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An Immense New Power to Heal
by Lee Gutkind Pagan KennedyIs personalized medicine--what some scientists call genetic medicine--a pipe dream or a panacea? Francis Collins, current director of the National Institutes of Health and director of the Human Genome Project, considers this new era "the greatest revolution since Leonardo," while Nobel Laureate Leland Hartwell compares personalized medicine to a train that has not yet left the station--"a very slow train with a very long way to go . . . before we arrive at our destination."There is no denying that new technology, which has triggered an explosion of scientific information, is ushering in a revolution in medicine--for specialists, general practitioners and the public. Anyone can spit in a cup and, for a small fee, learn about his or her individual genetic make-up. But how useful is this information, really, to us or to our doctors? What's more, how much do we truly want to know--and have others know--about our possible destiny? There is more than we can imagine at stake.In An Immense New Power to Heal, authors Lee Gutkind and Pagan Kennedy delve into the personal side of personalized medicine and offer the physician's perspective and the patient's experience through intimate narratives and case studies. They also offer an intriguing background of the personalized medicine movement including the fascinating personalities of the key scientists involved as well as a glimpse into the in-fighting that accompanies any race for a scientific breakthrough. The result is a highly engaging, lively, and provocative discussion about this revolution in health care, and most importantly, what it really means for patients now and in the future.
An Immense World (Young Readers Edition): How Animals Sense Earth's Amazing Secrets
by Ed YongThe New York Times bestseller now available with beautiful full-color illustrations for young readers! Explore the amazing ways animals see, hear, and feel the world, with Pulitzer Prize winner Ed Yong.Did you know that there are turtles who can track the Earth's magnetic fields? That some fish use electricity to talk to each other? Or that giant squids evolved their enormous eyeballs to look out for whales?The world is so much BIGGER and more "immense" than we humans experience it. We can only see so many colors, we can only feel so many sensations, and there are some senses we can't access at all.Exploring the amazing ways animals perceive the world is an excellent way to help understand the world itself. And this young readers adaptation of the mega-bestseller An Immense World is perfect for curious kids and their families. Sure to capture young readers' interest it is filled amazing animal facts and stunning full-color illustrations. Along the way are tons of amazing animals facts: Did you know that leopard pee smells like popcorn? That there is a special kind of shrimp whose punches are faster than a bullet? That it's important to take your dog for dedicated "smell walks?" Want to know the real reason zebras have stripes? (hint: it's not for camouflage)? Pick up this enthralling and enormously entertaining book to find out!A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
by Ed YongEnter a new dimension—the world as it is truly perceived by other animals—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes.&“A stunning achievement, steeped in science but suffused with magic.&”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The GeneThe Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world. In An Immense World, author and Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth&’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile&’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover&’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved. Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called &“the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.&”
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
by Ed YongEnter a new dimension—the world as it is truly perceived by other animals—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes. <p><p> The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world. <p><p>In An Immense World, author and Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. <p><p>We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. <p><p>We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved. <p><p>Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called “the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.” <p> <b>New York Times Bestseller</b>
An Immigrant Community of the 1900s
by Gare ThompsonDuring the 1880s, immigrants, people from all over the world, began to come to the United States.
An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West
by Konstantin KisinFor all of the West's failings - terrible food, cold weather, and questionable politicians with funny hair to name a few - it has its upsides. Konstantin would know. Growing up in the Soviet Union, he experienced first-hand the horrors of a socialist paradise gone wrong, having lived in extreme poverty with little access to even the most basic of necessities. It wasn't until he moved to the UK that Kisin found himself thriving in an open and tolerant society, receiving countless opportunities he would never have had otherwise.Funny, provocative and unswervingly perceptive, An Immigrant's Love letter to the West interrogates the developing sense of self-loathing the Western sphere has adopted and offers an alternative perspective. Exploring race politics, free speech, immigration and more, Kisin argues that wrongdoing and guilt need not pervade how we feel about the West - and Britain - today, and that despite all its ups and downs, it remains one of the best places to live in the world.After all, if an immigrant can't publicly profess their appreciation for this country, who can?
An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West
by Konstantin KisinFor all of the West's failings - terrible food, cold weather, and questionable politicians with funny hair to name a few - it has its upsides. Konstantin would know. Growing up in the Soviet Union, he experienced first-hand the horrors of a socialist paradise gone wrong, having lived in extreme poverty with little access to even the most basic of necessities. It wasn't until he moved to the UK that Kisin found himself thriving in an open and tolerant society, receiving countless opportunities he would never have had otherwise.Funny, provocative and unswervingly perceptive, An Immigrant's Love letter to the West interrogates the developing sense of self-loathing the Western sphere has adopted and offers an alternative perspective. Exploring race politics, free speech, immigration and more, Kisin argues that wrongdoing and guilt need not pervade how we feel about the West - and Britain - today, and that despite all its ups and downs, it remains one of the best places to live in the world.After all, if an immigrant can't publicly profess their appreciation for this country, who can?
An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West (Karen Pirie #4)
by Konstantin KisinTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'A lively and spirited book' DOUGLAS MURRAY'A paean to the freedom and dignity that many in the West take for granted' PETER BOGHOSSIAN'A cool, steady but urgent message that we should value and protect what we have' SPIKED'Kisin's book [has] a powerful moral quality that makes it worth reading' SUNDAY TIMESFor all of the West's failings - terrible food, cold weather, and questionable politicians with funny hair to name a few - it has its upsides. Konstantin would know. Growing up in the Soviet Union, he experienced first-hand the horrors of a socialist paradise gone wrong, having lived in extreme poverty with little access to even the most basic of necessities. It wasn't until he moved to the UK that Kisin found himself thriving in an open and tolerant society, receiving countless opportunities he would never have had otherwise.Funny, provocative and unswervingly perceptive, An Immigrant's Love letter to the West interrogates the developing sense of self-loathing the Western sphere has adopted and offers an alternative perspective. Exploring race politics, free speech, immigration and more, Kisin argues that wrongdoing and guilt need not pervade how we feel about the West - and Britain - today, and that despite all its ups and downs, it remains one of the best places to live in the world.After all, if an immigrant can't publicly profess their appreciation for this country, who can?
An Immigration History of Britain: Multicultural Racism since 1800
by Panikos PanayiImmigration, ethnicity, multiculturalism and racism have become part of daily discourse in Britain in recent decades – yet, far from being new, these phenomena have characterised British life since the 19th century. While the numbers of immigrants increased after the Second World War, groups such as the Irish, Germans and East European Jews have been arriving, settling and impacting on British society from the Victorian period onwards. In this comprehensive and fascinating account, Panikos Panayi examines immigration as an ongoing process in which ethnic communities evolve as individuals choose whether to retain their ethnic identities and customs or to integrate and assimilate into wider British norms. Consequently, he tackles the contradictions in the history of immigration over the past two centuries: migration versus government control; migrant poverty versus social mobility; ethnic identity versus increasing Anglicisation; and, above all, racism versus multiculturalism. Providing an important historical context to contemporary debates, and taking into account the complexity and variety of individual experiences over time, this book demonstrates that no simple approach or theory can summarise the migrant experience in Britain.
An Immortal Descent
by Kari EdgrenSelah Kilbrid, descendant of the Celtic goddess Brigid, has been ordered to remain in London and leave any dangers in Ireland to her goddess-born family. They fear she's no match for Death's most powerful daughter and--if the legend holds true--the witch who once nearly destroyed the Irish people. But Selah has never been good at following orders, and nothing will stop her from setting out to find the two people she loves most--her dearest friend, Nora Goodwin, and her betrothed, Lord Henry Fitzalan.Hiding from kin, traveling uneasily beside companions with secrets of their own, Selah is forced on an unexpected path by those who would steal her gift of healing. With precious time ticking away, she turns to a mortal enemy for help, heedless of the cost.Selah would pass through hell to rescue Nora and Henry, but what if it means unleashing a greater evil on the human world? Her only chance is to claim the fullest extent of her birthright--at the risk of being forever separated from the man she longs to marry.Book three of Goddess Born121,340 words
An Impartial Witness: A Bess Crawford Mystery (Bess Crawford Mystery Ser. #No. 2)
by Charles Todd"Todd's novels are known for compelling plotting with a thoughtful whodunit aspect, rich characterization, evocative prose, and haunting atmosphere."--Richmond Times-Dispatch"Readers who can't get enough of [Jacqueline Winspear's] Maisie Dobbs...are bound to be caught up in the adventures of Bess Crawford."--New York Times Book ReviewTo great critical acclaim, author Charles Todd introduced protagonist Bess Crawford in A Duty to the Dead. The dedicated World War I nurse returns in An Impartial Witness, and finds herself in grave peril when a moral obligation makes her the inadvertent target of a killer. As hauntingly evocative as Todd's award-winning, New York Times bestselling Ian Rutledge novels, An Impartial Witness transports readers to a dark time of war and involves us in murder, intrigue, and the fascinating affairs of a truly unforgettable cast of characters.
An Impatient Life
by Tariq Ali Daniel BensaidIn the classic tradition of the philosopher-activist, Daniel Bensaid tells the story of a life deeply entwined with the history of both the French and the international Left. From his family bistro in a staunchly red neighborhood of Toulouse to the founding of the Jeunesses communistes revolutionnaires in the 1960s, from the joyous explosion of May 1968 to the painful experience of defeat in Latin America, from the re-reading of Marx to the "Marrano" trail, Bensaid relates a life of ideological and practical struggle in which he unflinchingly sought to understand capitalism without ever succumbing to its temptations.
An Impenetrable Screen of Purest Sky: A Novel
by Dan Beachy-QuickDaniel is pursued by stories. His father, in thrall to a myth, has disappeared; his mother and sister, too; and Lydia, his lover, leaves him and the novel he cannot finish for quantum mechanics, the place where theory tells tales about the real. And then there is Pearl, the girl beneath the floorboards, whose adventures hum alongside Daniel's own.In this contemporary, contemplative fairy tale, the autobiographical novel takes on the cast of legend, and the uncertainty of memory leaves reality on shaky ground. Can parallel universes exist? Can a preoccupation with Moby Dick overwhelm the story unfolding before you? Where do you stand in relation to the metaphysics of your own life?Dan Beachy-Quick is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Circle's Apprentice, as well as two books of prose, A Whaler's Dictionary and Wonderful Investigations, as well as a number of chapbooks and two collaborations, Conversities (with Srikanth Reddy), and Work from Memory (with Matthew Goulish). He teaches in the MFA Program at Colorado State University, and lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with his wife and two daughters.
An Imperative to Cure: Principles and Practice of Q'eqchi' Maya Medicine in Belize
by James B. WaldramJames B. Waldram&’s groundbreaking study, An Imperative to Cure: Principles and Practice of Q&’eqchi&’ Maya Medicine in Belize, explores how our understanding of Indigenous therapeutics changes if we view them as forms of &“medicine&” instead of &“healing.&” Bringing an innovative methodological approach based on fifteen years of ethnographic research, Waldram argues that Q&’eqchi&’ medical practitioners access an extensive body of empirical knowledge and personal clinical experience to diagnose, treat, and cure patients according to a coherent ontology and set of therapeutic principles. Not content to leave the elements of Q&’eqchi&’ cosmovision to the realm of the imaginary and beyond human reach, Q&’eqchi&’ practitioners conceptualize the world as essentially material and meta/material, consisting of complex but knowable forces that impact health and well-being in real and meaningful ways—forces with which Q&’eqchi&’ practitioners must engage to cure their patients.
An Imperfect Blessing
by Nadia DavidsIt is 1993. South Africa is on the brink of total transformation and in Walmer Estate, a busy suburb on the slopes of Devil's Peak, fourteen-year-old Alia Dawood is about to undergo a transformation of her own. <P><P>She watches with fascination and fear as the national drama unfolds, longing to be a part of what she knows to be history in the making. <P>As her revolutionary aspirations strengthen in the months before the elections, her intense, radical Uncle Waleed reappears, forcing her parents and sister Nasreen to confront his subversive and dangerous past. <P>Nadia David's first novel moves across generations and communities, through the suburbs to the city centre, from the lush gardens of private schools to the dingy bars of Observatory, from landmark mosques and churches to the manic procession of the Cape Carnival, through evictions, rebellions, political assassinations and first loves. <P>The book places one family's story at the heart of a country's rebirth and interrogates issues of faith, race, belonging and freedom. An Imperfect Blessing is a vibrant, funny and moving debut.
An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America
by Henry WiencekWhen George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was his "only unavoidable subject of regret."
An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America
by Henry WiencekAn Imperfect God is a major new biography of Washington, and the first to explore his engagement with American slaveryWhen George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was his "only unavoidable subject of regret." In this groundbreaking work, Henry Wiencek explores the founding father's engagement with slavery at every stage of his life--as a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president and statesman. Washington was born and raised among blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both black and white troops, Washington's attitudes began to change. He and the other framers enshrined slavery in the Constitution, but, Wiencek shows, even before he became president Washington had begun to see the system's evil. Wiencek's revelatory narrative, based on a meticulous examination of private papers, court records, and the voluminous Washington archives, documents for the first time the moral transformation culminating in Washington's determination to emancipate his slaves. He acted too late to keep the new republic from perpetuating slavery, but his repentance was genuine. And it was perhaps related to the possibility--as the oral history of Mount Vernon's slave descendants has long asserted--that a slave named West Ford was the son of George and a woman named Venus; Wiencek has new evidence that this could indeed have been true.George Washington's heroic stature as Father of Our Country is not diminished in this superb, nuanced portrait: now we see Washington in full as a man of his time and ahead of his time.
An Imperfect Lens
by Anne RoipheAcclaimed author Anne Roiphe evokes the sights and sounds of 1880s Alexandria, Egypt, a bustling center of trade and travel. From teeming docks to overflowing market stalls, from grand homes to grimy narrow alleyways, cholera microbes rise and bob in streams of water and tiny droplets, clinging to moisture as man clings to air. With a keen mind and dedication to his work, young Louis Thuillier has impressed his mentor—famed scientist Louis Pasteur—enough to be sent to Alexandria as one-third of the French mission searching for the source of the cholera that is terrorizing the city. Along with the other members of the French mission—scientists Emile Roux and Edmond Nocard and their enterprising servant Marcus—Louis longs to find the cure, bringing glory to himself and to France. Este Malina is the lovely daughter of a respected Jewish doctor, whose family has lived in Alexandria for hundreds of years. A life of comfort has made Este a romantic, and she hopes to marry a man with the heart of a poet. Neither expects to find a soul mate in the other, but when Este begins to assist at the French mission’s lab, a deep bond forms. Este, though, is engaged to another, and Louis is not Jewish—her family would never allow them to marry. In spite of their many differences, the lovers’ desire grows and their fantasies threaten to distract them from their work. In Alexandria, the disease rages on, as mysterious as it was a thousand years before. Political intrigue threatens to separate Este and Louis permanently. Their love, as fragile as the glass slides they use in the lab, is in danger before it has had a chance to thrive. With An Imperfect Lens, rich with the sights and scents of a different era, Anne Roiphe once again demonstrates the storytelling power for which she has long been hailed. From the Hardcover edition.
An Imperfect Match
by Kimberly Van MeterWidower Dean Halvorsen is concentrating on just two things: his construction business and raising his teenage son. He doesn't really care about anything else. Not anymore. Then Annabelle Nichols comes to Emmett's Mill, California, with her baby daughter, Honey. Before Dean quite knows how, Annabelle is working in his office and turning his world upside down. Still, the more time he spends with Annabelle and Honey, the more he realizes what's missing in his life. But Annabelle is all wrong for him. Of course, when something--or someone!--is all wrong, that doesn't mean things won't work out just right.
An Imperfect Occupation: Enduring the South African War
by John BojeThe South African War (1899-1902), also called the Boer War and Anglo-Boer War, began as a conventional conflict. It escalated into a savage irregular war fought between the two Boer republics and a British imperial force that adopted a scorched-earth policy and used concentration camps to break the will of Afrikaner patriots and Boer guerrillas. In An Imperfect Occupation , John Boje delves into the agonizing choices faced by Winburg district residents during the British occupation. Afrikaner men fought or evaded combat or collaborated; Afrikaner women fled over the veld or submitted to life in the camps; and black Africans weighed the life or death consequences of taking sides. Boje's sensitive analysis showcases the motives, actions, and reactions of Boers and Africans alike as initial British accommodation gave way to ruthlessness. Challenging notions of Boer unity and homogeneity, Boje illustrates the precarious tightrope of resistance, neutrality, and collaboration walked by people on all sides. He also reveals how the repercussions of the war's transformative effect on Afrikaner identity plays out in today's South Africa. Readable and compassionate, An Imperfect Occupation provides a dramatic account of the often overlooked aspects of one of the first "modern" wars.
An Imperfect Proposal
by Hayley Ann SolomonWith two young nieces now in his charge, the Earl of Devonport is quite suddenly in need of a wife--and kind, gentle Amaryllis Hastings fits the bill nicely. His marriage will be nothing more than a convenience, after all--but his "retiring" bride surprises him at every turn, especially when he discovers that she has stolen his heart!Previously published in A Wife for Papa.
An Imperfect Union: The Maastricht Treaty And The New Politics Of European Integration
by Michael J BaunExploring the politics of European integration, Michael Baun argues that the end of the Cold War and German unification have created a new set of geopolitical realities in Europe that have profoundly affected the nature and dynamics of European union. His primary focus is the high politics" of European integration after 1989, especially the role of the Franco-German relationship in the Maastricht Treaty process.Acknowledging the important roots of the treaty in economic and institutional developments prior to 1989, Baun argues that Maastricht principally can be understood as a response by the EU and its member states to German unification and the end of the cold war. In making this argument, he departs from more conventional neofunctionalist or institutionalist interpretations of European integration.After providing the historical background of developments before 1989, Baun weighs the decision to launch parallel intergovernmental conferences on monetary and political union in 1990 and describes in detail the negotiations and treaty outcomes in each of these areas. He then examines the difficult ratification of the Maastricht treaty in 1992-1993, in the face of growing popular opposition and economic and monetary instability. The book concludes with an analysis of the future prospects for European union in the post-Maastricht era, as the EU approaches its next major intergovernmental conference in 1996.
An Imperfection in the Kitchen Floor: A Novel
by Heather GreenleafTwo women who, living one hundred years apart, face similar sacrifices to make the life they deserve in this perfectly moving debut novel. With the unexpected news of her pregnancy, Molly&’s suddenly responsible husband Corey persuades her to leave her job as a sous chef in a bustling Washington, DC, restaurant and move to an old-fashioned, run-down house in small-town Pennsylvania. Stuck with a colicky newborn and a husband who loves the creaky steps, old décor, and even the broken tiles in the kitchen, Molly finds herself trapped in a life that only Corey wants—but is too busy working to enjoy. A century earlier, the same house was home to adventurous Tish, the middle daughter of the Hess family, who yearns to leave the family delicatessen behind to travel west and paint sweeping mountain landscapes. When Tish meets Ellis, a wanderer from California, their romance carries them through World War I, but cannot survive his return to civilian life and a train crash that claims the life of many aboard. Tied by tragedy to the delicatessen, Tish must forfeit everything for her family. After so much sacrifice, how can two women living a hundred years apart find happiness in the present, while living a life they would never choose for themselves?
An Imperial Concubine's Tale
by G. G. RowleyJapan in the early seventeenth century was a wild place. Serial killers stalked the streets of Kyoto at night, while noblemen and women mingled freely at the imperial palace, drinking saké and watching kabuki dancing in the presence of the emperor's principal consort. Among these noblewomen was an imperial concubine named Nakanoin Nakako, who in 1609 became embroiled in a sex scandal involving both courtiers and young women in the emperor's service. As punishment, Nakako was banished to an island in the Pacific Ocean, but she never reached her destination. Instead, she was shipwrecked and spent fourteen years in a remote village on the Izu Peninsula, before being set free in an amnesty. Returning to Kyoto, Nakako began a new adventure: she entered a convent and became a Buddhist nun.Recounting the remarkable story of this resilient woman and the war-torn world in which she lived, G. G. Rowley investigates aristocratic family archives, village storehouses, and the records of imperial convents to re-create Nakako's life from beginning to end. She follows the banished concubine as she endures rural exile, receives an unexpected reprieve, and rediscovers herself as the abbess of a nunnery. As she unravels Nakako's unusual tale, Rowley also profiles the little-known lives of samurai women who sacrificed themselves on the fringes of the great battles that brought an end to more than a century of civil war. Written with keen insight and genuine affection, An Imperial Concubine's Tale tells the true story of a woman's extraordinary life in seventeenth-century Japan.
An Imperial Concubine's Tale: Scandal, Shipwreck, and Salvation in Seventeenth-Century Japan
by G. G. RowleyJapan in the early seventeenth century was a wild place. Serial killers stalked the streets of Kyoto at night, while noblemen and women mingled freely at the imperial palace, drinking saké and watching kabuki dancing in the presence of the emperor's principal consort. Among these noblewomen was an imperial concubine named Nakanoin Nakako, who in 1609 became embroiled in a sex scandal involving both courtiers and young women in the emperor's service. As punishment, Nakako was banished to an island in the Pacific Ocean, but she never reached her destination. Instead, she was shipwrecked and spent fourteen years in a remote village on the Izu Peninsula before she was finally allowed to return to Kyoto. In 1641, Nakako began a new adventure: she entered a convent and became a Buddhist nun.Recounting the remarkable story of this resilient woman and her war-torn world, G. G. Rowley investigates aristocratic family archives, village storehouses, and the records of imperial convents. She follows the banished concubine as she endures rural exile, receives an unexpected reprieve, and rediscovers herself as the abbess of a nunnery. While unraveling Nakako's unusual tale, Rowley also reveals the little-known lives of samurai women who sacrificed themselves on the fringes of the great battles that brought an end to more than a century of civil war. Written with keen insight and genuine affection, An Imperial Concubine's Tale tells the true story of a woman's extraordinary life in seventeenth-century Japan.