Muscle Smoke Mirrors

The research for this extensive, two volume project... represents a comprehensive effort to establish a complete context from which the sport of bodybuilding arose. "Muscle, Smoke & Mirrors" is the rise and fall of what was truly once an extraordinary discipline associated with a term known as "Physical Culture". Experience what bodybuilding was originally and learn just exactly what "Physical Culture" really is. See what growing philanthropic power flexed its financial and political muscles to foster its corporate agenda, compromising human health internationally. Read how the merger of technology and politics culminated in the industrialization, commercialization, federalization, internationalization and finally the STERILIZATION of a nation's food supply, rendering it suspect not only to the general public; but also to the most elite of athletes. Whether you are a novice, an elite bodybuilder or simply sports-nutrition minded, learn how the emerging forces of the Iron Game evolved. Ultimately, the factions of this industry would grow powerful and manipulative while fighting for control over the Game. It took the running of several parallel histories on bodybuilding, nutrition, supplements and the role of drugs to offer a complete, first-time unraveling of the web of confusion and politics that still permeates the sport into the 21st century! Volume I of "Muscle, Smoke & Mirrors" is truly the untold stories surrounding "Bodybuilding's Amazing Nutritional Origins."

This collection of Shona Proverbs and Parables contains some of the most thought-provoking and contemporary proverbs and parables emerging from Zimbabwe. The collection links the pre-colonial Shona cultural expressions with the contemporary Shona folklore. The proverbs and parables offer penetrating questions and induce debate on the significance of the study of proverbs and parables. As well as being universal, they reflect their cultural roots. While the proverbs and parables provide amusement, they deftly impart lessons for living. The literal translations for each proverb and parable add insights for better understanding. There are times when "a small bird which does not search for food does not get fat", just as a person who is not willing to explore new ventures remains static. "A bird does not abandone its way of singing" like the old habits that die hard. What of "the one who recognises a path through a rock who is the only one that uses that path"! Surely, are those who are vociforous in condemning a wrong-doing not the chief culprits? It's no exaggeration to say this collection of Shona proverbs and parables is not only a source of inspiration to the young Zimbabwean generation, but has application for those studying African folklore and behaviour, sociology and ethics.

A con artist and seductress, Meredith Spooner lived fast—and died young. But her final scam—embezzling more than a million dollars from a college endowment fund—is coming back to haunt Leonora Hutton. The tainted money is stashed away in an offshore account for Leonora. And while she wants nothing to do with the cash, she discovers two other items in the safe-deposit box: a book about Mirror House—the place where Meredith engineered her final deception and a set of newspaper stories about an unsolved murder that occurred there thirty years ago. Now Leonora has an offer for Thomas Walker, another victim of Meredith’s scams and seductions. She’ll hand over the money—if he helps her figure out what’s going on. Meredith had described Thomas as “a man you can trust.” But in a funhouse-mirror world of illusion and distortion, Leonora may be out of her league…

Car photography often evokes the same recycled tropes. Predictably slick, hi-spec images on the front pages of glossy magazines, or huge blow-ups on giant billboards which have one designed aim: to sell a lifestyle. But our relationship to cars is so much more meaningful than these images might suggest. Like the camera, the car has changed the way we explore the world. With cars came road trips, and with road trips came some of the most important photographic documentaries of our time. A car is a vehicle not just for transport but for our hopes, desires, and even values. In Really Good Car Photography, a selection of world-renowned and up-and-coming photographers come together to pay tribute to the car from the 60s to the present day. From images of lonely car parks and cars 'sleeping' at night under tarpaulins, moody shots from New York City in the 70s to witty close-ups of badly-repaired cars and painterly landscapes shot through wet windscreens, these photographs display cars at their most playful, introspective and meaningful, reminding us that there is more to them than just metal and machinery - for cars are emotionally intertwined with the lives we live.Moving away from the one-dimensional imagery that has become synonymous with car photography and offering a selection of penetrating, unusual and poignant pictures in return, Really Good Car Photography is an utterly iconoclastic look at cars that reinvents what is possible for the genre.

A black photographer recalls his sad childhood on his return to Louisiana for the funeral of his father. The mother died, the father abandoned him, and he was brought up by his grandmother.