Urban City

The day Stacey Grant loses her job feels like the last day of her life. Or, at least, the only life she'd ever known. For who was she if not a City high-flyer, Senior Partner at one of the top private equity firms in London? As Stacey starts to reconcile her old life with the new - one without professional achievements or meetings but instead long days at home with her dog and ailing mother, waiting for her successful husband to come home - she at least has The Girls to fall back on. Beth, Melissa and Gaby.

Through 10 unique cities, from the founding of ancient capitals to buzzing modern megacities, Paul Strathern explores how urban centres lead civilisation forward, enjoying a moment of glory before passing on the baton. We journey back to discover Babylonian mathematics, Athenian theatre and intellectual debate, and Roman construction that has lasted millennia. We see Constantinople evolve into Istanbul, revolutionary sparks fly in Enlightenment Paris, and the railways, canals and ships that built Imperial London.

Over the past 10 years, urban planners, technology companies, and governments have promoted smart cities with a somewhat utopian vision of urban life made knowable and manageable through data collection and analysis. Emerging smart cities have become both crucibles and showrooms for the practical application of the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and the integration of big data into everyday life. Are smart cities optimized, sustainable, digitally networked solutions to urban problems? Or are they neoliberal, corporate-controlled, undemocratic non-places?

Built on top of the gates of Hell, Grimm City is the Devil's capital on earth. A place where every coffee shop, nightclub and shopping mall is the potential hunting ground for any of the supernatural entities that inhabit the Grimm City world. Death's 17-year-old apprentice, Nathaniel, comes into his own as he leads an uprising against the Devil with the help of a half-dead wraith and a giant hit-man. What results is a bloody, brutal revolt that calls upon the loyalties of both the living and the dead.

My preordained mate left me, heartbroken and alone. Not only am I feeling these strange emotions, but my world crumbles around me as corruption and attacks threaten to destroy Shadow City. The fury of Hell continues to grow as more of their plans unravel. When my mate reappears, I can’t help but fear it could be a ploy…once more. Whatever happens, I can't allow him to use me again, even if my heart screams for me to forgive him. Because my decisions don't only affect me…they could endanger the entire world.

My life once centered around justice. As a trained warrior for the people of Shadow City, I never questioned what I was taught...until now. My preordained mate and I are finally on the same side, with our list of enemies growing. All we have learned has changed our very foundation and put a target on both our backs. A war that has been brewing for over a millenium is on the horizon. One that could change the course of the Earth forever. It’s up to our friends to find a way to stop it...but Fate has a way of forcing her hand.

Finding my sister changed my entire life. A secret that haunted my past resurfaces and hides in the shadows, taunting me. Not only that, but I learned that the world is full of supernaturals, and even more surprising, my fated mate is a vampire. Threats surround me, with more obstacles surfacing at every corner, and what’s worse is they don’t solely affect me anymore. My mate’s foundation is rocked, and even the silver wolf and her friends who protect me have become targets. Our enemies are closer than we realize.

By early 1977, New York City was in the grip of hysteria caused by a murderer dubbed "Son of Sam". And on a sweltering night in July, a citywide power outage touched off an orgy of looting and arson that led to the largest mass arrest in the city's history. As the turbulent year wore on, the city became absorbed in two epic battles: the fight between Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson and team manager Billy Martin, and the battle between Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo for the city's mayoralty.

Natalia Chase just wants the first family Christmas with her husband and his pride of unruly lion shifter brothers to be perfect. But a simple trip to pick out a Christmas tree turns into a rescue mission when they discover three shifter wolf cubs abandoned in the forest. Between finding the cubs' parents, a surprise Christmas Eve visit from Mama Chase, and Natalia's increasingly difficult pregnancy, will the Chase pride get everything they've asked for from Santa, or will their perfect holiday be a perfect disaster?

A young African American millennial filmmaker's funny, sometimes painful, true-life coming-of-age story of trying to make it in New York City - a chronicle of poverty and wealth, creativity and commerce, struggle and insecurity, and the economic and cultural forces intertwined with "the serious, life-threatening process" of gentrification.

As a kid growing up in Manhattan, William Helmreich played a game with his father they called "Last Stop." They would pick a subway line and ride it to its final destination, and explore the neighborhood there. Decades later, Helmreich teaches university courses about New York, and his love for exploring the city is as strong as ever. Putting his feet to the test, he decided that the only way to truly understand New York was to walk virtually every block of all five boroughs - an astonishing 6,000 miles.

“The virus exposed how we live and work. It also revealed how we play, and what we lose when we have to stop.” For every kid who makes it to the NBA, thousands more seek out the pleasure and camaraderie of pick-up basketball in their local community centre or neighbourhood park. It’s a story that plays out in sport after sport–team and individual, youth and adult, men's and women's.

Our reliance on industrial agriculture has resulted in a food supply riddled with hidden environmental, economic, and health care costs and beset by rising food prices. With only a handful of corporations responsible for the lion’s share of the food on our supermarket shelves, we are incredibly vulnerable to supply chain disruption.

In this remarkable challenge to conventional thinking about the environment, David Owen argues that the greenest community in the United States is not Portland, Oregon, or Snowmass, Colorado, but New York City.

In the fall of 1871, Chicagoans knew they were due for the “big one”—a massive, uncontrollable fire that would decimate the city. It had been bone-dry for months, and a recent string of blazes had nearly outstripped the fire department’s already scant resources. Then, on October 8, a minor fire broke out in the barn of Irishwoman Kate Leary. A series of unfortunate mishaps and misunderstandings along with insufficient preparation and a high south-westerly wind combined to set the stage for an unmitigated catastrophe.

When a tragic accident cuts my lonely life short, instead of heaven or hell, I’m stolen away to a terrifying city of warring shifter clans—the Nimali and the Fai. The Nimali mistake me for their missing princess. Her father, the dragon king, is identical to my own. But in this world, he dotes on me with the love and affection I always craved. And in a land with no tolerance for outsiders, feigning amnesia and impersonating shifter royalty may be the only way to survive.

The creation of the 12 skyward cities did more for mankind than the renaissance of old. With them came a new species created to serve the ideals of the future. To Calista Ridley, an android is an android, just like heroes are little more than fairy tales. She knows the world is far from perfect, and that human nature is not something to be proud of. But she also sees the storm forming on the horizon. As a pilot of Voltza, her past decisions are set to shape the future in a way no one could have predicted. The lines between man and machine are blurring at a rapid pace.

As human activity and environmental change come to be increasingly recognized as intertwined phenomena on a rapidly urbanizing planet, the field of urban ecology has risen to offer useful ways of thinking about coupled human and natural systems. On the forefront of this discipline is Marina Alberti, whose innovative work offers a conceptual framework for uncovering fundamental laws that govern the complexity and resilience of cities, which she sees as key to understanding and responding to planetary change and the evolution of Earth.

After a failed attempt to end her life, Alia Carter leaves her childhood home to become a waitress in the state's most prominent hotel. Traumatized after her mother’s death, she silently grapples with her pain until she saves the life of a mysterious man who reveals to her a world of true magic, and terrifying wonder.

When the lead actress is found dead on a set staged to replicate the room where suspected witches were tried in 1692—and her on-screen lover, in full costume, is discovered sound asleep in her trailer—the hunt is on for a killer on the loose. Now, even with help from River's entire coven, Lee's Aunt Ibby, and O'Ryan, a clairvoyant gentleman cat, sorting out a witch's brew of secrets, sorcery, and special effects might turn Lee's documentary into her own final act . . .