Mark Totten has spent fifteen years learning about youth gangs. He has interviewed over 500 gang members in cities across the country, tracing their lives from infancy to adulthood, and exploring the roots of their involvement in crime and their reliance on violence. This book offers a picture of the reality of youth gangs in Canada. Much of what Totten has to say is at odds with popular ideas. His research leads him to believe that breaking through the circumstances that produce young criminals is far more difficult than most people think. For individuals caught in gang life, exiting that world is next to impossible-in fact, the most common way out is an early death from violence or suicide.

Birds do it, and bees do it, so do all animals, some of them in weird and wonderful ways. Quirks & Quarks' latest book explores the more bizarre behaviours of more than 100 creatures, from barnacles to Panda bears. The tiny spider that has to tear off one of its two huge sex organs just to be able to get around; the sea slug that produces a powerful love drug and mates with both males and females; the bedbug that stabs its penis into the female's abdomen — the range of animal sexual practices is mind-boggling. And it's not only reproduction that has them doing very strange things. There's a beetle that shoots a stream of boiling hot, toxic liquid when it's threatened; a lizard that can run on water; a shrimp that explodes its prey. Quirks & Quarks' latest guide is much more than a catalogue of peculiar practices, it's an engrossing look at the astonishing behaviours different animals have evolved in order to survive and reproduce. With an introduction by Bob McDonald, host of Quirks & Quarks.

An NPR Best Book of 2022 * One of Christian Science Monitor's 10 best books of May “This amazing new book . . . takes us on a journey through classic and contemporary philosophy powered by questions like ‘What do we have the right to do? When is it okay to do this or that?’ They explore punishment and authority and sex and gender and race and the nature of truth and knowledge and the existence of God and the meaning of life and Scott just does an incredible job.” —Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic Some of the best philosophers in the world gather in surprising places—preschools and playgrounds. They debate questions about metaphysics and morality, even though they’ve never heard the words and perhaps can’t even tie their shoes. They’re kids. And as Scott Hershovitz shows in this delightful debut, they’re astoundingly good philosophers. Hershovitz has two young sons, Rex and Hank. From the time they could talk, he noticed that they raised philosophical questions and were determined to answer them. They re-created ancient arguments. And they advanced entirely new ones. That’s not unusual, Hershovitz says. Every kid is a philosopher. Following an agenda set by Rex and Hank, Hershovitz takes us on a fun romp through classic and contemporary philosophy, powered by questions like, Does Hank have the right to drink soda? When is it okay to swear? and, Does the number six exist? Hershovitz and his boys take on more weighty issues too. They explore punishment, authority, sex, gender, race, the nature of truth and knowledge, and the existence of God. Along the way, they get help from professional philosophers, famous and obscure. And they show that all of us have a lot to learn from listening to kids—and thinking with them. Hershovitz calls on us to support kids in their philosophical adventures. But more than that, he challenges us to join them so that we can become better, more discerning thinkers and recapture some of the wonder kids have at the world.

Nasty, Brutish, and Short is a collection of irreverent essays about life overseas. The author no longer has to hold his tongue about his experiences—which means it’s payback time. He now speaks his mind about all the strange people and places he has encountered around the world over the last twenty years. And he takes the reader on a funny and endearing jaunt to a dozen countries, from England to Egypt, and Afghanistan to Haiti, answering crucial questions like Why are Pakistani driving ranges so dangerous? And, How long can Bulgarians actually hold a grudge? Unlike other foreign travel books, the author isn’t just passing through. He has lived in these dangerous and difficult places, often for years at a time. He knows their people, streets, and customs like the back of his hand. It was part of his job. Sometimes his life depended on it.

The Prometheus Award-winning author of "Alongside Night" and "The Rainbow Cadenza" offers a collection of his short fiction, including two never-before-seen stories.

Presented by the National Theatre of Scotland and the Traverse Theatre as a double-bill as part of their Debuts season, these two shorts plays take an unflinching look at the darker side of Scottish families. In Kenny Lindsay's The Dogstone, a father and son aren't seeing eye to eye in Oban. Teenager Lorn is trying to get his life started as his Dad is throwing his away with last night's empties. He's a 'heroic drinker' who loves to tell Lorn the local legends and stories of warriors, kings and the fabled Dogstone. Just how far can his fantasies take him? Andy Duffy's Nasty, Brutish and Short finds two brothers, Jim and Luke, holed up in a Glasgow flat. No job, no money and it looks like the only things on offer are all bad. As the options start to run out, Jim takes what isn't his and sets the two brothers on a collision course . . .

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 I love drawing a bath for my kids. It’s the only time I get to be alone, and I can’t wait. But when my kids are tired, their kinetic energy increases and their self-control self-destructs. #2 Rights are not physical possessions, but rather normative protections generated by the norms of good behavior. Someone who is trying to act well would not take Tigey without your permission, but not everyone tries to act well. #3 Rights are relationships. They are claims that someone has on something else. They can be good against multiple people, or good against everyone. They are not inside you, but they are not outside of you either. #4 When you have a right, someone else has an obligation. Rights are relationships, and two people are part of every right: the right holder and the obligation bearer. Rights and responsibilities travel together. They are the same relationship described from different sides.

Although the last half of the twentieth century has been called the Age of Democracy, the twenty-first has already demonstrated the fragility of its apparent triumph as the dominant form of government throughout the world. Reassessing the fate of democracy for our time, distinguished political theorist Ralph Ketcham traces the evolution of this idea over the course of four hundred years. He traces democracy's bumpy ride in a book that is both an exercise in the history of ideas and an explication of democratic theory. Ketcham examines the rationales for democratic government, identifies the fault lines that separate democracy from good government, and suggests ways to strengthen it in order to meet future challenges. Drawing on an encyclopedic command of history and politics, he examines the rationales that have been offered for democratic government over the course of four manifestations of modernity that he identifies in the Western and East Asian world since 1600. Ketcham first considers the fundamental axioms established by theorists of the Enlightenment—Bacon, Locke, Jefferson—and reflected in America's founding, then moves on to the mostly post-Darwinian critiques by Bentham, Veblen, Dewey, and others that produced theories of the liberal corporate state. He explains late-nineteenth-century Asian responses to democracy as the third manifestation, grounded in Confucian respect for communal and hierarchical norms, followed by late-twentieth-century postmodernist thought that views democratic states as oppressive and seeks to empower marginalized groups. Ketcham critiques the first, second, and fourth modernity rationales for democracy and suggests that the Asian approach may represent a reconciliation of ancient wisdom and modern science better suited to today's world. He advocates a reorientation of democracy that de-emphasizes group or identity politics and restores the wholeness of the civic community, proposing a return to the Jeffersonian universalism—that which informed the founding of the United States-if democracy is to flourish in a fifth manifestation. The Idea of Democracy in the Modern Era is an erudite, interdisciplinary work of great breadth and complexity that looks to the past in order to reframe the future. With its global overview and comparative insights, it will stimulate discussion of how democracy can survive—and thrive—in the coming era.