Baumeister argues that relations between men and women are now and have always been more cooperative than antagonistic, that men and womenare different in basic ways, and that successful cultures capitalize on these differences to outperform rival cultures. Amongst our ancestors---as with many other species--only the alpha males were able to reproduce, leading them to take more risks and to exhibit more aggressive and protectivebehaviors than women, whose evolutionary strategies required a different set of behaviors. Whereas women favor and excel at one-to-one intimate relationships, men compete with one another and build larger organizations and social networks from which culture grows. But cultures in turn exploit men byinsisting that their role is to achieve and produce, to provide for others, and if necessary to sacrifice themselves. Baumeister shows that while men have greatly benefited from the culture they have created, they have also suffered because of it. Men may dominate the upper echelons of business andpolitics, but far more men than women die in work-related accidents, are incarcerated, or are killed in battle--facts nearly always left out of current gender debates.Engagingly written, brilliantly argued, and based on evidence from a wide range of disciplines, Is There Anything Good About Men? offers a new and far more balanced view of gender relations.

    By the end of the decade Britain's inner cities were in the midst of a crack epidemic. Narrated by the leader of the Harginey Drugs Squad, 'Crack House' describes a series of breathtaking raids as well as arrests, beatings, stabbings and shootings.

    Yet as Mary Pipher shows, most older women are deeply happy and filled with gratitude for the gifts of life. Their struggles help them grow into the authentic, empathetic, and wise people they have always wanted to be.In Women Rowing North, Pipher offers a timely examination of the cultural and developmental issues women face as they age. Drawing on her own experience as daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, caregiver, clinical psychologist, and cultural anthropologist, she explores ways women can cultivate resilient responses to the challenges they face. "If we can keep our wits about us, think clearly, and manage our emotions skillfully," Pipher writes, "we will experience a joyous time of our lives. If we have planned carefully and packed properly, if we have good maps and guides, the journey can be transcendent."

    Yet she knows she needs to get back in the legal game, even though it won’t be easy. Now discouraged and out of practice, she must start fresh, with new determination and new clients.Through an acquaintance, she meets the Wainrights, an older couple living in Covington Commons, a cluster of three neighborhoods advertised as a luxury lakeside community. In truth, though, such a description only applies to one neighborhood in Covington Commons: Eagle’s Nest. Both Mockingbird Heights and Peacock Plains have become sad displays of utter neglect, in awful disrepair after years of inattention. The Wainrights need her help to prove allegations as to the person—or persons—responsible for it. After painstaking research into claim after claim, she soon realizes the obviously guilty party.At the forefront, is the Association—the board and committee members who oversee everything and every decision at Covington Commons. Its members have taken what was once a decent organization and turned it into an operation based entirely on corruption and dishonesty that operates according to the whims and greed of only a privileged few.With prejudicial and biased purveyors of justice at the helm, prior lawsuits against the Association have been routinely dismissed early on. Our attorney heroine must find it within herself to navigate and succeed in a world where grossly confident men grandstand in gold jewelry, private investigators are always listening, and judges are not honorable—a world where people aren’t at all who they seem to be.

    She does not feel able to go to the police, or talk about it to anybody other than her best friend, Patrice. Patrice, outraged, when she cannot persuade her to go to the police, encourages Stacey to write everything down. This is Stacey's story.A tautly told and important book, perfect for readers of Asking for It by Louise O'Neill.

    Your views – and actions – with money will be much improved after reading the wonderful advice in LOADED."- James Grubman, PhD. Author of Strangers in Paradise: How Families Adapt to Wealth Across Generations and co-author of Cross Cultures: How Global Families Negotiate Change Across GenerationsDeeply researched, yet written in an approachable, conversational tone, this book offers insight into how the reader's personal experiences have shaped their financial attitudes, and how they can have a healthier relationship with their own money. The book first examines the roots and consequences of core money beliefs and then presents a practical budgeting method that blends economics with psychology to create a healthy and sustainable money management method. Worksheets and personal money psychology assessments supplement the text.

    What we cannot lose.A sweeping masterwork of love and loss, secrets and survival, On the Sickle's Edge is told through the voices of three characters who lay bare their family's saga: the endearing, scrappy South-African born Lena, transported to Latvia and later trapped in the USSR; her granddaughter Darya, a true Communist whose growing disillusionment with Soviet ideology places her family at mortal risk; and Steven, a painter from Boston who inadvertently stumbles into the tangled web of his family's past. Against the roiling backdrop of twentieth-century Russia and Eastern Europe, the novel delivers equal parts historical drama, political thriller and poignant love story.On the Sickle's Edge takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride through some of the most tumultuous events of the 20th century. Instantly immersed in seven generations of the Shtein family, we witness their exhilarating celebrations and provocative controversies, and gain an intimate understanding of the pivotal events in South Africa, Latvia and the Soviet Union. Neville Frankel's ability to combine historical insight and human passion is spellbinding. I couldn't put it down. --Pamela Katz, The Partnership: Brecht, Weill, Three Women, and Germany on the BrinkIn the hands of a masterful storyteller, On the Sickle's Edge pits the weight of an oppressive regime against individual tenacity and profound personal courage. Inspired by Frankel's own family history, this multi-generational epic holds up a mirror to a universal truth: all immigrants face the powerful tension between assimilation and cultural identity. We have--all of us--lived life on the edge of the sickle. --Rabbi Andrew Baker, Director of International Jewish Affairs, American Jewish Committee

    Bjarki Bloodhand and Tor Hildarsdottir are journeying south into Saxony. Their destination is the Irminsul, the One Tree that links the Nine Worlds of the Middle-Realm. In this most holy place, they hope to learn how to summon their animal spirits so they can enter the ranks of the legendary berserkir: the elite frenzied fighters of the North.One Christian kingKarolus, newly crowned King of the Franks, has a thorn in his side: the warlike Saxon tribes on his northern borders who shun the teachings of the Church, blasphemously continuing to worship their pagan gods.An epic battle for the soul of the NorthThe West’s greatest warlord vows to stamp out his neighbours’ superstitions and bring the light of the True Faith to the Northmen – at the point of a sword. It will fall to Bjarki, Tor and the men and women of Saxony to resist him in a struggle for the fate of all Europe.

    I loved it.’Miranda Dickinson Georgia Green is on the conveyor belt to happiness. Live-in boyfriend, perfect career and great friends, it seems like Georgia is only a Tiffany box away from her happily ever after. But when she arrives in Australia for her best friend’s wedding and is faced with the bridezilla from hell, she starts to realise that she might not want the cookie-cutter ending she thought.What was meant to be a trip full of sunny days at the beach and wedding planning over cocktails, has turned into another problem for her to fix – just like the ones she’d left behind. With hardly any time for her boyfriend, let alone herself, it feels like there is just too much to juggle. It might be time for Georgia to step off the conveyor belt to find the balance in life and see if she really can have it all…

    Will her husband's absence break her ... or make her? A novel of perfumes, exploring life, love, loss and forgiveness - Maggie Alderson's new bestseller.Are you still married if you haven't seen your husband for months?Polly's life is great. Her children are away at uni, her glamorous mother - still modelling at eighty-five - is happily settled in a retirement village, and her perfume blog is taking off. Then her husband announces he needs some space and promptly vanishes.As Polly grapples with her bewildering situation, she clings to a few new friends to keep her going - Shirlee, the loudmouthed yoga student; Guy, the mysterious, infuriating and hugely talented perfumer; and Edward, an old flame from university.And while she distracts herself with the heady world of luxury perfume, Polly knows she can't keep reality at bay forever. Eventually she is forced to confront some difficult truths: about her husband, herself and who she really wants to be.

    Am I normal? (and what is "normal," anyway?) What's up down there? I really like girls, but I like boys sometimes, too. Am I gay, bisexual, or just messed up? Are we both really ready to have sex? Is it ok if I masturbate? I feel like I can't ever say no to my partner. What's the problem? Heather Corinna and Scarleteen.com have been providing sex education and information for young adults, parents, and mentors for nearly ten years. Whether you're straight, gay, sexually active, or just plain curious, S.E.X. spells out everything you need to know, including: A sexual readiness checklist Illustrations of female and male reproductive anatomy How to love your body, even when it's changing every day Tips on safer sex for body, heart, and mind An in-depth birth control breakdown How to create and enjoy the relationships that are right for you Popular mechanics of partnered sex: sexual activities explained, including pregnancy and STI risks STIs 101: what they are and how to keep yourself from getting them

    But it is not a collection of love stories. It is a study of the secret, erotic fantasies that men have always kept hidden, a taboo-shattering investigation that reveals the deepest, most conflicting feelings that men have about women, men and their own sexuality.Men in Love goes beyond the socio-sexual cliché of woman seen as either madonna or whore to reveal the conflict of love and rage at the centre of men's emotions and erotic desires. Based on thousands of candid responses from men ranging from their teens to their sixties, Men in Love - startling and shocking - will change men's deepest feelings about their sexuality and make the women who care about them understand them as never before.

    Mosse provides the first historical account of the masculine stereotype in modern Western culture, tracing the evolution of the idea of manliness to reveal how it came to embody physical beauty, courage, moral restraint, and a strong will. This stereotype, he finds, originated in the tumultuous changes of the eighteenth century, as Europe's dominant aristocrats grudgingly yielded to the rise of the professional, bureaucratic, and commercial middle classes. Mosse reveals how the new bourgeoisie, faced with a bewildering, rapidly industrialized world, latched onto the knightly ideal of chivalry. He also shows how the rise of universal conscription created a soldierly man as an ideal type. In bringing his examination up to the present, Mosse studies the key historical roles of the so-called fairer sex (women) and unmanly men (Jews and homosexuals) in defining and maintaining the male stereotype, and considers the possible erosion of that stereotype in our own time.

    By morning, the head of the sexual crimes squad confirmed to journalists that they were preparing to question two Collingwood players ... And so, as police were confiscating bed sheets from a townhouse in South Melbourne, the trial by media began.'What does a young footballer do to cut loose? At night, some play what they think of as pranks, or games. Night games with women. Sometimes these involve consensual sex, but sometimes they don't, and sometimes they fall into a grey area.In the tradition of Helen Garner's The First Stone comes a closely observed, controversial book about sex, consent and power. In Night Games, Anna Krien follows the rape trial of an Australian Rules footballer. She also takes a balanced and fearless look at the dark side of footy culture – the world of Sam Newman, Ricky Nixon, Matty Johns and the Cronulla Sharks.Both a courtroom drama and a riveting piece of narrative journalism, this is a breakthrough book from one of the young leading lights of Australian writing.

    José Esteban Muñoz looks at how those outside the racial and sexual mainstream negotiate majority culture—not by aligning themselves with or against exclusionary works but rather by transforming these works for their own cultural purposes. Muñoz calls this process “disidentification,” and through a study of its workings, he develops a new perspective on minority performance, survival, and activism.Disidentifications is also something of a performance in its own right, an attempt to fashion a queer world by working on, with, and against dominant ideology. By examining the process of identification in the work of filmmakers, performance artists, ethnographers, Cuban choteo, forms of gay male mass culture (such as pornography), museums, art photography, camp and drag, and television, Muñoz persistently points to the intersecting and short-circuiting of identities and desires that result from misalignments with the cultural and ideological mainstream in contemporary urban America.Muñoz calls attention to the world-making properties found in performances by queers of color—in Carmelita Tropicana’s “Camp/Choteo” style politics, Marga Gomez’s performances of queer childhood, Vaginal Creme Davis’s “Terrorist Drag,” Isaac Julien’s critical melancholia, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s disidentification with Andy Warhol and pop art, Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s performances of “disidentity,” and the political performance of Pedro Zamora, a person with AIDS, within the otherwise artificial environment of the MTV serial The Real World.