publications. Book Review Digest provides citations to and excerpts of reviews of current juvenile and adult fiction and nonfiction in the English language. Reviews of the following types of books are excluded: government publications, textbooks, and technical books in the sciences and law. Reviews of books on science for the general reader, however, are included. The reviews originate in a group of selected periodicals in the humanities, social sciences, and general science published in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. - Publisher.




The Tea-Planter's Daughter


Book Description

Today is Julia Clockhouse's twenty-fifth birthday. Her long-suffering Hindu servants are frantically trying to organise a party for her, but it's hard to do so amid the havoc wreaked by her wild spirit. They think she is possessed. Daughters of colonial tea-planters shouldn't have souls that escape their bodies, move objects with their minds, hear tongueless yogis speak. Julia Clockhouse does. As the day passes and the chaos mounts in the kitchen, Julia listens desperately for the return of her husband. Ben may have married her on the orders of her domineering father, but he had come to love her; together they had found the happiness they missed in childhood. But by the time the party guests are tumbling in from the rising fury of the monsoon Ben has still not come. Sara Banerji narrates the events of an extraordinary birthday with deft humour and haunting eloquence, weaving into Julia's story a picture of an isolated tea-plantation and all those who live there. The Tea-Planter's Daughter is a captivating flight of the imagination firmly rooted in the reality of the South Indian hills.




Hiking Southern Oregon


Book Description

With over 90 hikes in the Southern Cascades and Siskiyou Mountain Range, this book is easily the most comprehensive guide available for Southern Oregon's diverse hiking opportunities. Explore the Mount Thielsen, Sky Lakes, Mountain Lakes, Red Buttes, and Wild Rogue Wilderness Areas, and much more. This guide also covers all trails in Crater Lake National Park. Complete with maps, elevation profiles, and clear, informative hike narratives, this book is bound to be the standard against which all other guides for the area are judged.




No Man's Land


Book Description

In this powerful, panoramic novel set in the late 1890s, in a sliver of rugged western wilderness, a fourteen-year-old girl named Davey—too young to be given a chance at creating her own life—finds herself raised by a group of eccentrics, hostile misfits who rescued her as an infant on a bloody battlefield. She roams the countryside with them, led by Reverend Brown, a charismatic false prophet, hosting revivals for unsuspecting believers while lingering on the cusp of unimaginable events. Davey tries to locate a semblance of peace in this harrowing, beautiful place, but what she finds instead is an astonishing panoply of falsehoods and depravity, a vicious world comprised of murderers, thieves, and dancing bears. And in this unforgiving landscape of craggy beauty and singular resoluteness, she wages a fight against truth while traversing the delicate line between destiny and fate as she comes to understand the role Reverend Brown plays in her life. No Man’s Land is part classic coming-of-age story, part unwavering portrait of the bloody price of power, a raw and bold novel about the search for family, and a grand story about an education in the pull of predestination and the responsibility of freewill. Haunting on every page, filled with sorrow and awe, and stunning in the tonality of its vision, No Man’s Land is an unflinching meditation on the legacy of violence, its senseless destructiveness, and the fearless dignity and tenderness required to rise above it. This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. A Simple book with few images, which is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.




God's Middle Finger


Book Description

From the acclaimed author of Dispatches From Pluto and Deepest South of All, a harrowing travelogue into Mexico’s lawless Sierra Madre mountains. Twenty miles south of the Arizona-Mexico border, the rugged, beautiful Sierra Madre mountains begin their dramatic ascent. Almost 900 miles long, the range climbs to nearly 11,000 feet and boasts several canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon. The rules of law and society have never taken hold in the Sierra Madre, which is home to bandits, drug smugglers, Mormons, cave-dwelling Tarahumara Indians, opium farmers, cowboys, and other assorted outcasts. Outsiders are not welcome; drugs are the primary source of income; murder is all but a regional pastime. The Mexican army occasionally goes in to burn marijuana and opium crops—the modern treasure of the Sierra Madre—but otherwise the government stays away. In its stead are the drug lords, who have made it one of the biggest drug-producing areas in the world. Fifteen years ago, journalist Richard Grant developed what he calls "an unfortunate fascination" with this lawless place. Locals warned that he would meet his death there, but he didn't believe them—until his last trip. During his travels Grant visited a folk healer for his insomnia and was prescribed rattlesnake pills, attended bizarre religious rituals, consorted with cocaine-snorting policemen, taught English to Guarijio Indians, and dug for buried treasure. On his last visit, his reckless adventure spiraled into his own personal heart of darkness when cocaine-fueled Mexican hillbillies hunted him through the woods all night, bent on killing him for sport. With gorgeous detail, fascinating insight, and an undercurrent of dark humor, God's Middle Finger brings to vivid life a truly unique and uncharted world.







DemonWars Saga Volume 1


Book Description

With this landmark series, bestselling author R. A. Salvatore introduced fantasy readers around the globe to an astonishing new world. As the DemonWars Saga unfolds over these first three books, two intrepid young heroes must confront the dark tides of destiny in an epic search for justice and peace. This eBook bundle includes: THE DEMON AWAKENS THE DEMON SPIRIT THE DEMON APOSTLE A great evil has awakened in the land of Corona: a demon determined to spread death and misery. His goblin armies and fearsome giants ravage the settlements of the frontier, and in the small village of Dundalis their merciless attack leaves behind two shattered orphans: Pony and her lifelong friend Elbryan. Taken in by elves, Elbryan is raised to become a formidable ranger—a fateful role that will lead him into harrowing confrontation. Meanwhile, on a far-off island, a shower of gemstones falls onto the black sand shores. These heaven-sent stones carry within them an incredible power—the key to all that is good and all that is evil in the world. Now it’s up to one young monk to liberate them from the corrupt monastery that harvests them. Pray that they don’t fall into the wrong, clawed hands. Praise for the DemonWars Saga “An enthralling epic adventure story, it introduces memorable characters and an intricate scheme of magic the readers won’t soon forget.”—Terry Brooks, on The Demon Awakens “A new classic! Wonderfully told! Fans will love it!”—Troy Denning, New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Crucible, on The Demon Awakens “Absorbing . . . one of the finest books yet in Salvatore’s prolific career.”—Publishers Weekly, on The Demon Spirit “Unforgettable . . . another rousing and masterful DemonWars adventure . . . a must-read for all fans of Salvatore’s work.”—Realms of Fantasy, on The Demon Apostle