Participation in Project Preparation: Lessons from World Bank-Assisted Projects in India (World Bank Discussion Papers)

In this latest collection of adventures, P. J. O’Rourke casts his mordant eye on America’s recent foreign policy forays. He first travels to Kosovo where he meets KLA veterans, Albanian refugees and peacekeepers, and confronts the paradox of ‘the war that war-haters love to love’. He visits Egypt, Israel and Kuwait, where he witnesses citizens enjoying their newfound freedoms – namely, to shop, to eat and to sit around a lot. Following 11 September, O’Rourke examines the far-reaching changes in the US, from the absurd hassles of airport security to the dangers of anthrax. In Iraq, he witnesses both the beginning and the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom and takes a tour of a presidential palace, concluding that the war was justified for at least one reason: criminal interior decorating.

Peace Kills is an eye-opening look at a world much changed since O’Rourke wrote his bestselling Give War A Chance – a book in which he presciently declared that the most troubling aspect of war is sometimes peace itself.

From the no. 1 bestselling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, the book that readers everywhere have been waiting for: his first novel in six years. So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one… Afghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister Pad live with their father and step-mother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle together through poverty and brutal winters. To Adbullah, Pad, as beautiful and sweet-natured as the fairy for which she was named, is everything. More like a parent than a brother, Abdullah will do anything for her, even trading his only pair of shoes for a feather for her treasured collection. Each night they sleep together in their cot, their skulls touching, their limbs tangled. One day the siblings journey across the desert to Kabul with their father. Pad and Abdullah have no sense of the fate that awaits them there, for the event which unfolds will tear their lives apart; sometimes a finger must be cut to save the hand. Crossing generations and continents, moving from Kabul, to Paris, to San Francisco, to the Greek island of Tinos, with profound wisdom, depth, insight and compassion, Khaled Hosseini writes about the bonds that define us and shape our lives, the ways that we help our loved ones in need, how the choices we make resonate through history, and how we are often surprised by the people closest to us.

This new edition includes an update on HIV disease/AIDS, recently developed HIV rapid tests to diagnose HIV infection and screen donor blood, and current information on antiretroviral drugs and the laboratory monitoring of antiretroviral therapy. Information on the epidemiology and laboratory investigation of other pathogens has also been brought up to date. Several new, rapid, simple to perform immunochromatographic tests to assist in the diagnosis of infectious diseases are described, including those for brucellosis, cholera, dengue, leptospirosis, syphilis and hepatitis. Recently developed lgM antibody tests to investigate typhoid fever are also described. The new classification of salmonellae has been introduced. Details of manufacturers and suppliers now include website information and e-mail addresses. The haematology and blood transfusion chapters have been updated, including a review of haemoglobin measurement methods in consideration of the high prevalence of anaemia in developing countries.

Malcolm X’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X was written in collaboration with Alex Haley, author of Roots, and includes an introduction by Paul Gilroy, author of The Black Atlantic, in Penguin Modern Classics.

From hustling, drug addiction and armed violence in America’s black ghettos Malcolm X turned, in a dramatic prison conversion, to the puritanical fervour of the Black Muslims. As their spokesman he became identified in the white press as a terrifying teacher of race hatred; but to his direct audience, the oppressed American blacks, he brought hope and self-respect. This autobiography (written with Alex Haley) reveals his quick-witted integrity, usually obscured by batteries of frenzied headlines, and the fierce idealism which led him to reject both liberal hypocrisies and black racialism.

Vilified by his critics as an anti-white demagogue, Malcolm X gave a voice to unheard African-Americans, bringing them pride, hope and fearlessness, and remains an inspirational and controversial figure.

Malcolm X (1925-65), born Malcolm Little in Omaha, and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, lost both his parents at a young age. Leaving school early, he soon became part of Harlem’s underworld, and in 1946 he was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. It was in prison that Malcolm X converted to Islam. Paroled in 1952, he became an outspoken defender of Muslim doctrines, formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity in 1963, and had received considerable publicity by the time of his assassination in 1965.

If you enjoyed The Autobiography of Malcolm X, you might like Nelson Mandela’s No Easy Walk to Freedom, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

‘This extraordinary autobiography is a brilliant, painful, important book’
The New York Times