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The Secret Language of Women
Nina Romano
Winner of the Independent Publishers Book Awards (Gold Medal, Romance)
Set in China in the late 1800’s, The Secret Language of Women tells the story of star-crossed lovers, Zhou Bin Lian, a Eurasian healer, and Giacomo Scimenti, an Italian sailor, driven apart by the Boxer Rebellion.
When Lian is seventeen years old, she accompanies her Swiss father, Dr. Gianluca Brasolin, fluent in Italian, to tend the Italian ambassador, at the Summer Palace of Empress Dowager, where she meets and falls in love with Giacomo.
Through voyage and adventure, their love intensifies, but soon is severed by Lian’s dutiful promise as the wife to another. Forbidden from pursuing her chosen profession as a healer, and despised because she does not have bound feet, she is forced to work in a cloisonné factory while her in-laws raise her daughter, Ya Chen. It is in Nushu, the women’s secret writing, that she chronicles her life and her hopes for the future.
Rebelling against the life forced upon her, she empowers herself to act out against the injustice and becomes the master of her own destiny. But her quest for freedom comes at a costly price: The life of someone close to her, lost in a raging typhoon, a grueling journey to the Yun-kang Caves, and a desperate search for beauty and love in the midst of brutality.
The Return of Inflation
Paul Mattick
A concise, jargon-free explanation of inflation past and present, and the world economy today.
The last year has seen the return of inflation as a preoccupation of political decision-makers, economists and the general public. After two decades of wondering why inflation was so low, despite vast economic stimulus, economists were surprised by the recent surge of price increases. Despite disagreement about what exactly is happening in the economy, there is unanimity that growth must be slowed in order to control inflation. To focus on inflation’s return, Paul Mattick looks at past and present, placing current events in the context of capitalism’s history. Exploring in novel terms the nature of money itself, he provides a concise, jargon-free understanding of recent inflation, and official efforts to control it, illuminating the state of our contemporary economy.
The Globe
James Hannam
A history of how we came to know that the earth is round, rather than flat.
The Globe tells the story of humanity's quest to discover the form of the world. Philosophers in ancient Greece deduced the true shape of the Earth in the fourth century BCE; the Romans passed the knowledge to India, and from there it spread to Baghdad and Central Asia. In early medieval Europe, Christians debated the matter but long before the time of Columbus, the Catholic Church had accepted that the Earth is round and not flat. However, it wasn’t until the seventeenth century that Jesuit missionaries finally convinced the Chinese that their traditional square-earth cosmology was mistaken. An accessible challenge to long-established beliefs about the history of ideas, The Globe shows how the realization that our planet is a sphere deserves to be considered the first great scientific achievement.
The Pirates’ Code
Rebecca Simon
A rollicking account of pirates’ codes, the strict rules essential for survival at sea.
Pirates have long captured the imagination with images of cutlass-wielding swashbucklers, eye patches and buried treasure. But what was life really like on a pirate ship? Piracy was a risky, sometimes deadly occupation, and strict orders were essential for everyone’s survival. These ‘Laws’ were sets of rules that determined everything from how much each pirate earned from their plunder to compensation for injuries, punishments and even the entertainment allowed on ships. These rules became known as the ‘Pirates’ Code’, which all pirates had to publicly swear by.
Using primary sources such as eyewitness accounts, trial proceedings and maritime logs, this book explains how these codes were the key to pirates’ success in battle, both on sea and on land.
From Away
Phoef Sutton
Lush Life: Food & Drinks from the Garden
Valerie Rice
A California Dream of a Cookbook
"A charming take on California cuisine... This well-crafted cookbook serves as an excellent guide to living in tune with nature and the seasons." — Publishers Weekly
The recipes and photos explode with vibrant colors and images that make me long for Val’s focused and rich California cooking. Lush Life truly captures all that makes this cuisine so unique and beautiful.” ―Donald Link, James Beard Award-Winning Chef, Restauranteur, and Author of Real Cajun and Down South
“Everything Valerie Rice touches, grows, and cooks exudes natural beauty, elegance, and soul. If ever there were someone’s home, garden, kitchen (and life!) I would dream of occupying, it would be hers. Lush Life gets you deliciously from seed to table, and just a step closer to living and eating as beautifully as Val does.” ―Caroline Styne, James Beard Award-Winning Wine Director and Restauranteur, The Lucques Group
Eat and drink what’s in season and you’ll never grow bored, your menus will be less complicated, and everything will taste better. That’s Valerie Rice’s motto, and it’s guided her to become an accomplished gardener, cook, and cocktail maker, three talents that—along with her charm and no-fuss style—have made her EatDrinkGarden Instagram and blog a hit. In Lush Life, Valerie brings together 156 of her favorite seasonal recipes for entertaining, family meals, snacks, and so much more, including cocktail recipes and wine advice. Rigorously home tested and gorgeously photographed by Gemma and Andrew Ingalls, Lush Life is a California dream of a cookbook that will inspire readers to grow their own, cook it fresh, and pour a luscious beverage.
With wine commentary by James Beard winner Raj Parr and a foreword by Suzanne Goin, author of Sunday Suppers at Lucques.
Perfect for home cooks, garden enthusiasts, and anyone looking to add a bit of freshness to their everyday meal prepping.
The Profitable Hobby Farm: How to Build a Sustainable Local Foods Business
Sarah Beth Aubrey
Turn your hobby farm into a successful business
No experience in farming? No problem! The Profitable Hobby Farm gives you all the tools you need to launch a thriving hobby farm business. Based on the author's expert guidance and the motivating experiences of other small farmers, it shows you how to blend strategy, marketing, and money management in order to prosper.
The Profitable Hobby Farm provides sound, friendly start-up advice on a variety of topics essential to making an initial foray into a local foods venture.
- A must-read book for raising and selling local, sustainable foods
- Includes sample business plan, grant application, marketing and advertising plan, and other forms
- Lengthy resources section directs you to additional reading
- Also by Aubrey: Starting & Running Your Own Small Farm BusinessWhether it's growing heirloom tomatoes, raising free-range chickens for their eggs, or making organic wine or cheese, this book shows you how to turn your hobby into a profit.
Spontaneous Human Combustion
Richard Thomas
"In range alone, Richard Thomas is boundless. He is Lovecraft. He is Bradbury. He is Gaiman." —Chuck Palahniuk
In this new collection, Richard Thomas has crafted fourteen stories that push the boundaries of dark fiction in an intoxicating, piercing blend of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Equally provocative and profound, each story is masterfully woven with transgressive themes that burrow beneath the skin.
- A poker game yields a strange prize that haunts one man, his game of chance now turned into a life-or-death coin flip.
- A set of twins find they have mysterious new powers when an asteroid crashes in a field near their house, and the decisions they make create an uneasy balance.
- A fantasy world is filled with one man’s desire to feel whole again, finally finding love, only to have the shocking truth of his life exposed in an appalling twist.
- A father and son work slave labor in a brave new world run by aliens and mount a rebellion that may end up freeing them all.
- A clown takes off his make-up in a gloomy basement to reveal something more horrifying under the white, tacky skin.
Powerful and haunting, Thomas’ transportive collection dares you to examine what lies in the darkest, most twisted corners of human existence and not be transformed by what you find.
One Man's Wilderness, 50th Anniversary Edition: An Alaskan Odyssey
Sam Keith
Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award.
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of when Dick Proenneke first broke ground and made his mark in the Alaskan wilds in 1968, this bestselling memoir features an all-new foreword by Nick Offerman plus color photographs not seen in print for over 20 years.
To live in a pristine land unchanged by man...to roam a wilderness through which few other humans have passed...to choose an idyllic site, cut trees, and build a log cabin...to be a self-sufficient craftsman, making what is needed from materials available...to be not at odds with the world, but content with one’s own thoughts and company...
Thousands have had such dreams, but Dick Proenneke lived them. He found a place, built a cabin, and stayed to become part of the country. One Man’s Wilderness is a simple account of the day-to-day explorations and activities he carried out alone, and the constant chain of nature’s events that kept him company. From Dick’s journals, and with firsthand knowledge of his subject and the setting, Sam Keith has woven a tribute to a man who carved his masterpiece out of the beyond.
The Temps
Andrew DeYoung
*Named a Best SFF Book of 2022 by Book Riot*
They're underemployed. Underpaid. And trying to survive the end of the world while trapped inside an office complex. Who knew temp work could be this dangerous?
Jacob Elliot doesn’t want a temporary job in the mailroom at Delphi Enterprises, but after two post-college years of unpaid internships and living in his parents’ basement, he needs the work. Then, on his first day, the unthinkable happens: toxic gas descends on a meeting in Delphi’s outdoor amphitheater, killing all the regular employees and leaving Jacob stranded inside the vast office complex.
Wandering through Delphi headquarters, Jacob finds other survivors: Lauren, the disillusioned classics major who’s now writing online personality quizzes; Swati, the fitness instructor trying to escape a toxic relationship; and Dominic, the business school student who will do almost anything to get ahead. Stranded in the wreckage of the company that employed them, the temps band together to create a miniature world that’s part spring break, part office culture—until a shocking discovery disrupts the survivors’ self-made paradise and drives them to uncover the truth about the mysterious corporation that employed them and the apocalypse that brought their world to an end.
A surprising, profound tribute to the absurdities and paranoia of modern life, The Temps is an epic exploration of survival and human connection in the digital age.
Private Entrance
Kathryn Harvey
BOOK THREE OF THE BUTTERFLY TRILOGY
New York Times bestselling author Kathryn Harvey captivates again in this sensual tale of murder, corruption, and passion.
Abby Tyler is a woman on a mission. For more than thirty years, Abby has been desperately searching for her child—an infant stolen at birth before she even had a chance to see it. To locate her child and end years of heartache, Abby formulates a plan that will bring her face to face with a past she has tried to forget.
Elsewhere, three strangers receive word that they’ve each won a contest that, oddly, they don’t recall entering. None of them are prepared for the luxurious and erotic prize that awaits them—a week at The Grove, an exclusive anything-goes, no-questions-asked resort in the Southern California desert. Amid the glamour of movie stars and the super-rich, the three strangers—Coco, Sissy, and Ophelia—find themselves embroiled in a baffling mystery involving the reclusive spa owner, Abby Tyler.
As a deadly sandstorm approaches the resort, a murderer stalks the trapped guests. Someone will die, someone will find love, and all three women will come to astonishing realizations about themselves. From the sensual heat of the desert to the corrupt underworld of Las Vegas, author Kathryn Harvey delivers a stimulating tale with Private Entrance.
The Prophetess
Barbara Wood
The time is December 1999. Millennial fever holds the world in its grip—stirring ancient and terrible fears that the apocalypse is at hand.
In the Sinai desert, archeologist Catherine Alexander just unearthed a cache of six ancient papyrus scrolls that point to the millennium's most transforming secret. Discovered inside the legendary Well of Miriam, a site named after the ancient prophetess who was the sister of Moses, the scrolls reveal a hidden history of the world and its religions—a series of shattering revelations that governments will do anything to suppress, and that an enigmatic billionaire named Miles Havers will do anything to possess.
But there is more: a seventh scroll that contains a secret of almost unimaginable power. It is a secret that may cost Catherine her life as she dodges government agents, Vatican operatives, and cyberspace perils in her race to translate the scrolls and release their powers to the world.
Aided by two very different and compelling men, Dr. Julius Voss and Father Michael Garibaldi, Catherine finds herself caught up in the adventure of a lifetime and a struggle that she must win