Best of
Modern

2004

Jason & Kyra


Dana Davidson - 2004
    Brainy Kyra isn't, but she doesn't much care what other people think. Under normal circumstances, Jason and Kyra would live in their separate worlds until graduation. But fate intervenes, and the unlikely duo is paired up for a class project. Although preconceived notions abound on both sides, Kyra soon realizes that Jason is not the dumb jock she anticipated. And Jason finds himself telling Kyra things he can't even tell his best friend. As the two become close and eventually start to fall in love, no one in school can believe it, especially Jason's ex-girlfriend, who is determined to get him back. Being together means navigating the obstacles that are coming their way-but staying apart may be impossible. Dana Davidson is a high school teacher who was the 2001 winner of the Newsweek WDIV Outstanding Teacher Award. This is her first book for young adults.

Better Than I Know Myself


Virginia DeBerry - 2004
    Carmen, Jewel, and Regina could not be more different. When they meet as freshmen at Columbia University, they're pretty confident that a friendship among them isn't in the cards. Jewel is Hollywood royalty: as the teenage star of the TV show "Daddy's Girl," her face is instantly recognizable all across America. Now, though, she wants two things-to get a serious education, and to leave her controlling stage mother behind. Regina is the definitive upper-middle-class African-American girl. Her picture-perfect parents are what she calls "black Ward and June Cleavers" and their goals for her are like a stranglehold. No one can see, though, how far Regina's rebellious side will take her (or how treacherous it will become). Carmen is just trying to get by. A child of the projects whose father is dead and whose mother has vanished, Carmen has been raised by her abusive brother. Columbia is the way for her to get a better life-if she can hold down two jobs and keep her GPA up. When the three of them meet, their lives are at a crossroad. And as the years progress, from the 1980s to the present day, they are challenged by drug addiction, fame, secrets from the past, sickness, betrayal, and the darkest things women can face. One of them won't survive. But what will be the lasting legacy of their friendship? Better Than I Know Myself is a novel of heartache, triumph, tears, and the unshakeable bonds among women.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: A Pop-up Book


Peter Abrahams - 2004
    It is a fairy tale grimmer than Grimm, retold with intricate pop-ups and a breathtaking text. This is the ultimate must-have edition for Stephen King fans of all ages.

Beautiful Boys


Francesca Lia Block - 2004
    Two darkly magical Weetzie Bat stories about the search for self from Francesca Lia Block: Missing Angel Juan and Baby Be-Bop.

Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad


David Zucchino - 2004
    Three battalions and fewer than a thousand men launched a violent thrust of tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles into the heart of a city of 5 million people and in three days of bloody combat ended the Iraqi war. Thunder Run is the story of the surprise assault on Baghdad—one of the most decisive battles in American combat history—by the Spartan Brigade, the Second Brigade of the Third Infantry Division (Mechanized). More than just a rendering of a single battle, Thunder Run candidly recounts how soldiers respond under fire and stress and how human frailties are magnified in a war zone. The product of over a hundred interviews with commanders and men from the Second Brigade, Thunder Run is a riveting firsthand account of how a single armored brigade was able to capture an Arab capital defended by one of the world's largest armies.

The Pacific and Other Stories


Mark Helprin - 2004
    A British paratrooper jumps into occupied territory; the 1958 New York Yankees gain an unexpected teammate in a puny, teenaged Hasidic Jew; a September 11th widow receives an astonishing gift from the contractor working on her new apartment--these and other stories exhibit the constantly changing variety of the ocean itself, the peaks and troughs of life. Lighthearted, glittering fables are met with starker tales that sound the depths of sacrifice and duty. The Pacific and Other Stories is a resplendent, powerful collection of lasting substance and emotional import.

The Battle of Mogadishu: First Hand Accounts From the Men of Task Force Ranger


Matthew Eversmann - 2004
    Here’s a chance to go right to the source. . . . These men were there.”–MARK BOWDEN (from the Foreword) It started as a mission to capture a Somali warlord. It turned into a disastrous urban firefight and death-defying rescue operation that shocked the world and rattled a great nation. Now the 1993 battle for Mogadishu, Somalia–the incident that was the basis of the book and film Black Hawk Down–is remembered by the men who fought and survived it. Six of the best in our military recall their brutal experiences and brave contributions in these never-before-published, firstperson accounts.“Operation Gothic Serpent,” by Matt Eversmann: As a “chalk” leader, Eversmann was part of the first group of Rangers to “fast rope” from the Black Hawk helicopters. It was his chalk that suffered the first casualty of the battle.“Sua Sponte: Of Their Own Accord,” by Raleigh Cash: Responsible for controlling and directing fire support for the platoon, Cash entered the raging battle in the ground convoy sent to rescue his besieged brothers in arms.“Through My Eyes,” by Mike Kurth: One of only two African Americans in the battle, Kurth confronted his buddies’ deaths, realizing that “the only people whom I had let get anywhere near me since I was a child were gone.”“What Was Left Behind,” by John Belman: He roped into the biggest firefight of the battle and considers some of the mistakes that were made, such as using Black Hawk helicopters to provide sniper cover.“Be Careful What You Wish For,” by Tim Wilkinson: He was one of the Air Force pararescuemen or PJs–the highly trained specialists for whom “That Others May Live” is no catchphrase but a credo–and sums up his incomprehensible courage as “just holding up my end of the deal on a bad day.”“On Friendship and Firefights,” by Dan Schilling: As a combat controller, he was one of the original planners for the deployment of SOF forces to Mogadishu in the spring of 1993. During the battle, he survived the initial assault and carnage of the vehicle convoys only to return to the city to rescue his two closest friends, becoming, literally, “Last Out.”With America’s withdrawal from Somalia an oft-cited incitement to Osama bin Laden, it is imperative to revisit this seminal military mission and learn its lessons from the men who were there and, amazingly, are still here.From the Hardcover edition.

The Cowgirl In Question


B.J. Daniels - 2004
    Daniels released on Aug 25, 2004 is available now for purchase.

History and Culture of Pakistan


Nigel Kelly - 2004
    The new edition has been updated in accordance with the revised syllabus for 2010. It covers the history of Pakistan up to 1999 and provides students with comprehensive and in-depth knowledge required for the examination. The author is an examiner for O Level Pakistan Studies Paper 1. He is an experienced write of history textbooks for secondary classes, classes, GCSE and O Level.

My Life in Prison


John Kiriamiti - 2004
    There was no way he could spend 20 good years behind those grim walls of prison, he told himself. And he straightway embarked on a mission to escape the throes of prison.Written from the point of view of the first person narrator, My Life in Prison is a rendition of the travails and tribulations that Kiriamiti experienced behind bars. Like in his first novel, My Life in Crime, Kiriamiti gives us yet another autobiography account of his dramatic life as a criminal, an account that is brutally frank as it is graphic in detail.

3 X 33: Short Fiction by 33 Writers


Winegardner - 2004
    Offering 3 stories by 33 authors, 3 X 33 combines both a breadth and depth not seen in other contemporary or modern short fiction anthologies.

Devil on My Heels


Joyce McDonald - 2004
    But there's trouble brewing among the local migrant workers. Suddenly, black and white become a muddy shade of gray, and whispers of the KKK drift through the Southern air.

Empty Streets


Michal Ajvaz - 2004
    As he begins to notice the object’s strange shape reproduced in various places around the city, he realizes that it holds the key to uncovering the truth about the recent disappearance of a young girl. His attempts to understand the meaning of the object bring him into contact with an array of characters, and the stories they tell him widen the vortex of uncertainty that the object has opened. Will the increasingly intricate web of clues eventually lead him to the truth? Empty Streets is both a thrilling fantasy and a philosophical meditation on the search for meaning in modern life.

The Daffodil Principle


Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards - 2004
    Amazingly, this special spot, known as "The Daffodil Garden," was planted by one person, one bulb at a time, over a period of thirty-five years.  Since “The Daffodil Principle” was first published, the story has gained international popularity and has been retold innumerable times. Available now for the first time as an illustrated gift book featuring vibrant artwork by Anne Marie Oborn, this story will touch your heart with its simple message: Start today, one step at a time, to change your world.

Henry Darger: Disasters of War


Kiyoko Lerner - 2004
    The heroines are the seven Vivian sisters, Abbiennian princesses, who, after many battles, fires, tempests, and lurid torture, succeed in forcing the Glandelinians to give up their barbarous ways. "The Disasters of War" offers an affordable introduction to Darger's astonishing outsider oeuvre. It explains the technique, diligence and creativity of the works, illustrates details, and features a conversation between the Darger estate holder and the Kunstwerke's curator. A selection of 12 previously unpublished excerpts from "The Realms of the Unreal" and from Darger's diary explore the artist's favorite topics: thunderstorms and atrocities. With a biography and exhibition history.

A Fist in the Hornet's Nest: On the Ground in Baghdad Before, During After the War


Richard Engel - 2004
    Based on his private journals and his public interviews, A Fist in the Hornet's Nest is Richard Engel's harrowing, fascinating, and informative view of Iraq from street level. Through his wartime reportage, Engel has emerged as one of the preeminent journalists of his generation and an invaluable source on Middle Eastern affairs. For those in search of an in-depth analysis or those trying to make sense of the recent war, Engel's book is as elucidating as it is riveting. His critical assessments for the future of the Gulf region and his analysis of where the American campaign succeeded and where, in some instances, it has failed constitute a book that is sure to be an invaluable contribution to the Middle Eastern debate for years to come.

Latter Days


T. Fabris - 2004
    . . its emotional wallop is earned honestly and uncompromisingly.”—Kevin Thomas, L.A. TimesWinner of the Outstanding First Narrative Feature Award at OUTFest (the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival), and the Best Gay Male Feature Film Award at the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.Combine a hunky, repressed Mormon missionary and an L.A. party boy, sensual sex and knowing humor, and the result is a sure-fire crowd-pleaser. Christian is a handsome, young man who flits from guy to guy without much of a thought in his pretty little head. So when his roommate Julie discovers that the gorgeous group of young men who moved in next door are Mormon missionaries, they bet on whether Christian can bed one of them. Christian quickly moves in for the kill, identifying Elder Aaron Davis as a repressed homo—and quite a sexy one at that. Their initial encounters have a charged sexual tension, but fear of the devil keeps Aaron’s libido at bay. When the two are alone together, Aaron’s Mormon missionary roommates interrupt, spot their brother as gay and send him back in shame to his Idaho hometown and embarrassed parents. But in a heartfelt conclusion that brought festival audiences to their feet, love wins out over fear.The feature film version of Latter Days will be released in January 2004, starring Jacqueline Bisset, Mary Kay Place, Wes Ramsey, Steve Sandvoss and Amber Benson.C. Jay Cox wrote the screenplay for the smash hit film Sweet Home Alabama, starring Reese Witherspoon, and makes his directing debut with Latter Days, for which he also wrote the screenplay.

High Steel: The Daring Men Who Built the World's Greatest Skyline


Jim Rasenberger - 2004
    These "cowboys of the skies," as one journalist called them, were the structural ironworkers who walked steel beams -- no wider, often, than the face of a hardcover book -- hundreds of feet above ground, to raise the soaring towers and vaulting bridges that so abruptly transformed America in the twentieth century.Many early ironworkers were former sailors, new Americans of Irish and Scandinavian descent accustomed to climbing tall ships' masts and schooled in the arts of rigging. Others came from a small Mohawk Indian reservation on the banks of the St. Lawrence River or from a constellation of seaside towns in Newfoundland. What all had in common were fortitude, courage, and a short life expectancy. "We do not die," went an early ironworkers' motto. "We are killed."High Steel is the stirring epic of these men and of the icons they built -- and are building still. Shifting between past and present, Jim Rasenberger travels back to the earliest iron bridges and buildings of the nineteenth century; to the triumph of the Brooklyn Bridge and the 1907 tragedy of the Quebec Bridge, where seventy-five ironworkers, including thirty-three Mohawks, lost their lives in an instant; through New York's skyscraper boom of the late 1920s, when ironworkers were hailed as "industrial age heroes." All the while, Rasenberger documents the lives of several contempor-ary ironworkers raising steel on a twenty-first-century skyscraper, the Time Warner building in New York City.This is a fast-paced, bare-knuckled portrait of vivid personalities, containing episodes of startling violence (as when ironworkers dynamited the Los Angeles Times building in 1910) and exhilarating adventure. In the end, High Steel is also a moving account of brotherhood and family. Many of those working in the trade today descend from multigenerational dynasties of ironworkers. As they walk steel, they follow in the footsteps of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers.We've all had the experience of looking at a par-ticularly awe-inspiring bridge or building and wondering, How did they do that? Jim Rasenberger asks -- and answers -- the question behind the question: What sort of person would willingly scale such heights, take such chances, face such danger? The result is a depiction of the American working class as it has seldom appeared in literature: strong, proud, autonomous, enduring, and utterly compelling.

After Every War: Twentieth-Century Women Poets


Eavan Boland - 2004
    Yet, in this deeply moving collection, each provides a singularly personal glimpse into the effects of war on language, place, poetry, and womanhood.After Every War is a book of translations of women poets living in Europe in the decades before and after World War II: Rose Ausl�nder, Elisabeth Langg�sser, Nelly Sachs, Gertrud Kolmar, Else Lasker-Sch�ler, Ingeborg Bachmann, Marie Luise Kaschnitz, Dagmar Nick, and Hilde Domin. Several of the writers are Jewish and, therefore, also witnesses and participants in one of the darkest occasions of human cruelty, the Holocaust. Their poems, as well as those of the other writers, provide a unique biography of the time--but with a difference. These poets see public events through the lens of deep private losses. They chart the small occasions, the bittersweet family ties, the fruit dish on a table, the lost soul arriving at a railway station; in other words, the sheer ordinariness through which cataclysm is experienced, and by which life is cruelly shattered. They reclaim these moments and draw the reader into them.The poems are translated and introduced, with biographical notes on the authors, by renowned Irish poet Eavan Boland. Her interest in the topic is not abstract. As an Irish woman, she has observed the heartbreaking effects of violence on her own country. Her experience has drawn her closer to these nine poets, enabling her to render into English the beautiful, ruminative quality of their work and to present their poems for what they are: documentaries of resilience--of language, of music, and of the human spirit--in the hardest of times.

Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, Volume 2: 1945 to the Present (College Text Edition with Art 20 CD-ROM)


Hal Foster - 2004
    In this groundbreaking and original work of scholarship, four of the most influential and provocative art historians of our time have come together to provide a comprehensive history of art in the twentieth century, an age when artists in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere sought to overturn the traditions of the past and expectations of the present in order to invent new practices and forms. Adopting a unique year-by-year approach, Foster, Krauss, Bois, and Buchloh present more than 50 short essays, each focusing on a crucial event--the creation of a seminal work, the publication of an artistic manifesto, the opening of a major exhibition--to tell the story of the dazzling diversity of practice and interpretation that characterizes the art of the period. All the turning points and breakthroughs of modernism and postmodernism are explored in depth, as are the frequent and sustained antimodernist reactions that proposed alternative visions of art and the world. Illustrating the authors' texts are more than 300 of the most important works of the century, many reproduced in full color. The book's flexible structure and extensive cross-referencing allow readers to follow any one of the many narratives that unfold, whether that be the history of a medium such as photography or painting, the development of art in a particular country, the influence of a movement such as surrealism or feminism, or the emergence of a stylistic or conceptual category like abstraction or minimalism. Boxes give further background information on the important figures and issues. In their insightfulintroductions, the four authors explain the different methods of art history at work in the book, providing the reader with the conceptual tools for further study. A roundtable discussion at the close of the book considers the questions raised by the preceding decades and look ahead to the art of the future. A glossary of terms and concepts completes this extraordinary volume. 300 illustrations, 200 in color. This college edition also includes the "Art 20" CD-ROM.

Father, The Family Protector


James B. Stenson - 2004
    Stenson explores how Fathers exercise their powerful and particularly masculine contribution to family life. His research comes from more than twenty years of working with families from two highly successful independent secondary schools for boys that he helped establish, The Heights School in Washington D.C., and Northridge Preparatory School in Chicago. As headmaster, he made it his business to know hundreds of families intimately - studying their family lives, watching their children grow into maturity, very often successfully, but sometimes not. Through countless conversations with Fathers and mothers, he tried to account for the differences, looking for patterns of family life among those parents who triumphed with their children. What did these succesful men and women have in common? What did they manage to do right? Most important: what could other parents learn from their experience? This wisdom of Fatherhood is what this book is all about. It explains the main obstacles in today's society that undercut a Father's teaching role, and tells men what they could do to overcome them. Then within this framework, James Stenson spells out how successful Fathers deal with their children in the more crucial areas: family rules, discipline, schooling, sports, recreation, the media, and ongoing teamwork with one's wife. In short, this book provides the guidance that will help any Father to carry out a serious responsibility - that of protector of his family.

Friend on Freedom River


Gloria Whelan - 2004
    The journey across the river was dangerous, especially in winter and especially for a 12-year-old boy. When Louis's father left him in charge of the farm he offered his son this advice, "If you don't know what to do, just do what you think I would have done." Louis relies upon his father's words of wisdom when a runaway slave and her two children come looking for safe passage. In the second title in our Tales of Young Americans series Gloria Whelan -- author of National Book Award winning Homeless Bird -- beautifully creates a suspenseful coming-of-age story while illuminating a difficult time in America's past. Ms. Whelan's narrative again shows the human spirit will forever shine brightly in dark times. Freedom River - part of our Young Americans series - will quickly become a favorite for its important message and look at history from a youngster's eye. Artist Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen - a Sleeping Bear Press favorite - treats the material as only he can. Each illustrated page demonstrates the same mastery and devotion to his craft as the young heroes he brings to life.

Isaac Newton: Philosophical Writings


Isaac Newton - 2004
    Janiak's study includes excerpts from the Principia and the Opticks, Newton's famous correspondence with Boyle and with Bentley, and his equally significant correspondence with Leibniz, often ignored in favor of Leibniz's later debate with Samuel Clarke. (Newton's exchanges with Leibniz place their different understandings of natural philosophy in sharp relief.)

When Pleasing Others Is Hurting You: Finding God's Pattern for Healthy Relationships


David Hawkins - 2004
    But when these caregivers begin to forfeit their own God-given calling and identity in an unhealthy desire to please others, they move from servanthood to codependency. How can they get back on track?Readers will resonate with the real-life illustrations of people who no longer know what they think, want, or feel because they have unwittingly allowed other voices of other people to drown out the voice of God. Suggestions for redirecting unhealthy relationships will empower readers to rediscover their own value and personal contribution. Applications to the home, to work settings, and to the church will help them become more effective servants of God.

Beethoven Lives Upstairs [With CD]


Classical Kids - 2004
    Package includes full performance related Classical Kids recording.

Faith of Our Sons: A Father's Wartime Diary


Frank Schaeffer - 2004
    Their ensuing journey, recounted in Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps, struck a fervent chord among the many Americans with a family member in the military, inspired personal communications from three American presidents, and propelled the book and the authors through many printings and onto Oprah, 20/20 and the New York Times extended bestseller's list. In Faith of Our Sons, Frank Schaeffer picks up his family's ongoing story as Corporal John Schaeffer is deployed to the Middle East on the day Gulf War II begins. Schaeffer's powerfully moving and timely account of the universal experience of losing a child—either temporarily or permanently—to war and his attendant emotions (from pride to panic to rage and back again) is punctuated throughout by the voices of the many others in Frank's situation, thousands of other parents and children, who continue to pour their hearts out to the Schaeffers in countless letters since the publication of Keeping Faith: from those waiting anxiously for loved ones to come home to those who know they never will.

Duveen: A Life in Art


Meryle Secrest - 2004
    . . enthralling" -"Wall Street Journal") and Bernard Berenson ("A remarkable tour de force"-Sir Harold Acton), brings all her exceptional gifts to the story of Lord Duveen of Millbank. Her book is the first major biography in more than fifty years of the supreme international art dealer of the twentieth century and the first to make use of the enormous Duveen archive that spans a century and has, until recently, been kept under lock and key at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The story begins with Duveen pere, a Dutch Jew immigrating to Britain in 1866, establishing a business in London, going from humble beginnings in an antiques shop to a knighthood celebrating him as one of the country's leading art dealers. Duveen pere could discern an Old Master beneath layers of discolored varnish. He perfected the chase, the subterfuges, the strategies, the double dealings. He had an uncanny ability to spot a hidden treasure. It was called "the Duveen eye." His son, Joseph, grew up with it and learned it all-and more . . . Secrest tells us how the young Duveen was motivated from the beginning by the thrill of discovery; how he ascended, at twenty-nine, to (de facto) head of the business; how he moved away from the firm's emphasis on tapestries and Chinese porcelains toward the more speculative, more lucrative, more exciting business of dealing in Old Masters. We see a demand for these paintings growing in America, fueled by the new "squillionaires" just at the moment when British aristocrats with great art collections were losing their fortunes . . . how Duveen's whole career was based on the simple observation: Europe has the art;America, the money. Secrest shows how he sold hundreds of masterpieces by Bellini, Botticelli, Giotto, Raphael, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Watteau, Velazquez, Vermeer, and Titian, among others, by convincing such self-made Americans as Morgan, Frick, Huntington, Widener, Bache, Mellon, and Kress that ownership of great art would ennoble them, and while waving such huge sums at the already noble British owners that the art changed hands and all were happy. We discover Duveen's connection to Buckingham Palace: how when the Prince of Wales became Edward VII his first act was to call in Duveen Brothers as decorators (something had to be done with the lugubrious Victorian decor and ghastly tartan hangings); how Duveen supplied the tapestries and rugs for the coronation ceremonies in Westminster Abbey; and how, in 1933, he became Lord Duveen of Millbank. We learn about the controversies in which he became embroiled and about his legendary art espionage (a network of hotel employees spied on his clients to discover their tastes). Duveen was as generous as he was acquisitive, giving away hundreds of thousands of pounds to British institutions (the Tate Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum-including rooms to house the Elgin Marbles), organizing exhibitions for young artists, writing books about British art, and playing a major role in the design of the National Gallery in Washington. Meryle Secrest's "Duveen" fascinates as it contributes to our understanding of art as commerce and our grasp of American and English taste in the grand manner. As Andrew Mellon once said, paintings never looked as good as they did when Duveen was standing in front of them.

Short Journey Upriver Toward Oishida


Roo Borson - 2004
    Always “the line bends as the river bends,” a quick ever-adjusting music that carries in its current those cherished, perishable, details of eye and ear, mid-life reflections on loss and home, the subtle shifts in season suddenly made strange and re-awakened. Recurrently, probingly, the line returns to the place of poetry in our lives. In the spirit of Basho’s famous journey to the far north, Borson’s “short journey” reminds us of the role of poetry in shaping and deepening our engagement with the world.

The Eternal Paddy: Irish Identity and the British Press, 1798–1882


Michael de Nie - 2004
    This book provides a new, more inclusive approach to the study of Irish identity as perceived by Britons and demonstrates that ideas of race were inextricably connected with class concerns and religious prejudice in popular views of both peoples. De Nie suggests that while traditional anti-Irish stereotypes were fundamental to British views of Ireland, equally important were a collection of sympathetic discourses and a self-awareness of British prejudice. In the pages of the British newspaper press, this dialogue created a deep ambivalence about the Irish people, an ambivalence that allowed most Britons to assume that the root of Ireland’s difficulties lay in its Irishness. Drawing on more than ninety newspapers published in England, Scotland, and Wales, The Eternal Paddy offers the first major detailed analysis of British press coverage of Ireland over the course of the nineteenth century. This book traces the evolution of popular understandings and proposed solutions to the "Irish question," focusing particularly on the interrelationship between the press, the public, and the politicians. The work also engages with ongoing studies of imperialism and British identity, exploring the role of Catholic Ireland in British perceptions of their own identity and their empire.

Philosophy as Fiction: Self, Deception, and Knowledge in Proust


Joshua Landy - 2004
    At once philosophical--in that it presents claims, and even deploys arguments concerning such traditionally philosophical issues as knowledge, self-deception, selfhood, love, friendship, and art--and literary, in that its situations are imaginary and its stylization inescapably prominent, Proust's novel presents us with a conundrum. How should it be read? Can the two discursive structures co-exist, or must philosophy inevitably undermine literature (by sapping the narrative of its vitality) and literature undermine philosophy (by placing its claims in the mouth of an often unreliable narrator)?In the case of Proust at least, the result is greater than the sum of its parts. Not only can a coherent, distinctive philosophical system be extracted from the Recherche, once the narrator's periodic waywardness is taken into account; not only does a powerfully original style pervade its every nook, overtly reinforcing some theories and covertly exemplifying others; but aspects of the philosophy also serve literary ends, contributing more to character than to conceptual framework. What is more, aspects of the aesthetics serve philosophical ends, enabling a reader to engage in an active manner with an alternative art of living. Unlike the essay Proust might have written, his novel grants us the opportunity to use it as a practice ground for cooperation among our faculties, for the careful sifting of memories, for the complex procedures involved in self-fashioning, and for the related art of self-deception. It is only because the narrator's insights do not always add up--a weakness, so long as one treats the novel as a straightforward treatise--that it can produce its training effect, a feature that turns out to be its ultimate strength.

A New Republic: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century


John Lukacs - 2004
    American democracy, says John Lukacs, has been transformed from an exercise in individual freedom and opportunity to a bureaucratic system created by and for the dominance of special groups. His book, first published in 1984 as Outgrowing Democracy, is now reissued with a new introduction, in which Lukacs explains his methodology, and a new final chapter, which sums up Lukacs’s thoughts on American democracy today.Reviews of the earlier edition“A rich, subtle, and often ingenious argument . . . an eloquent, provocative, but disturbing book.”—Edwin M. Yoder, Jr., Washington Post Book World“Mr. Lukacs is an original and subtle historian, and [this book] is an engaging intellectual surprise party. . . . I was continuously enchanted by the play of his ideas—by the sharpness of his distinctions and the acuteness of his descriptions.”—Naomi Bliven, New Yorker “It has been a long time since Americans were offered such a provocative interpretation of their historical predicament. . . . We would be foolish not to examine it closely.”—Laurence Tool, Society

The Cambridge Companion to Quine


Roger F. Gibson Jr. - 2004
    Quine's philosophy. Quine (1908-2000) was perhaps the most distinguished analytic philosopher of the later half of the twentieth century. His celebrated attack on the analytic/synthetic tradition heralded a major shift away from the views of language descended from logical positivism. His most important book, Word and Object, introduced the concept of indeterminacy of radical translation, a bleak view of the nature of the language with which we ascribe thoughts and beliefs to ourselves and others.

Lifesaver


Louise Voss - 2004
    Grief-stricken at the recent loss of her baby, she's failed to give life in the past. Now this four-year-old boy is alive and healthy because of her: it's a heady realization. Anna is desperate to get to know Max, yet terrified at how responsible she feels for him. So she decides not to tell anyone about him or that she's arranged to meet his father. Soon she is immersed in a complicated double life, spending half the week with her husband, who believes her to be filming out of town, and the other half with Adam and Max. But Anna has lied to Adam about who she is. And she's lied about her marriage. And soon these lies will catch up with her... Acclaim for LIFESAVER: ‘Compelling stuff’ - Heat ‘Painful and poignant, Lifesaver is a very touching account of the effect that having children – and not being able to have them – has on relationships’ - Candis ‘Poignant and funny ...A compelling, honest, moving and powerful story of self discovery’ - The Last Word ‘A thought-provoking, all embracing novel of the role of mother, lover, wife and above all, life-saver’ - Western Mail Series

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death; The Vicious Vet; The Potted Gardener.


M.C. Beaton - 2004
    Box set of 3 stories.

The Best of Jaid Black: Tremors + The Obsession + Vanished


Jaid Black - 2004
    When a flat tire on a deserted back road puts her at the mercy of a mysterious, reclusive man, she must decide between following the dictates of her heart and body or heeding the advice of the villagers... The same villagers that say Fredrik S rebo is nothing but a monster. Newly revised, more erotic than ever before... Tremors. The Obsession: Neil Macalister, a conservative and oh-so-proper lecturer of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, thought he was happy with his sensible, ordinary life. But from the moment he laid eyes on Valentina Jason-Elliot, a sexually liberated woman ten years his junior, he became obsessed with having her. Neil quickly discovers there aren't any lengths he won't go to in order to capture the object of his desire, for he's determined to have Valentina bound to him...in the heart and in the flesh. Vanished: Lynne Temple is driving through the Appalachian mountains and toward her new life. She made grand plans to start fresh after her divorce, including settling into a new town. An overturned semi on the West Virginia turnpike forces Lynne to use a temporary detour route through a remote rural area high up in the mountains... A detour route from which she will vanish without a trace.

The Last Well Person: How to Stay Well Despite the Health-Care System


Nortin M. Hadler - 2004
    He systematically builds the case that constant medical monitoring and unnecessary intervention are hazards to our health, severely reducing our quality of life. Sick with worry, we are a culture panicked by many illnesses - cardio-vascular disease, obesity, adult onset diabetes, fatigue, and breast cancer. Especially insidious, contends Hadler, is the misuse of longevity statistics in turning the difficulties experienced through a natural course of life, such as aging, back pain, and osteoporosis, into illnesses. He shows that the medical profession's current notion that such predicaments can be avoided is fatuous and self-serving. And he argues that most heart bypass surgery, mammography, cholesterol screening, and treatment to prevent prostate cancer should be avoided.

Sleeping in the Forest: Stories and Poems


Sait Faik Abasıyanık - 2004
    Since his death in 1954 at the age of forty-eight, his stature has grown on the strength of his narrative art, which is both realistic and whimsical with a poetic touch. Suha Oguzertem, a premier authority on Turkish fiction, writes in his introduction to Sleeping in the Forest that "As an anti-bourgeois writer and fierce democrat, Sait Faik has always sided with the underdog" and that no characters remain " 'common' or 'ordinary' once they enter Sait Faik's stories; his piercing gaze and thoughtful vision transform them lovingly into unique beings."Sait Faik's fiction ranges from the realistic to the surrealistic, from the romantic to the modern, from the cynical to the compassionate. With virtuosic skill, he captures the spirit and the spleen of the city of Istanbul and its environs. In evoking the mystery of that great metropolis through such ordinary characters as Armenian fishermen, Greek Orthodox priests, and the disillusioned and disfranchised, he creates for us a marvelous microcosm of tragicomedy. Few writers, in Turkey or elsewhere, command Sait Faik's mastery of the ironic.Sleeping in the Forest features twenty-two stories, an excerpt from a novella, and fifteen poems rendered into English by some of the best-known translators of Turkish literature. Sait Faik's chiaroscuro world is brought into focus by an introductory essay on utopian poetics and lyrical stylistics of this great Turkish writer. The book is a stimulating exploration into Turkish mood and milieu."

The Displaced Person by Flannery O'Connor: A Lively Learning Guide by Shmoop


Shmoop - 2004
    Or grab a flashlight and read Shmoop under the covers. Shmoop's award-winning learning guides are now available on your favorite eBook reader through the Barnes & Noble eBook Store. Shmoop eBooks are like a trusted, fun, chatty, expert literature-tour-guide always by your side, no matter where you are (or how late it is at night). You-ll find thought-provoking character analyses, quotes, summaries, themes, symbols, trivia, and lots of insightful commentary in Shmoop's literature guides. Teachers and experts from top universities, including Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Harvard have lovingly created these guides to get your brain bubbling. Shmoop is here to make you a better lover of literature and to help you discover connections to other works of literature, history, current events, and pop culture. These interactive study guides will help you discover and rediscover some of the greatest works of all time. For more info, check out www.shmoop.com/literature

No Ocean Deep


Cate Swannell - 2004
    Jo must reconcile with her parents, after 15 years spent leading a double life, before she can begin to forgive herself for her dark past. Meanwhile, Cadie has unfinished business with her former partner, the dangerous and volatile Naomi, whose political career and sanity are balanced on a knife edge. Jo and Cadie endure separation and an emotional rollercoaster that takes them from the Great Barrier Reef, to the wilds of the Australian outback, and to the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois and Madison, Wisconsin.-------This is the sequel to HEART'S PASSAGE.

Zippy Ziggy Volume 2 (V. 2)


Eun-Jeong Kim - 2004
    With the exception of having a screwed up cross-dressing devil for a dad, Shinghi's life is absolute perfection until one day, Sung-Hae - a complete martial artist freak who also likes to fib - transfers to his school. Fate has brought these two masters of lies together, and the two must battle it out to see who will be crowned the undefeated heavy-weight champion of fakeness!