Search results for ""author wort"

Insurance mathematician Henri has his life under control, when a man from the past appears and a shady trio take over the adventure park’s equipment supply company … Things are messier than ever in the absurdly funny, heart-stoppingly tense second instalment in Antti Tuomainen’s bestselling series… ‘In these uncertain times, what better hero than an actuary?' Chris Brookmyre ‘One of those rare writers who manages to deftly balance intrigue, noir and a deliciously ironic sense of humour … a delight’ Vaseem Khan ‘What a book! Antti has managed to put the fun into funerals and take it out of fun fairs in a gripping nail-biter … a thrilling and hilarious read’ Liz Nugent**Soon to be a major motion picture starring Steve Carell** _______________________________ Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen has finally restored order both to his life and to YouMeFun, the adventure park he now owns, when a man from the past appears – and turns everything upside down again. More problems arise when the park’s equipment supplier is taken over by a shady trio, with confusing demands. Why won’t Toy of Finland Ltd sell the new Moose Chute to Henri when he needs it as the park’s main attraction? Meanwhile, Henri’s relationship with artist Laura has reached breaking point, and, in order to survive this new chaotic world, he must push every calculation to its limits, before it’s too late… Absurdly funny, heart-stoppingly poignant and full of nail-biting suspense, The Moose Paradox is the second instalment in the critically acclaimed, pitch-perfect Rabbit Factor Trilogy and things are messier than ever… ________________________________ ‘Finnish crime maestro Antti Tuomainen is unique in the Scandi-crime genre, infusing his crime narratives with the darkest humour … [his] often hilarious, chaotic narrative never vitiates the novel’s nicely tuned tension’ Financial Times ‘Enter hitmen, serendipity, offbeat comedy and the reappearance of literally the last person Henri expects to see … unlike anything else out there’ The Times ‘A thriller with black comedy worthy of Nabokov’ Telegraph Book of the YearPraise for The Rabbit Factor Trilogy**Shortlisted for the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger** **Shortlisted for the Last Laugh Award** ‘The antic novels of Antti Tuomainen prove that comedy is not lost in translation … Tuomainen, like Carl Hiaasen before him, has the knack of combining slapstick with genuine emotion’ The Times 'The funniest writer in Europe, and one of the very finest … original and brilliant story-telling' Helen FitzGerald ‘British readers might think they know what to expect from Nordic noir: a tortured detective, a bleak setting, a brutal crime that shakes a small community. Finnish crime novelist Tuomainen turns all of this on its head … The ear of a giant plastic rabbit becomes a key weapon. It only gets darker and funnier’ Guardian ‘Dark, gripping and hilarious … Tuomainen is the Carl Hiaasen of the fjords' Martyn Waites ‘A triumph, a joyous, feel-good antidote to troubled times' Kevin Wignall ‘Finland's greatest export’ M.J. Arlidge 'You don’t expect to laugh when you’re reading about terrible crimes, but that’s what you’ll do when you pick up one of Tuomainen’s decidedly quirky thrillers' New York Times ‘Tuomainen is the funniest writer in Europe’ The Times ‘Right up there with the best’ Times Literary Supplement ‘Tuomainen continues to carve out his own niche in the chilly tundras of northern’ Daily Expres

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When Sonja’s son is kidnapped by her ruthless ex-husband, she’s thrust back into the world of cocaine smuggling, but this time she’s got a plan of her own… High-stakes jeopardy presides in book two of the dark and original, nail-bitingly fast-paced Reykjavik Noir trilogy… ‘Tense, edgy and delivering more than a few unexpected twists and turns’ Sunday Times ‘Tough, uncompromising and unsettling’ Val McDermid ‘Tense and pacey, this intriguing mix of white-collar and white-powder crime could certainly be enjoyed as a standalone, but I would suggest reading its excellent predecessor, Snare, first’ Guardian –––––––––––––––––––––––– Happily settled in Florida, Sonja believes she’s finally escaped the trap set by unscrupulous drug lords. But when her son Tomas is taken, she’s back to square one … and Iceland. Her lover, Agla, is awaiting sentencing for financial misconduct after the banking crash, and Sonja refuses to see her. And that’s not all … Agla owes money to some extremely powerful men, and they’ll stop at nothing to get it back. With her former nemesis, customs officer Bragi, on her side, Sonja puts her own plan into motion, to bring down the drug barons and her scheming ex-husband, and get Tomas back safely. But things aren’t as straightforward as they seem, and Sonja finds herself caught in the centre of a trap that will put all of their lives at risk… Set in Reykjavik – still covered in the dust of the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption and the aftermath of the banking crisis – Trap is an award-winning, deliciously dark and outstandingly original slice of Nordic Noir, from one of Iceland’s finest crime writers. –––––––––––––––––––––––– Praise for the Reykjavik Noir Trilogy ‘A tense thriller with a highly unusual plot and interesting characters’ Marcel Berlins, The Times ‘With characters you can’t help sympathising with against your better judgement, Sigurdardottir takes the reader on a breathtaking ride … Stylish, taut and compelling’ Jon Coates, Daily Express ‘Pacey and tense, Trap is full of delicious carnage that could translate well to the screen’ New Zealand Listener ‘This is a searing portrait of the less salubrious parts of the Icelandic psyche as well as a riveting thriller’ Sunday Express 'Sharp shocks of chapters hit with increasing energy ... a towering powerhouse of read and I gobbled it up in one intense sitting’ LoveReading ‘The intricate plot is breathtakingly original, with many twists and turns you never see coming. Thriller of the year’ New York Journal of Books ‘Sigurdardottir provides a skilful combination of Nordic noir, hardboiled financial thriller and high-octane narco drama, filled with sympathetic characters that you can’t help identifying with even as they break the law’ Crime Fiction Lover ‘The action is fast, helped by the short chapters switching us from one set of characters to another, the villains ruthless, and the undercover world of Iceland vividly evoked. A treat for fans’ Promoting Crime ‘Smart, ambitious and hugely satisfying’ Eva Dolan ‘Zips along with tension building and building’ James Oswald 'An emotional suspense rollercoaster on a par with The Firm’ Alexandra Sokoloff ‘Compelling … this is prime binge-reading’ Booklist ‘The suspenseful Trap takes full advantage of its fresh setting and is a worthy addition to the icy-cold crime genre popularized by Scandinavian noir novels’ Foreword Reviews

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Witty, authoritative, comprehensive and fun, Wake Up and Smell the Profit is the ultimate guide to making more money in your coffee business.In this book you'll find the sharpest insights and the best ideas from two of the UK's top Coffee Business Gurus. Together 'The Coffee Boys' have 40 years' experience in how to make money in the coffee selling business. Whether you operate a single site espresso bar, a Michelin starred restaurant or chain of hotels, there is something in this book for everyone.With 52 motivating tips and suggestions (plus an extra bonus idea for good measure), all you need to do is apply one initiative a week for a year and you could have a much more profitable and easier to manage business within twelve months.With this book you'll be able to:* Make more money and work less* Have happier customers who spend more money* Win more customers without spending a fortune* Enjoy running your business more* Create customers who rave about your business and consequently generate more customers through word of mouthWhat are you waiting for?Contents: Introduction; 1. It's all about the money - the good news; 2. It's all about the money - the bad news; 3. It's all about the money - a little story; 4. Focus on coffee for profit; 5. Great coffee (profits) come from great training; 6. Great coffee sales come from one thing - great taste; 7. It's all about the food; 8. There are three ways and only three ways to grow your business; 9. Be brave about your prices; 10. Know your figures and have a plan - a plan that works for you!; 11. Get accountable and know your figures; 12. Know your food cost for every single item; 13. Know your labour/wage cost and stay accountable; 14. It's your fault - get this and then get it again; 15. A coffee shop is all about people - and people need clear rules; 16. Make sure your employees understand the numbers; 17. Every pound is not equal. A pound earned is worth a lot less than a pound saved; 18. View your coffee business as if you were a customer; 19. View the business every day as if you were an employee; 20. Break the whole selling process down and make it better; 21. Keep your toilets spotless; 22. Treat lunch like a restaurant; 23. Create food stories about your star products and sell, sell, sell; 24. Get crafty with your menu and signage; 25. Watch your language; 26. Say hello; 27. Don't point and watch your body language; 28. Nod your head when asking a customer if they would like something; 29. Thank them; 30. The Granny Rule; 31 Keep the kids occupied; 32. Sell more coffee with cake and more cake with coffee Up selling and cross selling; 33. Sell more cold drinks; 34. Get your customer flow right; 35. Make it easy for the customer to buy; 36. Work out your lifetime customer value; 37. Consider the sizes - carefully; 38. Make it accessible and open. Make it all look great; 39 Use your sign wisely. Spend money and make yourshop look obvious; 40. Get creative with signage; 41. Avoid A"sour faced hagsA"; 42. Make the customers feel you care; 43. Use the list -cheapest marketing you'll ever do; 44. Create a catering side to your business; 45. Post the utility bills; 46. Incentives for saving money and making money; 47. Get creative with your marketing and steal ideas from other industries; 48. Create a A"bibleA"; 49. Beware staff attitudes towards business ownership; 50. Make a big deal of the big days; 51. Think wisely before you open your second shop; 52. Give a bit extra; 53. Work A"onA" the business not A"inA"it; And finally; Thanks; More from The Coffee Boys.

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The definitive biography of Chuck Berry, legendary performer and inventor of rock and roll. Best known as the groundbreaking artist behind classics like "Johnny B. Goode," "Maybellene," "You Never Can Tell" and "Roll Over Beethoven," Chuck Berry was a man of wild contradictions, whose motives and motivations were often shrouded in mystery. After all, how did a teenage delinquent come to write so many songs that transformed American culture? And, once he achieved fame and recognition, why did he put his career in danger with a lifetime's worth of reckless personal behaviour? Throughout his life, Berry refused to shed light on either the mastery or the missteps, leaving the complexity that encapsulated his life and underscored his music largely unexplored--until now. In Chuck Berry, biographer RJ Smith crafts a comprehensive portrait of one of the great American entertainers, guitarists, and lyricists of the 20th century, bringing Chuck Berry to life in vivid detail. Based on interviews, archival research, legal documents, and a deep understanding of Berry's St. Louis (his birthplace, and the place where he died in March 2017), Smith sheds new light on a man few have ever really understood. By placing his life within the context of the American culture he made and eventually withdrew from, we understand how Berry became such a groundbreaking figure in music, erasing racial boundaries, crafting subtle political commentary, and paying a great price for his success. While celebrating his accomplishments, the book also does not shy away from troubling aspects of his public and private life, asking profound questions about how and why we separate the art from the artist. Berry declined to call himself an artist, shrugging that he was good at what he did. But the man's achievement was the rarest kind, the kind that had social and political resonance, the kind that made America want to get up and dance. At long last, Chuck Berry brings the man and the music together.

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Poetry is exciting, but elusive to most. This is troublesome for Christians because the Bible, John Poch reminds us, is largely composed of poetical verse. In God’s Poems, Poch re-introduces sacred text as purposefully poetic, and explains what that means and invites the reader to with this insight live more thoughtfully and beautifully. But that is not all. Poch as a well-established and regarded poet, turns his eye to contemporary poetry and vindicates its function in a “created and creative world.” Today many have abandoned the genre as a wasteland of misguided voice that really has nothing to say. The poet is a truth-teller, and Poch as devoted writer, teacher, and believer sends out a renewed call to turn to verse as a means of seeing oneself as God’s poeima, or poem (Letter to Ephesians). The depth of self-knowing relates directly to an aptitude to engage the category of poetry at some level. A tragic void is filled with Poch’s effort to exhort the reader to patiently reconnect with poetry even though it has been hijacked by persons who want to be heard more than speak well. (This book is essential, therefore, for aspiring poets.) For faithful readers or those seeking to return, Poch is a place to begin to understand contemporary writers worth knowing and which poets of the past must remain with us. In Virgilian fashion, he can see the panorama behind him and that which lies immediately ahead and instills a recovered love of an eternal medium that will be restored to a state of coherency and enlightened perspective. If Poch has faith in poetry it is because poetry is indeed a source of faith. If Justin Martyr claimed that everything that is true belongs to Christians, Poch shows us that everyone who speaks truth is to some degree a poet. Even God with his revealed wisdom chooses poetry as medium par excellence. It is essential to know how poetry works. “Great poems that we consider literature give us what we never expected. They go beyond the usefulness of conveying a feeling and unveiling beauty; and they tell us who we are.”

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A practical guide to the math behind options and how that knowledge can improve your trading performance No book on options can guarantee success, but if a trader understands and utilizes option math effectively, good things are going to happen. The idea behind Options Math for Traders + Website is to help retail option traders understand some of the basic tenants and enduring relationships of options, and option math, that professional and institutional traders rely on every day. This book skillfully highlights those strategies that are inherently superior from an option math point of view and explains what drives that superiority while also examining why some strategies are inherently inferior. The material is explained without complex equations or technical jargon. The goal is to give you a solid conceptual foundation of options behavior so you can make more informed decisions when choosing an option strategy for your market outlook. Topics covered include the volatility premium, because over time, options will cost more than they are ultimately worth; skew, wherein far out of the money put options may seem cheap from an absolute term, but are very expensive in relative terms; and the acceleration in option price erosion. The book also has a companion Website, which includes links to those sites that can scan for the best strategies discussed in the book. Explains, in a non-technical manner, the mathematical properties of options so that traders can better select the right options strategy for their market outlook Companion Website contains timely tools that allow you to continue to learn in a hands-on fashion long after closing the book Written by top options expert Scott Nations Most independent traders have an imperfect understanding of the math behind options pricing. With Options Math for Traders + Website as your guide, you'll gain valuable lessons in this area and discover how this information can improve your trading performance.

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This new reading of Jean-Jacques Rousseau challenges traditional views of the eighteenth-century political philosopher's attitudes toward women and his perceived pessimism about human experience. Mira Morgenstern finds in Rousseau an appreciation of the complexities and multidimensionality of life that allowed him to criticize various easy dualisms promoted by his fellow liberal thinkers and point to the crucial mediating role that women fulfill between the private and public spheres.Morgenstern sees Rousseau as an important contributor to the feminist thoughts and concerns that animate so much of our public and private discourse today. While Rousseau is commonly seen as a patriarchal misogynist, Morgenstern finds evidence in his writing that belies much of this claim. Rousseau was very much a man of his time, but he also believed that women were the key to transmitting his ideals of personal and political authenticity, thereby transforming his theory from ephemeral ideas into practical reality.A careful evaluation of Rousseau's writings on women reveals his highly complex sense of reality, especially his awareness that the solutions to life's complex problems are often temporary and must be renegotiated over time. Rousseau is more persistent than most in highlighting the weaknesses and pitfalls of liberal political thought, whose fundamental characteristic is its categorization of life on the basis of dualistic categories: public and private, outside and inside, male and female.Ultimately, what makes Rousseau worth reading today, argues Morgenstern, is his ability to illuminate critical weaknesses in the dualisms of liberal political theory and his pointing out, if only by implication, alternative ways of reaching the full measure of our individual and communal humanity. In honoring the traditional liberal emphasis on individual liberty and self-development, Rousseau’s meditations on the proper aim of political life are especially helpful to those today who seek ways to expand liberalism's promise of freedom and authenticity, while not losing sight of the common threads of meaning and community that continue to bind us together.

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Seyom Brown's authoritative account of U.S. foreign policy from the end of the Second World War to the present challenges common assumptions about American presidents and their struggle with power and purpose. Brown shows Truman to be more anguished than he publicly revealed about the use of the atomic bomb; Eisenhower and George W. Bush to be more immersed in the details of policy formulation and implementation than generally believed; Reagan to be more invested in changing his worldview while in office than any previous president; and Obama to have modeled his military exit from Iraq and Afghanistan more closely to Nixon and Kissinger's exit strategy from Vietnam than he would like to admit. Brown's analyses of Obama's policies for countering terrorist threats at home and abroad, dealing with unprecedented upheavals in the Middle East, preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and containing new territorial expansion by China and Russia reinforce the book's "constancy and change" theme, which shows that serving the interests of the most powerful country in the world transforms the Oval Office's occupant more than its occupant can transform the world. Praise for previous editions: "Systematic and informative...[Brown] has a gift for clear analysis that makes his book a useful contribution to the Cold War literature."-The Journal of American History "Comprehensive and clear...thorough without ever becoming dull, providing detailed analysis of decisions while never neglecting the environment within which they are made."-International Affairs "An excellent reference for those interested in United States foreign policy...Well-written and well-researched, it is appropriate for use in both undergraduate and graduate courses."-International Journal "An analysis with difference-an important difference. Seyom Brown discusses United States policy from the perspective of how decision makers in the United States viewed their adversaries and the alternatives as those decision makers saw them...Well worth the effort of a careful reading."-American Political Science Review

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Each year in the United States, millions of mass-produced greeting cards proclaim their occasional messages: "For My Loving Daughter," "On the Occasion of Your Marriage," and "It's a Boy!" For more than 150 years, greeting cards have tapped into and organized a shared language of love, affection, and kinship, becoming an integral part of American life and culture. Contemporary incarnations of these emotional transactions performed through small bits of decorated paper are often dismissed as vacuous cliches employing worn-out stereotypes. Nevertheless, the relationship of greeting cards to systems of material production is well worth studying and understanding, for the modern greeting card is the product of an industry whose values and aims seem to contradict the sentiments that most cards express. In fact, greeting cards articulate shifting forms of love and affiliation experienced by people whose lives have been shaped by the major economic changes of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A Token of My Affection shows in fascinating detail how the evolution of the greeting card reveals the fundamental power of economic organization to enable and constrain experiences of longing, status, desire, social connectedness, and love and to structure and partially determine the most private, internal, and intimate of feelings. Beautifully illustrated, A Token of My Affection follows the development of the modern greeting card industry from the 1840s, as a way of recovering that most elusive of things-the emotional subjectivity of another age. Barry Shank charts the evolution of the greeting card from an afterthought to a traditional printing and stationery business in the mid-nineteenth century to a multibillion-dollar industry a hundred years later. He explains what an industry devoted to emotional sincerity means for the lives of all Americans. Blending archival research in business history with a study of surviving artifacts and a literary analysis of a broad range of relevant texts and primary sources, Shank demonstrates the power of business to affect love and the ability of love to find its way in the marketplace of consumer society.

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Rediscovering our forgotten heritage No Entry'; 'Dangerous Site Keep Out; Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted': common sights on walls or perimeter fences around many of the world's abandoned sites. These warnings allude to potential dangers and prove an ineffective deterrent against thieves and vandals. To the urban explorer/photographer these signs simply serve to whet the appetite for the promise of hidden wonders that may lie beyond. For those who ignore the warnings and climb the fences, what awaits is usually worth the risks. Vast industrial spaces that feel more like an alien landscape or poignant residential settings, which are slowly surrendering to the inexorable advance of nature. Places once alive with sound and movement, now silent and still, but no less sensory. Immense and powerful beauty resides in these forgotten places. For some, just getting inside a location to experience this alternative form of sightseeing is enough to satisfy a desire to simply go where one shouldn't. But for some there is a need to capture the essence of a location in words and pictures, giving others a metaphorical leg-up over the fences, to walk them through the remaining ruins. Matt Emmett falls into the latter of these groups, travelling regularly to places in the UK and across Europe. He seeks out vast power stations and their cooling towers, steel works, mines, bunkers, tunnels, schools, engine sheds, hotels, castles and a myriad of other buildings. All have their own stories to tell in a variety of voices and without the distraction, sounds and people who inhabited them, those stories are clear and strong and the character of each location is laid bare. Architectural Digest: "Photographer Matt Emmett has made a name for himself by pushing the boundaries to capture epic imagery of Europe s most forgotten ruins." International Business Times: "Matt Emmett's 'Forgotten Heritage' photography project uncovers the brutal beauty of abandoned buildings and derelict industry."

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This is a thoroughly researched study of the origins of the New York City punk scene, focusing on Television and their extraordinary debut record. Two kids in their early twenties walk down the Bowery on a spring afternoon, just as the proprietor of a club hangs a sign with the new name for his venue. The place will be called CBGB which, he tells them, stands for 'Country Bluegrass and Blues'. That's exactly the sort of stuff they play, they lie, somehow managing to get a gig out of him. After the first show their band, Television, lands a regular string of Sundays. By the end of the summer a scene has developed that includes Tom Verlaine's new love interest, a poet-turned-rock chanteuse named Patti Smith. American punk rock is born. Bryan Waterman peels back the layers of the origin myth and, assembling a rich historical archive, situates Marquee Moon in a broader cultural history of SoHo and the East Village. As Waterman traces the downtown scene's influences, public image, and reputation via a range of print, film, and audio recordings we come to recognize the real historical surprises that the documentary evidence still has to yield. "33 1/3" is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains over 60 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike. It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized that there is an audience for whom "Exile on Main Street" or "Electric Ladyland" are as significant and worthy of study as "The Catcher in the Rye" or "Middlemarch...The" series, which now comprises 29 titles with more in the works, is freewheeling and eclectic, ranging from minute rock-geek analysis to idiosyncratic personal celebration - "The New York Times Book Review", 2006. This is a brilliant series...each one a word of real love - NME (UK). For more information on the series and on individual titles in the series, check out our blog.

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‘Five-star turbo-charged, non-stop action thriller… It reads like a movie reel… Needs to be on every thrill seeker’s reading list’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An impossible heist. An ancient code. A deadly race against time… High in the Italian alps, cut off from the outside world, sits a chapel battered by winds and icy blizzards. The priests who guard this sacred place have sworn to protect the dangerous treasure that lies within their walls. But when Joe Mason and his team are called to the remote church, they find its ancient stones reduced to rubble, the priests murdered in cold blood and their precious cargo stolen. As Mason pursues the thieves across continents and dangerous waters, he wonders what incredible secret the priests laid down their lives for… And if he can recover it before it claims more innocent victims, and brings the downfall of civilisation as we know it… An edge-of-your-seat, action packed blockbuster adventure that will leave you breathless. Fans of Jack Reacher and Dan Brown will be hooked from the very first page. Readers are gripped by The Demon Code: ‘A five-star, turbo-charged, non-stop action thriller … a fantastic follow-up from book one’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘An amazing rollercoaster ride that I stayed up all night to finish’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘David Leadbeater delivers! This book has twists and turns (and conspiracy) rivaling that of The Da Vinci Code’ NetGalley review⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Worth more than 5 stars. It keeps you on pins while turning those pages’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Riveting adventure with Joe Mason and the team, non-stop action as they discover secrets of the past’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘The action never stops’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Can’t wait for the next one. A superb team in the making’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A perfect book for armchair detectives … I loved the treasure hunt aspect of this story – who doesn’t love solving clues?’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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What is French for falling in love? When Del leaves small town America to compete in a perfume competition in Paris, she thinks it is just the next step on her five-year-plan. It’s an exciting opportunity. What started out as just a dream for Del and her twin sister is nearly in her grasp. If she wins this competition, they are on their way to opening their very own perfume boutique! Arriving in Paris, watching the sun glinting off the Seine and wandering the Champs-Elysees, Del discovers the most perfect perfumery she’s ever seen. Yet, as the competition dawns Del realises that whilst she might have had the best nose in her small village, her competitors seem to know more than she could ever have dreamed. This competition isn’t going to be easy… Del has the romance of Paris to sweep her away from her worries, but as the competition heats up, so does her desire for that which she cannot have! If only the dashing owner Sébastien didn’t smell so seductive, look so handsome and make her heart flutter like it never has before. They say love smells as sweet as a red rose in bloom, but Del would tell anyone that true love can’t be bottled – it’s beautiful and unique to everyone…even herself. With everything on the line for her future, can Del really let a little attraction get in the way of securing her dreams? Praise for The Little Perfume Shop Off the Champs-Elysees: ‘I absolutely loved everything to do with this book’ Rachel Gilbey ‘Absolutely fantastic book, had me hooked from the first page. Full of anticipation, a real page turner. Loved it!’ Nerys Minney ‘In short, this is a fabulous book. In reading I was transported somewhere almost magical’ Sandra W ‘The Little Perfume Shop off the Champs-Elysees, was worth waiting for. It's got magic, sparkle, twinkling lights of Paris and above all, a copious amount of LOVE!’

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All 20-year-old Daisy Haites has ever wanted is a normal life, but as the heiress to London's most notorious criminal empire, it's just not on the cards for her.Raised by her older brother Julian since their parents were murdered, Daisy has never been able to escape the watchful gaze of her gang-lord brother. But Julian's line of work means that Daisy's life is... complicated.And things don't become any easier when she falls hard for the beautiful and emotionally unavailable Christian Hemmes, who also happens to be one of the few men in London who doesn't answer to Julian.Christian's life is no walk in the park either, since he's in love with his best friend's girlfriend, Magnolia Parks.He's happy enough to use Daisy to throw off the scent of his true affections - until she starts to infiltrate those too.As their romance blossoms into something neither were anticipating, Daisy, Christian, and Julian must come to terms with the fact that in this life everything comes at a price. As their relationships intersect and tangle, they all learn that sometimes life's most worthwhile pursuits can only be paid in blood.READERS LOVE THE MAGNOLIA PARKS UNIVERSE'Magnolia and BJ have embedded themselves into my DNA.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'This book gave drama, love triangles, toxicity, chaos and I ate up every single moment.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'TikTok made me do it, 1000% lived up to the hype.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Hands down the most emotional romance book I have ever read and therefore my favourite' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Ridiculously addictive ... My heart broke a million times' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'This book will tear your heart out!' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Never have I felt more emotions reading a single book before. The angst and pure rollercoaster of emotions was real! Jessa Hastings had me crying by 10%.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐MAGNOLIA PARKS UNIVERSE SERIES1 - Magnolia Parks2 - Daisy Haites3 - Magnolia Parks: The Long Way Home4 - Daisy Haites: The Great Undoing5 - Magnolia Parks: Into the Dark (OUT NOW!)

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Unofficial hacks, tips, and tricks to help gamers survive in the world of Five Nights at Freddy's! Five Nights at Freddy’s is an iconic jump-scare horror game experience with massive appeal for kids and adults of all ages. Ever since its 2014 release, it has made an indelible mark on pop culture and earned the attention of content creators and influencers the world over. From its creepy animatronic characters to its darkly compelling story, Five Nights at Freddy’s is ripe with the kind of drama and tension that makes players come back for more. Its devoted network of fans is perpetually hungry for the next instalment or DLC. Thanks to its lasting popularity over the last decade, the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise has grown to include eight main instalments and a slew of popular spinoffs. Survive the Five: Unofficial Pro Gamer Secrets for Five Nights at Freddy’s is the must-have guide for mastering each one. Survive the Five offers fans of all ages a chance to revel in the history, lore, and nightmare-worthy narrative of the hit game and collect useful (and entertaining) intel on the origins and importance of the franchise’s eerie main characters, Freddy Fazbear, Chica, Bonnie, and Foxy. They’ll also pick up expert tips and strategies to navigate each bone-chilling level like a pro. There’s no job more terrifying than the one you get in Five Nights at Freddy’s: a security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. But if you know how to listen to phone messages, how to using power sparingly, and how to carefully track the location of each animatronic enemy, you might just live another day. Full-colour screenshots from the game itself and clear step-by-step instructions offer a comprehensive, user-friendly tour of everything players need to know. Insider tips, tricks, and fun easter eggs for the core games in the franchise turn readers into unstoppable Five Nights survivors.

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This Christmas, the hunters become the hunted… When four trail hunters go missing in the fells of Cumbria on Christmas Eve, the race is on to find them before nightfall – when the temperature plummets. After hours of searching, the first body is found… Not frozen in the snow, but brutally murdered and bearing a warning:the real hunt has begun. As a snowstorm descends, three lives hang in the balance. But can the killer be caught before the trail goes cold? From the master of Christmas crime comes a thriller that will chill you to the bone this Winter, perfect for fans of James Patterson, Clare Mackintosh and anyone who prefers their mince pies with a side of murder. Readers are gripped by The Night Before Christmas: ‘This is by far the best book I've read all year. Top marks for storyline, pace and setting. Alex Pine always delivers a cracking Christmas treat. As far as I'm concerned the festive season would no longer be the same without a dose of Christmas crime in Cumbria!’ Reader Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Such a breath of wintery fresh air to the thriller genre.’ Reader Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘This is the kind of book where you say just one more chapter, and before you know it, you have finished it.’ Reader Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I was desperate to get into this … I was not one bit disappointed. It was fast paced and exciting. I found it hard to put it down.’ Reader Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I raced through it this weekend. Such a smart idea: twisty, warped, credible, brilliantly plotted and compelling. Deserves to be such a hit.’ Reader Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Loved this festive crime thriller. Gorgeous Lake District setting but with a very dark storyline. Excellent characters and fast paced.’ Reader Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A fast paced storyline with plenty of red herrings to keep you guessing how it will all come together.’ Reader Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Definitely worth reading on a cold night, maybe as the snow falls outside.’ Reader Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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A.S.J. Tessimond (1902-1962) was one of the most individual, versatile and approachable voices in 20th century poetry. Influenced at first by the Imagists, his poetry is remarkable for its lucidity and formal exactness and for its witty, humane depiction of life in the modern city. Out of step with his contemporaries - both Pound and Eliot as well as Auden and his followers - Tessimond was always a marginalised figure, publishing only three collections in his lifetime, one in each decade from 1934 to 1958. Yet his work has been popular enough to be included in numerous anthologies and has been a perennial favourite with listeners of radio programmes such as Poetry Please. This edition is a long awaited reissue of the posthumous Collected Poems edited by his friend the writer Hubert Nicholson, who characterised his poems as 'beautiful, shapely, well wrought and elegant, whether in public of private mode', penetrating the heart of both London and England: 'His hallmark, his unique contribution to the body poetic, is to be found in those poems encapsulating urban types - and the institutions that shape and demarcate their lives, the popular press and radio, films, money, advertising, houses, tube stations, the implacable streets...He wrote a good deal about love, its hopes and ecstasies and its frustrations and sadness.' As Nicholson has pointed out, Tessimond wrote many poems in the first person, 'but they are not in the least egotistical. They are imaginative projections of himself into types, places, generalised Man, even God or Fate.' He was 'entirely a man of the city', his 'landscape' pieces depicting Hyde Park Corner, Chelsea Embankment, a Paris cafe and even an overcrowded bus in Jamaica. 'He loved the life around him and was a meditative as well as an observant man. He reflected, and reflected on, the passing show, kindly, honestly, and with wit and wisdom.' Tessimond has been described as an eccentric, a night-lifer, loner and flaneur. He loved women, was always falling in love, but never married. He suffered from frequent bouts of depression, alleviated neither by a succession of psychiatrists nor by electric shock therapy. The fact that he was plagued by self-doubt and was fiercely critical of his own work must have contributed to his work being too little published and too much neglected, despite being championed by an extraordinary variety of admirers, from Michael Roberts, John Lehmann and Ceri Richards to Bernard Levin, Maggie Smith, Bill Deedes and Trevor McDonald. Maggie Smith read his poem 'Heaven' at the funeral of Bernard Levin, for whom Tessimond was 'a quiet voice, which makes it easy to miss the resonances, but they are there, and although I doubt if he will achieve a widespread fame, I am sure that any future anthology of twentieth-century English verse that does not include a sample of his work will be less complete, less representative and less valuable than it might have been.' In an obituary for The Times, Tessimond's friend, the critic George Rostrevor Hamilton, said he was 'modest about his poetry, and sometimes thought it too small to be worthwhile. But over and above a dry wit and fancy, he had an exquisite feeling for words, meticulous but, like himself, without affectation. In his own way he was unrivalled.'

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The Art of Mary Linwood is the first book on Leicester textile artist Mary Linwood (1755-1845) and catalogue of her work. When British textile artist and gallery owner Mary Linwood died in 1845 just shy of 90 years old, her estate was worth the equivalent of £5,199,822 in today’s currency. As someone who made, but did not sell, embroidered replicas of famous artworks after artists such as Gainsborough, Reynolds, Stubbs, and Morland, how did she accumulate so much money? A pioneering woman in the male-dominated art world of late Georgian Britain, Linwood established her own London gallery in 1798 that featured copies of well-known paintings by these popular artists. Featuring props and specially designed rooms for her replicas, she ensured that her visitors had an entertaining, educational, and kinetic tour, similar to what Madame Tussaud would do one generation later. The gallery’s focus on picturesque painters provided her London visitors with an idyllic imaginary journey through the countryside. Its emphasis on quintessentially British artists provided a unifying focus for a country that had recently emerged from the threat of Napoleonic invasion. This book brings to the fore Linwood's gallery guides and previously unpublished letters to her contemporaries, such as Birmingham inventor Matthew Boulton and Queen Charlotte. It also includes the first and only catalogue of Linwood’s extant and destroyed works. By examining Linwood’s replicas and their accompanying objects through the lens of material culture, the book provides a much-needed contribution to the scholarship on women and cultural agency in the early 19th century.

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'Combines a career's worth of expertise with a long history of pain treatment. For anyone concerned with pain treatment, or anyone who has struggled to manage pain of any kind, it's an important read.' GQPain is a universal human experience, but we understand very little about the mechanics behind it. We hurt ourselves, we feel pain, we seek help from a professional or learn to avoid certain behaviours that cause pain. But the story of what goes on in our body is far from simple. Even medical practitioners themselves often fail to grasp the complexities between our minds and bodies and how they interact when dealing with pain stimulus.Common conception still equates pain with tissue damage but that is only a very small part of the story - the organ which produces pain is the brain. Case studies show that a woman who has undergone a caesarean reports dramatically less pain than a patient who has had a comparably invasive operation. The soldier who drags themselves to safety after being shot deals with pain in a remarkably different way from someone suffering a similar injury on a street. The truth is that pain is a complex mix of nerve endings, psychological state, social preconceptions and situational awareness.Using case studies and medical history, Dr Lalkhen guides us through all aspects of pain, from chronic to acute, and thecurrent landscape of pain treatments - from medication (including opioids) to electrical nerve stimulation. Whether it's a mild ache or severe discomfort, we all encounter pain in our lives and this important and illuminating book enables us to understand and cope with an experience that for so many can become all-consuming.

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For more than thirty years, Giora Even-Epstein flew fighters for the Israel Air Force, achieving recognition as a highly skilled military aviator and the highest-scoring jet-mounted ace with the most number of confirmed victories in the French Mirage. Having overcome numerous hurdles just to learn how to fly, he went on to compile a record of Arab MiGs and Sukhoi kills that bettered any other combat aviators’ tally in the entire world. This fast-moving autobiography details his experiences particularly in the intense conflicts of 1967, the Six Day War, and 1973, the Yom Kippur War. The reader shares the cockpit with him as he describes every action he undertook with 101 and 105 Squadron, including the greatest jet-versus-jet air battle in history with four MiG-21 kills in one engagement. His final score was seventeen aerial victories. After his last battle he became commander of the First Jet Squadron, 117, began civilian flying, retrained to command 254 MMR Squadron in the 1982 Lebanon War, and flew the F-16 at the age of fifty before retirement. Along the way he met numerous fighter pilot legends such as Douglas Bader, Al Deere, Pierre Clostermann and Randy Cunningham. Affable and enthusiastic, Giora gained the nickname ‘Hawkeye’ because of his amazing vision of more than 20/15, enabling him to pick out enemy aircraft long before his squadron mates. His story is of one man’s unfaltering dedication to his dreams and his country. As the leading jet ace it is one well worth telling and, critically, it can be told in his own words.

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'Combines a career's worth of expertise with a long history of pain treatment. For anyone concerned with pain treatment, or anyone who has struggled to manage pain of any kind, it's an important read.' GQPain is a universal human experience, but we understand very little about the mechanics behind it. We hurt ourselves, we feel pain, we seek help from a professional or learn to avoid certain behaviours that cause pain. But the story of what goes on in our body is far from simple. Even medical practitioners themselves often fail to grasp the complexities between our minds and bodies and how they interact when dealing with pain stimulus.Common conception still equates pain with tissue damage but that is only a very small part of the story - the organ which produces pain is the brain. Case studies show that a woman who has undergone a caesarean reports dramatically less pain than a patient who has had a comparably invasive operation. The soldier who drags themselves to safety after being shot deals with pain in a remarkably different way from someone suffering a similar injury on a street. The truth is that pain is a complex mix of nerve endings, psychological state, social preconceptions and situational awareness.Using case studies and medical history, Dr Lalkhen guides us through all aspects of pain, from chronic to acute, and the current landscape of pain treatments - from medication (including opioids) to electrical nerve stimulation. Whether it's a mild ache or severe discomfort, we all encounter pain in our lives and this important and illuminating book enables us to understand and cope with an experience that for so many can become all-consuming.

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Received the Distinction Honor for the 2016 C. Calvin Smith Book Award from the Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc. In Hollywood, we hear, it’s all about the money. It’s a ready explanation for why so few black films get made—no crossover appeal, no promise of a big payoff. But what if the money itself is color-coded? What if the economics that governs film production is so skewed that no film by, about, or for people of color will ever look like a worthy investment unless it follows specific racial or gender patterns? This, Monica Ndounou shows us, is precisely the case. In a work as revealing about the culture of filmmaking as it is about the distorted economics of African American film, Ndounou clearly traces the insidious connections between history, content, and cash in black films. How does history come into it? Hollywood’s reliance on past performance as a measure of potential success virtually guarantees that historically underrepresented, underfunded, and undersold African American films devalue the future prospects of black films. So the cycle continues as it has for nearly a century. Behind the scenes, the numbers are far from neutral. Analyzing the onscreen narratives and off-screen circumstances behind nearly two thousand films featuring African Americans in leading and supporting roles, including such recent productions as Bamboozled, Beloved, and Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Ndounou exposes the cultural and racial constraints that limit not just the production but also the expression and creative freedom of black films. Her wide-ranging analysis reaches into questions of literature, language, speech and dialect, film images and narrative, acting, theater and film business practices, production history and financing, and organizational history. By uncovering the ideology behind profit-driven industry practices that reshape narratives by, about, and for people of color, this provocative work brings to light existing limitations—and possibilities for reworking stories and business practices in theater, literature, and film.

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Two individuals who shaped the development of one of Florida's major urban centersWhen they married in 1900, Frank and Ivy Stranahan began a life together on the Florida frontier that would shape and define the development of one of the state's most sophisticated urban centers. Pioneering spirit and economic enterprise linked them to Seminole Indians, venture capitalists, and colorful entrepreneurs along the New River settlement; today they're recognized as a founding family of Fort Lauderdale and their riverfront home has been restored and designated a National Historic Landmark. Frank Stranahan came south from Ohio in 1893 to run an overnight camp on the stagecoach line carrying passengers from Lake Worth to the Miami area. He soon opened a trading post that thrived on commerce in pelts, plumes, and hides with Seminole Indians, who in turn purchased goods and groceries to take back to their camps in the Everglades. Stranahan's business interests expanded to include real estate and banking. An honest businessman, he became a respected political and civic leader, instrumental in the birth of Fort Lauderdale in 1911. When the Florida land boom collapsed and his bank closed, Stranahan's mental and physical health failed, and he committed suicide in 1929.Ivy Cromartie, a native Floridian, was 18 when she arrived at the settlement as its first schoolteacher and met her future husband. Energetic and articulate, she focused her activities outside the home. Besides teaching, she was active in a variety of reform movements ranging from Audubon Society efforts to save the plume birds to temperance and women's suffrage, working mainly through the Florida Federation of Women's Clubs. She is best remembered for her role as an advocate for Indigenous American rights—especially education and child welfare—primarily with the Friends of the Seminoles, an organization she established in the 1930s. Before her death in 1971 she spoke frequently about her full life to reporters and historians and was interviewed extensively by Kersey.

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The popularity of the Harry Potter books among adults and the critical acclaim these young adult fantasies have received may seem like a novel literary phenomenon. In the nineteenth century, however, readers considered both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as works of literature equally for children and adults; only later was the former relegated to the category of "boys' books" while the latter, even as it was canonized, came frequently to be regarded as unsuitable for young readers. Adults-women and men-wept over Little Women. And America's most prestigious literary journals regularly reviewed books written for both children and their parents. This egalitarian approach to children's literature changed with the emergence of literary studies as a scholarly discipline at the turn of the twentieth century. Academics considered children's books an inferior literature and beneath serious consideration. In Kiddie Lit, Beverly Lyon Clark explores the marginalization of children's literature in America-and its recent possible reintegration-both within the academy and by the mainstream critical establishment. Tracing the reception of works by Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Lewis Carroll, Frances Hodgson Burnett, L. Frank Baum, Walt Disney, and J. K. Rowling, Clark reveals fundamental shifts in the assessment of the literary worth of books beloved by both children and adults, whether written for boys or girls. While uncovering the institutional underpinnings of this transition, Clark also attributes it to changing American attitudes toward childhood itself, a cultural resistance to the intrinsic value of childhood expressed through sentimentality, condescension, and moralizing. Clark's engaging and enlightening study of the critical disregard for children's books since the end of the nineteenth century-which draws on recent scholarship in gender, cultural, and literary studies- offers provocative new insights into the history of both children's literature and American literature in general, and forcefully argues that the books our children read and love demand greater respect.

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This book provides a rare and in-depth examination of the narratives, experiences, and lived realities of abused mothers—a group of women who, despite being the victims, are often criticized, vilified, and stigmatized for failing to meet dominant ideologies of what a “good mother” is/should be, because they have lived and mothered in domestic abuse relationships. Based on a qualitative research study conducted with 29 abused mothers residing in abused women’s shelters in Calgary, Alberta, this book highlights the ways that these mothers experience the dominant ideology of intensive mothering, negotiate the resulting discourses of the “good” and the “bad” mother, and ultimately find ways to exercise agency, resistance, and empowerment in and through their mothering. This book discusses how abused mothers engage in empowered mothering by constructing valued, fortified, and liberating identities for themselves as mothers in the face of an ideology of intensive mothering that delegitimizes and subjugates them. These mothers are not passive victims, but rather are active agents who resist and question the idealized standards of intensive mothering as being restrictive and unachievable; who view their mothering in a positive light even though they have lived and mothered in social milieus deemed outside the boundaries of acceptable mothering; and who uphold that they are indeed worthy mothers despite their stigmatized status. Particular attention is given to the ways that intersections of gender, race, and social class shape and influence abused mothers constructions of their mothering identities. This book calls into question the false notion that there is only one standard, one definition, and one social location in which effective mothering is performed. It is a voice against the judgment of mothers, a call to end the oppressive and restrictive bifurcation of mothers into categories of either “good” or “bad” mothers, and an attempt to re-envision a more inclusive understanding of mothering. This book is a movement towards the empowerment of all mothers, regardless of differences in their lives and social circumstances.

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"A jewel of Baroque architecture, the Castelluccio Palace is the spotlight of a beautiful book retracing its history, its long restoration and its precious ornaments. These photographs reflect the Sicilian Golden Age." —Fanny Guenon des Mesnards, AD France "This monograph is an invitation to visit the Palazzo Di Lorenzo del Castelluccio."—Italian Vogue "A Palace in Sicily: A Masterpiece Restored doesn’t just pull back the curtain on the finished palace, it details the four-year-long process through an elaborate array of photos..." —Architectural Digest, and Yahoo With its sun-drenched sands and Mediterranean waters, Sicily has been a favoured destination of travellers for centuries. History is alive on this island, from ancient accounts of the Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Normans; to the journals of wealthy young European men embarking on the Grand Tour. This book captures the sun-steeped aesthetic of the island, while detailing the restoration of one of its finest attractions: the Di Lorenzo del Castelluccio palace. Marquis de Castelluccio was one of the last "servals" or “leopards” of Sicily – wealthy aristocrats who flooded the island with luxury. Following his death, his home fell to ruin. A half-century later, Jean-Louis Remilleux fell in love with this dilapidated 18th-century palace and made it his mission to restore it. Unveiled for the first time in this beautifully illustrated book, the Di Lorenzo del Castelluccio palazzo is one of the finest testaments to Sicilian architecture and art. Today, lush green palm trees welcome you to the palace’s imposing front façade. Frescoes, arabesques, masks, imitation marble, ceilings and wainscoting have all restored to their former glory, over decades of elaborate work. This book charts the restoration process and celebrates the astonishing end results. It contains an album’s worth of photographs that capture the beauty of this palace beneath the Mediterranean sun.

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A clinical psychologist’s exploration of the modern dilemmas women face in the wake of new motherhood When Molly Millwood became a mother, she was fully prepared for what she would gain: an adorable baby boy; hard-won mothering skills; and a messy, chaotic, beautiful life. But what she did not expect was what she would lose: aspects of her identity, a baseline level of happiness, a general sense of wellbeing. And though she had the benefit of a supportive husband during this transition, she also at times resented the fact that the disruption to his life seemed to pale in comparison to hers.As a clinical psychologist, Molly knew her experience was a normal response to a life-changing event. But without the advantage of such a perspective, many of the patients she treated in her private practice grappled with self-doubt, guilt, and fear, and suffered the dual pain of not only the struggle to adjust but also the overwhelming shame for struggling at all.In To Have and to Hold, Molly explores the complex terrain of new motherhood, illuminating the ways it affects women psychologically, emotionally, physically, and professionally—as well as how it impacts their partnership. Along with the arrival of a bundle of joy come thorny issues such as self-worth, control, autonomy, and dependency. And for most new mothers, these issues are experienced within the context of an intimate relationship, adding another layer of tension, conflict, and confusion to an already challenging time.As Molly examines the inextricable link between women’s well-being as new mothers and the well-being of their relationships, she offers guidance to help readers reclaim their identities, overcome their guilt and shame, and repair their relationships. A blend of personal narrative, scientific research, and stories from Molly’s clinical practice, To Have and to Hold provides a much-needed lifeline to new mothers everywhere.

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Going to university is expensive. It’s an investment of money. It is also a massive leap of faith by everyone connected to your choice. You hope it will be a good experience, but you aren’t sure. You want it to be fair to you and worth the effort, but there are no guarantees. Going to university to study and get a degree or certificate of qualification is as political as it is personal. So beware and be ready! But worry not. You will spend your money wisely for a long-term return. Why? Because there is a game to play, and by picking up this book, you intend to play to win. Playing the University Game shows you the rules of the game, strategies for success on your terms (not those of the university as institution and system) and, most importantly, how to enjoy yourself as a university student, reaping the long-term benefits both during your experience and afterwards. How to win the personal way using political-social knowledge shared with you from inside the university walls. Helen Lees draws on her research and lived experiences of self-care in education, combining this with the voices of established academics, who between them have a wide-ranging and deeply reflective understanding of the university and university student interactions. Helen takes you into the heart of the mechanisms of university life, revealing key moves you need to make to survive and thrive in the game. She shares with you which actions and attitudes matter to win, why winning matters, how you can win without joining a dog-eat-dog competition. Helen empowers you to see why university education is about you and your flourishing, not the graduation prize but nevertheless happily also all about the graduation prize, which really matters. She skills you with the knowledge you need to avoid stress, to enjoy yourself and get true value for money from the educational product you have chosen.

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'A novel brilliantly evoking the isolation of a woman with an unbearable weight on her conscience'SUNDAY TIMES'Succeeds as a portrait of both a city and, in its heroine, a delightfully dysfunctional personality'SUNDAY EXPRESS__________When Lotte Meerman is faced with the choice of interviewing the latest victim in a string of assaults or talking to a man who claims he really isn't dead, she picks the interview. After all, the man cannot possibly be who he claims he is: Andre Nieuwkamp was murdered as a teenager over thirty years ago, and it had been a police success story nationwide when the skeletal remains found in the dunes outside Amsterdam had been identified, and the murderer subsequently arrested.Yet concerned about this encounter, Lotte goes to the Hotel Mondrian the next day to talk to the man, but what she finds is his corpse. And his passport shows that he wasn't Andre Nieuwkamp as he said, but Theo Brand, a British citizen. Subsequent DNA tests reveal that the man was Andre Nieuwkamp so now Lotte has a double mystery on her hands and needs to figure out not only why Andre waited so long to tell anyone he was still alive, but also who was the teenager murdered in the dunes all those decades ago.___________Praise for Anja de Jager'An impressive debut . . . De Jager is as good on dodgy family relations as she is on police procedure'The Times'Detective Lotte Meerman is damaged by her past and tortured by the dreadful mistake she's made at work . . . Amsterdam in the vicious grip of a bitter winter is the other star here, beautiful and deadly' Cath Staincliffe'A tightly written, cleverly plotted whodunit that keeps the reader guessing almost to the last page' Irish Examiner''de Jager manages to circumvent the overfamiliar. The evocation of a bitterly cold Amsterdam is worthy of Nicholas Freeling's Van der Valk books' The Independent

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West End Producer is the anonymous Twitter sensation whose hilarious and unfailingly accurate barbs satirising and celebrating the theatre industry have won him a devoted following. His identity is the subject of feverish speculation in the media, fuelled by his regular appearances at West End opening nights in costume, wig and latex mask. He has become a genuine theatre impresario, launching talent competitions Search for a Twitter Star and its successor, Search for a Twitter Composer. And now West End Producer is ready to share all he's learnt about how to get ahead in showbusiness, in the form of a handy paperback book. Full of the wit and mischievous indiscretion that has gained him such a cult following, packed with gossip and insider knowledge of the theatre business, and containing enough savvy advice on acting to kickstart a career, West End Producer's book offers tips (both practical and deliciously impractical) on: Getting into drama school (learning how to sit in a circle) Auditioning (perfecting the 'staring vacantly out front' pose) Rehearsals techniques (including how to act in a serious play) The different kinds of actor (from sex pest to company idiot) Combating boredom (and avoiding backstage naughtiness) How to behave at first-night parties (obeying the traffic-light colour code) And, most importantly, the correct way to bow at the curtain call Also included in the book are many of West End Producer’s most memorable tweets, miniature comic salvos despatched with all the shrewdness of a man who truly knows his Barrowmans from his Balls. 'Prepare to be shocked, rocked and mocked in this genuinely laugh-out-loud-funny, lovingly crafted, meticulously researched, spookily insightful and accurately spelled guide to all things thespian.' Michael Ball 'Don’t even consider putting your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington, until you’ve first consulted this wonderful book.' Paul O’Grady

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Awaken both your inner foodie and your inner yogi as you journey into the consciousness of everyday foods, from their origins in myth to modern interpretations today. Have you ever considered the cultural origins and meanings of your favorite foods? The Complete Language of Foodties ingredients back to mythological and folklore roots for a unique and appetizing exploration of the foods we eat.Presented alphabetically, each food entry includes: A beautiful illustration concise summary of the food’s mythology and folklore How the food is used in certain cultures and traditions Correlations to chakras, elements, and deities With everyday ingredients like acai, bok choy, and cauliflower, you’re bound to learn more than you ever imagined about your household favorites as you discover the symbolic meanings, uses, and facts behind each. The knowledge gained will bring new meaning and intention to your mealtime. Some of the exciting lore behind certain foods will include: Borage was a common motif in medieval needlework, especially in scarf designs where they were intended to be worn by knights as a symbol of courage Archaeologists have found evidence of pickled cucumbers that date as far back to 2030 BCE (in northern regions of what is now Iraq) Macedoine, a precursor to ice cream, is a type of jelly dessert that was served in snow and thought to be a favorite of Alexander the Great. It was known that the ancient Greeks used honey in their skincare! Elegantly designed and beautifully illustrated, the Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia series offers comprehensive, display-worthy references on a range of intriguing topics, including dream interpretation, techniques for harnessing the power of dreams, flower meanings, and the stories behind signs and symbols. Also available in the series: Complete Book of Dreams, Complete Language of Flowers, Complete Language of Herbs, Signs & Symbols of the World, and Complete Guide to Astrological Self-Care.

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Pieces of paper that claimed to be good for two dollars upon redemption at a distant bank. Foreign coins that fluctuated in value from town to town. Stock certificates issued by turnpike or canal companies-worth something...or perhaps nothing. IOUs from farmers or tradesmen, passed around by people who could not know the person who first issued them. Money and banking in antebellum America offered a glaring example of free-market capitalism run amok-unregulated, exuberant, and heading pell-mell toward the next "panic" of burst bubbles and hard times. In Other People's Money, Sharon Ann Murphy explains how banking and money worked before the federal government, spurred by the chaos of the Civil War, created the national system of US paper currency. Murphy traces the evolution of banking in America from the founding of the nation, when politicians debated the constitutionality of chartering a national bank, to Andrew Jackson's role in the Bank War of the early 1830s, to the problems of financing a large-scale war. She reveals how, ultimately, the monetary and banking structures that emerged from the Civil War also provided the basis for our modern financial system, from its formation under the Federal Reserve in 1913 to the present. Touching on the significant role that numerous historical figures played in shaping American banking-including Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Louis Brandeis- Other People's Money is an engaging guide to the heated political fights that surrounded banking in early America as well as to the economic causes and consequences of the financial system that emerged from the turmoil. By helping readers understand the financial history of this period and the way banking shaped the society in which ordinary Americans lived and worked, this book broadens and deepens our knowledge of the Early American Republic.

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Reified Life addresses the most pressing political question of the 21st century: what forms of life are free and what forms are perceived legally and economically as surplus or expendable, human and otherwise. The 2008 economic crisis solidified the dominion of neoliberal and financial capital to organize human societies much to the detriment of the world’s populations. Reified Life theorizes the dangerous social implications of a posthuman future, whereby human agency is secondary to algorithmic processes, digital protocols, speculative financial instruments, and nonhuman market and technological forces. Employing new readings of Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault, Marx, Vico, Gramsci, Berardi, and Gilbert Simondon, Narkunas contends that it is premature to speak of a posthuman or inhuman future, or employ an ‘ism, given how dynamic and contingent human practices and their material figurations can be. Over several chapters he diagnoses the rise of “market humans,” the instrumentalization of culture to decide the life worth living along utilitarian categories, and the varied ways human rights and humanitarianism actually throw members of the species like refugees outside the human order. To combat this, Reified Life argues against Reified Life calls to abandon the human and humanism, and instead proposes the ahuman to think alongside the human, what philosopher Gilbert Simondon calls the transindividuation of ontogentic processes rather than subjectivity. To aid the “figurating animal,” Reified Life elaborates speculative fictions as critical mechanisms for envisioning alternative futures and freedoms from the domineering forces of speculative capital, whose fictions have become our realities. Narkunas offers, to that end, a novel interpretation of the post-anthropocentric turn in the humanities by linking the diminished centrality of humanism to the waning dominion of nation-states over their populations and the intensification of financial capitalism, which reconfigures politics along economic categories of risk management.

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Girls are beautifully and wonderfully made in God’s image. This comprehensive collection of stories focused on 50 women of the Bible shows how God worked in their lives and continues to have a plan and a purpose for his beloved daughters today.In a world that too often tells girls that they are not enough, Her Story, Her Strength uses biblical retellings and reflections that include the historical context behind each story to remind young women that they have a God who loves them deeply and empowers them to live and love like he does. For any girl ages 8 and up who is asking questions about her worth, identity, and place in the world and church, this colorful and engaging book provides a positive, loving, and scriptural lens that helps them interpret the messages they receive from their peers, media, and society.Girls who read Her Story, Her Strength will: come to a profound, unshakable understanding of God’s love for them and their value in his eyes. see how they reflect God’s image both innately and through the actions, words, and attitudes they choose each day. learn about biblical characters and events in a way designed specifically for them. In addition, Her Story, Her Strength: features readers’ favorite women of the Bible as well as many less-well-known characters, showing God’s consistent presence in the lives of women throughout Scripture. is divided into short sections that are both comprehensive and accessible, making it a wonderful tool for school or church lessons as well as family devotions or personal reflection. emphasizes how each woman reflects the image of her Creator, demonstrating the immense value God places on women and girls and pointing them back to him—all from a position rooted in biblical values. includes beautiful, full-color illustrations that help bring each woman to life.

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Medievalists have long considered topics of cultural contact such as antagonism or exchange between western Europe and the Islamic world, the west’s debts to Byzantium, European expansion during the Crusades, and Mediterranean trade. Medieval Cultures in Contact grows out of such traditional themes of European identity and its relations with others, but its essays pose new questions and view the topic from different perspectives. In recent generations, the study of non-European cultures for their effects on the west has changed to consideration of diverse medieval cultures as separate and worth studying on their own. The change is due in part to the influences of other disciplines, such as comparative literature, the social sciences, and subaltern studies. With the increased interest in such groups, cultures in contact is no longer necessarily European contact with one group or another, with Europeans the common ground in each encounter; it now extends to a much wider range of cultures and their interactions. The approach to cultures in contact running through many essays of this volume is that the meeting of cultures promotes historical change in the original societies and creates new societies at the point of contact. The medieval world was rich in the meeting of cultures that created new circumstances and results, some based on borders between cultures, others on internal reactions to contact. The essays in Medieval Cultures in Contact consider many diverse locales, periods, and protagonists in which or on whom the meeting of cultures was formative. The topics include the origin of western Christian culture in Bede’s England, the contact of east and west in the Islamic and Asian worlds, the western perceptions of the east in German literature, and cross-cultural influences in several Mediterranean regions. The relations between the Christian majority and the culture of the Jewish minority in northwestern Europe, and the interaction between the occupational cultures of minstrels and clerics are related issues. The second section of the volume presents two models for teaching cultural contacts in the middle ages: one discusses the need to recognize such interactions as part of medieval history, and two linked essays show how literary diversity has been treated in practice.

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International justice has become a crucial part of the ongoing political debates about the future of shattered societies like Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Chile. Why do our governments sometimes display such striking idealism in the face of war crimes and atrocities abroad, and at other times cynically abandon the pursuit of international justice altogether? Why today does justice seem so slow to come for war crimes victims in the Balkans? In this book, Gary Bass offers an unprecedented look at the politics behind international war crimes tribunals, combining analysis with investigative reporting and a broad historical perspective. The Nuremberg trials powerfully demonstrated how effective war crimes tribunals can be. But there have been many other important tribunals that have not been as successful, and which have been largely left out of today's debates about international justice. This timely book brings them in, using primary documents to examine the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, the Armenian genocide, World War II, and the recent wars in the former Yugoslavia. Bass explains that bringing war criminals to justice can be a military ordeal, a source of endless legal frustration, as well as a diplomatic nightmare. The book takes readers behind the scenes to see vividly how leaders like David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton have wrestled with these agonizing moral dilemmas. The book asks how law and international politics interact, and how power can be made to serve the cause of justice. Bass brings new archival research to bear on such events as the prosecution of the Armenian genocide, presenting surprising episodes that add to the historical record. His sections on the former Yugoslavia tell--with important new discoveries--the secret story of the politicking behind the prosecution of war crimes in Bosnia, drawing on interviews with senior White House officials, key diplomats, and chief prosecutors at the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Bass concludes that despite the obstacles, legalistic justice for war criminals is nonetheless worth pursuing. His arguments will interest anyone concerned about human rights and the pursuit of idealism in international politics.

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Scholars exploring the history of science under the Nazis have generally concentrated on the Nazi destruction of science or the corruption of intellectual and liberal values. Racial Hygiene focuses on how scientists themselves participated in the construction of Nazi racial policy. Robert Proctor demonstrates that the common picture of a passive scientific community coerced into cooperation with the Nazis fails to grasp the reality of what actually happened—namely, that many of the political initiatives of the Nazis arose from within the scientific community, and that medical scientists actively designed and administered key elements of National Socialist policy.The book presents the most comprehensive account to date of German medical involvement in the sterilization and castration laws, the laws banning marriage between Jews and non-Jews, and the massive program to destroy “lives not worth living.” The study traces attempts on the part of doctors to conceive of the “Jewish problem” as a “medical problem,” and how medical journals openly discussed the need to find a “final solution” to Germany’s Jewish and gypsy “problems.”Proctor makes us aware that such thinking was not unique to Germany. The social Darwinism of the late nineteenth century in America and Europe gave rise to theories of racial hygiene that were embraced by enthusiasts of various nationalities in the hope of breeding a better, healthier, stronger race of people. Proctor also presents an account of the “organic” health movement that flourished under the Nazis, including campaigns to reduce smoking and drinking, and efforts to require bakeries to produce whole-grain bread. A separate chapter is devoted to the emergence of a resistance movement among doctors in the Association of Socialist Physicians. The book is based on a close analysis of contemporary documents, including German state archives and more than two hundred medical journals published during the period.Proctor has set out not merely to tell a story but also to urge reflection on what might be called the “political philosophy of science”—how movements that shape the policies of nations can also shape the structure and priorities of science. The broad implications of this book make it of consequence not only to historians, physicians, and people concerned with the history and philosophy of science, but also to those interested in science policy and medical ethics.

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Defining Global Justice offers the first comprehensive overview of the history of the United States role in the International Labor Organization (ILO). In this thought-provoking book, Edward Lorenz addresses the challenge laid down by the President of the American Political Science Association in 2000, who urged scholars to discover "how well-structured institutions could enable the world to have ‘a new birth of freedom’." Lorenz’s study describes one model of a well-structured institution. His history of the U.S. interaction with the ILO shows how some popular organizations, from organized labor through women’s, academic, legal, and religious institutions have been able to utilize the ILO structure to counter what the APSA president called "self-serving elites and . . . their worst impulses." These organizations succeeded repeatedly in introducing popular visions of social justice into global economic planning and the world economy. Lorenz demonstrates the key role played by the social gospel movement, academic elites, women leaders, lawyers, and organized labor in the quest for global justice through labor standards. By underscoring the role of women in this process, he highlights the importance of gender relations in the development of labor standards policy. Lorenz also shows how transformations in the economic and social reproduction of knowledge gradually displaced academics from the cutting edge of research on labor issues. Throughout this fascinating study, Lorenz reminds his readers that the development of decent labor standards has come in large part from the efforts of religious groups and a host of other nongovernmental, voluntary civic organizations that have insisted labor is a human activity, not a commodity. Defining Global Justice reveals why the United States, despite showing exceptional restraint in domestic social policy making, played a leading role in the pursuit of just international labor standards. Lorenz's lucid volume covers a century's worth of efforts, charting the development of a body of international law and an institutional structure as important to the global economy of the twenty-first century as the battle against slavery was in the nineteenth century.

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The tragic events of September 11, 2001, and the false assessment of Saddam Hussein's weapons arsenal were terrible reminders that good information is essential to national security. These failures convinced the American public that their intelligence system was broken and prompted a radical reorganization of agencies and personnel, but as Richard K. Betts argues in this book, critics and politicians have severely underestimated the obstacles to true reform. One of the nation's foremost political scientists, Betts draws on three decades of work within the U.S. intelligence community to illuminate the paradoxes and problems that frustrate the intelligence process. Unlike America's efforts to improve its defenses against natural disasters, strengthening its strategic assessment capabilities means outwitting crafty enemies who operate beyond U.S. borders. It also requires looking within to the organizational and political dynamics of collecting information and determining its implications for policy. Combining academic research with personal experience, Betts outlines strategies for better intelligence gathering and assessment. He describes how fixing one malfunction can create another; in what ways expertise can be both a vital tool and a source of error and misjudgment; the pitfalls of always striving for accuracy in intelligence, which in some cases can render it worthless; the danger, though unavoidable, of "politicizing" intelligence; and the issue of secrecy--when it is excessive, when it is insufficient, and how limiting privacy can in fact protect civil liberties. Betts argues that when it comes to intelligence, citizens and politicians should focus less on consistent solutions and more on achieving a delicate balance between conflicting requirements. He also emphasizes the substantial success of the intelligence community, despite its well-publicized blunders, and highlights elements of the intelligence process that need preservation and protection. Many reformers are quick to respond to scandals and failures without detailed, historical knowledge of how the system works. Grounding his arguments in extensive theory and policy analysis, Betts takes a comprehensive and realistic look at how knowledge and power can work together to face the intelligence challenges of the twenty-first century.

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For teens, confidence is key! This fully revised and updated edition of The Self-Esteem Workbook for Teens has everything you need to boost self-confidence, improve your social skills, balance social media use, and reach your goals.As a teen, it is incredibly important to have self-confidence, especially when you consider all the societal pressures teens face today, particularly about appearance and grades. Growing up in today’s world is difficult, and in the midst of all this life-related stress, it’s easy to magnify your own weaknesses and minimize—or even ignore—your true assets. This workbook can help.In this fully revised and updated second edition of The Self-Esteem Workbook for Teens, you’ll learn to develop a healthy, realistic view of yourself that includes honest assessments of your weaknesses and strengths, and you will learn to respect yourself, faults and all. You’ll also learn the difference between self-esteem and being self-centered, self-absorbed, or selfish. Finally, this book will show you how to distinguish the outer appearance of confidence from the quiet, steady, inner acceptance and humility of true self-esteem.This second edition includes practical exercises to help you deal with body image issues, be more assertive and set boundaries with others, and navigate difficult social situations—including bullying, cyberbullying and social media overload. You’ll also find activities that promote healthy thinking habits and problem solving; tips for handling criticism, setbacks, and self-doubt; and strategies for developing self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-worth.With the right amount of self-confidence, you will have the emotional resources you need to succeed and reach your goals. This workbook can help you get started, step by step.In these increasingly challenging times, kids and teens need mental health resources more than ever. With more than 1.6 million copies sold worldwide, Instant Help Books are easy to use, proven-effective, and recommended by therapists.

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Tropical East Asia is home to over one billion people and faces massive human impacts from its rising population and rapid economic growth. It has already lost more than half of its forest cover to agriculture and urbanization, and has the highest rates of deforestation and logging in the tropics. Habitat loss, coupled with hunting and the relentless trade in wildlife products, threatens all its large and many of its smaller vertebrates. Despite these problems, the region still supports an estimated 15-25% of global terrestrial biodiversity and a growing environmental awareness means that it is no longer assumed that economic development justifies environmental damage, and no longer accepted that this trade-off is inevitable. Effective conservation action now depends on integrating a clear understanding of the ecological patterns and processes in the region with the varied needs of its human population. This third edition continues to provide an overview of the terrestrial ecology of Tropical East Asia: from southern China to Indonesia, and from Bhutan and Bangladesh to the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. It retains the balance between compactness and comprehensiveness of the previous editions, and the even-handed geographical treatment of the whole region, but it updates both the contents and the perspective. Approximately one third of the text is new or greatly modified, reflecting the explosion of new research in the region in the last few years and the increasing use of new tools, particularly from genomics and remote sensing. The change in perspective largely reflects the growing realization that we are in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in which human activities have at least as large an influence as natural processes, and that stopping or reversing ecological change is no longer an option. This does not mean that biodiversity conservation is no longer possible or worthwhile, but that the biodiverse future we strive for will inevitably be very different from the past. The Ecology of Tropical East Asia is an advanced textbook suitable for senior undergraduate and graduate level students taking courses on the terrestrial ecology of the East Asian tropics, as well as an authoritative regional reference for professional ecologists, conservationists, and interested amateurs worldwide.

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When the body of a bushman with puzzlingly young organs is stolen from the morgue and a local witch doctor goes missing, Detective Kubu becomes involved in a life-threatening case. ‘Richly atmospheric … a gritty depiction of corruption and deception’ Publishers Weekly ‘The African Columbo … a smart satisfyingly complex mystery’ Entertainment Weekly ‘A wonderful, original voice – McCall Smith with a dark edge and even darker underbelly’ Peter James _______________ When the body of a Bushman is discovered near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, the death is written off as an accident. But all is not as it seems. An autopsy reveals that, although he’s clearly very old, his internal organs are puzzlingly young. What’s more, an old bullet is lodged in one of his muscles … but where is the entry wound? When the body is stolen from the morgue and a local witch doctor is reported missing, Detective ‘Kubu’ Bengu gets involved. Kubu and his brilliant young colleague, Detective Samantha Khama, follow the twisting trail through a confusion of rhino-horn smugglers, foreign gangsters and drugs manufacturers. And the deeper they dig, the wider and more dangerous the case becomes… A fresh, new slice of ‘Sunshine Noir’, Dying to Live is a classic tale of greed, corruption and ruthless thuggery, set in one of the world’s most beautiful landscapes, and featuring one of crime fiction’s most endearing and humane heroes. _______________ ‘Detective David “Kubu” Bengu is a wonderful creation, complex and beguiling. Compelling and deceptively written’ New York Journal of Books ‘My favourite writing duo since Ellery Queen’ Ragnar Jónasson ‘Dying to Live is a skilfully plotted story of greed and its consequences; making the case for Detective Kubu absorbing, like the Botswana backdrop' ShotsMag ‘Under the African sun, Michael Stanley’s Detective Kubu investigates crimes as dark as the darkest of Nordic Noir. Call it Sunshine Noir, if you will – a must read’ Yrsa Sigurðardóttir ‘Intelligent, dark and compelling - among the best of today’s crime fiction’ Quentin Bates ‘Fascinating, dark and beautifully written … Kubu is a detective worth knowing. More please!’ Northern Crime

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One of PopSugar's Best New Books to Look Forward to in 2023!'A page-turning second-chance romance bursting with crackling banter and delightful characters' AVA WILDER'Just My Type sparks with enemies-to-lovers wit and dazzles with Los Angeles flair' EMILY WIBBERLEY & AUSTIN SIEGEMUND-BROKA'With supremely relatable characters, sparkling wit, and a second-chance-rivals-to-lovers romance to die for, Just My Type is an unputdownable showstopper!' COURTNEY KAE ...........................................Ever since a disastrous high-school break-up, Lana Parker has bounced from one long-term relationship to the next - she even works as a dating and relationship columnist. So, when Lana suddenly finds herself single, she's ready for a break, personally and professionally. But then her high-school ex, Seth Carson, takes an assignment at Lana's website. Having spent years travelling the world as a freelance journalist, Seth's finally ready to put down roots, even if it means treading on some toes. Pitted against each other for a shot at a dream job, Seth and Lara are each tasked with writing an article series that goes against their usual dating type: Lana will write about being - and staying - single, while Seth learns how to become boyfriend material. With their careers on the line, Seth and Lana's chemistry is just as combative - and undeniable - as ever. But when these two square off, it's not only their careers on the line - it's also their hearts............................................Raves for Lease on Love:'A hopeful, heartwarming debut. With a relatable disaster of a protagonist and an adorably nerdy hero, this opposites-attract, roommates-to-lovers romance is a true delight' RACHEL LYNN SOLOMON'Lease on Love warmly and wittily underscores that none of us are perfect, but we are all worthy, we are all enough: we all deserve to be loved, not just by others, but by ourselves too' SARAH HOGLE'Lease on Love was a delight on every level. Ballard delivers a soft, sweet story with enough shadows to make the happily ever after feel that much more earned... This is a beautiful love story about finding something precious that seems out of reach!' DENISE WILLIAMS'Lease on Love is a crackling, compulsively readable debut . . . I enjoyed every minute of it!' SUZANNE PARK

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Slow down, calm down, and come together with this complete guide to meditation for the whole family—featuring targeted practices for parents, teens, and kids of all ages. As a certified yoga teacher, meditation teacher, and host of the chart-topping podcast Mindful in Minutes, Kelly Smith is no stranger to the wide-ranging health benefits of meditation. And she discovered she needed them more than ever when she became a mom for the first time. Suddenly finding herself coping with sleepless nights, disheartening physical changes, uncontrollable worries, and near constant sensory overload, Kelly found solace in the same thing she always had: her daily meditation practice. In doing so, she discovered how meditation could help not only moms cope with common family challenges, but every other member of the family as well. Kelly shares her hard-won wisdom with listeners across the country in her second podcast Meditation Mama, and now, in this fully illustrated book. Mindful in Minutes: Meditation for the Modern Family helps families of all kinds learn how to use meditation to cope with the everyday struggles of being a person who is also part of a family. Covering topics ranging from quieting the mind and managing stress to handling resentment and cultivating compassion, this book offers specialized practices for each family member by age—adults, teens and older kids, and small children. Topics include: Being Present Finding Joy Anxiety Hyperactivity Worthiness Empathy Burnout Insomnia Self-Confidence Overstimulation Connecting with the True Self And much more With three distinct, age-appropriate practices for each topic, Kelly ensures that every member of the family has access to a practical, focused meditation “toolkit” to draw on when they need a little extra help. The book also includes a series of dedicated meditations for expectant parents, a series of meditations to promote a healthy, loving relationship between partners, and over 250 mantras to help you focus your mind and go deeper into your practice. Whether you are a meditation beginner or a long-term practitioner, this book will help you and your family feel calmer, happier, and more connected.

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Stuff Nobody TaughtYou by Summer McStravick teaches readers how to wildly, successfully, reinvent themselves and become who they’ve always wanted to be. Filled with humor, actionable steps, and brazen, intelligent straight-talk, Stuff Nobody TaughtYou fills you in on all those secrets you wished someone had told you about how to craft and keep a happy, passion-filled life. Sometimes we need a good old cathartic do-over. We’ve been flatlining—emotionally spent and wrung out like an old washcloth. We want to feel a different way, be a different way. Somehow, we need to regain our purpose and direction and feel good again. We want to re-find the self-worth, confidence, and inner strength that got wiped away from years of frustration, disappointments, and emotional depletion.Stuff Nobody Taught You fills you in on all those secrets you wished someone had told you about how to craft and keep a happy, passion-filled life. The book takes you through a proven journey of self-discovery via a series of forty-five bite-size, easy lessons that will transport you to a world of amazing feelings and real transformation as you learn to: Find and release the inner patterns and blocks that have stopped or derailed you time after time. Climb out from feeling stuck, exhausted, directionless, or just not sure what you’re supposed to do next in life. Meet and love up your powerful, authentic self, where you trust your choices and start attracting good things in every area of your life. Each day, you’ll look forward to reading the next revealing chapter that feels as yummy as a best friend’s phone call. By, the end, you’ll shut the book with a satisfying, relieved, and exciting sense of your next steps. In short, Stuff Nobody Taught You resets your inner clock and shows you that yes, you can wildly, successfully, reinvent yourself and become who you’ve always wanted to be. It teaches you where your inner power lies and gives you permission to use it. And finally, it frees you up to find the brisk, fresh path that oftentimes turns out to be right there, already under your feet.

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Poland in the 1980s was filled with shuttered restaurants and shops that bore such imaginative names as "bread," "shoes," and "milk products," from which lines could stretch for days on the mere rumor there was something worth buying. But you'd be hard-pressed to recognize the same squares buzzing with bars and cafes today. In the years since the collapse of communism, Poland's GDP has almost tripled, making it the eight-largest economy in the European Union, with a wealth of well-educated and highly skilled workers and a buoyant private sector that competes in international markets. Many consider it one of the only European countries to have truly weathered the financial crisis. As the Warsaw bureau chief for the Financial Times, Jan Cienski spent more than a decade talking with the people who did something that had never been done before: recreating a market economy out of a socialist one. Poland had always lagged behind wealthier Western Europe, but in the 1980s the gap had grown to its widest in centuries. But the corrupt Polish version of communism also created the conditions for its eventual revitalization, bringing forth a remarkably resilient and entrepreneurial people prepared to brave red tape and limited access to capital. In the 1990s, more than a million Polish people opened their own businesses, selling everything from bicycles to leather jackets, Japanese VCRs, and romance novels. The most business-savvy turned those primitive operations into complex corporations that now have global reach. Well researched and accessibly and entertainingly written, Start-Up Poland tells the story of the opening bell in the East, painting lively portraits of the men and women who built successful businesses there, what their lives were like, and what they did to catapult their ideas to incredible success. At a time when Poland's new right-wing government plays on past grievances and forms part of the populist and nationalist revolution sweeping the Western world, Cienski's book also serves as a reminder that the past century has been the most successful in Poland's history.

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Perfect for fans of Philippa Gregory, Alison Weir, Anne O'Brien and Elizabeth Chadwick, Deborah Swift brings a unique period in history to vivid, fascinating life in her acclaimed Pepys trilogy.'Laced with emotional intensity and drama, Pleasing Mr Pepys...(has) an intricate plot that features red herrings, unexpected twists, and surprises that will take readers on a very delightful ride' Readers' Favorite 'Deb Willet, Elizabeth Pepys's maid and the object of Samuel Pepys's attentions, is finally given centre-stage after 350 years, and her tale was worth waiting for. This is exceptional story-telling' L. C. Tyler From acclaimed historical novelist Deborah Swift, Pleasing Mr Pepys is the story of diarist Samuel Pepys' London, vibrantly told through the eyes of his maid. Deb Willet is desperate to escape her domineering aunt and takes a position as companion to Elisabeth Pepys, Samuel's wife. Deb believes it will give her the respectability and freedom she craves - but it proves far more complicated than she could ever have imagined.London is still in ruins from the Great Fire. Although Charles II has been restored to the throne, there is the prospect of war with the Dutch - the world's great sea power of the era. In the midst of this tumult strides Samuel Pepys, diarist and man of note. Pepys' influence in Restoration London means that the Dutch are keen to get their hands on his secrets - even if that means murder, espionage and blackmail to get them. Deb is soon caught up in a web of deception and double-dealing. And with Mr Pepys' attentions turned towards her, there's a lot more than treason at stake... Selling other people's secrets is a dangerous game...Praise for Pleasing Mr Pepys: 'Swift is a consummate historical novelist, basing her books on immaculate research and then filling the gaps between real events and real people with eloquent storytelling, atmospheric scene setting and imaginative plot lines' The Visitor 'Laced with emotional intensity and drama' Readers' Favorite 'Pepys and his world spring to vibrant life...Gripping, revealing and stunningly imagined, Pleasing Mr Pepys is guaranteed to please' Lancashire Evening PostDon't miss Deborah Swift's other enthralling tales of Samuel Pepys - A Plague of Mr Pepys and Entertaining Mr Pepys - out now!

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In 1984, John Hanrahan was featured in Interview magazine's iconic Olympic Issue as one of America's top athlete's vying for a spot on the US Olympic Team. He had come within a point of defeating the mighty Soviet world medalist and had defeated other international competitors. He had a shot at a lifelong dream, but then abandoned the final trials. The coach searched frantically for him at LaGuardia airport. He was nowhere to be found. He hadn't exactly fallen off the face of the earth; his face was appearing in worldwide ad campaigns as a top fashion model―but he’d become crippled by addiction, unable to face his competition, and unwilling to confront the severity of his situation.Then, in 1985, Hanrahan died from an overdose. He went to a divine place while a doctor worked frantically to revive him. He was shown the prayers of loved ones and given another chance at life, and he feels he came back for a reason…He returned wanting to shout his story from the rooftops, but was unable to fully share his experiences to help others. He was shackled by the stigma of being judged as an addict, and it wasn’t until he nearly lost his own son to the ravages of addiction that he broke through and gained the strength and courage to tell his story. He describes how he continued to work amidst the craziness of the world fashion markets―Milan, Paris, Zurich, Tokyo, and New York―while trying to find his way toward exorcising the demons of his past and gaining a life worthy of the one he had miraculously regained.He transformed himself to become the trusted personal trainer to influential New Yorkers, such as John Kennedy Jr., Julia Roberts, Howard Stern, Natasha Richardson, Diane Sawyer, Rosie O’Donnell, Mercedes Ruehl, Betty Buckley, and Joan Lunden. He moved his family west and quickly corralled a high-powered Hollywood client base, including Patricia Heaton, David Geffen, Tim Burton, Sandy Gallin, Tara Reid, Beverly DeAngelo, Annabella Sciorra, Cyndi Lauper, Donald De Line, Amy Pascal, Kevin Huvane, Bryan Lourd, Davis Guggenheim and Graydon Carter…all while keeping his past a secret.

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