On Three Wheels from Moscow to Paris Chasing Napoleon’s Epic Fail

Lire Magazine Best Travel Book

Take four friends, put them on two Ural motorcycles (complete with sidecars), send them off on a 2,500-mile odyssey retracing history’s most famous retreat, add what some might consider an excessive amount of Vodka, and you’ve got Sylvain Tesson’s Berezina, a riotous and erudite book that combines travel, history, comradery, and adventure.

The retreat of Napoleon’s Grande Armée from Russia culminated, after a humiliating loss, with the crossing of the River Berezina, a word that henceforth became synonymous with unmitigated disaster for the French and national pride for the Russians. Two hundred years after this battle, Sylvain Tesson and his friends retrace Napoleon’s retreat, along the way reflecting on the lessons of history, the meaning of defeat, and the realities of contemporary Europe. A great read for history buffs and for anyone who has ever dreamed of an adventure that is out of the ordinary.

Between Parentheses collects most of the newspaper columns and articles Bolaño wrote during the last five years of his life, as well as the texts of some of his speeches and talks and a few scattered prologues. “Taken together,” as the editor Ignacio Echevarría remarks in his introduction, they provide “a personal cartography of the writer: the closest thing, among all his writings, to a kind of fragmented ‘autobiography.’” Bolaño’s career as a nonfiction writer began in 1998, the year he became famous overnight for The Savage Detectives; he was suddenly in demand for articles and speeches, and he took to this new vocation like a duck to water. Cantankerous, irreverent, and insufferably opinionated, Bolaño also could be tender (about his family and favorite places) as well as a fierce advocate for his heroes (Borges, Cortázar, Parra) and his favorite contemporaries, whose books he read assiduously and promoted generously. A demanding critic, he declares that in his “ideal literary kitchen there lives a warrior”: he argues for courage, and especially for bravery in the face of failure.Between Parentheses fully lives up to his own demands: “I ask for creativity from literary criticism, creativity at all levels.”

How will Russia redraw post-Soviet borders? In the wake of recent Russian expansionism, political risk expert Agnia Grigas illustrates how—for more than two decades—Moscow has consistently used its compatriots in bordering nations for its territorial ambitions. Demonstrating how this policy has been implemented in Ukraine and Georgia, Grigas provides cutting-edge analysis of the nature of Vladimir Putin's foreign policy and compatriot protection to warn that Moldova, Kazakhstan, the Baltic States, and others are also at risk.[Contain tables.]

The unprecedented mainstreaming of the global pornography industry is transforming the sexual politics of intimate and public life, popularizing new forms of hardcore misogyny, and strongly contributing to the sexualization of children. Yet, challenges to the industry continue to be dismissed as uncool, antisex, and moral panic. Unmasking the lies behind the selling of porn as entertainment, this book reveals the shocking truths of an industry that trades in violence, crime, and degradation while discussing topics such as racism in gay male porn, the use of animals in porn, child pornography, and BDSM (bondage, dominance, sadism, and masochism). Fearless and controversial, this examination will challenge the current view of pornography.[Best viewed with CoolReader.]

A young woman’s heady encounter with the new Russia, as she and the country thrill to their first taste of freedom

It is September 1991 and the dismantling of the Soviet Union is under way. In Voronezh, a provincial town famous for its loamy black earth, a sense of lightheartedness—part fear, part exhilaration—pervades. The people conquer uncertainty, hunger, and -20 degree temperatures by drinking huge quantities of black-market vodka and reveling in their new-found sexual freedom.

Black Earth City is Charlotte Hobson’s record of this tumultuous time. An irresistible guide, she brings us into the cramped, rundown Hostel No. 4, where international students and locals congregate. We meet Yakov, who blows half-a-million rubles on a taxi to see a girl in Minsk; Lola, who sleeps with her peers for a share of their dinner; Viktor, with his brutal memories of military service; and Mitya, Hobson’s wild and optimistic lover whose gradual disillusion—and dissolution—mirrors his country’s dramatic lurch from euphoria to despair.

At once loving and sharp-edged, tender and brave, Black Earth City reveals a world and a woman as they open up to life.

Блестящая биография Black Sabbath – такая же безумная, как жгучий темперамент легендарной группы, «жесткая» в неизбежном драматизме, как риффы Тони Айомми, крышесносная, как все то, что десятки раз заставляло великого и ужасного Оззи балансировать на волоске между жизнью и смертью. Всемирно известный музыкальный журналист Мик Уолл владеет редким даром передавать читателям уникальный стиль и настроение музыкантов, а также проводить серьезные исследования, гарантирующие самые подробные и правдивые факты из личной жизни участников. Книга содержит нецензурную брань.

Блестящая биография Black Sabbath — такая же безумная, как жгучий темперамент легендарной группы, «жесткая» в неизбежном драматизме, как риффы Тони Айомми, крышесносная, как все то, что десятки раз заставляло великого и ужасного Оззи балансировать на волоске между жизнью и смертью. Всемирно известный музыкальный журналист Мик Уолл владеет редким даром передавать читателям уникальный стиль и настроение музыкантов, а также проводить серьезные исследования, гарантирующие самые подробные и правдивые факты из личной жизни участников.Книга содержит нецензурную брань.

Ukraine has rebuilt itself over and over again in the last century, plagued by the same conflicts: corruption, poverty, substance abuse, ethnic clashes, and Russian aggression. Sophie Pinkham saw all this and more in the course of ten years working, traveling, and reporting in Ukraine and Russia, over a period that included the Maidan revolution of 2013–14, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and the ensuing war in eastern Ukraine.With a keen eye for the dark absurdities of post-Soviet society, Pinkham presents a dynamic account of contemporary Ukrainian life. She meets—among others—a charismatic doctor helping to smooth the transition to democracy even as he struggles with his own drug addiction, a Bolano-esque art gallerist prone to public nudity, and a Russian Jewish clarinetist agitating for Ukrainian liberation. These fascinating personalities, rendered in a bold, original style, deliver an indelible impression of a country on the brink.Black Square is necessary reading for anyone who wishes to learn not only the political roots of the current conflict in Ukraine but also the personal stories of the people who live it every day.

Charles Clover, award-winning journalist and former Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times, here analyses the idea of “Eurasianism,” a theory of Russian national identity based on ethnicity and geography. Clover traces Eurasianism’s origins in the writings of White Russian exiles in 1920s Europe, through Siberia’s Gulag archipelago in the 1950s, the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and up to its steady infiltration of the governing elite around Vladimir Putin. This eye-opening analysis pieces together the evidence for Eurasianism’s place at the heart of Kremlin thinking today and explores its impact on recent events, the annexation of Crimea, the rise in Russia of anti-Western paranoia and imperialist rhetoric, as well as Putin’s sometimes perplexing political actions and ambitions.Based on extensive research and dozens of interviews with Putin’s close advisers, this quietly explosive story will be essential reading for anyone concerned with Russia’s past century, and its future.

Meet Blackwater USA, the powerful private army that the U.S. government has quietly hired to operate in international war zones and on American soil. With its own military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, and twenty-thousand troops at the ready, Blackwater is the elite Praetorian Guard for the “global war on terror”—yet most people have never heard of it.It was the moment the war turned: On March 31, 2004, four Americans were ambushed and burned near their jeeps by an angry mob in the Sunni stronghold of Falluja. Their charred corpses were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River. The ensuing slaughter by U.S. troops would fuel the fierce Iraqi resistance that haunts occupation forces to this day. But these men were neither American military nor civilians. They were highly trained private soldiers sent to Iraq by a secretive mercenary company based in the wilderness of North Carolina.Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army is the unauthorized story of the epic rise of one of the most powerful and secretive forces to emerge from the U.S. military-industrial complex, hailed by the Bush administration as a revolution in military affairs, but considered by others as a dire threat to American democracy.• Winner of the George Polk Book Award• Alternet Best Book of the Year• Barnes & Noble one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2007• Amazon one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2007

Blowing Up Russia contains the allegations of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko against his former spymasters in Moscow which led to his being murdered in London in November 2006. In the book he and historian Yuri Felshtinsky detail how since 1999 the Russian secret service has been hatching a plot to return to the terror that was the hallmark of the KGB. Vividly written and based on Litvinenko’s 20 years of insider knowledge of Russian spy campaigns, Blowing Up Russia describes how the successor of the KGB fabricated terrorist attacks and launched a war. Writing about Litvinenko, the surviving co-author recounts how the banning of the book in Russia led to three earlier deaths.

Vividly written and based on Litvinenko's 20 year's of insider's knowledge of Russian spy campaigns and Yuri Felshtinsky's comprehensive academic knowledge, "Blowing up Russia" is a meticulous and gripping story how the secret organs of the Russian state are out of control and plotting a return to Russia as a state of terror. Writing about his co-author, Yuri Felshtinsky recounts how the banning of their book in Russia caused 3 related deaths.

In the summer of 1972, with a presidential crisis stirring in the United States and the cold war at a pivotal point, two men—the Soviet world chess champion Boris Spassky and his American challenger Bobby Fischer—met in the most notorious chess match of all time. Their showdown in Reykjavik, Iceland, held the world spellbound for two months with reports of psychological warfare, ultimatums, political intrigue, cliffhangers, and farce to rival a Marx Brothers film.Thirty years later, David Edmonds and John Eidinow, authors of the national bestseller Wittgenstein’s Poker, have set out to reexamine the story we recollect as the quintessential cold war clash between a lone American star and the Soviet chess machine—a machine that had delivered the world title to the Kremlin for decades. Drawing upon unpublished Soviet and U.S. records, the authors reconstruct the full and incredible saga, one far more poignant and layered than hitherto believed.Against the backdrop of superpower politics, the authors recount the careers and personalities of Boris Spassky, the product of Stalin’s imperium, and Bobby Fischer, a child of post-World War II America, an era of economic boom at home and communist containment abroad. The two men had nothing in common but their gift for chess, and the disparity of their outlook and values conditioned the struggle over the board.Then there was the match itself, which produced both creative masterpieces and some of the most improbable gaffes in chess history. And finally, there was the dramatic and protracted off-the-board battle—in corridors and foyers, in back rooms and hotel suites, in Moscow offices and in the White House.The authors chronicle how Fischer, a manipulative, dysfunctional genius, risked all to seize control of the contest as the organizers maneuvered frantically to save it—under the eyes of the world’s press. They can now tell the inside story of Moscow’s response, and the bitter tensions within the Soviet camp as the anxious and frustrated apparatchiks strove to prop up Boris Spassky, the most un-Soviet of their champions—fun-loving, sensitive, and a free spirit. Edmonds and Eidinow follow this careering, behind-the-scenes confrontation to its climax: a clash that displayed the cultural differences between the dynamic, media-savvy representatives of the West and the baffled, impotent Soviets. Try as they might, even the KGB couldn’t help.A mesmerizing narrative of brilliance and triumph, hubris and despair, Bobby Fischer Goes to War is a biting deconstruction of the Bobby Fischer myth, a nuanced study on the art of brinkmanship, and a revelatory cold war tragicomedy.

Brilliant, dazzling, never-before-collected nonfiction writings by "one of America's most daring and talented writers." (Los Angeles Times Book Review).Both Flesh and Not gathers fifteen of Wallace's seminal essays, all published in book form for the first time.Never has Wallace's seemingly endless curiosity been more evident than in this compilation of work spanning nearly 20 years of writing. Here, Wallace turns his critical eye with equal enthusiasm toward Roger Federer and Jorge Luis Borges; Terminator 2 and The Best of the Prose Poem; the nature of being a fiction writer and the quandary of defining the essay; the best underappreciated novels and the English language's most irksome misused words; and much more.Both Flesh and Not restores Wallace's essays as originally written, and it includes a selection from his personal vocabulary list, an assembly of unusual words and definitions.

Они – главная K-Pop группа, символ Южной Кореи, семеро парней, которые вывели корейскую музыку на мировой уровень. Более 11 млн подписчиков на официальном YouTube канале, более 7 млн в Facebook и 6,5 млн в Instagram, а российское фан-сообщество в ВК насчитывает более 400 тыс. человек.

Перед вами первая неофициальная биография группы, ставшей мировым феноменом! Из книги вы узнаете, как все начиналось, кто участники группы, как им удалось покорить мир и, конечно, какую роль сыграло во всем этом фан-сообщество ARMY.

Добро пожаловать в мир «пуленепробиваемых» BTS!

Как наша жизнь зависит от решений инженера? Почему рушатся одни мосты и веками стоят другие? Почему одни здания вызывают у нас дискомфорт, а другие, наоборот, – заставляют успокаиваться? Туго натянутые тросы над огромным мостом через реку, стальной скелет под стеклянной кожей высокой башни, трубопроводы и туннели, которые прячутся у нас под ногами, – все это и есть мир, который мы построили, и он многое говорит о человеческой изобретательности, о нашем взаимодействии друг с другом и с природой. Наша постоянно меняющаяся инженерная вселенная полна разных историй и тайн, и если вы захотите прислушаться и присмотреться, то вас ждет увлекательное приключение. Наверняка вы и не задумывались о том, что инженер может минимизировать трагедии в современном мире и спасти жизни людей? Быть может, вы не раз поднимали голову и, вглядываясь в силуэты зданий, пытались понять, как архитектура подстраивается под нашу жизнь? Станьте свидетелем исповеди инженера, бесконечно влюбленного в свою работу. Рома Агравал – инженер-строитель крупных международных проектов. Она оставила неизгладимый след в истории архитектуры, подарив миру множество произведений современного строительного искусства: от пешеходных мостов и скульптур до вокзалов и небоскребов, в число которых входит легендарный «Осколок».

The definitive book about ebooks, Burning the Page offers a revolutionary vision for the future of reading from an ebooks insider who was Amazon’s first technology evangelist and an early innovator on the Kindle team.The world of books is changing rapidly, and we’re witnessing a revolution that’s transforming both the reading experience and our culture as a whole. For many readers today, books are beloved objects, and ebooks signal a momentous change. What will happen to long-familiar friends from the world of print—bookshelves, author autographs, inscriptions, book covers, and even bookworms? Are they going to die out, or transform into something new? Are digital books the death knell for printed books, or will they, in fact, breathe new life into them? Will ebooks offer features that enhance the reading experience, or distract you from it? Will books evolve to the point where readers can physically become part of the story one day?A captivating chronicle, Burning the Page explores the ebook revolution’s striking impact on the very ways in which we create, discover, and share ideas. Once you see how ebooks came to be, you can look ahead into the future of reading, communication, and human culture—and how digital content will shape our digital lives.

Tahar Ben Jelloun’s By Fire, the first fictional account published on the Arab Spring, reimagines the true-life self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, an event that has been credited with setting off the Tunisian revolt. The novella depicts the days leading up to Bouazizi’s self-immolation. Ben Jelloun’s deliberate ambiguity about the location of the story, set in an unnamed Islamic country, allows the reader to imagine the experiences and frustrations of other young men who have endured physical violence and persecution in places beyond Tunisia. The tale begins and ends in fire, and the imagery of burning frames the political accounts in The Spark, Ben Jelloun’s nonfiction writings on the Tunisian events that provide insight into the despotic regimes that drove Bouazizi to such despair. Rita S. Nezami’s elegant translations and critical introduction provide the reader with multiple strategies for approaching these potent texts.

Существующий в настоящее время в мире подход к раздельному движению по транспортным коридорам автотранспорта, железнодорожного транспорта, проводки трубопроводов, систем связи, электроэнергии дорогостоящ, во многом неэффективен, часто отнимает у пользователей плодородные земли, загрязняет окружающую среду, использует устаревшие методы перемещения транспортных средств. Выявление недостатков этого подхода дало возможность разработать новые компактные дорожные конструкции, обеспечивающие безостановочное перемещение транспортных средств в едином объеме комбинированной транспортной свайной эстакады на основе стального каркаса за счет введения сквозных буферных полос для поездов и автомобилей и межэтажных переездов для автомобилей. Возможным стало также использование конструкции для навешивания на нее кабелей и трубопроводов. Аналогичная конструкция может быть использована в качестве путепровода. Эти и подобные им конструкции дадут возможность резко интенсифицировать товарооборот, явятся дополнительным рынком сбыта металлопроката и цемента, позволят освоить пустынные территории и существенно повысят мобильность и улучшат жизнь населения.