Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in All Categories

Using her body as well as her wits to climb out of backwater poverty, a beautiful real estate developer amasses international wealth and power with equal success. After she falls in love with a renowned concert pianist, she sets about winning him as she would a prime piece of waterfront property. But her ties to a lawyer with Mafia connections and her shady way of doing business threaten her happiness and her reputation.

Dogen Zenji (1200-1253 C.E.) founded the Soto school of Zen Buddhism in Japan. His teachings are the very embodiment of the paradoxical blend of mystery and clarity that characterizes Zen. Dogen's approach to meditation has become perhaps the most influential Eastern spiritual practice in the Western world. These selections—from the publication Moon in a Dewdrop edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi—were chosen by poet Gary Snyder, a student and practitioner of Zen Buddhism for several decades. Snyder also reads the text for this recording.

Over the course of one pivotal year, events that shaped American and world history took place: The North Vietnamese launched the Tet offensive. Prague Spring began. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. Students protested across the United States and around the world. Robert Kennedy was assassinated. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago was besieged by riots. Apollo 11 launched. And Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States.

Is verbal abuse ruining your business, your personal life, or even your physical and emotional health? With a little help from Suzette Haden Elgin, you won't have to put up with it anymore. She'll show you how to create an environment in which verbal abuse almost never happens, and how to take complete control of your language behavior. Once you've mastered the techniques, you'll be able to defuse a verbal attack before it can even be completed, and deal effectively with the rare attack that cannot be avoided.

For over fifty years, J. Edgar Hoover was the most powerful lawman in America. He was also the country's most controversial and feared public servant. His career as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation spanned nine different presidential administrations and survived a dozen attempts to sweep him from office.

For decades, a quartet of Chinese women who have emigrated to San Francisco gather to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk — they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Over the years, their stories have informed the lives of four daughters who feel the weight of family and world history on their shoulders.

Does it seem that good ideas go nowhere at your company, that meetings are often a waste of time, and that nobody seems to be in charge? In Getting It Done, Roger Fisher and Alan Sharp tackle the inertia that afflicts many groups. The authors advance the idea of lateral leadership as a means of breaking apart the logjams that inhibit collaboration in organizations, and they offer surefire ways to help anyone get better results from coworkers.

The Sternwood family, immortalized in Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, is in trouble again. Lovely Vivian's psychotic sister, Carmen, has disappeared from the sanitarium, and Vivian herself has once again fallen into the clutches of the shady underworld character Eddie Mars. Enter Philip Marlowe, the original tough-but-tender private eye. He saved the Sternwoods once before. The question is: Can he do it again?

In 1930's China, the all-male Peking opera was luxurious entertainment for the privileged class—but only children from the poorest families were sent to opera schools to train as actors. Abandoned by his mother—a prostitute who can no longer care for him—Xiao Douzi is brought to an opera school. With seeds of bitterness in his soul, the nine-year-old boy endures hardships and misery to learn and perfect his craft.

Sita Dulip has missed her flight out of Chicago. But instead of listening to garbled announcements in the airport, she discovers a method of bypassing the crowds at the desks, a nasty lunch, whimpering children, their punitive parents, and the blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor: she changes planes—literally. Sita discovers entire planes of existence and visits societies not found on Earth—bizarre societies that share similarities with Earth's cultures and sometimes open doors into the alien.

Why should we forgive? Why is it so difficult to forgive? How can we forgive? These questions and more are explored in a unique and easy-to-understand manner that shows us the power of forgiveness. This simple, down-to-earth guide explains the toxic, negative side effects of being unforgiving and the havoc it can play on our body, our relationships, and on our life. It also shows the physical and spiritual benefits of forgiving. It's time to choose forgiveness, develop a peaceful sense of well-being, and discover a quiet mind.

Years after her Chinese half-sister assails her with ghost stories set in the mysterious world of Yin, Olivia — a young woman from San Francisco — finds herself in China. Looking for a way to reconcile her past with dreams for her future, Olivia's American assumptions are shaken by Chinese ghosts, but she also finds reasons to hope.

A single pilot can fly the U.S. Air Force's powerful fighter plane, DreamStar - and he's a KGB mole. Captain Kenneth Francis James - a.k.a. Andrei Maraklov - has been ordered to steal DreamStar, an XF-34 fighter that has the frightening ability to respond to its pilot's thoughts and issue its own commands. It's up to Lieutenant Colonel Patrick McLanahan - the hero of Dale Brown's earlier thriller, Flight of the Old Dog - to remove the DreamStar threat.

Mid-19th century Britain—and America—come to life in this darkly humored classic by Charles Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit the elder is an old man whose death will result in a vast inheritance—but for whom is the question. Though his avaricious and sycophantic relatives hope to benefit from his demise, Martin has other plans. He raises an orphan, Mary Graham, who looks after him and draws an income—so long as the old man lives. But young Martin—named for his grandfather who has raised him along with Mary—falls in love with the orphan, which threatens to spoil the elder Chuzzlewit's plans.

The Wonderful O tells of a man named Black who despised the letter "O." He deleted it from his language and omitted it from his words. Opals, moonstones, owls, and oaks could not possibly be his items of choice. Instead, he preferred emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and maps since they contained not a single "O" among them.

A confrontation between the U.S and China threatens to erupt into all-out war. As the U.S. withdraws from the Philippines, China slips in to fill the power vacuum and lays claim to tiny, uninhabitable oil-rich islands in the South China Sea. The Philippines also claim the islands, so China's navy decimates a Philippine drilling platform when its occupants refuse to knuckle under. A shooting war ensues, bringing America into the fray. The U.S. Air Force counterattacks with specially equipped B-52s, B-1s, and B-2 Stealth bombers.

The evil Duke of cold Coffin Castle fancies he has frozen time by stopping all of the clocks. He is fearful that one day a Prince may come and win away the hand of his niece, beautiful Princess Saralinda—the only warm hand in the castle. Several suitors have tried to court the Princess, but the Duke assigns them impossible tasks to thwart that fate. A few days before Saralinda's twenty-first birthday, a mysterious prince arrives to complete a seemingly impossible task and free Saralinda from the clutches of her uncle.

As the world is on the brink of mutual destruction between the East and the West, Mary Ashley—a bright, young political science professor—is appointed U.S. Ambassador to an Iron Curtain country. Her husband dies in a suspicious car crash, and Mary becomes the target of a mysterious murder plot by unseen and powerful enemies. Thrust from her comforting life in Kansas, she finds herself lost amongst the political turmoil in a foreign country where she is seen as the enemy, and no one is to be trusted.

Hardboiled, cynical detective Philip Marlowe is back. Though married to a wealthy heiress, he is not content to lounge around the pool. It isn't long before Marlowe is mired in a gambling case involving bigamy, pornography, and murder in the posh desert community of Poodle Springs.

Millions of otherwise rational and mature men and women are driven to self-defeating, out-of-control behavior by intense, unfulfilled desire. Millions of others—targets of their obsession—find their lives turned upside down by unwanted attention, harassment, and worse. In Obsessive Love, acclaimed therapist Dr. Susan Forward offers crucial help to both obsessors and their targets. Using vivid case histories— drawn largely from her several decades of practice—Dr. Forward outlines the stages of obsessive love—from romance to rejection, from pursuit to revenge.