The Case of Lisandra P.


Book Description

Buenos Aires, 1987. When the beautiful Lisandra is found dead at the foot of a six-story building, her husband, a psychoanalyst, is immediately arrested for her murder. Convinced of Vittorio's innocence, one of his patients, Eva Maria, is drawn into the investigation. As Eva Maria combs through secret recordings of Vittorio's most recent therapy sessions in search of the killer, she is forced to confront her most painful memories, alongside some of the darkest moments in Argentinian history. A daring and compulsively readable literary thriller.




The Confidant


Book Description

"A gripping first novel" (Le Figaro Littéraire) and an award-winning international sensation as haunting and unforgettable as Suite Française Paris, 1975. Camille sifts through letters of condolence after her mother's death when a strange, handwritten missive stops her short. At first she believes she received it by mistake. But then, a new letter arrives each week from a mysterious stranger, Louis, who seems intent on recounting the story of his first love, Annie. They were separated in the years before World War II when Annie befriended a wealthy, barren couple and fell victim to a merciless plot just as German troops arrive in Paris. But also awaiting Camille's discovery is the other side of the story, which will call into question Annie's innocence and reveal the devastating consequences of jealousy and revenge. As Camille reads on, she begins to realize that her own life may be the next chapter in this tragic story.




Kissing the Wind


Book Description

From the author of the international bestseller Papa Hemingway, based on his own experiences: the story of a man struggling to overcome a rare syndrome that causes terrifying hallucinations, who eventually, despite the odds, finds love. Chet Tremaine is living his best life. A successful lawyer with a loyal best friend, the arts and culture of New York City at his doorstep, and a peaceful retreat in Connecticut, Chet has it figured out. Even when a freak tennis accident leaves him blind in one eye, Chet is confident he'll be able to bounce back. But then he starts hallucinating: unknown children playing in his living room, pine needles seasoning his salad, wire grids barring access to his bathroom. His doctor allays his worst fears, only to deliver an even more shocking diagnosis: Chet's eye injury has left him with Charles Bonnet syndrome, and this rare disease is incurable. Chet is going to be plagued by these hallucinations for the rest of his life. His social life impaired, his job in jeopardy, Chet is close to becoming a recluse when he helps a woman who's collapsed on a Manhattan street corner. She turns out to be Emma Vicky, a warm and witty British actress who suffers from Ménière's disease, a condition that causes severe vertigo. Like Chet, she feels restrained by her chronic illness and terribly isolated--until their meeting renews her desire to open up, let another person in. But Chet can't make the same leap. Instead, he decides to make a final Hail Mary attempt to find a cure, embarking on a spiritual quest that will take him all the way to the mountains of Nepal. By turns funny, harrowing, and inspirational, Kissing the Wind is A. E. Hotchner's final, and finest, achievement. AN ANCHOR ORIGINAL.




Khalil


Book Description

From the internationally bestselling author of The Attack and The Swallows of Kabul, a gripping first-person narrative about one young man's involvement in France's worst terrorist attack. Khalil, a twenty-three-year-old Belgian of Moroccan descent, plans to detonate a suicide vest in a crowd outside the Stade de France on November 13, 2015. Explosions are rocking Paris, at cafés and the Bataclan theater, and when other bombs drive the stadium crowd to flee in his direction, near the Metro, his time has come. He presses his button, and . . . nothing. Fearing he has failed in his mission for Fraternel Solidarity (FS), an ISIS affiliate, Khalil has little choice but to blend in with his would-be victims and run. Back in Belgium, he must lie low and avoid his militant brethren and the authorities. He relies on his family and friends for places to stay, but he keeps the truth about himself secret. All the while, he contemplates what he almost did, and what he will do next--particularly when it comes to light that his vest accidently had been a harmless training unit all along, and FS has a new mission planned for him. In this daring, propulsive literary thriller, Yasmina Khadra takes readers to the margins of Europe's glittering capitals, through neighborhoods isolated by government neglect and popular apathy, if not outright racism. And he brings to life an unusual protagonist, a young man struggling with family, religion, and politics who makes fateful choices, and in doing so dramatizes powerful questions about society and human nature.




The House on Mango Street


Book Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A coming-of-age classic about a young girl growing up in Chicago • Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world—from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. “Cisneros draws on her rich [Latino] heritage...and seduces with precise, spare prose, creat[ing] unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one.” —The New York Times Book Review The House on Mango Street is one of the most cherished novels of the last fifty years. Readers from all walks of life have fallen for the voice of Esperanza Cordero, growing up in Chicago and inventing for herself who and what she will become. “In English my name means hope,” she says. “In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting." Told in a series of vignettes—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyous—Cisneros’s masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery and one of the greatest neighborhood novels of all time. Like Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street or Toni Morrison’s Sula, it makes a world through people and their voices, and it does so in language that is poetic and direct. This gorgeous coming-of-age novel is a celebration of the power of telling one’s story and of being proud of where you're from.




Not If I See You First


Book Description

In the tradition of Gayle Forman and John Green comes this extraordinary YA debut about a blind teen girl navigating life and love in high school. Parker Grant doesn't need 20/20 vision to see right through you. That's why she created the Rules: Don't treat her any differently just because she's blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances. Just ask Scott Kilpatrick, the boy who broke her heart. When Scott suddenly reappears in her life after being gone for years, Parker knows there's only one way to react—shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough on her mind already, like trying out for the track team (that's right, her eyes don't work but her legs still do), doling out tough-love advice to her painfully naive classmates, and giving herself gold stars for every day she hasn't cried since her dad's death three months ago. But avoiding her past quickly proves impossible, and the more Parker learns about what really happened—both with Scott, and her dad—the more she starts to question if things are always as they seem. Maybe, just maybe, some Rules are meant to be broken. Debut author Eric Lindstrom's Not If I See You First combines a fiercely engaging voice with true heart.




The Hanged Man of Conakry


Book Description

A minor French official in Guinea must solve the case of a tourist found hanged from a sailboat in this “gem of a diplomatic thriller” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Having grown up in Romania, Aurel Timescu never quite fit in his native France. A former piano player with the disheveled air of a character from between the wars, nobody can understand how he got to be Consul. Now he’s taken a position in French Guinea, where he passes his time perspiring, drinking Tokay, and composing librettos. Until, that is, a vacationer is found hanging from the mast of a sailboat. How did he end up dead, on a mast, on Aurel Timescu’s watch? Had his personal life been hanging by a thread? Was he hanging around waiting for love to be reciprocated? Had he been hanging out with the wrong crowd? Had he hung his hat on the peg of some quixotic dream? A Prix Goncourt–winning author and former diplomat, Jean-Christophe Rufin brings Aurel to vivid life in a novel that “offers razor-sharp insights into cultural clashes in the former French colony . . . readers will be reminded of Georges Simenon, only better” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)




Fixing Bad UX Designs


Book Description

A practical guide filled with case studies and easy solutions to solve the most common user experience issues Key Features Understand and fix the pain points of a bad UX design to ensure greater customer satisfaction. Correct UX issues at various stages of a UX Design with the help of different methodologies for fixing bad UXs See best practices and established principles in UX with case studies illustrating these practices and principles Book DescriptionHave your web applications been experiencing more hits and less conversions? Are bad designs consuming your time and money? This book is the answer to these problems. With intuitive case studies, you’ll learn to simplify, fix, and enhance some common, real-world application designs. You’ll look at the common issues of simplicity, navigation, appearance, maintenance, and many more. The challenge that most UX designers face is to ensure that the UX is user-friendly. In this book, we address this with individual case studies starting with some common UX applications and then move on to complex applications. Each case study will help you understand the issues faced by a bad UX and teach you to break it down and fix these problems. As we progress, you’ll learn about the information architecture, usability testing, iteration, UX refactoring, and many other related features with the help of various case studies. You’ll also learn some interesting UX design tools with the projects covered in the book. By the end of the book, you’ll be armed with the knowledge to fix bad UX designs and to ensure great customer satisfaction for your applications.What you will learn Learn about ROI and metrics in UX Understand the importance of getting stakeholders involved Learn through real cases how to fix bad UX Identify and fix UX issues using different methodologies Learn how to turn insights and finding into practical UX solutions Learn to validate, test and measure the UX solutions implemented Learn about UX refactoring Who this book is for This book is for anyone confronted with a poorly designed UX. It is ideal for UX professionals who want to solve problems with existing UX designs, and UX designers who want to enhance their designs or analyze and rectify where they went wrong.




A Single Rose


Book Description

“A magnificent romance redolent of ancient wisdom and rich with melancholy, loss, and love” from the bestselling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Le Monde). Rose has just turned forty when she gets a call from a lawyer asking her to come to Kyoto for the reading of her estranged father’s will. And so for the first time in her life she finds herself in Japan, where Paul, her father’s assistant, is waiting to greet her. As Paul guides Rose along a mysterious itinerary designed by her deceased father, her bitterness and anger are soothed by the stones and the trees in the Zen gardens they move through. During their walks, Rose encounters acquaintances of her father—including a potter and poet, an old lady friend, his housekeeper and chauffeur—whose interactions help her to slowly begin to accept a part of herself that she has never before acknowledged. As the reading of the will gets closer, Rose’s father finally, posthumously, opens his heart to his daughter, offering her a poignant understanding of his love and a way to accept all she has lost. “Interspersed with aphoristic Japanese tales from various periods, as melancholy is gradually transmuted into joy.” —The New Yorker “[A] luminous meditation on grief.” —Booklist “With elegant and careful prose, [Barbery] offers descriptions of Kyoto and Japanese culture that transcend the genre of a travelogue. This novel will appeal to readers who long for happy endings and escape.” —Library Journal “The novel balances lush, cultivated gardens and weighted symbolism with mischievous foxes, matcha, sliced eel, and sushi, all forming ‘one happy chaos’ and a fascinating maze of emotional release.” —Foreword Reviews




Crime and Fear in Public Places


Book Description

The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429352775 has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. No city environment reflects the meaning of urban life better than a public place. A public place, whatever its nature—a park, a mall, a train platform or a street corner—is where people pass by, meet each other and at times become a victim of crime. With this book, we submit that crime and safety in public places are not issues that can be easily dealt with within the boundaries of a single discipline. The book aims to illustrate the complexity of patterns of crime and fear in public places with examples of studies on these topics contextualized in different cities and countries around the world. This is achieved by tackling five cross-cutting themes: the nature of the city’s environment as a backdrop for crime and fear; the dynamics of individuals’ daily routines and their transit safety; the safety perceptions experienced by those who are most in fear in public places; the metrics of crime and fear; and, finally, examples of current practices in promoting safety. All these original chapters contribute to our quest for safer, more inclusive, resilient, equitable and sustainable cities and human settlements aligned to the Global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.