Urban City

Michael Andrews and Gail Sommers have finally found the love that had eluded them for so long. But their romance has uncovered an ancient evil curse neither of them could have anticipated. It does more than bring down a plague on their houses - it unleashes something far more sinister that can destroy humanity. Now they must choose: battle the evil forces out to destroy them, or continue to meet in secret while the rest of the world burns.

For Veronica “Roni” Ryder, the journey to becoming leader of the Parallel Society has been tough. She has fought people and monsters, experienced magic and mayhem, traveled the Earth and universes beyond. But one creature, one vile monstrosity, has been her most daunting rival–Yal-hara.

Welcome to Paranormal City! There’s hospitality for all here, be you vampire, demon, walking dead, or one of the werepeople. We've something for everyone, no matter what your needs or tastes. Listen to some of the tales of those who live here. They’ll tell you this is the greatest city in the world. Oh, and mundanes are also welcome. Just try to fit in. A devil’s dozen tales from Paranormal City for your delight…and terror.

In the state of Liberty, water is rationed, free speech is hardly without a cost, and Texas has just declared itself its own country. In this society, paranoia is well-suited because eyes and ears are all around, and they are judging. Always judging. This terrifying terrain is explored via Eleanor, a young woman eagerly learning about her magic through her coven. But being a white witch is not as easy as they portray it in the books, and she’s already been placed under "house arrest" with a letch named Stan, a coworker who wronged her in the past and now exists in the form of a cat.

In Tokyo—one of the world's largest megacities—a stray cat is wending her way through the back alleys. And, with each detour, she brushes up against the seemingly disparate lives of the city-dwellers, connecting them in unexpected ways. But the city is changing. As it does, it pushes her to the margins where she chances upon a series of apparent strangers—from a homeless man squatting in an abandoned hotel, to a shut-in hermit afraid to leave his house, to a convenience store worker searching for love. The cat orbits Tokyo's denizens, drawing them ever closer.

Katrina Templair gave up her human life to become an Odonata - a vampire killer. She’s never regretted it, and she keeps looking for one in particular. When she inadvertently rescues Abbey Marquez from a vampire attack, she realizes two things: one, she’s close; two, Abbey is the clingy sort. But Abbey has good information to pass along: The vamps in Los Angeles have become organized human traffickers, and the club they use is a good front. Determined to stop them once and for all, Katrina gears up for the fight of her un-life.

Sociologist Stephen Klineberg presents fascinating and groundbreaking research that shows how the city of Houston has emerged as a microcosm for America’s future - based on an unprecedented 38-year study of its changing economic, demographic, and cultural landscapes.

The tech boom of our time is changing San Francisco at warp speed. Famously home to artists and activists, and known as the birthplace of the Beats, the Black Panthers, and the LGBTQ movement, the Bay Area has been transformed by Silicon Valley. But the richer the region gets, the more unequal and less diverse it becomes, and the cracks in the city's facade begin to show. Inspired by Studs Terkel's classic works of oral history, writer Cary McClelland has spent years interviewing people at the epicenter of the Bay Area's rapid change: tech innovators, venture capitalists, coders, homeless advocates, pawn brokers, prosecutors, public defenders....

Nina is a harried young mother who spends her evenings spying on the older couple across the street through her son's binoculars. She is drawn to their quiet contentment - so unlike her own lonely, chaotic world of nursing. One night, she spies a young couple in the throes of passion. Who are these people, and what happened to her symbol of domestic bliss?

Empire City tells the story of the dreams that inspired the changes in the landscape and the problems that eluded solution. Author David Scobey paints a remarkable panorama of New York's uneven development, a city-building process careening between obsessive calculation and speculative excess. Envisioning a new kind of national civilization, “bourgeois urbanists” attempted to make New York the nation's pre-eminent city.

Life is supposed to be easy and carefree when you are young, but if you live in Washington, DC, that's not always the case. Flashing back to the 1990s, listeners enter the lives of four black men looking to gain money, power, and respect. These four brothas come from different walks of life, but they have one thing in common: They are trying to make fast money in the harsh inner city. However, when the money comes too easily, there's usually a price attached...the ultimate price.

Just months after Rebekah Roberts was born, her mother, an Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn, abandoned her Christian boyfriend and newborn baby to return to her religion. Neither Rebekah nor her father have heard from her since. Now a recent college graduate, Rebekah has moved to New York City to follow her dream of becoming a big-city reporter. But she's also drawn to the idea of being closer to her mother, who might still be living in the Hasidic community in Brooklyn. Then Rebekah is called to cover the story of a murdered Hasidic woman.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, American cities experienced an astonishing drop in violent crime. By 2014, the United States was safer than it had been in 60 years. Sociologist Patrick Sharkey gathered data from across the country to understand why this happened. Sharkey puts forth an entirely new approach to confronting violence and urban poverty. At a time when inequality, complacency, and conflict all threaten a new rise in violent crime, and the old methods of policing are unacceptable, the ideas in this book are indispensable.

Public City/Public Sex examines how the notion that male sexual desire required suitable outlets shaped urban policing and development. Ross traces the struggle to control sex in public and argues that it was the very effort to police the city that created new opportunities for women who sold sex and men who sought sex with other men. Placing public sex at the center of urban history, Ross shows how those who used public spaces played a central role in defining the way the city was understood.

In a walled city of a mile-high iron guild towers, many things are common knowledge: No book in any of the city's libraries reveals its place on a calendar or a map. No living beasts can be found within the city's walls. And no good comes to the guilder or foundling who trespasses too far from their labors. Even on the tower rooftops, where Errol Thebes and the rest of the city's teenagers pass a few short years under an open sky, no one truly believes anything uncommon is possible within the city walls.

Author Thomas Healy resurrects a forgotten saga of race, capitalism, and the struggle for equality in this fascinating, forgotten story of the 1970s attempt to build a city dedicated to racial equality in the heart of “Klan Country”.

Moe Steadman has become irrelevant, and it’s torturing him. Amidst a middle-age identity crisis, Moe faces self-loathing triggered by “the beautiful people” and obsolescence as a yellow pages advertising salesperson. He begins to take revenge on his youthful internet competitors after a misguided sexual and self-awakening.

A man out of time turned against his will and faces forces older than time. Edward turned into the thing he is today and must face his maker and all those that he had escaped, centuries ago. With the sons of Cain corrupting supernatural beings to enslave the world, can he overcome his anger toward these people who tore him from his mortal life and tossed him into his supernatural one or will he succumb?

My name's Morgan Rook, supernatural detective, undercover agent, odd jobs man. I take out the nightmares, demons, and werewolves. Guys like us call them Nightkind. I had one final job. There's always one. This time a call to eliminate a cruel, rogue vampire, named Mr. Tudor. Simple, right? Sure. Until the bodies started piling up in a new wave of vicious occult killings leading scarily close to my own front door, sparking a series of deadly events that would make my years of fighting the Nightkind look like a cakewalk.

Cities and the Creative Class gathers in one place for the first time the research leading up to Richard Florida's theory on how the growth of the creative economy shapes the development of cities and regions. In a new introduction, Florida updates this theory and responds to the critics of his 2002 best seller, The Rise of the Creative Class.