Civil War rages in the Marvel Universe, and even those on the periphery can't escape its effects! As Baron Zemo and his Thunderbolts assemble an army of super villains for the government, the Punisher is busy killing these deputized do-gooders, Ghost Rider fi ghts against others who've been possessed, and Moon Knight can't choose a side! Plus: The Kingpin manipulates Iron Man from jail, a new team of Heroes for Hire makes its mark, and more!

COLLECTING:

Thunderbolts #103-105, Moon Knight #7-12, Heroes for Hire #1-3, Civil War: War Crimes oneshot, Punisher War Journal #1-3, Ghost Rider #8-11

This compelling social history uses diaries, memoirs, fiction, trial testimony, personal recollections, and eyewitness accounts to weave a fascinating tale of what ordinary Japanese endured throughout their century's era of economic growth. Rescuing vivid, often wrenching accounts of peasants, miners, textile workers, rebels, and prostitutes, Mikiso Hane forces us to see Japan's "modern century" (from the beginnings of contact with the West to the outset of World War II) through fresh eyes. In doing so, he mounts a formidable challenge to the success story of Japan's "economic miracle." Starting with the Meiji restoration of 1868, Professor Hane vividly illustrates how modernization actually widened the gulf, economically and socially, between rich and poor, between the mo-bo and mo-ga ("modern boy" and "modern girl") of the cities and their rural counterparts. He laces his scholarly narrative with sharply etched individual stories that allow us see Japan from the bottom up. We feel the back-breaking labor of a typical farm family; the anguish of poverty-stricken parents forced to send their daughters to Japan's new mills, factories, and brothels; the hopelessness in rural areas scourged by famine; the proud defiance of women battling against patriarchy; and the desperation of being on strike in a company town, in revolt in the countryside, or conscripted into the army. This second edition is enhanced by an updated epilogue and a new chapter on women activists, focusing especially on the articles, essays, and letters of Itô Noe, whose work was cut short when she was murdered by military police. By allowing the underprivileged to speak for themselves, Hane presents us with a unique people's history of an often-hidden world that will be invaluable reading for all those interested in the underside of Meiji Japan.

Los Angeles.  In no other city do sex, celebrity, money, and crime exert such an irresistible magnetic field.  And no writer has mapped that field with greater savagery and savvy than James Ellroy.  With this fever-hot collection of reportage and short fiction, he returns to his native habitat and portrays it as a smog-shrouded netherworld where"every third person is a peeper, prowler, pederast, or pimp."

From the scandal sheets of the 1950s to this morning's police blotter, Ellroy reopens true crimes and restores human dimensions to their victims.  Sublimely, he resurrects the rag Hush-Hush magazine.  And in a baroquely plotted novella of slaughter and corruption he enlists the forgotten luminaries of a lost Hollywood.  Shocking, mesmerizing, and written in prose as wounding as an ice pick, Crime Wave is Ellroy at his best.

You wouldn't expect slick GQ to perform the greatest magazine service to hard-boiled crime writing since the heyday of Black Mask, but the evidence is before your eyes: Crime Wave, James Ellroy's collected GQ works circa 1993-99.

Though Crime Wave contains two stories in the exhilaratingly sleazy voice of the fictitious scandal rag Hush-Hush, and the novella-length "Hollywood Shakedown," a tale of sex, drugs, and murder starring '50s crooner-accordionist Dick Contino, the book is predominantly nonfiction. There's one flavorful piece, "Bad Boys in Tinseltown," about the day in 1967 when Ellroy--then a speed freak who broke into fancy houses to steal stuff and sniff women's underwear--read an article by Curtis Hanson raving about Bonnie and Clyde and was inspired. Then Ellroy flashes forward to 1996, when he visits Hanson as he directs the triumphant film version of L.A. Confidential.

GQ talked Ellroy into writing about the event that made him a maniac, and then an obsessive writer: his dissolute mother's unsolved murder in 1958, when he was 10. His investigation of her death began with the chilling GQ article "My Mother's Killer," which grew into the book My Dark Places. (If you haven't heard Ellroy read it on audiotape, you haven't shivered.) His investigation of another woman's murder, "Body Dumps," is in some ways better, because there's a suspect to eviscerate in prose. "Sex, Glitz, and Greed," written about O.J. during the trial, is an odd fit in this collection, but when Ellroy is on his own turf--L.A.'s seamy, undead past--nobody can touch him. --Tim Appelo

This book is a collection of columns on New Jersey history that originally appeared in the New Jersey Weekly section of the New York Times. A lot of local history is written with deep respect and piety for the past. Not so here. The essays in this book look at New Jersey history form the underside.

Cruising is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Attracting more than 12 million passengers a year, cruise ship companies are merging to become be-hemoths. And cruise ships themselves have swollen dramatically in size, now sometimes carrying more than 5,000 people on board. Not surprisingly, this growth is causing huge problems-problems that the industry would rather not acknowledge, and the potential cruiser would have a hard time discovering.

Cruise Ship Blues reveals the dark underside of this industry. Author Ross Klein first examines the contrast between passenger expectations of luxury and romance fostered by rosy advertising, and the seedier reality of meals, accommodations, and facilities on board. He then:

explodes the myth of the cruise as an all-inclusive vacation, demonstrating that the industry's expectation is to generate an additional $200+ per day per person

examines cruise ship safety, ringing the alarm about accidents at sea, passenger security (including the incidence of sexual assault), on-board illnesses, and medical services

juxtaposes the industry's environmentally friendly image against its actual behavior and the difficulties of effective regulation

exposes the workers' experience in these "sweatshops at sea"

contrasts the industry's consumer-friendly façade with its attitude that "everything would run smoothly if it were not for the passengers"

Concluding with a discussion of what can be done to make the cruise business socially and environmentally accountable, Cruise Ship Blues offers a harsh critique as well as a call to political action. It will appeal both to those considering a cruise vacation, as well as to activists and students.

Since 1992, Ross Klein has taken more than 30 cruises in all parts of the world, comprising more than 300 days. An Associate Professor of Social Work at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland, he has written widely on the cruise industry.

Morrison provides a critical history of analytic and psychiatric attempts to make sense of shame, beginning with Freud and culminating in Kohut's understanding of shame in terms of narcissistic phenomena. The clinical section of the book clarifies both the theoretical status and treatment implications of shame in relation to narcissistic personality disorder, neurosis and higher-level character pathology, and manic-depressive illness.

• ISBN13: 9780393311389
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For those who have had it with the "Boys of Summer" playing "The Summer Game" on a "Field of Dreams," here is a blackly funny reality check--featuring a rogue's gallery of cheats, misers, sadists, racists, egomaniacs, substance abusers, gamblers, and criminals who have participated in America's favorite sport.

• ISBN13: 9780822341703
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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