Wang Shuo imagines an Olympics where nations compete not on the basis of athletic prowess, but on their citizens' capacity for humiliation. China is determined to win at any cost. Enter a slacker pedicab driver from Beijing, a degenerate nihilist who rips off his own face in order to win the gold for his country.

"All of time and space. All things that ever happened or ever will. Where do you want to start?" From a junkyard in Totter's Lane to the fields of Trenzalore, the last of the Time Lords has navigated the past, present, and future using knowledge gathered from centuries of adventures in space and time. Now the authors of the bestselling Who-Ology have collected the best of that timey-wimey knowledge into one place. Covering themes of home and work, travel and technology, the history of the Earth and the fate of the future—you'll find a Doctor-y bon mot for every occasion here. Collecting half a century of quips and quotes, and beautifully illustrated throughout, The Official Quotable Doctor Who is your indispensable guide to life, love, mirth, and monsters.

Fourth Galaxy, 4 November 2052: in the black sparkle of deep space a figure in a blue overall tumbles over and over as it drifts towards the planet Badr-al-Budur. No space suit, no helmet, no oxygen. He can't be alive, can he? But he is. First Navigator Fremder Gorn is the only survivor when the Corporation tanker Clever Daughter disappears. Nobody knows how he did it, and everybody, including Fremder himself, wants to know. Caroline Lovecraft, Head of the Physio/ Psycho unit at Newton Centre, Hubble Straits finds that intimacy doesn't lead to answers and Fremder's own memories are resolutely obscure. Fremder's name means stranger, and his story, as one would expect from Russell Hoban, is full of strangeness and brilliant imagery.

Through analyses of a wide range of Chinese literary and visual texts from the beginning of the twentieth century through the contemporary period, the thirteen essays in this volume challenge the view that canonical and popular culture are self-evident and diametrically opposed categories, and instead argue that the two cultural sensibilities are inextricably bound up with one another. An international line up of contributors present detailed analyses of literary works and other cultural products that have previously been neglected by scholars, while also examining more familiar authors and works from provocative new angles.The essays include investigations into the cultural industries and contexts that produce the canonical and popular, the position of contemporary popular works at the interstices of nostalgia and amnesia, and also the ways in which cultural texts are inflected with gendered and erotic sensibilities while at the same time also functioning as objects of desire in its own right. As the only volume of its kind to cover the entire span of the 20th century, and also to consider the interplay of popular and canonical literature in modern China with comparable rigor, Rethinking Chinese Popular Culture is an important resource for students and scholars of Chinese literature and culture.

Masculinity, fast-changing and regularly declared to be in the throes of crisis, is attracting more popular and scholarly debate in China than ever before. At the same time, Chinese literature since 1989 has been characterized as brimming with countercultural ‘attitude’. This book probes the link between literary rebellion and manhood in China, showing how, as male writers critique the outcomes of decades of market reform, they also ask the same question: how best to be a man in the new postsocialist order? In this first full-length discussion of masculinity in post-1989 Chinese literature, Pamela Hunt offers a detailed analysis of four contemporary authors in particular: Zhu Wen, Feng Tang, Xu Zechen, and Han Han. In a series of insightful readings, she explores how all four writers show the same preoccupation with the figure of the man on the edges of society. Drawing on longstanding Chinese and global models of maverick, as well as marginal masculinity, and responding to a desire to retain a measure of masculine authority, their characters all engage in forms of transgression that still rely heavily on heteronormative and patriarchal values. Rebel Men argues that masculinity, so often overlooked in literary analysis of contemporary China, continues to be renegotiated, debated, and agonized over, and is ultimately reconstructed as more powerful than before. ‘An exceptionally lucid, elegant study of masculinity in mainland Chinese fiction of the 1990s and 2000s. Both historically and theoretically informed, Rebel Men: Masculinity and Attitude in Postsocialist Chinese Literature offers a major new perspective on post-1989 Chinese counterculture.’ —Julia Lovell, Birkbeck, University of London

Universally Foreign is a collection of writings from my experiences. Growing up with parents that experienced the civil rights movement and understanding the phrase,"it takes an entire village to raise a child", I have to step back and see that our society has changed quite a bit. I grew up in the south with all of the prejudices that it has along with the beauty of community. I've tried to capture the innocence of that and the moral transformation along with the truly indecent proposals and my struggles. I hope no one is offended by my expressions but are able to see life through another set of eyes.

Thoughtful Health Care offers a timely antidote to a Health Care climate dominated by endless rules, regulations, mission statements and codes of practice. David Seedhouse explains how simplistic labelling, mindless targets and empty slogans have created a delusion of control and efficiency, obscuring actual patient and carer realities. Using thought-provoking examples from health care and beyond, the book advocates the restoration of thoughtfulness, creativity, and independence in health work. By reading this book, students and practitioners alike will be aided in developing their decision making and critical thinking skills, and ultimately serve those in their care better and with more honesty. The book ends with a powerful and practical toolkit that can be used thoughtfully and effectively by every open-minded health worker. Thoughtful Health Care is for any health worker committed to caring with ethical awareness and practical sensitivity.

In 2012 the Swedish Academy announced that Mo Yan had received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work that "with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history, and the contemporary." The announcement marked the first time a resident of mainland China had ever received the award. This is the first English-language study of the Chinese writer's work and influence, featuring essays from scholars in a range of disciplines, from both China and the United States. Its introduction, twelve articles, and epilogue aim to deepen and widen critical discussions of both a specific literary author and the globalization of Chinese literature more generally. The book takes the "root-seeking" movement with which Mo Yan's works are associated as a metaphor for its organizational structure. The four articles of "Part I: Leaves" focus on Mo Yan's works as world literature, exploring the long shadow his works have cast globally. Howard Goldblatt, Mo Yan's English translator, explores the difficulties and rewards of interpreting his work, while subsequent articles cover issues such as censorship and the "performativity" associated with being a global author. "Part II: Trunk" explores the nativist core of Mo Yan's works. Through careful comparative treatment of related historical events, the five articles in this section show how specific literary works intermingle with China's national and international politics, its mid-twentieth-century visual culture, and its rich religious and literary conventions, including humor. The three articles in "Part III: Roots" delve into the theoretical and practical extensions of Mo Yan's works, uncovering the vibrant critical and cultural systems that ground Eastern and Western literatures and cultures. Mo Yan in Context concludes with an epilogue by sociologist Fenggang Yang, offering a personal and globally aware reflection on the recognition Mo Yan's works have received at this historical juncture.

This book is a description and travel guidebook of Beijing and Shanghai in China. It will assist travellers with their itinerary and plans.

The Chronicles of X takes place during the time of Aeon Power, an energy source that allows travel across the entire universe. Due to this power, all is known and all things have been seen. The most powerful of this age, the Prime Humans, rule over thousands of planets and have created a time of uneasy peace. Through this period came a rise in criminals known as Galactic Runners and an increase in black market activity. Enter X, the Intergalactic Thief and his journey to become the most infamous Runner of them all.