Named as no.1 in the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century by the New York Times.

From one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime.

The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else, as their friendship, beautifully and meticulously rendered, becomes a not always perfect shelter from hardship.

Ferrante has created a memorable portrait of two women, but My Brilliant Friend is also the story of a nation.

Through the lives of Elena and Lila, Ferrante gives her readers the story of a city and a country undergoing momentous change.

The American mafia has long held powerful sway over our collective cultural imagination. But how many of us truly understand how a clandestine Sicilian criminal organisation came to exert its influence over nearly every level of American society?

In BORGATA: RISE OF EMPIRE, former mafia member Louis Ferrante pulls back the curtain on the criminal organisation that transformed America. From the potent political cauldron of nineteenth-century Sicily to American cities such as New Orleans, New York and the gangster's paradise of Las Vegas, Ferrante traces the social, economic and political forces that powered the mafia's unstoppable rise. We follow the early mob as they provide alcohol to the American public during prohibition, aid U. S. Naval Intelligence during the Second World War, establish a gambling mecca in the Nevada desert - and unofficially take control of the island of Cuba.

Ferrante's vivid portrayal of early American mobsters - among them Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky - fills in crucial gaps of mafia history to deliver the most comprehensive account yet of the world's most famous criminal fraternity.

This volume is the first in a groundbreaking new trilogy from a man who has seen it all from the inside. Ferrante's masterful account journeys from the group's inauspicious beginnings to the height of their power as the most influential organised criminal network in America.

This new and revised edition of Sociology: A South African Perspective introduces sociological concepts and theories, and demonstrates how important these are to understanding South Africa, and what it means to be South African. It contains updated content on politics, culture, gender, family, religion, education and race, and the chapters on subjects crucial to the South African identity – health, sport, work, media and group dynamics – have also been revised.

This second edition of Sociology: A South African Perspective is essential reading for all students taking sociology courses. It also helps those who would like to further examine forms of social structure and how they affect human attitudes, actions and opportunities within South Africa.

“Nothing quite like this has ever been published before,” proclaimed The Guardian about the Neapolitan novels in 2014. Against the backdrop of a Naples that is as seductive as it is perilous and a world undergoing epochal change, Elena Ferrante tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two women with unmatched honesty and brilliance.

The Story of the Lost Child is the concluding volume in the dazzling saga of two women― the brilliant, bookish Elena, and the fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both are now adults, with husbands, lovers, aging parents, and children. Their friendship has been the gravitational center of their lives. Both women fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up―a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. In this final novel she has returned to Naples, drawn back as if responding to the city’s obscure magnetism. Lila, on the other hand, could never free herself from the city of her birth. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect the neighborhood. Proximity to the world she has always rejected only brings her role as its unacknowledged leader into relief. For Lila is unstoppable, unmanageable, unforgettable.

The four volumes in this series constitute a long remarkable story that readers will return to again and again, and each return will bring with it new revelations.

This book approaches the tourism and hospitality industry from a regional science perspective. By analyzing the spatial context of tourist travels, the hospitality sector, and the regional impacts of tourist activities, it demonstrates the value of the regional science paradigm for understanding the dynamics and effects of tourism and hospitality-related phenomena. Written by leading regional science scholars from various countries as well as professionals from organizations such as OECD and AirBnB, the contributions address topics such as migration, new types of accommodation, segmentation of tourism demand, and the potential use of tracking technologies in tourism research. The content is divided into five parts, the first of which analyzes spatial effects on the development of firms in the tourism industry, while the second approaches temporal and spatial variability in tourism through analytical regional science tools. The broader economic and social impacts of tourism are addressed in part three. Part four assesses specific tourism segments and tourist behaviors, while part five discusses environmental aspects and tourism destination policies. The book will appeal to scholars of regional and spatial science and tourism, as well as tourism specialists and policymakers interested in developing science and evidence-based tourism policies.

Set in the late 1960s and the 1970s, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay continues the story of the feisty and rebellious Lina and her lifelong friend, the brilliant and bookish Elena. Lina, after separating from her husband, is living with her young son in a new neighborhood of Naples and working at a local factory. Elena has left Naples, earned a degree from an elite college, and published a novel, all of which has opened the doors to a world of learned and fascinating interlocutors. The era, with its dramatic changes in sexual politics and social costumes, with its seemingly limitless number of new possibilities, is rendered with breathtaking vigor. This third Neapolitan Novel is not only a moving story of friendship but also a searing portrait of a rapidly changing world.

Since the publication of My Brilliant Friend, the first of the Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante’s fame as one of today’s most compelling, insightful, and stylish authors has grown. She has gained admirers among authors, artists, and critics. But her most resounding success has undoubtedly been with readers, who have discovered in Ferrante a writer who speaks with great power and beauty of the mysteries of belonging, human relationships, love, family, and friendship.

The Story of a New Name, the second book of the Neapolitan Quartet, picks up the story where My Brilliant Friend left off.

Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighbourhood that she so often finds stifling. Love, jealousy, family, freedom, commitment, and above all friendship: these are signs under which both women live out this phase in their stories. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and is a source of strength in the face of life’s challenges.

In the Neapolitan Quartet, Elena Ferrante gives readers a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging.

The PUILS series presents Progress in Ultrafast Intense Laser Science. This third volume in the series covers a diverse range of disciplines, focusing on such topics as strong field ionization of atoms, ionization and fragmentation of molecules and clusters, generation of high-order harmonics and attosecond pulses, filamentation and laser plasma interaction, and the development of ultrashort and ultrahigh-intensity light sources.

As a nurse hands Christina Borysowki her newborn daughter, joy lls the new mother's heart. With wonder, she lovingly admires the baby she has named Hope. Her body tingles with excitement and fear. Hours later, Hope's eyes nally open to reveal spectacular turquoise irises. At that moment, she has no idea that months later, the sparkle and life will abandon those beautiful eyes, the gaze will turn inward, and Hope will lose all interest in the world.

Years later, things cannot get any worse for Christina Borysowski and her profoundly autistic daughter. With Hope destined for a future that promises nothing but bleakness, isolation, and likely institutionalization, Christina is already well aware she is paddling alone against the strong tides of prejudice, misunderstanding, and fear. To compound matters, there is much more at stake than just Hope's well-being. Christina is barely hanging on. In a desperate quest to nd peace for both Hope and herself, Christina is left with an agonizing choice that will deter-mine the future for both of them.

In this eye-opening and poignant story about autism and its tragic human cost, one woman takes an unimaginable journey through hopelessness to discover an intense love that drives her to make the unthinkable a reality.

So you see, life is for awhile. And we have no control over it. No control what so ever. We don't know if we're going to live to a ripe old age? or get sick and suffer? or die from cancer? or lose our minds with altzheimers or dementia etc.? Or die in a car accident even? Oh I dread those kind of deaths, and don't want to die like that. Do you? And remember one more thing, there's no coming back, no coming back. Ever? "Rennie Ferrante

This book series addresses a newly emerging interdisciplinary research field, Ultrafast Intense Laser Science, spanning atomic and molecular physics, molecular science, and optical science. Highlights of this second volume include Coulomb explosion and fragmentation of molecules, control of chemical dynamics, high-order harmonic generation, propagation and filamentation, and laser-plasma interaction. All chapters are authored by foremost experts in their fields.

Nitric Oxide in Developing Plant Stress Resilience presents a strong focus on genetics and molecular mechanisms, examining crosstalk with other signaling molecules and the role this plays in the alleviation of oxidative damage. Abiotic stress negatively impacts plants productivity and alters the metabolism at the cellular or whole plant level, disturbing the mineral nutrients status, enzyme activities and osmotic homeostasis. Beginning with the biosynthesis of NO and its mode of action, chapters review various molecular interactions, including phytohormonal crosstalk, ROS metabolism, post-translational modification, and nutrients homeostasis. In addition, the book also highlights genome editing and proteomic approaches that can be used to manipulate NO responses. This is an essential resource for students and researchers interested in plant physiology, biochemistry and genetics.

This is the first of a series of books on Ultrafast Intense Laser Science, a newly emerging interdisciplinary research field that spans atomic and molecular physics, molecular science, and optical science. It covers intense VUV laser-cluster interaction, resonance and chaos-assisted tunneling, and the effects of the carrier-envelope phase on high-order harmonic generation.

This work discusses techniques for developing new engineering materials such as elastomers, plastic blends, composites, ceramics and high-temperature alloys. Instrumentation for evaluating their properties and identifying potential end uses are presented.;The book is intended for materials, manufacturing, mechanical, chemical and metallurgical engineers; ceramists; product development specialists; materials scientists; and upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in these disciplines.

Software for engineering applications has become, during the last few years, a multi-billion pound industry as applications of computer programs are now an essential part of any engineering project. In spite of this, engineer ing software is not always reliable and many fail to produce good solutions. The extent of this problem, which is very costly to the engineering industry, and its consequences, are somewhat hidden because the software industry has not reached the necessary maturity. An engineer needs a long training before being able to design a body for instance. However, to do that, he may use a computer program which has undergone no validation whatsoever and is written by someone without any engineering knowledge. It is imperative to address this problem to ensure that computer codes are properly prepared to provide good solutions, and that they are robust and reliable. This 2nd International Conference on Reliability and Robustness of En gineering Software (RRES 91) was called to address this problem. The meeting was held in Milan, Italy, in April 1991 and was of importance to engineers working in industry who are actively involved with the develop ment of computer codes.

The Plant Hormone Ethylene: Stress Acclimation and Agricultural Applications presents current knowledge on our understanding of ethylene perception and signaling, its role in the regulation of plant physiological processes, and its contribution to acclimation in stressful environments. Plants regularly face environmental constraints due to their immobile nature. In persistently changing environmental conditions, several stress factors influence cellular metabolism, ultimately causing reduced plant growth and development with a significant loss in agricultural productivity. Sustainable agriculture depends on the acclimation of plant processes to the changing environment through altered physiological and molecular responses, which are controlled by plant hormones, including ethylene. Ethylene interacts with other plant hormones and signaling molecules to regulate several cellular processes, plant growth and development, and, ultimately, crop productivity. This book begins with an introduction to ethylene before providing a detailed study of the latest findings on the role of ethylene in plants, including its role in photosynthetic processes, flower development, leaf senescence, nutrients acquisition, and regulation of abiotic stress responses as well as its application in agriculture. The book is an ideal guide for researchers exploring plant physiology and biochemistry as well as for those investigating the use of ethylene knowledge in agriculture in persistently changing environmental conditions.

This book examines the theory of consciousness developed by the school of Recognition, an Indian philosophical tradition that thrived around the tenth c. CE in Kashmir, and argues that consciousness has a linguistic nature. It situates the doctrines of the tradition within the broader Indian philosophical context and establishes connections with the contemporary analytic debate. The book focuses on Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta (tenth c. CE), two Hindu intellectuals belonging to the school of Recognition, Pratyabhijñ� in Sanskrit. It argues that these authors promoted ideas that bear a strong resemblance with contemporary ‘higher–order theories’ of consciousness. In addition, the book explores the relationship between the thinkers of the school of Recognition and the thought of the grammarian/philosopher Bhartṛhari (fifth c. CE). The book bridges a gap that still exists between scholars engaged with Western traditions and Sanskrit specialists focused on textual materials. In doing so, the author uses concepts from contemporary philosophy of mind to illustrate the Indian arguments and an interdisciplinary approach with abundant reference to the original sources. Offering fresh information to historians of Indian thought, the book will also be of interest to academics working on Non-Western Philosophy, Comparative Philosophy, Indian Philosophy, Religion, Hinduism, Tantric Studies and South Asian Studies.

Historians have previously glazed over the mafia's formative years. In this first volume, Ferrante explores its Sicilian roots, before following a cast of larger-than-life characters who arrived as fugitives on American shores. Through these and other lives - including legendary mobsters Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Seigel - Ferrante tells the extraordinary story of the mafia's rise in America, as they provided alcohol during Prohibition, created the gambling mecca Las Vegas and practically took over the island of Cuba.

Towards Nearly Zero Energy: Urban Settings in the Mediterranean Climate discusses tactics that can be used to effectively reduce energy consumption towards zero energy. With energy usage in buildings accounting for over 40% of primary energy use and 24% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, this remains an unavoidable objective. The book looks at the life of the systems of energy production from renewable sources amidst the exceptionally challenging global economic crisis that the Mediterranean areas and other societies are currently experiencing. By using an innovative and interdisciplinary approach of socio-oriented technological design, the book indicates tools and measures that can be developed at the public, legislative, and market levels to counterbalance the large pay-back times of energy efficiency measures. In particular, the book displays guidelines and best practices to activate new forms of economic incentives in order to attract potential investors that demonstrate that a large set of possible solutions is technically feasible to achieve nearly zero energy, even in high energy consuming circumstances and urban settings. Furthermore, by discussing and comparing the economic and energy impact of different technology options, this work offers guidelines and best practices to activate new cost-effective forms and social incentives in order to attract both potential investors and motivate the urban stakeholders toward nearly zero energy.