A murder mystery set in Manhattan that casts a satirical look at the upper East Side, including its fashion designers, academics, businessmen and bored housewives.
From the bestselling author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir comes an unforgettable novel of a BBC-sponsored wartime cooking competition and the four women who enter for a chance to better their lives. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY GOOD HOUSEKEEPING • “This story had me so hooked, I literally couldn’t put it down.”—NPR Two years into World War II, Britain is feeling her losses: The Nazis have won battles, the Blitz has destroyed cities, and U-boats have cut off the supply of food. In an effort to help housewives with food rationing, a BBC radio program called The Kitchen Front is holding a cooking contest—and the grand prize is a job as the program’s first-ever female co-host. For four very different women, winning the competition would present a crucial chance to change their lives. For a young widow, it’s a chance to pay off her husband’s debts and keep a roof over her children’s heads. For a kitchen maid, it’s a chance to leave servitude and find freedom. For a lady of the manor, it’s a chance to escape her wealthy husband’s increasingly hostile behavior. And for a trained chef, it’s a chance to challenge the men at the top of her profession. These four women are giving the competition their all—even if that sometimes means bending the rules. But with so much at stake, will the contest that aims to bring the community together only serve to break it apart?
First study of cinema, media and the Balkan wars; Wide-ranging view of politics and culture of the region; The break-up of Yugoslavia triggered a truly international film-making project. Underground, Ulysses' Gaze, Before the Rain, Pretty Village, Pretty Flame and Welcome to Sarajevo were amongst a host of films created as the conflicts in the region unravelled. These conflicts restored the Balkans as a centrepiece of Western imagery and the media (especially cinema) assumed a leading but ambiguous role in defining it for global consumption through a narrow range of selectively defined images. Simultaneously, a lot of the high-quality cinematic and television work made in the region (much of it discussed in this book) remains relatively unknown. Cinema of Flames attempts to go deeper than the imagery and address some of the general concerns of the cross-cultural representation and self-representation of the Balkans: narrative strategies within the context of Balkan exclusion from the European cultural sphere, the cosmopolitan image of Sarejevo, diaspora, and the representations of villains, victims, women, and ethnic minorities, all considered in the general context of Balkan cinema. 'encyclopaedic in scope and brilliance, making excellent use of the scholarly literature whilst interweaving analysis of films and other mass media. The book will be a superb addition to the literatures on Bosnia and Yugoslavia. It will also serve as a standard reference on Balkans film.' Robert Hayden (University of Pittsburgh)
Recollection of youthful, romantic and passionate love, which never turned into stable relationship; tragically ended marriage, and other personal and family problems; very difficult, often controversial life of a talented actress under communism in Poland, described day in day out, and which almost parenthetically covering the last twenty years of the regime; and the clandestine activities of opposition against the communism; are the few threads of this multidimensional novel. The contemporary dimension of the novel comprises Polish post-communism and built up of the new social class called red bourgeoisie and the way the main character is confronted with religious ignorance and intolerance; corruption and frequent appearance of cases of perverse, often duplicitous accusations of collaboration with the ex communist security system, aiming as an embarrassing argument in political and private matters; and often instrumental as a blackmail. There are other, political, moral and social overtones, too.
This is a story of an innocent, vibrant and naive young woman, Lucia, married to a self-centered, intolerant and cruel man twice her age. It's about how reckless it is to enter into a marriage of convenience. After her mother's death, Lucia was brought up by her father, a retired ex-grocer and a wealthy businessman. Her father gets excited when Miranda, a politician, is provoked by a friend to take on a young, financially stable wife and settle on Lucia. Trusting her father, obedient Lucia never questions the wisdom of the match, and moves forward to the journey of a honeymoon. On a deeper level, the story presents her internal journey from an innocent romantic full of life and dreams to a damaged soul hoping to die. One can observe the author's budding interest in French naturalism in the novel. She includes ample descriptions of landscapes and characters with impactful events and dialogue.
The definitive history of the marriage equality debate in the United States, praised by Library Journal as "beautifully and accessibly written. . . . An essential work.” As a legal scholar who first argued in the early 1990s for a right to gay marriage, William N. Eskridge Jr. has been on the front lines of the debate over same‑sex marriage for decades. In this book, Eskridge and his coauthor, Christopher R. Riano, offer a panoramic and definitive history of America’s marriage equality debate. The authors explore the deeply religious, rabidly political, frequently administrative, and pervasively constitutional features of the debate and consider all angles of its dramatic history. While giving a full account of the legal and political issues, the authors never lose sight of the personal stories of the people involved, or of the central place the right to marry holds in a person’s ability to enjoy the dignity of full citizenship. This is not a triumphalist or one‑sided book but a thoughtful history of how the nation wrestled with an important question of moral and legal equality.
Event Studies is the only book devoted to developing knowledge and theory about planned events. It focuses on event planning and management, outcomes, the experience of events and the meanings attached to them, the dynamic processes shaping events and why people attend them. This title draws from a large number of foundation disciplines and closely related professional fields, to foster interdisciplinary theory focused on planned events. It brings together important discourses on events including event management, event tourism, and the study of events within various disciplines that are able to shed light on the roles, importance and impacts of events in society and culture. New to this edition: New sections on social and intangible influences, consumer psychology and legal environment, planning and policy framework to reflect recent developments in the field Extended coverage of philosophy and research methods and how they can best be used in event studies; social media as a marketing tool; and the class and cultural influences of events New and additional case studies throughout the book from a wide range of international events Companion website to include PowerPoint slides and updated Instructor’s Manual including suggested lecture outlines and sequence, quizzes per chapter and essay questions.
Join the journey as nine couples employ daring resourcefulness that leads them along the Underground Railroad in search of freedom and justice for all.
"My name is Zhang Rongliang, and I am an unashamed follower of Jesus Christ.…It is considered quite dangerous to reveal the contents of this book, but these are stories that need to be told for God’s glory and for the encouragement of the church.” So begins this extraordinary first-person account by the prominent leader of one of the largest underground churches in China. A former Communist Party member, Zhang took a stand for Christ and was targeted for prison, work camps, and torture, all the while helping to build a network of millions of faithful believers. Spanning the time of Mao’s regime to today, Zhang testifies of God’s supernatural movements, of the sacrifice of countless Christians who loved and served Christ—regardless of the cost—and of the exciting new vision among believers in China to reach not only the Chinese but the entire world with the gospel.
The Scene of Foreplay: Theater, Labor, and Leisure in 1960s New York suggests "foreplay" as a theoretical framework for understanding a particular mode of performance production. That mode exists outside of predetermined structures of recognition in terms of professionalism, artistic achievement, and a logic of eventfulness. Foreplay denotes a peculiar way of working and inhabiting time in performance. It is recognized as emblematic of a constellation of artists in the 1960s New York scene, including Ellen Stewart, John Vaccaro, Ruby Lynn Reyner, Jackie Curtis, Andy Warhol, Tom Eyen, Jack Smith, and Penny Arcade. Matching an original approach to historical materials and theoretical reflection, Palladini addresses the peculiar forms of production, reproduction, and consumption developed in the 1960s as labors of love, creating for artists a condition of “preliminarity” toward professional work and also functioning as a counterforce within productive economy, as a prelude where value is not yet assigned to labor. The Scene of Foreplay proposes that such labors of love can be considered both as paradigmatic for contemporary forms of precarious labor and also resonating with echoes from marginal histories of the performing arts, in a nonlinear genealogy of queer resistance to ideas of capitalist productivity and professionalism. The book offers much for those interested in performance theory as well asin the history of theater and performance arts in the 1960s.