Three strong-willed women--Reece, a lawyer; Maxie, a struggling journalist; and Charlotte, a real estate agent--encounter the ups and downs of life as they search for true love and fulfillment.

Michael Staack’s multi-year ethnography is the first and only comprehensive social-scientific analysis of the combat sport ‘Mixed Martial Arts’. Based on systematic training observations, the author meticulously analyses how Mixed Martial Arts practitioners conjointly create and immerse themselves into their own world of ultimate bodily combat. With his examination of concentrative technique demonstrations, cooperative technique train-ings, and chaotic sparring practices, Staack not only provides a sociological illumination of Mixed Martial Arts culture’s defining theme – the quest of ‘Fighting As Real As It Gets’. Rather further-more, he provides a compelling cultural-sociological case study on practical social constructions of ‘authenticity’.

When Maya uncovers the source of a dangerous new designer drug, the truth behind the scoop puts her and her family in the crosshairs, and she'll have to decide how far she can afford to go to save her family, her career, and herself.

San Francisco General Hospital has been the epicenter of the AIDS crisis from the start, and is for author Carol Pogash the perfect microcosm for reporting one of the great stories of this generation. With a novelist's eye she follows a memorable cast of characters, illuminating every political, social, or human dilemma in this tragedy.