Loretta Bowersock and her daughter, Terri, ran a multimillion-dollar furniture store based in Tempe, Arizona, where they were well-known and admired by many. Together, these two women seemed to be living the American Dream...until one man decided to take it all away. Over the course of two decades, Taw Benderly worked his way into Loretta's heart, home, and business. Though the couple appeared to be happy, their lives behind closed doors told another story. Terri had always known that the handsome, charming, and usually unemployed Taw was manipulating her mother—but she did not know the extent of the abuse or how far he would go to defraud her. Then, just before Christmas in 2004, Loretta went missing. It would be more than a year before Terri learned the shocking truth: That, before killing himself, Taw murdered the 69-year-old Loretta and left her. Bones in the Desert is the shocking story of a devoted mother and daughter, a successful business, and the man who would do everything to destroy it all ...
An essential introduction to the age of dinosaurs in Africa. Once Africa was referred to as the ''Lost World of the dinosaur era,'' so poorly known were its ancient flora and fauna. Worse still, many priceless fossil specimens from the Sahara Desert were destroyed during the Second World War. Fortunately, in the twentieth-first century, more researchers are now working in north Africa than ever before and making fascinating discoveries such as the dinosaur Spinosaurus. Based on a decade of study, The Desert Bones brings the world of African dinosaurs fully into the light. Jamale Ijouiher skillfully draws on the latest research and knowledge about paleoecology to paint a compelling and comprehensive portrait of the mid-Cretaceous in North Africa.
An account and analysis of the systematic murder of women and girls in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juárez. In Ciudad Juarez, a territorial power normalized barbarism. This anomalous ecology mutated into a femicide machine: an apparatus that didn't just create the conditions for the murders of dozens of women and little girls, but developed the institutions that guarantee impunity for those crimes and even legalize them. A lawless city sponsored by a State in crisis. The facts speak for themselves. —from The Femicide Machine Best known to American readers for his cameo appearances as The Journalist in Roberto Bolano's 2666 and as a literary detective in Javier Marías's novel Dark Back of Time, Sergio González Rodríguez is one of Mexico's most important contemporary writers. He is the author of Bones in the Desert, the most definitive work on the murders of women and girls in Juárez, Mexico, as well as The Headless Man, a sharp meditation on the recurrent uses of symbolic violence; Infectious, a novel; and Original Evil, a long essay. The Femicide Machine is the first book by González Rodríguez to appear in English translation. Written especially for Semiotext(e) Intervention series, The Femicide Machine synthesizes González Rodríguez's documentation of the Juárez crimes, his analysis of the unique urban conditions in which they take place, and a discussion of the terror techniques of narco-warfare that have spread to both sides of the border. The result is a gripping polemic. The Femicide Machine probes the anarchic confluence of global capital with corrupt national politics and displaced, transient labor, and introduces the work of one of Mexico's most eminent writers to American readers.
b.A masterpiece of historical adventure, ISkeletons on the Zahara The western Sahara is a baking hot and desolate place, home only to nomads and their camels, and to locusts, snails and thorny scrub -- and its barren and ever-changing coastline has baffled sailors for centuries. In August 1815, the US brig Commerce was dashed against Cape Bojador and lost, although through bravery and quick thinking the ship's captain, James Riley, managed to lead all of his crew to safety. What followed was an extraordinary and desperate battle for survival in the face of human hostility, starvation, dehydration, death and despair. Captured, robbed and enslaved, the sailors were dragged and driven through the desert by their new owners, who neither spoke their language nor cared for their plight. Reduced to drinking urine, flayed by the sun, crippled by walking miles across burning stones and sand and losing over half of their body weights, the sailors struggled to hold onto both their humanity and their sanity. To reach safety, they would have to overcome not only the desert but also the greed and anger of those who would keep them in captivity. From the cold waters of the Atlantic to the searing Saharan sands, from the heart of the desert to the heart of man, Skeletons on the Zahara is a spectacular odyssey through the extremes and a gripping account of courage, brotherhood, and survival.
The desert has long been a theme in Mark C. Taylor's work, from his inquiries into the religious significance of Las Vegas to his writings on earthworks artist Michael Heizer. At once haunted by absence and loss, the desert, for Taylor, is a place of exile and wandering, of temptation and tribulation. Bones, in turn, speak to his abiding interest in remnants, ruins, ritual, and immanence. Taylor combines his fascination in the detritus of the desert and its philosophical significance with his work in photography in Mystic Bones. A collection of remarkably elegant close-up images of weathered bones--remains of cattle, elk, and deer skeletons gathered from the desert of the American West--Mystic Bones pairs each photograph with a philosophical aphorism. These images are buttressed by a major essay, "Rubbings of Reality," in which Taylor explores the use of bones in the religious rituals of native inhabitants of the Western desert and, more broadly, the appearance of bones in myth and religious reality. Meditating on the way in which bones paradoxically embody both the personal and the impersonal--at one time they are our very substance, but eventually they become our last remnants, anonymous, memorializing oblivion--Taylor here suggests ways in which natural processes can be thought of as art, and bones as art objects. Bones, Taylor writes, "draw us elsewhere." To follow their traces beyond the edge of the human is to wander into ageless times and open spaces where everything familiar becomes strange. By revealing beauty hidden in the most unexpected places, these haunting images refigure death in a way that allows life to be seen anew. A bold new work from a respected philosopher of religion, Mystic Bones is Taylor's his most personal statement of after-God theology.
Before Martha Wells captured the hearts of MILLIONS with her Murderbot series, there was Khat, Sagai, and Elen, and a city risen out of death and decay... The city of Charisat, a tiered monolith of the Ancients’ design, sits on the edge of the vast desert known as the Waste. Khat, a member of a humanoid race created by the Ancients to survive in the Waste, and Sagai, his human partner, are relic dealers working in the bottom tiers of society, trying to stay one step ahead of the Trade Inspectors. When Khat is hired by the all-powerful Warders to find relics believed to be part of one of the Ancients' arcane engines, he, and his party, begin unravelling the mysteries of an age-old technology. This they expected. They soon find themselves as the last line of defense between the suffering masses of Charisat and a fanatical cult, bent on unleashing an evil upon the city with an undying thirst for bone. That, they did not expect. This updated and revised edition is the author’s preferred text. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The glittering tradition of sword-and-sorcery sweeps into the sands of ancient Arabia with the heart-stopping speed of a whirling dervish in this thrilling debut novel from new talent Howard Andrew Jones In 8th century Baghdad, a stranger pleads with the vizier to safeguard the bejeweled tablet he carries, but he is murdered before he can explain. Charged with solving the puzzle, the scholar Dabir soon realizes that the tablet may unlock secrets hidden within the lost city of Ubar, the Atlantis of the sands. When the tablet is stolen from his care, Dabir and Captain Asim are sent after it, and into a life and death chase through the ancient Middle East. Stopping the thieves—a cunning Greek spy and a fire wizard of the Magi—requires a desperate journey into the desert, but first Dabir and Asim must find the lost ruins of Ubar and contend with a mythic, sorcerous being that has traded wisdom for the souls of men since the dawn of time. But against all these hazards there is one more that may be too great even for Dabir to overcome... Advance Praise for THE DESERT OF SOULS: "The Desert of Souls is filled with adventure, magic, compelling characters and twists that are twisty. This is seriously cool stuff." -- Steven Brust, New York Times bestselling author of the Vlad Taltos series "A grand and wonderful adventure filled with exotic magic and colorful places — like a cross between Sinbad and Indiana Jones." -- Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of The Map of All Things "Like the genie of the lamp, Howard Jones has granted this reader's wish for a fresh, exciting take on the venerable genre of sword-and-sorcery!" -- Richard A. Knaak, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Legends of the Dragonrealm "Howard Andrew Jones spins an exciting and suspenseful tale in his historical fantasy debut. A rich, detailed tapestry -- part Arthur Conan Doyle, part Robert E. Howard, and part Omar Khayyam, woven in the magical thread of One Thousand And One Nights." -- E.E. Knight, Author of the bestselling Vampire Earth "An entertaining and enjoyable journey into a world of djinns and magic far darker than expected, yet one that ends with hope, both for the characters... and that there will be yet another book." -- L. E. Modesitt, Jr, author of the Recluse Saga, the Imager Portfolio, and the Corean Chronicles "A modern iteration of old school storytelling. Highly recommended to anyone in search of a fun run through strange lands and times." -- Glen Cook, author of The Black Company Series "Howard Jones wields magic like a subtle blade and action like a mighty cleaver in his scimitars and sorcery tale, weaving together Arabian myth, history, and some honest-to-gosh surprises to create a unique story that you'll not soon forget." -- Monte Cook, author of The Dungeon Masters Guide, 3rd Edition "A rousing tale of swords against sorcery. Howard Jones writes with wit and flair. His world is involving, authentic and skilfully evoked. The best fantasy novel I have read all year." -- William King, Author of the Space Wolf trilogy and creator of Gotrek and Felix "A whirlwind tale of deserts, djinn and doors to other worlds, told in a voice perfectly pitched for the style and setting." -- Nathan Long, author of Bloodborn and Shamanslayer "An Arabian Nights adventure as written by Robert E Howard. It is exciting, inventive, and most of all fun." -- Dave Drake, author of The Legion of Fire
Keats departs from his traditional style for his one and only wordless picture book, Clementina's Cactus. Clementina and her father are out for a walk in the desert when Clementina discovers a lone cactus, all shriveled and prickly. But Clementina discovers there is something beautiful hiding inside that thick skin.
The Norte Grande of Chile, the world's driest desert, had ''engendered contemporary Chile, everything that was good about it, everything that was dreadful,'' writes Ariel Dorfman in his brilliant exploration of one of the least known and most exotic corners of the globe. For 10,000 years the desert had been mined for silver, iron, and copper, but it was the 19th-century discovery of nitrate that transformed the country into a modern state and forced the desert's colonization. The mines' riches generated mansions and oligarchs in Chile's more temperate region—and terrible inequalities throughout the country. The Norte Grande also gave birth to the first Chilean democratic and socialist movements, nurturing every major political figure of modern Chile from Salvador Allende to Augusto Pinochet. In this richly layered personal memoir, illustrated with the author's own photographs, Dorfman sets out to explore the origins of contemporary Chile—and, along the way, seek out his wife's European ancestors who came years ago to Chile as part of the nitrate rush. And, most poignantly, he looks for traces of his friend and fellow 1960s activist, Freddy Taberna, executed by a firing squad in a remote Pinochet death camp.
“Bonnan combines wit and passion with the sensibilities of a talented instructor in this encyclopedic tour of the vertebrate skeleton.” —Publishers Weekly What can we learn about the evolution of jaws from a pair of scissors? How does the flight of a tennis ball help explain how fish overcome drag? What do a spacesuit and a chicken egg have in common? Highlighting the fascinating twists and turns of evolution across more than 540 million years, paleobiologist Matthew Bonnan uses everyday objects to explain the emergence and adaptation of the vertebrate skeleton. What can camera lenses tell us about the eyes of marine reptiles? How does understanding what prevents a coffee mug from spilling help us understand the posture of dinosaurs? The answers to these and other intriguing questions illustrate how scientists have pieced together the history of vertebrates from their bare bones. With its engaging and informative text, plus more than 200 illustrative diagrams created by the author, The Bare Bones is an unconventional and reader-friendly introduction to the skeleton as an evolving machine. “No bones about it, a text like The Bare Bones was sorely needed in the popular literature of vertebrate paleontology. Matthew Bonnan’s tome on the evolution, form, and function of the vertebrate skeleton may seem daunting in size, but it is written in an enjoyable and readable fashion that will absolutely delight all sorts of readers from expert to soon-to-be-expert.” —Palaeontologia Electronica “A remarkably fun book to read . . . his conversational style and wit make this an unintimidating yet highly informative book that would work wonderfully in college courses.” —The Quarterly Review of Biology
