Green Metropolis: What the City Can Teach the Country About True Sustainability


David Owen - 2009
    Yet residents of compact urban centers, David Owen shows, individually consume less oil, electricity, and water than other Americans. They live in smaller spaces, discard less trash, and, most important of all, spend far less time in automobiles. Residents of Manhattan--the most densely populated place in North America--rank first in public-transit use and last in per-capita greenhouse gas production, and they consume gasoline at a rate that the country as a whole hasn't matched since the mid-1920s, when the most widely owned car in the United States was the Ford Model T. They are also among the only people in the United States for whom walking is still an important means of daily transportation. These achievements are not accidents. Spreading people thinly across the countryside may make them feel green, but it doesn't reduce the damage they do to the environment. In fact, it increases the damage, while also making the problems they cause harder to see and to address. Owen contends that the environmental problem we face, at the current stage of our assault on the world's nonrenewable resources, is not how to make teeming cities more like the pristine countryside. The problem is how to make other settled places more like Manhattan, whose residents presently come closer than any other Americans to meeting environmental goals that all of us, eventually, will have to come to terms with.

The Malay Dilemma


Mahathir Mohamad - 2012
    First published in 1970, the book seeks to explain the causes for the 13 May 1969 riots in Kuala Lumpur.Dr Mahathir sets out his view as to why the Malays are economically backward and why they feel they must insist upon immigrants becoming real Malaysians speaking in due course nothing but Malay, as do immigrants to America or Australia speak nothing but the language of what the author calls “the definitive people”. He argues that the Malays are the rightful owners of Malaya. He also argues that immigrants are guests until properly absorbed, and that they are not properly absorbed until they have abandoned the language and culture of their past.

Nobody Can Love You Like Them Roughnecks Do 2


Shvonne Latrice - 2018
    In the second installment, Belly learns that Blaise is a far cry from the sit-by-the-phone women he's used to. His suave demeanor, charming ways, and calculated words fall on blind eyes and deaf ears when it comes to the heartbroken and now callous Blaise. However the ever so determined Belly is always up for a challenge. Meanwhile women of all kinds are still fawning over the young, handsome, and aggressive boxer, driving an even further wedge between the two lovers. Will Blaise cut her losses, leaving the trauma that is a relationship with Belly behind? Or will the unrelenting, and slightly off-kilter Belly be able to wear her down, making Blaise realize that once you go Belly, you can never go back. In part two, more lies are told, more backstabbing is done, more secrets are revealed, and the train on a path of jealousy and spite, has some new passengers. Additionally, in the world outside of Blaise and Belly, others will realize that the people you think you love, you may not really know them at all. And the one you believe isn't the one for you, may be exactly what you've been searching for.

American Legends: The Life of James Cagney


Charles River Editors - 2013
    *Includes Cagney's own quotes about his life and career. *Includes a bibliography for further reading. *Includes a table of contents. "You don't psych yourself up for these things, you do them...I'm acting for the audience, not for myself, and I do it as directly as I can." – James Cagney A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. When the American Film Institute assembled its top 100 actors of all time at the close of the 20th century, one of the Top 10 was James Cagney, an actor whose acting and dancing talents spawned a stage and film career that spanned over 5 decades and once compelled Orson Welles to call him "maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera." Indeed, his portrayal of “The Man Who Owns Broadway”, George M. Cohan, earned him an Academy Award in the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy, and as famed director Milos Forman once put it, "I think he's some kind of genius. His instinct, it's just unbelievable. I could just stay at home. One of the qualities of a brilliant actor is that things look better on the screen than the set. Jimmy has that quality." Ultimately, it was portraying tough guys and gangsters in the 1930s that turned Cagney into a massive Hollywood star, and they were the kind of roles he was literally born to play after growing up rough in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century. In movies like The Public Enemy (which included the infamous “grapefruit scene”) and White Heat, Cagney convincingly played criminals that brought Warner to the forefront of Hollywood and the gangster genre. Cagney also helped pave the way for younger actors in the genre, like Humphrey Bogart, and he was so good that he found himself in danger of being typecast. While Cagney is no longer remembered as fondly or as well as Bogart, he was also crucial in helping establish the system in which actors worked as independent workers free from the constraints of studios. Refusing to be pushed around, Cagney was constantly involved in contract squabbles with Warner, and he often came out on top, bucking the conventional system that saw studios treat their stars as indentured servants who had to make several films a year. American Legends: The Life of James Cagney examines the life and career of one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Cagney like never before, in no time at all.

Scarred: A Love Lost: A Domestic Violence Novella


Bianca - 2018
    So bright, she was blinded by the persistent and ever so charming, Issac Rosenberg. Unable to resist his charm, Somaya goes against her parents’ demands and dates him anyway. Years later, she’s deep into a relationship she can’t see herself escaping from. Everything that once glittered, has lost its shine, and the man she fell in love with is no longer the same. Will Somaya be able to flee her once fairytale lifestyle, or will it leave her scarred?

The Book of the Damned


Daniel Quinn - 1982
    It wasn't work on a single book. Rather, it was work on different versions of what eventually became a single book: Ishmael, the eighth version and the only one in which the teacher Ishmael appears. When I started writing The Book of the Damned in 1981, I was sure I'd found the book I was born to write. The versions that came before had been like rainy days with moments of sunshine. THIS was a thunderstorm, and the lines crossed my pages like flashes of lightning. When, after a few thousand words I came to a clear climax, I said, "This MUST be seen," so I put Part One into print. Parts Two and Three followed, and I began searching for the switch that would turn on Part Four . . . but it just wasn't there. I clung to it for a long time after issuing the first three parts, desperately hoping to find a way to produce additional parts that would bring it to the conclusion I knew was "out there.” What I'd done was terrific—and complete in its own way—but at last I faced the fact that the whole thing just couldn't be done in lightning strikes . . . Another ten years passed before I found the way, a completely different way . . . in Ishmael, which was the embodiment of my message, providing the foundation for the clarifications, amplifications, and extensions still to come. But publishing The Book of the Damned had been no mistake. It deserved to be published, and it still does. Those lightning strikes illuminate an apocalyptic landscape never seen before—or after, in any of my later books (including Ishmael).

The Climate Cure: Solving the Climate Emergency in the Era of COVID-19


Tim Flannery - 2020
    Although Australia’s prompt, science-led response to COVID-19 has not been perfect, it has saved tens of thousands of lives. But for decades, governments have ignored, ridiculed or understated the advice of scientists on the climate emergency.Now, in the wake of the megafires of 2020, a time of reckoning has arrived. In The Climate Cure renowned climate scientist Tim Flannery takes aim at those responsible for the campaign of obfuscation and denial that has already cost so many Australian lives and held back action on climate change.Flannery demands a new approach, based on the nation’s response to COVID-19, that will lead to effective government policies. The Climate Cure is an action plan for our future. We face a fork in the road, and must decide now between catastrophe and survival.

The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition


James Howard Kunstler - 2001
    Now, Kunstler turns his wickedly mordant and astute eye on urban life both in America and across the world. From classical Rome to the "gigantic hairball" of contemporary Atlanta, he offers a far-reaching discourse on the history and current state of urban life.The City in Mind tells the story of urban design and how the architectural makeup of a city directly influences its culture as well as its success. From the ingenious architectural design of Louis-Napoleon's renovation of Paris to the bloody collision of cultures that occurred when Cortes conquered the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, from the grandiose architectural schemes of Hitler and Albert Speer to the meanings behind the ludicrous spectacle of Las Vegas, Kunstler opens up a new dialogue on the development and effects of urban construction. In his investigations, he discovers American communities in the Sunbelt and Southwest alienated from each other and themselves, Northeastern cities caught between their initial civic construction and our current car-obsessed society, and a disparate Europe with its mix of pre-industrial creativity, and war-marked reminders of the twentieth century.Expanding on ideas first discussed in Jane Jacobs' seminal work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Kunstler looks to Europe to discover what is constant and enduring in cities at their greatest, and at the same time, how a city's design can be directly linked to its decline. In these dazzling excursions he finds the reasons that American got lost in its suburban wilderness and locates the pathways in culture that might lead to a civic revival here.

I'm Down Forever, Your Rider


Tyrecka Liggons - 2016
    Instead of spending her senior year preparing for graduation and picking colleges, Harley found herself raising her five-year-old sister, Heidi. Although Frankie was there to make the load easier for the girls while they were dealing with the incarceration of their mother, she made it heavier.As if her home situation wasn't enough, Harley found herself trying to navigate through life's obstacles. Typical high school stuff, mean girls, popular guys, and a demanding course load. Being deaf didn't seem to win her any sympathy points.Just when Harley thought things would be the way they were forever, Barz entered her life. The smooth talking, popular guy who couldn't possibly be interested in Harley, except he was. They say people enter your life for a reason or a season. With outsiders working against them at every corner, Harley and Barz find themselves at a crossroad.Can the young lovers overcome the many obstacles they are faced with, or is their love seasonal

Rescued by the Love of A Real One 3


Toy - 2019
    Kylan can't help but to question himself and more importantly his judgment. He can’t seem to figure out how he keeps choosing the wrong one. It’s making him doubt his every move, creating an internal battle within himself. Will Kylan ever get rescued by the love of a real one? Nichelle is doing her best to live up to Jimmy standards, but what she has yet to recognize is that he loves her just how she is. He only wants her to get the notion that sometimes, less is more, and it's okay to let your man lead. Nichelle may have to learn this lesson the hard way, as she has no idea the dangers that Jimmy is trying to keep her protected from. Will Jimmy's love be able to rescue Nichelle? Ty’Kym is over all the drama that’s been going on. He wants nothing more than to eliminate all the adversaries that have risen against him and his family. However, Ty’Kym is trying to balance his business affairs with his new family’s needs. In this final installment, he is determined to show Michelle she is the one who has been rescued when she believes the opposite. Ty’Kym has been rescued by the love of a real one, and he doesn’t care who knows it.

Enticed by a Thug Love 3


Kelly Marie - 2019
    His love was Faye - the stepmother. However, now that he knows that she’s not loyal to him, where does that leave him? Moreover, how does he bounce back from that? Most importantly, will his family forgive him? Wrath thought he couldn’t be hit with any more secrets, but he was wrong. The Cookie has been let out, and she’s his mother! What happens next? And is he really over Kanada and about to get with Brittany? Just as Dior and Surge finally get their happily ever after, he’s placed in a life and death situation because of Guns as well as his girlfriend’s father, Kevin! Someone dies, but who? And lastly, life for Legion is on the up and up, but paradise is short lived once his dad finds out that A’Moya is pregnant. Will history repeat itself or will Legion do something to make sure she stays safe? Kanada, A’Moya, and Dior were not ready for what came when they found themselves enticed by a thug love. The finale is here, and it’s explosive! What couples will survive? Find out as we take one final ride with the infamous Ramsey men.

Humbled By A Real N*gga 2


Lisa Austin - 2021
    

Son of a Crime God, Daughter of a Hoover


Latoya Nicole - 2019
    We always wondered what their kids would be like when they grew up. Well, the wait is over, and these two are ready to tell their story. Zayna “Spark” Hoover is used to the fast and crazy life. Acting just like her father, Blaze, she is used to being the center of attention. However, going to college was the total opposite for her. Struggling to find her place and fit in a circle of people who judged her for who she was, being away from her family was beginning to take a toll on her until she met Lil Darryl. Darryl “Phantom” Reed, Jr has always followed in his father’s footsteps. Growing up over the years, nothing had changed. Expecting to take over the streets as his dad once did, he was surprised when his father sent him off to college. Having no regard for anything, he continued to live his life as he wanted until he met Spark. Neither had ever met anyone as crazy as them, and they hit it off right away. However, as the old saying goes, your past has a way of catching up with you. Unbeknownst to the two, the sins of their parents would come back and tear their worlds apart. The two deadliest men to ever play the game will have to come together and save their children. If they don’t kill each other first...

I Wanna Love Somebody Too: (I Wanna Love Somebody Part 2)


Nique Luarks - 2017
    Their love soon becomes a force to be reckoned with. But that’s what happens when your lover is also your best friend. Even a ruthless, boss, running New York with an iron fist needs love. And who better to give him just that than an understanding, soulful, caring, young woman who learns tough love is the best love. Done with Jamarcus and his cheating, lying ways, Kenya moves on to bigger and better things: Cole Campbell. Cole’s feelings for Kenya soon blossom into something he has no control over, but is love enough? Kenya finds herself battling with his doting actions and the heartless things he says. However, they say that actions do speak louder than words. Continue on this funny, heartfelt journey between lovers as they learn to love through flaws and all.

That Bona Fide Hood Love 2: Fire and Pure


Dymond Taylor - 2019
    Gaining his trust, took time and patience. Now, all that they have accomplished together, may be the end after she’s caught with the enemy; unknowingly. Fire is not only pissed off but hurt as well. Against his own will, he has caught feelings for Pure. The last thing he wanted to happen, but it did. Witnessing her, with one of the accomplices who robbed him, put a bad taste in Fire’s mouth. It’s only one way he knows how to handle snakes...death. Zoni is left devastated, after finding out she and her sister, had been sharing the same man without either of their knowledge. Talking about a tough pill to swallow. She’s conflicted between her love for Yurey and her loyalty to her sister. Do love conquers all or will she be forced to leave what her and Yurey once had in the past; even though it’s painful to do so?