A Book Of Desire

Since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, Indonesia has undergone a radical program of administrative decentralization and neoliberal reforms. In Methods of Desire, author Aurora Donzelli explores these changes through an innovative perspective—one that locates the production of neoliberalism in novel patterns of language use and new styles of affect display. Building on almost two decades of fieldwork, Donzelli describes how the growing influence of transnational lending agencies is transforming the ways in which people desire and voice their expectations, intentions, and entitlements within the emergent participatory democracy and restructuring of Indonesia’s political economy. She argues that a largely overlooked aspect of the Era Reformasi concerns the transition from a moral regime centered on the expectation that desires should remain hidden to a new emphasis on the public expression of individuals’ aspirations. The book examines how the large-scale institutional transformations that followed the collapse of the Suharto regime have impacted people’s lives and imaginations in the relatively remote and primarily rural Toraja highlands of Sulawesi. A novel concept of the individual as a bundle of audible and measurable desires has emerged, one that contrasts with the deep-rooted reticence toward the expression of personal preferences. The spreading of foreign discursive genres such as customer satisfaction surveys, training sessions, electoral mission statements, and fundraising auctions, and the diffusion of new textual artifacts such as checklists, flowcharts, and workflow diagrams are producing forms of citizenship, political participation, and moral agency that contrast with the longstanding epistemologies of secrecy typical of local styles of knowledge and power. Donzelli’s long-term ethnographic study examines how these foreign protocols are being received, absorbed, and readapted in a peripheral community of the Indonesian archipelago. Combining a telescopic perspective on our contemporary moment with a microscopic analysis of conversational practices, the author argues that the managerial forms of political rationality and the entrepreneurial morality underwriting neoliberal apparatuses proliferate through the working of small cogs, that is, acts of speech. By examining these concrete communicative exchanges, she sheds light on both the coherence and inconsistency underlying the worldwide diffusion of market logic to all domains of life.

“A debut story collection of the rarest kind ... you wish that every single entry could be an entire novel." —Entertainment Weekly Fresh, intimate stories of women’s lives from an extraordinary new literary voice, laying bare the unexpected beauty and irony in contemporary life A college freshman, traveling home, strikesup an odd, ephemeral friendship with the couple next to her on the plane. A mother prepares for her son’s wedding, her own life unraveling as his comes together. A long-lost stepbrother’s visit to New York prompts a family’s reckoning with its old taboos. A wife considers the secrets her marriage once contained. An office worker, exhausted by the ambitions of the men around her, emerges into a gridlocked city one afternoon to make a decision. In these eleven powerful stories, thrilling desire and melancholic yearning animate women’s lives, from the brink of adulthood to the labyrinthine path between twenty and thirty, to middle age, when certain possibilities quietly elapse. Tender, lucid, and piercingly funny, Objects of Desire is a collection pulsing with subtle drama, rich with unforgettable scenes, and alive with moments of recognition each more startling than the last—a spellbinding debut that announces a major talent.

Providing a comprehensive perspective on human desire, this volume brings together leading experts from multiple psychological subdisciplines. It addresses such key questions as how desires of different kinds emerge, how they influence judgment and decision making, and how problematic desires can be effectively controlled. Current research on underlying brain mechanisms and regulatory processes is reviewed. Cutting-edge measurement tools are described, including practical recommendations for their use. The book also examines pathological forms of desire and the complex relationship between desire and happiness. The concluding section analyzes specific applied domains--eating, sex, aggression, substance use, shopping, and social media.

Sensual heat melts the ice in the new Disgraced Lords novel from USA Today bestselling author Bronwen Evans, as a marriage of convenience leads to delightful pleasure—and mortal danger. Lady Marisa Hawkestone’s nightmare is just beginning when she wakes up naked, with no memory of the night before, lying next to Maitland Spencer, the Duke of Lyttleton—a man so aloof and rational he’s nicknamed “the Cold Duke.” A scandal ensues, in which Marisa’s beloved beau deserts her. As a compromised woman, Marisa agrees to marry Maitland. But on her wedding night, Marisa discovers the one place the duke shows emotion: in the bedroom, where the man positively scorches the sheets. Taught from a young age to take duty seriously, Maitland cannot understand his new wife’s demands on his love and affection. Marisa’s hot-blooded spirit, however, does have its attractions—especially at night. In retrospect, it seems quite silly that he didn’t marry sooner. But being one of the Libertine Scholars requires constant vigilance, even more so when the enemy with a grudge against his closest friends targets Marisa. Now Maitland must save the woman who sets his heart aflame—or die trying. Look for the enchanting Disgraced Lords series from Bronwen Evans: A KISS OF LIES | A PROMISE OF MORE | A TOUCH OF PASSION | A WHISPER OF DESIRE | A TASTE OF SEDUCTION | A NIGHT OF FOREVER And don’t miss her novels in the Imperfect Lords series: ADDICTED TO THE DUKE | DRAWN TO THE MARQUESS | ATTRACTED TO THE EARL “With complexity, depth, and hot, hot passion, A Whisper of Desire kept my emotions on a roller coaster—and I didn’t want to get off.”—Lavinia Kent, author of Sarah’s Surrender “If you are a lover of romance and don’t mind a little heat, Evans’s novels are the way to go. She constantly reminds us what passion is all about, and because she is so on point with her facts and lively characters, you just can’t go wrong. Her latest is suspenseful, well written and a great read all around.”—RT Book Reviews “A must-read . . . delightful . . . I laughed out loud, I cried, I wept and I couldn’t keep the smile off my face.”—Night Owl Reviews (five stars) “A compelling Regency tale full of passion and danger.”—Fresh Fiction “This book covered everything, and yet did so in an uncluttered, coherent fashion. I ended up being awake way past my bedtime because I couldn’t stop reading. I’ll be going back and reading the first ones in the series, and I look forward to seeing how the later ones pan out.”—The Romance Factor “I can’t wait for the [next] books in the series to come out. This is rapidly becoming one of my favourite series out there!”—Kilts and Swords Includes an excerpt from another Loveswept title.

Unmasteredis a new kind of book that allows us to think afresh about desire. Incisive, moving, and lyrical, it opens up a larger space for the exploration of feelings that can be difficult to express. Touching on experiences of desire and pleasure, as well as grief and pain, the book probes the porousness between masculine and feminine, thought and sensation, self and culture, power and pliancy. Katherine Angel reflects on the history of her own feelings, on her encounters and beliefs, and shows how our lives can be shaped by sexuality and feminism; by the words we use, and the stories we tell. The result is a book letting light into places that are often dark and constrained - a searching, erotic work that shifts in meaning and resonance even as it is read.

For over a decade Rekindling Desire has helped to restore and restructure sexuality in thousands of lives. This expanded edition continues the exploration of inhibited sexual desire and no-sex relationships by the author, who brings decades of knowledge and the expertise that comes from having treated almost 3,000 couples for sexual problems. Contained within are suggested strategies and exercises that help develop communication and sexual skills, as well as interesting case studies that open the doors to couples’ sexual frustrations. The shame, embarrassment, and hesitancy that individuals feel with themselves, and the resentment and blame they can feel towards their sexual partners, are explored and put into context. Whether you are married, cohabitating, or dating, or if you are 25, 45, or 75, reading this book will help renew your sexual desire and put you on the path towards healthy, pleasure-oriented sexuality.

“Pollan shines a light on our own nature as well as on our implication in the natural world.” —The New York Times “A wry, informed pastoral.” —The New Yorker The book that helped make Michael Pollan, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, Cooked and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, one of the most trusted food experts in America Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?

To desire something is a condition familiar to everyone. It is uncontroversial that desiring has something to do with motivation, something to do with pleasure, and something to do with reward. Call these "the three faces of desire." The standard philosophical theory at present holds that the motivational face of desire presents its unique essence--to desire a state of affairs is to be disposed to act so as to bring it about. A familiar but less standard account holds the hedonic face of desire to reveal to true nature of desire. In this view, to desire something is to tend to pleasure if it seems that the desired state of affairs has been achieved, or displeasure if it seems otherwise, thus tying desire to feelings instead of actions. In Three Faces of Desire, Schroeder goes beyond actions and feelings to advance a novel and controversial theory of desire that puts the focus on desire's neglected face, reward. Informed by contemporary science as much as by the philosophical tradition, Three Faces of Desire discusses recent scientific discoveries that tell us much about the way that actions and feelings are produced in the brain. In particular, recent experiments reveal that a distinctive system is responsible for promoting action, on the one hand, and causing feelings of pleasure and displeasure, on the other. This system, the brain's reward system, is the causal origin of both action and feeling, and is the key to understanding the nature of desire.

Thomas Armstrong vows only the loss of his faculties could ever convince him to take Amelia Bertram under his care during her father’s absence from England. Sadly, that loss does occur… the moment Lady Amelia publicly states that rumors of his exalted sexual prowess are more fable than fact. Responding like any man with an ounce of pride would, he picks up the gauntlet she threw down on the ballroom floor. After the death of her mother, Amelia Bertram is further devastated by the withdrawal of her father’s love. To survive the double heartbreak, she walls off her emotions. Now, her social faux pas finds her sharing a roof with the very man who took her place in her father’s affections…the man her father hopes one day to call son. In the seclusion of his country estate, Thomas glimpses in Amelia a vulnerability buried beneath a mountain of jealousy and pain. In turn, she discovers the ton’s ‘golden Greek god’ is more than the sum of rumor and innuendo. Soon a fire ignites between them not even a deluge from the Thames can extinguish. Can they set aside their plans—his for revenge, hers to escape—to forge a love powerful enough to surmount his pride and crumble the walls surrounding her heart? *Reissue. Originally published by Kensington Publishing in 2011

“Forget what you think you know about dating—sexologist Shan Boodram is here to take you back to school.” - Apple Books Review “Boodram’s brand of relationship advice...focuses on empowering single women with the tools they need to succeed in the digital dating era.” - Refinery29 Women: gain control and confidence in your love lives and find the relationship you want with this modern, life-changing guide from the certified sex educator, intimacy expert, and YouTube personality. For younger generations, dating is a complicated mystery. Apps like Tinder and Bumble are supposed to foster connection, but instead serve as a reminder of how painfully single we are. Certified sexologist and intimacy coach Shan Boodram—the most sought-after sex educator on the internet—is about to change all that. In this essential how-to guide, she addresses the realities of life today—when the rules of love and attraction are fluid—and teaches a group of young women how to become master daters in just sixty days. It starts with you. Shan makes clear that love and self-discovery go hand in hand—your dating life is just as much about you as it is about other people. She challenges you to look inside yourself for what you want out of a partner, a relationship and, most important, yourself. Once you figure out what you want from dating, she shows you exactly how to get it. The Game of Desire empowers you to take the lead, learn your strengths, and identify and correct your weaknesses, all the while getting inspired watching a group of women learn how to succeed in today’s dating pool. While many books tell women why they can’t get a date, Shan teaches you the skills and techniques necessary to take charge in today’s competitive and often confusing dating scene, providing the tools essential to attract—and retain—the partner(s) you want. From learning love languages to debunking dating myths, she helps women build knowledge and confidence. Featuring conversational case studies, comprehensive facts about the psychology of sex and romance, and expert insight into sex culture, and written with her trademark humor and charm, The Game of Desire is a must for all of Shan’s fans and for every woman struggling to feel loved and desired.