Just a few days ago, Governor Deval Patrick announced a state-wide sales tax holiday on August 13th and 14th. So (almost) all purchases will be tax-free--and Harvard Book Store will offer an additional 10% discount to all our Frequent Buyers, all weekend long, both in the store and online at harvard.com. View details and the not-so-fine print here.
The Harvard Graduate School of Education is the first school at Harvard University to produce and release a video in support of the It Gets Better Project. It's a phenomenal video and I look forward to seeing similar work from other groups in our community. HGSE's video features faculty, staff, and students--and I love this quote from Professor Yoshikawa regarding the project: "We do not have to wait until it gets better--we can make things better now by supporting the capacity of schools and communities to become safer places for all youth in this nation." Watch the video now.
This week, our Publisher Focus Window features selections from Inner Traditions, a publishing house with over 1,200 titles in print across a wide and eclectic range of subjects, including yoga, alternative health, and martial arts. Learn more about Inner Traditions here.
Artist friends! Our COMICS CONTEST deadline is nearing! Submit your one-to-four page cartoon, comic, or graphic story by Friday, August 19th. Winning entries will be compiled in an original collection printed on Paige, our in-store book-making robot. Grand prize winners will receive fame, fortune, and/or gift certificates to the bookstore. Learn more--and submit your work--here.
Happy reading, Heather
| | New on Our Shelves: The Latest in Fiction, Nonfiction, Scholarly Books, & In Store Book Printing
| | Fiction | |
| | Lights Out in Wonderland: A Novel by DBC Pierre
$25.95 W. W. Norton & Company, hardcover
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| | "It's great to see Pierre back on top form with another hefty slab of outrageous black comedy: a stupendously over-the-top romp based on the excesses of 21st-century capitalism and all its orgiastic horror. . . . Stylistically, the prose is flamboyant and inventive, without detracting from the rapier-like satire, and Pierre gradually reveals a more serious side to his story, with an insightful analysis of the end point of capitalism, where greed has won out forever. Ultimately, it is Pierre's debunking of the capitalist dream, as well as celebrity culture and the empty posturing of fine dining, drinking, and partying, that make this more than just a wild-eyed rumpus of a book." --The Independent (UK)
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| | Nonfiction | |
| | The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch
$30 Viking, hardcover
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| | "Why is science so successful? In his long-awaited second book, David Deutsch, a quantum physicist at Oxford University, argues that the discipline provides good explanations, and that explanations hold a special status as fundamental descriptions of the world. A decent explanation has universal reach, he reckons, and the quest for explanations is what makes people human. . . . Mr. Deutsch's previous tome, The Fabric of Reality, took a broad-ranging sweep that encompassed evolution as well as knowledge, computation, and physics. . . . The Beginning of Infinity is equally bold, addressing subjects from artificial intelligence to the evolution of culture and of creativity; its conclusions are just as profound." --The Economist
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| | Scholarly | |
| | Why Some Politicians are More Dangerous Than Others by James Gilligan
$19.95 Polity, hardcover
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| | James Gilligan has discovered a devastating truth that has been "hiding in plain sight" for the past century--namely, that when conservative politicians have gained the American presidency, the country has repeatedly suffered from epidemics of violent death. Rates of both suicide and homicide have sky-rocketed. The reasons are all too obvious: rates of every form of social and economic distress, inequality, and loss--unemployment, recessions, poverty, bankruptcy, and homelessness--also ballooned to epidemic proportions. This pattern has been documented since 1900, when the US government first began compiling vital statistics on a yearly basis, and yet it has not been noticed by anyone until now except with regard to suicide in the UK and Australia, where a similar pattern has been described.
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| | Printed on Paige Each week, we'll feature a book printed in Harvard Book Store on Paige, our book-making machine. Featured books will range from fresh works from local authors to near-forgotten titles discovered in our extensive print-on-demand database. | |
| | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
$6.10 Print on Demand, paperback
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| | With a clean new cover design courtesy of our Print on Demand manager, this affordable little classic comes to us via the Google Books Project. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (originally The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere) is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797-98 and published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Modern editions use a later revised version printed in 1817. Along with other poems in Lyrical Ballads, it was a signal shift to modern poetry and the beginning of British Romantic literature.
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| | Bargain Books | Bargain Books are new books at used book prices. Limited copies are available of these titles, so if you see something that you're interested in, come in and check it out soon. To see more of our Bargain Books section, visit our Bargain Books page.
| | The American Future: A History by Simon Schama $19.99, hardcover (originally $7.99) | Acclaimed historian and award-winning author Simon Schama offers an essential perspective on the historic 2008 presidential election and its importance for reclaiming America's original ideal. The Boston Globe calls Schama "a masterful stylist and storyteller."
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| | Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro $5.99, hardcover (originally $25) | Ishiguro, the author of Never Let Me Go, shares five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential presence. His first cycle of short fiction is defined by fragile characters, like the man whose taste in music is the only thing his closest friends value in him.
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| The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet by Neil deGrasse Tyson $4.99, paperback (originally $15.95) | In his typically witty way, Tyson explores the history of planet classification and America's obsession with the "planet" that's recently been judged a dwarf. Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show exclaims, "It is the most exciting book about Pluto you will ever read in your life."
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| | Finds Downstairs in the Used Book Department |
Featured used books go fast, so if any titles interest you, stop in to check them out soon. We will hold the book if you are the first caller to reserve it. To reserve a book, call (617) 661-1515 and ask for our Used Department. We're also always looking for books to buy. Learn about selling your used books, including textbooks, here.
| | Violence as Worship: Religious Wars in the Age of Globalization
by Hans G. Kippenberg, translated by Brian McNeil
Originally published by Stanford University Press in 2011 $11.50 (paperback) in Very Good condition | Kippenberg views religious violence as a type of social action and analyzes the worldviews and scripts of modern militant religious communities as well as those of their opponents. "What makes Violence As Worship so engaging is Kippenberg's consistently brilliant use of social theory to explain the story behind the headlines." --Bruce Lawrence, Duke University
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| | Remaking Rwanda: State Building and Human Rights after Mass Violence edited by Scott Straus and Lars Waldorf Originally published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2011 $14 (paperback) in Very Good condition |
"This rich array of careful scholarship provides a valuable, multifaceted view of a country still struggling with the aftereffects of genocide and civil war. It offers an important corrective to the naively rosy picture of Rwanda that too often prevails in the American media." --Adam Hochschild (King Leopold's Ghost)
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| Environmental Inequalities Beyond Borders: Local Perspectives on Global Injustices edited by JoAnn Carmin and Julian Agyeman Originally published by The MIT Press in 2011 $13 (paperback) in Very Good condition | Case studies drawn from Africa, Asia, the Pacific Rim, and Latin America demonstrate the geographical disconnect between global consumption and production and its effects on local environments and human rights. This rich collection also examines the ways emerging networks and movements can foster institutional change and promote social equality and environmental justice.
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