Suspended for a few seconds, they float in their own space and time with their own hidden prospects. For want of a better term, we call these moments “magical” and when we remember them they are cloaked in a halo of special meaning.’For 14-year-old Johnny Clegg, hearing Zulu street music as plucked on the strings of a guitar by Charlie Mzila one evening outside a corner café in Bellevue, Johannesburg, was one such ‘magical’ moment. The success story of Juluka and later Savuka, and the cross-cultural celebration of music, language, story, dance and song that stirred the hearts of millions across the world, is well documented. Their music was the soundtrack to many South Africans’ lives during the turbulent 70s and 80s as the country moved from legislated oppression to democratic freedom. It crossed borders, boundaries and generations, resonating around the world and back again. Less known is the story of how it all began and developed. Scatterling of Africa is that origin story, as Johnny Clegg wrote it and wanted it told. It is the story of how the son of an unconventional mother, grandson of Jewish immigrants, came to realise that identity can be a choice, and home is a place you leave and return to as surely as the seasons change.

    But he has a side job, killing people for shadowy cabal of politicians, billionaires and military leaders. With each assignment, he learns more about their plot and their aims, and he grows more intrigued.Even in his secret life, things are not what they seem, because there’s something inside of Seth. And it has big plans for him, plans that it and others like it have nursed for centuries. But when Seth is assigned to watch a troubled young woman, all of those plans fall into question.

    In December 1983, a priest in the Italian hill town of Calcata shared shocking news with his congregation: The pride of their town, the foreskin of Jesus, had been stolen. Some postulated that it had been stolen by Satanists. Some said the priest himself was to blame. Some even pointed their fingers at the Vatican. In 2006, travel writer David Farley moved to Calcata, determined to find the missing foreskin, or at least find out the truth behind its disappearance. Farley recounts how the relic passed from Charlemagne to the papacy to a marauding sixteenth-century German solider before finally ending up in Calcata, where miracles occurred that made the sleepy town a major pilgrimage destination. Over the centuries, as Catholic theology evolved, the relic came to be viewed as something of an embarrassment, culminating in a 1900 Church decree that allowed the parish to display it only on New Year’s Day. An Irreverent Curiosity interweaves this history with the curious landscape of Calcata, a beautiful and untouched medieval village set atop four-hundred-fifty-foot cliffs, which now, due to the inscrutable machinations of Italian bureaucracy, is a veritable counterculture coven. Blending history, travel, and perhaps the oddest story in Christian lore, An Irreverent Curiosity is a weird and wonderful tale of conspiracy and misadventure.Winner of the 2010 Lowell Thomas Tavel Journalism Award for best book. Listed: "One of the Best Travel Books of 2009"--The Los Angeles Times--WorldHum.com"One of the Best Books of the Decade"--The Dubuque Telegraph Herald"[Farley's] ribald detective story ... is like a cross between 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'Life of Brian' ... [a] charming yarn."--The New York Times"Told with gusto, good humor, and a healthy respect for eccentricity, Farley's quixotic account is an eloquent testament to the power of travel--and travail--to entertain and illuminate."--National Geographic Traveler "Genre bending at its best." --Kirkus Reviews (Starred review)

    The creeping madness in the heart of Germany will soon stain the entire world. This is the chilling account of one family as they flee for their lives. The Wobsers are prosperous, churchgoing, patriotic Germans living in a small East Prussian town. When Hitler seizes power, their comfortable family life is destroyed by a horrifying Nazi regime. Baptized and confirmed as Lutherans, they are told they are Jewish, a past always respected but rarely considered. This distinction makes a life-and-death difference. Suddenly, it is no longer a matter of faith or religion; their lives are defined by race. It is a matter of bloodlines. And, in Nazi Germany, they have the wrong blood.Written by a second generation Holocaust survivor, this is a compelling refugee story laced with contemporary overtones.In addition to serving as a fascinating piece of history, A Smile in One Eye: A Tear in the Other is a passionate call to arms for organizations and individuals to properly protect and help the world’s refugees.

    Now, with his anthropological eye and trademark wit, Lanham has compiled a handy guide to the evangelical right for those who can expect to be left behind in the End of Days.

    And in his refreshingly raw and real book, he comes clean. Not that he has anything other than typical, human stuff to confess. Check out a few of his musings: I have to work hard to stay sexually pure, I hate prayer meetings, sometimes I doubt God , and I can’t stand a lot of Christians . Through his incredible honesty, he opens the door for you to follow suit. Are you ready to dig deep and let God shine through the genuine you? No more living just to please others. No more hiding. You can be who God called you to be. You can live for an audience of One. Is the real you getting lost because the fake you is just so annoyingly impressive? “Stepping onto the platform to preach that morning, I admitted to myself that I was not a pastor first, but a regular, scared, insecure, everyday guy whose life had been changed by Jesus. And if Jesus really loved me as I was (I knew He did), then why should I go on trying to be someone I wasn’t?” Why do we fake it so much? Why do we spend so much time trying to please everyone else and make so little effort trying to please God? When Craig Groeschel asked himself those questions, he couldn’t come up with a good answer. So one day he decided to drop the act and start getting real. With that one choice, his life began to change in a big way. And yours can too. Craig’s passionate, funny, warts-and-all confessions—and the lessons he learned from them—will help you find your own path to authentic living and a deeper relationship with God (you know He’s on to you anyway!). Story Behind the Book“For too many years my life had been a show—my lines well rehearsed and every performance polished. By college, I played so many different roles I lost track of the real me. I began to wonder if there was a real me. Exhausted from playing the parts, I finally took off the masks—and met a God who loved me unconditionally. Confessions of a Pastor reveals in graphic detail my inner struggles, questions, doubts, and fears—to inspire others to abandon lives of pretending—and to meet the authentic love of God like never before.” — Craig Groeschel

    The musical talents of Satchmo - as Armstrong became universally known - were prodigious and groundbreaking. After learning to blow his horn in the bordellos and honky-tonks of Storyville, New Orleans's bustling red-light district, he honed his sound on a Mississippi riverboat and later became a featured solo trumpeter in the nightclub bands of Chicago and New York, where his stunning musicianship, gravelly voice, and irrepressible personality captivated audiences and critics alike. Countless recordings, nonstop touring of America and Europe, a radio show - the first ever hosted by a black man - and film appearances catapulted him to international stardom, yet he always remained true to himself and loyal to his roots. Despite his successes, Armstrong's career was also marked by intense struggle - against the Depression, against the Chicago gangsters of the 1930s, and, above all, against racial prejudice.

    This is the truth of her time in prison, told through her own diaries and letters to her mother, family and friends, recounting tales of vicious guards, psychotic inmates and horrendous prison conditions.A brilliantly affecting tale of a naïve young girl who starts out in the Ibiza party scene and comes of age in the dark heart of Peru, before finally emerging into the sun a stronger, more confident, mature young woman.

    Here are 2,000 years of crazy kings and potty potentates, including such infamous characters as Caligula and Vlad the Impaler.

    It looks at what it means to be a teacher and a student in urban America, and deals with the critical moral issues teachers must face.

    Her killer faces the death penalty if the prosecution can answer one question: Did she drown? A worker for the only U.S. plant licensed to produce anthrax dies, the victim of a heart attack. But what caused his heart to stop beating? Follow veteran medical examiner Dr. Stephen D. Cohle into the world of forensic pathology, as he solves these and many other cases. Written from an insider’s view, Cause of Death puts the reader behind Dr. Cohle’s shoulder while he examines each victim. The cases range from exotic murder mysteries ripe for a CSI episode to everyday casualties of heart attacks and car accidents. Every victim, though, has a story to tell. Enter a real-life morgue with its strange sights, sounds, and smells, and watch a forensic mastermind as he unravels each victim’s cause of death.

     Hardcore music emerged just after the first wave of punk rock in the late 1970s. American punk kids who loved the speed and attitude of punk took hold of its spirit, got rid of the “live fast, die young” mind-set and made a brilliant revision: hardcore. The dividing line between punk and hardcore music was in the delivery: less pretense, less melody, and more aggression. This urgency seeped its way from the music into the look of hardcore. There wasn’t time to mold your liberty spikes or shine your Docs, it was jeans and T-shirts, Chuck Taylors and Vans. The skull and safety-pin punk costume was replaced by hi-tops and hooded sweatshirts. Jamie Reid’s ransom note record cover aesthetic gave way to black-and-white photographs of packed shows accompanied by bold and simple typography declaring things like: "The Kids Will Have Their Say", and "You’re Only Young Once." Radio Silence documents the ignored space between the Ramones and Nirvana through the words and images of the pre-Internet era where this community built on do-it-yourself ethics thrived. Authors Nathan Nedorostek and Anthony Pappalardo have cataloged private collections of unseen images, personal letters, original artwork, and various ephemera from the hardcore scene circa 1978-1993. Unseen photos lay next to hand-made t-shirts and original artwork brought to life by the words of their creators and fans. Radio Silence includes over 500 images of unseen photographs, illustrations, rare records, t-shirts, and fanzines presented in a manner that abandons the aesthetic clichés normally employed to depict the genre and lets the subject matter speak for itself. Contributions by Jeff Nelson, Dave Smalley, Walter Schreifels, Cynthia Connolly, Pat Dubar, Gus Peña, Rusty Moore, and Gavin Ogelsby with an essay by Mark Owens.

    Along with the fame, the Grammy Award, and superstardom came drug abuse and even felony convictions, all of which are chronicled in this gripping, posthumous tell-all of the funk revolution.

    But he was the first to show how one person, armed with creativity, some friends, $150, and the Internet, could turn an entire industry upside down.United Airlines had broken Dave’s guitar in checked luggage. After eight months of pestering the company for compensation, he turned to his best tool—songwriting—and vowed to create a YouTube video about the incident that he hoped would garner a million views in one year. Four days after its launching, the first million people had watched “United Breaks Guitars.” United stock went down 10 percent, shedding $180 million in value; Dave appeared on outlets as diverse as CNN and The View. United relented. And throughout the business world, people began to realize that “efficient” but inhuman customer-service policies had an unseen cost—brand destruction by frustrated, creative, and socially connected customers.“United Breaks Guitars” has become a textbook example of the new relationship between companies and their customers, and has demonstrated the power of one voice in the age of social media. It has become a benchmark in the customer-service and music industries, as well as branding and social-media circles. Today, more than 150 million people are familiar with this story.In this book, you’ll hear about how Dave developed the “just do it” philosophy that made him the ideal man to take on a big corporation, what it felt like to be in the center of the media frenzy, and how he’s taken his talents and become a sought-after songwriter and public speaker. And businesspeople will learn how companies should change their policies and address social-media uprisings.Since “United Breaks Guitars” emerged, nothing is the same—for consumers, for musicians, or for business. Whether you are a guitarist, a baggage handler, or a boardroom executive, this book will entertain you and remind you that we are all connected, that each of us matters, and that we all have a voice worth hearing.

    Tired of the usual boring bake sales and dances, this group of high school seniors tried a novel approach to fundraising. They coaxed an initially reluctant administration to enter the rock concert business in the fall of 1967 by booking an on-the-rise, little-known British rock band named curiously enough The Who. In the inevitable clash between a Catholic high school's button-down culture and the destructive live act of The Who, something had to give. WSWIR deconstructs a rock n' roll perfect storm by reliving the events and revisiting with many of the colorful cast of characters (not just the students) involved in transforming the school's image from that of a staid, conservative high school in Scotch Plains, New Jersey to one that was soon at the cutting edge of the rock music scene in the years 1967 and 1968, rock n' roll's hey day. WSWIR is also a snapshot of The Who at a period in their career when for all intents and purposes they were little more than a cult band in the United States, known more for scintillating live performances than record sales. When surveying the various U.S. venues in which The Who performed on the way to reaching iconic status, one would be hard-pressed to find a more unusual setting than Union Catholic High School where The Who left an audience of mostly first-time concert-going teens with mouths agape. It was an event that is still talked about today by those who attended the show and scoffed at in disbelief by everyone else...that is, until now. This is a Black and White Edition, meaning with the exception of the front and back cover, all graphics are in black and white. The book includes rare photographs of The Who on the Union Catholic stage and backstage (in the teachers' lounge no less!) as well as other choice accoutrements.