The leading Party cadre of Lin Village in Southeast China describes in this book forty years of turbulent events that affected individuals and families in the village: the downfall of the landlords during the Land Reform, the rise of poor peasants to political power, the political fanaticism of the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and recent efforts to restore rational, pragmatic policies in China's countryside.The magnitude of change in Lin Village since 1949 has been considerable. Most villagers have benefited from tangible improvements in agriculture, education, and medicine, and they have developed a sense of political participation and integration into the national political arena. Significantly, while these dynamic changes have been taking place, the observance of cultural tradition has persisted. Attempts made by the government to change "feudalistic" beliefs and practices have yet to make any lasting impression on village life.More than an account of one village, this book documents for readers the cataclysmic changes of China's entire post-liberation era, detailing their effects in a personalized style. An American anthropologist of Chinese descent, Huang Shu-min employs participant-observation and personal interviews to shape this unique view of rural China today and to delineate some of the misconceptions held by Western academics.

Through the eyes of the leading Party cadre in Lin Village in southeast China, this book unravels the turbulent events that affected individuals and families in the village: the downfall of the landlords during the Land Reform, the rise to political power of poor peasants, the political fanaticism of the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and recent efforts to restore rational, pragmatic policies in China's countryside.The second edition includes two new chapters, based on the author's continuing visits to China. One chapter details changes in Lin Village, such as Taiwanese investment of capital, large-scale production, international marketing, and new lifestyles. The other focuses on the continuing story of Mr. Ye: his ideas for expanding the villagers' wealth, his wheeling and dealing to set up lucrative businesses in Lin Village, and his arrangements to secure jobs for his family members and close kin.

Novel relating the present and past of a group of men and women, doctors and missionaries, working in the jungles of Borneo.

Erin Hogan hit the road in her Volkswagen Jetta and headed west from Chicago in search of the monuments of American land art: a salty coil of rocks, four hundred stainless steel poles, a gash in a mesa, four concrete tubes, and military sheds filled with cubes. Her journey took her through the states of Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. It also took her through the states of anxiety, drunkenness, disorientation, and heat exhaustion. Spiral Jetta is a chronicle of this journey. A lapsed art historian and devoted urbanite, Hogan initially sought firsthand experience of the monumental earthworks of the 1970s and the 1980s—Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels, Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field, James Turrell’s Roden Crater, Michael Heizer’s Double Negative, and the contemporary art mecca of Marfa, Texas. Armed with spotty directions, no compass, and less-than-desert-appropriate clothing, she found most of what she was looking for and then some. “I was never quite sure what Hogan was looking for when she set out . . . or indeed whether she found it. But I loved the ride. In Spiral Jetta, an unashamedly honest, slyly uproarious, ever-probing book, art doesn’t magically have the power to change lives, but it can, perhaps no less powerfully, change ways of seeing.”—Tom Vanderbilt, New YorkTimes Book Review “The reader emerges enlightened and even delighted. . . . Casually scrutinizing the artistic works . . . while gamely playing up her fish-out-of-water status, Hogan delivers an ingeniously engaging travelogue-cum-art history.”—Atlantic “Smart and unexpectedly hilarious.”—Kevin Nance, ChicagoSun-Times “One of the funniest and most entertaining road trips to be published in quite some time.”—June Sawyers, ChicagoTribune “Hogan ruminates on how the work affects our sense of time, space, size, and scale. She is at her best when she reexamines the precepts of modernism in the changing light of New Mexico, and shows how the human body is meant to be a participant in these grand constructions.”—New Yorker

The moving story of her own search for God by the highly-acclaimed author of the bestselling A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism; and Islam: A Short History. In 1969, after seven years as a Roman Catholic nun -- hoping, but ultimately failing, to find God -- Armstrong left her convent. She knew almost nothing of the changed world she was entering, and she was tormented by panic attacks and inexplicable seizures. Her struggle against despair was fueled by a string of discouragements -- failed spirituality, doctorate and jobs, fruitless dealings with psychiatrists -- but finally, in 1976, she was diagnosed with epilepsy and given proper treatment. She then began the writing career that would become her true calling, and as she focused on the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, her own true inner story began to emerge. She would come to experience brief moments of transcendence through her work -- the profound fulfillment that she had not found in the long hours of prayer as a young nun. Powerfully engaging, often heart-breaking, but lit with bursts of humour, The Spiral Staircase is an extraordinary history of self.

This novel has been previously published as Phoenix Falling. It is now being rereleased under its original title, The Spiral Path. The second contemporary novel by New York Times bestselling author, The Spiral Path sweeps from the distant mountains of New Mexico to the rolling hills of the English countryside in a story of love, loss, reconciliation—and the hard work of making movies. For years, Kenzie Scott was everything to Raine Marlowe—the friend she turned to for courage and comfort, the lover who touched the hidden depths of her heart, the husband she adored but never really knew. Even as their marriage disintegrates into a civilized divorce, he helps her achieve her dream of becoming a director by agreeing to play the lead in The Centurion, the movie she has dreamed of making for years. Rainey knows the role of the mysterious, tortured hero is perfect for Kenzie—but he fears that the character’s dark secrets may be dangerously close to his own. When filming begins, Kenzie realizes that he must make peace with the tragic past he has buried for years—or lose the one woman he will love for all time… The Spiral Path was named a "Top Pick!" by Romantic Times Magazine. “The Spiral Path is one of the most gripping and darkly emotional books to come along in a long while… [Putney’s] books hold out such promise of hope, redemption and triumph that you will be unable to put them down.” —Romantic Times “Putney handles her potentially melodramatic material with emotional honesty and insight while maintaining the taut romantic tension between her richly developed, complicated protagonists.” —Publishers Weekly “As always, Putney can be relied on to deliver something different. The result is a book that will take your breath away from the first page to the last…. there is only one word for it: unforgettable. Ultimately, it's a keeper of a story that only an author like Putney can tell—and tell very, very well.” —AllAboutRomance.com

Everyone had agreed that the industrialist Mark Bascombe had committed suicide, even the coroner. Only Bascombe's son David believed - or professed to believe - that it was murder. And it was he who had hired private investigator John Bryant, rather belatedly it is true, to investigate his father's death. Bryant soon realises that everyone has a secret: Bascombe's wife; his daughters; Colonel Legge; Oscar and Moira Patton: they were all bound together in a series of conflicting and hidden relationships. And the central character - the man who had every answer - was already dead.

The second action-packed installment of the Traveler saga, based on Blizzard's epic World of Warcraft® franchise. Includes twenty stunning illustrations. Twelve-year-old Aramar Thorne’s life was turned upside down by the sudden reappearance of his father, Captain Greydon Thorne, who took his son with him on the high seas. After several months aboard Greydon’s ship, it was attacked by a deadly band of raiders known as the Hidden, leaving Aram and Second Mate Makasa Flintwill shipwrecked. But of even greater concern are the unanswered questions his father left behind. Who are the Hidden? And what of the strange compass Greydon gave to him--the compass that doesn’t point north? Aram andMakasa are on a journey to unravel these mysteries, picking up a few friends--and more than a few foes on their travels.Aram, a once-struggling student in the ways of the world, is now looked to for guidance by his friends as they combat swarms of undead and come face-to-face with the trolls’ mysterious gods. Can Aram be the leader his father always believed he could be?Includes 17 all-new illustrations!

Mystery - The Hardy Boys Mystery #45.