The lyrical and globe-spanning memoir by the influential feminist economist, with introductory pieces from two American icons “Your heart and world will be opened by reading The Brass Notebook, the intimate and political life of Devaki Jain, a young woman who dares to become independent.” —Gloria Steinem When she was barely thirty, the Indian feminist economist Devaki Jain befriended Doris Lessing, Nobel winner and author of The Golden Notebook, who encouraged Jain to write her story. Over half a century later, Jain has crafted what Desmond Tutu has called “a riveting account of the life story of a courageous woman who has all her life challenged what convention expects of her.” Across an extraordinary life intertwined with those of Iris Murdoch, Gloria Steinem, Julius Nyerere, Henry Kissinger, and Nelson Mandela, Jain navigated a world determined to contain her ambitions. While still a young woman, she traveled alone across the subcontinent to meet Gandhi’s disciple Vinoba Bhave, hitchhiked around Europe in a sari, and fell in love with a Yugoslav at a Quaker camp in Saarbrücken. She attended Oxford University, supporting herself by washing dishes in a local café. Later, over the course of an influential career as an economist, Jain seized on the cause of feminism, championing the poor women who labored in the informal economy long before mainstream economics attended to questions of inequality. With a foreword by Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen and an introduction by the well-known American feminist Gloria Steinem, whose own life and career were inspired by time spent with Jain, The Brass Notebook perfectly merges the political with the personal—a book full of life, ideas, politics, and history.

Arden is an undercover agent for one of the most powerful organizations of this steam powered world—the Wardens of the Realm—a group with extraordinary abilities, dedicated to protecting England against evil. Arden Grey enjoys a life most women in 1898 London can’t even dream of: She has the social status, wealth, and independence of a countess. She also has the ability to witness the final moments of a murder victim’s life. But ever since the disappearance of her husband, Lucas, none of this means anything to her. Until one night, when Arden spies a man watching her—a man she recognizes as her missing husband. He’s been ordered to assassinate Arden as retribution for her part in the killing of a Company agent. Luke remembers nothing of his life before the Company, a corrupt agency that has erased his memory. Even so, he can't seem to complete his assignment. There is something familiar about his lovely target, something that attracts him, and fills him with dread. For he knows that if he doesn’t kill her, someone else will—and kill him as well.

“A fierce, big-hearted, unflinching debut”* novel about mothers and daughters, haves and have-nots, and the stark realities behind the American Dream *Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere WINNER OF THE GEORGIA AUTHOR OF THE YEAR AWARD FOR FIRST NOVEL • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE AND REAL SIMPLE A waitress at the Betsy Ross Diner, Elsie hopes her nickel-and-dime tips will add up to a new life. Then she meets Bashkim, who is at once both worldly and naïve, a married man who left Albania to chase his dreams—and wound up working as a line cook in Waterbury, Connecticut. Back when the brass mills were still open, this bustling factory town drew one wave of immigrants after another. Now it’s the place they can’t seem to leave. Elsie, herself the granddaughter of Lithuanian immigrants, falls in love quickly, but when she learns that she’s pregnant, Elsie can’t help wondering where Bashkim’s heart really lies, and what he’ll do about the wife he left behind. Seventeen years later, headstrong and independent Luljeta receives a rejection letter from NYU and her first-ever suspension from school on the same day. Instead of striking out on her own in Manhattan, she’s stuck in Connecticut with her mother, Elsie—a fate she refuses to accept. Wondering if the key to her future is unlocking the secrets of the past, Lulu decides to find out what exactly her mother has been hiding about the father she never knew. As she soon discovers, the truth is closer than she ever imagined. Told in equally gripping parallel narratives with biting wit and grace, Brass announces a fearless new voice with a timely, tender, and quintessentially American story. Praise for Brass “Lustrous . . . a tale alive with humor and gumption, of the knotty, needy bond between a mother and daughter . . . [Brass] marks the arrival of a writer whose work will stand the test of time.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “An exceptional debut novel, one that plumbs the notion of the American Dream while escaping the clichés that pursuit almost always brings with it . . . [Xhenet] Aliu delivers a living, breathing portrait of places left behind.”—The Boston Globe “The writing blazes on the page. . . . So much about the book is also extraordinarily timely, especially when it focuses on class and culture, and what they really mean.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Aliu is witty and unsparing in her depiction of the town and its inhabitants, illustrating the granular realities of the struggle for class mobility.”—The New Yorker

"Devaki Jain opens the doors of the United Nations and shows how it has changed the female half of the world -- and vice versa. Women, Development, and the UN is a book that every global citizen, government leader, journalist, academic, and self-respecting woman should read." -- Gloria Steinem "Devaki Jain's book nurtures your optimism in this terrible war-torn decade by describing how women succeeded in empowering both themselves and the United Nations to work toward a global leadership inspired by human dignity." -- Fatema Mernissi In Women, Development, and the UN, internationally noted development economist and activist Devaki Jain traces the ways in which women have enriched the work of the United Nations from the time of its founding in 1945. Synthesizing insights from the extensive literature on women and development and from her own broad experience, Jain reviews the evolution of the UN's programs aimed at benefiting the women of developing nations and the impact of women's ideas about rights, equality, and social justice on UN thinking and practice regarding development. Jain presents this history from the perspective of the southern hemisphere, which recognizes that development issues often look different when viewed from the standpoint of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The book highlights the contributions of the four global women's conferences in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing in raising awareness, building confidence, spreading ideas, and creating alliances. The history that Jain chronicles reveals both the achievements of committed networks of women in partnership with the UN and the urgent work remaining to bring equality and justice to the world and its women.

Just how does a brass quintet from Toronto become the most traveled classical act on the scene today? The Canadian Brass, called The Marx Brothers of Brass by the New York Times, has been cheered in concerts around the world for over 20 years. Their nearly 30 albums define them as the most successful crossover group in history. This fascinating look into the makings of a musical institution is a story to be enjoyed by musicians and music lovers. Flavored with the whimsy that has become the trademark of the group, the book is an amusing romp through their career, featuring a revealing look into the recording industry, extensive interviews with each player, dozens of amusing anecdotes, and over a hundred photos.

Handgun enthusiasts, gun-owning do-it-yourself, law enforcement officials, and gunsmiths here is the ultimate one-volume guide to acquiring and developing all the necessary skills for making pistol repairs at home, from helpful hints on work space and setting up a small shop, to the tools needed and how to use them properly, to welding, hardening, and gun finishing. All this valuable information, plus much more, is contained in this easy-to-use reference for handgun aficionados.

Meticulously edited and annotated, Tennessee Williams's notebooks follow his growth as a writer from his undergraduate days to the publication and production of his most famous plays, from his drug addiction and drunkenness to the heights of his literary accomplishments.

Nancy must figure out the connection between a mysterious diary and a suspicious house fire.

Nineteenth century London is the center of a vast British Empire. Airships ply the skies and Queen Victoria presides over three-quarters of the known world—including the East Coast of America, following the failed revolution of 1775. London might as well be a world away from Sandsend, a tiny village on the Yorkshire coast. Gideon Smith dreams of the adventure promised him by the lurid tales of Captain Lucian Trigger, the Hero of the Empire, told in Gideon's favorite "penny dreadful." When Gideon's father is lost at sea in highly mysterious circumstances Gideon is convinced that supernatural forces are at work. Deciding only Captain Lucian Trigger himself can aid him, Gideon sets off for London. On the way he rescues the mysterious mechanical girl Maria from a tumbledown house of shadows and iniquities. Together they make for London, where Gideon finally meets Captain Trigger. But Trigger is little more than an aging fraud, providing cover for the covert activities of his lover, Dr. John Reed, a privateer and sometime agent of the British Crown. Looking for heroes but finding only frauds and crooks, it falls to Gideon to step up to the plate and attempt to save the day...but can a humble fisherman really become the true Hero of the Empire? David Barnett's Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl is a fantastical steampunk fable set against an alternate historical backdrop: the ultimate Victoriana/steampunk mash-up! At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.