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Girl in Hyacinth Blue
There are only 35 known Vermeers extant in the world today. In Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Susan Vreeland posits the existence of a 36th. The story begins at a private boys' academy in Pennsylvania where, in the wake of a faculty member's unexpected death, math teacher Cornelius Engelbrecht makes a surprising revelation to one of his colleagues. He has, he claims, an authentic Vermeer painting, "a most extraordinary painting in which a young girl wearing a short blue smock over a rust-colored skirt sat in profile at a table by an open window." His colleague, an art teacher, is skeptical and though the technique and subject matter are persuasively Vermeer-like, Engelbrecht can offer no hard evidence--no appraisal, no papers--to support his claim. He says only that his father, "who always had a quick eye for fine art, picked it up, let us say, at an advantageous moment." Eventually it is revealed that Engelbrecht's father was a Nazi in charge of rounding up Dutch Jews for deportation and that the picture was looted from one doomed family's home: That's when I saw that painting, behind his head. All blues and yellows and reddish brown, as translucent as lacquer. It had to be a Dutch master. Just then a private found a little kid covered with tablecloths behind some dishes in a sideboard cabinet. We'd almost missed him. By the end of "Love Enough," this first of eight interrelated stories tracing the history of "Girl in Hyacinth Blue," the painting's fate at the hands of guilt-riddled Engelbrecht fils is in question. Unfortunately, there is no doubt about the probable destiny of the previous owners, the Vredenburg family of Rotterdam, who take center stage in the powerful "A Night Different From All Other Nights." Vreeland handles this tale with subtlety and restraint, setting it at Passover, the year before the looting, and choosing to focus on the adolescent Hannah Vredenburg's difficult passage into adulthood in the face of an uncertain future. In the next story, "Adagia," she moves even further into the past to sketch "how love builds itself unconsciously ... out of the momentous ordinary" in a tender portrait of a longtime marriage. Back and back Vreeland goes, back through other owners, other histories, to the very inception of the painting in the homely, everyday objects of the Vermeer household--a daughter's glass of milk, a son's shirt in need of buttons, a wife's beloved sewing basket--"the unacknowledged acts of women to hallow home." Girl in Hyacinth Blue ends with the painting's subject herself, Vermeer's daughter Magdalena, who first sends the portrait out into the world as payment for a family debt, then sees it again, years later at an auction. She thought of all the people in all the paintings she had seen that day, not just Father's, in all the paintings of the world, in fact. Their eyes, the particular turn of a head, their loneliness or suffering or grief was borrowed by an artist to be seen by other people throughout the years who would never see them face to face. People who would be that close to her, she thought, a matter of a few arms' lengths, looking, looking, and they would never know her. In this final passage, Susan Vreeland might be describing her own masterpiece as well as Vermeer's. --Alix Wilber.
Price: $1.00
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Patterns of Home: The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design
The key to creating a house that is memorable, satisfying, and enduring is to apply a group of design concepts—or patterns—that focus on the experience of being in a home. In this groundbreaking work, internationally respected architects Max Jacobson, Murray Silverstein, and Barbara Winslow present the ten essential patterns that shape and define a well-crafted home. Patterns explore the presence of light, the relationship between indoors and out, the flow through rooms, and the feel of one space as you are sitting in another. Clearly written and profusely illustrated with houses from all over the country, Patterns of Home, brings the timeless lessons of residential design to anyone seeking inspiration and direction in the design or remodel of a home. The patterns described in the book can make the difference between a home that satisfies only the material needs of the owners and one that captures the essence of home..
Price: $9.98
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The Winter of Frankie Machine (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
Frankie Machianno, a hard-working entrepreneur, passionate lover, part-time surf bum, and full-time dad, is a widely recognized pillar of his waterfront community. He is also a retired hit man. Once better known as Frankie Machine, he was a brutally efficient killer. Now someone from his past wants him dead, and after a botched attempt on his life, Frankie sets out to find his potential killers. However, the list of suspects is longer than the California coastline. With the mob on his heels and the cops on his tail, Frankie hatches a plan to protect his family, save his life, and escape the mob forever. Then things get really complicated..
Price: $7.89
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Criminology: A Global Perspective
Because of recent changes in communication, transportation, and commerce, crime has become a global phenomenon Criminology: A Global Perspective was developed to address this new reality and broadens the discussion of crime and social control to the global arena. Relying on data extracted from both national and international sources, the book offers a comparative criminology website that compiles information on each country, its history, its crime statistics and more! The innovation continues with a manageable approach to theoriesâfirst covering general theories and then introducing new theories within the context of specific crimes. Realizing that crime is no longer contained by geographic boundaries, the book analyzes where crime is occurring and which theories are true universally, not just in the United States. True global perspectivenot found in competing books. Comparative Criminology Websiteoffers a virtual tour of crime throughout the world. Manageable approach to theoryincludes three introductory chapters (ch. 3-5), followed by other theories presented within the context of crimes (ch. 6-15). An excellent book for those new to Criminology who are looking for criminal justice information about all of the countries of the world. .
Price: $22.91
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The Principles of Scientific Management
This paper has been written: First. To point out, through a series of simple illustrations, the great loss which the whole country is suffering through inefficiency in almost all of our daily acts. Second. To try to convince the reader that the remedy for this inefficiency lies in systematic management, rather than in searching for some unusual or extraordinary man. Third. To prove that the best management is a true science, resting upon clearly defined laws, rules, and principles, as a foundation. And further to show that the fundamental principles of scientific management are applicable to all kinds of human activities, from our simplest individual acts to the work of our great corporations, which call for the most elaborate cooperation. And, briefly, through a series of illustrations, to convince the reader that whenever these principles are correctly applied, results must follow which are truly astounding..
Price: $5.99
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The Power of the Dog
An explosive novel of the drug trade, The Power of the Dog, takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge Art Montana is an obsessive DEA agent. The Barrera brothers are heirs to a drug empire. Nora Hayden is a jaded teenager who becomes a high-class hooker. Father Parada is a powerful and uncorruptable Catholic priest. Callan is an Irish kid from Hell’s kitchen who grows up to be a merciless hitman. And they are all trapped in the world of the Mexican drug Federació n. From the streets of New York City to Mexico City and Tiajuana to the jungles of Central America, this is the war on drugs like you’ve never seen it..
Price: $7.27
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The Death and Life of Bobby Z
Here's a thriller with everything going for it--a great plot gimmick, excellent action and sex scenes, beautifully-realized characters on every level, and a crisp, pungent, in-your-face writing style that rarely stops to let you catch your breath. Nobody has actually seen the legendary Laguna Beach surfer-turned-drug dealer Bobby Zacharias for years, so a nasty federal agent thinks he has a chance of passing off a lookalike in a hostage switch with a Mexican drug lord. Bobby Z's double, a career screw-up named Tim Kearney, takes the deal because it means a chance to get out of prison--where the Hell's Angels want to terminate him. But when the switch backfires, everyone in the world is after the fake Bobby Z--who takes off with the 6-year-old son of the real Bobby on a cinematic, fully satisfying run for their lives..
Price: $6.12
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