With its hypnotic, staccato rhythms, and words jostling, bumping, marching forward with edgy intensity (like lemmings heading toward a cliff of their own devising), The Cold Six Thousandfeels as if it's being narrated by a hopped-up Dr. Seuss who's hungrier for violence than for green eggs and ham. In spinning the threads of post-JFK-assassination cultural chaos, James Ellroy's whirlwind riff on the 1960s takes nothing for granted, except that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Hurtling from Las Vegas to Vietnam to Cuba to Memphis and back again (and all points in between), from Dealey Plaza to opium fields to smoke-filled back rooms where the mob holds sway, the novel traces the strands of complicity, greed, and fear that connect three men to a legion of supporting characters: Ward Littell, a former Feeb whose current allegiance to the mob and to Howard Hughes can't mask his admiration for the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King; Pete Bondurant, a hit man and fervent anti-Communist who splits his time between Vegas casinos and CIA-sponsored heroin labs in Saigon; and Wayne Tedrow Jr., a young Vegas cop who's sent to Dallas in late November 1963 to snuff a black pimp, and who is fighting a losing battle against his predilection for violence: "Junior was a hider. Junior was a watcher. Junior lit flames. Junior torched. Junior lived in his head."

And behind these three, J. Edgar Hoover is the master puppeteer, pulling strings with visionary zeal and resolute pragmatism, the still point around whom the novel roils and tumbles. At once evil and comic, Hoover predicts that LBJ "will deplete his prestige on the home front and recoup it in Vietnam. History will judge him as a tall man with big ears who needed wretched people to love him," and feels that Cuba "appeals to hotheads and the morally impaired. It's the cuisine and the sex. Plantains and women who have intercourse with donkeys."

The Seussian comparison isn't that far-fetched: Ellroy's novel, like the children's books (and like the very decade it limns), is flexible, spontaneous, and unabashedly off-kilter. Weighing in at a hefty 700 pages, The Cold Six Thousandis a trifle bloated by the excesses of its narrative form. But what glorious excess it is, as Ellroy continues to illuminate the twin impulses toward idealism and corruption that frame American popular and political culture. He deftly puts unforgettable faces and voices to the murkiest of conspiracy theories, and simultaneously mocks our eager assumption that such knowledge will make a difference. —Kelly Flynn

Malice that cannot speak its name, cold-blooded but secret hostility, impotent desire, hidden rancor and spite—all cluster at the center of envy. Envy clouds thought, writes Joseph Epstein, clobbers generosity, precludes any hope of serenity, and ends in shriveling the heart. Of the seven

deadly sins, he concludes, only envy is no fun at all. 

Writing in a conversational, erudite, self-deprecating style that wears its learning lightly, Epstein takes us on a stimulating tour of the many faces of envy. He considers what great thinkers—such as John Rawls, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche—have written about envy; distinguishes between

envy, yearning, jealousy, resentment, and schadenfreude ("a hardy perennial in the weedy garden of sour emotions"); and catalogs the many things that are enviable, including wealth, beauty, power, talent, knowledge and wisdom, extraordinary good luck, and youth (or as the title of Epstein's chapter

on youth has it, "The Young, God Damn Them"). He looks at resentment in academia, where envy is mixed with snobbery, stirred by impotence, and played out against a background of cosmic injustice; and he offers a brilliant reading of Othello as a play more driven by Iago's envy than Othello's

jealousy. He reveals that envy has a strong touch of malice behind it—the envious want to destroy the happiness of others. He suggests that envy of the astonishing success of Jews in Germany and Austria may have lurked behind the virulent anti-Semitism of the Nazis. 

As he proved in his best-selling Snobbery, Joseph Epstein has an unmatched ability to highlight our failings in a way that is thoughtful, provocative, and entertaining. If envy is no fun, Epstein's Envy is truly a joy to read.

The third book of the Sandman collection is a series of four short comic book stories. What's remarkable here (considering the publisher and the time that this was originally published) is that the main character of the book—the Sandman, King of Dreams—serves only as a minor character in each of these otherwise unrelated stories. (Actually, he's not even in the last story.) This signaled a couple of important things in the development of what is considered one of the great comics of the second half of the century. First, it marked a distinct move away from the horror genre and into a more fantasy-rich, classical mythology-laden environment. And secondly, it solidly cemented Neil Gaiman as a storyteller. One of the stories here, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," took home the World Fantasy Award for best short story—the first time a comic was given that honor. But for my money, another story in Dream Countryhas it beat hands down. "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" has such hope, beauty, and good old-fashioned chills that rereading it becomes a welcome pleasure. —Jim Pascoe

This is the first work to cover the entire history of social and cultural anthropology in a single volume. The authors provide a summary of the discipline in the nineteenth century, from the cultural theories of Herder, Morgna, and Tylor to the often neglected contributions of the German scholars of the period. The work of early-twentieth century anthropologists such as Boas and Malinowski in the US and Britain, and the sociology of Durkheim and Mauss in France, is examined. The ambiguous relationship between anthropology and national cultures—many of the discipline's founders were migrants or Jews—also receives consideration.

The principal focus of the book is on themes characteristic of post First-World-War anthropology, from structural functionalism , via structuralism, to hermeneutics, cultural ecology, and discourse analysis. Each major anthropologist is provided with a capsule biography, and key controversies arecovered, such as the debates on alliance and descent models of kinship, the puzzle of totmism, the problems of neo-Marxism and cultural ecology and the current battles over representations of the "Other" and deconstruction. This volume provides a timely, concise, and comprehensive history of a major intellectual discipline, in an engaging and thought-provoking narrative that will appeal to students of the discipline worldwide.

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." And so begins Middlesex, the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the "roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time." The odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and haunting 1993 debut, The Virgin Suicides, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory.

Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history, from a fateful incestuous union in a small town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story to modern-day Berlin. Eugenides's command of the narrative is astonishing. He balances Cal/Callie's shifting voices convincingly, spinning this strange and often unsettling story with intelligence, insight, and generous amounts of humor:

Emotions, in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness,""joy," or "regret." … I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." ... I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever.

When you get to the end of this splendorous book, when you suddenly realize that after hundreds of pages you have only a few more left to turn over, you'll experience a quick pang of regret knowing that your time with Cal is coming to a close, and you may even resist finishing it—putting it aside for an hour or two, or maybe overnight—just so that this wondrous, magical novel might never end. —Brad Thomas Parsons

Jack Kirby created or co-created some of comic books’ most popular characters including Captain America, The X-Men, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, The Mighty Thor, Darkseid, and The New Gods. More significantly, he created much of the visual language for fantasy and adventure comics. There were comics before Kirby, but for the most part their page layout, graphics, and visual dynamic aped what was being done in syndicated newspaper strips. Almost everything that was different about comic books began in the forties on the drawing table of Jack Kirby. This is his story by one who knew him well—the authorized celebration of the one and only “King of Comics” and his groundbreaking work.

“I don’t think it’s any accident that . . . the entire Marvel universe and the entire DC universe are all pinned or rooted on Kirby’s concepts.” —Michael Chabon

Master the power of Photoshop CS3 with 

an internationally renowned photographer by your side.

Adobes Photoshop CS3 comes with powerful new features with huge payoffs. But it can be overwhelming to learn, even for professional photographers, graphic designers, keen amateurs, and others who already have an initial grasp of Photoshop. Acclaimed photographer Martin Evening, who wrote the best-selling previous books, 'Adobe Photoshop for Photographers', makes it easy with this new, thoroughly updated edition. 

* Illustrated throughout with before-and-after pictures more than 750 professional, color illustrations!

* Practical techniques and real-life assignments

* Step-by-step tutorials

* Keyboard shortcut reference guide

Includes FREE DVD with:

* QuickTime movie tutorials for MAC and PC 

* Searchable tips on tools, palettes layer styles, and shortcuts 

* Includes images selected for you to experiment with to get you up to speed with everything in the book, including the new Photoshop CS3 features, fast! 

* Updated Camera Guide to help you decide which will best suit your needs, plus bonus Digital Capture chapter in printable PDF format

Uncover quickly exactly what Adobes CS3 now offers photographers. New tutorials focus on the key features introduced in CS3. You lose no time in finding out how to put your ideas to work with:

* Adobes Camera Raw 4 plug-in that can now also process TIFFs and JPEGs

* New Align controls for combining HDR images; Photomerge; new Clone Stamp; Curves dialog that now incorporates Levels functionality; and improved controls for Brightness/Contrast to match raw image processing controls

* The latest on Black and White adjustment, which provides all the black and white conversion tools you need for optimum monochrome conversions

* A pros scoop on choosing from among dozens of Photoshops image adjustment methods to get the results you want

* Tips on Bridge 2.0 and Lightroom when you should use each

* Top tactics for successful composite images, insider guidance on editing shadows and highlight adjustments, and lessons on how to preview and re-edit filter effects as many times as you want without complex workarounds

Get the preeminent advice from one photographer to another as Martin completely updates you on the core aspects of working with Photoshop, digital workflow, and improving accessibility. Real-life examples, diagrams, illustrations, and step-by-step explanations ensure that youre up to speed with the next generation of digital photography in no time!

Foreword by Adobe Systems key Director of Engineering, Digital Imaging, Marc Pawliger

* Over 750 professional, color images make this book stand above the rest 

* New DVD! Searchable info explains tools, palettes & layer styles, also includes invaluable QuickTime movie tutorials 

* Master the power of Photoshop CS3 under the instruction of an internationally recognised Photoshop expert & Adobe alpha tester

A humorous and incisive analysis of the basic tenets of typography and how to turn them on their heads, this book will appeal to the conformist and the non-conformist in everyone – not just the newcomer to design. One side of this sharp-witted, cleverly designed guide presents the ten main rules, or ‘commandments’, of type design, addressing such aspects of typographic doctrine as legibility, alignment and capitalization; the other shows how type can successfully subvert these rules, presenting ‘sacreligious’ visual alternatives. In support of the commandments Felton includes a list of twelve ‘disciples’, those internationally renowned graphic designers whom he identifies as rule-abiding, including such figures as Eric Gill, Jan Tschichold and Erik Spiekermann. Confronting these are his ‘fallen angels’, including such experimental typographers as David Carson, Jeffery Keedy, Phil Baines and Jonathan Barnbrook.