Best of
Social-Issues

2011

Girls Like Us


Rachel Lloyd - 2011
    Vulnerable yet tough, she eventually ended up a victim of commercial sexual exploitation. It took time and incredible resilience, but finally, with the help of a local church community, she broke free of her pimp and her past. Three years later, Lloyd arrived in the United States to work with adult women in the sex industry and soon founded her own nonprofit— GEMS, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services—to meet the needs of other girls with her history. She also earned her GED and won full scholarships to college and a graduate program. Today Lloyd is executive director of GEMS in New York City and has turned it into one of the nation's most groundbreaking nonprofit organizations. In Girls Like Us, Lloyd reveals the dark, secretive world of her past in stunning cinematic detail. And, with great humanity, she lovingly shares the stories of the girls whose lives she has helped—; small victories that have healed her wounds and made her whole. Revelatory, authentic, and brave, Girls Like Us is an unforgettable memoir.

Still Alice / Left Neglected


Lisa Genova - 2011
    STILL ALICE An accomplished professor diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease learns that she is more than what she can remember. Now a major motion picture from Sony Pictures Classics. LEFT NEGLECTED A busy multitasking mother in her thirties learns to pay attention to what matters most in life after a car crash leaves her with a traumatic brain injury and a bizarre neurological condition called Left Neglect.

The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities


Ching-In ChenBran Fenner - 2011
    We wanted to hear about folks’ experiences confronting abusers, both with cops and courts and with methods outside the criminal justice system."—The Revolution Starts at Home collectiveLong demanded and urgently needed, The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities finally breaks the dangerous silence surrounding the “secret” of intimate violence within social justice circles. This watershed collection of stories and strategies tackles the multiple forms of violence encountered right where we live, love, and work for social change—and delves into the nitty-gritty on how we might create safety from abuse without relying on the state. Drawing on over a decade of community accountability work, along with its many hard lessons and unanswered questions, The Revolution Starts at Home offers potentially life-saving alternatives for creating survivor safety while building a movement where no one is left behind. Ching-In Chen is the author of The Heart's Traffic. Kundiman Fellow Jai Dulani is an interdisciplinary storyteller and activist/educator. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is the author of Consensual Genocide. Andrea Smith is the author of Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide.

Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America


Melissa V. Harris-Perry - 2011
    Hurtful and dishonest, such representations force African American women to navigate a virtual crooked room that shames them and shapes their experiences as citizens. Many respond by assuming a mantle of strength that may convince others, and even themselves, that they do not need help. But as a result, the unique political issues of black women are often ignored and marginalized.In this groundbreaking book, Melissa V. Harris-Perry uses multiple methods of inquiry, including literary analysis, political theory, focus groups, surveys, and experimental research, to understand more deeply black women's political and emotional responses to pervasive negative race and gender images. Not a traditional political science work concerned with office-seeking, voting, or ideology, Sister Citizen instead explores how African American women understand themselves as citizens and what they expect from political organizing. Harris-Perry shows that the shared struggle to preserve an authentic self and secure recognition as a citizen links together black women in America, from the anonymous survivors of Hurricane Katrina to the current First Lady of the United States.

Ask Me Why I Hurt: The Kids Nobody Wants and the Doctor Who Heals Them


Randy Christensen - 2011
    Randy Christensen. Trained as a pediatrician, he works not in a typical hospital setting but, rather, in a 38-foot Winnebago that has been refitted as a doctor’s office on wheels. His patients are the city’s homeless adolescents and children. In the shadow of one affluent American city, Dr. Christensen has dedicated his life to caring for society's throwaway kids—the often-abused, unloved children who live on the streets without access to proper health care, all the while fending off constant threats from thugs, gangs, pimps, and other predators. With the Winnebago as his moveable medical center, Christensen and his team travel around the outskirts of Phoenix, attending to the children and teens who need him most. With tenderness and humor, Dr. Christensen chronicles everything from the struggles of the van’s early beginnings, to the support system it became for the kids, and the ultimate recognition it has achieved over the years. Along with his immense professional challenges, he also describes the trials and joys he faces while raising a growing family with his wife Amy. By turns poignant, heartbreaking, and charming, Dr. Christensen's story is a gripping and rich memoir of his work and family, one of those rare books that stays with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

Five Days in May


Ninie Hammon - 2011
    A big one, a monster F5--a mile wide and eight miles tall. The writhing finger of death hurls across the prairie toward Graham, Oklahoma, one Friday afternoon in May, 1963, on a collision course with the lives of 4 people—each of whom has already planned a personal rendezvous with death in some other form that day. In Jonas Cunningham’s mind, what he’s planning isn’t murder. The handful of little white pills that will free his precious Maggie from the fog of Alzheimer's is a gift, a final act of unconditional love. Jonas’s 16-year-old granddaughter, Joy, isn’t planning “murder” either. She's pregnant and sees only one way to keep from shaming her family. Secrets like that are hard to keep though, in a small town. Joy's father, Rev. Mac MacIntosh has lost his wife and his faith and on Friday, he plans to commit professional suicide—not just leave his church, but abandon his call to ministry. Princess has an appointment with the Reaper on Friday, too, one she’s been staring down for 14 years. At 5 o’clock, the state of Oklahoma will strap her into an electric chair called Sizzlin’ Suzie and turn on the juice. But as the strange, psychic death row inmate meets daily with the minister during the final 5 days of her life, everything in both their lives begins to change. Princess knows—about Mac’s life and family. And sees—the Big Ugly coming to eat up the world. She sees other terrible things, too, and is determined to carry to her grave an incredible secret about the little sister she confessed to beheading a decade ago. When the savage tornado roars with a sound like gravel in a blender into their small prairie town on that May Friday, all 4 of the people who'd penciled in "death" on their calendars actually do confront eternity. But none of them comes to the crossroads of life and death by the path they'd planned or leaves with the result they expected. In the end, the Big Ugly decides who lives and who dies that day.

The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century


Grace Lee Boggs - 2011
    In this powerful, deeply humanistic book, Grace Lee Boggs, a legendary figure in the struggle for justice in America, shrewdly assesses the current crisis—political, economical, and environmental—and shows how to create the radical social change we need to confront new realities. A vibrant, inspirational force, Boggs has participated in all of the twentieth century’s major social movements—for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, and more. She draws from seven decades of activist experience, and a rigorous commitment to critical thinking, to redefine “revolution” for our times. From her home in Detroit, she reveals how hope and creativity are overcoming despair and decay within the most devastated urban communities. Her book is a manifesto for creating alternative modes of work, politics, and human interaction that will collectively constitute the next American Revolution.

Victory in Spiritual Warfare: Outfitting Yourself for the Battle


Tony Evans - 2011
    Tony Evans, one of the most respected church leaders in the country, is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, a thriving congregation of 8000. In this timely, unique exploration of spiritual warfare, Dr. Evans unveils a simple yet radical truth: every struggle and conflict faced in the physical realm has its root in the spiritual realm.With passion and clarity, Dr. Evans demystifies spiritual warfare so that readers can tackle challenges and obstacles with spiritual power—God’s authority—as they:understand how the battle is fought by Satanactively use the armor of Godfind strength in prayer and sufficiency in Christwin over chemical, sexual, emotional, relational, and other strongholdsDr. Evans is compelling, down to earth, and excited for believers to experience their victory in Christ and embrace the life, hope, and purpose God has for them.

With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful


Glenn Greenwald - 2011
    But over the past four decades, the principle of equality before the law has been effectively abolished. Instead, a two-tiered system of justice ensures that the country's political and financial class is virtually immune from prosecution, licensed to act without restraint, while the politically powerless are imprisoned with greater ease and in greater numbers than in any other country in the world.Starting with Watergate, continuing on through the Iran-Contra scandal, and culminating with Obama's shielding of Bush-era officials from prosecution, Glenn Greenwald lays bare the mechanisms that have come to shield the elite from accountability. He shows how the media, both political parties, and the courts have abetted a process that has produced torture, war crimes, domestic spying, and financial fraud. Cogent, sharp, and urgent, this is a no-holds-barred indictment of a profoundly un-American system that sanctions immunity at the top and mercilessness for everyone else.

Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor


Rob Nixon - 2011
    Using the innovative concept of slow violence to describe these threats, Rob Nixon focuses on the inattention we have paid to the attritional lethality of many environmental crises, in contrast with the sensational, spectacle-driven messaging that impels public activism today. Slow violence, because it is so readily ignored by a hard-charging capitalism, exacerbates the vulnerability of ecosystems and of people who are poor, disempowered, and often involuntarily displaced, while fueling social conflicts that arise from desperation as life-sustaining conditions erode.In a book of extraordinary scope, Nixon examines a cluster of writer-activists affiliated with the environmentalism of the poor in the global South. By approaching environmental justice literature from this transnational perspective, he exposes the limitations of the national and local frames that dominate environmental writing. And by skillfully illuminating the strategies these writer-activists deploy to give dramatic visibility to environmental emergencies, Nixon invites his readers to engage with some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

"Multiplication Is for White People": Raising Expectations for Other People's Children


Lisa D. Delpit - 2011
    In her long-awaited second book, Delpit presents a striking picture of the elements of contemporary public education that conspire against the prospects for poor children of color, creating a persistent gap in achievement during the school years that has eluded several decades of reform.Delpit's bestselling and paradigm-shifting first book, Other People's Children, focused on cultural slippage in the classroom between white teachers and students of color. Now, in "Multiplication is for White People", Delpit reflects on two decades of reform efforts—including No Child Left Behind, standardized testing, the creation of alternative teacher certification paths, and the charter school movement—that have still left a generation of poor children of color feeling that higher educational achievement isn't for them.In chapters covering primary, middle, and high school, as well as college, Delpit concludes that it's not that difficult to explain the persistence of the achievement gap. In her wonderful trademark style, punctuated with telling classroom anecdotes and informed by time spent at dozens of schools across the country, Delpit outlines an inspiring and uplifting blueprint for raising expectations for other people's children, based on the simple premise that multiplication—and every aspect of advanced education—is for everyone.

Hackney Child


Hope Daniels - 2011
    Home life was intolerable: both of Hope's parents were alcoholics and her mum was a prostitute. The year was 1983. As London emerged into a new era of wealth and opportunity, the Daniels children lived in desperate poverty, neglected and barely nourished. Hounded by vigilante neighbours and vulnerable to the drunken behaviour of her parents' friends, Hope had to draw on her inner strength. Hackney Child is Hope's gripping story of physical and emotional survival - and the lifeline given to her by the support of professionals working in the care system. Despite all the challenges she faced, Hope never lost compassion for her parents, particularly her alcoholic father. Her experiences make essential reading and show that, with the right help, the least fortunate children have the potential not only to recover but to thrive.

Sông I Sing


Bao Phi - 2011
    Dynamic and eye-opening, this debut by a National Poetry Slam finalist critiques an America sleepwalking through its days and explores the contradictions of race and class in America.Bao Phi has been a National Poetry Slam finalist and appeared on HBO's Def Poetry. His poems and essays are widely published in numerous publications including 2006 Best American Poetry. Phi lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and works at the Loft Literary Center.

Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian


John Piper - 2011
    Terrorism. Hate crimes. In a world where racism is far from dead, is unity amidst diversities even remotely possible?Sharing from his own experiences growing up in the segregated South, pastor John Piper thoughtfully exposes the unremitting problem of racism. Instead of turning finally to organizations, education, famous personalities, or government programs to address racial strife, Piper reveals the definitive source of hope--teaching how the good news about Jesus Christ actively undermines the sins that feed racial strife, and leads to a many-colored and many-cultured kingdom of God.Learn to pursue ethnic harmony from a biblical perspective, and to relate to real people different from yourself, as you take part in the bloodline of Jesus that is comprised of "every tongue, tribe, and nation."

I Have the Right to Be a Child


Alain Serres - 2011
    The book emphasizes that these rights belong to every child on the planet, whether they are "black or white, small or big, rich or poor, born here or somewhere else." It also makes evident that knowing and talking about these rights are the first steps toward making sure that they are respected.A brief afterword explains that the rights outlined in the book come from the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989. The treaty sets out the basic human rights that belong to children all over the world, recognizing that children need special protection since they are more vulnerable than adults. It has been ratified by 193 states, with the exception of Somalia, the United States and the new country of South Sudan. Once a state has ratified the document, they are legally bound to comply with it and to report on their efforts to do so. As a result, some progress has been made, not only in awareness of children's rights, but also in their implementation. But there are still many countries, wealthy and poor, where children's basic needs are not being met.

Someplace Like America: Tales from the New Great Depression


Dale Maharidge - 2011
    Williamson take us to the working-class heart of America, bringing to life—through shoe leather reporting, memoir, vivid stories, stunning photographs, and thoughtful analysis—the deepening crises of poverty and homelessness. The story begins in 1980, when the authors joined forces to cover the America being ignored by the mainstream media—people living on the margins and losing their jobs as a result of deindustrialization. Since then, Maharidge and Williamson have traveled more than half a million miles to investigate the state of the working class (winning a Pulitzer Prize in the process). In Someplace Like America, they follow the lives of several families over the thirty-year span to present an intimate and devastating portrait of workers going jobless. This brilliant and essential study—begun in the trickle-down Reagan years and culminating with the recent banking catastrophe—puts a human face on today’s grim economic numbers. It also illuminates the courage and resolve with which the next generation faces the future.

A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest


William deBuys - 2011
    Yet staggering population growth, combined with the intensifying effects of climate change, is driving the oasis-based society close to the brink of a Dust-Bowl-scale catastrophe.In A Great Aridness, William deBuys paints a compelling picture of what the Southwest might look like when the heat turns up and the water runs out. This semi-arid land, vulnerable to water shortages, rising temperatures, wildfires, and a host of other environmental challenges, is poised to bear the heaviest consequences of global environmental change in the United States. Examining interrelated factors such as vanishing wildlife, forest die backs, and the over-allocation of the already stressed Colorado River--upon which nearly 30 million people depend--the author narrates the landscape's history--and future. He tells the inspiring stories of the climatologists and others who are helping untangle the complex, interlocking causes and effects of global warming. And while the fate of this region may seem at first blush to be of merely local interest, what happens in the Southwest, deBuys suggests, will provide a glimpse of what other mid-latitude arid lands worldwide--the Mediterranean Basin, southern Africa, and the Middle East--will experience in the coming years.Written with an elegance that recalls the prose of John McPhee and Wallace Stegner, A Great Aridness offers an unflinching look at the dramatic effects of climate change occurring right now in our own backyard.

Howard Zinn on Race


Howard Zinn - 2011
    As chairman of the history department at all black women’s Spelman College, Zinn was an outspoken supporter of student activists in the nascent civil rights movement. In "The Southern Mystique," he tells of how he was asked to leave Spelman in 1963 after teaching there for seven years. "Behind every one of the national government’s moves toward racial equality," writes Zinn in one 1965 essay, "lies the sweat and effort of boycotts, picketing, beatings, sit-ins, and mass demonstrations." He firmly believed that bringing people of different races and nationalities together would create a more compassionate world, where equality is a given and not merely a dream. These writings, which span decades, express Zinn’s steadfast belief that the people have the power to change the status quo, if they only work together and embrace the nearly forgotten American tradition of civil disobedience and revolution. In clear, compassionate, and present prose, Zinn gives us his thoughts on the Abolitionists, the march from Selma to Montgomery, John F. Kennedy, picketing, sit-ins, and, finally, the message he wanted to send to New York University students about race in a speech he delivered during the last week of his life.

Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars


Sikivu Hutchinson - 2011
    They view atheism as "amoral," heresy, and race betrayal. Historically, the Black Church was a leading force in the fight for racial justice. Today, many black religious leaders have aligned themselves with the Religious Right. While black communities suffer economically, the Black Church is socially conservative on women's rights, abortion, same sex marriage, and church/state separation. These religious "values wars" have further solidified institutional sexism and homophobia in black communities. Yet, drawing on a rich tradition of African American free thought, a growing number of progressive African American non-believers are openly questioning black religious and social orthodoxies. Moral Combat provides a provocative analysis of the political and religious battle for America's soul. It examines the hijacking of civil rights by Christian fascism; the humanist imperative of feminism and social justice; the connection between K-12 education and humanism; and the insidious backlash of Tea Party-style religious fundamentalism against progressive social welfare public policy. Moral Combat also reveals how atheists of color are challenging the whiteness of "New Atheism" and its singular emphasis on science at the expense of social and economic justice. In Moral Combat, Sikivu Hutchinson highlights the cultural influence of African American humanist and atheist social thought in America. She places this tradition within the broader context of public morality and offers a far-reaching vision for critically conscious humanism

Oneness Embraced: Through the Eyes of Tony Evans


Tony Evans - 2011
    The church has clearly failed and must seek to function by God's kingdom perspective. In this legacy message, Tony Evans seeks to promote a biblical understanding of the kingdom foundation of oneness by detailing why we don't have it, what we need to do to get it, and what it will look like when we live it.Fully encompassing areas of unity, history, culture, the church and social justice, Evans looks to the scriptures for the balance between righteousness and justice that is crucial for applying in this generation and in training the next.  A full section on black church history provides a background and understanding that has often been neglected. Recalling experiences in his own evangelical journey, Evans shares kingdom minded approaches for biblical justice and social restoration. To better glorify God and help heal the persistent racial divide, all church members would do well to read and learn from Oneness Embraced.

One Race One Blood


Ken Ham - 2011
    This significant book gives a thorough account of the effects of evolution on the history of the United States, including slavery and the Civil rights movement, and goes beyond to show the global harvest of death and tragedy that still finds its roots in Darwin’s destructive writings.The tragic legacy of Darwin’s controversial speculations on evolution has led to terrible consequences taken to the deadliest extremes. One Race One Blood reveals the origins of these horrors, as well as the truth revealed in Scripture that God created only one race.You will discover:• Nazi Germany used evolutionary concepts to justify the extermination of “unfit” people groups such as Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs• The origins of people groups, the genetics of skin color, and the biblical truths on “interracial” marriage• Eye-opening discussion on racism and its roots in the hearts and minds of millions still today.Within these compelling pages, Dr. A. Charles Ware, president of Crossroads Bible College, and Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis examine the historical roots of racism that have permeated evolutionary thought, and the Bible’s response to this disturbing issue. This is a crucial and timely study that profoundly addresses the Christian worldview regarding “race” from a compassionate and uniquely compelling perspective.

'White Girl Bleed A Lot': The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It


Colin Flaherty - 2011
     Ferguson is just the latest of hundreds of examples of black mob violence around the country.White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Racial Violence and How the Media Ignore It was written for the deniers: Reporters and public officials and others who deny black mob violence has reached epidemic levels.That is why so many readers get another copy: They send it to someone who needs to read it.Denial is not an option any more. Many of these cases are now on YouTube. And for the first time, readers will be able to scan QR codes to follow the black mob violence on video as they read about it in the book.For the first time, readers will be able to see the huge difference between what big city newspapers say is happening. And what the videos show is really happening.White Girl Bleed a Lot documents more than five hundred cases of black mob violence in more than one hundred cities around the country. Many in 2013. And how the local and national media ignore, excuse and even condone it.White Girl Bleed a Lot documents black mob violence in the bigger cities, such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, St. Louis. But also in places where the frequency and intensity of racial violence is not as well known: Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Peoria, Springfield, Greensboro, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Champaign, Madison and many more.Readers learn about "Beat Whitey Night" at a Midwest state fair. Or how a Chicago Police Chief blamed the violence on Sarah Palin and the Pilgrims. Or how Oprah Winfrey gave $1 million to a Philadelphia charter school, only to see its students on video assaulting a white person shortly thereafter.Or how gays and Asians and women are particular targets.And how one congressman and former mayor said his city should not crack down on the violence because that will "just make a lot of black kids angry." And how newspaper editors and reporters say they will not report racial violence. And how some people fight back.Praised by national talk show host Jesse Lee Peterson. The San Francisco Examiner gave it 5 Stars. More reviews at WhiteGirlBleedaLot.comColin Flaherty has won more than fifty awards for journalism, many from the Society of Professional Journalists. His story about a black man unjustly convicted of trying to kill his wife girl friend resulted in his release from state prison and was featured on NPR, the Los Angeles Times and Court TV.

Ten Universal Principles: A Brief Philosophy of the Life Issues


Robert J. Spitzer - 2011
    But not everyone accepts the same religious premises or recognizes the same spiritual authorities. Are there public arguments--reasons that can be given that do not presuppose agreement on religious grounds or common religious commitments--that can guide our thoughts and actions, as well as our laws and public policies?In Ten Universal Principles: A Brief Philosophy of the Life Issues, Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer sets out, in a brief, yet highly-readable and lucid style, ten basic principles that must govern the reasonable person's thinking and acting about life issues. A highly-regarded philosopher, Father Spitzer provides an intelligent outline for thinking and talking about human life. This book is a powerful tool for persuasively articulating and effectively inculturating a prolife philosophy.

How Racism Takes Place


George Lipsitz - 2011
    An influential scholar in American and racial studies, Lipsitz contends that racism persists because a network of practices skew opportunities and life chances along racial lines. That is, these practices assign people of different races to different spaces and therefore allow grossly unequal access to education, employment, transportation, and shelter. Revealing how seemingly race-neutral urban sites contain hidden racial assumptions and imperatives, Lipsitz examines the ways in which urban space and social experience are racialized and emphasizes that aggrieved communities do not passively acquiesce to racism. He recognizes the people and communities that have re-imagined segregated spaces in expressive culture as places for congregation. How Racism Takes Place not only exposes the degree to which this white spatial imagining structures our society but also celebrates the black artists and activists who struggle to create a just and decent society.

The Nomination: A Novel of Suspense


William G. Tapply - 2011
    Vietnam War hero and Massachusetts Judge Thomas Larrigan is hand-picked by his friend the president to fill the upcoming vacancy on the Supreme Court. Larrigan seems like the perfect candidate: a family man with an uncontroversial judicial record. The president’s credibility needs a sure bet. Larrigan will do anything to win the nomination, but he has some old skeletons rattling around in his closet. He calls his old Marine buddy, now a hit man, to sweep the closet clean. But there are a few skeletons Larrigan doesn’t know are still alive. The Nomination is the story of how lives can intersect in deception, desperation, revelation, death, and, ultimately, redemption.

A Secure Heart


Charity Parkerson - 2011
    However, when she meets the sexy security team who's in charge of keeping the high-dollar fashion safe, she ends up uncovering a few secrets that could break her heart.Secured SecretA quick trip to the store for some chocolate therapy, and a fateful encounter with a few gorgeous men shakes up F.B.I. Agent Genie Cook's once secure life.Secured WishesFor Jacob and Gracie, it is love at first sight, but it will take more than a few wishes to hold them together when Jacob's career threatens to tear them apart.Secured SparksTwin brothers Weave and Bob are hardened fighters, but two special women are going to have them throwing off sparks instead of punches.

The Hidden Light of Mexico City


Carmen Amato - 2011
    Expect characters who leap off the page and a chilling border scenario that could be tomorrow’s headlines. As presidential elections near, Mexico City attorney Eduardo Cortez Castillo discovers evidence of collusion between a powerful government official and Mexico's most dangerous drug cartel. Coded messages . . . A secret website . . . Clever money laundering. The conclusion is terrifying. With deep state help, a ruthless druglord is poised to buy Mexico’s presidency. As he digs for evidence and violence spills across the US-Mexican border, Eduardo is marked for death by cartel assassins. Instead of abandoning the dangerous investigation, he follows the money trail deep into drug smuggling territory where violence buys loyalty and votes are for sale. The odds are against survival. Back in Mexico City, a woman whose name means Light of Mary faces a painful choice. Wait for Eduardo or join the immigration train? But the cartel is looking for her, too. * Get your copy today * This brilliant political thriller takes you on a riveting ride through Mexico's rigid class system and the country's spiraling drug violence, to the harsh realities of the US-Mexican border. Authentic and revealing, much of the action is drawn from the author’s own experiences. "Enthralling political drama" -- Literary Fiction Review “Captivating and thrilling” – InDTale Magazine Love international thrillers by Nelson DeMille, Andrew Gross, Ken Follett, Lee Child and David Morrell? Riveted by AMERICAN DIRT or Don Winslow’s cartel and border thrillers set in Mexico? You won't want to miss THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY. Author Carmen Amato is a former CIA intelligence officer who uses her own counterdrug and espionage experiences to craft intrigue-filled crime fiction that keeps you guessing until the very end. Amato is a recipient of both the National Intelligence Award and the Career Intelligence Medal. Her award-winning Detective Emilia Cruz police series pits Acapulco’s first female police detective against cartels and corruption.

The Transition Companion: Making Your Community More Resilient in Uncertain Times


Rob Hopkins - 2011
    Since then, the Transition idea has gone viral across the globe, from Italian villages and Brazilian favelas to universities and London neighborhoods. In contrast to the ever-worsening stream of information about climate change, the economy, and resource depletion, Transition focuses on solutions, on community-scale responses, on meeting new people, and on having fun.The Transition Companion picks up the story today, drawing on the experience of one of the most fascinating experiments under way in the world. It tells inspiring tales of communities working for a future where local economies are valued and nurtured; where lower energy use is seen as a benefit; and where enterprise, creativity, and the building of resilience have become cornerstones of a new economy.The first part discusses where we are now in terms of resilience and vulnerability in the face of rising oil prices, climate change, and economic challenge. It presents a vision of the future if we do not address these issues, and how things might change if we start to do so. The book then looks in detail at the process a community in transition goes through, calling on the experience of those who have already embarked on this journey. These examples show how much can be achieved when people harness energy and imagination to create projects that will make their communities more resilient. The Transition Companion combines practical advice--the tools needed to start and maintain a Transition initiative--with numerous inspiring stories from local groups worldwide.

Extreme Rambling: Walking Israel's Separation Barrier. For Fun.


Mark Thomas - 2011
    It has been declared illegal under international law and its impact on life in the West Bank has been enormous.Mark Thomas - as only he could - decided the only way to really get to grips with this huge divide was to use the barrier as a route map, to 'walk the wall', covering the entire distance with little more in his armoury than Kendal Mint Cake and a box of blister plasters.In the course of his ramble he was tear-gassed, stoned, sunburned, rained on and hailed on and even lost the wall a couple of times. But thankfully he was also welcomed and looked after by Israelis and Palestinians - from farmers and soldiers to smugglers and zookeepers - and finally earned a unique insight of the real Middle East in all its entrenched and yet life-affirming glory. And all without hardly ever getting arrested!

Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education


Özlem Sensoy - 2011
    Accessible to students from high school through graduate school, this book offers a collection of detailed and engaging explanations of key concepts in social justice education, including critical thinking, socialization, group identity, prejudice, discrimination, oppression, power, privilege, and White supremacy. Based on extensive experience in a range of settings in the United States and Canada, the authors address the most common stumbling blocks to understanding social justice. They provide recognizable examples, scenarios, and vignettes illustrating these concepts. This unique resource has many user-friendly features, including ''definition boxes'' for key terms, ''stop boxes'' to remind readers of previously explained ideas, ''perspective check boxes'' to draw attention to alternative standpoints, a glossary, and a chapter responding to the most common rebuttals encountered when leading discussions on concepts in critical social justice. There are discussion questions and extension activities at the end of each chapter, and an appendix designed to lend pedagogical support to those newer to teaching social justice education.

Hope for Wildlife


Ray MacLeod - 2011
    When the veterinarians couldn't look after it, Hope Swinimer decided to take the helpless animal into her care, and that was the start of it all. Now, through her rehabilitation centre called Hope for Wildlife, Hope's name is synonymous with wildlife rescue in Nova Scotia.Since 1997, hundreds of animals have been saved through the tireless efforts of the staff and volunteers at Hope for Wildlife. Some animals' stories were so unique that they even garnered national attention-such as Hope's battle with the department of natural resources over Gretel, a member of the endangered pine marten species. Each creature comes with its own challenges, either through a particularly difficult injury or a quirky personality-like Lucifer the inexplicably bald and ornery raccoon-but each patient leaves an indelible mark on the lives of those around them.Hope for Wildlife tells the stories of fourteen different wild animals from Nova Scotia that have passed through the centre. Colour photographs of the animals and the centre's efforts supplement the text, and info boxes offer further information on the province's wildlife. The stories in Hope for Wildlife are educational, heartwarming, and sometimes heartbreaking-but always filled with hope.

In the Bag!: Margaret Knight Wraps It Up


Monica Kulling - 2011
    The third book in the series introduces the fascinating Margaret Knight. Known as Mattie, she was different from most American girls living in 1850. She loved to make things with wood and made the best kites and sleds in town. Her father died when she was only three, and by the time she was twelve, she was working at the local cotton mill alongside her two older brothers. One day, she saw a worker get injured by a shuttle that had come loose from the giant loom, and the accident inspired her to invent a stop-motion device. It was the first of her many inventions.Margaret Knight devoted her life to inventing, and is best known for the clever, practical, paper bag. When she died in 1914, she had ninety inventions to her name and over twenty patents, astounding accomplishments for a woman of her day. Monica Kulling’s easy-to-read text, peppered with lots of dialogue, brings an amazing, inspiring woman to life.

NPR American Chronicles: Civil Rights


National Public Radio - 2011
    In this stirring collection, NPR tells stories large and small: of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and the March on Washington; of Pullman porters, an invaluable green book, and women who baked pies to support the Montgomery bus boycott. Personal recollections and historical accounts paint vivid pictures of individuals and events that transformed a nation.

Letters to my Daughters


Fawzia Koofi - 2011
    In writing Letters to My Daughters, Fawziahas created a fresh take on Afghan society and Islam, and a gripping account of a life lived under the most harrowing of circumstances. Fawziais the nineteenth child of twenty-three in a family with seven wives. Her father was an incorruptible politician strongly attached to Afghan tradition. When he was murdered by the Mujahedeen, Fawziais illiterate mother escaped with her children and decided to send the ten-year-old Fawziato school. As the civil war raged, Fawziadodged bullets and snipers to attend class, determined to be the first person in her family to receive an education. Fawziawent on to marry a man she loved, and they had two cherished daughters, Shohra and Shaharzad. Sadly, the arrival of the Taliban spelled an end to Fawzia's freedom. Outraged and deeply saddened by the injustice she saw around her, and by the tainting of her Islamic faith, she discovered politics for herself, following in her father's footsteps. Tragically, this choice has lead to security threats to her life by Islamic extremists. Thus, Letters to My Daughtersis not only a record of her life, but also acts as a literal letter through which Fawzia can pass on her wisdom about justice and dignity to her daughters, not knowing for how long she will survive such attacks.

News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media


Juan González - 2011
    From the earliest colonial newspapers to the Internet age, America s racial divisions have played a central role in the creation of the country s media system, just as the media has contributed to and every so often, combated racial oppression. News for All the People reveals how racial segregation distorted the information Americans received from the mainstream media. It unearths numerous examples of how publishers and broadcasters actually fomented racial violence and discrimination through their coverage. And it chronicles the influence federal media policies exerted in such conflicts. It depicts the struggle of Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American journalists who fought to create a vibrant yet little-known alternative, democratic press, and then, beginning in the 1970s, forced open the doors of the major media companies.The writing is fast-paced, story-driven, and replete with memorable portraits of individual journalists and media executives, both famous and obscure, heroes and villains. It weaves back and forth between the corporate and government leaders who built our segregated media system such as Herbert Hoover, whose Federal Radio Commission eagerly awarded a license to a notorious Ku Klux Klan organization in the nation s capital and those who rebelled against that system, like Pittsburgh Courier publisher Robert L. Vann, who led a remarkable national campaign to get the black-face comedy Amos n Andy off the air.Based on years of original archival research and up-to-the-minute reporting and written by two veteran journalists and leading advocates for a more inclusive and democratic media system, News for All the People should become the standard history of American media.

Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life


Kari Marie Norgaard - 2011
    Why have so few taken any action? In Living in Denial, sociologist Kari Norgaard searches for answers to this question, drawing on interviews and ethnographic data from her study of "Bygdaby," the fictional name of an actual rural community in western Norway, during the unusually warm winter of 2000-2001.In 2000-2001 the first snowfall came to Bygdaby two months later than usual; ice fishing was impossible; and the ski industry had to invest substantially in artificial snow-making. Stories in local and national newspapers linked the warm winter explicitly to global warming. Yet residents did not write letters to the editor, pressure politicians, or cut down on use of fossil fuels. Norgaard attributes this lack of response to the phenomenon of socially organized denial, by which information about climate science is known in the abstract but disconnected from political, social, and private life, and sees this as emblematic of how citizens of industrialized countries are responding to global warming.Norgaard finds that for the highly educated and politically savvy residents of Bygdaby, global warming was both common knowledge and unimaginable. Norgaard traces this denial through multiple levels, from emotions to cultural norms to political economy. Her report from Bygdaby, supplemented by comparisons throughout the book to the United States, tells a larger story behind our paralysis in the face of today's alarming predictions from climate scientists.

Scapegoat: Why We Are Failing Disabled People


Katharine Quarmby - 2011
    Every few months there’s a shocking news story about the sustained, and often fatal, abuse of a disabled person. It’s easy to write off such cases as bullying that got out of hand, terrible criminal anomalies, or regrettable failures of the care system, but in fact they point to a more uncomfortable and fundamental truth about how our society treats its most unequal citizens. In Scapegoat, Katharine Quarmby looks behind the headlines to trace the history of disability and our discomfort with disabled people. She also charts the modern disability rights movement from the veterans of WW2 and Vietnam in the U.S. and UK to those who have fought for independent living and the end of segregation, as well as equal rights, for the last 20 years. Combining fascinating examples from history with tenacious investigation and powerful first person interviews, Scapegoat will change the way we think about disability—and about the changes we must make as a society to ensure that disabled people are seen as equal citizens, worthy of respect, not targets for taunting, torture, and attack.

Sex and Disability


Robert McRuer - 2011
    The major texts in sexuality studies, including queer theory, rarely mention disability, and foundational texts in disability studies do not discuss sex in much detail. What if "sex" and "disability" were understood as intimately related concepts? And what if disabled people were seen as both subjects and objects of a range of erotic desires and practices? These are among the questions that this collection's contributors engage. From multiple perspectives—including literary analysis, ethnography, and autobiography—they consider how sex and disability come together and how disabled people negotiate sex and sexual identities in ableist and heteronormative culture. Queering disability studies, while also expanding the purview of queer and sexuality studies, these essays shake up notions about who and what is sexy and sexualizable, what counts as sex, and what desire is. At the same time, they challenge conceptions of disability in the dominant culture, queer studies, and disability studies.Contributors. Chris Bell, Michael Davidson, Lennard J. Davis, Michel Desjardins, Lezlie Frye, Rachael Groner, Kristen Harmon, Michelle Jarman, Alison Kafer, Riva Lehrer, Nicole Markotić, Robert McRuer, Anna Mollow, Rachel O’Connell, Russell Shuttleworth, David Serlin, Tobin Siebers, Abby L. Wilkerson

Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability


Alison Hope Alkon - 2011
    But many low-income neighborhoods and communities of color have been systematically deprived of access to healthy and sustainable food. These communities have been actively prevented from producing their own food and often live in "food deserts" where fast food is more common than fresh food. Cultivating Food Justice describes their efforts to envision and create environmentally sustainable and socially just alternatives to the food system.Bringing together insights from studies of environmental justice, sustainable agriculture, critical race theory, and food studies, Cultivating Food Justice highlights the ways race and class inequalities permeate the food system, from production to distribution to consumption. The studies offered in the book explore a range of important issues, including agricultural and land use policies that systematically disadvantage Native American, African American, Latino/a, and Asian American farmers and farmworkers; access problems in both urban and rural areas; efforts to create sustainable local food systems in low-income communities of color; and future directions for the food justice movement. These diverse accounts of the relationships among food, environmentalism, justice, race, and identity will help guide efforts to achieve a just and sustainable agriculture.

Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America


Adam Winkler - 2011
    In the tradition of Gideon's Trumpet, Adam Winkler uses the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, which invalidated a law banning handguns in the nation's capital, as a springboard for a groundbreaking historical narrative. From the Founding Fathers and the Second Amendment to the origins of the Klan, ironically as a gun control organization, the debate over guns has always generated controversy. Whether examining the Black Panthers' role in provoking the modern gun rights movement or Ronald Reagan's efforts to curtail gun ownership, Winkler brilliantly weaves together the dramatic stories of gun rights advocates and gun control lobbyists, providing often unexpected insights into the venomous debate that now cleaves our nation.

The Joke That We Play On The World


Joshua S. Porter - 2011
    From their decidedly uneventful beginning, to barely making the Billboard 200, to giving records away for free. Along the way, you will laugh (both with and at them), you will be moved, shocked, disgusted, and most likely quite confused.Religious persecution, bizarre antics, music industry jargon and amateur theology all abound in this frenetic recollection of a rock and roll adventure—for better or worse—unlike any other.

Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr


Michael Vinson Williams - 2011
    Nonetheless, Evers consistently investigated the rapes, murders, beatings, and lynching's of black Mississippians and reported the horrid incidents to a national audience, all the while organizing economic boycotts, sit-ins, and street protests in Jackson as the NAACP's first full-time Mississippi field secretary. He organized and participated in voting drives and nonviolent direct-action protests, joined lawsuits to overturn state-supported school segregation, and devoted himself to a career that cost him his life. This biography of a lesser-known but seminal civil rights leader draws on personal interviews from Myrlie Evers-Williams (Evers's widow), his two remaining siblings, friends, grade-school-to-college schoolmates, and fellow activists to elucidate Evers as an individual, leader, husband, brother, and father. Extensive archival work in the Evers Papers, the NAACP Papers, oral history collections, FBI files, Citizen Council collections, and the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Papers, to list a few, provides a detailed account of Evers's NAACP work and a clearer understanding of the racist environment that ultimately led to his murder. Selfless dedication marked the life of Medgar Evers, and while this remains his story, it is also a testament to the important role that grassroots activism played in exacting social change during some of America's most turbulent and violent times.

Selected Plays


Alice Childress - 2011
    She herself rejected an emphasis on the pioneering aspects of her career, saying that “it’s almost like it’s an honor rather than a disgrace” and that she should “be the fiftieth and the thousandth by this point”—a remark that suggests the complexity and singularity of vision to be found in her plays. Childress worked as an actress before turning to playwriting in 1949, and she was a political activist all of her life.  Spanning the 1940s to the 1960s, the plays collected here are the ones Childress herself believed were her best, and offer a realistic portrait of the racial inequalities and social injustices that characterized these decades. Her plays often feature strong-willed female protagonists whose problems bring into harsh relief the restrictions faced by African American women. This is the first volume devoted exclusively to the work of a major playwright whose impact on the American theater was profound and lasting.

The Anti-Test Anxiety Society


Julia Cook - 2011
    To her, the word test stands for Terrible Every Single Time, because that’s how she does on them… TERRIBLE!Whenever I see or hear the word test…The hair on the back of my neck stands up.My face turns as red as a beet.I start to sweat, my stomach aches, and I can’t control my feet!What if I get every answer wrong? And I don’t get any right.I just know I’ll get a bad grade on this test, so I don’t even want to try!BB’s teacher comes to the rescue by inviting her to become a member of the Anti-Test Anxiety Society. She tells BB that TEST stands for Think Each Situation Through! She also ends up teaching BB the Dynamic Dozen (12 amazing test taking strategies), and convinces her to use her “GET TO” brain instead of her “HAVE TO” brain. Now when BB takes a test, she is calm and focused and thanks to her teacher, the Terrible now stands for Terrific!

The Scent of Sunlight


Annie Bellet - 2011
    As a social worker threatens to break apart her family, the Veldt offers her family a chance to escape if she can find the courage, and imagination, to reach for it.The Scent of Sunlight is an urban fantasy short story by Annie Bellet.

Far From Home


Na'ima B. Robert - 2011
    Katie and Tariro are worlds apart but their lives are linked by a terrible secret, gradually revealed in this compelling and dramatic story of two girls grappling with the complexities of adolescence, family and a painful colonial legacy.14-year-old Tariro loves her ancestral home, the baobab tree she was born beneath, her loving family - and brave, handsome Nhamo. She couldn't be happier. But then the white settlers arrive, and everything changes - suddenly, violently, and tragically.Thirty-five years later, 14-year-old Katie loves her doting father, her exclusive boarding school, and her farm with its baobab tree in rural Zimbabwe. Life is great. Until disaster strikes, and the family are forced to leave everything and escape to cold, rainy London.Atmospheric, gripping and epic in scope, Far from Home brings the turbulent history of Zimbabwe to vivid, tangible life.

The Fourth Economy: Inventing Western Civilization


Ron Davison - 2011
    This will be as different from the information economy as that was from the industrial economy before it. Last century we popularized knowledge work, transforming from an industrial economy dependent on child labor to an information economy dependent on adult education. This century we will popularize entrepreneurship, changing what it means to be an employee. Since medieval times, the West has been defined by agricultural, industrial, and information economies. These three economies have transformed religion, politics, and finance. An emerging entrepreneurial economy promises to transform business. Perhaps the most interesting prediction is that social invention will be as common for the next generation as technological invention became in the last century. The Fourth Economy: Inventing Western Civilization is a wildly optimistic book that will change how you think about the past and your future.

A Guide to Biblical Manhood


Randy Stinson - 2011
    How to serve your wife, how to mold men through baseball, how to make men in the church and more practical theology for cultivating men of God who are doers of the Word for the sake of the Gospel.

The Golden Hat: Talking Back to Autism


Kate Winslet - 2011
    We hope this book brings a new awareness of the opportunity we have to help those with autism learn to communicate and realize their ambitions. People with autism have the potential to achieve great things, but only when given the appropriate support and education. This is why the Golden Hat Foundation was formed. All author proceeds from this book go directly to the Golden Hat Foundation. With your help, we can change the world for people with autism. For more information about the Golden Hat Foundation and ways you can help, please visit our website: www.goldenhatfoundation.orgI simply couldn't conceive of how devastating it would be not to be able to hear my children's voices. Not to be able to communicate with them, to hear them learn, grow, and express themselves verbally. How fortunate, how blessed I am. This overwhelmed me. I can talk to my children, I can respond to their needs and comfort them when they tell me they are unwell. I can tell them stories and hear them tell theirs.Kate WinsletImagine what it would be like not to be able to communicate with those we love. For many individuals living with nonverbal autism and their families, this is their everyday reality. The Golden Hat is an intimate response to this reality created by Kate Winslet, Margret Ericsdottir, and her son Keli, who has nonverbal autism. Kate and Margret's stories, their personal email correspondence, and Keli's poetry give us a profound insight into the world of those living with autism. Kate has shared this story with some of the world's most famous people, posing the question: What is important to you to express? Their responses are a collection of intimate self-portraits and unique quotes. Among them are: Christina Aguilera; Zac Efron; Julianne Moore; Maria Sharapova; Kobe Bryant; James Franco; Rosie O'Donnell; Ben Stiller; Michael Caine; Ricky Gervais; Michael Phelp's; Meryl Streep; Kim Cattrall; Tom Hanks; John C. Reilly; Justin Timberlake; George Clooney; Elton John; Tim Robbins; Naomi Watts Leonardo DiCaprio; Jude Law; Kristin Scott Thomas; Oprah Winfrey. Put together by Kate, Margret, and the dedicated team who work daily on the Golden Hat Foundation, this project has been a labor of love. All the author proceeds from this groundbreaking book will benefit the Golden Hat Foundation, founded by Kate Winslet and Margret Ericsdottir to build innovative living campuses for people with autism and raise public awareness of their intellectual capabilities.

Reviving the Strike: How Working People Can Regain Power and Transform America


Joe Burns - 2011
    Rather, workers will need to rediscover the power of the strike. Not the ineffectual strike of today, where employees meekly sit on picket lines waiting for scabs to take their jobs, but the type of strike capable of grinding industries to a halt—the kind employed up until the 1960s.In Reviving the Strike, labor lawyer Joe Burns draws on economics, history and current analysis in arguing that the labor movement must redevelop an effective strike based on the now outlawed traditional labor tactics of stopping production and workplace-based solidarity. The book challenges the prevailing view that tactics such as organizing workers or amending labor law can save trade unionism in this country. Instead, Reviving the Strike offers a fundamentally different solution to the current labor crisis, showing how collective bargaining backed by a strike capable of inflicting economic harm upon an employer is the only way for workers to break free of the repressive system of labor control that has been imposed upon them by corporations and the government for the past seventy-five years.

Man's Dominion: The Rise of Religion and the Eclipse of Women's Rights


Sheila Jeffreys - 2011
    The book seeks to rekindle the criticism of religion as the founding ideology of patriarchy.Focusing on the three monotheistic religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam, this book examines common anti-women attitudes such as 'male-headship', impurity of women, the need to control women's bodies, and their modern manifestations in multicultural Western states. It points to the incorporation of religious law into legal systems, faith schools, and campaigns led by Christian and Islamic organisations against women's rights at the U.N., and explains how religious rights threaten to subvert women's rights. Including highly-topical chapters on the burka and the covering of women, and polygamy, this text questions the ideology of multiculturalism which shields religion from criticism by demanding respect for culture and faith, whilst ignoring the harm that women suffer from religion.Man's Dominion is an incisive and polemic text that will be of interest to students of gender studies, religion, and politics.

Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight


Loren A. Olson - 2011
    Loren A. Olson has frequently been asked two questions: How could you not know that you were gay until the age of forty? Wasn't your marriage just a sham to protect yourself at your wife’s expense? In Finally Out, Dr. Olson answers these questions by telling the inspiring story of his evolving sexuality, into which he intelligently weaves psychological concepts and gay history. This book is a powerful exploration of human sexuality, particularly the sexuality of mature men who, like Dr. Olson, lived a large part of their lives as straight men—sometimes long after becoming aware of their same-sex attractions. Readers will come to understand: - That there is no universal model for coming out - Why many older LGBTQ men came out late, do not come out at all, or come out to varying degrees in different environments - How stigma has created mental health problems for isolated and closeted men who have sex with men, particularly in geographical areas and cultures where there is little or no acceptance of homosexuality - How sexual function changes but perhaps even improves for older men - That aging creates opportunities that one has never had and may never have again, e.g., freedom from the tyranny of ambition - That some people consistently prefer an older sexual partner and this can lead to stable, intergenerational relationships - How same-sex sexual activity was considered prior to the Stonewall uprising in 1969 contrasted with the way it is perceived after Stonewall - How age, culture, geographical location, heterosexual marriage, and children impact a person’s decision to come out - Why "conversion therapy" does not work and may be harmful - The difference between homophobia and homonaïveté - The archetypes of self-identified straight men who seek occasional or regular sex with other men - How to overcome the shame and guilt experienced by men who are sexually attracted to other men

A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America


Ernest Drucker - 2011
    John Snow first traced an outbreak of cholera to a water pump in the Soho district of London in 1854, the field of epidemiology was born. Taking the same public health approaches and tools that have successfully tracked epidemics of flu, tuberculosis, and AIDS over the intervening one hundred and fifty years, Ernest Drucker makes the case that our current unprecedented level of imprisonment has become an epidemic—a plague upon our body politic.Drucker, an internationally recognized public health scholar and Soros Justice Fellow, spent twenty years treating drug addiction and another twenty studying AIDS in some of the poorest neighborhoods of the South Bronx and worldwide. Hecompares mass incarceration to other, well-recognized epidemics using basic public health concepts: “prevalence and incidence,” “outbreaks,” “contagion,” “transmission,” and “potential years of life lost.”He argues that imprisonment—originally conceived as a response to individuals’ crimes—has become mass incarceration: a destabilizing force that undermines the families and communities it targets, damaging the very social structures that prevent crime.Sure to provoke debate, this book shifts the paradigm of how we think about punishment by demonstrating that our unprecedented rates of incarceration have the contagious and self-perpetuating features of the plagues of previous centuries.

Wet Matches


Randolph Randy Camp - 2011
    'Wet Matches' is about friendships, and it asks the question, "How far would you go for a friend?" Fifteen years of separation didn't stop Crystal from being there for Jalan. What Crystal did for Jalan will inspire us all to take a closer look at our own relationships and friendships...Could you still laugh knowing that death was possibly lurking around the corner? Meet five free-spirited teens: Shelly, Robbie, Josie, Micky and Cole, who will inspire you to enjoy every second of your life. Shelly is pregnant. Robbie plays guitar. Josie's a little confused. Micky likes cars. Cole's a little shy. Some people called them useless. They were told to get out of town. Some people said that they were about as good as wet matches...but Jalan, Crystal and Jack thought otherwise. If you had ever been ridiculed, bullied, mocked...or if someone had ever made you feel like you was good for nothing or worthless then Randolph Randy Camp's award-winning 'Wet Matches: A Novel' is a story for you. Without being preachy-but yet-entertaining, 'Wet Matches' takes a fresh contemporary look at America's ever-increasing youth runaway and teen homeless problems. 'WET MATCHES' is a Quarter-Finals Winner of The Writers Network 14th Annual Screenplay and Fiction Competition.

Photojournalism: 150 Years of Outstanding Press Photography


Reuel Golden - 2011
    Photojournalism presents the extraordinary history of this indispensable means of reporting. Starting with some of the first key figures, such as Roger Fenton, who photographed the Crimean War with a bulky large-format camera, it moves through the decades, from the Great Depression to space missions, the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, and the war in Iraq--all illustrated with stirring images from the world's greatest photojournalists.

Raising Racists: The Socialization of White Children in the Jim Crow South


Kristina DuRocher - 2011
    White children rested at the core of the system of segregation between 1890 and 1939 because their participation was crucial to ensuring the future of white supremacy. Their socialization in the segregated South offers an examination of white supremacy from the inside, showcasing the culture's efforts to preserve itself by teaching its beliefs to the next generation.In Raising Racists: The Socialization of White Children in the Jim Crow South, author Kristina DuRocher reveals how white adults in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries continually reinforced race and gender roles to maintain white supremacy. DuRocher examines the practices, mores, and traditions that trained white children to fear, dehumanize, and disdain their black neighbors. Raising Racists combines an analysis of the remembered experiences of a racist society, how that society influenced children, and, most important, how racial violence and brutality shaped growing up in the early-twentieth-century South.

Esther


Ben Avery - 2011
    The story of Esther: the beauty queen who saved the jews.

A Different Kind of Cell: The Story of a Murderer Who Became a Monk


W. Paul Jones - 2011
    Without ever again emerging from his cell, however, Fountain underwent a profound spiritual transformation. Father W. Paul Jones, who served as Fountain’s spiritual adviser for six years until Fountain's sudden death in 2004, shares his amazing story with candor and compassion in these pages.

Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church


Darrin W. Snyder Belousek - 2011
    Snyder Belousek offers a comprehensive and critical examination of penal substitution, the most widely accepted evangelical Protestant theory of atonement, and presents a biblically grounded, theologically orthodox alternative. Attending to all of the relevant biblical texts and engaging with the full spectrum of scholarship, Belousek systematically develops a biblical theory of atonement that centers on restorative -- rather than retributive -- justice. He also shows how Christian thinking on atonement correlates with major global concerns such as economic justice, capital punishment, "the war on terror," and ethnic and religious conflicts. Thorough and clearly structured, this book demonstrates how a return to biblical cruciformity can radically transform Christian mission, social justice, and peacemaking.

Something You Could Touch


Brian Francis Heffron - 2011
    This CD is available at:http://spokenwordinc.com/somethingyou..."5.0 out of 5 stars REVIEW - "Brian Heffron is the Mozart of Verse, By Philip Katz: "Something You Could Touch" is another tour de force to flow from the pen of the inspired Poet Laureate of Facebook, Brian Heffron. Brian has teamed up with Spoken Word Inc. to produce an outstanding offering of soothing, enticing and disturbing poetry from a true master.The package is appealing to the eye and to the touch. The warm serene image of the cover is an adept disguise for the emotional tempests, brilliant colors and tranquil imagery one will experience as Brian brings the written word to life with the loving tenderness and fervor of an impassioned lover, the patient skill of a craftsman and the rage this world channels through his heart. The exceptional narration by the author brings this album to the level of excellence Brian's poems deserve. Brian transfixes us with the raw images, most normally turn away from, and tells the story of us with lyrical genius.He arouses the reader and swells their hearts with passion as he presents his forte, his acidic self portrait "The Relationship Ninja". I am continuously awed by Brian's ability to paint the human condition with metaphors and rhymes that stick with you long after hearing his poems, and now he has introduced us to his work to us readers personally, and in a fashion worthy of his wonderful verse. I can only hope this is just the beginning of the canon of Brian Heffron.""SOMETHING YOU COULD TOUCH" is available here: http://spokenwordinc.com/somethingyou....

The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert


Donna Laframboise - 2011
    Devastating" - Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist"...shines a hard light on the rotten heart of the IPCC" - Richard Tol, Professor of the Economics of Climate Change and convening lead author of the IPCC"...you need to read this book. Its implications are far-reaching and the need to begin acting on them is urgent." - Ross McKitrick, Professor of Economics, University of Guelph----The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) performs one of the most important jobs in the world. It surveys climate science research and writes a report about what it all means. This report is informally known as the Climate Bible.Cited by governments around the world, the Climate Bible is the reason carbon taxes are being introduced, heating bills are rising, and costly new regulations are being enacted. It is why everyone thinks carbon dioxide emissions are dangerous. Put simply: the entire planet is in a tizzy because of a United Nations report.What most of us don't know is that, rather than being written by a meticulous, upstanding professional in business attire, the Climate Bible is produced by a slapdash, slovenly teenager who has trouble distinguishing right from wrong.This expose, by an investigative journalist, is the product of two years of research. Its conclusion: almost nothing we've been told about the IPCC is true.

Finding Jolie


Jamie Lynn Goldenberg - 2011
    She's popular, smart, attractive, and not unhappy, but the awareness of her mortality haunts her. Jolie seeks refuge in drugs and sex for a while, but a series of events and a revelation about an early childhood accident resulting in the death of her little sister, pushes her to her breaking point. She runs away - but not before making a late-night call to her high-school math teacher, Mr. Keltz. Daniel Keltz is a 32 year-old algebra teacher who, after Jolie's call, begins to question his own solitary and severely unsatisfying life. When he learns of Jolie's whereabouts, Daniel does the only crazy thing he's ever done in his life, and takes off to find her. The story follows Jolie to Colorado Springs and then to San Francisco, where she finds temporary solaces and unlikely friendships interspersed with more trouble, obsession, and death; and it follows Daniel's journey to find Jolie and himself along the way.

The PULSE Papers


Kailin Gow - 2011
    But first they must get initiated into a Secret Society, and it is nothing like they expected.

What Remained of Katrina


Kelly Jameson - 2011
    What Remained of Katrina is not about Botox. Implants. Designer wallpaper and expensive china. Or places where there are no storms. It's about a woman who knows her way around catastrophe. When her fourth husband tries to kill her during Hurricane Katrina and make it look like nature did the job, Katrina Miller performs the magic trick of a lifetime--and survives. Afterward, only her hand is found; everybody thinks she's dead. A failed magician's assistant, hotel maid, ice cream truck driver, and ex-prostitute in the Big Easy, Katrina, driving a used red Cadillac, comes barreling back to 'haunt' her abusive husband. Bent on revenge and scaring the bejesus out of her cruel, colorless ex, she remembers a past life as Vincent van Gogh. No one seems to care that art and hope are leaking from their water-washed city, maybe for good. So Katrina, who abandoned her art years ago, creates murals on flood-damaged homes of The Ninth Ward, trying to plug the leaks in her city and her heart. As she paints up a storm, she realizes she's not the only "ghost" in town... Honorable Mention Fiction, 2009 Leapfrog Press

Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto


Camilo José Vergara - 2011
    Vergara began his documentation of Harlem in the tradition of such masters as Helen Levitt and Aaron Siskind, and he later turned his focus on the neighborhood’s urban fabric, both the buildings that compose it and the life and culture embedded in them. By repeatedly returning to the same locations over the course of decades, Vergara is able to show us a community that is constantly changing—some areas declining, as longtime businesses give way to empty storefronts, graffiti, and garbage, while other areas gentrify, with corporate chain stores coming in to compete with the mom-and-pops. He also captures the ever-present street life of this densely populated neighborhood, from stoop gatherings to graffiti murals memorializing dead rappers to impersonators honoring Michael Jackson in front of the Apollo, as well as the growth of tourism and racial integration.Woven throughout the images is Vergara’s own account of his project and his experience of living and working in Harlem. Taken together, his unforgettable words and images tell the story of how Harlem and its residents navigated the segregation, dereliction and slow recovery of the closing years of the twentieth century and the boom and racial integration of the twenty-first century. A deeply personal investigation, Harlem will take its place with the best portrayals of urban life.

Crystal Death: North America's Most Dangerous Drug


Nate Hendley - 2011
    A fact-based account featuring up to the minute interviews and life stories from users, dealers and doctors, with a Canadian perspective on the problem and its potential solutions. An important book for teachers, parents and anyone interested in, or living close to, this devastating drug. Includes advice on how to talk effectively to your children and students about methamphetamine - and how not to!

The Empire of Value: A New Foundation for Economics


André Orléan - 2011
    Despite the obviousness of their failures, however, economists continue to rely on the same methods and to proceed from the same underlying assumptions. Andr� Orl�an challenges the neoclassical paradigm in this book, with a new way of thinking about perhaps its most fundamental concept, economic value.Orl�an argues that value is not bound up with labor, or utility, or any other property that preexists market exchange. Economic value, he contends, is a social force whose vast sphere of influence, amounting to a kind of empire, extends to every aspect of economic life. Markets are based on the identification of value with money, and exchange value can only be regarded as a social institution. Financial markets, for example, instead of defining an extrinsic, objective value for securities, act as a mechanism for arriving at a reference price that will be accepted by all investors. What economists must therefore study, Orl�an urges, is the hold that value has over individuals and how it shapes their perceptions and behavior.Awarded the prestigious Prix Paul Ricoeur on its original publication in France in 2011, The Empire of Value has been substantially revised and enlarged for this edition, with an entirely new section discussing the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

Embracing Israel/Palestine: A Strategy to Heal and Transform the Middle East


Michael Lerner - 2011
    In this inspirational book, Rabbi Michael Lerner suggests that a change in consciousness is crucial. With clarity and honesty, he examines how the mutual demonization and discounting of each sides’ legitimate needs drive the debate, and he points to new ways of thinking that can lead to a solution. Lerner emphasizes that this new approach to the issue requires giving primacy to love, kindness, and generosity. It calls for challenging the master narratives in both Israel and Palestine as well as the false idea that “homeland security” can be achieved through military, political, economic, or media domination. Lerner makes the case that a lasting peace must prioritize helping people on all sides (including Europe and the U.S.) and that real security is best achieved through an ethos of caring and generosity toward “the other.” As many spiritual leaders have taught, problems like these cannot be solved at the same level at which they originated—one must seek higher ground, and that becomes a central task for anyone who wants a sustainable peace. Embracing Israel/Palestine is written for those looking for positive, practical solutions to this ongoing dilemma.

The Strength of Women: Âhkamêyimowak


Priscilla Settee - 2011
    Women are the unsung heroes of their communities, often using minimal resources to challenge oppressive structures and create powerful alternatives in the arts, education, and workplace.Here are candid, first-person stories of fifteen Aboriginal women who embody the spirit of Âhkamêyimowak; whose strength and vision has made a difference - for their communities, and for us all.

Bikenomics: How Bicycling Can Save The Economy


Elly Blue - 2011
    It starts with an analysis of the real costs incurred by individuals and families in existing transportation systems and goes on to examine the current civic expenses of these systems. With critiques of modern society’s deep-rooted attachment to car culture, this book tells the stories of people, businesses, organizations, and cities who are investing in two-wheeled transportation. Offering a fresh and compelling perspective on how people get from place to place, this book reveals the multifaceted North American bicycle movement with its contradictions, challenges, successes, and visions for the future.Please note: This paperback book is a different title with different content from the previously published zine, "Bikenomics: How Bicycling Will Save the Economy (If We Let It)." The zine is about 40 pages long, pocket-sized, and the binding is stapled.

The Zombie-Driven Life


David Wood - 2011
    An action-packed horror tale laced with dark humor. "Well-written and highly entertaining. Great dollops of black humour and some wonderful characterisation round out this extremely enjoyable romp. Definitely one to add to the private library." Necroscope "The Zombie Driven Life is a fast-paced, zombie story that manages to be thoughtful, humorous, and surprising while giving zombie fans everything they love about the genre—gore, desperate situations, and a big body count. The perfect book to devour in a single day." Jeremy Bishop, author of Torment "Wood paints a horrific scenario of a world in ruin and a few survivors struggling to find safe havens and a reason to carry on. Powerful and disturbing by turns, with plenty of black humour along the way. The Zombie-Driven Life is a great read." Alan Baxter, author of RealmShift and MageSign "Give The Zombie-Driven Life a try - it may just set you on the road to obsession!" The Aussie Zombie

Between Naivety and Hostility: How Should Christians Respond to Islam in Britain?


Steve Bell - 2011
    This book will enable readers to engage with the issues and come to conclusions that might help them be better social peacemakers and spiritual friends to Muslims for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Blood at the Root: Lynching as American Cultural Nucleus


Jennie Lightweis-Goff - 2011
    Including critical study of writers and artists like Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Richard Wright, William Faulkner, George Schuyler, and Kara Walker, Lightweis-Goff also incorporates her personal experience in the form of a year-long travelogue of visits to lynching sites. Her research and travel move outside the American South and rural locales to demonstrate the fiction of confining racism to certain areas of the country and the denial of collective responsibility for racial violence. Lightweis-Goff seeks to implicate societal attitude in the actions of the few and to reveal the legacy of violence that has been obscured by more valiant memories in the public sphere. In exploring the ways that spatial and literary texts replace lynching with proclamations of innocence and regret, Lightweis-Goff argues that racial violence is an incompletely erupted trauma of American life whose very hiddenness links the past to still-present practices of segregation and exclusion.

Walking Home to Rosie Lee


A. LaFaye - 2011
    He's a child slave freed after the Civil War. He sets off to reunite himself with his mother who was sold before the war's end. "Come morning, the folks take to the road again, singing songs, telling stories, and dream-talking of the lives they're gonna live in freedom. And I follow, keeping my eyes open for my mama. Days pass into weeks, and one gray evening as Mr. Dark laid down his coat, I see a woman with a yellow scarf 'round her neck as bright as a star. I run up to grab her hand, saying, Mama?" Gabe's odyssey in search of his mother has an epic American quality, and Keith Shepherd's illustrations—influenced deeply by the narrative work of Thomas Hart Benton—fervently portray the struggle in Gabe's heroic quest.Selected as a 2012 Skipping Stones Honor Book and for the 2012 IRA Teacher's Choices Reading List.A. LaFaye hopes Walking Home to Rosie Lee will honor all those African American families who struggled to reunite at the end of the Civil War and will pay her respects to those who banded together through the long struggle for freedom. She is the author of the Scott O'Dell Award-winning novel Worth and lives in Tennessee with her daughter Adia.Keith Shepherd is a painter, graphic designer, and educator working out of Kansas City, MO. His painting "Sunday Best" is part of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum's permanent collection. He describes his work as being "motivated by family, religion, history, and music."