Small Vices

Ellis Alves is a bad kid from the 'hood with a long record, but did he really murder Melissa Henderson, a white student from ritzy Pemberton College? Alves's former lawyers think he was framed, and they hire Spenser to uncover the truth. From Boston's back streets to Manhattan's elite, Spenser and Hawk search for suspects, including Melissa's rich kid tennis-star boyfriend. But when a man with a .22 puts Spenser in a coma, the hope for justice might just die along with the detective...

Ellis Alves is no angel. But his lawyer says he was framed for the murder of college student Melissa Henderson...and asks Spenser for help. From Boston's back streets to Manhattan's elite, Spenser and Hawk search for suspects, including Melissa's rich-kid, tennis-star boyfriend. But when a man with a .22 puts Spenser in a coma, the hope for justice may die with him...

The authors have developed the ethical imagination inviting a sense of “otherness” towards the vulnerable self, rebounding care for the other as a way to understand our everyday neurotic (normal) tendency of small vices as the propensity and possibility for responsibility towards the other. The authors, inviting the reader into troublesome feelings such as laziness and anger, bring a Levinasian horizon into focus, so that even in the midst of laziness, there remains the small goodness to set the self free to care for the other, meeting the demands, challenges, hesitation, shuddering, tension and shocks of such alterity, of living “otherwise”.

Drawing on centuries of wisdom from the Christian ethical tradition, this book takes readers on a journey of self-examination, exploring why our hearts are captivated by glittery but false substitutes for true human goodness and happiness. The first edition sold 35,000 copies and was a C. S. Lewis Book Prize award winner. Now updated and revised throughout, the second edition includes a new chapter on grace and growth through the spiritual disciplines. Questions for discussion and study are included at the end of each chapter.

Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon—Private eye Doc Sportello surfaces, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre that is at once exciting and accessible, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there. It's been a while since Doc Sportello has seen his ex- girlfriend. Suddenly she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. It's the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," except that this one usually leads to trouble. Undeniably one of the most influential writers at work today, Pynchon has penned another unforgettable book.

Tales on the seven deadly sins--pride, avarice, lust, gluttony, sloth, envy, anger--with lust the favorite. The authors range from Xenophon to Erica Jong. With illustrations.

The compelling new novel by Canada’s answer to Anne Perry. In his forties, the Reverend Charles Howard still cut an impressive figure. A married Presbyterian minister in Toronto’s east end, Howard was popular with the congregation that elected him, especially with the ladies, and most particularly with Miss Sarah Dignam. Respected in the community, Howard, as Visitor for the House of Industry, sat in judgment on the poor, assessing their applications for the workhouse. But now Howard is dead, stabbed and brutally beaten by someone he invited into his office. His watch and boots are missing. Has some poor beggar he turned down taken his vengeance? Murdoch’s investigation takes him into the arcane Victorian world of queer plungers — men who fake injury all the better to beg — and the destitute who had nowhere left to turn when they knocked on the Reverend Howard’s door.

In the midst of this endless variety of opinion, what man, or what body of men, has the right to say, in regard to any particular action, or course of action, "we have tried this experiment, and determined every question involved in it? We have determined it, not only for ourselves, but for all others? And, as to all those who are weaker than we, we will coerce them to act in obedience to our conclusions? We will suffer no further experiment or inquiry by any one, and, consequently, no further acquisition of knowledge by anybody?"