It is midnight on the feast day of La Befana, and Venice is celebrating. But on the steps of Santa Maria, there is a deathly hush. A body has washed up from the Grand Canal: a woman, wearing the robes of a Catholic priest—a desecration known as the Abomination.This is Captain Katerina Tapo’s first murder case. The trail leads her from the labyrinthine back streets of Venice to an abandoned asylum on the uninhabited island of Poveglia; to carnivia.com, an encrypted gossip website ho...

On the heels of the international bestseller The Abomination comes the even more heart-hammering, adrenalin-fuelled second instalment of the Carnivia TrilogyThe spy: Intelligence analyst Holly Boland is trained to think differently, so when a U.S. army officer’s daughter is kidnapped from a military base in Venice, Holly is sure the abductors want more than a ransom.The policewoman: Captain Kat Tapo has found a webcam feed embedded in the encrypted...

From the author of the #1 international bestseller The AbominationThe no-holds-barred conclusion to Jonathan Holt’s revolutionary Carnivia Trilogy (preceded by The Abomination and The Abduction), The Absolution follows Venetian police captain Kat Tapo and U.S. Army intelligence analyst Holly Boland on their most dangerous and disturbing journey yetOn Venice’s crowded Lido beach, a man is found lying half ...

Why do people struggling with poverty often make decisions that seem to perpetuate their situation? The answer lies in the scarcity mindset – the cognitive burden that limits a person's ability to focus on long-term goals when their immediate needs are not being met. This book explores the science of cognitive load and provides insights into the behavior of individuals facing resource scarcity. The author reveals the "hidden mechanics" of how the scarcity mindset depletes our cognitive res...

Wiltshire is one of the best counties in Britain for architectural fancy, for the county’s residents have expressed their passion for building in a plethora of styles including Gothic, Rustic, classical, Monumental, Chinese, Indian, Italianate and Japanese. We can see their ingenuity and eccentricity in an equally wide variety of building types, including shell houses, grottoes, pagodas, towers, temples, summer houses, tea houses, gazebos, belvederes, lodges, gatehouses, pavilions, arches,...

How does a Middle Eastern community create a modern image through its expression of heritage and authenticity? In Among the Jasmine Trees: Music and Modernity in Contemporary Syria, Jonathan H. Shannon investigates expressions of authenticity in Syria's musical culture, which is particularly known for embracing and preserving the Arab musical tradition, and which has seldom been researched in depth by Western scholars. Music plays a key role in the process of self-imaging by virtue of its ...

Performing al-Andalus explores three musical cultures that claim a connection to the music of medieval Iberia, the Islamic kingdom of al-Andalus, known for its complex mix of Arab, North African, Christian, and Jewish influences. Jonathan Holt Shannon shows that the idea of a shared Andalusian heritage animates performers and aficionados in modern-day Syria, Morocco, and Spain, but with varying and sometimes contradictory meanings in different social and political contexts. As he traces th...

The substantially revised and updated third edition of Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East focuses on the experiences of ordinary men, women, and children from the region. Readers will gain a grassroots appreciation of Middle East life, culture, and society that recognizes the impact of wars and uprisings as well as changes to Islamic practice due to advances in technology. The book also explores the influence of social media on politics and labor relations and the changing status of w...

This volume reviews contemporary developments in the auditory cognitive neuroscience of speech perception, including both behavioral and neural contributions. It serves as an important update on the current state of research in speech perception.The Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience of Speech Perception in ContextLori L. Holt, and Jonathan E. PeelleSubcortical Processing of Speech SoundsBharath Chandrasekaran, Rachel Tessmer, ...

Fourteen centuries of Islamic thought have produced a legacy of interpretive readings of the Qu'ran written almost entirely by men. Now, with Qu'ran and Woman, Amina Wadud provides a first interpretive reading by a woman, a reading which validates the female voice in the Qu'ran and brings it out of the shadows. Muslim progressives have long argued that it is not the religion but patriarchal interpretation and implementation of the Qu'ran that have kept women oppressed. For many, the way to...

**Edward Said has long been considered one of the world’s most compelling public intellectuals, taking on a remarkable array of topics with his many publications. But no single book has encompassed the vast scope of his stimulating erudition quite like Power, Politics, and Culture.“A fascinating, oblique entry into the mind of one whose own writings . . . are a brilliant questioning chronicle of contemporary culture and values.” --Nadine Gordimer**In these twenty-eight inte...

This pioneering explanation of the Arab Spring will define a new era of thinking about the Middle East.In this landmark book, Hamid Dabashi argues that the revolutionary uprisings that have engulfed multiple countries and political climes from Morocco to Iran and from Syria to Yemen, were driven by a 'Delayed Defiance' - a point of rebellion against domestic tyranny and globalized disempowerment alike - that signifies no less than the end of Postcolonialism. Sketching a new geograp...