Mike Doonesbury, Viet Cong Phred, and Zonker continue their private struggles with the shortcomings of American society

A vast and unprecedented survey of societal collapse—stretching from the Bronze Age to the age of silicon—that digs through the ruins of fallen societies to understand the root causes of their downfall and the most dire consequences for our futureStepping back to look at our precariously interdependent global society of today—with the threat of nuclear war ever present and the world heating up faster than it did before the Great Permian Extinction, which wiped away 80–90 percent of life on Earth—one couldn’t be blamed for Will we make it?    Addressing this question with the seriousness it demands, Cambridge scholar Luke Kemp conducts a historical autopsy that stretches across five millennia, and more than 440 societal lifespans, from the first Egyptian dynasty to the modern-day United Kingdom, using the latest discoveries from archaeology and anthropology to reveal profound and often counterintuitive insights into why exactly societies fail.While books like Jared Diamond’s Collapse zoom in on only a few case studies, Kemp’s embrace of a “deep systems” approach, availing himself of the largest dataset possible, allows him to discover the broader trends, and deeper causes, of collapse that pose future risks—without abandoning the gripping historical narratives that bring these pages alive.    Goliath’s Curse is a stark reminder that there are both bright and dark sides to societal collapse—that it is not necessarily a reversion to chaos or a dark age—and that making a more resilient world may well mean making a more just one.

MEMOIR NORA EPHRON SEX AND THE CITY BRIDGET JONES SINGLE MOM SINGLE PARENTING STEP-PARENTING BIOGRAPHY WOMEN OVER 40 WOMEN’S DATING BEACH READ “Jubilant! Hope-filled and life-affirming, it’s a MUST-READ for any woman worried about life after 40.” – THE SUNDAY POST Have you ever woken up one morning, stared deep into the mirror, and with genuine confusion screamed, “How the hell did I get here, and more importantly, who can I blame? And where did that wiry chin whisker come from?” The award-winning In Search of Mr Lessons Learnt In The Pursuit of Happily Ever After is a hilarious Nora Ephron-style, unfiltered dating memoir. It follows a super-independent woman on a real-life Sex and The City-like adventure through four decades of relationships, amid life's messiest moments, as she searches for Mr Darcy. Yup, that elusive literary Prince Charming we have been all but promised. But hold up, life isn't a fairy tale…and it sure as heck isn't a Jane Austen novel. Writing with searing honesty, wry humor, and endless warmth Christina Ford dives headfirst into the colorful, intimate story of marriage(s), divorce(s), affairs, friends, frenemies, addiction, body image, sexual predators, and often thankless task of single-parenting and step-parenting, a job as potentially life-threatening as that of a Chilean coal miner. Filled with candid truths and valuable life lessons, like how day drinking won't solve your problems (but it was worth a shot) or…the surprising effectiveness of a perfectly timed one-night stand (which did prove to be more effective than years of therapy), In Search of Mr Darcy isn't just a book about love and loss; it's a survival guide for anyone steering the treacherous waters of adulthood.Whether you're navigating the dating scene, rebuilding after a breakup, or simply seeking reassurance that you are indeed “flawsome”—a woman who recognizes her faults and knows she is awesome regards, Ford invites readers to embrace the messy unpredictable journey of life, love and coming-of-age… middle-age. For anyone who has ever wondered if there is life after divorce, sex after forty, or if they will ever find love again. The answer is, damn straight…to all of it. About the author Christina Ford is a former award-winning TV and film executive who currently divides her time between the UK, the US, and Canada. She channels her wit and experiences into writing her amusing lifestyle blog, "A Broad in A Survival Guide for Life, Travel, and Being Sensationally Single." A semi-regular guest on BBC London Radio's 'A Week in Review,' Ford often rants about pop culture, single life, and social media trends. She is the recipient of the prestigious Women In Film and Television's Crystal Award for Excellence in Production, listed in Marketing Magazine's 100 Most Influential People In Canadian Communications. Her Genie Award-winning film 'Fugitive Pieces,' adapted from the award-winning novel by Anne Michaels, opened the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. This book marks Christina's debut as an author. Praise for In Search of Mr “Ford’s Sex And The City-esque exploration of four decades of love and marriage, affairs and divorce, and the parenting and step-parenting nightmares that go with them is a triumph.

The quintessential account of the Second World War as seen by Winston Churchill, its greatest leader As Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1940 to 1945, Winston Churchill was not only the most powerful player in World War II, but also the free world's most eloquent voice of defiance in the face of Nazi tyranny. Churchill's epic accounts of those times, remarkable for their grand sweep and incisive firsthand observations, are distilled here in a single essential volume. Memoirs of the Second World War is a vital and illuminating work that retains the drama, eyewitness details, and magisterial prose of his classic six-volume history and offers an invaluable view of pivotal events of the twentieth century.

Great Expectations charts the progress of Pip from childhood through often painful experiences to adulthood, as he moves from the Kent marshes to busy, commercial London, encountering a variety of extraordinary characters ranging from Magwitch, the escaped convict, to Miss Havisham, locked up with her unhappy past and living with her ward, the arrogant, beautiful Estella. Pip must discover his true self, and his own set of values and priorities. Whether such values allow one to prosper in the complex world of early Victorian England is the major question posed by Great Expectations, one of Dickens's most fascinating, and disturbing, novels. This edition includes the original, discarded ending, Dickens's brief working notes, and the serial instalments and chapter divisions in different editions. It also uses the definitive Clarendon text.

Winner of the 2004 Prix de Flore—one of France's most distinguished literary prizes—a wildly romantic, true-life love story History follows a trail of sputtering desire, often calling upon the delusions of lovers to generate the sparks. If it weren’t for us, the world would suffer from a dismal lack of stories," writes Bruce Benderson in this brutally candid memoir. What astonishes and intrigues is Benderson’s way of recounting, in the sweetest possible voice, things that are considered shocking,” wrote Le Monde. What’s so shocking? It’s not just Benderson’s job translating Céline Dion’s saccharine autobiography, which he admits is driving him mad; but his passion for an impoverished Romanian in "cheap club-kid platforms with dollar signs in his squinting eyes,” whom he meets while on a journalism assignment in Eastern Europe. Rather than retreat, Benderson absorbs everything he can about Romanian culture and discovers an uncanny similarity between his own obsession for the Romanian (named Romulus) and the disastrous love affair of King Carol II, the last king of Romania (1893-1953). Throughout, Benderson— "absolutely free of bitterness, nastiness, or any desire to protect himself,” wrote Le Monde—is sustained by little white codeine pills, a poetic self-awareness, a sense of humor, and an unwavering belief in the perfect romance, even as wild dogs chase him down Romanian streets.

‘For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed’ Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before. As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground. Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.

At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. The Fuehrer had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: "degenerate" works he despised.In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Momuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture.Focusing on the eleven-month period between D-Day and V-E Day, this fascinating account follows six Monuments Men and their impossible mission to save the world's great art from the Nazis.

Written in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka’s death, The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.

Great Expectations charts the progress of Pip from childhood through often painful experiences to adulthood, as he moves from the Kent marshes to busy, commercial London, encountering a variety of extraordinary characters ranging from Magwitch, the escaped convict, to Miss Havisham, locked up with her unhappy past and living with her ward, the arrogant, beautiful Estella. Pip must discover his true self, and his own set of values and priorities. Whether such values allow one to prosper in the complex world of early Victorian England is the major question posed by Great Expectations, one of Dickens's most fascinating, and disturbing, novels. This edition includes the original, discarded ending, Dickens's brief working notes, and the serial instalments and chapter divisions in different editions. It also uses the definitive Clarendon text.