Books about Unabashed from Amazon.com

No book before this one has rendered the story of cigarettes -- mankind's most common self-destructive instrument and its most profitable consumer product -- with such sweep and enlivening detail.

Here for the first time, in a story full of the complexities and contradictions of human nature, all the strands of the historical process -- financial, social, psychological, medical, political, and legal -- are woven together in a riveting narrative. The key characters are the top corporate executives, public health investigators, and antismoking activists who have clashed ever more stridently as Americans debate whether smoking should be closely regulated as a major health menace.

We see tobacco spread rapidly from its aboriginal sources in the New World 500 years ago, as it becomes increasingly viewed by some as sinful and some as alluring, and by government as a windfall source of tax revenue. With the arrival of the cigarette in the late-nineteenth century, smoking changes from a luxury and occasional pastime to an everyday -- to some, indispensable -- habit, aided markedly by the exuberance of the tobacco huskers.

This free-enterprise success saga grows shadowed, from the middle of this century, as science begins to understand the cigarette's toxicity. Ironically the more detailed and persuasive the findings by medical investigators, the more cigarette makers prosper by seeming to modify their product with filters and reduced dosages of tar and nicotine.

We see the tobacco manufacturers come under intensifying assault as a rogue industry for knowingly and callously plying their hazardous wares while insisting that the health charges against them (a) remain unproven, and (b) are universally understood, so smokers indulge at their own risk.

Among the eye-opening disclosures here: outrageous pseudo-scientific claims made for cigarettes throughout the '30s and '40s, and the story of how the tobacco industry and the National Cancer Institute spent millions to develop a "safer" cigarette that was never brought to market.

Dealing with an emotional subject that has generated more heat than light, this book is a dispassionate tour de force that examines the nature of the companies' culpability, the complicity of society as a whole, and the shaky moral ground claimed by smokers who are now demanding recompense.
Price: $10.76 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Cuddling is more intimate than a candlelit dinner, more than a joint tax return and yes, even more than sex. With the simple act of an embrace, two people can be joined together in such an intense bond that words no longer serve a purpose The cuddle says it all.

The Cuddle Sutra is an all-encompassing resource for the act of cuddling, filled with detailed descriptions and illustrations of all the ways to express affection, whether you're in the privacy of your own bedroom or walking down Main Street.

Includes 50 cuddle positions, fully illustrated, for such locales as:

--Snuggling in the bedroom
--Kanoodling on the couch
--Hand-Dancing
--Enchanting Embraces

And much, much more!.
Price: $6.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

After his father skips out on his eighth birthday never to return, Johnny's mother shuts down emotionally and buries her boredom in a decade of alcohol and men. Two months shy of his eighteenth birthday, his high school girlfriend dies in a bad drag between a car and a train. Devastated, Johnny sets off on his Harley to search for the remnants of family on the road between destruction and enlightenment.

Through an interconnected collage of short stories, flash fiction, poetry and artwork, readers take a motorcycle road trip across the country and into the lives of saints, dealers, junkies and whores; abandoned and lost souls looking for something, anything to fill the void along the pursuit of happiness in the underbelly of the American Dream..
Price: $12.40 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Profiling 200 real and fictional women who dared, women who rock, and women who rule, this book features the low-down on Dana Scully, Rosa Parks, Foxy Brown, Wonder Woman, Emma Peel, Thelma and Louise, Mary Richards, and Eleanor Roosevelt, among others. 40 photos..
Price: $1.22 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Should I tell you how wise, entertaining, useful, funny, insightful, and all-around worthwhile this is? Nah, you’ll feel better if you find out yourself "—Donald Westlake, author of Put a Lid On It

If youÂ’re a writer, youÂ’ll find practical and compassionate advice in this wryly-told chronicle of the writerÂ’s life, including:

• How to get the most out of writing classes and workshops
• Overcoming writerÂ’s block
• Editorial highlights and publishing pitfalls—from commas to contracts
• Answers to the most pressing questions about authorship and the life of a writer

The Elements of Authorship (formerly published as Honk if You’re a Writer) contains expert advice woven with episodes from bestselling author Arthur Plotnik’s own travails. Plotnik’s rise from the literary “black lagoon” will amuse every struggling wordsmith. An appendix—"The Writer’s Pocket Advisor"—describes scores of opportunities and connections for writers found in no other guide.

Arthur Plotnik is a versatile author whose works include the classics The Elements of Editing. Reviewers have consistently praised PlotnikÂ’s writing for its accuracy, style, and wit, often ranking it with Strunk & White in practicality.

“This is a book for aspiring writers that has few equals”—Chicago Tribune

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Price: $3.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]