Bøger udgivet af Phoenix Books

Common Core, A Story of School Terrorism is winner of the Society of Professors of Education book award for 2014. Intrigue, politics, and romance collide in this satirical novel about school reform. As it opens, the US Secretary of education is poisoned, teachers change students' answers on a state test, a charter school is bombed and a shadowy plan to build a teacher robot to replace human teachers is revealed. Declaring the poisoning and bombing terrorist acts, Homeland Security and the FBI begin an investigation into a complex world of for-profit schools, educational investment companies, politicians, international culture wars, and a host of special interest groups ranging from neo-Nazi organizations to radical anti-testing groups. FBI Agent Tim Geary, a hero of the Boston Marathon terrorist investigation, leads the search for the killers. What he discovers is an intricate financial and political network linking the Common Core Investment Fund, which supports corporatizing public schools and bribes Chinese officials involved in building the teacher robot, with Brightstone, a testing and publishing giant, and Kiwi, a major technology company selling products to schools. As the mystery unfolds, China's Ministry of State Security and the Hanban struggle with the US State Department and CIA to control the language and culture of the teacher robot, while Cincinnati Teachers Union's President Felicia Cochran leads a national campaign to save public schools from corporatization and takeover by for-profit companies. Entertaining, thought-provoking, and suspenseful, the startling finale of this page-turner reveals who did what to whom and why!

In this psychological thriller-a darkly humorous satire of political and academic intrigue and violence-Billy Durant, raped at the age of six in a foster home, becomes a serial killer and world-renowned behavioral economist. A deeply angered, troubled, and brilliant youth, he lands in a prestigious university, where he becomes a fan of libertarian Ayn Rand and free-market economics. Considered a mathematical and economic genius, he is recruited by the Chicago Economic Institute to develop and execute a series of cost/benefit models that lead to devastating consequences. Later he is funded by right-wing Oklahoma oil-rich brothers to promote free markets, tax cuts, and gun rights. Behavioral economics turns out to be the perfect public outlet for Billy's private rage and violence. His life is a maelstrom of sanctioned and secret murders fraught with guilt and moral conflict. In middle age Billy hooks up with Rosa Honecker, a former torturer for the East German secret police. Their life together is filled with emotion, passion, secrets, kinky sexual adventures, and through it all an intense struggle against their violent histories and murderous impulses. The story ends as Billy and Rosa approach old age, with startling denouements for them both.

Japan is known worldwide for its economic prowess and such iconic symbols as geisha, karaoke, manga, Mt. Fuji, ninja, feudal-age samurai warriors and huge sumo wrestlers. What is not so well-known are its amazing historical artifacts [shrines; temples; castles; the world's largest and oldest wooden buildings; arts and crafts, hundreds of annual festivals that go back nearly two thousand years]; the incredible scenic beauty of its mountains, gorges, rivers, one of the longest and most gorgeous coastlines in the world; and a combined modern and traditional lifestyle that is so fascinating and seductive that exposure to it for just a few days is a mind-altering experience. The author identifies and describes a choice selection of things that make Japan one of the world's most unusual, most intriguing, and most enjoyable travel destinations...things that explain why so many foreigners take up permanent residence there once they have experienced life in this amazing country.

A Perfect Life Jimmy Clark is the poster child for the World Government's promise to provide everyone with a perfect life. In this satire of a dystopian future the 300 highest-earning global corporations control the World Government. Data on everyone, collected by AlwaysWatch, is sent to Interpol. To be outside the view of AlwaysWatch's cameras is against World Government law. Jimmy's early life is managed by Radiant Technologies and Biostream- mega-global-corporations that analyze Big Data to engineer the perfect life. Removed from his parents at birth, Jimmy is assigned to a robot guardian Sally, who becomes his lifetime companion sometimes sharing his bed. Shaped by the "right" schools for the perfect job in his perfect life, Jimmy is pushed into the Zeus Fund. There, at the altar of the Temple of Mammon, he unwittingly completes the Internet of Things, linking all data with global corporations and government agencies. As this dark, ironic spoof unfolds, Jimmy's perfect life cracks apart. Truths begin to surface. The love of his life-a privileged, spoiled, anti-World Government activist- is killed. Stimulating consumerism with drugs, fantasies and enticing scents, the World Government's Office of Shoppiness causes mass riots and shopping mall burnings. Seizing this opportunity for a windfall, SleepWell, DieWell and GoCancer flood the devices of the dying with ads suggesting "Isn't it time to rest and sleep?"