What images come to mind when you think of Las Vegas? Mobsters and showgirls, magicians and tigers, multimillion-dollar poker games and prizefights; towering signboards that light up the night in front of ever more spectacular casino hotels. But real people live here, too--over a million today, two million tomorrow. Greater Las Vegas has long been the fastest growing metropolitan area in America. And almost every aspect of its citizens' lives is influenced by the almighty power of the gambling industry. A team of fifteen reporters led by David Littlejohn, together with prize winning photo-journalist Eric Gran, studied the "real" Las Vegas--the city beyond the Strip and Downtown--for the better part of a year. They talked to teenagers (whose suicide and dropout rates frighten parents), senior citizens (many of whom spend their days playing bingo and the slots), Mexican immigrants (who build the new houses and clean the hotels), homeless people and angry blacks, as well as local police, active Christians, city officials, and prostitutes. They looked into the local churches, the powerful labor unions, pawn shops, the real estate boom, defiant ranchers to the north, and dire predictions that the city is about to run out of water. Proud Las Vegans claim that theirs is just a friendly southwestern boomtown--"the finest community I have ever lived in," says Bishop Daniel Walsh, who comes from San Francisco. But their picture of Las Vegas as a vibrant, civic-minded metropolis conflicts with evidence of transiency, rootlessness, political impotence, and social dysfunction. In this close-up investigation of the real lives being led in America's most tourist-jammed, gambling-driven city, readers will discover a Las Vegas very different from the one they may have seen or imagined.

A guide to Las Vegas and the surrounding area - wherever you're travelling from, you can use this guide to make sure your holiday in the Las Vegas area is memorable, for all the right reasons. It just takes some inside knowledge and a little planning. Written by Gary Archer and Nuala O'Brien with first hand experience after many trips to Las Vegas.

How computer games can be designed to create ethically relevant experiences for players. Today's blockbuster video games—and their never-ending sequels, sagas, and reboots—provide plenty of excitement in high-resolution but for the most part fail to engage a player's moral imagination. In Beyond Choices, Miguel Sicart calls for a new generation of video and computer games that are ethically relevant by design. In the 1970s, mainstream films—including The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver—filled theaters but also treated their audiences as thinking beings. Why can't mainstream video games have the same moral and aesthetic impact? Sicart argues that it is time for games to claim their place in the cultural landscape as vehicles for ethical reflection. Sicart looks at games in many manifestations: toys, analog games, computer and video games, interactive fictions, commercial entertainments, and independent releases. Drawing on philosophy, design theory, literary studies, aesthetics, and interviews with game developers, Sicart provides a systematic account of how games can be designed to challenge and enrich our moral lives. After discussing such topics as definition of ethical gameplay and the structure of the game as a designed object, Sicart offers a theory of the design of ethical game play. He also analyzes the ethical aspects of game play in a number of current games, including Spec Ops: The Line, Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, Fallout New Vegas, and Anna Anthropy's Dys4Ia. Games are designed to evoke specific emotions; games that engage players ethically, Sicart argues, enable us to explore and express our values through play.

"Full of fun, friendship and romance - a real escapist treat." - NYT bestselling author Jill Shalvis In the first warm, funny and romantic novel in the Girls Weekend Away series, four best friends embark on the ultimate girls' getaway filled with hijinks and a sprinkling of romance. For any fan of Bridesmaids and Sex and the City and readers of Jo Watson, Lauren Layne, Joanna Bolouri and Cate Woods. When the cop... Tough-as-nails detective Bonni Connolly is on a girls' getaway in Vegas with her friends, when Lady Luck shines on her. Seizing the chance to treat them all, Bonni splurges on a little luxury including a VIP booth in an exclusive club. That's when she sees him. Meets the gambler... Professional poker player Quinn Bryant is in town for one of the largest tournaments of the year. Fortune smiles on him when he spots Bonni across the dance floor. But what starts as a holiday fling soon turns into something more, as Bonni learns to see the man behind the poker face. The stakes have never been higher. Even though Bonni's trip has an end date and there is another tournament calling Quinn's name, their strong connection surprises them both. And by the end of the weekend they start to wonder if what happens in Vegas doesn't have to stay there... Each book in the Girls Weekend Away series is STANDALONE: * What Happens in Vegas * Meet Me In San Francisco * The Nashville Bet * A Match Made in Monaco