34 Results for : demimonde
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The Soft City (eBook, ePUB)
There is no rawer human experience than sex, and in a city as diverse as New York, sexual experiences come in many forms. In the pre-Giuliani days, temptation flooded Times Square on theater marquees and neon signs. Behind unmarked doors downtown, more adventurous experiences awaited for those in the know.In The Soft City, the ethnographer Terry Williams, with the help of accomplices and informants, ventures deep into the underground world of sex in New York. The book explores different aspects of the "perverse space" of the city: porn theaters, sex shops, peep shows, restroom cruising, sadomasochism clubs, swingers' events, and many more. Featuring field notes taken between 1975 and the present, The Soft City documents the ways that New Yorkers on the social periphery have thought about and pursued sex, whether for recreation or to make a living. It also presents an unconventional account of New York City's many transformations, showing how the soft city-its people and their unique character-evolved in response to official and social pressures. Featuring Williams's unmistakable portraits of the demimonde as well as the accounts of other ethnographers challenging themselves to dive into the city's hidden crannies, The Soft City is as irreproducible as it is provocative.- Shop: buecher
- Price: 17.95 EUR excl. shipping
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Chéri and the End of Chéri
Chéri and its sequel, The End of Chéri, mark Colette's finest achievements in their brilliant, subtle, and frank investigations of love and power. Set in the Parisian demimonde in the last days of the Belle Époque, Chéri tells the story of Léa, a courtesan at the end of a successful career, and her lover, the beautiful but emotionally opaque Chéri. Chéri will soon enter into an arranged marriage, ending their six-year affair, which-they will each realize too late-has been the one real love of their lives. The End of Chéri picks up their story in the aftermath of the First World War. Chéri, now a decorated soldier, has returned from the trenches to a changed world. Emotionally estranged from his independent and unfaithful wife, a psychically wounded Chéri begins an inexorable descent-one that leads him back to a stunning encounter with Léa. As the acclaimed writer and translator Lydia Davis puts it in an illuminating foreword, Rachel Careau's "brilliantly ingenious, close new translation" reveals Chéri and The End of Chéri as "the strangest of love stories." Colette skillfully portrays her characters' shifting inner lives and desires amid a clear-eyed depiction of interpersonal power dynamics. Careau's lean, attentive translation restores to these classic novels their taut, remarkably modern style-the essence of Colette's genius.- Shop: buecher
- Price: 23.99 EUR excl. shipping
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The Magician's Land: A Novel , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 987min
The stunning conclusion to the New York Times best-selling Magicians trilogy. Quentin Coldwater has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can't hide from his past, and it's not long before it comes looking for him. Along with Plum, a brilliant young undergraduate with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of grey magic and desperate characters. But all roads lead back to Fillory, and his new life takes him to old haunts, like Antarctica and the Netherlands, and buried secrets, and old friends he thought were lost forever. He uncovers the key to a sorcerous masterwork, a spell that could create magical utopia, a new Fillory - but casting it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring Earth and Fillory crashing together. To save them he will have to risk sacrificing everything. The Magician's Land is an intricate thriller, a fantastical epic and an epic of love and redemption that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnificent climax, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy. It's the story of a boy becoming a man, an apprentice becoming a master, and a broken land finally becoming whole. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Mark Bramhall. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/peng/002376/bk_peng_002376_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.- Shop: Audible
- Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping
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Roman Games: A Plinius Secundus Mystery , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 514min
Rome, September A.D. 96. When the body of Sextus Verpa, a notorious senatorial informer and libertine, is found stabbed to death in his bedroom, his slaves are suspected. Pliny, a very respectable young senator and lawyer, is ordered by the emperor Domitian to investigate. However, the Ludi Romani, “the Roman Games”, have just begun, and for the next 15 days the law courts are in recess. If Pliny can’t identify the murderer in that time, Verpa’s entire slave household will be burned alive in the arena. Pliny teams up with Martial, a starving author of bawdy verses and denizen of the Roman demimonde. Pooling their respective talents, they unravel a plot that involves Jewish and Christian “atheists”, exotic Egyptian cultists, and a missing horoscope that forecasts the emperor’s death. Their investigation leads them into the heart of the palace, where no one is safe from the paranoid Domitian. As the deadline approaches, Pliny struggles with the painful dilemma of a good man who is forced to serve a brutal regime - a situation familiar in our own age as well. The novel provides an intimate glimpse into the palaces and tenements, bedrooms and brothels of imperial Rome’s most opulent and decadent age. Bruce Macbain holds a B.A. in classics from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in ancient history from the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught Greek and Roman history at Vanderbilt University and Boston University. His special interest is religion in the Roman Empire. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Bronson Pinchot. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/blak/003992/bk_blak_003992_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.- Shop: Audible
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The Courtesan and the Gigolo: The Murders in the Rue Montaigne and the Dark Side of Empire in Nineteenth-Century Paris , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 679min
The intrigue began with a triple homicide in a luxury apartment building just steps from the Champs-Elyseés, in March 1887. A high-class prostitute and two others, one of them a child, had been stabbed to death - the latest in a string of unsolved murders targeting women of the Parisian demimonde. Newspapers eagerly reported the lurid details, and when the police arrested Enrico Pranzini, a charismatic and handsome Egyptian migrant, the story became an international sensation. As the case descended into scandal and papers fanned the flames of anti-immigrant politics, the investigation became thoroughly enmeshed with the crisis-driven political climate of the French Third Republic and the rise of xenophobic right-wing movements. Aaron Freundschuh's account of the "Pranzini Affair" recreates not just the intricacies of the investigation and the raucous courtroom trial, but also the jockeying for status among rival players - reporters, police detectives, doctors, and magistrates - who all stood to gain professional advantage and prestige. Pranzini's case provides a window into a transformational decade for the history of immigration, nationalism, and empire in France. Published by Stanford University Press. "An intriguing tale, told with insight...a good read about the great city in a time of transition." - John Merriman Yale University "This well-reasoned analysis is eminently readable and accessible for those with absolutely no background in the period." - Publishers Weekly "A fascinating history of late nineteenth-century Paris as it was becoming a cosmopolitan seat of a transnational empire. Its parallels with our own time are chilling." - Tyler Stovall, University of California ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: John Burlinson. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/104702/bk_acx0_104702_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.- Shop: Audible
- Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping
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36 Views of Mount Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 599min
In 1980 Cathy N. Davidson traveled to Japan to teach English at a leading all-women’s university. It was the first of many journeys and the beginning of a deep and abiding fascination. In this extraordinary book, Davidson depicts a series of intimate moments and small epiphanies that together make up a panoramic view of Japan. With wit, candor, and a lover’s keen eye, she tells captivating stories - from that of a Buddhist funeral laden with ritual to an exhilarating evening spent touring the “Floating World,” the sensual demimonde in which salaryman meets geisha and the normal rules are suspended. On a remote island inhabited by one of the last matriarchal societies in the world, a disconcertingly down-to-earth priestess leads her to the heart of a sacred grove. And she spends a few unforgettable weeks in a quasi-Victorian residence called the Practice House, where, until recently, Japanese women were taught American customs so that they would make proper wives for husbands who might be stationed abroad. In an afterword new to this edition, Davidson tells of a poignant trip back to Japan in 2005 to visit friends who had remade their lives after the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995, which had devastated the city of Kobe, as well as the small town where Davidson had lived and the university where she taught. 36 Views of Mount Fuji not only transforms our image of Japan, it offers a stirring look at the very nature of culture and identity. Often funny, sometimes liltingly sad, it is as intimate and irresistible as a long-awaited letter from a good friend. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Alexandra Bailey. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/adbl/011830/bk_adbl_011830_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.- Shop: Audible
- Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping
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The Year's Top Short SF Novels 7 , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 940min
Short novels are movie-length narratives that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This audio collection, nearly 16 hours long, presents the best-of-the-best science fiction novellas published in 2016 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form of storytelling. In "Wyatt Earp 2.0", by Wil McCarthy, a rough and tumble Martian mining town reconstructs Wyatt Earp to restore order. In "The Charge and the Storm", by An Owomoyela, an uneasy co-existence between human refugees from a crashed spaceship and the aliens who saved them is threatened by human dissidents. In "Lazy Dog Out", by Suzanne Palmer, a spaceship pilot becomes embroiled in a sinister conspiracy that threatens a space station's way of life and everything she holds dear. In "The Iron Tactician", by Alastair Reynolds, Merlin hunts the galaxy for a superweapon powerful enough to destroy the berserker-like robots called Huskers. "Einstein's Shadow", by Allen M. Steele, is an alternate history in which an American detective becomes Albert Einstein's bodyguard as the physicist flees the Nazis onboard an airplane the size of an ocean liner. In "The Vanishing Kind", by Lavie Tidhar, set in post-World War II London where Nazi Germany won the war, a lovesick, former German soldier searches for an old flame hoping to rekindle a romance in this cold, stark world. Finally, in "The Metal Demimonde", by Nick Wolven, amidst a world dominated by automation, a carney passionate about her carnival ride has a fling with a jobless boy who rages against those machines. This unabridged collection was edited by Allan Kaster and read by Tom Dheere, Nancy Linari, and Wil McCarthy. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Tom Dheere, Nancy Linari, Wil McCarthy. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/atxt/000045/bk_atxt_000045_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.- Shop: Audible
- Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping
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A Night at the Amazon’s , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 443min
Settle in for the LGBTQ+ Midnight in Paris. From European master storyteller Francesco Rapazzini comes this raucous, upstairs/downstairs comedy of manners set in Left Bank Paris during the Jazz Age.It's Halloween night, when the ghost of bygone poet Renée Vivien haunts the legendary premises at 20 Rue Jacob. Natalie Clifford Barney, the seductive American writer and saloniste, known to all as the Amazon, has invited the who's who of literary Paris 1926 to her 50th birthday party. Never mind that half the guest list is comprised of Natalie's current lovers and exes. With the household staff in disarray, leaving backstairs operations hanging by a thread, the celebrity guests begin to arrive and vie for Natalie's attention. It's a star-studded cast of sharp-tongued characters that includes princes, paupers, and denizens of the demimonde alongside well-known writers of the day like the prickly journalists Colette, Janet Flanner, and Elisabeth de Gramont; needy novelists Djuna Barnes, Gertrude Stein, and Rachilde; neurotic poet Lucie Delarue-Mardrus; and best-selling authors of popular nonfiction like Aurel and Paul Géraldy.They spar with editors and publishers alongside famous painters Marie Laurencin and Romaine Brooks, who square off against critics and collectors. When the surrealist bête-noir René Crevel makes his entrance, sparks begin to fly in the salon. Screeches come from the kitchen, there's a brawl going on upstairs, and somebody's locked themselves in the loo. When Romaine Brooks' sexy birthday present hurls Natalie into a midlife crisis, will it all end in tears in the garden on the steps of her famous Greek temple? Those on Natalie Barney's guest list of geniuses know there's only one thing you can be sure of tonight: Hold on to your romantic partners and political convictions - or go down trying! ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Suzanne Stroh. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/218044/bk_acx0_218044_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.- Shop: Audible
- Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping
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The Museum of Innocence , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 1233min
It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn't know it. So begins the new novel, his first since winning the Nobel Prize, from the universally acclaimed author of Snow and My Name Is Red. It is 1975, a perfect spring in Istanbul. Kemal, scion of one of the city's wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeoisie - a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, restaurant rituals, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay - until finally he breaks off his engagement to Sibel. But his resolve comes too late. For eight years Kemal will find excuses to visit another Istanbul, that of the impoverished backstreets where Füsun, her heart now hardened, lives with her parents, and where Kemal discovers the consolations of middle-class life. His obsessive love will also take him to the demimonde of Istanbul film circles, a scene of seedy bars, run-down hotels, and small men with big dreams doomed to failure. In his feckless pursuit, Kemal becomes a compulsive collector of objects that chronicle his lovelorn progress and his afflicted heart's reactions: anger and impatience, remorse and humiliation, and daydreams that transform Istanbul into a cityscape of signs and specters of his beloved, from whom he can now extract only meaningful glances and stolen kisses in cars, movie houses, and shadowy corners of parks. A last change to realize his dream will come to an awful end before Kemal discovers that all he finally can possess, certainly and eternally, is the museum he has created of his collection, this map of a society's manners and mores, and of one man's broken heart. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: John Lee. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/rand/002063/bk_rand_002063_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.- Shop: Audible
- Price: 9.95 EUR excl. shipping
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