The Edge Of Paradise

In 1967 the Peace Corps sent P. F. Kluge to paradise - or so the American possessions in Micronesia seemed. His assignment was as noble as it was adventurous: to help the people of those half-forgotten Pacific islands move from old to new, so that paradise would have prosperity and freedom as well as physical beauty. He immersed himself in the lives of the diverse peoples of the islands. He composed speeches for their leaders. He wrote a stirring manifesto that became the Preamble to the Constitution of Micronesia. He began a friendship with a man who would one day be president of Palau. And then, a generation later, P. F. Kluge went back. . . . The result is a book the New Yorker called "remarkably effective," the Economist deemed "terrific"; a book Smithsonian Magazine found to be "written from the heart." The Edge of Paradise shows the impact and ironies of America's presence in an undeveloped part of the world, how perhaps there's no way "a big place can touch a little one without harming it."

Martin de Lange was happily married, enjoying his job as a photographer in South Africa's police force. But stirredwith passion for the spiritually lost in Turkey, he uprooted his little family and headed north to Turkey. A land where, hediscovered, people ask obtrusive questions, the government watches every move, and men think his wife is a prostitute.

This title documents the history of Taylor Camp, a clothing-optional, pot-friendly, tree house village set up in 1969 on Kauai, Hawaii by Howard Taylor, brother of Elizabeth. The book features photographs accompanied by moving texts and interviews with the principal protagonists (and antagonists).

There are beastly forces in Belize. Forces that are actively involved in making paradise impossible. On the Nervous Edge of an Impossible Paradise is a collection of seven stories about local lives in the fictional village of Wallaceville. They turn rogue in the face of runaway forces that take the form and figure of a Belize beast-time, which can appear as a comic mishap, social ruin, tragic excess, or wild guesses. Inciting the affective politics of life in the region, this fable of emergence evokes the unnerving uncertainties of life in the tourist state of Belize.

This Side of Paradise is a novel about post-World War I youth and their morality. Amory Blaine is a young Princeton University student with an attractive face and an interest in literature. His greed and desire for social status warp the theme of love weaving through the story.

Sex with multiple females, the abuse of drugs from marijuana to mushrooms, and ecstasy to tobacco, and cocaine to alcohol, and prescription pills to paradise was probably the reason why our relationship was facing pure pandemonium. We rode the surf; this getaway took its toll. I knew, in retrospect, this would happen the moment we planned the trip (except we didn't remember planning it), but I didn't think drugs and alcohol would spoil a good buzz this quickly. Grabbing the phone from my hands with a smile, Mr. Edwards-the blame for half of my mistakes-said, "Its over," and fell on the floor after he unplugged the phone from its outlet. Paradise Island, Bahamas, January 2005: Joseph James and Jeffrey Edwards are two men who push life to the edge. But they're on the verge of going overboard. Traveling to Paradise Island from Detroit, Michigan, the two cousins disrespect and destroy the tourist haven in an attempt to break the paradox between total control and reckless abandon. From mixing with happy families, high-stakes gambling, and nightlife with upper society to sharing a pint of rum with a homeless local and sleeping with random women, the pair's contribution to the Bahamas is nothing more than an abuse of free will and destiny.

When his father relocates the family to Paradise to work for the mysterious Eden Corporation, Jack Barrett uncovers a sinister plot that threatens everyone he loves.