Sat, 08 Jan 2011 23:22:49 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/forgotten-160-114311.html We meet Donna Juliana, a devout Catholic of Portuguese descent, whose influence in the court of the Mughal prince Shah Alam—later Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar I—was so strong, that the Dutch, Portuguese and the British frequently sought her help to get an audience with the ruler. Similarly, the poetry of the beautiful court poet, singer, song writer and warrior Mahlaqa Bai Chanda was largely ignored by critics for nearly two centuries after her death. At a time when few women could read and write, Mahlaqa received an elaborate education, compiling her first collection of poetry when legendary Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib was just a year old. The author also draws vivid portraits of Chand Sultana, the Ismaili Muslim warrior-princess who defended Ahmadnagar against the Mughal forces of Emperor Akbar, and of two queens of the Deccan, Rudramma Devi and Hayat Bakshi Begum, who exemplified the ability of women rulers to govern well. The author also remembers Radha Bai, a courageous Brahmin child-widow whose lifelong search to call someone her own touched all those she encountered.

Author: BILKEES LATIF  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/way-beyond-the-three-r-s-160-114323.html The education of their children is of paramount importance to all Indian parents. They spend tens of thousands of crores each year to get their young educated. The country fetes its successful students: from Class X board toppers and those who ‘crack the IIT JEE’ to those who clear the civil-services examination. Yet things on the ground are dire. About 70 per cent of all students (in villages, towns and cities) have to make do with inferior schooling. Metropolitan newspapers are full of the difficulty of getting a nursery seat in a good school. And while there is a seat crunch in the better colleges too, only 10 per cent of all students between the ages of 18 and 21 are enrolled in college. Crores of educated India discover too late that they do not have the skills to land a suitable job. Y. S. Rajan examines the gamut of issues involved in India’s efforts to educate its young people and the work required to fix schools, vocational training centres, colleges and universities. He argues that Indian education needs reforms on a scale comparable to those which freed the economy of the shackles of the licence-permit raj almost twenty years ago.

Author: Y S RAJAN  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/kasab-:-the-face-of-26-11-160-114325.html On 26 November 2008 ten heavily armed terrorists entered Mumbai. They headed for the city’s iconic landmarks and the mayhem they unleashed lasted nearly 60 hours. The audacious terror attacks jolted Mumbai like never before. Even as they mourned, the residents of Maximum City demanded answers. But the information they got in return—accounts of the investigation, government rhetoric, newspaper reports, television features, books and even a film—was sketchy at best. Meanwhile, the courts continued with their prosecution of Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving 26/11 gunman. The broad picture available to the public is of the Pakistan-based terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba and its ringleaders such as Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi training, arming and dispatching ten young men in a boat to attack India’s commercial capital. All we have been told about Kasab is that he was just another recruit brainwashed into carrying out the plot against Mumbai. Kasab: The Face of 26/11 breaks new ground by painstakingly piecing together Kasab’s terror trail. The narrative follows Kasab through the bylanes of Pakistani villages and cities as he made his way towards PoK; the dense forests where the terrorist-training camps are situated; the trains, buses and jeeps he boarded; the Indian vessel he and the others hijacked en route to Mumbai’s shores; Kasab’s capture and incarceration. Rommel Rodrigues’ path-breaking investigative journalism fleshes out for the first time the well thought-out planning and organization that lay behind the attacks of 26/11.

Author: ROMMEL RODRIGUEZ  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-tell-tale-brain-160-114509.html • A patient in San Francisco becomes progressively demented, yet starts creating paintings that are hauntingly beautiful. Has his brain damage somehow unleashed a hidden talent? Is there a Picasso, a Mozart, and a Ramanujan in all of us? • ‘Who is this woman in the mirror who is always following me?’ asks a woman whenever she sees her reflection in the mirror. Like vampires, she is terrified of mirrors. Why? • Whenever Shirley looks at a number she sees it tinged with a particular colour; 5 is red, 2 is green, etc. This condition—called synesthesia—is eight times more common in artists, poets, and novelists suggesting that it may be linked to creativity in some mysterious way. The brain remains a mystery to us. How can a three pound mass of jelly that we can hold in our palm imagine angels, contemplate the meaning of infinity, and even question its own place in the cosmos? How can one study such a mystery? Eminent neuroscientist Professor V.S. Ramachandran takes us on a fascinating journey into the human brain, studying patients who exhibit bizarre symptoms, and using them to understand the functions of the normal brain. Along the way he asks big questions: How did abstract thinking evolve? What is art? Why do we laugh? How are these hardwired in the neural mechanisms of the human brain, and why did they evolve? Brilliant, lucid, and utterly compelling, The Tell-Tale Brain is a pathbreaking book from one of the leading neuroscientists today.

Author: V.S RAMCHANDRAN  Publisher: Random House]]> Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/about-to-die-how-news-images-move-the-public-160-114381.html Through a survey of photo-journalism history and close analysis of over fifty powerful photographs, she provides a critical framework and vocabulary for negotiating this profound domain of culture.

Author: Barbie Zelizer  Publisher: OUP]]> Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-oxford-handbook-of-linguistic-typology-160-114385.html This book provides a critical state-of-the-art overview of work in linguistic typology. It examines the directions and challenges of current research and shows how these reflect and inform work on the development of linguistic theory.

Author: Edited by Jae Jung Song]]> Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/a-world-without-islam-160-114477.html What if Islam never existed? To some, it s a comforting thought: no clash of civilizations, no holy wars, no terrorists. But what if that weren t the case at all? In A World without Islam, Graham E. Fuller guides us along an illuminating journey through history, geopolitics, and religion to investigate whether or not Islam is indeed the cause of some of today s most emotional and important international crises. Fuller takes us from the birth of Islam to the fall of Rome to the rise and collapse of the Ottoman Empire. He examines and analyzes the roots of terrorism, the conflict in Israel, and the role of Islam in supporting and energizing the anti-imperial struggle. Provocatively, he finds that contrary to the claims of many politicians, thinkers, theologians, and soldiers, a world without Islam might not look vastly different from what we know today. Filled with fascinating details and counterintuitive conclusions, A World Without Islam is certain to inspire debate and reshape the way we think about Islam s relationship with the West.

Author: FULLER, GRAHAM E.  Publisher: HACHETTE GROUP]]> Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/aristocracy:-a-very-short-introduction-160-114384.html Aristocracies or nobilities dominated the social, economic, and institutional history of all European counties until only a few generations ago. The relics of their power, in traditions and behavior, in architecture and the arts, are still all around us. This engaging Very Short Introduction shows how ideas of aristocracy originated in ancient times, were transformed in the middle ages, and have only fallen apart over the last two centuries, following the outbreak of the American and French Revolutions. William Doyle, an authority on eighteen-century European history, here strips away the myths in which aristocracies have always sought to shroud themselves, but he also astutely delineates the true sources of their enduring power. Their outlook and behavior affected the rest of society in innumerable and sometimes surprising ways, but perhaps most surprising was the way in which the centuries-old aristocratic hegemony crumbled away. In this Very Short Introduction William Doyle considers why this happened and what is left today.

Author: William Doyle]]> Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/sahib-s-who-loved-india-160-114332.html Thus we both were tied to India with every possible bond of memory and affection, which clearly played an important part in our lives…as the last Viceroy and indeed when I stayed on as the first Governor-General of the independent country of India.’—Lord Mountbatten From Lord Mountbatten to Peggy Holroyde to Maurice and Taya Zinkin, Britishers who lived and worked in India reminisce about topics and points of interest as varied as the Indian Civil Service and the Roshanara Club, shikar and hazri, the Amateur Cine Society of India and the Doon School, Rudyard Kipling and Mahatma Gandhi. Selected from a series of articles commissioned by Khushwant Singh when he was the editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India these delightfully individualistic and refreshingly candid writings reveal a fascinating array of British attitudes, experiences, observations, fond memories, the occasional short-lived grouses and, above all, a deep and abiding affection and respect for India.

Author: KUSHWANT SINGH  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Sun, 05 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-buddha-and-dr-fuhrer-160-114327.html Set against the background of the British Raj, this is the true story of the scandal that surrounded the discovery in 1898 of an inscribed casket said to contain the ashes of the Buddha. A British landowner, William Claxton Peppé, had excavated a large brick stupa on his estate close to India’s border with Nepal. Twenty-four feet under the earth he found a stone coffer containing a number of reliquary vases together with jewels and gold offerings. This discovery was followed by the opening of the Piprahwa stupa near the birthplace of the Buddha, Lumbini, and the legendary city of Kapilavastu where he had grown into manhood as Prince Siddhartha. But more importantly, an inscription had been discovered on top of one of the caskets, declaring it to contain the ashes of the Buddha left there by members of his own Sakya clan. This news aroused worldwide interest. Almost immediately, however, a British magistrate, who himself had a stake in the excavation, exposed the discovery in court, stating that a German archaeologist, Dr Anton Führer, who had been associated with the dig, had made bogus claims and faked his results. Renowned Indian expert Charles Allen tells this fascinating story, weaving in the results of a conference held at Harewood House in June 2006 on the Piprahwa dig with those of recent carbon dating.

Author: CHARLES ALLEN  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Sun, 05 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/how-much-should-a-person-consume-:-thinking-through-the-environment-160-114300.html Based on research conducted over two decades, this accessible and deeply felt book provides a provocative comparative history of environmentalism in two large ecologically and culturally diverse democracies India and the United States. Ramachandra Guha takes as his point of departure the dominant environmental philosophies in these two countries identified as agrarianism in India and wilderness thinking in the United States. Proposing an inclusive social ecology framework that goes beyond these partisan ideologies, Guha arrives at a richer understanding of controversies over large dams, state forests, wildlife reserves, and more. He offers trenchant critiques of privileged and isolationist proponents of conservation, persuasively arguing for biospheres that care as much for humans as for other species. He also provides profiles of three remarkable environmental thinkers and activists Lewis Mumford, Chandi Prasad Bhatt, and Madhav Gadgil. Finally, the author asks the fundamental environmental question how much should a person or country consume? and explores a range of answers.

Author: RAMCHANDRA GUHA  Publisher: HACHETTE INDIA]]> Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/delhi-:-adventures-in-a-megacity-160-114294.html In this extraordinary portrait of one of the world s largest cities, Sam Miller sets out to discover the real Delhi, a city he describes as being India s dreamtown and its purgatory . He treads the city s streets, including its less celebrated destinations Nehru Place, Pitampura and Gurgaon places most writers ignore. His encounters with Delhi s people, from ragpickers to members of the Police Brass Band, create a richly entertaining portrait of what the city is and what it is becoming. Miller is, like so many of the people he meets, a migrant in one of the world s fastest growing megapolises and the Delhi he depicts is one whose future concerns us all. Miller possesses an intense curiosity; he has an infallible eye for life s diversities, for all the marvellous and sublime moments that illuminate people s lives. This is a generous, original, humorous portrait of a great city; one which unerringly locates the humanity beneath the mundane, the unsung and the unfamiliar. About the Author Sam Miller was born in London in 1962. He studied history at Cambridge University and politics at London University s School of Oriental and African Studies, before joining BBC s World Service TV. In the early nineties he was the World Service TV and radio correspondent in Delhi and on his return to the UK in 1993 was the presenter and editor of the BBC s current affairs programme South Asia Report. Later he became the head of the Urdu service and subsequently Managing Editor, South Asia.He returned to Delhi in 2002, and has remained there ever since. He works as a TV commentator, journalist and book reviewer for a number of Indian and international media organizations.

Author: SAM MILLER  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-shallows-:-how-the-internet-is-changing-the-way-we-think-read-and-remember-160-114267.html Is the Internet making us stupid? In this new book, as incendiary as it is important, Nicholas Carr argues that the Internet is changing dramatically how we think, remember and interact. In this ground-breaking and compelling book, Nicholas Carr argues that not since Gutenberg invented printing has humanity been exposed to such a mind-altering technology. The Shallows draws on the latest research to show that the Net is literally re-wiring our brains inducing only superficial understanding. As a consequence there are profound changes in the way we live and communicate, remember and socialise – even in our very conception of ourselves. By moving from the depths of thought to the shallows of distraction, the web, it seems, is actually fostering ignorance. The Shallows is not a manifesto for luddites, nor does it seek to turn back the clock. Rather it is a revelatory reminder of how far the Internet has become enmeshed in our daily existence and is affecting the way we think. This landmark book compels us all to look anew at our dependence on this all-pervasive technology.

Author: NICHOLAS CARR  Publisher: ATLANTIC]]> Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/hacking-:-breaking-stupid-rules-for-smart-results-160-114269.html Hacking Work blows the cover off the biggest open secret in the working world. Today's top performers are taking matters into their own hands by bypassing sacred structures, using forbidden tools, and ignoring silly rules to increase their productivity and job satisfaction. This book reveals a multitude of powerful technological and social hacks, and shows readers how bringing these methods out into the open can help them maximize their efficiency and satisfaction with work. Hacking work is the act of getting what you need to do your best by exploiting loopholes and creating workarounds. It is taking the usual ways of doing things and bypassing them to produce results. Hacking work is getting the system to work for you.

Author: JOSHUA KLEIN, BILL JENSEN  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/beautiful-things-:-inside-the-secret-world-of-bombay-s-dance-bars-160-113835.html Sonia Faleiro was a reporter in search of a story when she met Leela, a beautiful and charismatic bar dancer with a story to tell. Leela introduced Sonia to the underworld of Bombay’s dance bars: a world of glamorous women, of fierce love, sex and violence, of customers and gangsters, of police, prostitutes and pimps. When an ambitious politician cashed in on a tide of false morality and had Bombay’s dance bars wiped out, Leela’s proud independence faced its greatest test. In a city where almost everyone is certain that someone, somewhere, is worse off than them, she fights to survive, and to win. Beautiful Thing, one of the most original works of non-fiction from India in years, is a vivid and intimate portrait of one reporter’s journey into the dark, pulsating and ultimately damaged soul of Bombay.

Author: SONIA FALEIRO  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/what-works-160-114263.html A lively, engaging and counterintuitive exploration of success stories from across the globe, and what Michelle Obama referred to as ‘the flimsy difference between success and failure’. In this lively and counterintuitive exploration of success stories from across the globe, award-winning journalist Hamish McRae takes the reader on a fascinating journey in pursuit of the flimsy difference between triumph and failure. Why do some initiatives take off while others flounder? How have some communities managed to achieve so much while others struggle? What distinguishes the good companies from the bad? What lessons can we learn from the surprisingly well-ordered Mumbai community made famous by ‘Slumdog Millionaire’? Why have Canadian manners helped Whistler become the most popular ski resort in North America? And how has Hong Kong used gambling profits to help its residents enjoy the greatest level of economic freedom on the planet? Drawing life lessons from the great ideas put to work on every continent – from America to Europe, from Africa to Asia and Australasia – McRae’s stories are as surprising as they are inspiring. We are better placed now than we have ever been to make good choices about the future of our species and our planet. But if we are to face the many challenges ahead, we have to try to learn from each other. ‘What Works’ will leave you entertained, informed and, ultimately, enlightened as to what each of us can do to make successes of our businesses, our communities and our lives.

Author: HAMISH MCRAE  Publisher: HARPER COLLINS]]> Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-china-syndrome -160-114014.html As the balance of power shifts from the West to the East, the relationship between the two regional giants, China and India, gains significance. Their relationship will determine to a great extent the new political architecture that takes shape in Asia and the world at large. Nor are the two powers unaware of this. As a Chinese premier meeting the Indian prime minister is reported to have said, ‘When we shake hands, the whole world will be watching.’

Author: Pant, Harsh  Publisher: HARPER COLLINS]]> Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/my-two-indias      -160-114015.html My Two Indias takes readers on her journey into the India of old and new. Mitra and her artist husband enter the elite of Delhi’s society,joining a cast of characters from CEOs to cross-dressing curators. In this bubble, they embrace India’s rush towards free-market reform. But another economic reality looms in Mitra’s backward home state of Assam in India’s forgotten northeast. Relatives’ pleas for jobs, advice and guidance reflect an Indian tragically bypassed by the boom. Their different lives and expectation of government confuse and exasperate Mitra, as do their expectations of her. Gradually, exasperation turns to understanding and appreciation. And after months of lecturing Indians on US-style efficiency, Mitra draws unexpected lessons on hustle and innovation from India. What is the government role in an economy? What is its obligation to rich and poor? Why do managers struggle to find talent even as millions around them are desperate to land jobs? What values get left behind when a country makes itself over? My Two Indias lucidly reconciles the many faces of India: separate, unequal, inextricably, dependent.

Author: Kalita, S. Mitra  Publisher: HARPER COLLINS]]> Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/time-to-help-your-parents-160-64861.html We're all living longer than ever. But there is, inevitably, a point when most of us have to face the fact that Mom or Dad--or both--really do need more help. For many, the responsibility of supporting their parents and aiding them to make the right decisions at the right time can be challenging. This book covers the key issues surrounding caring for ageing parents, including: "What are the main health issues you need to be aware of? What is really involved in moving into sheltered or residential care? What happens if it's clear a parent can't cope at home but wants to stay there?" This book enables you to tackle the small, practical, problems that crop up daily such as shopping, nutrition, cleaning, and reduced mobility, as well at the bigger, more complex issues such as independence, health, changing roles, accommodation, and financial issues. The invaluable insights contained in "Time to Help Your Parents "will enable you to understand your parents' perspectives and enjoy your relationships with them as they grow older.

Author: HYAMS, JACKY  Publisher: HACHETTE]]> Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/wrong-international-:-why-experts*-keep-failing-u-160-113802.html Our investments are devastated, obesity is epidemic, blue-chip companies circle the drain, and popular medications turn out to be ineffective and even dangerous. What happened? Didn t we listen to the scientists, economists, and other experts who promised us that if we followed their advice all would be well? Actually, those experts are a big reason we re in this mess. Their expert counsel usually turns out to be wrong - often wildly so. Wrong reveals the dangerously distorted ways experts come up with their advice, and why the most heavily flawed conclusions end up getting the most attention - all the more so in the online era. But there s hope: WRONG spells out the means by which every individual and organization can do a better job of unearthing the crucial bits of right within a vast avalanche of misleading pronouncements.

Author: FREEDMAN, DAVID H.  Publisher: HACHETTE]]> Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-puma-story-160-113817.html Puma is one of the world’s top three sports brands that include Nike and Adidas. Today, Puma is not just a company that makes sports wear and shoes. Puma is a lifestyle label, with products created by world famous fashion designers and which can be found next to those of Gucci, Prada and Dolce & Gabbana. Through unprecedented access to Puma archives and the main players, the author tells the extraordinary story of Puma’s rise in world sport and fashion. It’s a story based on a family quarrel between two brothers, which resulted in the creation of two companies – Adidas and Puma – by each of the brothers. Competing furiously against one another, the brothers turned their companies into world beaters, dominating the global sporting stage for decades after the War. Today Puma is a $1.75 billion company, and became the most powerful sports brand in the world when it sponsored the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt, and his rise to megastardom during the Beijing Olympics

Author: ROLF HERBERT PETERS  Publisher: MARSHALL CAVENDISH]]> Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/finding-delhi-:-loss-and-renewal-in-the-megacity-160-113822.html How do you make sense of a city that is shifting so fast that you can become disoriented sitting in your own home? A century after the British built New Delhi as the capital of India, it is in the middle of furious sometimes haphazard, growth in a race against time to become a ‘world-class’ city. As the metropolis is re-imagined, dug up and built upon, the lives of its twenty million inhabitants, and the ways in which they negotiate the sprawling city, are also changing. Finding Delhi examines the nature of this transformation: what kind of spaces and opportunities are becoming available to some of the twenty million, and how much is being taken away from others. This volume brings together voices that offer a kaleidoscope view of the morphing, knotted city even as it is simultaneously experienced. Fourteen full-and- part-time residents of Delhi, ranging from urban planners to informal-sector workers, write about issues as urgent and diverse as public transport, the state of Yamuna, women and the megacity, housing rights for the poor, recycling and recyclers, shopping malls and the officially sanctioned campaign against street vendors and the homeless ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Finding Delhi is an unprecedented chronicling of contemporary Delhi—the nature of contemporary its reinvention and the effects of this personality shift on those who experience it. It is an examination relevant to all urban spaces being re-engineered on the road to ‘world-classness’.

Author: BHARATI CHATURVEDI]]> Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/makers-of-modern-india-160-113824.html Ramachandra Guha, author of the internationally acclaimed India After Gandhi, profiles nineteen Indians whose ideas had a defining impact on the formation and evolution of our republic and presents rare and compelling excerpts from their writings and speeches. These men and women were not only influential political activists—they also wrote with eloquence, authority and deliberation as they reflected on what Guha describes in his illuminating prologue as ‘the most contentious times in the most interesting country in the world’. Their writings take us from the subcontinent’s first engagement with modernity in the nineteenth century, through the successive phases of the freedom movement, on through the decades after Independence. This book highlights little-known aspects of major figures in Indian history like Tagore and Nehru; it also rehabilitates thinkers who have been unjustly forgotten, such as Tarabai Shinde and Hamid Dalwai. These makers of modern India did not speak in one voice: their perspectives are sometimes complementary, at other times contradictory. The topics they explore and analyze include religion, caste, gender, language, nationalism, colonialism, democracy, secularism and the economy—that is to say, all that is significant in the human condition. These issues have a resonance in our own times, not just in India but everywhere in the world as well.

Author: RAMCHANDRA GUHA]]> Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/dowry-murder-160-113830.html The safety net that was twisted into a deadly noose. Dowry in India has long been blamed for the murder of wives and female infants. Reconstructing the history of dowry in this highly provocative book, Veena Talwar Oldenburg argues that dowry is not always the motive for these killings as is widely believed; nor are these crimes a product of Indian culture or caste system. In the pre-colonial period, dowry, an institution managed by women to enable them to establish their independence, was a safety net. As a consequence of massive economic and societal upheaval brought on by British rule, however, women’s control of the system diminished and dowry became extortion. Drawing on her personal experience and rigorous research, the author shows that even as the law has prohibited dowry, it has deepened the misunderstanding of the motives for the deaths; it has led to silences and the complicated stories of the women who survive. Also, examining gender discrimination in modern India Dowry Murder poses some difficult questions: Are Indian women victims of their culture or active agents of a crime they inflict upon other women? Is dowry murder a cultural crime? Oldenburg provides an analytical and nuanced treatment of a complex and deeply controversial issue.

Author: VEENA TALWAR]]> Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/monster-the-story-of-josef-fritzl-and-160-1185.html On 28 August 1984, Josef Fritzl drugged his teenage daughter with ether and imprisoned her in an underground bunker. Over the following twentyfour years, he raped and abused her, never letting her or the children she bore him out of the dark, windowless cellar. This title reconstructs the monstrous personality behind this hideous crime.

Author: Hall, Allan  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/argumentative-indian-writings-on-india-160-1208.html Offering writings from Nobel prizewinning economist Amartya Sen, this book outlines the need to understand India in the light of its argumentative tradition for the success of India's democracy, the defense of its secular politics, the removal of inequalities related to class, caste, gender and community, and the pursuit of subcontinental peace.

Author: Sen, Amartya  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/black-swan-the-the-impact-of-the-high-160-1209.html Startling, profound and universal, The Black Swan will change the way you look at the world. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, bestselling author of Fooled by Randomness, Black Swans underlie almost everything, from the rise of religions, to events in our own personal lives. A Black Swan is a highly improbable event with three principle characteristics its unpredictability; its massive impact; and, after it has happened, our desire to make it appear less random and more predictable than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of Black Swans? Why are we unable to estimate risk falling vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate and categorize, rather than opening ourselves up to the impossible ? For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do, restricting our knowledge to the irrelevant and inconsequential, so that large events continue to surprise us an shape our world. We may even be hardwired to learn specifics when we should be focused on generalities. Now in this revelatory book, he explains everything we know about what we don t know. Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. The Black Swan is a landmark bookit might even be a Black Swan.

Author: Taleb, Nassim Nicholas  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/world-is-flat-revised-edition--160-1210.html The beginning of the twentyfirst century will be remembered, Friedman argues, not for military conflicts or political events, but for a whole new age of globalization a flattening' of the world. The explosion of advanced technologies now means that suddenly knowledge pools and resources have connected all over the planet, leveling the playing field as never before, so that each of us is potentially an equal and competitor of the other. The rules of the game have changed forever but does this death of distance', which requires us all to run faster in order to stay in the same place, mean the world has got too small and too flat too fast for us to adjust! Friedman brilliantly demystifies the exciting, often bewildering, global scene unfolding before our eyes, one which we sense but barely yet understand. The World is Flat is the most timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and its discontents, powerfully illuminated by a worldclass writer.

Author: Friedman, Thomas  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/god-explained-in-a-taxi-ride-160-1213.html This is a punchy, humorous, and probing look at the nature of religious belief, by the author of the massively successful Whatever You Think Think the Opposite. In a series of brilliant visual episodes, Paul Arden investigates the questions that have persisted since our earliest days. As ever, he is a master of compression, getting us to scratch our heads as he examines our relationship to the divine.

Author: Arden, Paul  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/hot-flat-crowded-why-the-world-nee-160-1214.html The World Is Flat has helped millions of readers to see globalization in a new way. Now Friedman brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy both of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively. His argument speaks to all who are concerned about the state of the world in the global future. Friedman proposes that an ambitious national strategy which he calls GeoGreenism is not only what we need to save the planet from overheating; it is what we need to make us all healthier, richer, more innovative, more productive, and more secure. As in The World Is Flat , he explains a new era the EnergyClimate era through an illuminating account of recent events.He sets out the cleantechnology breakthroughs the world will need; he shows that the ET (Energy Technology) revolution will be both transformative and disruptive; and he explains why America must lead this revolution with the first Green President and a Green New Deal, spurred by the Greenest Generation. Hot, Flat and Crowded is classic Thomas L. Friedman fearless, incisive, forwardlooking, and rich in surprising common sense about the world we live in today.

Author: Friedman, Thomas  Publisher: ALLEN LANE]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/three-cups-of-tea-one-man-s-mission-to-160-1215.html Written by a mountaineer who in 1993, after a terrifying and disastrous attempt to climb K2, drifted cold and dehydrated, into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram Mountains. It tells how moved by the inhabitants' kindness, he promised to return and build a school. It tells the story of that promise and its outcome.

Author: Mortenson, Greg  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/shock-doctrine-rise-of-disaster-capita-160-1220.html Exposes the shock doctors and offers information and connections that show how the shock doctors' beliefs dominate our world and how this domination has been achieved. This book tells the tale of how a few are making a killing while more are getting killed.

Author: Klein, Naomi  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/for-crying-out-loud-the-world-accordin-160-1234.html The publication of The World According to Clarkson in 2004 launched a multimillioncopy bestselling phenomenon. But to no avail. Jeremy's oneman war on crimes against common sense has not yet been won. And our hero's still scratching his head at the madness of it all. But it's not all bad. He's learned a little along the way, including Why binge drinking is good for you; The worst word in the English language; The remarkable secret of eternal youth; The pleasure and pain of middleaged drumming; The problem with America; And how to dispose of a seal. For anyone who's been driven to wonder just what is the matter with people these days, For Crying Out Loud! is the perfect riposte. Surprising, fearless and always laughoutloud funny, Clarkson's back. And he's got a point...

Author: Clarkson, Jeremy  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/collapse-160-1244.html Talks about the mysterious collapse of past civilizations and what this means for the future. Bringing together evidence from many sources and piecing together the myriad influences, from climate to culture, that make societies selfdestruct, this book shows how unlike our ancestors we can benefit from our knowledge of the past.

Author: Diamond, Jared  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/encounter-160-97677.html With the same dazzling mix of emotion and idea that characterizes his novels he illuminates the art and artists who remain important to him and whose work helps us better understand the world. An astute and brilliant reader of fiction, Kundera applies these same gifts to the reading of Francis Bacon’s paintings, Leos Jan

Author: MILAN KUNDERA  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/anne-frank-children-of-the-holocaust-160-110149.html This is the life story of Anne Frank set chronologically against the significant events of the Holocaust, e.g. Kristallnacht, the Kindertransports and DDay. Spanning Anne's short life from 1929 to 1945, and the early rise of Hitler to the liberation of the concentration camps, this highly moving account examines both the fate of the Frank family and the wider picture of the Holocaust. Photographs illustrate this engaging yet ultimately harrowing biography, together with short extracts from autobiographies, diaries and letters of other young people who had personal experience of the Holocaust, providing a contrast to Anne's life in hiding.

Author: Lee, Carol Ann  Publisher: PUFFIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/battle-at-sea-3000-years-of-naval-warf-160-110150.html Takes you on a visual journey through 3,000 years of naval warfare. From the clash of galleys in Ancient Greece to deadly encounters between nuclearpowered submarines in the 20th century, this title explores various aspects of naval warfare on, under and above the sea.

Author: Grant, R G  Publisher: DORLING KINDERSLEY]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/bible-160-110151.html A major new edition of the King James Biblefaithfully presented for the twentyfirst century Although it is the most important book in the religious life and culture of the Englishspeaking world, the King James Bible, or Authorized Version of 1611, has never been perfectly represented in print. This edition makes available the translators' intended work with a fidelity never before achievedallowing the most read, heard, and loved book in the English language to speak with new vigor to modern readers. The work we have long read as the King James Bible contains numerous changes, both deliberate and accidental, to the text. David Norton has scrupulously collated the established text with the translators' original manuscripts to create this new authoritative edition. In addition, he has modernized and standardized the spelling but left intact the words and grammatical forms, and he has restored most of the original punctuation, which, unlike the standard version, largely adheres to modern practices. Finally, he presents the text in paragraph format, making this King James Bible a fully comprehensible and gratifying read.

Author: Norton, David  Publisher: PENG MOD CLASSICS]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/burn-journals-160-110152.html Brent Runyon was fourteen years old when he set himself on fire. In 'The Burn Journals', Runyon describes that devastating suicide attempt and his recovery, both physical and psychological, over the following year. He shares his story with such unflinching honesty that we understand with a terrible clarity what it means to want to kill yourself and how it feels to struggle back towards normality. Intense, exposed, insightful, 'The Burn Journals' is a deeply personal story with universal reach. It is impossible to look away. Impossible to remain unmoved.

Author: Runyon, Brent  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/china-syndrome-true-story-of-the-21st-160-110153.html Was the 2003 SARS outbreak a warning of deadly epidemics to come? This account tells the story of a lethal microbe that learnt to jump between species from animal to human with brutal efficiency, killing a large number of its victims and terrifying millions around the world.

Author: Greenfeld, Karl Taro  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/classical-world-an-epic-history-of-160-110154.html From the foundation of the world's first democracy in Athens to the Roman Republic and the Empire under Hadrian, this title presents the turbulent histories of Greece and Rome together. Discussing figures such as Homer, Socrates, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Augustus and the first Christian martyrs, it explores freedom, justice, and luxury.

Author: Fox, Robin Lane  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/complete-polysyllabic-spree-160-110155.html So this is supposed to be about the how, and when, and why, and what of reading about the way that, when reading is going well, one books leads to another and to another, a paper trail of theme and meaning; and how, when it's going badly, when books don't stick or take, when your mood and the mood of the book are fighting like cats, you'd rather do anything but attempt the next paragraph, or reread the last one for the tenth time'. In his monthly accounts of what he's read along with what he may one day read Nick Hornby ably explores everything from the classic to the graphic novel, as well as poems, plays, and sportsrelated exposes. And, if he occasionally implores a biographer for brevity, or abandons a literary work in favor of an Arsenal soccer match, then all is not lost. His writing, full of all the joy and surprise and despair that books bring him, reveals why we still read, even when there's soccer on TV, a pram in the hall, and a good band playing at our local bar.

Author: Hornby, Nick  Publisher: VIKING]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/dictionary-of-the-english-language-160-110156.html Surprising, colorful, and longforgotten entries from the most famous dictionary in the history of the English language Samuel Johnson's bestknown work, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), is the most influential and idiosyncratic lexicon ever written and was used by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, the BrontAs and the Brownings, Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde. This anthology includes 4,000 of the most representative, entertaining, and historically fascinating entries, covering subjects from fashion to food, science to sex, and given in full with original spelling and examples of usage from Shakespeare to Milton.

Author: Johnson, Samuel  Publisher: PENGUIN CLASSICS]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/diy-knowhow-with-showhow-160-110157.html From fitting a shower cubicle to applying different painting techniques, this title contains instructions that ensure even hard jobs are made easy. It breaks down each stage of a DIY job, from choosing tools to performing tasks to simple fixes for common problems.

Author: Cassell, Julian ; Parham, Peter (Author)  Publisher: DORLING KINDERSLEY]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/dude-where-s-my-country--160-110158.html Well, now the world's Bushwhacked. It's time for the good ol' boy to head for the hills, and Mike's on a mission to smoke him out at the next election and help ordinary people get their country back. What's more, he's going to use his share of the tax cut to do it.

Author: Moore, Michael  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/everything-bad-is-good-for-you-how-pop-160-110159.html Putting forward an alternative to the endless complaints about reality TV, throwaway movies and violent video games, this book shows that mass culture is actually more sophisticated and challenging than ever before.

Author: Johnson, Steven  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/fast-food-nation-160-110160.html Fast Food Nation has lifted the polystyrene lid on the global fast food industry...it could even change the way we eat. Observer Eric Schlosser has visited the state of the art labs where scientists recreate the flavours and smells of everything from cooked chicken to fresh strawberries in the test tube and he has spoken to workers at meatpacking plants with some of the worst safety records in the world. He explores the links between Hollywood and the fast food trade, and the tactics used to target ever younger consumers. In a meticulously researched and powerfully argued account, Fast Food Nation reveals the full price of our appetite for instant gratification.

Author: Schlosser, Eric  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/flight-100-years-of-aviation-160-110161.html Contains 100 years of airborne innovation and adventure for aviation fans. This edition covers topics ranging from the Wright brothers' first powered flight, to Concorde's final voyage and the tragic crash of the Columbia. It is the story of how man's dream to fly became a reality and central to modern history.

Author: Grant, Reg  Publisher: DORLING KINDERSLEY]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/fly-by-wire-the-remarkable-story-of-th-160-110162.html Assembles some of the untold stories necessary to truly understand 'The Miracle on the Hudson', and makes us question our assumptions about human beings in modern aviation.

Author: Langewiesche, William  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/freefall-free-markets-and-the-sinking-160-110163.html The current global financial crisis carries a madeinAmerica label. In this forthright and incisive book, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz explains how America exported bad economics, bad policies, and bad behaviour to the rest of the world, only to cobble together a haphazard and ineffective response when the markets finally seized up. Drawing on his academic expertise, his years spent shaping policy in the Clinton administration and at the World Bank, and his more recent role as head of a UN commission charged with reforming the global financial system, Stiglitz outlines a way forward building on ideas that he has championed his entire career restoring the balance between markets and government, addressing the inequalities of the global financial system, and demanding more good ideas (and less ideology) from economists. Freefall is an instant classic, combining an enthralling whodunit account of the current crisis with a bracing discussion of the broader economic issues at stake.

Author: Stiglitz, Joseph  Publisher: VIKING]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/from-edison-to-ipod-protect-your-idea-160-110164.html ‘This book democratizes intellectual property and makes it accessible for all to use and understand.’ Nelson Mandela. ‘Designers need to know how best to protect their creations. With this book, you can do that.’ Stella McCartney. Setting up a website or launching a new product in the UK? Looking to invest, or safeguard your creation? If you’ve got big ideas, this is your wake up call to protect, profit and prosper from them. With clients ranging from Nelson Mandela to Stella McCartney, Frederick Mostert is the leader in the intellectual property field. Follow his practical tips and expert advice and learn how intellectual property works, how to develop strategies to protect your ideas in the UK market and find out how to get an idea out of your head and into action. Turn your bright idea into a bright financial future.

Author: Mostert, Frederick  Publisher: DORLING KINDERSLEY]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/grays-anatomy-160-110165.html Why is progress a pernicious myth? Why do beliefs that humanity can be improved end in farce or horror? Is atheism a hangover from Christian faith? This title smashes through civilization's long cherished beliefs, overturning our view of the world and our place in it.

Author: Gray, John  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/have-you-seen--160-110166.html Presents a veteran film writer David Thomson's personal and irreverent take on the 1,000 films he has most loved and hated from esteemed classics to forgotten curiosities, guilty pleasures to noir treats, horror gems to kitsch disasters.

Author: Thomson, David  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/hollow-heart-true-story-of-how-one-160-110167.html Hollow Heart True Story of How One

Author: Devlin, Martina  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/homo-britannicus-incredible-story-of-h-160-110168.html Tells the epic history of life in Britain, since man's very first footsteps. Drawing on various techniques of investigation, this book describes times when Britain was so tropical that man lived alongside hippos and sabre tooth tiger, times so cold we shared this land with reindeer and mammoth, and times when we were forced to flee altogether.

Author: Stringer, Chris  Publisher: ALLEN LANE]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/homo-britannicus-incredible-story-of-h-160-110169.html Tells the history of life in Britain. Drawing on the evidence and techniques of investigation, this title describes times when Britain was so tropical that man lived alongside hippos and sabre tooth tiger, times so cold we shared this land with reindeer and mammoth, and times colder when we were forced to flee altogether.

Author: Stringer, Chris  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/how-to-meet-a-man-after-forty-other-mi-160-110170.html Should I wax my moustache? Am I too old for a leather jacket? Am I having the right amount of sex? Why do I hate my best friend? Am I turning into my mother? This guide to navigating those tricky midlife years answers all these questions and many more.

Author: Watson, Shane  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/hugo-young-papers-the-a-journalist-s-160-110171.html Hugo Young was one of Britain's most influential, respected and trusted political journalists. For decades, he talked off the record to politicians from every party, meticulously writing down everything that had been said. This work features some of the best of those confidential notes and offers an insight into British political life.

Author: Young, Hugo  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/hugo-young-papers-the-thirty-years-of-160-110172.html Hugo Young was one of Britain's leading journalists for over thirty years, first on the Sunday Times, where he was political editor and deputy editor, and then as the Guardian's senior political commentator. This title shows Young's central place in the nexus between politics and journalism in Britain and provides a historical document.

Author: Young, Hugo  Publisher: ALLEN LANE]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/language-of-things-design-luxury-fas-160-110173.html We live in a world drowning in objects. But what do they tell us about ourselves? From the opulent excesses of the catwalk, or the technical brilliance of a laptop computer, to the subtle refinement of a desk lamp, this title shows how we can be manipulated and seduced by our possessions.

Author: Sudjic, Deyan  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/let-our-fame-be-great-160-110174.html Two centuries ago, the Russians pushed out of the cold north towards the Caucasus Mountains, the range that blocked their access to Georgia, Turkey, Persia and India. The Caucasus had to be conquered and, for the highlanders, life would never be the same again. This title features author's journeys who intended to hear the stories of the conquest.

Author: Bullough, Oliver  Publisher: ALLEN LANE]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/making-of-miss-potter-160-110175.html A fullcolor illustrated guide to the background and making of the motion picture on Beatrix Potteras life, starring RenA(c)e Zellweger as Beatrix and Ewan McGregor as the man she loved. The book takes the reader behind the scenes to give a real flavor of the film set and includes sections of the script, the costumes, production design, all the main actors, the experiences of the director, producer and scriptwriter, and the views of RenA(c)e Zellweger herself on being Beatrix and what the connections are between the real Miss Potter and the woman who is playing her.

Author: Pearce, Garth  Publisher: WARNE]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/mess-of-iguanas-a-whoop-of-gorillas--160-110176.html With collective nouns for animal groups, this title tells you what to call a group of zebras, chickens, parrots, spiders, tigers or penguins, and lets you know the difference between a school and a shoal of fish as well as why groups of swans are known as a lamentation, a bank and a wedge.

Author: Shulman, Alon  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/mitrokhin-archive-ii-kgb-in-the-world-160-110177.html Reveals the KGB's global penetration, exposing its operations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. This book discloses the KGB's secret contacts with a series of world leaders, among them Castro, Allende, Nasser, Saddam Hussein and Mengistu, as well as with terrorist hijackers and communist parties around the globe.

Author: Andrew, Christopher  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/mrs-woolf-the-servants-160-110178.html Loathing, anger, shame and deep affection Virginia Woolf's relationship with her servants was central to her life. Like thousands of her fellow Britons she relied on livein domestics for the most intimate of daily tasks. Her cook and parlour maid relieved her of the burden of housework and without them she might never have become a writer. But unlike many of her contemporaries Virginia Woolf was frequently tormented by her dependence on servants. Uniquely, she explored her violent, often vicious, feelings in her diaries, novels and essays. What, the reader might well wonder, was it like for the servants to live with a mistress who so hated giving her orders, and who could be generous and hostile by turns? Through the prism of the writer's life and work, Alison Light explores the volatile, emotional territory which is the hidden history of domestic service. Compared to most employers in Britain between the wars, Leonard and Virginia Woolf were free and easy. Life in the Bloomsbury circle of writers and artists was often fun. Yet despite being liberal in outlook, these were also households where the differences in upbringing and education were acute employers and servants were still 'us' and 'them'. The women who worked for the Woolfs, like other domestic servants, have usually been relegated to the margins of history, yet unearthing their lives reveals fascinating stories of Sophie Farrell, the Victorian cook and 'family treasure', who ended her days in a London bedsit; Lottie Hope, the parlour maid, a foundling, who'd been left on a doorstep like a parcel; and, Nellie Boxall, the Woolfs' cook, who was finally dismissed after sixteen years of rows and reconciliations, only to find herself a more glamorous job. Mrs Woolf and the Servants is a riveting and highly original study of one of Britain's greatest literary modernists. Ultimately, though, it is also a moving and eloquent testimony to the ways in which individual creativity always needs the support of others.

Author: Light, Alison  Publisher: FIG TREE]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/my-life-with-george-surviving-life-160-110179.html When Judith Summers' husband and father both died within the space of two weeks, she found herself floundering. Life for her and her eightyearold son Joshua seemed relentlessly bleak. Then George bounced into their lives. A loving Cavalier King Charles Spaniel with filmstar looks, George reawoke their joie de vivre. Yet Judith soon discovered that living with George had its drawbacks. He was a fulltime job and as expensive to run as a Ferrari. Wilful and badly behaved, he refused to eat anything other than roast chicken, preferred travelling by car to walking, and became as jealous as a spurned lover if any man dared show an interest in her. And when a neardeath tangle with a Staffordshire Bull terrier resulted in costly sessions with an animal psychologist, Judith found that it was she who was put on the couch ... My Life with George is the hilarious and moving story of the impossible but adorable George recounting how he filled the huge void in Judith and Joshua's lives, while driving them absolutely barking mad along the way.

Author: Summers, Judith  Publisher: MICHAEL JOSEPH]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/my-life-with-george-the-inspirational-160-110180.html Life for Judith Summers and her son Joshua seemed relentlessly bleak. Then George bounced into their lives. A loving Cavalier King Charles Spaniel with filmstar looks, George reawoke their joie de vivre. Yet Judith soon discovered that living with George had its drawbacks. He was a fulltime job and as expensive to run as a Ferrari.

Author: Summers, Judith  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/mystical-mermaids-160-110181.html Mystical Mermaids

Author: Woodward, Kay  Publisher: PUFFIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/nativity-history-legend-160-110182.html Disentangles the Christmas story, relating it to prophecies in the Old Testament and also to later Christian folklore, putting the nativity into its historical context. This work is intended for those wanting to know the true story behind the nativity.

Author: Vermes, Geza  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/new-spaniards-2nd-edition--160-110183.html A masterly portrait of contemporary Spainfully revised, expanded, and updated Modernday Spain is a country changing at bewildering speed. In less than half a century, a predominantly rural society has been transformed into a mainly urban one. A dictatorship has become a democracy. A oncerepressed society is being spoken of as a future Sweden of the Mediterranean. John Hooper's outstanding portrayal of the new Spanish society explores the causes behind these changes, from crime to education, gambling to changing sexual mores. This new, uptodate edition is the essential guide to understanding twentyfirst century Spain a land of paradox, progress, and social change.

Author: Hooper, John  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/nine-parts-of-desire-the-hidden-world-160-110184.html When her poised and sophisticated yuppie assistant at the Cairo bureau of the Wall Street Journal suddenly 'adopted the uniform of a Muslim fundamentalist', Geraldine Brooks set out to discover the truth about women and Islam. Sometimes adopting a chador as camouflage, she was granted meetings (and often astonishingly intimate insights) by everyone from Queen Noor of Jordan to former Iranian President Rafsanjani's daughter. She met with Palestinians protesting about 'honour killings' for adultery and sheltered girls transformed into warriors by the Emirates' armed forces. Throughout the Middle East, Brooks was invited into the homes and lives of these women where she found real stories that overturn western stereotypes. Fairminded and often revelatory, Nine Parts of Desire is an extraordinarily rich tapestry of the different lives women lead under Islam, and a captivating and diverse portrait of a little known world.

Author: Brooks, Geraldine  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/no-place-to-hide-160-110185.html No Place To Hide

Author: O'Harrow, Robert  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/not-a-good-day-to-die-untold-story-of-160-110186.html At dawn on March 2, 2002, over 200 soldiers of the 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions flew into Afghanistan's Shahikot valley and into the mouth of a buzzsaw. This book portrays the fight for Afghanistan's most hostile battleground, and details the failures of military intelligence and planning that left victory hanging by a thread.

Author: Naylor, Sean  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/on-the-road-to-kandahar-travels-through-160-110187.html Shows how various and completely unmonolithic Islam really is and how the sort of standard Western generalizations about it are both stupid and dangerous.

Author: Burke, Jason  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/only-half-of-me-being-a-muslim-in-160-110188.html A Muslim boy goes to a madrassa in Mogadishu to learn the Koran. His parents take him on two pilgrimages to Mecca. He arrives in Britain as a child just as Somalia collapses into a state of civil war that will continue throughout his childhood and prevent him from going home. To the media, government and general public this is the classic background story of the most feared figure of our times the young, male, black, British Muslim. It is also the story of Rageh Omaar's childhood. Rageh Omaar's unique and profoundly moving book is the story of his childhood in Somalia, his family's attitude to religion, his double life as a British Muslim and that of other British Muslims. Full of humanity and rage, empathy and insight, Only Half of Me takes us into lives that are widely misunderstood, and tries to make sense of our own fractured world.

Author: Omaar, Rageh  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/operation-snakebite-the-explosive-true-160-110189.html Coming up to Christmas, and reporter Stephen Grey is embedded with B Company, 2 Yorks, in southern Afghanistan during Operation Snakebite. Their mission to take the Taliban stronghold of Musa Qala. For some this battle will be their last.

Author: Grey, Stephen  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/panicology-160-110190.html We live in an increasingly uncertain world. There's so much to worry about it is often hard to know what to really panic about. Putting a lit match to the lies, headlines and statistical twaddle that seeks to frighten us, this title explores 40 reasons for worry from bingedrinking to Frankenstein foods, bird flu to alien abductions.

Author: Briscoe, Simon ; Williams, Hugh Aldersey  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-160-110191.html Argues that the ignorance and lethargy of the poor are the direct result of the whole economic, social and political domination. This book suggests that in some countries the oppressors use the system to maintain a 'culture of silence'.

Author: Freire, P  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/perfect-princesses-160-110192.html Perfect Princesses

Author: Woodward, Kay  Publisher: PUFFIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/power-160-110193.html Covers the topics Foucault helped make the core agenda of Western political culture medicine, prisons, psychiatry, government and sexuality emphasising Foucault's practical concern with discrimination, coercion and exclusion in human society.

Author: Foucault, Michel  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/ross-kemp-on-afghanistan-160-110194.html He has played an East End hardman, an SAS soldier and investigated vicious world gangs. Now Ross Kemp is taking on perhaps his hardest assignment of all the Taliban. In order to prepare for this lifethreatening ordeal, Ross Kemp trains with the First Battalion Royal Anglians in England's subzero temperatures.

Author: Kemp, Ross  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/side-effects-160-110195.html Side Effects

Author: Phillips, Adam  Publisher: HAMISH HAMILTON]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/six-weddings-two-funerals-three-scr-160-110196.html Richard Curtis's romantic comedies have been watched in cinemas, on televisions, even on air planes the world over. This illustrated book features the screenplays of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, and the original shooting script of Love Actually. It includes an introduction by Curtis himself.

Author: Curtis, Richard  Publisher: MICHAEL JOSEPH]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/south-africas-brave-new-world-160-110197.html Nelson Mandela's inauguration as president of South Africa in 1994 seemed to usher in an age of peaceful, rational change. This book explains how this was not to be. It reveals how Thabo Mbeki and those around him brought South Africa close to 'failed state' status and explores the implications for its future.

Author: Johnson, R W  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/spirit-level-the-why-equality-is-bett-160-110198.html Why do we mistrust people more in the UK than in Japan? Why do Americans have higher rates of teenage pregnancy than the French? What makes the Swedish thinner than the Greeks? The answer inequality. This book provides a new way of thinking about ourselves and our communities, and could change the way you see the world.

Author: Wilkinson, Richard  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/spirit-level-the-why-more-equal-socie-160-110199.html Large inequalities of income in a society have often been regarded as divisive and corrosive, and it is common knowledge that in rich societies the poor have shorter lives and suffer more from almost every social problem. This book demonstrates that more unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them the welloff as well as the poor.

Author: Wilkinson, Richard ; Pickett, Kate  Publisher: ALLEN LANE]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/stones-of-florence-venice-observed-160-110200.html Features vivid and perceptive descriptions of two great Italian cities, Florence and Venice, told through their history and art. The author depicts Florence through its tempestuous past, from the reign of the Medicis to Savonarola's bonfire of the vanities, and Venice as a city of illusion and spectacle, and carnival and commerce.

Author: McCarthy, Mary  Publisher: PENGUIN CLASSICS]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/stuff-of-thought-language-as-window-160-110201.html Analyses what words actually mean and how we use them, and reveals what this can tell us about ourselves. This book shows how we use space and motion as metaphors for more abstract ideas, and uncovers the deeper structures of human thought that have been shaped by evolutionary history. It also explores the emotional impact of language.

Author: Pinker, Steven  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/that-s-bollocks!-urban-legends-conspi-160-110202.html That's Bollocks! Urban Legends, Conspi

Author: Jack, Albert  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/thomas-hardy-the-timetorn-man-160-110203.html Whitbread Award winner Claire Tomalin's seminal biography of the enigmatic novelist and poet Thomas Hardy. Today Thomas Hardy is best known for creating the great Wessex landscape as the backdrop to his rural stories, starting with Far from the Madding Crowd, and making them classics. But his true legacy is that of a progressive thinker. When he published Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure late in his career, Hardy explored a very different world than that of his rural tales, one in which the plight of lower classes and women take center stage while the higher classes are damned. Ironically, though, Hardy remained cloaked in the arms of this very upper class during the publication of these books, acting at all times in complete convention with the rules of society. Was he using his books to express himself in a way he felt unable to do in the company he kept, or did he know sensationalism would sell? Awardwinning author Claire Tomalin expertly reconstructs the life that led Hardy to maintain conventionality and write revolution. Born in Dorset in 1840, Hardy came of age in rather meager circumstances. At sixteen, he left home for London and slowly worked his way through many rejections to become a published writer. Despite his mother's admonitions to never marry, he wed Emma Lavinia Gifford in 1874 and, even though he fell easily in love, stayed true to her till her death in 1912. He frequently toured London society, but few felt they knew the true Hardy, and it is this very core of self that Tomalin elegantly brings us to know so completely. Hardy's work consistently challenged sexual and religious conventions in a way that few other books of his time did. Though hispersonal modesty and kindness allowed some to underestimate him or even to pity him, they did not prevent him from taking on the central themes of human experiencetime, memory, loss, love, fear, grief, anger, uncertainty, death. And it was exactly his quiet life, full of the small, personal dramas of family quarrels, rivalries, and at times, despair, that infuses his works with the rich detail that sets them apart as masterpieces. In this engrossing biography, Tomalin skillfully identifies the inner demons and the outer mores that drove Hardy and presents a rich and complex portrait of one of the greatest figures in English literature.

Author: Tomalin, Claire  Publisher: VIKING]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/thrift-book-the-live-well-spend-les-160-110204.html Feeling poor because of the credit crunch? Feeling guilty because of global warming? This title shows you how to make wonderful dinners with very little money; how to dress on a budget and still look fabulous; how to make friends and start sharing with your neighbours; and, how to holiday imaginatively with barely a carbon footprint.

Author: Knight, India  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/what-a-lovely-pair-160-110205.html What A Lovely Pair

Author: McPartlin, Ant & Donnelly, Declan  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/wild-trees-a-story-of-passion-daring-160-110206.html When Steve Sillett was 19 years old, he freeclimbed with no safety equipment and no training one of the tallest trees on earth, in the redwood forests of Prairie Creek, California. 30 storeys above the ground he glimpsed an undiscovered ecosystem, and his passion for that world would transform the rest of his life.

Author: Preston, Richard  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/will-jellyfish-rule-the-world-a-book-160-110207.html From what makes Earth so special, to how scientists know for sure our climate is changing, why it's a big deal for everyone and what we can all do right now to make a difference, green expert Leo Hickman is ready to answer all your questions. Will Jellyfish Rule the World? breaks down the causes and effects of climate change in a fresh, fun and easytofollow format. Packed with practical everyday things we can all do right now to make a difference, Will Jellyfish Rule the World? is a comprehensive, easytouse ecohandbook for budding classroom environmentalists everywhere.

Author: Hickman, Leo  Publisher: PUFFIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/accidentally-on-purpose-a-onenight-st-160-110208.html Accidentally on Purpose A Onenight St

Author: Pols, Mary  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/aesthetics-vd-2-160-110209.html Presents a collection of Michel Foucault's articles, interviews and seminars. This work focuses primarily upon the philosophy, literature and other works of the imagination which have informed Foucault's particular engagement with ethics and power and includes Foucault's arresting commentaries on the work of de Sade, Rousseau, Marx, and Nietzsche.

Author: Foucault, Michel  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/and-another-thing-world-according-to-160-110210.html Bursts the pointless little bubbles of the idiots while celebrating the special, the unique and the sheer bloody brilliant.

Author: Clarkson, Jeremy  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/art-of-the-advocate-160-110211.html In every court and tribunal, advocates represent us all Crown and defendant, landlord and tenant, rich and poor, honest and false alike. What are the duties to court and client? This book surveys the role of advocates at various stages of their work.

Author: Du Cann, R  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/asylums-160-110212.html Presents an analysis of life in 'total institutions' closed worlds like prisons, army camps, boarding schools, nursing homes and mental hospitals. This book focuses on the relationship between the inmate and the institution, how the setting affects the person and how the person can deal with life on the inside

Author: Goffman, E  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/baa!-baa!-noisy-peekaboo!-160-110213.html Lets you play peekaboo with your baby and hear them giggle in delight as they discover animals under flaps and hear five amazing animal sounds.

Publisher: DORLING KINDERSLEY]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100