Books about Recently from Amazon.com

With an eye for the sensual bloom of young schoolgirls, and the torrid style of the romantic novels of her day, Herculine Barbin tells the story of her life as a hermaphrodite Herculine was designated female at birth. A pious girl in a Catholic orphanage, a bewildered adolescent enchanted by the ripening bodies of her classmates, a passionate lover of another schoolmistress, she is suddenly reclassified as a man. Alone and desolate, he commits suicide at the age of thirty in a miserable attic in Paris.

Here, in an erotic diary, is one lost voice from our sexual past. Provocative, articulate, eerily prescient as she imagines her corpse under the probing instruments of scientists, Herculine brings a disturbing perspective to our own notions of sexuality. Michel Foucault, who discovered these memoirs in the archives of the French Department of Public Hygiene, presents them with the graphic medical descriptions of Herculine's body before and after her death. In a striking contrast, a painfully confused young person and the doctors who examine her try to sort out the nature of masculine and feminine at the dawn of the age of modern sexuality.

"Herculine Barbin can be savored like a libertine novel. The ingenousness of Herculine, the passionate yet equivocal tenderness which thrusts her into the arms, even into the beds, of her companions, gives these pages a charm strangely erotic...Michel Foucault has a genius for bringing to light texts and reviving destinies outside the ordinary."Le Monde, July 1978.
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Lao-tzu's "Te-Tao Ching" has been treasured for thousands of years for its poetic statement of life's most profound and elusive truths. This new translation, based on the 1973 discovery of two copies of the manuscript more than five centuries older than any others known, corrects many defects of the later versions. In his extensive commentary, Professor Henricks reevaluates traditional interpretations..
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Who isn't curious to know what life is like after we die? In this humorous yet thought-provoking glimpse into other realms, David Staume asks you to open your mind and leave your body behind as he takes you on a tour of the afterlife

Find out everything you need to know about the astral realm: how to get around, what's going on, and who and what you might bump into on your travels Explore the big questions regarding the whys and wherefores of existence: Is there a hell? What about reincarnation? Who am I? Who is God?

The Beginners Guide for the Recently Deceased also offers practical tips on how to use your new understanding to make life better on the physical plane.

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Job hunting is a different ballgame when you’re holding a pink slip instead of a brand-new college diploma In Landing on the Right Side of Your Ass, Michael B. Laskoff—a Harvard M.B.A. who has flown high and flamed out more than once—offers essential advice for those of us who have recently been laid off, restructured, or plain ol’ fired. A tell-it-like-it-is bible of “reemployment,” it tackles both the practical and the emotional issues of job loss.

Because he’s not an academic, a recruiter, or a human resources professional, Laskoff has no ax to grind, no philosophy to peddle, and no corporate ideology to support. He’s been through the job-loss/job-search drill more than once, and since he consistently has gone on to do better in terms of compensation, responsibility, and job satisfaction, he’s the perfect ex-employee to share with you some hard-won wisdom, such as:

•How long to wait before launching yourself into the job arena
•How to channel anger, fear, and revenge fantasies into useful job-search tactics
•How to snag recommendations (and compensation) from ex-bosses
•How to determine your interviewers’ hiring problems and then present yourself as the solution

Whether you’re concerned about the emotional issues of unemployment (from denial and depression to anger and acceptance) or are looking for invaluable nuts-and-bolts advice (what to say about your ex-employer in an interview, how to handle financial issues, and what on earth you should do with all that free time between jobs), Landing on the Right Side of Your Ass is a straight-up, no-chaser survival guide for picking yourself up, getting back out there again, and winding up with a job that’s better than the one you lost..
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Charles Hapgood's rare book, Mystery in Acambaro, is back in print! Hapgood researched the Acambaro collection of clay figurines with Erle Stanley Gardner (author of the Perry Mason mysteries) in the mid-1960s The Acambaro collection comprises hundreds of clay figurines that are apparently thousands of years old; however, they depict such bizarre animals and scenes that most archaeologists dismiss them as an elaborate hoax. The collection shows humans interacting with dinosaurs and various other "monsters" such as horned men. Both Hapgood and Gardner were convinced that the figurines from Acambaro were authentic ancient artifacts which indicated that men and dinosaurs had cohabited together in the recent past, and that dinosaurs had not become extinct many millions of years ago as is commonly thought. David Hatcher Childress writes a lengthy introduction concerning Acambaro, the latest testing and other evidence of "living" dinosaurs..
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The Lost Art of War by Sun Tzu II (commonly known as Sun Bin) was unearthed in 1972 in an ancient Chinese tomb. Translated into English for the first time, this stunning discovery has been hailed as a worthy sequel to The Art of War. Packed with precise strategies and detailed tactics that can be adapted to any organization, this sophisticated manual builds upon Sun Tzu's phenomenally popular teachings and offers powerful insights into such principles as strategic manoeuvring, tactical formation, and adaptation.Renowned scholar Thomas Cleary brings the sometimes cryptic meanings of Sun Tzu II's ancient Chinese wisdom to life. Like his translation of The Art of War, Cleary's rendering of The Lost Art of War is an absorbing and practical work, whose military metaphors can be adapted to the complexities of business, government, diplomacy, relationships, and social action..
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Born into slavery, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (ca. 1824-1907) rose to a position of respect as a talented dressmaker and designer to the political elite of Washington, D.C., and a confidante of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. In this unusual memoir, Keckley offers a rare, behind-the-scenes view of the formal and informal networks that African Americans established among themselves, as well as an insider's perspective of the men who made Civil War politics and the women who influenced them.

As an enslaved young woman, Keckley was moved to the rough frontier city of St. Louis, where she began working as a modiste, or dress designer. She eventually was able to buy her freedom and went to Washington, D.C., where she established herself as modiste to some of the wives and daughters of high-level politicians and officers. Before long, she was supplying not only beautiful clothing but also a sympathetic ear to Mary Todd Lincoln.

Keckley's descriptions of the Lincolns at home reveal touching, unguarded moments of laughter, discussion, and affection. She witnessed the grief of both parents at the death of their son Willie and Mary Todd's prostration after the president's assassination. In dire financial straits, Mary Todd turned to Keckley, who spent several months in New York helping the former First Lady sell her elegant clothing.

President of the Contraband Relief Association and a friend of Frederick Douglass and other prominent African-American leaders, Keckley emerges as a remarkable, resourceful, and principled woman who helped mediate between black and white communities. Frances Smith Foster's introduction traces the book's reception history and fills in biographical gaps in the text..
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