Great Railway Journeys of Europe

This full-color guide inspires travelers to sample a range of different railway experiences. There are also features on the history and growth of rail travel, railway hotels, feats of engineering, the Channel Tunnel, and much more. (Check Catalog)

Joint Ventures: Inside America's Almost Legal Marijuana Industry

CNBC anchor Trish Regan takes you behind the scenes of America's thriving pot industry, to show readers things only drug dealers know about this secret world Forget amber waves of grain. Today, it's marijuana plants that blanket the nation from sea to shining sea in homes, in backyards, and even in our national parks. In "Joint Ventures, " Trish Regan takes you behind the scenes to explore every aspect of this flourishing underground economy. Her focus is the so-called Emerald Triangle Northern California's Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties where many small-time, part-time marijuana growers contribute to a trade that generates roughly a billion dollars a year.A fascinating investigation into the inner workings of today's exploding American marijuana industryBased on extensive research and interviews by Trish Regan, whose Emmy nominated documentary "Marijuana, Inc." attracted more viewers than any documentary in CNBC's historyRegan examines all aspects of this new culture. She reveals how small time growers get their start, make (or lose) a fortune, struggle with violence, try to keep up with constantly changing laws and regulations all while walking an increasingly fine line with the FedsRegan reports on the current and potential impact of legalized marijuana on local economies, uncovers the link between marijuana and violent Mexican cartels, questions whether decriminalization would work on a national scale, as it has in Portugal since 2001 As the decriminalization and legalization debates gather steam, "Joint Ventures" arms you with the facts on both sides of the issue. (Check Catalog)

Unfair Advantage: The Power of Financial Education

Unfair Advantage – The Power of Financial Education

In Unfair Advantage, Robert Kiyosaki, author of the number one best-selling personal finance book of all time, Rich Dad Poor Dad, tells you what schools will never teach you about money.

He challenges people around to world to stop blindly accepting that they are destined to struggle financially all their lives. True financial education is the path to creating the life you want for yourself and your family. Robert encourages you to change the one thing that is within your control: yourself.

This book is about the power of financial education and the five unfair advantages that a real financial education offers:
· The Unfair Advantage of Knowledge
· The Unfair Advantage of Taxes
· The Unfair Advantage of Debt
· The Unfair Advantage of Risk
· The Unfair Advantage of Compensation

Robert’s fresh approach to his time-tested messages underscores the steps that move education into the applied knowledge that delivers measurable results.

In true Rich Dad style, Unfair Advantage challenges readers to appreciate two points of view and experience how the power of real financial education is their unfair advantage. (Check Catalog)

The Natural Navigator: A Watchful Explorer 's Guide to a Nearly Forgotten Skill

In ancient days, man found his way in the world and over the oceans through solar, lunar, and celestial observation, an art almost lost in a modern world given direction first by compass and cartography and more recently by computer-voiced GPS units. Gooley, a Fellow at the Royal Institute of Navigation, sets out to revive the ancient skills of discerning direction by reading the skyand other forms of natural observationin a book rich with fascinating tips (most tennis courts are aligned north-south to minimize the sun's glare; an outstretched fist doubles as a crude sextant) but freighted with pedantic pedagogy. Determined readers who pass through the thicket of words will be rewarded by a wealth of information. Much of it is commonsensical: pay attention to landmarks; stars in the night sky twinkle, but planets don't. Some of it is informative: moss doesn't always grow on the north side of trees, as many a Boy Scout has been taught. Moments are fascinatingly arcane: the author once determined the direction south by observing a "bird-poo compass." Though too technical for easy reading, Gooley's energetic enthusiasm for the art of natural navigation is just enough compensation. (Mar.) Copyright 2011 Reed Business Information. (Check Catalog)

Cairo: Histories of a City

Cairo, or Al-Qahira, can be translated as both "the victorious" and "the oppressor," explains AlSayyad in his exceptionally absorbing and astute, cultural and architectural history of one of the world's most captivating cities. Professor of architecture, planning, and urban history at UC-Berkeley, AlSayyad structures his book smartly by place rather than strictly by period: each of the 12 chapters brings the reader to a new section of Cairo in an inviting, informed journey through its development. He introduces readers to the history and architecture of, among others, Coptic Cairo; the noted mosques of al-Azhar and a-Anwar; the Gezira Palace; and medieval Cairo. The final chapters, on the eras of Nasser and Mubarak, are especially gripping; AlSayyad warns that the city has been given to a "new elite" and the preservation of old Cairo for tourists is turning it into a Disney-like theme park. An important second thread of the book sees Cairo as inspiration for artists such as Jean-Léon Gérôme and writers Naguib Mahfouz and Alaa Al Aswany. The author's writing is elegantly clear and evocative, drawing the reader into the "messy and difficult" but "vibrant and innovative" city, leaving one wanting to know what he has to say about the politically transformed city's future. 73 color illus. 9 b&w illus.;13 color maps. (Check Catalog)

The Love of My Youth

Thoughtful and moving, Gordon's latest captures the ardor and vulnerability of young love and the cautious circumspection of middle age. Miranda and Adam began a love affair in high school that endured through college only to end in a painful betrayal. When a mutual friend brings them together in present-day Rome, they haven't seen each other in more than three decades. Adam's ambitions to be a concert pianist never came to pass, and Miranda, once convinced that political activism could change the world, is now an epidemiologist. Both have married and raised children, but Rome still holds passionate memories for them. Though wary, they meet for daily walks, and Gordon's vividly detailed descriptions make Rome a palpable presence. Miranda and Adam tentatively reveal to each other the events of their lives, touching on aspirations, disillusionments, ideals, and desires, and these conversations set the pace of Gordon's novel. Only when Miranda is about to leave Rome are they able to fully express their emotions and achieve catharsis. Gordon's (Pearl) restraint is admirable, gradually exposing the differences in character that spelled the inevitable demise of this relationship. An accumulation of detail breathes life into her characters, and the writer's affection for this beloved, eternal city is endearing. (Check Catalog)

Doctor Zhivago

Boris Pasternak's widely acclaimed novel comes gloriously to life in a magnificent new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the award-winning translators of "War and Peace "and" Anna Karenina, "and to whom, " The New York Review of Books" declared, "the English-speaking world is indebted."
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First published in Italy in 1957 amid international controversy--the novel was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, and Pasternak declined the Nobel Prize a year later under intense pressure from Soviet authorities--"Doctor Zhivago" is the story of the life and loves of a poet-physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago's love for the tender and beautiful Lara: pursued, found, and lost again, Lara is the very embodiment of the pain and chaos of those cataclysmic times.
Stunningly rendered in the spirit of Pasternak's original--resurrecting his style, rhythms, voicings, and tone--and including an introduction, textual annotations, and a translators' note, this edition of "Doctor Zhivago" is destined to become the definitive English translation of our time. (Check Catalog)

I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections

Reading these succinct, razor-sharp essays by veteran humorist (I Feel Bad About My Neck), novelist, and screenwriter-director Ephron is to be reminded that she cut her teeth as a New York Post writer in the 1960s, as she recounts in the most substantial selection here, "Journalism: A Love Story." Forthright, frequently wickedly backhanded, these essays cover the gamut of later-life observations (she is 69), from the dourly hilarious title essay about losing her memory, which asserts that her ubiquitous senior moment has now become the requisite Google moment, to several flimsy lists, such as "Twenty-five Things People Have a Shocking Capacity to Be Surprised by Over and Over Again," e.g., "Movies have no political effect whatsoever." Shorts such as the several "I Just Want to Say" pieces feature Ephron's trademark prickly contrariness and are stylistically digestible for the tabloids. Other essays delve into memories of fascinating people she knew, such as the Lillian Hellman of Pentimento, whom she adored until the older woman's egomania rubbed her the wrong way. Most winning, however, are her priceless reflections on her early life, such as growing up in Beverly Hills with her movie-people parents, and how being divorced shaped the bulk of her life, in "The D Word." There's an elegiac quality to many of these pieces, handled with wit and tenderness. (Check Catalog)

America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation

This sweeping, provocative history of America from the 1830s through Reconstruction has two grand themes. One is the importance of evangelical Protestantism, particularly in the North and within the Republican Party, in changing slavery from a political problem to an intractable moral issue that could only be settled by bloodshed. The second is the Civil War's transformation of America into a modern industrial nation with a powerful government and a commercial, scientific outlook, even as the postwar South stagnated in racism and backward-looking religiosity. UNC-Charlotte historian Goldfield (Still Fighting the Civil War) courts controversy by shifting more responsibility for the conflict to an activist North and away from intransigent slaveholders, whom he likens to Indians, Mexicans, and other targets viewed by white evangelical Northerners as "polluting" the spreading western frontier. Still, he presents a superb, stylishly written historical synthesis that insightfully foregrounds ideology, faith, and public mood The book is, the author writes, "neither pro-southern nor pro-northern," but rather "antiwar." Goldfield's narrative of the war proper is especially good, evoking the horror of the fighting and its impact on soldiers and civilians. The result is an ambitious, engrossing interpretation with new things to say about a much-studied conflagration. Color and b&w illus. (Check Catalog)

Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?: The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future

How is the internet changing the way you think? That is one of the dominant questions of our time, one which affects almost every aspect of our life and future. And it's exactly what John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to more than 150 of the world's most influential minds. Brilliant, farsighted, and fascinating, "Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?" is an essential guide to the Net-based world. (Check Catalog)

A Lifetime with Shakespeare: Notes from an American Director of All 38 Plays

Written by the only American to direct and fight--choreograph all of Shakespeare's plays, this text represents an expert and practical guide to the Bard's oeuvre. From the Henry VI plays through The Tempest, each play is explored in its full theatrical complexity, with particular attention paid to directorial and acting challenges, character quirks and development, and the particularities of Shakespearean language. Directing successes are recounted, but the failures are not shied away from, making this work indispensable for anyone interested in producing plays by Shakespeare. (Check Catalog)

Good Poems, American Places

Another bestselling anthology from Garison Keillor-beautiful verses rooted in the American landscape.
Garrison Keillor, the editor of "Good Poems" and "Good Poems for Hard Times," host of "The Writer's Almanac," and all-around arbiter of fine American poetry, introduces another inspiring collection by a range of poets, some beloved favorites and others brash unknowns, organized by regions of America.
From Nantucket to Knoxville, Manhattan to Minnesota, the heart can be exalted anywhere. Think of these poems as postcards-from Billy Collins, Nikki Giovanni, William Carlos Williams, Naomi Shihab Nye, Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, and many more.
Like the previous "Good Poems" collections, this volume celebrates the high-spirited, the witty and antic and jazzy voice that in many ways defines the land of the free. Choosing poems full of humor, sharp insight, and warmth, Garrison Keillor once again makes good poetry accessible and immensely enjoyable. (Check Catalog)