The Spider S Web

Two novellas of rare energy, "The Spider's Web" and "Zipper and His Father" are filled with Joseph Roth's surprising political foresight and compassionate sensitivity to the tremors of a world on the brink of collapse. "The Spider's Web" paints a chillingly realistic picture of the conspiracies that paved the way for the rise of Hitler. "Zipper and His Father" chronicles the progress of a father and son through the febrile world of German cinema in the 1920s.

An international best-seller by Chaim Eliav. It's a riveting, can't-put-it-down novel that takes place on two continents, in two generations, and has more gyrations than a roller coaster! It starts when Jairo Silverman answers the phone in his plush Sao Paulo law office and hears that his friend Alberto is dead . . . or murdered. Then he learns that but let us not spoil the fun. Don't miss this book!

For ten years, the White House, assisted by allies in London and Rome, brushed aside the law in a relentless quest to support Saddam Hussein. What were the forces that shaped this persisting embrace of a dictator whom George Bush would eventually compare to Adolf Hitler? How did Washington and its NATO allies nurture a frequently illicit rapport with Saddam, and what was the real story of why it became necessary to mount Operation Desert Storm? How did the governments led by George Bush and Margaret Thatcher seek to cover up their past dealings with the Iraqi leader after Desert Storm finally drove him from Kuwait in 1991?

A classic from the original queen of mystery: Agatha Christie.

In this lavishly illustrated, first-ever book on how spider webs are built, function, and evolved, William Eberhard provides a comprehensive overview of spider functional morphology and behavior related to web building, and of the surprising physical agility and mental abilities of orb weavers. For instance, one spider spins more than three precisely spaced, morphologically complex spiral attachments per second for up to fifteen minutes at a time. Spiders even adjust the mechanical properties of their famously strong silken lines to different parts of their webs and different environments, and make dramatic modifications in orb designs to adapt to available spaces. This extensive adaptive flexibility, involving decisions influenced by up to sixteen different cues, is unexpected in such small, supposedly simple animals. As Eberhard reveals, the extraordinary diversity of webs includes ingenious solutions to gain access to prey in esoteric habitats, from blazing hot and shifting sand dunes (to capture ants) to the surfaces of tropical lakes (to capture water striders). Some webs are nets that are cast onto prey, while others form baskets into which the spider flicks prey. Some aerial webs are tramways used by spiders searching for chemical cues from their prey below, while others feature landing sites for flying insects and spiders where the spider then stalks its prey. In some webs, long trip lines are delicately sustained just above the ground by tiny rigid silk poles. Stemming from the author’s more than five decades observing spider webs, this book will be the definitive reference for years to come.

Skinhead. Neo-Nazi. Lexi Jordan knows the names her friends use to talk about themselves, but she isn't quite sure what they mean. She knows her swastika tattoo and heavy boots are part of belonging. And Lexi wants to belong. When she sneaks out to meet her friends and make plans, she feels more at home than she does in her own house. And so far nothing they've done has been that bad. But Lexi begins to wonder just how safe she is when the group begins to do things that make her increasingly uneasy. After accidentally meeting Ursula Zeidler, an old woman with a terrifying secret, she sets off a chain of events that places everyone she cares about in danger and leads her to the biggest decisions of her life.

The McCarthy-era witch hunts marked the culmination of an anticommunist crusade launched after the First World War. With Bolshevism triumphant in Russia and public discontent shaking the United States, conservatives at every level of government and business created a network dedicated to sweeping away the "spider web" of radicalism they saw threatening the nation. In this groundbreaking study, Nick Fischer shines a light on right-wing activities during the interwar period. Conservatives, eager to dispel communism's appeal to the working class, railed against a supposed Soviet-directed conspiracy composed of socialists, trade unions, peace and civil liberties groups, feminists, liberals, aliens, and Jews. Their rhetoric and power made for devastating weapons in their systematic war for control of the country against progressive causes. But, as Fischer shows, the term spider web far more accurately described the anticommunist movement than it did the makeup and operations of international communism. Fischer details how anticommunist myths and propaganda influenced mainstream politics in America, and how its ongoing efforts paved the way for the McCarthyite Fifties--and augured the conservative backlash that would one day transform American politics.