A young girl spends her summer vacation in a country house where a tiger roams . . . A man reading a mystery finds out too late that he is the murderer’s intended victim . . . Originally published in hardcover as End of the Game and Other Stories, the fifteen stories collected here—including “Blow-Up,” which was the basis for Michelangelo Antonioni’s film of the same name—shows Julio Cortázar's nimble capacity to explore the shadowy realm where the everyday meets the mysterious, perhaps even the terrible.

Property will cost us the earth The science on climate change has been clear for a very long time now. Yet despite decades of appeals, mass street protests, petition campaigns, and peaceful demonstrations, we are still facing a booming fossil fuel industry, rising seas, rising emission levels, and a rising temperature. With the stakes so high, why haven't we moved beyond peaceful protest? In this lyrical manifesto, noted climate scholar (and saboteur of SUV tires and coal mines) Andreas Malm makes an impassioned call for the climate movement to escalate its tactics in the face of ecological collapse. We need, he argues, to force fossil fuel extraction to stop--with our actions, with our bodies, and by defusing and destroying its tools. We need, in short, to start blowing up some oil pipelines. Offering a counter-history of how mass popular change has occurred, from the democratic revolutions overthrowing dictators to the movement against apartheid and for women's suffrage, Malm argues that the strategic acceptance of property destruction and violence has been the only route for revolutionary change. In a braided narrative that moves from the forests of Germany and the streets of London to the deserts of Iraq, Malm offers us an incisive discussion of the politics and ethics of pacifism and violence, democracy and social change, strategy and tactics, and a movement compelled by both the heart and the mind. Here is how we fight in a world on fire.

Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blow-Up is a masterfully constructed and paced exploration of the enigmas that challenge our interpretations of both the moving and the still image. Photography plays a key role at the very core of the film, providing the metaphorical site for the director's questioning of the relationship between reality and perceptions. This book provides a fresh and stimulating study of Antonioni's masterpiece. It reassembles and re-tells - through onset stills and the original blow-ups - the film's key narrative and pictorial strands in a focused visual investigation that is complemented by the authors' analytical essays. These texts draw on new research and effectively situate the film in the social and creative contexts that informed Antonioni's screenplay and art direction - on the one hand through an account of the milieu of fashionable photographers and models and the media through which they became so vivid a phenomenon, and on the other hand through the revelation of the artistic and literary reference points that so pervasively enrich the film.

A technological and philosophical history of inflatable art, architecture and design in all aspects of life, from children's toys to military craft.

A respected journalist describes the abuse he suffered at the hands of a close family relative, the effect this had on his formative years and how he overcame the anger and self-doubt it left behind.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda goes to Italy in Arvin Ahmadi's newest incisive look at identity and what it means to find yourself by running away. Eighteen-year-old Amir Azadi always knew coming out to his Muslim family would be messy--he just didn't think it would end in an airport interrogation room. But when faced with a failed relationship, bullies, and blackmail, running away to Rome is his only option. Right? Soon, late nights with new friends and dates in the Sistine Chapel start to feel like second nature... until his old life comes knocking on his door. Now, Amir has to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth to a US Customs officer, or risk losing his hard-won freedom. At turns uplifting and devastating, How It All Blew Up is Arvin Ahmadi's most powerful novel yet, a celebration of how life's most painful moments can live alongside the riotous, life-changing joys of discovering who you are.

Love story of the 21st century. Two social outcasts in far, far Indonesia find a way to love each other regardless of their backgrounds: Tira Yohanes Soepomo, a 48 years old transsexual who identified as female, and Dayang, a throw away person, unemployed with no family.00?The two met while living on the streets of the Muslim city of Jogiakarta in Central Java. They shared a life together in a basic six square meter squat that became the centre of their universe. Tira contracted HIV, the deadly virus that hides invisible in the blood, like her ineffable desires and emotions. Dayang loved Tira regardless of the virus; together they shared a lust for life and the courage to be themselves. The couple allowed Luca Desienna into their lives and trusted him to make this respectful and intimate portrait of their relationship. Luca?s photographs honestly penetrate into the moments of their wild, and sometimes raw love making. It?s a passionate portrait of joy and pain, suffering, and ultimately of Tira?s death.?0(taken from Peggy Sue Amison?s essay to the book).