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Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor
by Xiran Jay ZhaoPercy Jackson meets Tristan Strong in this hilarious, action-packed middle grade contemporary fantasy that follows a young boy as he journeys across China to seal the underworld shut and save the mortal realm.
Zachary Ying never had many opportunities to learn about his Chinese heritage. His single mom was busy enough making sure they got by, and his schools never taught anything except Western history and myths. So Zack is woefully unprepared when he discovers he was born to host the spirit of the First Emperor of China for a vital mission: sealing the leaking portal to the Chinese underworld before the upcoming Ghost Month blows it wide open.
The mission takes an immediate wrong turn when the First Emperor botches his attempt to possess Zack’s body and binds to Zack’s AR gaming headset instead, leading to a battle where Zack’s mom’s soul gets taken by demons. Now, with one of history’s most infamous tyrants yapping in his headset, Zack must journey across China to heist magical artifacts and defeat figures from history and myth, all while learning to wield the emperor's incredible water dragon powers.
And if Zack can’t finish the mission in time, the spirits of the underworld will flood into the mortal realm, and he could lose his mom forever.
New York Times Bestseller
Zeb Bolt and the Ember Scroll
by Abi ElphinstoneIn the thrilling finale to bestselling author Abi Elphinstone&’s The Unmapped Chronicles, a young orphan rises up to stop the evil harpy Morg once and for all.Eleven-year-old Zebedee Bolt is on the run. Again. Only this time, it&’s not the police who find him. It&’s an evil harpy called Morg. And when she hauls him into Crackledawn, an Unmapped kingdom that conjures sunlight for our world, Zeb discovers running away only gets you so far. When magic&’s involved, you&’ve got to pick a side. And though Zeb vowed he wouldn&’t trust anyone ever again, he didn&’t expect to stumble aboard The Kerfuffle, an enchanted boat belonging to a girl called Oonie and her talking chameleon, Mrs. Fickletint. Suddenly, Zeb finds himself on a voyage complete with silver whales, fire krakens, and underwater palaces. Can he muster up enough trust in others, and in magic, to summon a dragon, find the Ember Scroll, and defeat Morg once and for all? This is a story about saving the world but it&’s also a story about trusting friends—and chameleons—even when kingdoms are falling apart.
Zen and the Heart of Psychotherapy
by Robert RosenbaumFirst published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Zen Comes West
by Christmas HumphreysZen Buddhism was founded in China in the 6th century, and its direct path to Enlightenment first came west in 1927 with D. T. Suzuki's first Essays. This work guides the reader towards Zen teaching in practice and theory, and to provide material for further explorations into its meditative experience.
Zero Comments
by Geert LovinkIn Zero Comments, internationally renowned media theorist and 'net critic' Geert Lovink revitalizes worn out concepts about the Internet and interrogates the latest hype surrounding blogs and social network sites. In this third volume of his studies into critical Internet culture, following the influential Dark Fiber and My First Recession, Lovink develops a 'general theory of blogging.' He unpacks the ways that blogs exhibit a 'nihilist impulse' to empty out established meaning structures. Blogs, Lovink argues, are bringing about the decay of traditional broadcast media, and they are driven by an in-crowd dynamic in which social ranking is a primary concern. The lowest rung of the new Internet hierarchy are those blogs and sites that receive no user feedback or 'zero comments'. Zero Comments also explores other important changes to Internet culture, as well, including the silent globalization of the Net in which the West is no longer the main influence behind new media culture, as countries like India, China and Brazil expand their influence and looks forward to speculate on the Net impact of organized networks, free cooperation and distributed aesthetics.
The Zimbabwean Maverick
by Shun Man CHOW-QUESADAThis book seeks to unfold the complexity within the works of Dambudzo Marechera and presents scholars and readers with a way of reading his works in light of utopian thinking. Writing during a traumatic transitional period in Zimbabwe’s history, Marechera witnessed the upheavals caused by different parties battling for power in the nation. Aware of the fact that all institutionalized narratives – whether they originated from the colonial governance of the UK, Ian Smith’s white minority regime, or Zimbabwe’s revolutionary parties – appeal to visions of a utopian society but reveal themselves to be fiction, Marechera imagined a unique utopia. For Marechera, utopia is not a static entity but a moment of perpetual change. He rethinks utopia by phrasing it as an ongoing event that ceaselessly contests institutionalized narratives of the postcolonial self and its relationship to society. Marechera writes towards a vision of an alternative future for the country. Yet, it is a vision that does not constitute a fully rounded sense of utopia. Being cautious about the world and the operation of power upon the people, rather than imposing his own utopian ideals, Marechera chooses instead to destabilize the narrative constitution of the self in relation to society in order to turn towards a truly radical utopian thinking that empowers the individual.
Zionism
by David EngelZionism is an international political movement that was originally dedicated to the resettlement of Jewish people in the Promised Land, and is now synonymous with support for the modern state of Israel. This addition to the Short Histories of Big Ideas series looks at the controversial and topical notion of Zionism from a balanced viewpoint, concentrating on where it came from, how it accomplished its goals, and why it affected so many people.
Zygmunt Bauman
by Tony BlackshawThis timely book provides the definitive concise introduction to the phenomenon of Zygmunt Bauman. After introducing the man, his major influences and his special way of 'thinking sociologically', author Blackshaw traces the development of Bauman's project by identifying and explaining the major shifts of emphasis in his work – the break with Marxism and the postmodern 'turn', and the subsequent refocusing on 'liquid' modernity – as well as offering a clear and accessible guide to the key conceptual hinges which move the reader on. This book, the only concise introduction to Bauman's work on the market, goes on to explain the importance of the full range of persistent themes concerning Bauman, dealing specifically with individualization, freedom, identity, community, social control, consumption and waste, building a penetrating understanding of why these issues matter for this Key Sociologist. Bauman's ideas have impacted beyond sociology into criminology, political theory, cultural studies, leisure studies and so forth, and have also now penetrated outside the walls of the academy into social policy, welfare reform, social work and politics. Making use of pedagogical features such as boxed sections, chapter summaries, an annotated bibliography and links to further reading, this well-written text assumes no prior familiarity with Bauman's work and will appeal to anyone in any of these fields wishing to get acquainted with the ideas of one of the world's most wide-ranging thinkers.