Arabian Delights

Arabian Delights
Author: Amy Riolo
Publisher: Capital Books
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2008
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 9781933102559

Introducing the rich and exotic traditions of Arabian cuisine with recipes and entertaining ideas from the Arabian Peninsula's romantic past and trendy present

The Vampyre and Ernestus Berchtold; or, The Modern Oedipus

The Vampyre and Ernestus Berchtold; or, The Modern Oedipus
Author: John William Polidori
Publisher: Broadview Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2007-09-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1551117452

In 1816, John William Polidori travelled to Geneva as Lord Byron’s personal physician. There they met Mary Godwin (later Shelley) and her lover Percy Shelley and decided to while away a wet summer by writing ghost stories. The only two to complete their stories were Mary Shelley, who published Frankenstein in 1818, and Polidori, whose The Vampyre and Ernestus Berchtold were both published in 1819. The Vampyre, based on a discarded idea of Byron’s, is the first portrayal of the alluring vampire figure familiar to readers of Bram Stoker and Anne Rice. Ernestus Berchtold scandalously draws on the rumours of Byron’s affair with his half-sister for a Faustian updating of the myth of Oedipus, which it combines with an account of the struggle of Swiss patriots against the Napoleonic invasion. Along with Polidori’s work, this edition also includes stories read and written by the travellers in the Genevan summer of 1816 and contemporary responses to The Vampyre and Ernestus Berchtold.

Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa

Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa
Author: Habeeb Salloum
Publisher: Interlink Publishing
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2012-11-15
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 162371012X

NEW IN PAPERBACK The vegetarian cuisine of the Middle East and North Africa is a treasure chest of pungent herbs and spices, aromatic stews and soups, chewy falafels and breads, couscous, stuffed grape leaves, greens and vegetables, hummus, pizzas, pies, omelets, pastries and sweets, smooth yogurt drinks, and strong coffees. Originally the food of peasants too poor for meat, vegetarian cooking in the Middle East developed over thousands of years into a culinary art form influenced both by trade and invasion. It is as rich and varied in its history as it is in flavor—culinary historians estimate the Arab kitchen has over 40,000 dishes! Now noted food writer Habeeb Salloum has culled 330 savory jewels from this never-ending storehouse to create Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East—a rich, healthful, and economical introduction to flavors and aromas that have stood the test of time.

Lady Left

Lady Left
Author: Robert Westbrook
Publisher: Speaking Volumes
Total Pages: 347
Release:
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1628158956

Can Hollywood's rich and famous find hap­piness in the Third World—or will they find only murder? That's the question that blues-playing police lieutenant Nicky Rachmaninoff must answer in Robert Westbrook's third book in The Left-Handed Policeman series, Lady Left. Having exposed the Hollywood dream ma­chine and the world of rock and roll in his previous two mysteries, Robert Westbrook now gives the same delightfully satirical treat­ment to another hot topic on the Hollywood scene: fashionable leftist politics. Nicky Rach­maninoff must take on Tinsel Town's liberal elite as it involves itself in a wild scheme to make the hemisphere safe for romance, revo­lution, and beautiful people everywhere. A reluctant Nicky is persuaded to "vacation" in Nicaragua by his loving ex-wife, Susan Merril, who is determined to shed her glamour-girl image by becoming a leftist activist. The vaca­tion goes wrong from the start: Nicky's feisty Bev­erly Hills daughter, fourteen-year-old Tanya, falls madly in love with a Nicaraguan soldier; and a far-left Hollywood professor, Cory Heard, introduces Nicky to a complicated scam that maybe—just maybe—is intended to bring the Sandinistas hack into power. But when Cory Heard is apparently mur­dered at the site of the late dictator Somoza’s buried treasure, Nicky must put down his margarita in favor of a gun and mineral water, as he uncovers a trail that leads him back to Bev­erly Hills—and into the arms of Cory's activist wife, the film superstar Katherine Hall. She is dark, passionate, devious, and out for Nicky, one way or another; she is the alluring and dangerous Lady Left. Nothing in Hollywood or the Third World is what it seems. From the jungles of Nicara­gua to the elegant homes of Beverly Hills and the palatial desert estates of Palm Springs, Lady Left is a darkly comic, intricate, and suspenseful story of what happens when glamour, murder, and politics mix.

Living with Jazz

Living with Jazz
Author: Dan Morgenstern
Publisher: Pantheon
Total Pages: 736
Release: 2009-08-19
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0307487601

A collection of essays, biographical profiles, and critical analyses by one of the twentieth century's leading jazz writers includes commentary on the work of jazz entertainers, including Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Armstrong, as well as assessment of the role of jazz in contemporary culture and its influence on modern music.

The Princess and the Prophet

The Princess and the Prophet
Author: Jacob Dorman
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2020-03-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807067482

The just-discovered story of how two enigmatic circus performers and the cultural ferment of the Gilded Age sparked the Black Muslim movement in America Delving into new archives and uncovering fascinating biographical narratives, secret rituals, and hidden identities, historian Jacob Dorman explains why thousands of Americans were enthralled by the Islamic Orient, and why some came to see Islam as a global antiracist movement uniquely suited to people of African descent in an era of European imperialism, Jim Crow segregation, and officially sanctioned racism. The Princess and the Prophet tells the story of the Black Broadway performer who, among the world of Arabian acrobats and equestrians, Muslim fakirs, and Wild West shows, discovered in Islam a greater measure of freedom and dignity, and a rebuttal to the racism and parochialism of white America. Overturning the received wisdom that the prophet was born on the East Coast, Dorman has discovered that Noble Drew Ali was born Walter Brister in Kentucky. With the help of his wife, a former lion tamer and “Hindoo” magician herself, Brister renamed himself Prophet Noble Drew Ali and founded the predecessor of the Nation of Islam, the Moorish Science Temple of America, in the 1920s. With an array of profitable businesses, the “Moors” built a nationwide following of thousands of dues-paying members, swung Chicago elections, and embedded themselves in Chicago’s dominant Republican political machine at the height of Prohibition racketeering, only to see their sect descend into infighting in 1929 that likely claimed the prophet’s life. This fascinating untold story reveals that cultures grow as much from imagination as inheritance, and that breaking down the artificial silos around various racial and religious cultures helps to understand not only America’s hidden past but also its polycultural present.