"This beautiful work of historical fiction was inspired by the diary of an actual 18th-century Roman Jewish girl, imprisoned by the Catholic Church because someone with a grudge offered her to the Church. Anything But Yes is the true story of a young woman's struggle to defend her identity in the face of relentless attempts to destroy it. In 1749, 18-year-old Anna del Monte was seized at gunpoint from her home in Rome's Jewish ghetto and thrown into a convent cell at the Casa dei Convertiti, the house of converts. With no access to the outside world, she withstood isolation, sleep deprivation, endless lectures, and threats and promises. If Anna were to utter the simple word "yes," she would risk forced baptism, which meant never returning to her home and losing contact with any Jew-including her own family-for the rest of her life. Even in Italy today, few people know the full story of Rome's Jewish ghetto, the abduction of Jews, or the popes who were intent on forcibly converting every non-Catholic living in the long shadow of the Vatican. Young girls and small children were the primary targets of these forced conversions, for they were most vulnerable. But Anna del Monte was different. She was strong, brilliant, and educated, and wrote a diary of her experiences. Her diary became lost for more than 200 years but was rediscovered in Israel in 1989. Anything But Yes is based on Anna's diary and Joie Davidow's extensive research on life in the 18th-century Roman Jewish ghetto and its personalities, traditions, foods, and dialect"--

A thoroughly engrossing memoir that recounts Beckwith's halting steps toward scientific triumphs--among them, the discovery of the genetic element that turns on genes--as well as his emergence as a world-class political activist, "Making Genes, Making Waves" is a compelling history of the major controversies in genetics during the last 30 years.

When vicar Adam Smallbone swapped his rural parish for St Saviours in Hackney, he thought he was going somewhere where he would be able to make a difference. Somewhere his ministry would have a purpose. Or that was the idea. But an eccentric, needy band of parishioners, unhelpfully attractive head teacher of the local CofE school and a waspish Deacon with Adam in his crosshairs would test the patience of a saint. And Adam, despite his best intentions, is no saint. So he muddles along, trying to do the right thing.

"Jews, Christians, and Muslims supposedly share a common religious heritage in the patriarch Abraham, and the idea that he should serve only as a source of unity among the three traditions has become widespread in both scholarly and popular circles. Inheriting Abraham boldly challenges this view, demonstrating Abraham's distinctive role in each tradition, while delineating the points of connection as well.

Jon Foster's art is dark, beautiful, and visually overpowering. From his Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars covers to his game industry work on Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition and Alternity, Foster always knows how to move the soul of the viewer. Progressions features a selection of Foster's paintings, sketches, and illustrations and is a must have for anyone who has ever admired art.

From the streets of modern Israel to the barrooms of Brooklyn to a suburban New England synagogue, the characters in these 10 stories search for love and acceptance in a world scarred by loss and loneliness. In "The Madonna of Temple Beth Elohim," an Iraq war veteran sees a vision of the Virgin Mary on the eve of the Jewish high holidays. In "My Darling Sweetheart Baby," a working-class drunk waits on his stoop for his disability check and the courage to proclaim his love to a local prostitute. And in the title story "There Is No Other," a rage-filled Jewish boy, tormented by his African lineage, arrives at a school Purim party dressed as the prophet Mohammed. Magical, erotic, spiritually penetrating and terrifyingly realistic, these provocative tales continue the storytelling tradition of Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, and Nathan Englander.

"A tailor to the wealthy, powerful, and famous struggles to serve a very unusual client: a blustering real-estate tycoon and reality-TV star who - to everyone's surprise - becomes a major party's nominee for president. As the election spins out of control, the tailor and his apprentice are forced to examine their roles as confidants and image-makers for the candidate...and whether the right suit has the power to clinch the presidency"--Page [4] of cover.

In this timely and up-to-date biography, Jon Sopel paints a vivid portrait of an ambitious young man with a mission to modernise and transform first the Labour Party, then the country. It is a portrait of a man with all the classic credentials of a Tory politician - but who is odds - on favourite to be Britain's next Labour Prime Minister.

When FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover reported to the Nixon White House in 1972 about the Bureau's surveillance of John Lennon, he began by explaining that Lennon was a "former member of the Beatles singing group." When a copy of this letter arrived in response to Jon Wiener's 1981 Freedom of Information request, the entire text was withheld—along with almost 200 other pages—on the grounds that releasing it would endanger national security. This book tells the story of the author's remarkable fourteen-year court battle to win release of the Lennon files under the Freedom of Information Act in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. With the publication of Gimme Some Truth , 100 key pages of the Lennon FBI file are available—complete and unexpurgated, fully annotated and presented in a "before and after" format. Lennon's file was compiled in 1972, when the war in Vietnam was at its peak, when Nixon was facing reelection, and when the "clever Beatle" was living in New York and joining up with the New Left and the anti-war movement. The Nixon administration's efforts to "neutralize" Lennon are the subject of Lennon's file. The documents are reproduced in facsimile so that readers can see all the classification stamps, marginal notes, blacked out passages and—in some cases—the initials of J. Edgar Hoover. The file includes lengthy reports by confidential informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, memos to the White House, transcripts of TV shows on which Lennon appeared, and a proposal that Lennon be arrested by local police on drug charges. Fascinating, engrossing, at points hilarious and absurd, Gimme Some Truth documents an era when rock music seemed to have real political force and when youth culture challenged the status quo in Washington. It also delineates the ways the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations fought to preserve government secrecy, and highlights the legal strategies adopted by those who have challenged it.

In this irresistible collection of quotations, anecdotes, folklore, and essays, curmudgeon Jon Winkour pays tribute to canines of every size, shape, color, and persuasion--from the much maligned pit bull to the pampered poodle. Photographs. Literary Guild Selection.

Hard cover

Reveals the author's tricks and tips to achieve a unique look at home from aranging pillowscapes and consoles to adding eccentric objects and artwork.

Cullen James is a young women whose life dictates her dreams--and whose dreams control her life. Cullen begins to dream of a parallel world called Rondua where a charming child named Pepsi and equally engaging talking animals go on a quest for magical bones that can save or destroy life. Her "real" life in New York City becomes just as exciting and dangerous.

All investigators funded by the National Institutes of Health are now required to receive training about the ethics of clinical research. Based on a course taught by the editors at NIH, Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Clinical Research is the first book designed to help investigators meet this new requirement. The book begins with the history of human subjects research and guidelines instituted since World War II. It then covers various stages and components of the clinical trial process: designing the trial, recruiting participants, ensuring informed consent, studying special populations, and conducting international research. Concluding chapters address conflicts of interest, scientific misconduct, and challenges to the IRB system. The appendix provides sample informed consent forms. This book will be used in undergraduate courses on research ethics and in schools of medicine and public health by students who are or will be carrying out clinical research. Professionals in need of such training and bioethicists also will be interested.

Undue Risk is an unprecedented and chilling history of the use of human subjects in atomic, biological, and chemical warfare experiments by the U.S. government from World War II to the present. Jonathan Moreno, a senior researcher on the president's special commission, goes where few researchers have gone before, exploring secret government documents which reveal a plethora of government experiments. He exposes startling details of experiments like those involving the exposure of soldiers to atomic blast fallout and secret LSD and mescaline experiments. From the courtrooms of Nuremberg to the battlefields of the Gulf War, Undue Risk exposes a variety of government policies and specific cases, including plutonium injections to unwilling hospital patients, and even the attempted recruitment of Nazi medical scientists by the U.S. government after World War II. New to the paperback edition, this exciting read covers recent objections by U.S. military personnel to required anthrax vaccinations and new developments in government policies on experiments involving vulnerable human subjects.

* The son of a bankrupt farmer becomes an object of sexual delight and the treasured possession of the ruling Empress Dowager. Set in China during the T'ang Dynasty. Explicit descriptions of sex.

"In 1975, Gary Ruckler attends classes at Moscow State University as part of the first American Fulbright program in the USSR. Here he befriends Anna, her boyfriend Zaza, and their enigmatic friend Aslan. When Aslan mysteriously disappears into the mountains of Kazbegi, Georgia, Gary is swept up in events beyond his understanding and control. Fifteen years later, Tamar and Giorgi struggle through the "lost" decade of the 1990s in Tbilisi. Through three civil wars, a refugee crisis, and near-total societal collapse, the pair come of age in the underground arts scene. Then Tamar meets Rachel Grabinsky, head of an international pro-democracy NGO, who changes her life forever. In Toronto, 2003, Tamar and Rachel's son Joseph uncover astonishing truths about a woman they thought they knew. Who was Rachel Grabinsky? What was she really doing in Georgia? And how was she connected to Gary Ruckler? Part political mystery and part family drama, In a Land Without Dogs the Cats Learn to Bark is an energetic, gritty, and darkly funny novel that unfolds across multiple generations and explores the fractured nature of identity, the necessity of lies, and the bloody legacy of the Soviet Empire."--

Some ancient civilizations, notably the Babylonians and the Israelites, held fast to the belief that their particular god (or gods) were stronger than all other heavenly powers and gods combined, supremely able to protect their well-being and success as a nation. This belief (which resounds in the modern-day rallying cry "God is on our side") led to some foolhardy and rash decisions, particularly when it came to war. For a nation defeated or conquered by a foreign power inevitably faced the profound, perplexing question: "Why did our God, who has sworn to protect us, allow this to happen?" Jonathan A. Goldstein turns to the religious literature of these ancient peoples to discover how they reconciled their beliefs with the realities of history. In a magnificent blend of several academic disciples (literary criticism, political theory, biblical and classical history), he compares and contrasts the responses of different eras and nations–from the Israelites, Babylonians, and Egyptians to the Zoroastrians, Iranians, and Persians under Alexander the Great. Goldstein’s close readings of literature written following such devastating events as the fall of the Israelites to the Assyrians and the Babylonians demonstrate that theology, far from being a static and unchanging set of beliefs, evolves with the course of history. Revealing how each defeat helped to shape and define the religious beliefs of the conquered, Peoples of an Almighty God clearly demonstrates that no belief can remain unchanged or untouched by the beliefs of other people.