The Arrangement

The Arrangement
Author: Robyn Harding
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2019-07-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1982110511

A Pretty Woman tale turns toxic and deadly in this provocative thriller of sex, obsession, and murder from Robyn Harding, the “master of domestic suspense” (Kathleen Barber) and the USA TODAY bestselling author of The Swap and Her Pretty Face. Natalie, a young art student in New York City, is struggling to pay her bills when a friend makes a suggestion: Why not go online and find a sugar daddy—a wealthy, older man who will pay her for dates and even give her a monthly allowance? Lots of girls do it, Nat learns. All that’s required is to look pretty and hang on his every word. Sexual favors are optional. Though more than thirty years her senior, Gabe, a handsome corporate finance attorney, seems like the perfect candidate, and within a month, they are madly in love. At least, Nat is…Gabe already has a family, whom he has no intention of leaving. So when he abruptly ends things, Nat can’t let go. But Gabe’s not about to let his sugar baby destroy his perfect life. What was supposed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement devolves into a nightmare of deception, obsession, and, when a body is found near Gabe’s posh Upper East Side apartment, murder. Emotionally powerful and packed with page-turning suspense, The Arrangement delves into the sordid, all-too-real world of shadowy relationships between wealthy, powerful men and the young women who are caught in their web.

Embracing Uncertainty

Embracing Uncertainty
Author: John W. Traphagan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2021-07-14
Genre:
ISBN: 9781896559766

Here you have the product of my thinking as an anthropologist who has studied and traveled to Japan for over thirty years. In one sense, the book is an anthropological memoir in which I work through ideas of uncertainty and undifferentiation evident in the writings of Dogen as they relate to ethics and culture, but also explore other thinkers like philosopher Richard Rorty and anthropologist Clifford Geertz. I describe what I call the ethnographic outlook, which has the potential to generate humility, as a potentially powerful means to transform both self and society. A central goal of the book is to explore the idea that all knowledge is inherently uncertain, including knowledge of right and wrong, and that the quest for certainty leads to many of the problems we see in the modern world. The book threads a discussion of jazz improvisation as a way of thinking about the human experience and presents the idea of the lead sheet as a metaphor for culture and the ongoing process of change that is the world.

The Politics of International Marriage in Japan

The Politics of International Marriage in Japan
Author: Viktoriya Kim
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2021-12-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1978809034

This book provides an in-depth exploration and analysis of marriages between Japanese nationals and migrants from three broad ethnic/cultural groups - spouses from the former Soviet Union countries, the Philippines, and Western countries. It reveals how the marriage migrants navigate the intricacies and trajectories of their marriages with Japanese people while living in Japan. Seen from the lens of ‘gendered geographies of power’, the book explores how state-level politics and policies towards marriage, migration, and gender affect the personal power politics in operation within the relationships of these international couples. Overall, the book discusses how ethnic identity intersects with gender in the negotiation of spaces and power relations between and amongst couples; and the role states and structural inequalities play in these processes, resulting in a reconfiguration of our notions of what international marriages are and how powerful gender and the state are in understanding the power relations in these unions.

Outraged

Outraged
Author: Ashley 'Dotty' Charles
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2020-07-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 163557501X

“Funny, nuanced and wonderful” -Jon Ronson, bestselling author of SO YOU'VE BEEN PUBLICLY SHAMED and THE PSYCHOPATH TEST “Outraged is as hilarious as it is smart, and as insightful as it is provocative. A book that had me hollering, nodding and questioning at the same time.” -Candice Carty-Williams, author of Queenie A candid exploration of the state of outrage in our culture, how it debases our civil discourse, and how we can channel it back into the fights that matter, from radio host Ashley "Dotty" Charles. We're living in a post-modern utopia of sorts, where thanks to our resolute predecessors, we've checked a bunch of items off our outrage shopping list. Slavery? Abolished. Apartheid? Not anymore buddy. Women's suffrage? Nailed it. But what do you do when you keep winning your battles? Well, you pick new ones, of course. Ours is a society where many get by on provocation, the tactless but effective tool of peddling outrage--and we all too quickly take the bait. If outrage has become abundant, activism has definitely become subdued. Are we so exhausted from our hashtags that we simply don't have the energy to be outraged in the real world? Or are we simply pretending to be bothered? There is still much to be outraged by in our final frontier--the gender pay gap, racial bias, gun control--but in order to enact change, we must learn to channel our responses. Passionate, funny and unrelentingly wise, this is the essential guide to living through the age of outrage.

The Little Book of Chakras

The Little Book of Chakras
Author: Elsie Wild
Publisher: Summersdale
Total Pages: 157
Release: 2021-05-13
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1800072481

Restore your spiritual balance and unleash the healing powers you never knew were inside you Chakras are your body’s spiritual centres of vibrant, healing energy, and with the right tools you can tap into their power to regain mental, emotional and physical health. This beginner’s guide explains the seven major chakras in the system, from root to crown, and the physical function and emotional and spiritual aspects of each. Discover the ways to awaken each one and how to channel their energy for optimum health, well-being and balance. Exploring the mental and physical aspects of each chakra, the chapters inside this book reveal how diet, yoga and meditation can bring balance and harmony to your daily life. To complete this holistic treatment, the sections on crystals and essential oils show further ways of boosting vitality and cleansing mind, body and spirit. Let the information in these pages be the starting point on your path to effective chakra healing.

Adulting

Adulting
Author: Kelly Williams Brown
Publisher: HarperCollins Australia
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2013-06-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 146070083X

'Adult' isn't a noun; it's a verb. Just because you don't feel like an adult doesn't mean you can't act like one. And it all begins with this funny, wise, and useful book. Based on Kelly Williams Brown's popular blog, ADULtING makes the scary, confusing 'real world' approachable, manageable - and even conquerable. this guide will help you to navigate the stormy Sea of Adulthood so that you may find safe harbour in Not Running Out of toilet Paper Bay, and along the way you will learn: What to check when renting a new apartment - not just the nearby bars, but the taps and stove, among other things. How to avoid hooking up with anyone in your office - imagine your co-workers having plastic, featureless doll crotches. It helps. When a busy person can find time to learn about the world - it involves the intersection between public radio and hair-straightening.

Capturing Contemporary Japan

Capturing Contemporary Japan
Author: Satsuki Kawano
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2014-08-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0824838688

What are people’s life experiences in present-day Japan? This timely volume addresses fundamental questions vital to understanding Japan in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Its chapters collectively reveal a questioning of middle-class ideals once considered the essence of Japaneseness. In the postwar model household a man was expected to obtain a job at a major firm that offered life-long employment; his counterpart, the “professional” housewife, managed the domestic sphere and the children, who were educated in a system that provided a path to mainstream success. In the past twenty years, however, Japanese society has seen a sharp increase in precarious forms of employment, higher divorce rates, and a widening gap between haves and have-nots. Contributors draw on rich, nuanced fieldwork data collected during the 2000s to examine work, schooling, family and marital relations, child rearing, entertainment, lifestyle choices, community support, consumption and waste, material culture, well-being, aging, death and memorial rites, and sexuality. The voices in these pages vary widely: They include schoolchildren, teenagers, career women, unmarried women, young mothers, people with disabilities, small business owners, organic farmers, retirees, and the elderly.

Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in 21st-Century Japan

Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in 21st-Century Japan
Author: JOHN. TRAPHAGAN
Publisher:
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2020-04-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781621965022

This ethnographic study develops the concept of cosmopolitan rurality as a social and geographical space that cannot be characterized as either urban or rural nor as specifically cosmopolitan or rustic. This study is an important book for Asian studies, rural studies, anthropology, and the study of entrepreneurialism.

The Castaways

The Castaways
Author: Lucy Clarke
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2021-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0008334137

Don’t miss One of the Girls, the scorching new thriller from Lucy Clarke, available to buy now *A Waterstones Thriller of the Month selection & the Sunday Times bestseller* A SECRET BEACH. A HOLIDAY OF A LIFETIME. WISH YOU WERE HERE? THINK AGAIN...

A Fictional Commons

A Fictional Commons
Author: Michael K. Bourdaghs
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2021-08-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1478021926

Modernity arrived in Japan, as elsewhere, through new forms of ownership. In A Fictional Commons, Michael K. Bourdaghs explores how the literary and theoretical works of Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916), widely celebrated as Japan's greatest modern novelist, exploited the contradictions and ambiguities that haunted this new system. Many of his works feature narratives about inheritance, thievery, and the struggle to obtain or preserve material wealth while also imagining alternative ways of owning and sharing. For Sōseki, literature was a means for thinking through—and beyond—private property. Bourdaghs puts Sōseki into dialogue with thinkers from his own era (including William James and Mizuno Rentarō, author of Japan’s first copyright law) and discusses how his work anticipates such theorists as Karatani Kōjin and Franco Moretti. As Bourdaghs shows, Sōseki both appropriated and rejected concepts of ownership and subjectivity in ways that theorized literature as a critical response to the emergence of global capitalism.