What could go wrong with starting over in a tropical paradise? Life in San Francisco was getting too expensive, too hectic, and too crowded for recently divorced Dana Kirkpatrick.When this big-city girl inherited a beach house in a coastal Costa Rica town, she took it as a sign and packed her bags.Dana imagined the small beach town would have its challenges, but she never could have predicted legal troubles, local wildlife, and being adopted by a stray cat.And now she's suspected of murder!It's not quite the fresh start she envisioned when she moved to the tropical paradise beach community of Mariposa Beach.If you love quirky characters, offbeat animals, and small beach town charm with a cozy mystery to solve, then you will love this new series!Although this is a series the books stand alone and you can read them in any order you like.

    The book features a foreword from his best friend, Lionel Messi, and includes colourful dressing room revelations about his fellow countryman and a revealing insight into the greatest footballer on the planet. Against an incredible backdrop of hardship, Sergio is lucky to have been born after an epic ordeal for his young mother and an incredible twist as to how he took a surname that is now familiar around the world. From fathering a son with Maradona's daughter to winning junior World Cups and clinching the most dramatic Premier League title in modern history. This is a book every Manchester City fan will want to read, but also any football fan who is fascinated by that elite group of World greats who were touched by destiny and born to rise.

    In this book, two of the 1st central figures in the effort to decode the glyphs, Linda Schele & David Freidel, detail this history. A Forest of Kings is the story of Maya kingship, from the beginning of its institution & the 1st great pyramid builders 2000 years ago to the decline of Maya civilization & its destruction by the Spanish. Here the great rulers of pre-Columbian civilization come to life again with the decipherment of their writing. At its height, Maya civilization flourished under great kings like Shield-Jaguar, who ruled for over 60 years, expanding his kingdom & building some of the most impressive works of architecture in the ancient world. Long placed on a mist-shrouded pedestal as austere, peaceful stargazers, Maya elites are now known to have been the rulers of populous, aggressive city-states. Hailed as "a Rosetta stone of Maya civilization" (Brian M. Fagan, author of People of the Earth), A Forest of Kings is "a must for interested readers," says Evon Vogt, Harvard anthropology professor.

    Nothing but the truth is sacred in Michael Moore’s hilarious screed on the state of America, Downsize This! With the same in-your-face tenacity that has made him everyman’s hero, Moore gets under the skin of corporate giants, politicians, lobbyists, and the media-anyone who has made life tougher for the millions of Americans who are working longer hours for less pay and have had enough.Source: michaelmoore.com

    In Shrub, Ivins focuses her Texas-size smarts on the biggest politician in her home state: George Walker Bush, or "Shrub," as Ivins has nicknamed Bush the Younger.         A candidate of vague speeches and an ambiguous platform, Bush leads the pack of GOP 2000 presidential hopefuls; "Dubya" could very well be our next president. What voters need now is an original, smart, and accessible analysis of Bush--one that leaves the "youthful indiscretions" to the tabloids and gets to the heart of his policies and motivations. Ivins is the perfect woman for the job.         With her trademark wit and down-home wisdom, Molly Ivins shares three pieces of advice on judging a politician: "The first is to look at the record. The second is to look at the record. And third, look at the record." In this book, Ivins takes a good, hard look at the record of the man who could be the leader of the free world. Beginning with his post-college military career, Ivins tracks Dubya's winding, sometimes unlikely path from a failed congressional bid to a two-term governorship. Bush has made plenty of friends and supporters along the way, including Texas oil barons, evangelist Billy Graham, and co-investors in the Texas Rangers baseball team. "You would have to work at it to dislike the man," she writes. But for all of Bush's likeability, Ivins points to a disconcerting lack of political passion from this ascending presidential candidate. In her words, "If you think his daddy had trouble with 'the vision thing,' wait till you meet this one."         Witty, trenchant, and on target, Ivins gives a singularly perceptive and entertaining analysis of George W. Bush. To head to the voting booth without it would be downright un-American.From Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush"        The past is prologue in politics. If a politician is left, right, weak, strong, given to the waffle or the flip-flop, or, as sometimes happens, an able soul who performs well under pressure, all that will be in the record." ¸         Bush's welfare record: "Texas pols like to 'git tuff' on crime, welfare, commies, and other bad stuff. Bush proposed to git tuff on welfare recipients by ending the allowance for each additional child--which in Texas is $38 a month." ¸         Bush and the Christian right: "Bush has learned to dance with the Christian right. It has been interesting and amusing to watch the process. Interesting because it's sometimes hard to tell who's leading and who's following; amusing because when a scion of Old Yankee money gets together with a televangelist with too much Elvis, the result is swell entertainment." ¸         Bush's environmental record: Since Governor Bush's election, Texas air quality has been rated the worst in the nation, leading all fifty states in overall toxic releases, recognized carcinogens in the air, cancer risk, and ten other categories of pollutants. ¸         Bush's military career: "Bush was promoted as the Texas Air National Guard's anti-drug poster boy, one of life's little ironies given the difficulty he has had answering cocaine questions all these years later. 'George Walker Bush is one member of the younger generation who doesn't get his kicks from pot or hashish or speed,' reads a Guard press release of 1970. 'Oh, he gets high, all right, but not from narcotics.'"From the Hardcover edition.

    Those who are familiar with Parra's work will find the humor more sharply honed and darker, the anger closer to the surface and sometimes breaking through, the language tighter, the compassion deeper and the statements more political--or anyway more social.

    They set off from Cordoba in Argentina on a Norton 500cc motorbike and traveled through Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. The duo's adventures vary from the suspenseful (stowing away on a cargo ship, exploring Incan ruins) to the comedic (falling in love, drinking, fighting...) to the serious (volunteering as firemen and at a leper colony). They worked as day laborers along the way—as soccer coaches, medical assistants, and furniture movers. The poverty and exploitation of the native population started the process that was to turn Ernesto—the debonair, fun-loving student—into Che, the revolutionary who had a profound impact on the history of several nations.Originally published in Spanish in Cuba in 1978, the first English translation was published by Random House UK in 2003. The movie, based on Granado's and Che's diaries, directed by Walter Salles (Central Station, Behind the Sun), was produced by Robert Redford and others. Shown at the Sundance Film Festival, it generated great reviews and a frenzied auction for distribution rights, which was won by Focus Features. Granado, now 82, was a consultant to Salles during the production. 10 b/w photos.

    The world’s political and corporate leaders are restructuring the planet’s economy and political arrangements in ways that are affecting humans and the environment more than anything since the Industrial Revolution. Global institutions such as GATT, the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, and the World Bank—created with scant public debate or scrutiny—have moved real power away from citizens and nation-states to global bureaucracies, with grave results.The Case Against the Global Economy is the first comprehensive, point-by-point analysis of the global economy, its premises, and its social and environmental implications. Represented here are forty-three leading economic, agricultural, and environmental experts who charge that free trade and economic globalization are producing exactly the opposite results from what has been promised. Contributors include William Greider, Jeremy Rifkin, Ralph Nader, Vandana Shiva, David Korten, Wendell Berry, Kirkpatrick Sale, Herman E. Daly, Richard Barnet, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and more than thirty other analysts of the global economy.

    The names of all those who signed are at the bottom, arranged by the state that they represent. This document may be printed in Adobe reader. Please Note: This book is easy to read in true text, not scanned images that can sometimes be difficult to decipher. The Microsoft eBook has a contents page linked to the chapter headings for easy navigation. The Adobe eBook has bookmarks at chapter headings and is printable up to two full copies per year. Both versions are text searchable.

    Since his assassination in 1967 at the age of thirty-nine, the Argentine revolutionary has become an internationally recognized icon, as revered as he is controversial. As a Marxist ideologue who sought to end global inequality by bringing down the American capitalist empire through armed guerrilla warfare, Che has few rivals in the Cold War era as an apostle of revolutionary change. In Che: A Revolutionary Life, Jon Lee Anderson and Jose Hernandez present the man behind the myth, creating a complex and human portrait of this passionate idealist.Adapted from Jon Lee Anderson's definitive masterwork, Che vividly transports us from young Ernesto's medical school days as a sensitive asthmatic to the battlefields of the Cuban revolution, from his place of power alongside Castro, to his disastrous sojourn in the Congo, and his violent end in Bolivia. Through renowned Mexican artist Jose Hernandez's drawings we feel the bullets wing past the head of the young rebel in Cuba, we smell the thick smoke of his and Castro's cigars, and scrutinize his proud face as he's called "Comandante" for the first time. With astonishing precision, color, and drama, Anderson and Hernandez's Che makes us a witness to the revolutionary life and times of Che Guevara.

    Suskind moves from the frenzied trading floors of lower Manhattan to the power corridors inside the Beltway and introduces a larger than life cast of politicians and advisors, titans of high finance, reformers, lobbyists, and others who faced a crisis unlike anything they had ever imagined. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews and exhaustive research, filled with piercing insight and startling disclosures, Confidence Men goes beyond the headlines and previous accounts, bringing into focus the unprecedented struggle between the nation's two capitals; New York and Washington, one of private gain, the other of public purpose;that continues to divide and roil America.

    involvement in endless wars, driven by a deep infatuation with military power, has been a catastrophe for the body politic. These pressing problems threaten all of us, Republicans and Democrats. If the nation is to solve its predicament, it will need the revival of a distinctly American approach: the neglected tradition of realism.Andrew J. Bacevich, uniquely respected across the political spectrum, offers a historical perspective on the illusions that have governed American policy since 1945. The realism he proposes includes respect for power and its limits; sensitivity to unintended consequences; aversion to claims of exceptionalism; skepticism of easy solutions, especially those involving force; and a conviction that the books will have to balance. Only a return to such principles, Bacevich argues, can provide common ground for fixing America’s urgent problems before the damage becomes irreparable.

    This second edition is updated to include new material covering the Reagan and Bush years, and the Iran/Contra affair.

    Astonishing in the sheer detail it amasses, the book is the first comprehensive attempt to catalogue and analyze the crimes of Communism over seventy years.Revolutions, like trees, must be judged by their fruit, Ignazio Silone wrote, and this is the standard the authors apply to the Communist experience--in the China of the Great Helmsman, Kim Il Sung's Korea, Vietnam under Uncle Ho and Cuba under Castro, Ethiopia under Mengistu, Angola under Neto, and Afghanistan under Najibullah. The authors, all distinguished scholars based in Europe, document Communist crimes against humanity, but also crimes against national and universal culture, from Stalin's destruction of hundreds of churches in Moscow to Ceausescu's leveling of the historic heart of Bucharest to the widescale devastation visited on Chinese culture by Mao's Red Guards.As the death toll mounts--as many as 25 million in the former Soviet Union, 65 million in China, 1.7 million in Cambodia, and on and on--the authors systematically show how and why, wherever the millenarian ideology of Communism was established, it quickly led to crime, terror, and repression. An extraordinary accounting, this book amply documents the unparalleled position and significance of Communism in the hierarchy of violence that is the history of the twentieth century.

    Che's call to action, his proclamation of _invincibility_-the ultimate victory of revolutionary forces-continues to influence the course of Latin American history and international relations. His amazing life story has lifted him to almost legendary status. This edition of Che's classic work Guerrilla Warfare contains the text of his book, as well as two later essays titled _Guerrilla Warfare: A Method_ and _Message to the Tricontinental._ A detailed introduction by Brian Loveman and Thomas M. Davies, Jr., examines Guevara's text, his life and political impact, the situation in Latin America, and the United States' response to Che and to events in Latin America. Loveman and Davies also provide in-depth case studies that apply Che's theories on revolution to political situations in seven Latin American countries from the 1960s to the present. Also included are political chronologies of each country discussed in the case studies and a postscript tying the analyses together. This book will help students gain a better understanding of Che's theoretical contribution to revolutionary literature and the inspiration that his life and Guerrilla Warfare have provided to revolutionaries since the 1960s. This volume is an invaluable addition to courses in Latin American studies and political science.