Higher Worlds

From Shanghai before and during the Second World War to US occupied Tokyo, and, finally, to the Middle East in the early 1970s, Ian Buruma's masterful novel about the intoxicating power of collective fantasy follows three star-struck men driven to extraordinary acts by their devotion to the same legendary woman. A beautiful Japanese girl born in Manchuria, Yamaguchi Yoshiko is known as Ri Koran in Japan, Li Xianglan in China, and Shirley Yamaguchi in the US, and her past is a closely guarded secret.

Historian Annie Gray takes us down the street and through the ages, from medieval marketplaces to the purpose-built concrete precincts of the 20th century. Peeping through the windows of tailors, tearooms and grocers, we explore everything from the toyshops of yesteryear - where curiosities were sold for adults, not children - to the birth of brands we shop at today.

Predating written language and marching on through human history, the desire for ever-better timekeeping has spurred technological innovation and sparked theories that radically reshaped our understanding of the universe and our place in it.

In this expansive, rich, and deeply tragic portrait of a German family from 1899 to 1945, Len Deighton brilliantly weaves a portrait of the fortunes of two sons, and a nation, over half a century.

After 14 years in a seemingly ordinary marriage, this soon-to-be hotwife finds out her husband is far kinkier than she ever expected. When my friend gifts me a weekend at a freeuse resort, I know my husband won't be interested. But that doesn't mean I can't have some fun with him at home. I offer myself to him for whatever depraved fantasy he craves, and he shocks me when he wants to go to the resort... to watch me with other men. I'm not sure what awaits us, but I'm taking my one chance to experience all the mindless pleasure the resort offers. I'm ready to relinquish control and become an...

“Konkol has a gift for vivid descriptive language, drawing the reader quickly and readily into the heart of the story... it adds to the book's dramatic tension and emotional force.” –IndieReader Still reeling from Plaguebringer's assault, the city of Derregain struggles to survive a supernaturally harsh winter. Without access to their farms or fishing fleets, the city turns to the vast mushroom fields lying beneath its sewers, but those fields are defended. While the heroes embark on dangerous missions beneath the streets, the city above teeters on the edge of civil war. Impoverished ...

Now betrayed by the Emperor he once protected, master swordsman Saukendar leaves the way of the sword behind him forever - so he thinks. When a headstrong peasant girl burning to avenge her murdered family demands that he train her, Saukendar is faced with a momentous choice. Send Taizu away, never see her again - or join her and destroy the tyrant who has nearly destroyed them both.

Harmony can be hard to achieve. As the spell inside Elaria begins to burn out, taking her with it, she becomes desperate to find the third lover the spell needs to fuel itself. But love isn't the only thing eluding her. Someone is setting monsters loose on Earth, and even her spellsinging seems to be failing her. Can she stop the attacks before the spell stops her heart? Playlists for every book in the Spellsinger Series can be found on Spotify under Amy Sumida, or by searching for the book title.

In two-time O. Henry-prize winner Swamy's debut collection of stories, dreams collide with reality, modernity collides with antiquity, myth with true identity, and women grapple with desire, with ego, with motherhood and mortality.

Not since Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan has a fiction writer explored with such powerful intensity the experience of being Asian American. The characters who inhabit this extraordinary fictional debut are caught between the burden of their past history and the fragility of their unchartered future. Hunger illuminates how first-generation immigrants from China, culturally and emotionally uprooted from their homeland, mistrust connection even as they hunger for attachment - and how the past affects and shapes their children.

Mengele describes the international search for the Nazi doctor in 1985 that ended in a cemetery in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the dogged forensic investigation that produced overwhelming evidence that Mengele had died - but failed to convince those who, arguably, most wanted him dead. This is the riveting story of science without limits, escape without freedom, and resolution without justice.

Sixteenth-century Europe was a time of destabilization of age-old norms and the waging of religious wars - yet it also witnessed the remarkable flowering of a pacific culture cultivated by a cohort of extraordinary women rulers who sat on Europe's thrones, most notably Mary Tudor; Elizabeth I; Mary, Queen of Scots; and Catherine de' Medici.

Society and democracy are ever threatened by the fall of fact. Rigorous analysis of facts, the hard boundary between truth and opinion, and fidelity to reputable sources of factual information are all in alarming decline. A 2018 report published by the RAND Corporation labeled this problem "truth decay", and Andrew J. Hoffman lays the challenge of fixing it at the door of the academy. But, as he points out, academia is prevented from carrying this out due to its own existential crisis - a crisis of relevance.

Pakistan's pathway to developing nuclear weapons remains shrouded in mystery and surrounded by misconceptions. While it is no secret why Pakistan became a nuclear power, how Pakistan became a nuclear state has been obscured by mythmaking. In Pakistan's Pathway to the Bomb, Mansoor Ahmed offers a revisionist history of Pakistan's nuclear program and the bureaucratic politics that shaped its development from its inception in 1956 until the 1998 nuclear tests.

In today’s fast-paced and competitive business environment, simply meeting customer expectations is no longer sufficient. To truly stand out and drive Sustainable growth, your goal must be to turn satisfied customers into passionate Positive Activists for your brand. This transformation requires a strategic approach that goes beyond the traditional sales methods. Satisfaction Selling: How to Become a Trusted Advisor in High-Value Complex Sales and Build a Movement of Positive Activists is your comprehensive guide to achieving this transformation. This book introduces The Satisfaction ...

Eminent China scholar Elizabeth C. Economy provides an incisive look at the transformative changes underway in China today. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has unleashed a powerful set of political and economic reforms: the centralization of power under Xi himself; the expansion of the Communist Party's role in Chinese political, social, and economic life; and the construction of a virtual wall of regulations to control more closely the exchange of ideas and capital between China and the outside world.

The Sacred History is an account of the workings of the supernatural in history. It tells the epic story of angels, from Creation to Evolution and through to the operations of the supernatural in the modern world. This tale of how people and peoples have been helped by angels and other angelic beings is woven into a spellbinding narrative that brings together Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Elijah, Mary and Jesus, Mohammed, Joan of Arc, the angels who helped Hungarian Jews persecuted by the Nazis, and stories from African, Native American, and Celtic traditions.

The world is at war. General Maltarka continues to battle for dominance among her own people, as she prepares to change direction. Fred and his allies brace for the General's attack, and Heiress Mari must purge a traitor from her domain. Will the Brall Empire be able to withstand the Brish invasion? Find out in this action-packed 3rd part of The Brall Empire: +Fred! Part 3

Horace Everett Hooper - a volatile, self-assured, impulsive, and optimistic American, an autodidact and natural-born salesman - got into the book business at age 16, moved to the Western frontier and on to Chicago, and became hugely successful. With a brilliant adman named Henry Haxton as his partner, he went about buying publishing rights to the Encyclopedia Britannica, a work incredibly distinguished by entries from Charles Darwin, Thomas Malthus, Sir Walter Scott, and more.

The Mystic Heart chronicled Brother Wayne Teasdale's journey into a multifaceted spirituality blending his traditional Catholic training and the Eastern way of sannyasa (Indian monkhood). A Monk in the World tells what the journey has meant for him - living as a monk outside the monastery, integrating teachings from the world's religions with his own Catholic training, combining his vigorous spiritual practice with the necessities of making a living, and pursuing a course of social justice in a major American city.