The definitive story of one American family at the center of a single, shocking act of international terrorism that "manages to capture the essence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" (Dan Ephron). On October 3, 1985, Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish New Yorker, and his wife boarded the Achille Lauro to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary with a Mediterranean cruise. Four days later, four Palestinian fedayeen hijacked the Italian luxury liner and took the passengers and crew hostage. Leon Klinghoffer was shot in the head, his body and wheelchair thrown overboard. His murder became a flashpoint in the intractable struggle between Israelis and Arabs and gave Americans a horrifying preview of what it means when terrorism hits home. In this richly reported book, drawing on multiple perspectives, Julie Salamon dispels the mythology that has grown around that shattering moment. What transpired on the Achille Lauro left the Klinghoffer family in the grip of irredeemable sorrow, while precipitating tragic reverberations for the wives and sons of Abu al-Abbas, the Palestinian mastermind behind the hijacking, and the family of Alex Odeh, a Palestinian-American murdered in Los Angeles in a brutal act of retaliation. Through intimate interviews with almost all living participants, including one of the hijackers, Julie Salamon brings alive the moment-by-moment saga of the hijacking and the ensuing U.S.-led international manhunt; the diplomatic wrangling between the United States, Egypt, Italy, and Israel; the long agonizing search for justice; and the inside story of the controversial opera about the Klinghoffer tragedy that provoked a culture war. An Innocent Bystander is a masterful work of journalism that moves between the personal and the global with the pace of a geopolitical thriller and the depth of a psychological drama. Throughout lies the tension wrought by terrorism and its repercussions today.

Hostage. Nine-year-old Freda trapped in a restaurant with a fanatic and his gun. Survivor. No parents to protect her, two men dead. Ten years later. Live by the rules: keep yourself small, don't let them ask you questions. A dead man's words... 'Are you living a good life, Freda?' The answer lies in hunting down the ghosts of the past. Gripping and moving, The Song of an Innocent Bystander is a novel you won't easily forget.

The first collection of Fonseca's short stories to appear in English, ranging across his oeuvre, exploring the sights and sounds of Rio de Janeiro. Fonseca's Rio is a city at war, where vast disparities, in wealth, social standing and prestige are untenable. Rich and poor live in an uneasy equilibrium, where only overwhelming force can maintain order and violence and deception are the essential tools of survival. From the tale of the businessman who rans over pedestrians to let off steam to a serial killer being pushed to kill more by his lover, this collection is a true gem.

This book is a start-up guide for spiritual or religious people who are interested in working for social justice but don't know how or where to begin, drawing on the lessons of history, the framework of Christian ideas, and the insights of contemporary activists.

A remarkably candid biography of the remarkably candid—and brilliant—Carrie Fisher In her 2008 bestseller, Girls Like Us, Sheila Weller—with heart and a profound feeling for the times—gave us a surprisingly intimate portrait of three icons: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon. Now she turns her focus to one of the most loved, brilliant, and iconoclastic women of our time: the actress, writer, daughter, and mother Carrie Fisher. Weller traces Fisher’s life from her Hollywood royalty roots to her untimely and shattering death after Christmas 2016. Her mother was the spunky and adorable Debbie Reynolds; her father, the heartthrob crooner Eddie Fisher. When Eddie ran off with Elizabeth Taylor, the scandal thrust little Carrie Frances into a bizarre spotlight, gifting her with an irony and an aplomb that would resonate throughout her life. We follow Fisher’s acting career, from her debut in Shampoo, the hit movie that defined mid-1970s Hollywood, to her seizing of the plum female role in Star Wars, which catapulted her to instant fame. We explore her long, complex relationship with Paul Simon and her relatively peaceful years with the talent agent Bryan Lourd. We witness her startling leap—on the heels of a near-fatal overdose—from actress to highly praised, bestselling author, the Dorothy Parker of her place and time. Weller sympathetically reveals the conditions that Fisher lived with: serious bipolar disorder and an inherited drug addiction. Still, despite crises and overdoses, her life’s work—as an actor, a novelist and memoirist, a script doctor, a hostess, and a friend—was prodigious and unique. As one of her best friends said, “I almost wish the expression ‘one of a kind’ didn’t exist, because it applies to Carrie in a deeper way than it applies to others.” Sourced by friends, colleagues, and witnesses to all stages of Fisher’s life, Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge is an empathic and even-handed portrayal of a woman who—as Princess Leia, but mostly as herself—was a feminist heroine, one who died at a time when we need her blazing, healing honesty more than ever.

The book Chain and Other Stories contains nine stories. The first story, Chain, is about two federal agents who go undercover in Anchorage, Alaska, with two NYC detectives to investigate whether or not an oil mogul is using kidnapped kids to make weapons sold throughout the United States if so stop him. The next story, Gradill, is about an FBI agent who is investigating a case in Chicago where a bioterrorist is using SARS and Anthrax to poison or sicken CEOs of biochemical companies and local politicians who are giving them leeway to get funding and do research. The last of the first stories is Shatter Blue Magica story dealing with a young man who is an assassin who leaves a person alive he was supposed to kill, now he is only having to kill the person before he kills him and the lady he loves. The second batch of stories starts with Shatter Blue Magic 2, which is about the assassin from the first story having to kill his younger brother and sister-in-law, who have both been assigned to kill him, his wife, son, and employers. Web is the sequel to Chain where the two federal agents from the first story go undercover in Phoenix, Arizona, with two Phoenix detectives to investigate and stop two nightclub owners in Phoenix from kidnapping teenage girls and selling them to the adult entertainment industry to work as adult film stars. Gradill 2 is where the FBI agent from the first story is going undercover in Chicago to investigate a local domestic terrorist group and stop them from wrecking havoc in Chicago. The third batch of stories is Gradill 3 where the FBI agent from the two previous stories goes undercover with her sister to investigate a growing local domestic terrorist group who is causing trouble in Chicago and to stop them. The Last Call for Shatter Blue Magic picks up where the second story left off, healing his wounds from his encounter with his brother and sister-in-law, the assassin takes one last job where he must go around the world killing criminal organizations, corrupt policemen, crooked politicians, and terrorists, or he and his family and employers will be killed. Link is the last story in the Chain series where the two federal agents must go to Honolulu, Hawaii, with two Honolulu detectives to go undercover at a local sweatshop to investigate and stop a local rich woman and her friends from using children from Asia and America to work in her sweatshop making clothes that end up in department stores.

The defining, behind-the-scenes chronicle of one of the most extraordinary, beloved, and dominant pop cultural entities in America’s history -- Marvel Comics – and the outsized personalities who made Marvel including Martin Goodman, Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby. “Sean Howe’s history of Marvel makes a compulsively readable, riotous and heartbreaking version of my favorite story, that of how a bunch of weirdoes changed the world…That it’s all true is just frosting on the cake.” —Jonathan Lethem For the first time, Marvel Comics tells the stories of the men who made Marvel: Martin Goodman, the self-made publisher who forayed into comics after a get-rich-quick tip in 1939, Stan Lee, the energetic editor who would shepherd the company through thick and thin for decades and Jack Kirby, the WWII veteran who would co-create Captain America in 1940 and, twenty years later, developed with Lee the bulk of the company’s marquee characters in a three-year frenzy. Incorporating more than one hundred original interviews with those who worked behind the scenes at Marvel over a seventy-year-span, Marvel Comics packs anecdotes and analysis into a gripping narrative of how a small group of people on the cusp of failure created one of the most enduring pop cultural forces in contemporary America.

Three stories of a world shared by resurrected humans from all times and places—plus ten more tales by the Hugo Award–winning author of the World of Tiers series. On author Philip José Farmer’s Riverworld, humans from every era and culture have been simultaneously resurrected. Ancient Hebrews, medieval warriors, Spanish Inquisitors, and modern Americans intermingle in this strange new environment, but many still cling to old prejudices. Tom Mix, a silent-film star originally from early-twentieth-century Earth, is journeying among the vast population along the millions of miles of the River, in search of familiar faces from his own time. He’s been traveling the River for five years and believes people are starting to change. But when he’s entangled in a brutal clash between states, he discovers that some are slow to let go of the ideas that ruled them on Earth. This volume includes the novelette “Riverworld,” along with two additional Riverworld tales and ten other short stories, all strange, clever, and profound. Farmer’s explorations of the wonderful and bizarre—from a portrayal of Jesus and Satan as cowpokes to a reimagining of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan in the style of William Burroughs—plunge the reader into “one of the most imaginative worlds in science fiction” (Booklist). This ebook includes“Riverworld,” “J. C. on the Dude Ranch,” “The Volcano,” “The Henry Miller Dawn Patrol,” “The Problem of Sore Bridge—Among Others,” “Brass and Gold (or Horse and Zeppelin in Beverly Hills),” “The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod,” “The Voice of the Sonar in My Vermiform Appendix,” “Monolog,” “The Leaser of Two Evils,” “The Phantom of the Sewers,” “Up the Bright River,” “Crossing the Dark River,” and Philip JosFarmer’s article on the making of Riverworld, “The Source of the River.”