Under headings that explore the entire history of bibliomania from "The Invention of Paper" to "Some Horror Writers' Offcial Websites," the entries in Bibliotopia provide the insatiably curious reader a delightfully desultory literary education, the kind one might pick up at a cocktail party on Parnassus.

    Many of us—environmentalists included—continue to live deeply unsustainable lives. At home, affluent Americans “buy green”; while at work, they maximize profits with dirty energy and toxic industries that are poisoning our poorer communities.With brevity, humor, and plenty of attitude, Jenny Price tracks “save the planet!” enthusiasm through strategies that range from ridiculously ineffective (Prius-buying and carbon trading) to flat-out counterproductive (greenwashing, and public subsidies to greenwash). We need to imagine far better ways to use and inhabit environments. Why aren’t we cleaning up the messes we’ve already made? And why do so many people hate environmentalists? Price offers trailblazing answers, along with powerful ideas for how to divest from self-destruction and invest in mutual survival.

    Depressed over the breakup, she decides to drive to the beach to spend time with her friends and drown her sorrows in hot guys and fruity drinks. The only problem with her plan is her piece-of-junk car. It breaks down halfway into her trip, in the middle of nowhere—a place where cell phone towers don't even exist. Ford's life has changed drastically in the past year, and he spends his days working at his family's run-down auto repair shop. When his father tells him to go rescue a stranded traveler, he soon finds himself with a hot opportunity to forget about what ruined his life, even if it's only for one night. With sexy chemistry between them, Sky and Ford agree to a one-night stand, to let go of what each of them are running from and enjoy each other with no strings attached. But as their heated night progresses, they both know that one night is never going to be enough. What happens when one night turns into two? And two turns into three? Can two people, who know nothing about each other, really fall in love?Or is lust just playing with their torn hearts?

    That essay which eventually became the foundation of D’Agata’s critically acclaimed About a Mountain was accepted by another magazine, the Believer, but not before they handed it to their own fact-checker, Jim Fingal. What resulted from that assignment, and beyond the essay’s eventual publication in the magazine, was seven years of arguments, negotiations, and revisions as D’Agata and Fingal struggled to navigate the boundaries of literary nonfiction.This book includes an early draft of D’Agata’s essay, along with D’Agata and Fingal’s extensive discussion around the text. What emerges is a brilliant and eye-opening meditation on the relationship between “truth” and “accuracy” and a penetrating conversation about whether it is appropriate for a writer to substitute one for the other.

    He has selected books from every field of human creativity and intellectual endeavour - from poetry to politics, from fiction to philosophy, from theology to anthropology, and from economics to physics - to create a rounded and satisfying picture of how 50 towering achievements of the human intellect have built our societies, shaped our values, enhanced our understanding of the nature of the world, enabled technological advancements, and reflected our concerns and dilemmas, strengths and failings. In a series of engaging and lively essays, Andrew Taylor sets each work and its author firmly in historical context, summarizes the content of the work in question, and explores its wider influence and legacy. A fascinating and richly informative read, and a clarion call to delve deeper into the library of great books, "Books that Changed the World" is a thought-provoking and stimulating read, and the likely cause of many an impassioned debate.

    Gina Frangello tells the morally complex story of her adulterous relationship with a lover and her shortcomings as a mother, and in doing so, highlights the forces that shaped, silenced, and shamed her: everyday misogyny, puritanical expectations regarding female sexuality and maternal sacrifice, and male oppression." —Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game Gina Frangello spent her early adulthood trying to outrun a youth marked by poverty and violence. Now a long-married wife and devoted mother, the better life she carefully built is emotionally upended by the death of her closest friend. Soon, Frangello is caught up in a recklessly passionate affair, leading a double life while continuing to project the image of the perfect family. When her secrets are finally uncovered, both her home and her identity will implode, testing the limits of desire, responsibility, love, and forgiveness. Blow Your House Down is a powerful testimony about the ways our culture seeks to cage women in traditional narratives of self-sacrifice and erasure. Frangello uses her personal story to examine the place of women in contemporary society: the violence they experience, the rage they suppress, the ways their bodies often reveal what they cannot say aloud, and finally, what it means to transgress "being good" in order to save your own life.

    From the physically and mentally taxing sport of chess boxing to the psychological battlefield that is the rock-paper-scissors championship, to the underground world of illegal jart throwing, to several competitions that involve nudity, Reilly, in his valiant quest, subjected himself to both bodily danger and abject humiliation (or, in the case of ferret legging, both). These fringe sports offer their participants a chance to earn a few bucks and achieve the eternal glory that is winning—even when the victory in question might strike some as pointless, like the ability to sit in an oven-hot sauna for the longest time. It's debatable whether these sports push the body or just human idiocy to the outermost limits, but one thing is for sure: Sports in Hell is laugh-out-loud hilarious and will deliver plenty of unabashed fun.

    Blogs, tweets and newspaper articles on the subject appear daily, many of them repetitive, most of them admitting they don't know what will happen. Amidst the twittering, the thoughts of Jean-Claude Carrière and Umberto Eco come as a breath of fresh air. There are few people better placed to discuss the past, present and future of the book. Both avid book collectors with a deep understanding of history, they have explored through their work the many and varied ways ideas have been represented through the ages. This thought-provoking book takes the form of a long conversation in which Carrière and Eco discuss everything from what can be defined as the first book to what is happening to knowledge now that infinite amounts of information are available at the click of a mouse. En route there are delightful digressions into personal anecdote. We find out about Eco's first computer and the book Carrière is most sad to have sold. Readers will close this entertaining book feeling they have had the privilege of eavesdropping on an intimate discussion between two great minds. And while, as Carrière says, the one certain thing about the future is that it is unpredictable, it is clear from this conversation that, in some form or other, the book will survive.

    Avarice. Covetousness. Miserliness. Insatiable cupidity. Overreaching ambition. Desire spun out of control. The deadly sin of Greed goes by many names, appears in many guises, and wreaks havoc on individuals and nations alike.In this lively and generous book, Phyllis A. Tickle argues that Greed is the Matriarch of the Deadly Clan, the ultimate source of Pride, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, Lust, and Anger. She shows that the major faiths, from Hinduism and Taoism to Buddhism and Christianity regard Greed as the greatest calamity humans can indulge in, engendering further sins and eviscerating all virtues. As the Sikh holy book Adi Granth asks: Where there is greed, what love can there be? Tickle takes a long view of Greed, from St. Paul to the present, focusing particularly on changing imaginative representations of Greed in Western literature and art. Looking at such works as the Psychomachia, or Soul Battle of the fifth-century poet Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, the paintings of Peter Bruegel and Hieronymous Bosch, the 1987 film Wall Street, and the contemporary Italian artist Mario Donizetti, Tickle shows how our perceptions have evolved from the medieval understanding of Greed as a spiritual enemy to a nineteenth-century sociological construct to an early twentieth-century psychological deficiency, and finally to a new view, powerfully articulated in Donizetti's mystical paintings, of Greed as both tragic and beautiful.Engaging, witty, brilliantly insightful, Greed explores the full range of this deadly sin's subtle, chameleon-like qualities, and the enormous destructive power it wields, evidenced all too clearly in the world today.

    It was the most harrowing and holy experience of her life.Following a 414-day relapse into alcohol and drug addiction after more than a decade clean and sober, Schwartz was sentenced and served her time with only six months' sobriety. The damage she inflicted that year upon her friends, her husband, her teenage daughter, and herself was nearly impossible to fathom. Incarceration might have ruined her altogether, if not for the stories that sustained her while she was behind bars--both the artful tales in the books she read while there, and, more immediately, the stories of her fellow inmates. With classics like Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome to contemporary accounts like Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, Schwartz's reading list is woven together with visceral recollections of both her daily humiliations and small triumphs within the county jail system. Through the stories of others--whether rendered on the page or whispered in a jail cell--she learned powerful lessons about how to banish shame, use guilt for good, level her grief, and find the lost joy and magic of her astonishing life. Told in vivid, unforgettable prose, The Lost Chapters uncovers the nature of shame, rage, and love, and how instruments of change and redemption come from the unlikeliest of places.

    Summary:This is book two in the, A Glimpse into Hell, series. The main character, Seth Coker, has invited a reporter, Wyatt Carter, to go on a road trip across America. Seth takes the man on a journey into his twisted world of vengeance filled with the most unimaginable and barbaric things that could only be found in the deepest and darkest parts of hell.The streets are no longer a safe haven for the wicked with Seth lurking in the shadows of the dark, waiting to bestow the most sadistic and over the top inhumane acts of vengeance that will stagger the mind.Offering up heart-pumping tales of revenge, suspense and horror in all its guises, this book is filled with dark humor, political incorrectness, gruesome and sadistic acts from beginning to end. Warning- may be disturbing to sensitive readers.- Originality –From the sheer ingenuity of the story to the appropriateness of the punishments makes this one of the most original story lines on the market.- Politically Incorrect –If you’re a P.C. type person, do not read this book. This also pertains to rapists, molesters and weirdoes--you'll just get your feelings hurt and leave a low rating with a BS review.- Gruesome and Horrifying -This book is not for the meek. Seth will take you on a journey through his twisted world of vengeance that is filled with the most gruesome and horrifying things imaginable and unimaginable.- Cruel and Unusual -If you like filthy sick, over the top sadistic inhumane acts of revenge that stagger the mind, this book will not disappoint.- Dark Humor -If you like gore and dark humor, this book will make you laugh and gag at the same time.- Suspense -From front to back, The Angel of Death is filled with one intense moment after another that is interwoven in a story line filled with humor. From the horrifying punishments of the mind and flesh to the main character’s unpredictable persona, it will keep you turning the page. - Disturbing -So disturbing that it was difficult for my editor to stomach the content.- Fascinating -The punishments that Seth bestows on deserving criminals are not only very sadistic and gruesome, but cleverly inventive, unusual and shocking as well.- Mind Rape -The sick and twisted images in this book will be implanted into your mind, causing your brain to feel it has been assaulted.A brief comment from the author:I had a certain vision when I started writing The Angel of Death. I knew I wanted plenty of gore and dark humor, similar to The Angel of Vengeance, but I didn’t want to be repetitive and I wanted to portray Seth differently. I wanted him out of the gloomy chamber and mixed in with society. I wanted to humanize him, if possible. This book introduces another major character, Wyatt Carter, who brings Seth’s character to a completely new level. The chemistry between Seth and Wyatt far exceeded my expectations, resulting in a relatable story. From the beginning, this novel took a life of its own. It is a rollercoaster ride filled with mild-to-extreme gore, off-color comedy, dark humor, passion, and the most violent, sadistic and barbaric behavior imaginable. It also turned out to be very long, 635 Kindle pages, which wasn’t intentional, but as I stated, the story took a life of its own.My subject matter and humor is not for everyone, especially criminals (particularly molesters and rapists), and people that believe criminals have rights, or even people that are sensitive to extreme gore. I know this will occasionally cost me a low rating and BS review, even though I posted numerous warnings. In addition, I welcome advice from my readers. I write because of you, so I listen to criticism and praise. I’ve tried to create the best quality read possible, but unfortunately, most of us indie authors don't have the means to hire an expensive editing agency like the mainstream authors/ publishers use, and some of us rely on friends, family, fans and individuals that charge a reasonable fee. I can read a sentence ten times with a mistake, and my brain plugs in the correct word, even if it’s missing, so I’m useless as a proofreader. Even though I used editing software and numerous people have proofread it, there could be some errors remaining. If anyone wants to proofread/ edit my book(s), please email me.If you like The Angel of Death, please leave a review. The more positive reviews, the higher it is on Amazon’s search list, resulting in more people finding it. I truly appreciate the positive reviews, comments and support that I have been receiving, and that is the reason that I wrote this book, the second one in this series, and will continue writing as long as there are people that appreciate my work.If you have any questions, comments or advice, please feel free to contact me at wade.garrett.777@gmail.com.Best wishes,Wade H. Garrett ** Sold Exclusively on Amazon **

    There are no secrets, no taboos, just humans being human. This book opens the door to our innermost sanctum so we can all gawk at the odd, horrific, fantastic side of human's less spoken of nature. In this collection of short stories, you'll both laugh and cringe, maybe be left feeling violated or finally understood. Dive into the minds of humanity and view a world through gray-tinted glasses.If women ruled the world there would be no war, but we would all have been aborted.