The drama that shaped today’s Iran, from the Revolution to the present day. In 1979, seemingly overnight—moving at a clip some thirty years faster than the rest of the world—Iran became the first revolutionary theocracy in modern times. Since then, the country has been largely a black box to the West, a sinister presence looming over the horizon. But inside Iran, a breathtaking drama has unfolded since then, as religious thinkers, political operatives, poets, journalists, and activists have imagined and reimagined what Iran should be. They have drawn as deeply on the traditions of the West as of the East and have acted upon their beliefs with urgency and passion, frequently staking their lives for them. With more than a decade of experience reporting on, researching, and writing about Iran, Laura Secor narrates this unprecedented history as a story of individuals caught up in the slipstream of their time, seizing and wielding ideas powerful enough to shift its course as they wrestle with their country’s apparatus of violent repression as well as its rich and often tragic history. Essential reading at this moment when the fates of our countries have never been more entwined, Children of Paradise will stand as a classic of political reporting; an indelible portrait of a nation and its people striving for change.

A comprehensive parenting guide for financially advantaged families. This fresh and updated book offers a clear nine-step program for affluent parents to improve their skills and inspire healthy values in their children. You will learn: How to make the time with your children count. How to motivate your children to develop confidence and competence essential elements of self-esteem. How to listen effectively to your children. How to talk openly and honestly with your children. When to say no and when to create boundaries for your children. How to teach your children the value of money and to prepare them for the responsibilities of wealth. How to create an effective disciplinary plan when problems arise. You will benefit from Dr. Hausners four decades of experience, and you will especially appreciate the humor, clarity, and practical suggestions that will make the challenges of your parenting easier and more effective.

Traces the career of the influential French director and uses psychoanalytical concepts to analyze his major films.

In the opening pages of this novel, an accident brings a young girl to the attention of the Preacher, the all-powerful leader of a religious cult secluded in the jungle. Trina has only dim memories of the life she lived with her mother before they joined the community and the closed, close society is all she knows. When she is singled out for special favour, it becomes clear that the gaze of the Preacher can be a dangerous thing. As the Preacher's behaviour and the demands he places on his followers become more extreme, Trina's mother begins to question her faith in the charismatic but fatally flawed leader and to dream of an escape from his control.

This book offers perhaps the most comprehensive history of pantomime ever written. No other book so thoroughly examines the varieties of pantomimic performance from the early Roman Empire, when the term “pantomime” came into use, until the present. After thoroughly examining the complexities and startlingly imaginative performance strategies of Roman pantomime, the author identifies the peculiar political circumstances that revived and shaped pantomime in France and Austria in the eighteenth century, leading to the Pierrot obsession in the nineteenth century. Modernist aesthetics awakened a huge, highly diverse fascination with pantomime. The book explores an extraordinary variety of modernist and postmodern approaches to pantomime in Germany, Austria, France, numerous countries of Eastern Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Chile, England, and The United States. Making use of many performance and historical documents never before included in pantomime histories, the book also discusses pantomime’s messy relation to dance, its peculiar uses of music, its “modernization” through silent film aesthetics, and the extent to which writers, performers, or directors are “authors” of pantomimes. Just as importantly, the book explains why, more than any other performance medium, pantomime allows the spectator to see the body as the agent of narrative action.

From the bestselling author of The Wife—Meg Wolitzer’s “hilariously moving, sharply written novel” (USA TODAY), hailed by critics and loved by readers worldwide, with its “dead-on observations about sex, marriage, and the family ties that strangle and bind” (Cleveland Plain Dealer). Crackling with intelligence and humor, The Position is the masterful story of one extraordinary family at the hilarious height of the sexual revolution—and through the thirty-year hangover that followed. In 1975, Paul and Roz Mellow write a bestselling Joy of Sex-type book that mortifies their four school-aged children and ultimately changes the shape of the family forever. Thirty years later, as the now dispersed family members argue over whether to reissue the book, we follow the complicated lives of each of the grown children and their conflicts in love, work, marriage, parenting, and, of course, sex—all shadowed by the indelible specter of their highly sexualized parents. Insightful, panoramic, and compulsively readable, The Position is an American original.