Shopping Search

Who first introduced Manolo Blahnik to Americans: Vogue, or a canny buyer at Bendel’s? Where under one roof can shoppers find Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Prada, and Hermès? Here are the great retail palaces—from Harrods to Barneys to Galeries Lafayette—where shoppers spend their day in opulent settings, drifting from cosmetics to shoes, stopping for lunch, the hairdresser, and endless temptations along the way. With photographs and ephemera from all over the world, this lavish book goes beyond in-store extravaganzas to the history of these consumer institutions, the personalities behind them, their vast range of goods, unique architecture, advertising, and associated sociological trends. With perfumed air and chandeliers, department stores have lured millions for over a century with that enticing, dizzying sense that no matter how much you already have, there is always more.Praise for The World of Department Stores:“Since my visits as a child to La Opera Department Store in Santo Domingo, I have believed that the best department stores are merchants not of clothing or shoes or cosmetics but of dreams. Whitaker’s book is a remarkable around-the-world look at these dream factories. It is an invaluable resource to anyone interested in the business of retailing and to shoppers everywhere.”—Oscar de la Renta “The World of Department Stores is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the foundations of the urban experience in the West and the department store as the ultimate expression of the needs of the rising middle class and its tastes.” ­—Leonard Lauder, Chairman Emeritus, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.   “I have nothing but good memories about the many department stores that played an important part in my business, [and] I warmly welcome the publication of this wonderful and unique book on department stores throughout the world.” —Hubert de Givenchy "The birth of the department store in the late 19th century brought everything glamorous together under one roof—from inviting, intelligent architecture and design to the latest fashions. Jan Whitaker's The World of Department Stores looks back to the biggest and brightest shops— including the belle epoque splendor of Paris's Bon Marché, the block-long, palatial GUM in Moscow; and the always outrageous holiday windows at Barneys New York." –Elle Décor "In photos and art, this visual feast details the extraordinary history of the world's "great retail palaces" from the past century. With authoritative and informative text." -Sacramento Bee "Illustrated with photos of window displays, catalog covers and the Gilded Age architecture of institutions from Philadelphia’s long-gone Wanamaker’s to Paris’s still-strong La Samaritaine, The World of Department Stores makes a worthwhile gift for the history, sociology or shopping buff on your list. " -Washington Post

"There are universal truths about chairing a department of medicine, and in this remarkably insightful book, Fritts has covered most of them. Moreover, he obviously did a good deal of thinking about what a chair does and how he or she does it. Whether the subject is undergraduate (medical student) education, curriculum construction, house staff training, biomedical research, departmental governance, patient care, community and VA hospital affiliations, departmental relationships with outside organizations, intradepartmental communication, or one of many other topics, the author covers it in a straightforward and easy-to-understand fashion. He also provides some unique insights into the chair's problems and offers some interesting solutions."—Robert G. Petersdorf, M.D., from the foreword"Many physicians, at one time or another, " writes Harry W. Fritts, Jr., M.D., "think they might like to lead a clinical department in a medical school. They know clinical chairs command respect and influence the lives of many people: students, interns, residents, faculty members, and practitioners. Yet few of these physicians have had an opportunity to learn about the day-to-day life of a clinical chair."In this practical and concise how-to guide for physicians, Fritts describes the most important responsibilities and concerns of clinical department chairs. Fritts begins by explaining how clinical departments are organized. He explores what it means to be a leader or manager, and how to deal with the many conflicting goals of clinical departments. He discusses projects and planning; committees and democracy; managing money; departmental quality and departmental reviews; and legal issues. Throughout, Fritts draws on the wisdom of ideas and thinkers ranging from Peter Drucker to René Descartes, from W. Edwards Deming's "total quality management" to Machiavelli's The Prince. This book will be of interest to medical department faculty, physicians, and medical students.

In Department of Temporal Adjustment, a fresh, funny, wisecracking novel by Veronica R. Tabares, chick lit makes a pact with science fiction and seals it with a kiss. In the spirit of being a doting wife and good mother, Vanessa spends her time directing traffic, kissing bruises, and diverting disasters such as the peer pressure her daughter Becca will feel if her friends decide she’s smart. And Becca’s just the tip of the iceberg that includes two more girls, Vanessa’s husband Tony, and her college education floating on top. Still, she and Tony are committed to being there for their girls, so when they decide to return to the ivory halls of academia, they make sure that one or the other is always at home for the kids. The drawback is that Vanessa is often on campus late at night, so when she inadvertently steps through a time portal at the school’s lab, there aren’t any witnesses. Transported to the future, this super mom is forced to become a super hero in order to save herself—and the world.

In Department of Temporal Adjustment, a fresh, funny, wisecracking novel by Veronica R. Tabares, chick lit makes a pact with science fiction and seals it with a kiss. In the spirit of being a doting wife and good mother, Vanessa spends her time directing traffic, kissing bruises, and diverting disasters such as the peer pressure her daughter Becca will feel if her friends decide she's smart. And Becca's just the tip of the iceberg that includes two more girls, Vanessa's husband Tony, and her college education floating on top. Still, she and Tony are committed to being there for their girls, so when they decide to return to the ivory halls of academia, they make sure that one or the other is always at home for the kids. The drawback is that Vanessa is often on campus late at night, so when she inadvertently steps through a time portal at the school's lab, there aren't any witnesses. Transported to the future, this super mom is forced to become a super hero in order to save herself-and the world.

The history of policing in the United States is generally divided into three eras. The first, the political era, took place in St. Louis between 1861, when the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department was established, and 1905 1906, when a reform governor thrust St. Louis into the reform/progressive era. This book examines the beginnings of the political era in St. Louis, the reasons for the police department s establishment, and the inner workings of the department during that era. It not only is the story of the early police department but also integrates that story with the history of St. Louis and even the state of Missouri. In the late 1800s, the city government of St. Louis had not yet evolved into what we know today. The most modern invention available to the police department was the telegraph system. At one time or another the lack of the appropriate city departments turned police officers into sanitation officers; street, building, privy, dairy, and meat inspectors; dogcatchers; census takers; and enforcers of the city tax codes and licensing laws. Most of these duties dwindled as the twentieth century dawned and city government took over almost all responsibilities but law enforcement. This book is the history of a police department that was born at the beginning of the Civil War and, as the political era ended in St. Louis, was policing the fourth-largest city in the United States.

In an era when much of what passes for debate is merely moral posturing--traditional family values versus the cultural elite, free speech versus censorship--or reflexive name-calling--the terms "liberal" and "politically correct, " are used with as much dismissive scorn by the right as "reactionary" and "fascist" are by the left--Stanley Fish would seem an unlikely lightning rod for controversy. A renowned scholar of Milton, head of the English Department of Duke University, Fish has emerged as a brilliantly original critic of the culture at large, praised and pilloried as a vigorous debunker of the pieties of both the left and right. His mission is not to win the cultural wars that preoccupy the nation's attention, but rather to redefine the terms of battle. In There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, Fish takes aim at the ideological gridlock paralyzing academic and political exchange in the nineties. In his witty, accessible dissections of the swirling controversies over multiculturalism, affirmative action, canon revision, hate speech, and legal reform, he neatly eviscerates both the conservatives' claim to possession of timeless, transcendent values (the timeless transcendence of which they themselves have conveniently identified), and the intellectual left's icons of equality, tolerance, and non-discrimination. He argues that while conservative ideologues and liberal stalwarts might disagree vehemently on what is essential to a culture, or to a curriculum, both mistakenly believe that what is essential can be identified apart from the accidental circumstances (of time and history) to which the essential is ritually opposed. In the book's first section, which includes the five essays written for Fish's celebrated debates with Dinesh D'Souza (the author and former Reagan White House policy analyst), Fish turns his attention to the neoconservative backlash. In his introduction, Fish writes, "Terms that come to us wearing the label 'apolitical'--'common values', 'fairness', 'merit', 'color blind', 'free speech', 'reason'--are in fact the ideologically charged constructions of a decidedly political agenda. I make the point not in order to level an accusation, but to remove the sting of accusation from the world 'politics' and redefine it as a synonym for what everyone inevitably does." Fish maintains that the debate over political correctness is an artificial one, because it is simply not possible for any party or individual to occupy a position above or beyond politics. Regarding the controversy over the revision of the college curriculum, Fish argues that the point is not to try to insist that inclusion of ethnic and gender studies is not a political decision, but "to point out that any alternative curriculum--say a diet of exclusively Western or European texts--would be no less politically invested." In Part Two, Fish follows the implications of his arguments to a surprising rejection of the optimistic claims of the intellectual left that awareness of the historical roots of our beliefs and biases can allow us, as individuals or as a society, to escape or transcend them. Specifically, he turns to the movement for reform of legal studies, and insists that a dream of a legal culture in which no one's values are slighted or declared peripheral can no more be realized than the dream of a concept of fairness that answers to everyone's notions of equality and jsutice, or a yardstick of merit that is true to everyone's notions of worth and substance. Similarly, he argues that attempts to politicize the study of literature are ultimately misguided, because recharacterizations of literary works have absolutely no impact on the mainstream of political life. He concludes his critique of the academy with "The Unbearable Ugliness of Volvos, " an extraordinary look at some of the more puzzing, if not out-and-out masochistic, characteristics of a life in academia. Penetrating, fearless, and brilliantly argued, There's No Such Thing as Free Sp

Ask anyone who shopped at Robeson s Department Store, and they ll tell you that it was a special place, a true relic of the past. Started by a young, ambitious man named Frank Kern ( F. K. ) Robeson in 1874 as a small dry goods store, Robeson s became an iconic shopping center in downstate Illinois. F. K. passed this legacy on to his son, Frank Robeson, Jr. ( Roby ), who took his father s lessons to heart: Never compromise your sense of right and wrong; never doubt your own convictions; work hard; live life to the fullest; fear nothing and no one; and perhaps most importantly, always give respect and offer help to those who need it. Roby s son, Kyle, furthered the tradition of civic-minded service instilled in him by his father and grandfather. With impressive business instincts and a passion for hard work, Kyle ran the store with gusto and creativity and expanded the family business far beyond its walls. On December 15, 1989, Kyle Robeson announced that Robeson s Department Store would soon close its doors. After 116 years of retail service, a chapter of Illinois retail history came to an end. Remembering Robeson*s takes a look back at the rich history of this retail icon and the decades of hard-working people who made the dream possible.

"There are universal truths about chairing a department of medicine, and in this remarkably insightful book, Fritts has covered most of them. Moreover, he obviously did a good deal of thinking about what a chair does and how he or she does it. Whether the subject is undergraduate (medical student) education, curriculum construction, house staff training, biomedical research, departmental governance, patient care, community and VA hospital affiliations, departmental relationships with outside organizations, intradepartmental communication, or one of many other topics, the author covers it in a straightforward and easy-to-understand fashion. He also provides some unique insights into the chair's problems and offers some interesting solutions."—Robert G. Petersdorf, M.D., from the foreword"Many physicians, at one time or another, " writes Harry W. Fritts, Jr., M.D., "think they might like to lead a clinical department in a medical school. They know clinical chairs command respect and influence the lives of many people: students, interns, residents, faculty members, and practitioners. Yet few of these physicians have had an opportunity to learn about the day-to-day life of a clinical chair."In this practical and concise how-to guide for physicians, Fritts describes the most important responsibilities and concerns of clinical department chairs. Fritts begins by explaining how clinical departments are organized. He explores what it means to be a leader or manager, and how to deal with the many conflicting goals of clinical departments. He discusses projects and planning; committees and democracy; managing money; departmental quality and departmental reviews; and legal issues. Throughout, Fritts draws on the wisdom of ideas and thinkers ranging from Peter Drucker to René Descartes, from W. Edwards Deming's "total quality management" to Machiavelli's The Prince. This book will be of interest to medical department faculty, physicians, and medical students.

Here is everything you ever wanted to know about community service. Ronald W. Poplau explores the major shortcomings of today's education and introduces community service as a viable means to correct them. The book is based on 11 years of a program that the State of Kansas enacted into law. The U.S. State Department later sent Poplau to Russia to share this program with Russian schools, and at any one time, one-fourth of the author's school, Shawnee Mission Northwest High School, is enrolled in the program. There is a waiting list to get in the class, and this book can show you how to create the same phenomenon in your school. This book: examines how community service affects a student's person, explores why community service is needed now in all of our schools, documents with student testimonials how service not only changes them but also the community. Poplau contends that while technology is isolating all of us, and especially young students, it cannot be forgotten that human beings were meant to bond with one another. Students need to become involved with their fellow man, and with this in mind, the mission statement and title of the book is a simple one: The Doer of Good Becomes Good. For teachers and student activity directors.

The history of policing in the United States is generally divided into three eras. The first, the political era, took place in St. Louis between 1861, when the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department was established, and 1905 1906, when a reform governor thrust St. Louis into the reform/progressive era. This book examines the beginnings of the political era in St. Louis, the reasons for the police department s establishment, and the inner workings of the department during that era. It not only is the story of the early police department but also integrates that story with the history of St. Louis and even the state of Missouri. In the late 1800s, the city government of St. Louis had not yet evolved into what we know today. The most modern invention available to the police department was the telegraph system. At one time or another the lack of the appropriate city departments turned police officers into sanitation officers; street, building, privy, dairy, and meat inspectors; dogcatchers; census takers; and enforcers of the city tax codes and licensing laws. Most of these duties dwindled as the twentieth century dawned and city government took over almost all responsibilities but law enforcement. This book is the history of a police department that was born at the beginning of the Civil War and, as the political era ended in St. Louis, was policing the fourth-largest city in the United States.

A new, preventive approach to reducing crime from the renowned expert on policing. Police departments across the country have begun to embrace a new approach to law enforcement based on accountability to citizens, better leadership, and collaboration with the communities they serve. Standing in marked contrast to "Ashcroft policing, " these new strategies are exactly what police need both to make the streets of our cities and towns safer and to prevent terrorism. David Harris, law professor and nationally known expert on police profiling, has spent the last five years visiting police forces and collecting examples of smart, progressive law enforcement. Drawing on successful strategies currently in use in Detroit, Boston, San Diego, and other cities and towns all over the country, all of which have reduced crime without infringing on civil rights, Harris here unveils the concept of "preventive policing, " a term he has coined to meld these strategies into a new vision for good cops. From preventive policing's founding principles to its real-world applications, Harris shows that the solutions to reducing crime, fighting terror, and preserving civil liberties are within reach —if only the Department of Justice will listen.

HessÂ’s Department Store was a unique department store that with a combination of style and showmanship became a shopping legend for almost 100 years. HessÂ’s was founded in 1897 in Allentown by brothers Max and Charles Hess. From its start as a dry goods store, it became the downtown heart of PennsylvaniaÂ’s third-largest city for much of the 20th century. Its reputation was further enhanced by Max HessÂ’s son, a showman for merchandising. Through a series of photographs, many from private collections and seldom seen, HessÂ’s Department Store brings the glory days of HessÂ’s to life again.

Beginning in the fall of 1999, a number of Internet-related businesses and financial institutions in the United States suffered computer intrusions or "hacks" that originated from Russia. The hackers gained control of the victims' computers, copied and stole private data that included credit card information, and threatened to publish or use the stolen credit cards or inflict damage on the compromised computers unless the victims paid money or gave the hackers a job. Some of the companies gave in and paid off the hackers. Some decided not to. The hackers responded by shutting down parts of their networks and using stolen credit card numbers to order thousands of dollars' worth of computer equipment. THE LURE is the true, riveting story of how these Russian hackers, who bragged that the laws in their country offered them no threat, and who mocked the inability of the FBI to catch them, were caught by an FBI lure designed to appeal to their egos and their greed. The story of the sting operation and subsequent trial is told for the first time here by the Department of Justice's attorney for the prosecution. This fascinating story reads like a crime thriller, but also offers a wealth of information that can be used by IT professionals, business managers, lawyers, and academics who wish to learn how to protect systems from abuse, and who want to respond appropriately to network incidents. It also provides insight into the hacker's world and explains how their own words and actions were used against them in a court of law; the evidence provided is in the raw, uncensored words of the hackers themselves. This is a multi-layered true crime story, a real-life law and order story that explains how hackers and computer thieves operate, how the FBI takes them down, and how the Department of Justice prosecutes them in the courtroom. Amazon Exclusive: Q&A with Author Steve Schroeder Amazon.com: Steve Schroeder, author of The Lure Why did you write The Lure? Steve Schroeder: I wrote The Lure primarily because it is a great story. Had the events not actually happened, they would make the basis for a good novel. I worked hard to keep the language accessible so that non-techies could enjoy it. In addition, when the case was prosecuted, it generated a lot of publicity--most of it positive--and my colleagues and I who worked on it began to get invitations to speak about the investigation and trial. We appeared at universities and security conferences throughout the nation, and two of us, Phil Attfield and I, were even invited to Taipei to make presentations. Each time that we did so, the attendees would pester us for materials to use in their own training programs. There is, it seems, a dearth of real-world computer crime materials available for training. The reason for the short supply of real logs and other forensic evidence is simple. Computer intrusion cases are complex, and most of them are settled by means of a guilty plea prior to trial, as was the case in the [Kevin] Mitnick prosecution. Under Federal privacy laws governing criminal investigative files, those files are protected from public disclosure unless they are admitted into evidence at a trial or other court proceeding. Consequently, the logs and other forensic evidence in the vast majority of cases are not available for use in training and classroom settings. This book is an effort, among other things, to make much information available. Amazon.com: Your career as a prosecutor began before cybercrime became well known. What was it like to make the move into dealing with this new kind of crime? Steve Schroeder: I believe that learning is a lifelong process that helps to keep one engaged. About two-thirds of the way through my career, I had an opportunity to redefine myself when the agencies with which I was working on two major fraud cases began using databases to organize

As an active surgeon and former department chairman, Dr. Paul A. Ruggieri has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of his profession. In Confessions of a Surgeon, he pushes open the doors of the O.R. and reveals the inscrutable place where lives are improved, saved, and sometimes lost. He shares the successes, failures, remarkable advances, and camaraderie that make it exciting. He uncovers the truth about the abusive, exhaustive training and the arduous devotion of his old-school education. He explores the twenty-four-hour challenges that come from patients and their loved ones; the ethics of saving the lives of repugnant criminals; the hot-button issues of healthcare, lawsuits, and reimbursements; and the true cost of running a private practice. And he explains the influence of the "white coat code of silence" and why patients may never know what really transpires during surgery. Ultimately, Dr. Ruggieri lays bare an occupation that to most is as mysterious and unfamiliar as it is misunderstood. His account is passionate, illuminating, and often shocking-an eye-opening, never- before-seen look at real life, and death, in the O.R.

DramaCharacters: 2 male, 3 femaleThe Good Counselor is a new drama about a chosen son's quest for truth. Vincent, a bright young lawyer in the Public Defender department has been assigned to defend a young woman accused of killing her three-week-old son. Hounded by his community and haunted by his past, Vincent struggles to defend both neglectful mothers: his client, and his own. A thought-provoking and beautifully written play, The Good Counselor literally prompts the audience to serve as the jury in determining what it means to be a good parent.Winner! 2010 Premiere Stages Play Festival and the 2010 Jerry Kaufman Award in Playwriting"Unsettling drama...Ms. Grant doesn't fall into the trap of oversimplifying her characters or seeing only one side of a relationship...this is a sign of Ms. Grant's ingenuity as a playwright." -The New York Times "Playwright Kathryn Grant is a promising talent with a sharp ear for dialogue...The Good Counselor is engrossing, thoughtful and thought-provoking, and worthy of our attention." -Talkin' Broadway"A searing new play... provides a vivid picture of life's unrelenting hardness, as these people seek small pleasures in their lives, despite their struggles." -NJ.com

In an era when much of what passes for debate is merely moral posturing--traditional family values versus the cultural elite, free speech versus censorship--or reflexive name-calling--the terms "liberal" and "politically correct, " are used with as much dismissive scorn by the right as "reactionary" and "fascist" are by the left--Stanley Fish would seem an unlikely lightning rod for controversy. A renowned scholar of Milton, head of the English Department of Duke University, Fish has emerged as a brilliantly original critic of the culture at large, praised and pilloried as a vigorous debunker of the pieties of both the left and right. His mission is not to win the cultural wars that preoccupy the nation's attention, but rather to redefine the terms of battle. In There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, Fish takes aim at the ideological gridlock paralyzing academic and political exchange in the nineties. In his witty, accessible dissections of the swirling controversies over multiculturalism, affirmative action, canon revision, hate speech, and legal reform, he neatly eviscerates both the conservatives' claim to possession of timeless, transcendent values (the timeless transcendence of which they themselves have conveniently identified), and the intellectual left's icons of equality, tolerance, and non-discrimination. He argues that while conservative ideologues and liberal stalwarts might disagree vehemently on what is essential to a culture, or to a curriculum, both mistakenly believe that what is essential can be identified apart from the accidental circumstances (of time and history) to which the essential is ritually opposed. In the book's first section, which includes the five essays written for Fish's celebrated debates with Dinesh D'Souza (the author and former Reagan White House policy analyst), Fish turns his attention to the neoconservative backlash. In his introduction, Fish writes, "Terms that come to us wearing the label 'apolitical'--'common values', 'fairness', 'merit', 'color blind', 'free speech', 'reason'--are in fact the ideologically charged constructions of a decidedly political agenda. I make the point not in order to level an accusation, but to remove the sting of accusation from the world 'politics' and redefine it as a synonym for what everyone inevitably does." Fish maintains that the debate over political correctness is an artificial one, because it is simply not possible for any party or individual to occupy a position above or beyond politics. Regarding the controversy over the revision of the college curriculum, Fish argues that the point is not to try to insist that inclusion of ethnic and gender studies is not a political decision, but "to point out that any alternative curriculum--say a diet of exclusively Western or European texts--would be no less politically invested." In Part Two, Fish follows the implications of his arguments to a surprising rejection of the optimistic claims of the intellectual left that awareness of the historical roots of our beliefs and biases can allow us, as individuals or as a society, to escape or transcend them. Specifically, he turns to the movement for reform of legal studies, and insists that a dream of a legal culture in which no one's values are slighted or declared peripheral can no more be realized than the dream of a concept of fairness that answers to everyone's notions of equality and jsutice, or a yardstick of merit that is true to everyone's notions of worth and substance. Similarly, he argues that attempts to politicize the study of literature are ultimately misguided, because recharacterizations of literary works have absolutely no impact on the mainstream of political life. He concludes his critique of the academy with "The Unbearable Ugliness of Volvos, " an extraordinary look at some of the more puzzing, if not out-and-out masochistic, characteristics of a life in academia. Penetrating, fearless, and brilliantly argued, There's No Such Thing as Free Sp

      Downtown department stores were once the heart and soul of America’s pulsing Broadways and Main Streets. With names such as City of Paris, Penn Traffic, The Maze, Maison Blanche, or The Popular, they suggested spheres far beyond mundane shopping. Nicknames reflected the affection customers felt for their favorites, whether Woodie’s, Wanny’s, Stek’s, O.T.’s, Herp’s, or Bam’s.      The history of downtown department stores is as fascinating as their names and as diverse as their merchandise. Their stories encompass many themes: the rise of decorative design, new career paths for women, the growth of consumerism, and the technological ingenuity of escalators and pneumatic tubes. Just as the big stores made up their own small universes, their stories are microcosmic narratives of American culture and society.      The big stores were much more than mere businesses. They were local institutions where shoppers could listen to concerts, see fashion shows and art exhibits, learn golf or bridge, pay electric bills, and plan vacations – all while their children played in the store’s nursery under the eye of a uniformed nursemaid.From Boston to San Diego and Miami to Seattle, department stores symbolized a city’s spirit, wealth, and progressiveness. Situated at busy intersections, they occupied the largest and finest downtown buildings, and their massive corner clocks became popular meeting places. Their locations became the epicenters of commerce, the high point from which downtown property taxes were calculated. Spanning the late 19th century well into the 20th, their peak development mirrors the growth of cities and of industrial America when both were robust and flourishing.       The time may be gone when children accompany their mothers downtown for a day of shopping and lunch in the tea room, when monogrammed trucks deliver purchases for free the very same day, and when the personality of a city or town can be read in its big stores. But they are far from forgotten and they still have power to influence how we shop today.       Service and Style recreates the days of downtown department stores in their prime, from the 1890s through the 1960s. Exploring in detail the wide range of merchandise they sold, particularly style goods such as clothing and home furnishings, it examines how they displayed, promoted, and sometimes produced goods. It reveals how the stores grew, why they declined, and how they responded to and shaped the society around them.

      Downtown department stores were once the heart and soul of America's pulsing Broadways and Main Streets. With names such as City of Paris, Penn Traffic, The Maze, Maison Blanche, or The Popular, they suggested spheres far beyond mundane shopping. Nicknames reflected the affection customers felt for their favorites, whether Woodie's, Wanny's, Stek's, O.T.'s, Herp's, or Bam's.      The history of downtown department stores is as fascinating as their names and as diverse as their merchandise. Their stories encompass many themes: the rise of decorative design, new career paths for women, the growth of consumerism, and the technological ingenuity of escalators and pneumatic tubes. Just as the big stores made up their own small universes, their stories are microcosmic narratives of American culture and society.      The big stores were much more than mere businesses. They were local institutions where shoppers could listen to concerts, see fashion shows and art exhibits, learn golf or bridge, pay electric bills, and plan vacations - all while their children played in the store's nursery under the eye of a uniformed nursemaid.From Boston to San Diego and Miami to Seattle, department stores symbolized a city's spirit, wealth, and progressiveness. Situated at busy intersections, they occupied the largest and finest downtown buildings, and their massive corner clocks became popular meeting places. Their locations became the epicenters of commerce, the high point from which downtown property taxes were calculated. Spanning the late 19th century well into the 20th, their peak development mirrors the growth of cities and of industrial America when both were robust and flourishing.       The time may be gone when children accompany their mothers downtown for a day of shopping and lunch in the tea room, when monogrammed trucks deliver purchases for free the very same day, and when the personality of a city or town can be read in its big stores. But they are far from forgotten and they still have power to influence how we shop today.       Service and Style recreates the days of downtown department stores in their prime, from the 1890s through the 1960s. Exploring in detail the wide range of merchandise they sold, particularly style goods such as clothing and home furnishings, it examines how they displayed, promoted, and sometimes produced goods. It reveals how the stores grew, why they declined, and how they responded to and shaped the society around them.

(Gay / Erotica / Mystery / Detective / Suspense / Thriller / Action / Adventure / Interracial / Multicultural / Contains Some Heterosexual [M/F] Content) They say no good deed goes unpunished. Two men are about to find out if that old saying is true... Captain Daniel Chan works for the Riceland Police Department. It's a small town in Texas and he's the only Chinese American on the force. He considers himself bisexual, but when he meets Mark Montgomery, a gay man, he falls hard. But being with Mark means he'll have to commit to being gay. Mark won't have it any other way. Mark's a man with a terrible past and he's in hiding from it and the man who tried to kill him so long ago. When he meets Dan, it's a chance at healing old wounds and finding a new life. But it also means exposure, and that's something Mark's avoided for years. When he's thrust onto center stage after a shooting, he turns to Dan for protection. But even in a small town, things can get complicated. Political maneuvering, shady real estate deals, and men's ambitions all collide, catching Dan and Mark in the middle. Will the forces they encounter destroy them and their newfound love, or will it bind them together?

The California legislature granted a charter to the new community of Oakland in 1862, and a year later, the town council appointed three peace officers. When it was a dusty Western town, Oakland's major business was raising cattle to feed San Franciscans and the gold miners north of Sacramento. Year by year, as Oakland grew in size and population, the police department grew with it. The Oakland Police Department pioneered the use of call boxes, police cars, and other technical innovations. It has served the city well through good times and bad, wars, fires, and earthquakes. A large, diverse organization serving a complex multicultural city, the Oakland Police Department today accepts the challenges of policing in the 21st century.

An electrifying new thriller that brings back the complex, strong-willed, often-maverick FBI agent—Ana Grey—whom we first met in the author’s stunning debut novel, North of Montana.This time Special Agent Grey is working on a kidnapping case—a fifteen-year-old named Juliana has been abducted in Santa Monica. Grey’s counterpart in the Santa Monica Police Department is Detective Andrew Berringer. They’ve worked together before—and they’ve been more than just working together ever since.It’s Ana’s job “to know the victim as if she were my own flesh and blood.” But when Juliana turns up—traumatized into a state of total and paralyzing terror—it becomes clear that Ana has gone too far: she is viewing her own life from the perspective of Juliana’s blasted emotional terrain. And in a moment of passion (Andrew has betrayed her) and panic (is it possible that he also means to harm her?) Ana points a gun at him and shoots.Now she is both criminal investigator and criminal as she breaks her bail agreement to continue tracking the abductor, torn between her powerful emotional connection with Juliana and the fraying connection she has to her own common sense and to the truths she knows about Andrew—and about herself.Psychologically acute and unstoppably suspenseful—Good Morning, Killer is a searing, addictive read.