The deliciously witty first novel from Lynsay Sands Lady Emmalene Eberhart wanted to do it. She’d even begged an audience with the King so that he would order her husband to do it— because she was determined to be a good wife. But then her husband died, and Emma remained a virgin. Now the innocent young beauty finds herself with an ample dowry and promised to Amaury de Aneford, a landless knight whose able sword helped defend the King’s crown. Surely her new husband would want to do the deed, for his rugged good looks certainly make Emma’s heart skip more than a beat. And Emma suspects there is more to a wedding night than just a sound sleep . . . and more to true love than she ever imagined.

“[A] deliciously written account of the evolution of sex, in all of its bizarre manifestations” by a noted paleontologist—"Read, blush, and enjoy!” (Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel). We all know about the birds and the bees, but what about the ancient placoderm fishes and the dinosaurs? In 2008, paleontologist John A. Long and a team of researchers announced their discovery of a 380-million-year-old placoderm fish fossil, known as “the mother fish,” which revealed the earliest known example of internal fertilization. As a result, placoderms are now considered to be the first species to have had intimate sexual reproduction, or sex as we know it—sort of. Inspired by this incredible find, Long began a quest to uncover the evolutionary history of copulation and insemination. In The Dawn of the Deed, he takes readers on a lively tour through the sex lives of ancient fish and the unusual mating habits of arthropods, tortoises, and even a well-endowed Argentine Duck. Long discusses these discoveries alongside what we know about reproductive biology and evolutionary theory, using the fossil record to provide a provocative account of prehistoric sex. The Dawn of the Deed also explores fascinating revelations about animal reproduction, from homosexual penguins to monogamous seahorses to the difficulties of dinosaur romance.

From the end of Reconstruction to the onset of the civil rights era, lynching was prevalent in developing and frontier regions that had a dynamic and fluid African American population. Focusing on Mississippi and South Carolina because of the high proportion of African Americans in each state during "the age of lynching," Terence Finnegan explains lynching as a consequence of the revolution in social relations--assertiveness, competition, and tension--that resulted from emancipation. A comprehensive study of lynching in Mississippi and South Carolina, A Deed So Accursed reveals the economic and social circumstances that spawned lynching and explores the interplay between extralegal violence and political and civil rights. Finnegan's research shows that lynching rates depended on factors other than caste conflict and the interaction of race and southern notions of honor. Although lynching supported the ends of white supremacy, many mobs lynched more for private retaliation than for communal motives, which explains why mobs varied greatly in size, organization, behavior, and purpose. The resistance of African Americans was vigorous and sustained and took on a variety of forms, but depending on the circumstances, black resistance could sometimes provoke rather than deter lynching. Ultimately, Finnegan shows how out of the tragedy of lynching came the triumph of the civil rights movement, which was built upon the organizational efforts of African American anti-lynching campaigns.

Now that the collective death of mankind has become a possibility, no other thought can remain unimpaired. Harry Redner traces historically the onset of this acute state of Nihilism from what might be called the Faustian revolution, symbolized by Faust's pronouncement “In the beginning was the Deed.” Redner reflects on the passage of the three main Fausts, from Marlowe’s to Goethe’s to Thomas Mann’s, and this reflection serves as the dramatic metaphor for a review of the relationship of Progress to Nihilism in modern civilization. Starting with an exposition of the key Faustian thinkers—Marx, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger—the book proceeds by examining the dominant modern ideas on Man, Time, and Nihilism with reference to Foucault, Derrida, and Althusser. It focuses on Language, which is a key preoccupation of all these thinkers but has not yet been taken far enough to afford a basis for the explanation of fundamental changes in civilization. Language in its creative and destructive functions, as constituting both the conscious and unconscious of a culture, is reconceived so as to account for the hidden link between Progress and Nihilism. The author then explores sociologically the dominant aspects of Progress in terms of the ideas of Weber, Adorno, and Marcuse on Technology, Subjectivity, and Activism. Finally, an extensive literary study of the three main Fausts concludes with a coda on the future of music. In the Beginning Was the Deed is lucid and direct, tinged with wry humor. Redner represent Man in the nuclear age and reflects on that representation, seeking to comprehend our era, draw ethical and political conclusions, and explore action as a response to the threat of annihilation. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1982.

In this fast-paced historical thriller, the #1 New York Times bestselling author introduces Archer, a WWII veteran forced to investigate a small-town murder -- or risk returning to prison. It's 1949. When war veteran Aloysius Archer is released from Carderock Prison, he is sent to Poca City on parole with a short list of do's and a much longer list of don'ts: do report regularly to his parole officer, don't go to bars, certainly don't drink alcohol, do get a job -- and don't ever associate with loose women. The small town quickly proves more complicated and dangerous than Archer's years serving in the war or his time in jail. Within a single night, his search for gainful employment -- and a stiff drink -- leads him to a local bar, where he is hired for what seems like a simple job: to collect a debt owed to a powerful local businessman, Hank Pittleman. Soon Archer discovers that recovering the debt won't be so easy. The indebted man has a furious grudge against Hank and refuses to pay; Hank's clever mistress has her own designs on Archer; and both Hank and Archer's stern parole officer, Miss Crabtree, are keeping a sharp eye on him. When a murder takes place right under Archer's nose, police suspicions rise against the ex-convict, and Archer realizes that the crime could send him right back to prison . . . if he doesn't use every skill in his arsenal to track down the real killer.

Complete at Last in a Single Hardcover Volume ¾the Finest Trilogy of Epic Fantasy in a Decade Paksenarrion, a simple sheepfarmer's daughter, yearns for a life of adventure and glory, such as was known to heroes in songs and story. At age seventeen she runs away from home to join a mercenary company and begins her epic life . . . Book One: Paks is trained as a mercenary, blooded, and introduced to the life of a soldier . . . and to the followers of Gird, the soldier's god. Book Two: Paks leaves the Duke's company to follow the path of Gird alone¾and on her lonely quests encounters the other sentient races of her world. Book Three: Paks the warrior must learn to live with Paks the human. She undertakes a holy quest for a lost elven prince that brings the gods' wrath down on her and tests her very limits. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). "Engrossing . . ." ¾Anne McCaffrey "A tour de force . . ." ¾Jack McDevitt "Worldbuilding in the grand tradition, background thought out to the last detail." ¾Judith Tarr "Superlative . . ." ¾Booklist "Brilliant . . . the excitement of high heroic adventure . . . will enchant the reader." ¾Bookwatch

A hip and hilarious debut novel about a twentysomething guy searching for love, for meaning...and for a long-lost deed that could make him heir to the island of Manhattan Meet Jason Hansvoort, a single New Yorker with a curious knack for surviving near-death experiences. Wistful about college, apprehensive about the future, he's currently flailing around in post-college limbo as low man on the totem pole at one of Madison Avenue's "Big Five" ad agencies, impatiently waiting for the Next Thing to happen. And then one day he's approached by Amanda, an attractive young law student and one of the last members of the Manahata, the Native American tribe who sold Manhattan Island to the Dutch almost four hundred years ago. She's spent years on the trail of a lost document that supposedly gave ownership of Manhattan to a seventeenth-century benefactor and all his descendants. She believes Jason's the last of this line...and therefore heir to the island of Manhattan and everything on it. If they can find the deed, that is. Jason's skeptical...but enchanted enough to play along. If Jason and Amanda can indeed locate the deed, the consequences will be tremendous and far reaching: grave for millions of landowners and mortal for every title insurance company on the Eastern seaboard. There are literally billions at stake, and when a dysfunctional New York City crime family looking for a big break picks up the scent, it places Jason's streak of surviving near-death experiences in peril. Informed by Blanchard's gift for dead-on observation and pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, The Deed heralds the arrival of a fresh comic voice in contemporary literary fiction.