‘A stimulating, elegant yet pugnacious essay’—Observer In this highly acclaimed seminal work, Edward Said surveys the history and nature of Western attitudes towards the East, considering Orientalism as a powerful European ideological creation—a way for writers, philosophers and colonial administrators to deal with the ‘otherness’ of Eastern culture, customs and beliefs. He traces this view through the writings of Homer, Nerval and Flaubert, Disraeli and Kipling, whose imaginative depictions have greatly contributed to the West’s romantic and exotic picture of the Orient. In the Afterword, Said examines the effect of continuing Western imperialism.

When Hokkaido-born Haruki meets animal photographer Akihito and finds out his accommodations have fallen through, he offers his home as a shelter for the winter. A city slicker, Akihito is smart, charming, and a smooth conversationalist; the polar opposite of country boy Haruki. Despite their differences, Akihito wants to close the gap between the two of them, before the snow thaws in the spring.

When Alice Asher is murdered in Andover, Hercule Poirot is already looking into the clues. Alphabetically speaking, it's one letter down, twenty-five to go. There's a serial killer on the loose. His macabre calling card is to leave the ABC Railway Guide beside each victim's body. But if A is for Alice Asher, bludgeoned to death in Andover, and B is for Betty Bernard, strangled with her belt on the beach at Bexhill, who will then be Victim C? More importantly, why is this happening? Often considered to be one of Agatha Christie's best. Librarian's note: the first fifteen novels in the Hercule Poirot series are 1) The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920; 2) The Murder on the Links, 1923; 3) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1926; 4) The Big Four, 1927; 5) The Mystery of the Blue Train, 1928; 6) Peril at End House, 1932; 7) Lord Edgware Dies, 1933; 8) Murder on the Orient Express, 1934; 9) Three Act Tragedy, 1935; 10) Death in the Clouds, 1935; 11) The A.B.C. Murders, 1936; 12) Murder in Mesopotamia, 1936; 13) Cards on the Table, 1936; 14) Dumb Witness, 1937; and 15) Death on the Nile, 1937. These are just the novels; Poirot also appears in this period in a play, Black Coffee, 1930, and two collections of short stories, Poirot Investigates, 1924, and Murder in the Mews, 1937. Each novel, play and short story has its own entry on Goodreads.