Alan Sakowitz, a whistleblower of a Madoff-like Ponzi scheme masterminded by Scott Rothstein, fraudster extraordinaire, tells of the story of his decision to turn in Rothstein regardless of the possible dangerous ramifications of such a decision. The saga of Rothstein's rise and fall which included a Warren Yacht, two Bugattis, Governor Crist, the former Versace mansion, The Eagles, and even the murder of a law partner, is the stuff that Hollywood movies are made from. Instead of the mere accounting of such a scandal, Sakowitz uses the Rothstein scheme as a cautionary tale in stark contrast to the stories of humble, ethical individuals living within Sakowitz's neighborhood in North Miami Beach, Florida, Sakowitz's neighbors are people who have spent their lives trying to assist others, not line their pockets, and through these stories Sakowitz creates a sharp dichotomy between the greed, of a Rothstein and its mainstream culture of consumption and the charity, kindness and selflessness of a principle-oriented community. Indeed, Sakowitz speaks to the symptoms of a culture that could create a Scott Rothstein, and, though acknowledging that the easy way out is not simple to dismiss, offers remedies to the growing ills of our entitlement society. The answer, Sakowitz says, lies in thinking first of others, and how one's actions should benefit the lives of friends, not one's short-term gratifications.

How is it that, half a century after Brown v. Board of Education, educational opportunities remain so unequal for black and white students, not to mention poor and wealthy ones? In his important new book, Five Miles Away, A World Apart, James E. Ryan answers this question by tracing the fortunes of two schools in Richmond, Virginia--one in the city and the other in the suburbs. Ryan shows how court rulings in the 1970s, limiting the scope of desegregation, laid the groundwork for the sharp disparities between urban and suburban public schools that persist to this day. The Supreme Court, in accord with the wishes of the Nixon administration, allowed the suburbs to lock nonresidents out of their school systems. City schools, whose student bodies were becoming increasingly poor and black, simply received more funding, a measure that has proven largely ineffective, while the independence (and superiority) of suburban schools remained sacrosanct. Weaving together court opinions, social science research, and compelling interviews with students, teachers, and principals, Ryan explains why all the major education reforms since the 1970s--including school finance litigation, school choice, and the No Child Left Behind Act--have failed to bridge the gap between urban and suburban schools and have unintentionally entrenched segregation by race and class. As long as that segregation continues, Ryan forcefully argues, so too will educational inequality. Ryan closes by suggesting innovative ways to promote school integration, which would take advantage of unprecedented demographic shifts and an embrace of diversity among young adults. Exhaustively researched and elegantly written by one of the nation's leading education law scholars, Five Miles Away, A World Apart ties together, like no other book, a half-century's worth of education law and politics into a coherent, if disturbing, whole. It will be of interest to anyone who has ever wondered why our schools are so unequal and whether there is anything to be done about it.

This is a story of two families ? ordinary people intertwined with the dates, places, and extraordinary events of world history. Their names are not found in history books. Many, in the 18th century, could neither read nor write their names, but the Neeses and Falcons, despite any illiteracy, were part of the great movement of peoples from around the world who came to the New World to build the most powerful country on this planet. They established freedom as the bedrock upon which America stands. Our people endured much hardship and privation, but they did not give up in their determination to build America. Our people were among the pioneering immigrants who laid the foundation of our country ? the ideals of our country are steeped in the sweat and blood of these early Americans ? the Neeses and Falcons.

When joy is a habit, love is a reflex. The concept of love is abstract. People define love differently; they show it differently and have different expectations of what it should look and feel like. We are often torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have ever known. For some, pain is the price of love and for some, it's a precious connection unexplained. The book 'Two worlds apart' focuses on varied perspectives on the question 'Is love a source of harmony or conflict or both?'

Drawing on a variety of disciplines and documents, Professor Agnew illuminates one of the most fascinating chapters in the formations of Anglo-American market culture. Worlds Apart traces the history of our concepts of the marketplace and the theatre and the ways in which these concepts are bound together. Focusing on Britain and America in the years 1550 to 1750, the book discusses the forms and conventions that structured both commerce and theatre. As marketing practice broke free of its traditional boundaries and restraints, it challenged longstanding popular assumptions about the constituents of value, the nature of identity, the signs of authenticity, and the limits of liability. New exchange relations bred new legal and commercial fictions to authorise them, but they also bred new doubts about the precise grounds upon which the self and its 'interests' were to be represented. Those same doubts, Professor Agnew shows, animated the theatre as well. As actors and playwrights shifted from ecclesiastical and civic drama to professional entertainments, they too devised authenticating fictions, fictions that effectively replicated the bewildering representational confusions of the new 'placeless market'.

This book is for the lighthearted bedtime reader of any age. The poems are some of several hundred written over many years. Some of the short stories are recent, others were written as long ago as the 1980s. Only in recent times did Richard and Roy discover they both liked to put their thoughts onto paper, so it seemed a logical step to combine some of their work and get it into print. This is Richard’s second publication along similar lines.

In this sixth novel based on the WB's popular television show, Ephram is accepted to Julliard and Amy visits the campus of UCLA, leaving Ephram wondering if his dream school is worth being across the country from Amy. Original.

Worlds Apart is concerned with one of the new futures of anthropology, namely the advances in technologies which r eate an imagination of new global and local forms. It also analyses studies of the consumption of these forms and attempts to go beyond the assumptions that consumption either localises or fails to effect global forms and images. Several of the chapters are written by anthropologists who have specialised in material culture studies and who examine the new forms, especially television and mass commodities, as well as some new uses of older forms, such as the body. The book also considers the ways in which people are increasingly not the primary creators of these images but have become secondary consumers.

'An absorbing and zesty read, both high-minded and full of high gossip. In short, a rare and unexpected treat' Melvyn Bragg ____________________ The writer David Plante has kept a diary of his life among the artistic elite for over half a century. It is an extraordinary document, both deeply personal and a rare window onto disappearing worlds. This extracted memoir spans the 1980s, a period of exploration and growth for Plante and his lover Nikos Stangos, a partnership which will endure for forty years. David Plante and Nikos Stangos first made a life together in London in the mid-sixties, when as newcomers they were introduced by Stephen Spender to his circle, connections criss-crossing, dazzlingly, through the air of their adopted city, interconnecting so many admired figures. Now navigating worlds beyond London – from a house-share with Germaine Greer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to a trip to Jerusalem with Philip Roth; from the loss of parents to the growing spectre of AIDS; and in New York, Umbria, Lucca, the Aegean and rural Ireland – these are stories of expanding horizons and of a deepening and developing love: the challenges of monogamy, the strains of separation, of a growing maturity and awareness – and of what it is to belong. Worlds Apart is a poignant, moving portrait of a relationship and a luminous evocation of a world of writers, poets, artists and thinkers.

In 1670, soon after arriving in the Carolinas with a group of colonists from England, fifteen-year-old Christopher West befriends a young Sewee Indian, Asha-po, and learns some hard lessons about survival, slavery, and friendship.