Accused of crimes against humanity, they have brutally mistreated their people. Yet in the last couple of years, and in spite of sham elections, the pace of change has been breathtaking. Much is now hoped for. However, Burma is one of the most ethnically diverse nations in SE Asia: there are roughly seven major ethnic groups living along its borders. They have a long history of conflict with the government and have been cruelly treated by the current regime. Their future affects the country as a whole, as Benedict Rogers explains. Drawing heavily on his many fact-finding visits both inside Burma and along its frontiers, he gives a unique appraisal of the current ethnic situation and its implications for the nation as a whole. Wide-ranging, expertly researched, and full of brand new accounts of the courage and determination of the Burmese people, Burma: a nation at the crossroads explains the country's conflicted history, as well as its contemporary struggle for justice. Burma stands poised for freedom, or for further repression. No one can be sure. This fascinating and accessible book describes what is really happening inside this beautiful, secretive, and potentially prosperous country.

    Coles. Two orphaned sisters, facing a future of want and loneliness, quarrel when the older sister, responsible for her dependent teenage sibling, repudiates her sister's affair with a political activist--older and unacceptable--she bonds with on the internet. Can adolescent love ever transcend innocently ignored incompatibility to evolve into a valued family relationship in rural southern America? Can a sister forced into a role of a surrogate parent convince her sister to denounce her attraction for a rouge male religiously, socially, and historically unsuited for marriage without a destructive severance of duty and caring?

    But sometime, the sun's glare got uncomfortably fierce, and Sanjna could not bear it. She devised the perfect cover for herself - Chhaya, her mirror image! Away from the blazing Surya, the lonely Sanjna pined for her beloved. Eventually, a way had to be found to ensure everyone's happiness.

    Now with Temple of a Thousand Faces, he brings to life the legendary temple of Angkor Wat, an unrivaled marvel of ornately carved towers and stone statues. There, in a story set nearly a thousand years ago, an empire is lost, a royal love is tested, and heroism is reborn. When his land is taken by force, Prince Jayavar of the Khmer people narrowly escapes death at the hands of the conquering Cham king. Exiled from their homeland, he and his mystical wife Ajadevi set up a secret camp in the jungle with the intention of amassing an army bold enough to reclaim their kingdom and free their people. Meanwhile, Cham King Indravarman rules with an iron fist, pitting even his most trusted men against each other and squashing any hint of rebellion. Moving from a poor fisherman's family whose sons find the courage to take up arms against their oppressors, to a beautiful bride who becomes a prize of war, to an ambitious warrior whose allegiance is torn--Temple of a Thousand Faces is an unforgettable saga of love, betrayal, and survival at any cost. READERS GUIDE INCLUDED

    Gordon B. Gray has it all, a Nobel Prize, tenure at Caltech University and looks that make women swoon. Last night he was tossing frozen pumpkins off the library roof and today -- well -- he's saving the world. When twenty-two of Dust, West Virginia's twenty-three inhabitants disappear into thin air, U.S. Army Lieutenant General John Wilkinson resorts to enlisting the brilliant young professor, who quickly finds himself caught in an international tangle of assassins, truth movements, mad physicists and wild conspiracies. With no clear endgame in sight and the world at stake, Gordon embarks on a perilous journey that takes him from the backwoods trailers of Appalachia, to the desolate wilderness of Siberia's enigmatic Tunguska region, where one man's decisions can impact the course of human history. The Officially Unofficial Files of Dr. Gordon B. Gray is a smart adventure thriller brimming with suspense, international intrigue and mind-bending science that will resonate with readers long after they've turned the last page.

    To survive in the most sophisticated - and the most scathing - nation on Earth you will need to understand the many peculiarities of the (very peculiar) French culture. And for that you need A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi.If you want to fit in with the French you'll have to know how to deal with sardonic waiters; why French children hate Charlemagne; the etiquette of kissing, joke-telling and drinking songs, what to do with a bidet, the correct recipe for a salade nicoise and, of course, how to convey absolute, shattering indifference with a single syllable (Bof!).Charles Timoney, the author of Pardon My French, provides a practical, pleasurable guide to the charms of the Gallic people - from their daily routines to their peerless gesticulations, from their come-ons to their put-downs. Read on and put the oh la la back into your French vacances. Your inner gaul will thank you for it.

    The novel follows the (mis)adventures of its travel-addicted protagonist Zack, and in that respect is similar thematically to Alex Garland's 'The Beach' or Gregory David Roberts' 'Shantaram.' Accordingly, the reader is viscerally transported into the surreal realms of Roppongi, as Zack attempts to come to terms with a series of life-changing events unfolding at rapid pace. In the process, the novel punches through the impossibly glamorous surface of Roppongi and plunges the reader deep into its seedy underbelly ... showing a disturbing side of Japan not often written about in the English language.

    Ali sees his new business flourish as the indomitable Mrs. Ali and his careful assistant, Aruna, look on with vigilant eyes. There's the man who wants a tall son-in-law because his daughter is short; the divorced woman who ends up back with her ex-husband; a salesman who can't seem to sell himself; and a wealthy, young doctor for whom no match is ever perfect. But although his clients go away happy, little does Mr. Ali know that his esteemed Aruna hides a tragedy in her past-a misfortune that the bureau, as luck would have it, serendipitously undoes. Bursting with the color and allure of India, and with a cast of endearing characters, The Marriage Bureau for Rich People has shades of Jane Austen and Alexander McCall Smith but with a resonance and originality entirely its own. Farahad's effortless style reveals a country still grappling with the politics of caste, religion, and civil unrest, all the while delivering a shamefully delightful read.

    OTHERS ARE LESS COMPLIMENTARY. Buckle up for a comedic roller coaster ride, with bad wigs, waxing disasters, holiday scams, a deluded hitman, lust, arson and murder. Albert Trollop takes refuge at his allotment and the betting office, while his wife, Gretyl, lives for the shopping channels, car boot sales and local gossip. After fifty years of marriage, she’s thinking of a new life, somewhere hot. He’s thinking of the crematorium. She’s thinking of stuffing herself in a bikini. He's thinking of a taxidermist. The Londoners continue their separate lives until a mysterious letter turns their world upside down. In Essex, Dave and Sharon Soddall are struggling on benefits and looking for a get-rich-quick solution. With the help of a devious financial advisor, they concoct a plan and ‘Costa Soddall Travel’ is born. Will the Soddalls pull off the con of a lifetime? Can Gretyl be silenced? Will Albert end up missing Gretyl? "'Missing Gretyl' is a rare treat - a brilliantly written comedy novel that's genuinely funny." Mark Stibbe, best selling, award-winning writer. Missing Gretyl is also available as a Kindle eBook through Amazon.

    A tiny mother and child bustle through a dusty township in Cape Town, while a miniature informant whispers in a telephone booth in Beijing. Thumb-size riot police climb the Acropolis in Athens, while an inch-high woman pole-dances around a lamppost in a Hong Kong red-light district.Global Model Village collects the international works of Slinkachu, the London-based artist who as part of his “Little People Project” has been abandoning tiny model people on the mean streets of the world since 2006. Documented through photography, these little dramas of hope and tragedy, loneliness and humor, somehow get to the heart of what it means to be human, to be alone among millions of other people, all experiencing the melancholy and magic of life in the big city.

    In order to rescue his wife and daughters, he must enter a dark, dangerous world of vicious trials and sadistic mind games concocted by a brilliant but psychotic nemesis.

    Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver. All six of these writers were alcoholics, and the subject of drinking surfaces in some of their finest work, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to A Moveable Feast. Often they did their drinking together—Hemingway and Fitzgerald ricocheting through the cafés of 1920s Paris; Carver and Cheever speeding to the liquor store in Iowa in the icy winter of 1973.Olivia Laing grew up in an alcoholic family herself. One spring, wanting to make sense of this ferocious, entangling disease, she took a journey across America that plunged her into the heart of these overlapping lives. As she travels from Cheever's New York to Williams' New Orleans, from Hemingway's Key West to Carver's Port Angeles, she pieces together a topographical map of alcoholism, from the horrors of addiction to the miraculous possibilities of recovery. Beautiful, captivating and original, The Trip to Echo Spring strips away the myth of the alcoholic writer to reveal the terrible price creativity can exert.

    But Rosemary has a secret, and he’s lying comatose in a hospital only a few miles away. Should she let him live, or let him go? Into the midst of Rosemary’s dilemma comes bohemian artist, Ben. His abstract pictures and fixation with painting God disturb Rosemary, and yet she finds herself unable to keep away. As summer passes and an unlikely friendship develops, it becomes clear that Rosemary is not the only one with something to hide. Nor is she the only one battling the ghosts of the past. Rosemary and Ben must decide whether to trust each other, choosing between the madness of admitting the truth and the insanity of maintaining their lies. With their lives unravelling around them, can they help each other to confront the past, or are there some secrets too terrible to be told?

    Fueled by Pastor Malachi Marble's fall from faith, which tumbles him into the late night world of Walmart.Author Rick Leland spent fourteen months working as a Walmart Overnight Stocker doing research for the book. Well, not purely for research."Actually I needed the money to live on," Leland said. "But I knew God was working something out in my life, as inspiration for Jesus at Walmart emerged even before my first night's work was over." Walk past the greeter; into the heart of Walmart with Malachi Marble. Grab a shopping cart. You'll need something to hang onto during this trip to Walmart like no other. And when you exit Jesus at Walmart, expect to leave a changed person.

    For generations, all enterprises in India have been launched with an invocation of His name. He is called the Vinayak - God of Endeavors, Vighneshwar - the Remover of Obstacles. Perhaps the most adored of all in the Indian Pantheon, Ganesha is the God that best represents India - benevolent, wise and noble. Come with us on a journey to witness the origins of a God, a timeless tale of an inanimate golem crafted from primordial clay by Uma, the all-mother. His innocent bravado in defying Shiva, the mightiest of the Gods and even giving up his life to uphold a simple promise he made to his mother, the twist of fate that intertwines his destiny with another and the 'rebirth' of the two as they become one.