Nothing else damages the earth's environment more than our cities. As the world's population has grown, our cities have burgeoned, and their impact on the environment worsened. Meanwhile, from the isolated, gated communities within Houston and Los Angeles, to the millions of residents of Bombay living in squalor, the city has failed to serve its ideal function—as the cradle of civilization, the engine of culture, and the inspiration for community and citizenship. In Cities for a Small Planet , Sir Richard Rogers, one of the world's leading architects and the designer of the Pompidou Center in Paris, demonstrates how future cities could provide the springboard for restoring humanity's harmony with its environment.Rogers outlines the disastrous impact cities have had and will continue to have on our world, from waste-saturated Tokyo Bay, to the massive plumes of pollution caused by London's traffic, to the depleted water resources of Mexico City. He traces these problems to the underlying social and cultural values that create them—unchecked commercial zeal, selfish individualism, and a lack of community. Bringing to bear concepts such as that of “open-minded” space—places within cities that serve multiple functions such as markets, parks, and sidewalk cafes—he explains how urban design can be used to give citizens a sense of shared experience. The city built with comfortable and safe public space can bring diverse groups together and breed a sense of tolerance, awareness, identity, and mutual respect. He calls for a new theoretical shift in the way cities do business and interact with the environment, arguing that many products come to market and are sold without figuring their social or environmental cost.Rogers goes on to describe the city of the future: one that is sustainable within its own environment; that can make a positive impact on its surroundings; that encourages communication among its citizens; that is compact and focused around neighborhoods; and that is beautiful, a city whose buildings and spaces spark the creative potential of its inhabitants.As our population grows larger, our planet grows smaller. Cities for a Small Planet is a passionate and eloquent blueprint for the cities we must create in response, cities that provide for the needs of both their residents and the earth on which they live.

Comedy / Characters: 3 male 3 female Scenery: Interior America's premier comic playwright crosses the Atlantic for a suite of hilarious comedies set in a deluxe London hotel a sedate place until these characters check in. In Settling Accounts the suite is occupied by an inebriated Welsh writer who is holding his long time business manager caught absconding with the writer's money at gun point. The villian concocts increasingly farfetched explanations of what he was doing at Heathrow with

"The best voice that ever graced 2-Tone."-- Rolling Stone "The iconic queen of ska. . . . It's gritty, witty, and compelling."-- Elle Lead singer for platinum-selling 2-Tone band The Selecter, Pauline Black has been in the music business for over thirty years. The only woman in a movement dominated by men, she was very much the Queen of British Ska. She saw The Specials, Madness, Dexy's Midnight Runners, and all the other top bands of that generation at their very best . . . and worst. Black was born in 1953 of Anglo-Jewish/Nigerian parents. Adopted by a white, working class family in the fifties, Pauline was always made to feel different, both by the local community and members of her extended family, who saw her at best as a curiosity, at worst as an embarrassing inconvenience. Weaving her rise to fame and recollections of the 2-Tone phenomenon with her moving search for her birth parents, Black By Design is a funny and enlightening memoir of music and roots. Pauline Black is a singer and actress who gained fame as the lead singer of seminal 2-Tone band The Selecter. The band's new album was released in September 2011.

An extremely readable and entertaining autobiography of one of this country's most durable jazz and big band musicians, In Tune International Anyone who enjoys music and show business will revel in this highly readable book which reads more like a set of anecdotes than an autobiography, Frank Sinatra Music Society magazine.

This compendium brings together thirty-three murderous tales -- one from each of the capital's boroughs -- that not only shocked the City but made headline news across the country. Throughout its history the great urban sprawl of Greater London has been home to some of the most shocking murders in England, many of which have made legal history. Contained within the pages of this book are the stories behind these heinous crimes. They include George Chapman, who was hanged in 1903 for poisoning three women, and whom is widely suspected of having been the notorious serial killer "Jack the Ripper"; lovers Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters, executed for stabbing to death Thompson's husband Percy in 1922; and Donald Hume, who was found not guilty of the murder of wealthy businessman Stanley Setty in 1949, but later confessed to killing him, chopping up his body and disposing of it by aeroplane. Linda Stratmann also reveals previously unpublished information that sheds a whole new light on the infamous Craig and Bentley case. This carefully researched, well-illustrated and enthralling text will appeal to those interested in the history of Greater London's history and true-crime fans alike.