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Language in Society (Routledge Guides to Linguistics)
by Nala H. LeeLanguage in Society introduces the study of the relationship between language and society, also known as sociolinguistics, without assuming any prior knowledge of linguistics. Introducing the key concepts in an accessible way, Lee illustrates how language develops constantly as a response to society and must be understood in the context of societal norms, processes, and events. The book: Provides a short history of the field and explores the types of questions that can be asked in sociolinguistics as well as its methods Introduces essential concepts such as sociolinguistic variation, multilingualism, and contact languages Discusses contemporary topics including issues of language endangerment, language and justice, as well as language and computing Includes examples and case studies from the Asia Pacific and focuses on highlighting research from the Southern hemisphere Provides discussions of the future trajectory of the field and some reflection points on practical applications for each chapter Language in Society is key reading for students studying this topic for the first time with little or no background in linguistics.
Transit Tourism: The Iconic Art and Design of 22 Subway Systems Around the World
by David SeltzerIn Transit Tourism: The Iconic Art and Design of 22 Subway Systems around the World, readers embark on a visual journey through the world's bustling subway systems, where each station tells a story of its city's soul. From the ornate elegance of Moscow's stations to the sleek minimalism of Tokyo's, this illustrated collection of travel essays explores 22 urban metros, revealing how their architecture, art, and design reflect the unique character and culture of each metropolis. Whether urban explorers, design aficionados, or simply curious about the hidden narratives beneath our cities, readers will encounter a fresh perspective on the subterranean worlds that shape our urban landscapes.Key Features:Visual culture showcase: Explore architecture, art installations, and graphic design.Unique book design: Each chapter mimics a subway line, with color-coded sections and Museo typeface inspired by timetable brochures.Entertaining narrative: Travel essays written from a tour guide&’s viewpoint for a passenger's perspective, blending humor and observation.Global scope: Covers major systems in North America, Europe, and Asia, appealing to travelers and urban enthusiasts alike.Subway system ratings: Each chapter concludes with a unique token ranking system, evaluating subway systems on convenience, design quality, and personality, providing readers with an assessment for planning their transit adventures. Uncover the fascinating stories beneath your feet with Transit Tourism: The Iconic Art and Design of 22 Subway Systems around the World, a captivating exploration of how subways shape and define the cities we love.
Vintage New York City Subway Signs: 1920s–1980s
by Tod LangeVintage New York City Subway Signs: 1920s–1980s features over 350 historic photographs, chronicling subway signs from the 1920s to the 1980s. Each image showcases the craftsmanship and cultural significance of these transit artifacts and rare collectibles. This book is an invaluable resource for architects, designers, urban planners, and local historians seeking inspiration from New York City's unique design heritage. Renowned transit photographer Douglas Grotjahn contributes his extensive archive of 35 mm Kodachrome color slides and black-and-white images, offering a vivid portrayal of the city's transit history.Features:Over 350 historic photographs of subway signage, with captionsCoverage of porcelain, wood, tin, and mosaic signsDetailed descriptions and historical context for each sign typeRare images from private collectionsPhotographs that capture the essence of life in past decades of American history, creating a vivid time capsule of New York City's neighborhoodsForeword by Douglas Grotjahn, renowned transit photographer and historianVintage New York City Subway Signs: 1920s–1980s captures the essence of New York City's iconic, globally renowned subway system as a canvas for great art, highlighting the diversity and craftsmanship of subway signs. Lange's narrative transports readers through the golden era of New York City's transit history, where signs served not only as directional guides but as distinctive symbols of the city's identity.
Back Roads of the Mid-Atlantic States
by David SkernickWhen most people think about the mid-Atlantic states, they think of New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other big, sprawling cities. Travel through these pages and you will find yourself on the hidden highways that lead to places such as Shushan, New York; Cherry Ridge, Pennsylvania; and Fizzleburg, Maryland. Find scenic and wondrous views in New York Pennsylvania New Jersey Delaware Maryland VirginiaThis is a very old part of the country, rich in history. You see it in the architecture; you hear it in the people you stop and talk with; you feel it in the trees. The mid-Atlantic states are living American history. Here you will find the old, the new, and, of course, the beautiful natural areas that haven’t changed and one hopes never will. There is beauty all over this area. Lakes, mountains, and rivers are everywhere. Skernick, who leads photography workshops nationwide, lets us in on his camera strategies with an appendix listing exposure, equipment, and panorama statistics for each image—enough to satisfy even the most technology-minded photographer.
New Girl (Diary of an Accidental Witch)
by Honor Cargill Perdita CargillWhen ordinary girl Bea Black moves to Little Spellshire with her dad, he accidentally enrolls her in the local witch school. What could possibly go wrong?Bea Black has just moved to Little Spellshire with her dad, who accidentally enrolls her in the local witch school. Bea (who is very much NOT a witch) has to tackle complicated classes like potions and levitation, take care of the class frog, and most importantly of all, figure out how to keep her magic a secret from her dad and her best friend! Features black-and-white illustrations throughout.Told through Bea's diary entries, the Diary of an Accidental Witch series invites readers to follow Bea on a humorous journey of self-discovery as she learns where she truly belongs.
The Proceedings of the 19th Annual Conference of China Electrotechnical Society: Volume VIII (Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering #1409)
by Xu Yang Qingxin Yang Zhaohong BieThis book compiles exceptional papers presented at the 19th Annual Conference of the China Electrotechnical Society (CES), held in Xi'an, China, from September 20 to 22, 2024. It encompasses a wide range of topics, including electrical technology, power systems, electromagnetic emission technology, and electrical equipment. The book highlights innovative solutions that integrate concepts from various disciplines, making it a valuable resource for researchers, engineers, practitioners, research students, and interested readers.
Perfect Powers—An Ode to Erdős (Infosys Science Foundation Series)
by Saradha NatarajanThe book explores and investigates a long-standing mathematical question whether a product of two or more positive integers in an arithmetic progression can be a square or a higher power. It investigates, more broadly, if a product of two or more positive integers in an arithmetic progression can be a square or a higher power. This seemingly simple question encompasses a wealth of mathematical theory that has intrigued mathematicians for centuries. Notably, Fermat stated that four squares cannot be in arithmetic progression. Euler expanded on this by proving that the product of four terms in an arithmetic progression cannot be a square. In 1724, Goldbach demonstrated that the product of three consecutive positive integers is never square, and Oblath extended this result in 1933 to five consecutive positive integers. The book addresses a conjecture of Erdős involving the corresponding exponential Diophantine equation and discusses various number theory methods used to approach a partial solution to this conjecture. This book discusses diverse ideas and techniques developed to tackle this intriguing problem. It begins with a discussion of a 1939 result by Erdős and Rigge, who independently proved that the product of two or more consecutive positive integers is never a square. Despite extensive efforts by numerous mathematicians and the application of advanced techniques, Erdős' conjecture remains unsolved. This book compiles many methods and results, providing readers with a comprehensive resource to inspire future research and potential solutions. Beyond presenting proofs of significant theorems, the book illustrates the methodologies and their limitations, offering a deep understanding of the complexities involved in this mathematical challenge.
Arts and Cultural Education in a Challenging and Changing World: ENO Yearbook 3 (Yearbook of the European Network of Observatories in the Field of Arts and Cultural Education (ENO))
by Tanja Klepacki Edwin Van Meerkerk Tone Pernille ØsternThis book is motivated by questions of how arts and cultural education—like all other fields—are affected by and—together with other fields—can contribute to glocal developments, challenges, and shifts. However difficult the times, arts, and culture in educational contexts have the ambition to make a positive contribution and foster creativity, empathy, and inclusion to encourage critical change, innovation, and peace. But if arts and cultural education remains traditional, unchallenged, and exclusive, those ambitions for critical change towards more inclusive practices that dare to act and make a change in the world, run the risk of remaining utopian rhetoric. It is time for a critical self-examination and willingness to change powers and privileges also within arts and cultural education. Against this background, this book presents brave research on arts and cultural education that offers insight into the conditions, contexts, effects of, and critical changes needed within arts and cultural education. It addresses our time’s great changes, challenges, and possibilities for innovation.
Meta-Health: Understanding Metaverse for Healthcare
by Sunil Gupta Sonali Vyas Abhishek TyagiMetaverse is an emerging trend these days. It reflects in every field, like education, entertainment, business, and even healthcare. As we can experience, the Healthcare industry is constantly transforming due to emerge of new trends and technologies like moving from X-Rays to digital reports and from telehealth to Virtual Reality. It is a vast digital shift from regular practices to innovative techniques for efficient healthcare services. Metaverse plays a significant role in changing healthcare because it connects innovative technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, IoT, Web 3.0, Quantum Computing, Robotics, etc. This book discusses the application area of utilizing Metaverse in Healthcare services. It focuses on various research trends and technologies related to implementing a metaverse in healthcare systems. It also covers challenges, emerging trends and techniques, and future directions for meta-healthcare systems.
Designing Healthy Buildings and Communities: Shaping a Climate-Resilient Future (Urban Sustainability)
by Jian Zuo Ali Cheshmehzangi Ayyoob Sharifi Rongpeng Zhang Abbas Ziafati Bafarasat Jie ZhaoThis book aims to explore and showcase global case studies focused on creating buildings and communities that promote health while enhancing climate resilience. In an era where climate change increasingly impacts urban environments, there is a critical need for innovative solutions that go beyond conventional practices. This book compiles a diverse range of examples, drawing on real-life projects and potential paradigm shifts that emphasise novel ideas and advanced methodologies. The featured case studies span various aspects of building and community design, including architectural design directions, technology integration, and technical methods. Each contribution provides practical examples that illustrate the implementation of these concepts in real-world settings. By highlighting innovative approaches, the book challenges the status quo and encourages a shift from business-as-usual scenarios to forward-thinking strategies that prioritise both human health and environmental sustainability. Key themes include the integration of green building technologies, the adoption of sustainable materials, and the incorporation of nature-based solutions in community design. Additionally, the book delves into community-driven initiatives that foster social cohesion and climate-resilience, demonstrating how collaborative efforts can lead to more robust and adaptable cities. Through detailed analyses and comprehensive discussions, this book serves as a vital resource for architects, urban planners, policymakers, and researchers. It provides insights into cutting-edge practices and offers inspiration for future projects aimed at creating a healthier and more sustainable future. By bringing together these global perspectives, the book highlights the importance of innovation and adaptability in the face of climate challenges, ultimately contributing to the development of sustainable and thriving urban landscapes.
Adapting Nations: National Resilience Between Contemporary Statehood and Identity
by Carlo Pala Alon HelledNations adapt. Nations are resilient both within and outside the boundaries of statehood. Yet scholarship tends to downplay nationhood, as it focuses on the polity. As a consequence, the investigation of modern societies, though usually articulated around the nation-state model, falls into state-centrism, whilst neglecting the other side of the coin. This book initiates an interdisciplinary debate that encourages research in a field that has largely been overlooked in European social and political sciences. The analysis, offered by the authors, reinstates the concept of the 'nation' beyond the traditional, and somewhat dichotomous, schools of thought, hence neither judging the nation as a mere invention nor as a deterministic product of history. The book provides those interested in nationalism with new approaches to exploring national identity and its connection to statehood. By using concepts inspired by political science and sociology, namely habitus, survival unit, polity, hysteresis, and so forth, the different chapters of the volume revitalise the inquiry of the dimensions and features in which the nation and the identification they engender become tools of adaptation in relation to the transformative reality of our own contemporaneity. The authors thus contextualise the latter via the mid-range concept of national resilience at both meso- and macro-levels.
A Brief Excursion into Human Cognition: The Evolving Influence of Social Media & Artificial Intelligence
by Hans KankamThis book offers a concise exploration of human cognition, charting its historical development and revealing how disciplines such as neuroscience, linguistics, anthropology, the social sciences, and behavioral economics shape our understanding. Structured as a condensed handbook, it examines the core principles defining cognition while reflecting on how these insights influence AI advancements and social media interactions. Subsequent sections highlight how evolving cognitive research, combined with rapid AI growth, is driving a paradigm shift in how we perceive ourselves and our world. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, the book also explores the possible unintended consequences of integrating such knowledge into everyday life. By illuminating emerging trends and potential future directions, it equips both specialists and non-specialists with a fresh lens on how cognition shapes—and is shaped by—technology and society.
Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Petroleum, Hydrogen and Decarbonization: ICPHD 2023 (Lecture Notes on Multidisciplinary Industrial Engineering)
by Sumit Kumar Pankaj Tiwari Anugrah Singh Abhijit KakatiThis book presents the select proceedings of the International Conference on Petroleum, Hydrogen and Decarbonization (ICPHD 2023). It offers a comprehensive overview of the research and advancement in traditional fossil fuel, hydrogen energy and imperative of decarbonization. The topics covered in book include petroleum exploration and production, petroleum reservoir engineering, enhanced oil recovery, hydrogen generation, transportation, storage and usage, carbon capture, utilization and storage, corrosion management for petroleum, hydrogen and decarbonization. This book will serve as a valuable resource for researchers, policymakers and industry professionals, offering diverse perspectives and insights into the ongoing efforts to transform the petroleum industry, integrate hydrogen technologies, and achieve global decarbonization goals.
Ecological and Digital Transition in Cities: Measuring Ecosystem Services for Urban Planning and Design (Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems #1272)
by Carmelina Bevilacqua Francesca Moraci Pasquale PizzimentiThis open access book delves into the intersection of ecological, technological, and social dynamics at the core of urban transition and the relevance of urban planning and design in addressing the pressing challenges faced by cities and regions in the 21st century. This book is held at “Networks, Markets & People” Communities, Institutions and Enterprises toward post-humanism epistemologies and AI challenges, May 22–25, 2024, Reggio Calabria, Italy. The papers included in the book follow two main drivers. The first is dedicated to discussing the concept of ecosystem services exploring the role of policy and governance mechanisms in promoting the integration of ecosystem services into urban planning and design practices. The second presents various data-driven perspectives, methodologies, frameworks, and case studies for measuring ecosystem services in cities, ranging from traditional methods to cutting-edge digital mapping and modeling techniques. The book primarily targets academics, researchers, and students (undergraduate, postgraduates, Ph.D. students) providing interesting insights on the topic that can be useful for urban planning and design course in the urban studies, architecture, and engineering fields. It targets also policymakers, experts, professionals, and consultants active in the urban planning and design field involved in managing the transition of regions and cities
Federated Learning Systems: Towards Privacy-Preserving Distributed AI (Studies in Computational Intelligence #832)
by Mohamed Medhat Gaber Muhammad Habib ur RehmanThis book dives deep into both industry implementations and cutting-edge research driving the Federated Learning (FL) landscape forward. FL enables decentralized model training, preserves data privacy, and enhances security without relying on centralized datasets. Industry pioneers like NVIDIA have spearheaded the development of general-purpose FL platforms, revolutionizing how companies harness distributed data. Alternately, for medical AI, FL platforms, such as FedBioMed, enable collaborative model development across healthcare institutions to unlock massive value. Research advances in PETs highlight ongoing efforts to ensure that FL is robust, secure, and scalable. Looking ahead, federated learning could transform public health by enabling global collaboration on disease prevention while safeguarding individual privacy. From recommendation systems to cybersecurity applications, FL is poised to reshape multiple domains, driving a future where collaboration and privacy coexist seamlessly.
The British Civil Service: Current Issues and Future Challenges
by Janice MorphetTaking account of its evolution in recent decades, this book provides an up-to-date account of the role of the Civil Service in the UK. The book offers a much-needed re-examination of the function and role of the Civil Service and considers the ways in which it has changed in response to today’s pressures. It examines the changing relationships between ministers, civil servants and special advisers (spADs), as well as investigating challenges to the principles of the Civil Service such as service outsourcing, COVID-19 responses and Brexit. Asking whether the practices of the past are effective for the future, this book is a vital resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students of UK politics, public administration and public sector management.
Girls, Power and International Development: Agency and Activism in the Global North and South (Gender, Sexuality and Global Politics)
by Rosie WaltersThe United Nations Foundation’s Girl Up campaign has been critiqued for depoliticising global and gender inequalities, portraying girls from the Global South as responsible for lifting entire communities out of poverty and encouraging girls in the Global North to see themselves as the saviours of their Southern counterparts. Drawing on focus groups with Girl Up members from the UK, US and Malawi, this book demonstrates how girls reflect critically on the Girl Up discourse, reject its individualistic vision of girls’ empowerment and interact with their Northern/Southern counterparts in a spirit of mutual learning and respect. Its analysis demonstrates how the girls use participation in the campaign to develop their own more complex, radical and collective visions of girls’ empowerment.
The Antidote: How People-Powered Movements Can Renew Politics, Policy and Practice
by Peter BeresfordThe gap between personal and formal politics has been widening globally and locally. As personal politics have become more inclusive and egalitarian inspired by new social movements, neoliberal ideologies have undermined democracy, increasing isolation, inequality, poverty, disease and environmental threat. Yet this paradox may also offer a path to transformation. Using international evidence and examples, The Antidote explores what we can learn from the equalisation of personal roles and relationships that’s been taking place, to help us reconnect with ourselves and each other and make possible more participatory and liberatory policy and politics. It sets out the barriers we face and offers a route map to bring an end to the destructive effects of unfettered neoliberal ideology, economics, policy and politics.
Now You See the Sky
by Catharine H. MurrayThis memoir — the first release on best-selling author Ann Hood’s Gracie Belle imprint — about the fathomless loss of a beloved child reveals how tragedy can transform us and make us more fully alive. “Murray’s lucid meditations and living-in-the-moment attitude — e.g., providing simple pleasures like a favorite food to a sick child — serve as useful reminders to all of us that life is precious and fleeting and must be enjoyed to the fullest. It’s a simple message but an important one. As much a eulogy to Chan as a testament to the joy of life, the book is a heartwarming tale of dealing with life-altering loss . . . A tender, love-filled story of how one woman dealt with the loss of a young child.” —Kirkus Reviews “An extraordinary memoir. Forthright, honest and haunting . . . Murray’s memoir is wise and enlightened.” —Portland Press Herald Now You See the Sky is a memoir about love, motherhood, and loss. When Catharine H. Murray travels to a small town on the banks of the Mekong River to work at a refugee camp, she falls in love and marries a local man with whom she has three sons. When their middle son is diagnosed with cancer at age five, their pursuit of a cure takes them from Thailand to Seattle, before they eventually return to Thailand, settling on a remote mountaintop. Full of honesty and grace, Now You See the Sky — the debut selection in Ann Hood’s new Gracie Belle imprint — allows the reader to witness the fathomless loss of a child and learn how tragedy can transform us, expand our vision, and make us more fully alive. Now You See the Sky is the debut selection of Ann Hood’s new nonfiction imprint with Akashic, Gracie Belle. Modeled after her experience writing the memoir Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, and named after her daughter, Grace, Hood’s imprint reaffirms for authors and readers that none of us is alone in our journeys.
Home Girl
by Alex WheatleWhen Naomi, a fourteen-year-old white girl, is placed with a black foster care family, her life takes some dramatic twists and turns. “Another powerful and poignant novel deftly created by one of the most prolific master novelists on either side of the pond. Home Girl is a page-turner, with not a dull moment. Loved it from the rooter to the tooter.” —Eric Jerome Dickey, New York Times best-selling author of Before We Were Wicked New from the best-selling black British author Alex Wheatle, Home Girl is the story of Naomi, a teenage girl growing up fast in the foster care system. It is a wholly modern story which sheds a much-needed light on what can be an unsettling life—and the consequences that follow when children are treated like pawns on a family chessboard. Home Girl is fast-paced and funny, tender, tragic, and full of courage—just like Naomi. This is Alex Wheatle’s most moving and personal novel to date.
Necropolis
by Avtar SinghA gorgeously written and tightly plotted mystery novel that brings the city of Delhi alive, in ways both enchanting and provocative. “Someone is cutting off victims’ fingers in New Delhi and vampires and lycans are suspects in this ambitious mix of detection and the supernatural from Singh.” —Publishers Weekly Necropolis follows Sajan Dayal, a detective in pursuit of a serial (though nonlethal) collector of fingers. He encounters would-be vampires and werewolves, and a woman named Razia who may or may not be centuries old. Guided by Singh’s gorgeous and masterful writing, the novel peels back layers of a city in thrall to its past, hostage to its present, and bitterly divided as to its future. Delhi went from being an imperial capital to provincial backwater in a few centuries: the journey back to exploding commercial metropolis has been compressed into a few decades. Combining elements of crime, fantasy, and noir, Necropolis tackles the questions of origin, ownership, and class that such a revolution inevitably raises. The world of Delhi, the sweep of its history—its grandeur, grimness, and criminality—all of it comes alive in Necropolis.
Chicago Noir: The Classics (Akashic Noir #0)
by Joe MenoNelson Algren, Richard Wright, and Patricia Highsmith are just three of the iconic authors included in this outstanding volume. “In this superior entry in Akashic’s noir series, Meno offers nearly a century of Chicago crime fiction. . . . Familiar bylines abound: Max Allan Collins, Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, Sherwood Anderson, Fredric Brown, Patricia Highsmith (with an excerpt from her novel The Price of Salt), Stewart M. Kaminsky, Sara Paretsky. Others may be less familiar to mystery specialists, but all turn in impressive performances.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review “Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, and Sandra Cisneros are not crime-fiction writers, and yet their Chicago certainly embodies the individual-crushing ethos endemic to noir. Meno also includes stories from writers who could easily have been overlooked (Percy Spurlark Parker, Hugh Holton) to ensure that diverse voices, and neighborhoods, are represented. Add in smart and essential choices from Fredric Brown, Sara Paretsky, and Stuart Kaminsky, and you have not an anthology not for crime-fiction purists, perhaps, but a thought-provoking document all the same.” —Booklist Although Los Angeles may be considered the most quintessentially “noir” American city, this volume reveals that pound-for-pound, Chicago has historically been able to stand up to any other metropolis in the noir arena. Classic reprints from: Harry Stephen Keeler, Sherwood Anderson, Max Allan Collins, Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, Fredric Brown, Patricia Highsmith, Barry Gifford, Stuart M. Kaminsky, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Sara Paretsky, Percy Spurlark Parker, Sandra Cisneros, Hugh Holton, and Stuart Dybek. From the introduction by Joe Meno: More corrupt than New York, less glamorous than LA, Chicago has more murders per capita than any other city its size. With its sleek skyscrapers bisecting the fading sky like an unspoken threat, Chicago is the closest metropolis to the mythical city of shadows as first described in the work of Chandler, Hammett, and Cain. Only in Chicago do instituted color lines offer generation after generation of poverty and violence, only in Chicago do the majority of governors do prison time, only in Chicago do the dead actually vote twice. Chicago—more than the metropolis that gave the world Al Capone, the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, the death of John Dillinger, the crimes of Leopold and Loeb, the horrors of John Wayne Gacy, the unprecedented institutional corruption of so many recent public officials, more than the birthplace of Raymond Chandler—is a city of darkness. This darkness is not an act of over-imagination. It’s the unadulterated truth. It’s a pointed though necessary reminder of the grave tragedies of the past and the failed possibilities of the present. Fifty years in the future, I hope these stories are read only as fiction, as somewhat distant fantasy. Here’s hoping for some light.
Death of a Rainmaker: A Dust Bowl Mystery
by Laurie LoewensteinA classic murder mystery set in the 1930s Dust Bowl that portrays the era with great beauty, tenderness, and sorrowful authenticity. —Finalist for the 2019 Oklahoma Book Awards, Fiction “This striking historical mystery . . . is brooding and gritty and graced with authenticity.” —NPR, One of the Best Books of 2018 selected by Maureen Corrigan “The murder investigation allows Loewenstein to probe into the lives of proud people who would never expose their troubles to strangers. People like John Hodge, the town’s most respected lawyer, who knocks his wife around, and kindhearted Etha Jennings, who surreptitiously delivers home-cooked meals to the hobo camp outside town because one of the young Civilian Conservation Corps workers reminds her of her dead son. Loewenstein’s sensitive treatment of these dark days in the Dust Bowl era offers little humor but a whole lot of compassion.” —New York Times Book Review When a rainmaker is bludgeoned to death in the pitch-blackness of a colossal dust storm, small-town sheriff Temple Jennings shoulders yet another burden in the hard times of the 1930s Dust Bowl. The killing only magnifies Temple’s ongoing troubles: a formidable opponent in the upcoming election, the repugnant burden of enforcing farm foreclosures, and his wife’s lingering grief over the loss of their eight-year-old son. As the sheriff and his young deputy investigate the murder, their suspicions focus on a teenager, Carmine, serving with the Civilian Conservation Corps. The deputy, himself a former CCCer, struggles with remaining loyal to the corps while pursuing his own aspirations as a lawman. When the investigation closes in on Carmine, Temple’s wife, Etha, quickly becomes convinced of his innocence and sets out to prove it. But Etha’s own probe soon reveals a darker web of secrets, which imperil Temple’s chances of reelection and cause the husband and wife to confront their long-standing differences about the nature of grief.
Loving Donovan
by Bernice L. McFaddenA long-awaited reissue of this deeply thoughtful novel about hope, forgiveness, and the cost of loving Donovan, a complex man with a shattered history “Bernice L. McFadden was one of the best writers to emerge in the post–Waiting to Exhale explosion that introduced at least a dozen Black female novelists. Loving Donovan has generated near-cult status among readers. After more than a decade since it appeared, Donovan is being reissued. How fitting that Terry McMillan has written a new introduction. If you’ve read Donovan before, you will fall in love all over again. And if this is your first time, prepare yourself for an intense romance between an enigmatic antihero and a heroine who will feel like your homegirl.” —Essence Magazine “Loving Donovan firmly establishes McFadden among the ranks of those few writers of whom you constantly beg for more.” —Black Issues Book Review With a new introduction by Terry McMillan. The first section of McFadden’s unconventional love story belongs to Campbell. Despite being born to a brokenhearted mother and a faithless father, Campbell still believes in the power of love . . . if she can ever find it. Living in the same neighborhood, but unknown to Campbell until a chance meeting brings them together, is Donovan, the “little man” of a shattered home—a family torn apart by anger and bitterness. In the face of daunting obstacles, Donovan dreams of someday marrying, raising a family, and playing in the NBA. But deep inside, Campbell and Donovan live with the histories that have shaped their lives. What they discover—together and apart—forms the basis of this compelling, sensual, and surprising novel.
Game World
by C.J. FarleyLaunching Akashic’s Black Sheep YA imprint, an adventure novel in a video game turned reality, with giant spiders, malevolent hummingbirds, a not-quite-yellow-brick road, and preteen children learning how to be heroes! “The Narnia for the Social Media Generation.” —The Wall Street Journal “Drawn from both video gaming culture and the rich tapestry of Jamaican myth and folklore, blending pointed social satire and mystical philosophy, this exuberant, original hero’s journey is a real trip . . . Exhilarating, thought-provoking and one of a kind.” —Kirkus Reviews Part of Akashic’s Black Sheep YA imprint. Dylan Rudee’s life is an epic fail. He’s bullied at school and the aunt who has raised him since he was orphaned as a child just lost her job and their apartment. Dylan’s one chance to help his family is the only thing he’s good at: video games. The multibillion-dollar company Mee Corp. has announced a televised tournament to find the Game-Changers: the forty-four kids who are the best in the world at playing Xamaica, a role-playing fantasy game that’s sweeping the planet. If Dylan can win the top prize, he just might be able to change his life. It turns out that Dylan is the greatest gamer anyone has ever seen, and his skills unlock a real-life fantasy world inside the game. Now actual monsters are trying to kill him, and he is swept up into an adventure along with his too-tall genius sister Emma, his hacker best friend Eli, and Ines Mee, the privileged daughter of Mee Corp.’s mysterious CEO and chief inventor. Along the way they encounter Nestuh, a giant spider who can spin a story but not a web; Baron Zonip, a hummingbird king who rules a wildly wealthy treetop kingdom; and an enchantress named Nanni who, with her shadow army, may be bent on conquering Xamaica and stealing its magic. In order to save his sister and his friends, Dylan must solve a dangerous mystery in three days and uncover secrets about Xamaica, his family, and himself. But will he discover his hidden powers before two worlds—Xamaica and Earth—are completely destroyed?