brooklyn book store

these just in … 22 April, 2008

Beijing Time
by Michael Dutton, Hsiu-ju Stacy Lo, & Dong Dong Wu

Hardcover $26.95 - 10%

“Where is the market?” inquires the tourist one dark, chilly morning. “Follow the ghosts,” responds the taxi driver, indicating a shadowy parade of overloaded tricycles. “It’s not called the ghost market for nothing!” And indeed, Beijing is nothing if not haunted. Among the soaring skyscrapers, choking exhaust fumes, nonstop traffic jams, and towering monuments, one discovers old Beijing—newly styled, perhaps, but no less present and powerful than in its ancient incarnation. Beijing Time conducts us into this mysterious world, at once familiar and yet alien to the outsider.

The ancient Chinese understood the world as enchanted, its shapes revealing the mythological order of the universe. In the structure and detail of Tian’anmen Square, the authors reveal the city as a whole. In Beijing no pyramids stand as proud remnants of the past; instead, the entire city symbolizes a vibrant civilization. From Tian’anmen Square, we proceed to the neighborhoods for a glimpse of local color—from the granny and the young police officer to the rag picker and the flower vendor. Wandering from the avant-garde art market to the clock towers, from the Monumental Axis to Mao’s Mausoleum, the book allows us to peer into the lives of Beijingers, the rules and rituals that govern their reality, and the mythologies that furnish their dreams. Deeply immersed in the culture, everyday and otherworldly, this anthropological tour, from ancient cosmology to Communist kitsch, allows us to see as never before how the people of Beijing—and China—work and live.

Jerusalem: City of Longing
by Simon Goldhill

Hardcover $27.95 - 10%

Simon Goldhill has written an elegant and evocative multi-religious history of Jerusalem. Rock by rock, myth by myth, the book guides the reader through an exhilarating visit to the city, exposing its magnetism and fragility, its light and darkness.
-Sari Nusseibeh, author of Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life

A fascinating journey through Jerusalem’s most memorable placesand among its most colorful personalities, and epoch-making events. Simon Goldhill is a master historian and expert guide who reveals much that is unexpected about this revered, fought-over, and often misunderstood city. Engaging in tone, superbly written, and admirably even-handed, this book offers a compelling new portrait of the many souls of Jerusalem.
-Neil Asher Silberman, co-author of The Bible Unearthed

Instructions for British Servicemen in Germany, 1944

Hardcover $9.99 - 10%

“Don’t be too ready to listen to stories told by attractive women. They may be acting under orders.” This was only one of the many warnings given to the 30,000 British troops preparing to land in the enemy territory of Nazi Germany nine-and-a-half months after D-Day. The newest addition to the Bodleian Library’s bestselling series of wartime pamphlets, Instructions for British Servicemen in Germany, 1944 opens an intriguing window into the politics and military stratagems that brought about the end of World War II.
The pamphlet is both a succinct survey of German politics, culture, and history and a work of British propaganda. Not only does the pamphlet cover general cultural topics such as food and drink, currency, and social customs, but it also explains the effect of years of the war on Germans and their attitudes toward the British. The book admonishes, “The Germans are not good at controlling their feelings. They have a streak of hysteria. You will find that Germans may often fly into a passion if some little thing goes wrong.” The mix of humor and crude stereotypes—“If you have to give orders to German civilians, give them in a firm, military manner. The German civilian is used to it and expects it”—in the text make this pamphlet a stark reminder of the wartime fears and hopes of the British.
By turns a manual on psychological warfare, a travel guide, and a historical survey, Instructions for British Servicemen in Germany, 1944 offers incomparable insights into how the British, and by extension the Allied forces, viewed their fiercest enemy on the eve of its defeat.
How to Be Useful: A Beginner’s Guide to Not Hating Work
by Megan Hustad
Hardcover $19.95 - 10%
There’s a lot of career advice out there. Much of it dumb. But what if someone read all the advice books — over a hundred years’ worth — and put all the good ideas in one place? Could you finally escape the cube? Stop mailing things? Be happier?

In How to Be Useful, Megan Hustad dismantles the myths of getting ahead and helps you navigate the murky waters of