THE PATRON SAINT OF BUTTERFLIES by Cecilia Galante (Bloomsbury)
Finished copies have arrived
We finally have finished copies of the young adult book that has been generating so much buzz!
Agnes and Honey have always been different, but the older they get, the more they are growing apart. Agnes thinks life at the Mount Blessing religious commune is just perfect, and longs to become a saint when she dies. Honey, on the other hand, hates the strict and oppressive environment at the commune and its controlling and manipulative leader, Emmanuel. But when a terrible accident happens, forcing the girls to flee the commune with Agnes’s grandmother, the girls begin to learn just how hard life on the “outside” can be. During their journey from the commune and towards what Honey hopes will be a normal life, the girls test the bonds of their lifelong friendship, and try to understand what love, faith and friendship really means.
About the Author
McMAFIA: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
ISBN 978-1-4000-4411-5 (1-4000-4411-1)
400 Pages Hard Cover
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the deregulation of international financial markets in 1989, governments and entrepreneurs alike became intoxicated by forecasts of limitless expansion into newly open markets. No one would foresee that the greatest success story to arise from these events would be the globalization of organized crime. Current estimates suggest that illegal trade accounts for nearly one-fifth of global GDP.
McMafia is a fearless, encompassing, wholly authoritative investigation of the now proven ability of organized crime worldwide to find and service markets driven by a seemingly insatiable demand for illegal wares. Whether discussing the Russian mafia, Colombian drug cartels, or Chinese labor smugglers, Misha Glenny makes clear how organized crime feeds off the poverty of the developing world, how it exploits new technology in the forms of cybercrime and identity theft, and how both global crime and terror are fueled by an identical source: the triumphant material affluence of the West.
To trace the disparate strands of this hydra-like story, Glenny talked to police, victims, politicians, and members of the global underworld in eastern Europe, North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, China, Japan, and India. The story of organized crime’s phenomenal, often shocking growth is truly the central political story of our time. McMafia will change the way we look at the world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Misha Glenny was educated at Bristol University in England and Charles University in Prague. He is also the author of The Rebirth of History, The Fall of Yugoslavia (which won the Overseas Press Club Award in 1993 for Best Book on Foreign Affairs), and The Balkans, 1804–1999. During the early 1990s he was the central Europe correspondent for the BBC World Service, and in 1993 he won a Sony Award for his coverage of Yugoslavia. He has contributed to most major U.S. and European newspapers and current affairs magazines and is regularly consulted by U.S. and European governments on Balkan issues. Misha Glenny lives in London
LOST SOULS (迷失的灵魂)
ISBN 075821183X
432 pages Trade Paperback
出版日期: 2008 / 3 / 25 審閱資料: 樣書
紐約時報暢銷作家Lisa Jackson 2008新作
The Doubleday Book Club & Rhapsody Book Club
讀書俱樂部評為首選好書
首印量300,000本
Kristi Bentz正在撰寫『真實犯罪』的相關書籍，她所需要的是找到一件大案子來使她成名。終於，在她回母校繼續完成學業，得知四名女子離奇失蹤的消息，當屍體找到時，全身血液已被抽乾，而謠傳四起這一切都是吸血鬼作祟。
Kristi Bentz不顧一切，堅持調查女子遇害的案件，卻發現原來母校有個邪教崇拜的秘密團體。為了寫作，她必須加入這個異教派來深入挖掘事實，沒想到卻不可自拔迷失的愈陷愈深。Kristi是否又是下一個膜拜儀式下的犧牲者 ??
Twenty-seven-year-old Kristi Bentz is lucky to be alive. Not many people her age have nearly died twice at the hands of a serial killer, and lived to tell about it.
Her dad, New Orleans detective, Rick Bentz, wants Kristi to stay in New Orleans and out of danger. But if anything, Kristi’s experiences have made her even more fascinated by the mind of the serial killer. She hasn’t given up her dream of being a true-crime writer–of exploring the darkest recesses of evil–and now she just may bet her chance.
Three girls have disappeared at All Saints College in less than two years. All three were “lost souls”–troubled, vulnerable girls with no one to care about them, no one to come looking if they disappeared. The police think they’re runaways, but Kristi senses there’s something that links them, something terrifying.
She decides to enroll, following their same steps. All Saints has changed a lot since Kristi was an undergraduate. The stodgy Catholic university has lured edgy new professor to its campus and gained a reputation for envelope-pushing, with classes like the very popular “The Influence of Vampirism in English Literature” and elaborately staged morality plays that feel more like the titillating entertainment of some underground club than religious spectacles. And there are whispers of a dark cult on campus whose members wear vials of blood around their necks and meet in secret chambers–rituals to which only the elite have access.
To find the truth, Kristi will need to become part of the cult’s inner circle, to learn their secrets, and play the part of the lost soul without losing herself in the process. It’s a dangerous path, and Kristi is skating on it’s knife-thin edge. The deeper she goes, the more Kristi begins to wonder if she is the hunter or the prey. She’s certain she’s being watched and followed–studied, even–as yet another girl disappears, and another. And when the bodies finally begin to surface–in ways that bring fear to the campus and terror to the hearts of even hardened cops like Detective Bentz and his partner Reuben Montoya–Kristi realizes with chilling clarity that she has underestimated her foe. She is playing a game with a killer more cunning and blood-thirsty than anyone can imagine, one who has personally selected her for membership in a cult of death from which there will be no escape.
FALL 2008
ABOUT THE BOOK
Bill Gates argued in his major speech of the year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that many of the world’s problems are too big for private philanthropy — even on the scale of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - -and the solutions must come from free-market capitalism itself. He called it “creative capitalism.”
Gates and several othe rgiants of global business will engage this argument in a defining, groundbreaking book that will be edited by Michael Kinsley and published in late Fall 2008 in time for the Annual World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2009.
Kinsley has reached out to three others to join this elite group — Warren Buffet, Larry Summers and laura Tyson — all of whom are pleased to contribute. In addition, Buffett will be interviewed with Bill Gates on the subject for a Q & A that will appear in the book.
Other contributors will be announced soon.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Michael Kinsley is a distinguished political journalist, commentator, and television host. Representing the liberal position, he became known to television audiences as a co-host with conservative Pat Buchanan on the political debate show “Crossfire.” He is the founding editor of the online journal Slate and was named “Editor of the Year” by the Columbia Journalism Review in 1999. He is the former editorial and opinion editor for the Los Angeles Times and wrote a weekly column that appeared in the Washington Post. Kinsley currently is a regular columnist for Time magazine.
He is the author of PLEASE DON’T REMAIN CALM: Provocations and Commentaries.
Available Rights
√ Traditional Chinese 繁體中文
√ Simplified Chinese 简体中文
Newest 2008 Title ~~ March 2008 by Simon & Schuster
HUMAN SMOKE: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
ISBN 1416567844 / 978-1416567844
576 pages Hardcover
Bestselling author Nicholson Baker, recognized as one of the most dexterous and talented writers in America today, has created a compelling work of nonfiction bound to provoke discussion and controversy — a wide-ranging, astonishingly fresh perspective on the political and social landscape that gave rise to World War II.
Human Smoke delivers a closely textured, deeply moving indictment of the treasured myths that have romanticized much of the 1930s and ’40s. Incorporating meticulous research and well-documented sources — including newspaper and magazine articles, radio speeches, memoirs, and diaries — the book juxtaposes hundreds of interrelated moments of decision, brutality, suffering, and mercy. Vivid glimpses of political leaders and their dissenters illuminate and examine the gradual, horrifying advance toward overt global war and Holocaust.
Praised by critics and readers alike for his exquisitely observant eye and deft, inimitable prose, Baker has assembled a narrative within Human Smoke that unfolds gracefully, tragically, and persuasively. This is an unforgettable book that makes a profound impact on our perceptions of historical events and mourns the unthinkable loss humanity has borne at its own hand.
Book Description
At a time when the West seems ever more eager to call on military aggression as a means of securing international peace, Nicholson Baker’s provocative narrative exploring the political misjudgements and personal biases that gave birth to the terrifying consequences of the Second World War could not be more pertinent. With original and controversial insights brought about by meticulous research, Human Smoke re-evaluates the political turning points that led up to war and in so doing challenges some of the treasured myths we hold about how war came about and how atrocities like the Holocaust were able to happen. Baker reminds us, for instance, not to forget that it was thanks in great part to Churchill and England that Mussolini ascended to power so quickly, and that, before leading the United States against Nazi Germany, a young FDR spent much of his time lobbying for a restriction in the number of Jews admitted to Harvard. Conversely, Human Smoke also reminds us of those who had the foresight to anticipate the coming blookdshed and the courage to oppose the tide of history, as Gandhi demonstrated when he made his symbolic walk to the ocean — for which he was immediately imprisoned by the British.
Click HERE to see copy of the interview with Amazon.com.
Review
“Absolutely fascinating, engrossing. I can’t imagine anyone, no matter how knowledgeable about the period, who won’t be astonished and moved while reading Human Smoke.” — Daniel Ellsberg, author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
“This quite extraordinary book — impossible to put down, impossible to forget — may be the most compelling argument for peace ever assembled. Nicholson Baker displays in astonishing, fascinating detail mankind’s unstoppable descent into the madness of war — slowed only occasionally, but then invariably most movingly, by the still, small voices of the sane and the wise.” — Simon Winchester, author of The Man Who Loved China and The Professor and the Madman
“In Human Smoke, Nicholson Baker turns his unrivaled literary talents to pacifism. His portraits of Churchill’s imperial arrogance, Franklin Roosevelt’s anti-Semitism, the machinations of the arms merchants, the Germans’ death wish, and the efforts of pacifists are unforgettable. Baker’s book is truly original.” — Chalmers Johnson, president and cofounder of the Japan Policy Research Institute and author of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic
“Nicholson Baker movingly pierces the lies, hopes, fears, and myths we so easily imbibe on the road to war — painful reminders that what has happened in the past can happen again and again and again until we shake loose and react.” — Gar Alperovitz, Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy, University of Maryland, and author of The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb
BLOOD KIN
Ceridwen Dovey
‘A lovely, haunting novel, written with great care and precision. Working on the level of allegory, with a careful consideration of history and myth, Ceriden Dovey has fashioned a really fine debut.’ Colum McCann ‘Exceptional… An icy, elegant, study of power, and its horribly fascinating perversions’ Christopher Hope This stunning debut novel heralds the arrival of Ceridwen Dovey as a major new literary talent.
A chef, a portraitist and a barber are taken hostage in a coup to overthrow their boss, the President. They are held captive in the President’s Residence in the mountains high above the capital city. Far below them, chaos tears through the streets. The chef’s daughter, the portraitist’s wife and the barber’s lover watch their men from the shadows. In such precarious times, intimate relationships are as dangerous as political ones. As the old order falls, so does the veil that hides the truth about these men and women’s secret passions.
Drawing her readers masterfully towards the novel’s devastating climax, Ceridwen Dovey reveals how humanity’s most atavistic impulses – vanity, vengeance and greed – seethe relentlessly, just beneath the carapace of civilization.
CERIDWEN DOVEY is a writer, film maker and anthropologist. She was born and raised in South Africa, and attended high school in Australia and university in America at Harvard. She is currently completing her PhD at New York University. She is 26 years old.
ON DEEP HISTORY AND THE BRAIN
By Daniel Lord Smail
Alexander Star, Senior Editor of The New York Times Magazine, recently reviewed the book ON DEEP HISTORY AND THE BRAIN by Daniel Lord Smail on the magazine’s Sundy Book Review on March 16, 2008.
“A historian looks at human evolution and cultural advances through the lens of mood-altering substances.”
For the full article, please go to http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/books/review/Star-t.html?ex=1363233600&en=ac4a6138a0260fa1&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Idina Sackville - the woman who scandalised 1920s Society and became White Mischief’s famous seductress.
Inspiration for Nancy Mitford’s character THE BOLTER, played by Garbo in A Woman of Affairs, painted by Sir William Orpen, a muse to the fashion designer Molyneux and photographed by Cecil Beaton, Idina Sackville went on to divorce a total of five times, yet died with a photograph of her first love by her bed.
Even thirty years after her death, Sackville’s life was so scandalous that it was kept a secret from her great-granddaughter. Her struggle to reinvent her life with each new marriage left her with one husband murdered, and branded her the ‘high priestess’ of White Mischief’s bed-hopping Happy Valley in Kenya. She became renowned for her powers as a seductress and was rumoured to have had ‘lovers without number’.
Frances Osborne draws on family letters and diaries to explore the moving tale of betrayal and heartbreak behind her great grandmother’s road to scandal and return, painting a dazzling portrait of high society in the early twentieth century.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
BROTHER, I’M DYING by EDWIDGE DANTICAT
BIOGRAPHY:
STANLEY: THE IMPOSSIBLE LIFE OF AFRICA’S GREATEST EXPLORER by TIM JEAL
CRITICISM:
THE REST IS NOISE: LISTENING TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by ALEX ROSS
Armenian-American novelist M.T. Mustian’s THE GENDARME, described as “The Madonnas of Leningrad” meets “The Bastard of Istanbul,” an epic novel about a 92 year old Turkish-American man suffering from dementia, who suddenly starts having vivid dreams about his role in the Armenian genocide of 1915, and of the young Armenian woman he fell in love with and spared — and how he sets out in secret to find her to beg her forgiveness, to Amy Einhorn in an exclusive six-figure preempt for Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, by Scott Mendel at the Mendel Media Group (world English).