back in print the chilling true story of an innocent woman stoned to death for adultery in iran soraya m s husband ghorban-ali couldn t afford to marry another woman rather than returning soraya s dowry as custom required before taking a second wife he plotted with four friends and a counterfeit mullah to dispose of her together they accused soraya of adultery her only crime was cooking for a friend s widowed husband exhausted by a lifetime of abuse and hardship soraya said nothing and the makeshift tribunal took her silence as a confession of guilt they sentenced her to death by stoning a punishment prohibited by islam but widely practiced day by day sometimes minute by minute sahebjam deftly recounts these horrendous events tracing soraya s life with searing immediacy from her arranged marriage and the births of her nine children to her husband s increasing cruelty and her horrifying execution where by tradition her father husband and sons hurled the first stones this is one woman s
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in the tradition of cinema paradiso comes a warm tender and richly nostalgic look at growing up in a remote village in a postwar italy on the brink of modernity mario valentini was born in the rugged abruzzo mountains in the heart of italy but with money short at home and his father working in a foreign land at four years old he was sent to live with his uncle a traveling priest thus began a life of unexpected freedoms and marvelous adventures for the mischievous boy who loved nothing so much as swordplay and american chewing gum every new town meant new friends and getting into trouble was as easy as shooting his slingshot from confronting a hungry wolf at dusk to drinking in the fumes in an empty wine barrel every anecdote sparkles with his exuberance for life as he grows he gleans lessons from unexpected sources a curmudgeonly painter a communist reputed to eat priests for dinner even the caustic spinster aunt who keeps house for his uncle full of humor and affection and infused wit
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gripping thriller the nazi hunter mixes fierce partisan washington politics the search for ex-nazi criminals and a crazed right-wing militia intent on bringing down the government nicknamed the nazi hunter marek cain deputy director of the office of special investigations at the justice department has for ten years been the point man for tracking down ex-nazis who have fraudulently entered this country since world war ii and bringing them to justice one late afternoon a distraught german woman eludes security and slips into cain s office i have documents she says important documents only for the nazi hunter she promises to bring them the next day when she doesn t show he dismisses her as just another crackpot but when he reads in the washington post the next morning that the woman has been brutally murdered he senses he s on to something big he must find those documents the trail leads from washington to miami to boston back to the belzec concentration camp in poland where half a
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a thrilling compelling novel about the gravitational pull of love and money gripping readable and shimmering with glamorous details this is a story that takes up where the great gatsby left off susan cheever isabel was able to remember the precise moment when she tried to kill her husband strangely enough she couldn t recollect why thus begins the powerful tale of beautiful isabel a successful young executive who at age 27 is the head of a publishing house a woman of taste and discernment endowed with enviable wit and a razor-sharp mind when isabel meets james a highly talented writer known for his heavy drinking laziness and the outrageous habit of taking advantage of every woman he meets she falls head over heels for him breaking his past pattern however james also falls for isabel and they decide to marry however improbable a couple they confound their family and friends becoming an ideal match as much in love with each other as they are devoted to their son the question is wha
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rom the bestselling author of the last emperor comes this rip-roaring history of the government s attempt to end america s love affair with liquor which failed miserably on january 16 1920 america went dry for the next thirteen years the eighteenth amendment prohibited the making selling or transportation of intoxicating liquors heralding a new era of crime and corruption on all levels of society instead of eliminating alcohol prohibition spurred more drinking than ever before formerly law-abiding citizens brewed moonshine became rumrunners and frequented speakeasies druggists who could dispense medicinal quantities of alcohol found their customer base exploding overnight so many people from all walks of life defied the ban that will rogers famously quipped prohibition is better than no liquor at all here is the full rollicking story of those tumultuous days from the flappers of the jazz age and the beautiful and the damned who drank their lives away in smoky speakeasies to boo
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rom the acclaimed author of the nobel prize comes this fascinating portrait of four of the greatest minds in the history of science in 1944 albert einstein invited three close friends titans of contemporary science and thought to his home at 112 mercer street in princeton new jersey to discuss science politics and current events these three men were the legendary philosopher bertrand russell the great physicist wolfgang pauli and the groundbreaking logician kurt gödel taking these historic meetings as his starting point feldman offers a highly original examination of four colossal personalities as friends colleagues and rivals especially the self-confident einstein and the aristocratic russell masterfully researched this accessible book illuminates the lives of these great men and gives us their feelings about the world of science which stood poised to outrun them and their fears about the dawn of the atomic age that would soon change the world f marketing publicity local author publi
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now back in print a stunning tale of a young boy and an ancient land each awakening to the joys and horrors of the modern world masterful in its simplicity chronicle in stone is a touching coming-of-age story and a testament to the perseverance of the human spirit surrounded by the magic of beautiful women and literature a boy must endure the deprivations of war as he suffers the hardships of growing up his sleepy country has just thrown off centuries of tyranny but new waves of domination inundate his city through the boy s eyes we see the terrors of world war ii as he witnesses fascist invasions allied bombings partisan infighting and the many faces of human cruelty as well as the simple pleasures of life evacuating to the countryside he expects to find an ideal world full of extraordinary things but discovers instead an archaic backwater where a severed arm becomes a talisman and deflowered girls mysteriously vanish woven between the chapters of the boy s story are tantalizing fragm
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the definitive new biography of the author of the legend of sleepy hollow and rip van winkle quintessential new yorker presidential confidant diplomat lawyer and endlessly fascinating charmer the first american writer to make his pen his primary means of support washington irving rocketed to fame at the age of 26 in 1809 he published a history of new york under the pseudonym diedrich knickerbocker to great acclaim the public s appetite for all things irving was insatiable his name alone guaranteed sales at the time he was one of the most famous men in the world a friend of dickens hawthorne and longfellow as well as astor van buren and madison but his sparkling public persona was only one side of this gentleman author in brilliant meticulous strokes brian jay jones renders washington irving in all his flawed splendor someone who fretted about money and employment suffered from writer s block and doggedly cultivated his reputation jones offers as never before a very human portrait o
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isturbing poignant and humorous this is the gut-wrenching account of one teacher s turbulent first year in the bronx at 22 dan brown came to p.s 85 as an eager fresh-faced teacher he was even assigned his own class 4-217 unbeknownst to him 4-217 was the designated dumping ground for all fourth-grade problem cases and his students would prove to be more challenging than he could ever anticipate intent on being a caring dedicated teacher but confronted with unruly children absent parents and a failing administration dan was pushed to the limit time and again he found himself screaming with rage punching his fist through a blackboard out of sheer frustration often just wanting to give up and walk away yet in this seeming chaos he slowly learned from the more seasoned teachers at the school and from his own mistakes to discipline teach and make a difference the great expectations school is the touching story of class 4-217 and their teacher mr brown but more than that it is the revealing
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to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his death here is the highly acclaimed intimate tender and deeply moving portrait of elvis presley written by his first serious girlfriend june juanico was 17 when she met elvis presley he was 20 she was a good girl from biloxi mississippi he was a rockabilly singer on the verge of stardom they fell in love in the summer of 1956 and found a timeless moment of innocence and simple pleasure juanico gives us the elvis she knew and loved the memphis boy with aw-shucks charm impeccable manners and an easy and irresistible sensuality their lives merged quickly and completely elvis s mother gladys felt june was her son s last hope against the excesses of life on the road and the corruption of fame but elvis was on a train that no one could stop self-possessed june chose her own path she left elvis determined never to look back but in this completely disarming fascinating memoir she does look back and proves she has remembered everything every conversatio
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wonderful portrait of miller in his heyday full of beans and braggadocio overflowing with the lust to live and write erica jong a his years in paris 193039 were the making of henry miller he arrived with no money no fixed address and no prospects he left as the renowned if not notorious author of tropic of cancer and tropic of capricorn miller didn t just live in paris he devoured it it was a world he shared with brassaï whose work first collected in paris by night established him as one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century and the most exquisite and perceptive chronicler of parisian vice in miller brassaï found his most compelling subject henry miller the paris years is an intimate account of a writer s self-discovery seen through the unblinking eye of a master photographer brassaï delves into miller s relationships with anaïs nin and lawrence durrell as well as his hopelessly tangled though wildly inspiring marriage to june most of all brassaï evokes their shared pa
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