A strange glowing stone picked up on a sea voyage captivates a ship's crew and has a terrible transforming effect on them.

Arguing that a small but powerful group has used unscientific research and misinformation campaigns to promote the idea of women as victims of the "patriarchy," an expose+a7 of these idealogues maintains that extremists damage the cause of equality. Tour.

Among his many books, perhaps none have sparked more outrage than The Missionary Position, Christopher Hitchens's meticulous and searing study of the life and deeds of Mother Teresa--and it is now available as a Signal deluxe paperback. A Nobel Peace Prize recipient canonized by the Catholic Church in 2003, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was celebrated by heads of state and adored by millions for her work on behalf of the poor. In his measured critique, Hitchens asks only that Mother Teresa's reputation be judged by her actions--not the other way around. With characteristic elan and rhetorical dexterity, Hitchens eviscerates the fawning cult of Teresa, recasting the Albanian missionary in a light she has never before been seen in.

"This radiant selection of Clarice Lispector's best and best-loved stories includes such familiar favorites as "The Smallest Woman in the World," "Love," "Family Ties," and "The Egg and the Chicken." Lispector's luminous regard for life's small revelatory incidents is legendary, and here her genius is concentrated in a fizzing, portable volume. Covert Joy offers the particular bliss a book can bring that she expresses in the title story"--

The complete text of the film which aroused much comment and controversy regarding accusations that Polish antisemitism had contributed to the Holocaust.

A quarter of a million dollars. It's the going tab for four years at most top-tier colleges. Why does it cost so much and is it worth it? In this provocative investigation, the renowned sociologist Andrew Hacker and New York Times writer Claudia Dreifus make an incisive case that the American way of higher education—now a $420 billion-per-year business—has lost sight of its primary mission: the education of our young people. They probe the true performance of the Ivy League, the baleful influence of tenure, an unhealthy reliance on part-time teachers, and supersized bureaucracies which now have lives of their own. Hacker and Dreifus take readers from Princeton and Harvard to Evergreen State, revealing those institutions that need to adjust their priorities and others that are getting it right, proving that learning can be achieved—and at a much more reasonable price. Higher Education? is a wake-up call and a call to arms.

It's the twenty-first century, and all over the world, MMORPGs are big business. Hidden away in China and elsewhere, young players are pressed into working as "gold-farmers," amassing game-wealth that's sold to Western players at a profitable markup. Some of these pieceworkers rebel, trying to go into business for themselves--but there's little to stop their bosses from dragging them back into servitude. Some of them, like young Mala in the slums of Bombay--nicknamed "General Robotwallah" for her self-taught military skill--become enforcers for the bosses, but that only buys them so much. All the way over in L.A., young Wei-Dong, obsessed with Asian youth culture and MMORPGs, knows the system is rigged, knows that kids everywhere are being exploited. Finally, he and his Asian counterparts begin to work together to claim their rights. Under the noses of the ruling elites, they fight the bosses, the game owners and the rich speculators, outsmarting them with their street-gaming skills. But soon the battle will spill over from the virtual world to the real one, leaving the young rebels fighting not just for their rights, but for their lives....

Information Doesn't Want to Be Free takes on the state of copyright and creative success in the digital age. Can small artists still thrive in the Internet era? Can giant record labels avoid alienating their audiences? This is a book about the pitfalls and the opportunities that creative industries (and individuals) are confronting today -- about how the old models have failed or found new footing, and about what might soon replace them. Information Doesn't Want to Be Free offers a guide to the ways creativity and the Internet interact today, and to what might be coming next.

"After fifty years as a forensic pathologist, Dr. Cyril Wecht has one case that still keeps him up at night. Since the day that President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Dr. Wecht has earned his reputation as one of the foremost skeptics of the U.S. government's official answer to the death of the 35th president. Dr. Wecht firmly believes that it was not Lee Harvey Oswald who was responsible for the president's death, but rogue elements without our own government. Co-authored by true crime writer Dawna Kaufmann, this book rehashes Dr. Wecht's decades-long experience with the JFK case in one highly detailed and comprehensive volume. Through the unique perspective of a career coroner, it approaches the--importantly, the autopsy--with an expertly discerning eye, identifying the details (and often lack thereof) which Dr. Wecht finds particularly dubious. The authors also discuss the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the findings of the Warren Commission, Jack Ruby and the shocking revelations about the assassination made in the years since"--

Examines the story behind the bizarre trial of Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner who murdered Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, live on national television.

A guide to the thirty-seven pathways of life and how to find yours.

A tie-in to the BBC 2 "The Ren and Stimpy Show" where life is portrayed as a wild and imaginative affair for Ren, the belligerent asthmatic chihuahua, with a dazzling array of mood swings, and his dim sidekick Stimpy. This collection features adventures such as "Frankenstimpy".

The New York Times bestselling author of Inheritance delivers her most intimate and powerful work: a piercing, life-affirming memoir about marriage and memory, sorrow and love. • "A beautiful book by a writer of rare talent.”— Cheryl Strayed, bestselling author of WILD Hourglass is an inquiry into how marriage is transformed by time—abraded, strengthened, shaped in miraculous and sometimes terrifying ways by accident and experience. With courage and relentless honesty, Dani Shapiro opens the door to her house, her marriage, and her heart, and invites us to witness her own marital reckoning—a reckoning in which she confronts both the life she dreamed of and the life she made, and struggles to reconcile the girl she was with the woman she has become. What are the forces that shape our most elemental bonds? How do we make lifelong commitments in the face of identities that are continuously shifting, and commit ourselves for all time when the self is so often in flux? What happens to love in the face of the unexpected, in the face of disappointment and compromise—how do we wrest beauty from imperfection, find grace in the ordinary, desire what we have rather than what we lack? Drawing on literature, poetry, philosophy, and theology, Shapiro writes gloriously of the joys and challenges of matrimonial life, in a luminous narrative that unfurls with urgent immediacy and sharp intelligence. Artful, intensely emotional work from one of our finest writers.

There is a tug of war going on for the future of America. At one end of the rope are those who think America is a secular nation; at the other end are those who believe religion is at the root of our country's foundation. In this paperback release of the thought-provoking America's Real War, renowned leader and speaker Rabbi Daniel Lapin encourages America to re-embrace the Judeo-Christian values on which our nation was founded, and logically demonstrates why those values are crucial to America's strength in the new millennium.

The nature of well-being is one of the most enduring and elusive subjects of human inquiry. Well-Being draws upon the latest scientific research to transform our understanding of this ancient question. With contributions from leading authorities in psychology, social psychology, and neuroscience, this volume presents the definitive account of current scientific efforts to understand human pleasure and pain, contentment and despair. The distinguished contributors to this volume combine a rigorous analysis of human sensations, emotions, and moods with a broad assessment of the many factors, from heredity to nationality, that bear on our well-being. Using the tools of experimental science, the contributors confront the puzzles of human likes and dislikes. Why do we grow accustomed and desensitized to changes in our lives, both good and bad? Does our happiness reflect the circumstances of our lives or is it determined by our temperament and personality? Why do humans acquire tastes for sensations that are initially painful or unpleasant? By examining the roots of our everyday likes and dislikes, the book also sheds light on some of the more extreme examples of attraction and aversion, such as addiction and depression. Among its wide ranging inquiries, Well-Being examines systematic differences in moods and behaviors between genders, explaining why women suffer higher rates of depression and anxiety than men, but are also more inclined to express positive emotions. The book also makes international comparisons, finding that some countries' populations report higher levels of happiness than others. The contributors deploy an array of methods, from the surveys and questionnaires of social science to psychological and physiological experiments, to develop a comprehensive new approach to the study of well-being. They show how the sensory pleasures of the body can tells us something about the higher pleasures of the mind and even how the effectiveness of our immune system can depend upon the health of our social relationships.

Loki is...Earth's Mightiest Hero?! After dying a grisly death in WAR OF THE REALMS, the reborn Trickster learned a valuable lesson in warmongering: Don't get caught. But now Loki has a whole new set of responsibilities - and his brother Thor isn't about to let him walk away from them. Restless with his new duties, Loki seeks out the advice of the closest thing Midgard has to a king - Tony Stark, the Invincible Iron Man! Close enough, right? But it turns out that Shell-head isn't too happy to see Loki, on account of all that stuff he did in the past. Now the God of Mischief/Stories/Evil/Chaos has to outsmart the cleverest man on Earth - or die (again) trying. Meanwhile, could Thor be hatching a mischievous plot of his own?