Henry Carroll

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Illinois

(Learn Top Photography Tips and How to Take Good Pictures of People)

Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs Of People is an inspiring book of conceptual starting points and invaluable technical tips for anyone, novice or professional, who wants to take top-notch pictures of people. The book distills portrait photography into seven subject areas, including "Composition," "The Gaze," and "The Street," and features beautiful, startling, and inspirational photographs in each category. Readers are given practical insights into the ideas and techniques of a wide range of historical and contemporary masters so they can put it all into practice themselves. Scattered throughout the book are "technical tangents" packed with invaluable practical guidance for basic lighting set-ups, equipment, camera modes and more. Also included is definitive advice from a lawyer on your legal rights when taking pictures of people.

Read This If You Want to Take Great Photographs of People

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Melinda Taub

A little smoosh on one of the corners, otherwise new

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY PICK FOR 2023 Now in paperback, a "witty, magical, romantic and altogether brilliant" (Lev Grossman) reimagining of Pride and Prejudice, told from the perspective of the troublesome and--according to her--much-maligned youngest Bennet sister, Lydia. In this exuberant retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Lydia Bennet puts pen to paper to relate the real events and aftermath of the classic story. Some facts are well known: Mrs. Bennet suffers from her nerves, Mr. Bennet suffers from Mrs. Bennet, and all five daughters suffer from an estate that is entailed only to male heirs. But Lydia also suffers from entirely different concerns: her best-loved sister Kitty is really a barn cat; Wickham is every bit as wicked as the world believes him to be, but what else would one expect from a demon? And if Mr. Darcy is uptight about etiquette, that's nothing compared to his feelings about magic. Most of all, Lydia has yet to learn that for a witch, promises have power . . . Full of enchantment, intrigue, and boundless magic, The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch, has all the irreverent wit, strength, and romance of Pride and Prejudice--while offering a highly unexpected redemption for the wildest Bennet sister.

The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch

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Elizabeth Flock

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Women, Vengeance, and Justice

Renowned journalist and author of The Heart is a Shifting Sea Elizabeth Flock investigates what few dare to confront, or even imagine: the role and necessity of female-led violence in response to systems built against women. In The Furies, Elizabeth Flock examines how three real-life women have used violence to fight back, and how views of women who defend their lives are often distorted by their depictions in media and pop culture. These three immersive narratives follow Brittany Smith, a young woman from Stevenson, Alabama, who killed a man she said raped her but was denied the protection of the Stand-Your-Ground law; Angoori Dahariya, leader of a gang in Uttar Pradesh, India, dedicated to avenging victims of domestic abuse; and Cicek Mustafa Zibo, a fighter in a thousands-strong all-female militia that battled ISIS in Syria. Each woman chose to use lethal force to gain power, safety, and freedom when the institutions meant to protect them--government, police, courts--utterly failed to do so. Each woman has been criticized for their actions by those who believe that violence is never the answer. Through Flock's propulsive prose and remarkable research on the ground--embedded with families, communities, and organizations in America, India, and Syria--The Furies examines, with exquisite nuance, whether the fight for women's safety is fully possible without force. Do these women's acts of vengeance help or hurt them, and ultimately, all women? Did they create lasting change in entrenched misogynistic and paternalistic systems? And ultimately, what would societies in which women have real power look like? Across mythologies and throughout history, the stories of women's lives frequently end with their bodies as sites of violence. But there are also celebrated tales of women, real and fictional, who have fought back. The novelistic accounts of these three women provoke questions about how to achieve true gender equality, and offer profound insights in the quest for answers.

The Furies

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Marisa Crane

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

A Novel

Dept. of Speculation meets Black Mirror in this lyrical, speculative debut about a queer mother raising her daughter in an unjust surveillance state In a United States not so unlike our own, the Department of Balance has adopted a radical new form of law enforcement: rather than incarceration, wrongdoers are given a second (and sometimes, third, fourth, and fifth) shadow as a reminder of their crime—and a warning to those they encounter. Within the Department, corruption and prejudice run rampant, giving rise to an underclass of so-called Shadesters who are disenfranchised, publicly shamed, and deprived of civil rights protections. Kris is a Shadester and a new mother to a baby born with a second shadow of her own. Grieving the loss of her wife and thoroughly unprepared for the reality of raising a child alone, Kris teeters on the edge of collapse, fumbling in a daze of alcohol, shame, and self-loathing. Yet as the kid grows, Kris finds her footing, raising a child whose irrepressible spark cannot be dampened by the harsh realities of the world. She can’t forget her wife, but with time, she can make a new life for herself and the kid, supported by a community of fellow misfits who defy the Department to lift one another up in solidarity and hope. With a first-person register reminiscent of the fierce self-disclosure of Sheila Heti and the poetic precision of Ocean Vuong, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is a bold debut novel that examines the long shadow of grief, the hard work of parenting, and the power of queer resistance.

I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself ARC

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K-Ming Chang

A surreal novella about the intensity and eroticism of girlhood friendships, the ecstasy of desire and disgust, and matriarchal mythmaking. Seven, who works as a cleaner at a chiropractor's office, reencounters Cecilia, a woman who has obsessed her since their school days. As the two of them board the same bus--each dubiously claiming not to be following the other--their chance meeting spurs a series of intensely vivid and corporeal memories. In the defamiliarization that follows, the narrator begins to experience queerness itself as an alienation from normative time. Smart, subversive, and gripping, Cecilia is a winding, misty road trip through bodily transformation, inextricable histories of desire and violence, diaspora, and obsessive love.

Cecilia ARC

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Zadie Smith

Tiniest bit of damage in the back (see photo) otherwise new!

Struggling with a stale marriage and the misguided passions of his three adult children, long-suffering art professor Howard Belsey finds his family life thrown into turmoil by his son's engagement to the socially prominent daughter of a right-wing icon. By the author of White Teeth. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 250,000 first printing.

On Beauty

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Molly X. Chang

She has power over death. He has power over her. When two enemies strike a dangerous bargain, will they end a war . . . or ignite one? “A thrilling tale of magic and murder, intrigue and betrayal.”—Cassandra Clare, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Sword Catcher The gorgeous first edition hardcover of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods will feature a poster, color endpapers, a custom-stamped case, and a foil jacket! Heroes die, cowards live. Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen. Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull the life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe. When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal: If she becomes his private assassin and eliminates his political rivals—whose deaths he swears would be for the good of both their worlds and would protect her people from further brutalization—her family will never starve or suffer harm again. But to accept this bargain, she must use the powers she has always feared, powers that will shave years off her own existence. Can Ruying trust this prince, whose promises of a better world make her heart ache and whose smiles make her pulse beat faster? Are the evils of this agreement really in the service of a much greater good? Or will she betray her entire nation by protecting those she loves the most?

To Gaze upon Wicked Gods

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Janelle Monáe

Small tear in the front but otherwise great condition

And Other Stories of Dirty Computer

In The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, singer-songwriter, actor, fashion icon, activist, and worldwide superstar Janelle Monáe brings to the written page the Afrofuturistic world of one of her critically acclaimed albums, exploring how different threads of liberation--queerness, race, gender plurality, and love--become tangled with future possibilities of memory and time in such a totalitarian landscape...and what the costs might be when trying to unravel and weave them into freedoms. Whoever controls our memories controls the future. Janelle Monáe and an incredible array of talented collaborating creators have written a collection of tales comprising the bold vision and powerful themes that have made Monáe such a compelling and celebrated storyteller. Dirty Computer introduced a world in which thoughts--as a means of self-conception--could be controlled or erased by a select few. And whether human, A.I., or other, your life and sentience was dictated by those who'd convinced themselves they had the right to decide your fate. That was until Jane 57821 decided to remember and break free. Expanding from that mythos, these stories fully explore what it's like to live in such a totalitarian existence...and what it takes to get out of it. Building off the traditions of speculative writers such as Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, Becky Chambers, and Nnedi Okorafor--and filled with the artistic genius and powerful themes that have made Monáe a worldwide icon in the first place--The Memory Librarian serves readers tales grounded in the human trials of identity expression, technology, and love, but also reaching through to the worlds of memory and time within, and the stakes and power that exists there.

The Memory Librarian

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Lauren Blackwood

Eighteen-year-old Jerusalem, a fearless Saint with demigod powers, joins the Union Army seeking revenge against the vampire who enslaved her family, but in order to find success, she finds herself reluctantly teaming up with Alexei, a handsome Union vampire she can't help but fall for.

The Dangerous Ones

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Maya Deane

"Deane's tour de force debut ...brings the familiar story to fresh, vivid, and unforgettable new life." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) Drawing on ancient texts and modern archeology to reveal the trans woman's story hidden underneath the well-known myths of The Iliad, Maya Deane's Wrath Goddess Sing weaves a compelling, pitilessly beautiful vision of Achilles' vanished world, perfect for fans of Song of Achilles, The Witch's Heart, and the Inheritance trilogy. The gods wanted blood. She fought for love. Achilles has fled her home and her vicious Myrmidon clan to live as a woman with the kallai, the transgender priestesses of Great Mother Aphrodite. When Odysseus comes to recruit the "prince" Achilles for a war against the Hittites, she prepares to die rather than fight as a man. However, her divine mother, Athena, intervenes, transforming her body into the woman's body she always longed for, and promises her everything: glory, power, fame, victory in war, and, most importantly, a child born of her own body. Reunited with her beloved cousin, Patroklos, and his brilliant wife, the sorceress Meryapi, Achilles sets out to war with a vengeance. But the gods--a dysfunctional family of abusive immortals that have glutted on human sacrifices for centuries--have woven ancient schemes more blood-soaked and nightmarish than Achilles can imagine. At the center of it all is the cruel, immortal Helen, who sees Achilles as a worthy enemy after millennia of ennui and emptiness. In love with her newfound nemesis, Helen sets out to destroy everything and everyone Achilles cherishes, seeking a battle to the death. An innovative spin on a familiar tale, this is the Trojan War unlike anything ever told, and an Achilles whose vulnerability is revealed by the people she chooses to fight...and chooses to trust.

Wrath Goddess Sing

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Saeed Jones

D. A. Powell

Pierced by grief and charged with history, this new poetry collection from the award-winning author of Prelude to Bruise and How We Fight for Our Lives confronts our everyday apocalypses.

In haunted poems glinting with laughter, Saeed Jones explores the public and private betrayals of life as we know it. With verve, wit, and elegant craft, Jones strips away American artifice in order to reveal the intimate grief of a mourning son and the collective grief bearing down on all of us.

Drawing from memoir, fiction, and persona, Jones confronts the everyday perils of white supremacy with a finely tuned poetic ear, identifying moments that seem routine even as they open chasms of hurt. Viewing himself as an unreliable narrator, Jones looks outward to understand what's within, bringing forth cultural icons like Little Richard, Paul Mooney, Aretha Franklin and Diahann Carroll to illuminate how long and how perilously we've been living on top of fault lines. As these poems seek ways to love and survive through America's existential threats, Jones ushers his readers toward the realization that the end of the world is already here--and the apocalypse is a state of being.

Alive at the End of the World ARC

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Fariha Roisin

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind

The multi-disciplinary artist and author of Like a Bird and How to Cure a Ghost explores the commodification and appropriation of wellness through the lens of social justice, providing resources to help anyone participate in self-care, regardless of race, identity, socioeconomic status or able-bodiedness.

Growing up in Australia, Fariha Róisín, a Bangladeshi Muslim, struggled to fit in. In attempts to assimilate, she distanced herself from her South Asian heritage and identity. Years later, living in the United States, she realized that the customs, practices, and even food of her native culture that had once made her different--everything from ashwagandha to prayer--were now being homogenized and marketed for good health, often at a premium by white people to white people.

In this thought-provoking book, part memoir, part journalistic investigation, the acclaimed writer and poet explores the way in which the progressive health industry has appropriated and commodified global healing traditions. She reveals how wellness culture has become a luxury good built on the wisdom of Black, brown, and Indigenous people--while ignoring and excluding them.

Who Is Wellness For? is divided into four sections, beginning with The Mind, in which Fariha examines the art of meditation and the importance of intuition. In part two, The Body, she investigates the physiology of trauma, detailing her own journey with fatphobia and gender dysmorphia, as well as her own chronic illness. In part three, Self-Care, she argues against the self-care industrial complex but cautious us against abandoning care completely and offers practical advice. She ends with Justice, arguing that if we truly want to be well, we must be invested in everyone's well being and shift toward nurturance culture. 

Deeply intimate and revelatory, Who Is Wellness For? forces us to confront the imbalance in health and healing and carves a path towards self-care that is inclusionary for all.

Who Is Wellness For?

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Daniel Boulud

Eric Ripert

75 French Master Chefs

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Master Chefs of France

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Old Farmer's Old Farmer's Almanac

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

This book is the perfect companion for every vegetable gardener--even those who have never touched a trowel and wouldn't know mulch from mud! The practical advice presented in the Vegetable Gardener's Handbook demystifies gardening by providing the best, most proven methods for sowing, growing, and harvesting.

 

Highlights include ...

 
 * Step-by-step advice for success with more than 30 vegetables in any zone
 * The dirt on soil: why testing is so important--and how to do it
 * Easy techniques for growing in-ground, plus alternatives to traditional raised beds
 * Seed-starting and -saving methods simplified
 * Gardeners' friends and foes: which plants help (or hinder) vegetables
 * Enlightening (and humorous!) anecdotes from fellow gardeners
 * Space for noting observations and experiences
 * More than 150 full-color photos
 * Essential reference tables and charts
 * Much, much more!

 

Created for new gardeners, green thumbs, and old hands alike, The Old Farmer's Almanac Vegetable Gardener's Handbook is loaded with advice and inspiration to help plants--and growers--thrive.

 

Only The Old Farmer's Almanac has the experience and longevity to offer the very best tried-and-true information, tips, and advice about all things gardening and growing. With the Vegetable Gardener's Handbook, we are a patient master gardener passing down the secrets of growing great food to every gardener.

 

The Old Farmer's Almanac Vegetable Gardener's Handbook

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America's Test Kitchen

A Step-By-Step Guide to Achieving Bakery-Quality Results at Home

In this comprehensive cookbook, America's Test Kitchen breaks down the often intimidating art and science of bread baking, making it easy for anyone to create foolproof, bakery-quality breads at home. Many home cooks find bread baking rewarding but intimidating. In Bread Illustrated, America's Test Kitchen shows bakers of all levels how to make foolproof breads, rolls, flatbreads, and more at home. Each master recipe is presented as a hands-on and reassuring tutorial illustrated with six to 16 full-color step-by-step photos. Organized by level of difficulty to make bread baking less daunting, the book progresses from the simplest recipes for the novice baker to artisan-style loaves, breads that use starters, and more complex project recipes. The recipes cover a wide and exciting range of breads from basics and classics like Easy Sandwich Bread and Fluffy Dinner Rolls to interesting breads from around the world including Lahmacun, Panettone, and Fig and Fennel Bread.

Bread Illustrated

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Rachel Hawkins

Rebel Belle

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K. A. Robinson

Book 1 in the Torn Series

For fans of Colleen Hoover and Sylvia Day, a passionately intense love story about two people with battered souls who are thrust together unexpectedly, leaving a profound impact on each other’s lives. The first book in the Torn Series. Chloe hasn’t had the easiest childhood. With a mother who was absent most of the time, she practically had to raise herself. Determined to start a new life and leave her demons behind, she heads to West Virginia University with her best friends Amber and Logan. On the first day of classes, she spots a student who takes her breath away. Drake is a pierced, tattooed bad boy, and no matter how hard she tries to fight it, he’s all she can think about. Drake has never cared about anyone other than himself, but when Chloe grabs the empty seat next to him in class, he is instantly drawn to her. Drake is left wondering whether this girl can take his cold, womanizing heart and alter him forever. Developing feelings for each other was never a part of their plan, and when it happens, things do anything but fall into place. Long-hidden emotions are revealed and friendships are tested to the brink as Chloe and Drake become helplessly entwined in each other’s love.

Torn

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Cora Carmack

The Runaway New York Times and USA Today Bestseller! Virginity. Bliss Edwards is about to graduate from college and still has hers. Sick of being the only virgin among her friends, she decides the best way to deal with the problem is to lose it as quickly and simply as possible—a one-night stand. But her plan turns out to be anything but simple when she freaks out and leaves a gorgeous guy alone and naked in her bed with an excuse that no one with half a brain would ever believe. And as if that weren't embarrassing enough, when she arrives for her first class of her last college semester, she recognizes her new theater professor. She'd left him naked in her bed about eight hours earlier. . . .

Losing It

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Evelyn Skye

"Gorgeous and richly imagined."—Sara Raasch, New York Times bestselling author of the Snow Like Ashes series "Teeming with hidden magic and fiery romance."—Sabaa Tahir, New York Times bestselling author of An Ember in the Ashes Perfect for fans of Shadow and Bone and Red Queen, The Crown’s Game is a thrilling and atmospheric historical fantasy set in Imperial Russia about two teenagers who must compete for the right to become the Imperial Enchanter—or die in the process—from debut author Evelyn Skye. Vika Andreyeva can summon the snow and turn ash into gold. Nikolai Karimov can see through walls and conjure bridges out of thin air. They are enchanters—the only two in Russia—and with the Ottoman Empire and the Kazakhs threatening, the tsar needs a powerful enchanter by his side. And so he initiates the Crown’s Game, an ancient duel of magical skill—the greatest test an enchanter will ever know. The victor becomes the Imperial Enchanter and the tsar’s most respected adviser. The defeated is sentenced to death. Raised on tiny Ovchinin Island her whole life, Vika is eager for the chance to show off her talent in the grand capital of Saint Petersburg. But can she kill another enchanter—even when his magic calls to her like nothing else ever has? For Nikolai, an orphan, the Crown’s Game is the chance of a lifetime. But his deadly opponent is a force to be reckoned with—beautiful, whip smart, imaginative—and he can’t stop thinking about her. And when Pasha, Nikolai’s best friend and heir to the throne, also starts to fall for the mysterious enchantress, Nikolai must defeat the girl they both love . . . or be killed himself. As long-buried secrets emerge, threatening the future of the empire, it becomes dangerously clear . . . the Crown’s Game is not one to lose.

The Crown's Game

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James Frey

Nils Johnson-Shelton

The New York Times bestseller and international multimedia phenomenon! In each generation, for thousands of years, twelve Players have been ready. But they never thought Endgame would happen. Until now. Omaha, Nebraska. Sarah Alopay stands at her graduation ceremony—class valedictorian, star athlete, a full life on the horizon. But when a meteor strikes the school, she survives. Because she is the Cahokian Player. Endgame has begun. Juliaca, Peru. At the same moment, thousands of miles away, another meteor strikes. But Jago Tlaloc is safe. He has a secret, and his secret makes him brave. Strong. Certain. He is the Olmec Player. He's ready. Ready for Endgame. Across the globe, twelve meteors slam into Earth. Cities burn. But Sarah and Jago and the ten others Players know the truth. The meteors carry a message. The Players have been summoned to The Calling. And now they must fight one another in order to survive. All but one will fail. But that one will save the world. This is Endgame.

Endgame: the Calling

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Oindrila Mukherjee

After living in the US for years, Maneka Roy returns home to India to mourn the loss of her mother and finds herself in a new world. The booming city of Hrishipur where her father now lives is nothing like the part of the country where she grew up, and the more she sees of this new, sparkling city, the more she learns that nothing—and no one—here is as it appears. Ultimately, it will take an unexpected tragic event for Maneka and those around her to finally understand just how fragile life is in this city built on aspirations. Written from the perspectives of ten different characters, Oindrila Mukherjee’s incisive debut novel explores class divisions, gender roles, and stories of survival within a society that is constantly changing and becoming increasingly Americanized. It’s a story about India today, and people impacted by globalization everywhere: a tale of ambition, longing, and bitter loss that asks what it really costs to try and build a dream.

The Dream Builders ARC

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Stieg Larsson

Pages are a bit sun-yellowed & there’s a small mark on the bottom (see photo) but otherwise in great condition.

Forty years after the disappearance of Harriet Vanger from the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family, her octogenarian uncle hires journalist Mikael Blomqvist and Lisbeth Salander, an unconventional young hacker, to investigate.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

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Orion Carloto

"YouTube Mastermind" Orion Carloto turns raw emotion into powerful, digestible verse in her debut collection of poetry. Flux is a somber narrative, an ode to change, a collection of poetry and prose written from the many states of grief over a broken heart. With original illustrations by artist Katie Roberts, Orion Carloto creates a dream world for the brokenhearted and paints a whimsical picture around the themes of love, loss, solitude, depression, sex, nostalgia, and unrequited romance. Flux takes readers through a raw and sorrowful journey of each and every bitter moment of heartbreak. Forewarning, Flux is best read with a warm cup of coffee in hand.

Flux

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Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

An Anthology of African and Diaspora Voices

Fresh and electrifying--stories, poems, and essays by African and diaspora writers, edited by author Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond.

Relations punctures the human illusion of separation. New and established storytellers reshape the narratives that divide and subjugate, revealing the truth of our shared humanity despite differences in language, identity, class, gender, and beyond. This vital anthology is Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond's striking vision of a meeting place of perspectives, centered in the African and diaspora experience.

In a post-Black Panther world, it is an urgent and welcome embrace of the diversity of Blackness. A refreshing collection of genre-spanning literature, it offers a vibrant meditation on being--inviting connection across real and imagined borders, and celebration of the most profound relations.

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