Stress-free Sailing: Single and Short-handed Techniques


Duncan Wells - 2015
    Their boat handling, navigation, sail handling, anchoring and mooring skills all have to be carried out both efficiently and effectively, preferably with the minimum of physical effort (to conserve energy).But most sailing technique books assume a crew of 3 or 4, all willing to lend a hand. This book is therefore a first, addressing the most common sailing scenarios that anyone cruising will have to deal with, and providing clever, original, highly effective (and most importantly successfully tried and tested by the author) techniques and solutions for dealing with the huge variety of essential operations on a boat – from sail setting and reefing, to picking up mooring buoys in a variety of wind and tide situations, anchoring, berthing and leaving a pontoon shorthanded, picking up a man overboard, sailing in fog and heavy weather – and even going up the mast.This book will be a godsend to anyone sailing single or shorthanded – including couples with young children who need to be supervised by one parent whilst the other runs the boat.Organised into techniques for different cruising scenarios, the book features step by step sequential photos showing exactly how to approach each situation and carry out the task in hand.

The Evolution of Cooperation


Robert Axelrod - 1984
    Widely praised and much-discussed, this classic book explores how cooperation can emerge in a world of self-seeking egoists—whether superpowers, businesses, or individuals—when there is no central authority to police their actions. The problem of cooperation is central to many different fields. Robert Axelrod recounts the famous computer tournaments in which the “cooperative” program Tit for Tat recorded its stunning victories, explains its application to a broad spectrum of subjects, and suggests how readers can both apply cooperative principles to their own lives and teach cooperative principles to others.

Secrets of the Talking Jaguar


Martin Prechtel - 1998
    Arriving at Santiago Atitlan, a Tzutujil Mayan village on the breathtaking shores of Lake Atitlan, Prechtel met Nicolas Chiviliu Tacaxoy--perhaps the most famous shaman in Tzutujil history--who believed Prechtel was the new student he had asked the gods to provide. For the next thirteen years, Prechtel studied the ancient Tzutujil culture and became a village chief and a famous shaman in his own right.In Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, Prechtel brings to vivid life the sights, sounds, scents, and colors of Santiago Atitlan: its magical personalities, its beauty, its material poverty and spiritual richness, its eight-hundred-year-old rituals juxtaposed with quintessential small-town gossip. The story of his education is a tale filled with enchantment, danger, passion, and hope.

The Four Insights: Wisdom, Power, and Grace of the Earthkeepers


Alberto Villoldo - 2006
    The four insights state that all of creation- humans, whales, and even stars- is made from light manifested through the power of intention. The Earthkeepers used the insights to heal disease, eliminate emotional suffering, and even grow new bodies that age and heal differently. The first insight teaches you how to shed the emotional wounds from your past in the same way that a snake sheds her skin: all at once. It teaches you that you aren't your story or your history, but the hero of your own life. The second insight instructs you how to move beyond fear and anger to live and practice grace. The third insight shows you how to step outside of time and into infinity, to fix things before they're born and to heal destiny. And the fourth insight details how to dream the world into being by waking up from the cultural trance that you've been educated into in order to create joy, abundance, and meaning in your life.

The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World


Vijay Prashad - 2007
    The Darker Nations traces the intellectual origins and the political history of the twentieth century attempt to knit together the world’s impoverished countries in opposition to the United States and Soviet spheres of influence in the decades following World War II.Spanning every continent of the global South, Vijay Prashad’s fascinating narrative takes us from the birth of postcolonial nations after World War II to the downfall and corruption of nationalist regimes. A breakthrough book of cutting-edge scholarship, it includes vivid portraits of Third World giants like India’s Nehru, Egypt’s Nasser, and Indonesia’s Sukarno—as well as scores of extraordinary but now–forgotten intellectuals, artists, and freedom fighters. The Darker Nations restores to memory the vibrant though flawed idea of the Third World, whose demise, Prashad ultimately argues, has produced a much impoverished international political arena.

Accelerated Spanish: Learn fluent Spanish with a proven accelerated learning system


Timothy Moser - 2016
    Maybe you learned Spanish verb conjugations and lists of vocabulary, but you still can't speak the language.The Accelerated Spanish system is completely different: You can learn fluent Spanish with a step-by-step system that begins with the fundamentals of the Spanish language, moving from there into actual conversational fluency.This first volume will teach you to think like a Spanish speaker and give you the vocabulary that makes up 50% of the Spanish language.

A Very Unchristian Retreat


Giles Curtis - 2012
     Hugo has only himself to blame. The bookings in their holiday complex in France are few and Jan, his wife, is forced to organise a yoga week. She remains in Godalming, which leaves Hugo alone with the irresistible Suzanna, who gives off signals he has difficulty interpreting. Jan is talked into hiring a private detective to lure Hugo, but his problems have only just begun. Hugo meets Lenny and Doris who claim to run art parties, which turn out to be more of the swinging sort. Hugo's friend, Gary, books in his gay friends, who have a penchant for the feral. But wild is how Lenny and Doris like it. Hugo doesn't tell Jan, and an unpaid telephone bill means she can't tell him about the Christian Retreat group who are on their way. And then the chaos really begins.

The Jack Landers Western Mystery Series


G. Wayne Tillman - 2020
    The thirty-five-year-old lawman has several gunfights under his belt and the scars to show for it. He has dealt with tough cases and tougher crooks with no problems. When multiple murders occur, he finds himself heading a serial sex murderer task force that is statewide. Jack is divided between enforcing the law and vengeance, and things spin beyond his control—almost. Jack has to decide between right and wrong in order to determine what to do about it…

I Need A Boss In My Life


Jessica M. - 2016
    She had to grow up fast and learn how to use what she had to get what she wanted. As the young protégé of her mother figure and boss, Trinity Daniels, she finds out early on the power of what she has between her legs. Ren has been doing things her way and on her own ever since the one person she trusted let her down. Therefore, when she has an encounter with a real “Boss” she doesn’t know what to do or how to handle it. She does all she can to avoid him and put off the connection that they both feel. Due to the curve balls thrown in her life, she has no clue what love really is until she’s pursued by a man who doesn’t take no for an answer. Everything about Bryan “Boss” Stephens screams money, power, and respect. Anything Boss wants, he gets, and right now, what Boss wants is the beautiful, sexy, intelligent, Ren Wright. Even though they meet in a way that’s not likely for most, they hit it off immediately, and he knows right away that he has to have her. The only problem seems to be that Ren doesn’t know her worth and is truly putting up a fight against allowing him into her life. Will Ren allow her past issues and present lifestyle to keep her from being with Boss? Can she be the woman Boss needs in his life or will she cause him more harm than good? Boss will have to step his game up to show Ren what it is to be with a real man. Lies and secrets come to light when these two decide to hook up. Are they ready to face the consequences of being together? Can they survive the storms? Let’s take a ride with Ren and Boss as they travel down the rocky road to love... Boss may be just what Ren needs in her life.

A Witch Detective Cozy Mystery Series Boxset: Books 1-4


R.K. Dreaming - 2020
    

The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future


Ben Green - 2019
    We are promised that apps, algorithms, and artificial intelligence will relieve congestion, restore democracy, prevent crime, and improve public services. In The Smart Enough City, Ben Green warns against seeing the city only through the lens of technology; taking an exclusively technical view of urban life will lead to cities that appear smart but under the surface are rife with injustice and inequality. He proposes instead that cities strive to be "smart enough" to embrace technology as a powerful tool when used in conjunction with other forms of social change--but not to value technology as an end in itself.In a technology-centric smart city, self-driving cars have the run of downtown and force out pedestrians, civic engagement is limited to requesting services through an app, police use algorithms to justify and perpetuate racist practices, and governments and private companies surveil public space to control behavior. Green describes smart city efforts gone wrong but also smart enough alternatives, attainable with the help of technology but not reducible to technology: a livable city, a democratic city, a just city, a responsible city, and an innovative city. By recognizing the complexity of urban life rather than merely seeing the city as something to optimize, these Smart Enough Cities successfully incorporate technology into a holistic vision of justice and equity.

Homosexuality & Civilization


Louis Crompton - 2003
    By contrast, Jewish religious leaders in the sixth century B.C.E. branded male homosexuality as a capital offense and, later, blamed it for the destruction of the biblical city of Sodom. When these two traditions collided in Christian Rome during the late empire, the tragic repercussions were felt throughout Europe and the New World.Louis Crompton traces Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of "sodomites" in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain under the Inquisition. But Protestant authorities were equally committed to the execution of homosexuals in the Netherlands, Calvin's Geneva, and Georgian England. The root cause was religious superstition, abetted by political ambition and sheer greed. Yet from this cauldron of fears and desires, homoerotic themes surfaced in the art of the Renaissance masters--Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Sodoma, Cellini, and Caravaggio--often intertwined with Christian motifs. Homosexuality also flourished in the court intrigues of Henry III of France, Queen Christina of Sweden, James I and William III of England, Queen Anne, and Frederick the Great.Anti-homosexual atrocities committed in the West contrast starkly with the more tolerant traditions of pre-modern China and Japan, as revealed in poetry, fiction, and art and in the lives of emperors, shoguns, Buddhist priests, scholars, and actors. In the samurai tradition of Japan, Crompton makes clear, the celebration of same-sex love rivaled that of ancient Greece.Sweeping in scope, elegantly crafted, and lavishly illustrated, "Homosexuality and Civilization" is a stunning exploration of a rich and terrible past.

Cunning-Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic


Emma Wilby - 2005
    Until recently historians often dismissed these descriptions as elaborate fictions created by judicial interrogators eager to find evidence of stereotypical pacts with the Devil. Although this paradigm is now routinely questioned, and most historians acknowledge that there was a folkloric component to familiar lore in the period, these beliefs and the experiences reportedly associated with them, remain substantially unexamined. Cunning-Folk and Familiar Spirits examines the folkloric roots of familiar lore from historical, anthropological and comparative religious perspectives. It argues that beliefs about witches' familiars were rooted in beliefs surrounding the use of fairy familiars by beneficent magical practitioners or 'cunning folk', and corroborates this through a comparative analysis of familiar beliefs found in traditional native American and Siberian shamanism. The author explores the experiential dimension of familiar lore by drawing parallels between early modern familiar encounters and visionary mysticism as it appears in both tribal shamanism and medieval European contemplative traditions. These perspectives challenge the reductionist view of popular magic in early modern British often presented by historians.

Astronomy For Amateurs (Illustrated Edition)


Camille Flammarion - 2008
    He was usually credited as Camille Flammarion. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction novels, and several works about Spiritualism and related topics. He also published the magazine L'Astronomie, starting in 1882. He maintained a private observatory at Juvisy-sur-Orge, France. He was a founder and the first president of the Socit Astronomique de France, which originally had its own independent journal, BSAF (Bulletin de la Socit Astronomique de France), first published in 1887. He was the first to suggest the names Triton and Amalthea for moons of Neptune and Jupiter, respectively, although these names were not officially adopted until many decades later. His spiritualism studies influenced also some of his science fiction. Other than that his writing about other worlds adhered fairly closely to then current ideas in evolutionary theory and astronomy. Amongst his other works are: The Atmosphere (1873), Popular Astronomy (1907), Astronomy for Amateurs (1904), Omega: The Last Days of the World and Death and its Mystery.

Voodoo in Haiti


Alfred Métraux - 1958
    Alfred Métraux (1902–1963) has written a rich and lasting study of the lives and rituals of the Haitian mambos and adepts, and of the history and origins of their religion. It is an accurate and engaging account of one of the most fascinating and misunderstood cultures in the world.   Translated by Hugo Charteris Introduction by Sidney W. Mintz