Vivien Stern contends that prisons, a mainstay of punishment, are an anachronistic and probably counterproductive system for dealing with rising crime... rates. Arguing that inherent flaws in the institution of prison threaten democratic values and fail to meet the needs of modern society, she makes a powerful case for implementing radical change.Stern first discusses the evolution of imprisonment and then explores how different areas of the world approach and use incarceration as a punitive measure. She looks at life in prison across regions and across cultural traditions, describing the personal and very disturbing experiences of prisoners as well as the treatment of minorities, women, and juveniles. According to Stern, prison is a deformed society, a place of violence, corruption, and gross human rights abuses.The author considers the many courageous efforts being made around the world to improve prisons and mitigate their built-in destructiveness, and she advocates searching for a better solution to control criminal offenses in an increasingly divided and dangerous society. Instead of locking up yet more people, she calls for a practical and positive system that reconciles and heals the breaches caused by crime.This hard-hitting, comparative study of imprisonment exposes the waste, the horror, and the heroism of the growing worldwide business of incarceration.

Fiction The author's favorite of his own novels, now back in print! When A Single Man was originally published, it shocked many by its frank,... sympathetic, and moving portrayal of a gay man in midlife. George, the protagonist, is adjusting to life on his own after the sudden death of his partner, and determines to persist in the routines of his daily life; the course of A Single Man spans twenty-four hours in an ordinary day. An Englishman and a professor living in suburban Southern California, he is an outsider in every way, and his internal reflections and interactions with others reveal a man who loves being alive despite everyday injustices and loneliness. Wry, suddenly manic, constantly funny, surprisingly sad, this novel catches the texture of life itself. "A testimony to Isherwood's undiminished brilliance as a novelist." Anthony Burgess "An absolutely devastating, unnerving, brilliant book." Stephen Spender "Just as his Prater Violet is the best novel I know about the movies, Isherwood's A Single Man, published in 1964, is one of the first and best novels of the modern gay liberation movement." Edmund White

A new author in D+Q’s acclaimed gekiga lineIn this collection of hauntingly elliptical short stories, Oji Suzuki explores memory, relationships, and... loss with a loose narrative style, filling each tale with a sense of unfulfilled longing. He plumbs the dissolute depths of human psychology, literally bathing his characters in expansive shadows that paradoxically reveal as much as they obscure. A young man catches a cold after being soaked in the rain and is tended to by his grandmother. He drifts, dreaming of a train trip with an older brother he doesn’t have. A traveling salesman comes across a boy lying in the middle of the road and stops to have a cigarette and tell a story that sifts through memories of faces and places before settling back on the boy and pretending to not look at the stars. A young woman walks along the river with her bicycle and a friend who is nothing more than a disembodied head—discussing past times together, memories they have of each other.Although he touches on many of the same themes as his contemporaries in the field of postwar alternative manga—Yoshihiro Tsuge (L’Homme Sans Talent) and Seiichi Hayashi (Red Coloured Elegy)—Suzuki uses an ever shifting narrative approach and dashes of surrealist humor to distinguish his work from that of his peers.

Nora Strejilevich was a young woman when her brother and other family members and friends disappeared at the hands of the military junta that held power... in Argentina from 1976 to 1983. Ostensibly part of a systematic campaign to eliminate left-wing terrorism, the violence perpetrated by the junta far exceeded anything the leftists ever dreamed of, enveloping not only the violent left but other dissidents and innocent civilians as well, and particularly targeting the Jewish population. A desaparecida herself, Strejilevich survived kidnapping and torture to speak of her experience with a dignified voice and a clear-eyed realism that extends from one end of the political spectrum to the other.In the first English translation of her elegant fictional memoir Una sola muerte numerosa, Strejilevich combines autobiography, documentary journalism, fiction, magical realism, and poetry to express the "choir of voices" of the more than 30,000 souls who were imprisoned and abused. She engages the reader in the history of a bloody military coup and state-sanctioned anti-Semitism, exploring themes of exile, identity, and violence. Above all, A Single, Numberless Death is Nora Strejilevich’s gripping story of survival.

A young American engineer sent to China to inspect the unruly Yangtze River travels up through the river's gorges searching for dam sites. Pulled on a... junk hauled by forty-odd trackers, he is carried, too, into the settled, ancient way of life of the people of the Yangtze -- until the interplay of his life with theirs comes to a dramatic climax.

Have the diplomatic efforts of the Obama administration toward Iran failed? Was the Bush administration's emphasis on military intervention, refusal to... negotiate, and pursuit of regime change a better approach? How can the United States best address the ongoing turmoil in Tehran? This book provides a definitive and comprehensive analysis of the Obama administration's early diplomatic outreach to Iran and discusses the best way to move toward more positive relations between the two discordant states.Trita Parsi, a Middle East foreign policy expert with extensive Capitol Hill and United Nations experience, interviewed 70 high-ranking officials from the U.S., Iran, Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Brazil—including the top American and Iranian negotiators—for this book. Parsi uncovers the previously unknown story of American and Iranian negotiations during Obama's early years as president, the calculations behind the two nations' dealings, and the real reasons for their current stalemate. Contrary to prevailing opinion, Parsi contends that diplomacy has not been fully tried. For various reasons, Obama's diplomacy ended up being a single roll of the dice. It had to work either immediately—or not at all. Persistence and perseverance are keys to any negotiation. Neither Iran nor the U.S. had them in 2009.

In this Newbery Medal-winning book, Tree-ear, an orphan, lives under a bridge in Ch’ulp’o, a potters' village famed for delicate celadon... ware. He has become fascinated with the potter’s craft; he wants nothing more than to watch master potter Min at work, and he dreams of making a pot of his own someday. When Min takes Tree-ear on as his helper, Tree-ear is elated — until he finds obstacles in his path: the backbreaking labor of digging and hauling clay, Min’s irascible temper, and his own ignorance. But Tree-ear is determined to prove himself — even if it means taking a long, solitary journey on foot to present Min’s work in the hope of a royal commission . . . even if it means arriving at the royal court with nothing to show but a single celadon shard.

Tree-ear is an orphan boy in a 12th-century Korean potters’ village. When he accidentally breaks a pot, he must work for the master to pay for the... damage by setting off on a difficult and dangerous journey that will change his life forever.

Tree-ear, an orphan, lives under a bridge in Ch’ulp’o, a potters’ village famed for delicate celadon ware. He has become fascinated with the... potter’s craft; he wants nothing more than to watch master potter Min at work, and he dreams of making a pot of his own someday. When Min takes Tree-ear on as his helper, Tree-ear is elated — until he finds obstacles in his path: the backbreaking labor of digging and hauling clay, Min’s irascible temper, and his own ignorance. But Tree-ear is determined to prove himself — even if it means taking a long, solitary journey on foot to present Min’s work in the hope of a royal commission . . . even if it means arriving at the royal court with nothing to show but a single celadon shard.

One day she was Kim Ji-yun, growing up in Seoul, Korea. The next day she was Catherine Jeanne Robinson, living with her new American family in Salt Lake... City, Utah. Twenty years later, Katy Robinson returned to Seoul in search of her birth mother-and found herself an American outsider in her native land. What transpired in this world-at once familiar and strange, comforting and sad-left Katy conflicted, shattered, exhilarated, and moved in ways she never imagined. A Single Square Picture is a personal odyssey that ascends to the universal, a story that will resonate with anyone who has ever questioned their place in the world-and had the courage to find the answers.

The most current and detailed case study of South Asia available, this book documents the ways in which the members of a remote agricultural village... cope with the dangers that plague them by employing a complex system of ritual practices and beliefs in supernatural forces. The book also addresses topics commonly neglected in other case studies, such as formal education problems in remote areas, the independent and self-confident women of the developing world, and the trials of developmental work in these areas.

Think about the people who influenced your life most. Why did they do it? What did they do? How did they go about it? Answer these questions and you... will be hooked on mentoring for the rest of your life. In As Iron Sharpens Iron, respected authors Howard and Bill Hendricks show that the most dramatic spiritual and personal growth often happens through the influence of a mentor. Rooted in biblical principles, this book is both a profound and practical guide to mentoring relationships for men. You'll learn how to identify the kind of mentor you need, maximize your mentoring relationship, model your relationship after biblical examples, grow through the shared wisdom of another believer, and influence others as you replicate the mentoring process. Whether you are looking for a mentor or wish to mentor someone else, this book provides specific steps to begin the relationship and make the most of it.

This text contains a comprehensive A-Z list of all Shakespeare's plays, all of the characters in those plays, as well as persons and places mentioned in... the plays; the principal actors, acting companies, and theatres of the time; other playwrights, writers and historical figures of Elizabethan times important to Shakespeare's works; contemporary writings that mentioned Shakespeare and entries for those people to whom Shakespeare's plays have been attributed; and the various theories put forward as to his "true identity".