Search results for ""Author Fell"

Reveals the significant and sometimes heroic roles rabbis have played in our nation's defense Rabbi Elkan Voorsanger received the Purple Heart for his actions during the Battle of Argonne. Chaplain Edgar Siskin, serving with the Marines on Pelilu Island, conducted Yom Kippur services in the midst of a barrage of artillery fire. Rabbi Alexander Goode and three fellow chaplains gave their own lifejackets to panicked soldiers aboard a sinking transport torpedoed by a German submarine, and then went down with the ship. American Jews are not usually associated with warfare. Nor, for that matter, are their rabbis. And yet, Jewish chaplains have played a significant and sometimes heroic role in our nation's defense. The Fighting Rabbis presents the compelling history of Jewish military chaplains from their first service during the Civil War to the first female Jewish chaplain and the rabbinic role in Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. Rabbi Slomovitz, himself a Navy chaplain, opens a window onto the fieldwork, religious services, counseling, and dramatic battlefield experiences of Jewish military chaplains throughout our nation's history. From George Washington's early support for a religiously tolerant military to a Seder held in the desert sands of Kuwait, these rabbis have had a profound impact on Jewish life in America. Also striking are original documents which chronicle the ongoing care and concern by the Jewish community over the last 140 years for their follow Jews, including many new immigrants who entered the armed forces. Slomovitz refutes the common belief that the U.S. military itself has been a hostile place for Jews, in the process providing a unique perspective on American religious history.

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American Justice 2015: The Dramatic Tenth Term of the Roberts Court is the indispensable guide to the most controversial and divisive cases decided by the Supreme Court in the 2014-15 term. Steven Mazie, Supreme Court correspondent for The Economist, examines the term's fourteen most important cases, tracing the main threads of contention and analyzing the expected impacts of the decisions on the lives of Americans. Legal experts and law students will be drawn to the lively summaries of the issues and arguments, while scholars and theorists will be engaged and provoked by the book's elegant introduction, in which Mazie invokes John Rawls's theory of "public reason" to defend the institution of the Supreme Court against its many critics. Mazie contends that the Court is less ideologically divided than most observers presume, issuing many more unanimous rulings than 5-4 decisions throughout the term that concluded in June 2015. When ruling on questions ranging from marriage equality to freedom of speech to the Affordable Care Act, the justices often showed a willingness to depart from their ideological fellow travelers—and this was particularly true of the conservative justices. Chief Justice Roberts joined his liberal colleagues in saving Obamacare and upholding restrictions on personal solicitation of campaign funds by judicial candidates. Justice Samuel Alito and the chief voted with the liberals to expand the rights of pregnant women in the workplace. And Justice Clarence Thomas floated to the left wing of the bench in permitting Texas to refuse to print a specialty license plate emblazoned with a Confederate flag. American Justice 2015 conveys, in clear, accessible terms, the arguments, decisions, and drama in these cases, as well as in cases involving Internet threats, unorthodox police stops, death-penalty drugs, racial equality, voting rights, and the separation of powers.

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The moral and political role of German journalists before, during, and after the Nazi dictatorshipJournalists between Hitler and Adenauer takes an in-depth look at German journalism from the late Weimar period through the postwar decades. Illuminating the roles played by journalists in the media metropolis of Hamburg, Volker Berghahn focuses on the lives and work of three remarkable individuals: Marion Countess Dönhoff, distinguished editor of Die Zeit; Paul Sethe, “the grand old man of West German journalism”; and Hans Zehrer, editor in chief of Die Welt.All born before 1914, Dönhoff, Sethe, and Zehrer witnessed the Weimar Republic’s end and opposed Hitler. When the latter seized power in 1933, they were, like their fellow Germans, confronted with the difficult choice of entering exile, becoming part of the active resistance, or joining the Nazi Party. Instead, they followed a fourth path—“inner emigration”—psychologically distancing themselves from the regime, their writing falling into a gray zone between grudging collaboration and active resistance. During the war, Dönhoff and Sethe had links to the 1944 conspiracy to kill Hitler, while Zehrer remained out of sight on a North Sea island. In the decades after 1945, all three became major figures in the West German media. Berghahn considers how these journalists and those who chose inner emigration interpreted Germany’s horrific past and how they helped to morally and politically shape the reconstruction of the country.With fresh archival materials, Journalists between Hitler and Adenauer sheds essential light on the influential position of the German media in the mid-twentieth century and raises questions about modern journalism that remain topical today.

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A leading expert shows how, by learning from refugee teachers and students, we can create for displaced children—and indeed all children—better schooling and brighter futures.Half of the world’s 26 million refugees are children. Their formal education is disrupted, and their lives are too often dominated by exclusion and uncertainty about what the future holds. Even kids who have the opportunity to attend school face enormous challenges, as they struggle to integrate into unfamiliar societies and educational environments.In Right Where We Belong, Sarah Dryden-Peterson discovers that, where governments and international agencies have been stymied, refugee teachers and students themselves are leading. From open-air classrooms in Uganda to the hallways of high schools in Maine, new visions for refugee education are emerging. Dryden-Peterson introduces us to people like Jacques—a teacher who created a school for his fellow Congolese refugees in defiance of local laws—and Hassan, a Somali refugee navigating the social world of the American teenager. Drawing on more than 600 interviews in twenty-three countries, Dryden-Peterson shows how teachers and students are experimenting with flexible forms of learning. Rather than adopt the unrealistic notion that all will soon return to “normal,” these schools embrace unfamiliarity, develop students’ adaptiveness, and demonstrate how children, teachers, and community members can build supportive relationships across lines of difference.It turns out that policymakers, activists, and educators have a lot to learn from displaced children and teachers. Their stories point the way to better futures for refugee students and inspire us to reimagine education broadly, so that children everywhere are better prepared to thrive in a diverse and unpredictable world.

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Robin Lane Fox's Travelling Heroes: Greeks and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer proposes a new way of thinking about ancient Greeks, showing how real-life journeys shaped their mythical tales. The tales of the ancient Greeks have inspired us for thousands of years. But where did they originate? Esteemed classicist Robin Lane Fox draws on a lifetime's knowledge of the ancient world, and on his own travels, to open up the age of Homer. His acclaimed history explores how the intrepid seafarers of eighth-century Greece sailed around the Mediterranean, encountering strange new sights - volcanic mountains, vaporous springs, huge prehistoric bones - and weaving them into the myths of gods, monsters and heroes that would become the cornerstone of Western civilization: the Odyssey and the Iliad. 'A beautiful evocation of a tantalizing world ... Travelling Heroes is a tour de force' Rowland Smith, Literary Review 'Lyrical, passionate ... his great gift is to make this long-ago world a vivid, extraordinary and sometimes frightening place ... a wonderful story' Elizabeth Speller, Sunday Times 'Original, daring and arguably life-enhancing ... produced with a sweeping narrative flourish worthy of a cinematographer or screenwriter' Paul Cartledge, Independent 'Lane Fox argues his case with tremendous style and verve ... learned, and always lively' Mary Beard, Financial Times Robin Lane Fox (b. 1946) is a Fellow of New College, Oxford, and a University Reader in Ancient History. His other books include The Classical World, Alexander the Great, Pagans and Christians and The Unauthorized Version. He was historical advisor to Oliver Stone on the making of Stone's film Alexander, for which he waived all his fees on condition that he could take part in the cavalry charge against elephants which Stone staged in the Moroccan desert.

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A prismatic look at the meeting of Marie Curie and Albert Einstein and the impact these two pillars of science had on the world of physics, which was in turmoil. In 1911, some of the greatest minds in science convened at the First Solvay Conference in Physics, a meeting like no other. Almost half of the attendees had won or would go on to win the Nobel Prize. Over the course of those few days, these minds began to realize that classical physics was about to give way to quantum theory, a seismic shift in our history and how we understand not just our world, but the universe. At the center of this meeting were Marie Curie and a young Albert Einstein. In the years preceding, Curie had faced the death of her husband and soul mate, Pierre. She was on the cusp of being awarded her second Nobel Prize, but scandal erupted all around her when the French press revealed that she was having an affair with a fellow scientist, Paul Langevin. The subject of vicious misogynist and xenophobic attacks in the French press, Curie found herself in a storm that threatened her scientific legacy. Albert Einstein proved a supporter in her travails. They had an instant connection at Solvay. He was young and already showing flourishes of his enormous genius. Curie had been responsible for one of the greatest discoveries in modern science (radioactivity) but still faced resistance and scorn. Einstein recognized this grave injustice, and their mutual admiration and respect, borne out of this, their first meeting, would go on to serve them in their paths forward to making history. Curie and Einstein come alive as the complex people they were in the pages of The Soul of Genius. Utilizing never before seen correspondance and notes, Jeffrey Orens reveals the human side of these brilliant scientists, one who pushed boundaries and demanded equality in a man’s world, no matter the cost, and the other, who was destined to become synonymous with genius.

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In 1573, the alchemist Anna Zieglerin gave her patron, the Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, the recipe for an extraordinary substance she called the lion's blood. She claimed that this golden oil could stimulate the growth of plants, create gemstones, transform lead into the coveted philosophers' stone—and would serve a critical role in preparing for the Last Days. Boldly envisioning herself as a Protestant Virgin Mary, Anna proposed that the lion's blood, paired with her own body, could even generate life, repopulating and redeeming the corrupt world in its final moments. In Anna Zieglerin and the Lion's Blood, Tara Nummedal reconstructs the extraordinary career and historical afterlife of alchemist, courtier, and prophet Anna Zieglerin. She situates Anna's story within the wider frameworks of Reformation Germany's religious, political, and military battles; the rising influence of alchemy; the role of apocalyptic eschatology; and the position of women within these contexts. Together with her husband, the jester Heinrich Schombach, and their companion and fellow alchemist Philipp Sommering, Anna promised her patrons at the court of Wolfenbüttel spiritual salvation and material profit. But her compelling vision brought with it another, darker possibility: rather than granting her patrons wealth or redemption, Anna's alchemical gifts might instead lead to war, disgrace, and destruction. By 1575, three years after Anna's arrival at court, her enemies had succeeded in turning her from holy alchemist into poisoner and sorceress, culminating in Anna's arrest, torture, and public execution. In her own life, Anna was a master of self-fashioning; in the centuries since her death, her story has been continually refashioned, making her a fitting emblem for each new age. Interweaving the history of science, gender, religion, and politics, Nummedal recounts how one resourceful woman's alchemical schemes touched some of the most consequential matters in Reformation Germany.

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BODACIOUS: THE SHEPHERD CAT is a heart-warming and charming tale in which Bodacious tells us about life as The Shepherd Cat on Black Sheep Farm. ‘I am Bodacious, The Shepherd Cat , and this is my story. I wasn't always called Bodacious. I must have been called something else in my kitten-hood in the nearby city of Kilkenny, but it's all a bit of a mystery to My Human. As far as she's concerned, I appeared one day and have never left. It's a secret I plan to keep.’ Written from the perspective of Bodacious the cat, this is a beautifully written memoir of Bodacious’s life on the farm and everything that entails – early mornings, frosty starts, beautiful sunrises, adventurous rare-breed Zwartbles sheep, hard work, entertaining animals, mouth-watering food, kind people and idyllic country living with its highs and lows. The Shepherd often tells Bodacious her favourite story of how she went out to buy red ribbon to wrap a gift for her friend, but instead came home with a gift for herself: a daring, assertive, ambitious cat looking for a home. But soon The Shepherd realises she needs Bodacious as much as he needs her. As soon as he arrives, Bodacious saunters around the farm like he owns the place and immediately establishes himself as Top Cat. But Bodacious isn’t content to pad round the house and curl up by the Aga, and soon he befriends a farm cat called Oscar who trains him in the ways of the farm. As well as Oscar, Bodacious gets to know all the other animals on the farm — cats Miss Marley and Ovenmitt, the scruffy border collie/fox terrier-cross called Pepper, and The Big Fellow, to name a few. With wonderful characterisation, humour, sharp observation, and a plucky attitude, Bodacious shows us the ropes of Black Sheep Farm. As we soak in the atmosphere of the house, the orchards and the fields, we also learn how this Top Cat Shepherd got his name – by being 'Big, bold, beautiful, bolshie', as his Shepherd always says…

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Nikki Sixx is one of the most respected, recognizable, and entrepreneurial icons in the music industry. As the founder of Motley Crue who is now in his twenty-first year of sobriety, Sixx is incredibly passionate about his craft and wonderfully open about his life in rock and roll, and as a person of the world.Born Franklin Carlton Feranna on December 11, 1958, young Frankie was abandoned by his father and partly raised by his mother, a woman who was ahead of her time in some ways and deeply troubled in others. Frankie ended up living with his grandparents, bouncing from farm to farm and state to state. He was an all-American kid-hunting, fishing, chasing girls, and playing football-but underneath it all, there was a burning desire for more, and that more was music. He eventually took a Greyhound bound for Hollywood.In Los Angeles, Frank lived with his aunt and his uncle-the president of Capitol Records. But there was no short path to the top. He was soon on his own. There were dead-end jobs: dipping circuit boards, clerking at liquor and record stores, selling used light bulbs, and hustling to survive. But at night, Frank honed his craft, joining Sister, a band formed by fellow hard-rock veteran Blackie Lawless, and formed a group of his own: London, the precursor of Motley Crue. Turning down an offer to join Randy Rhoads' band, Frank changed his name to Nikki London, Nikki Nine, and, finally, Nikki Sixx. Like Huck Finn with a stolen guitar, he had a vision: a group that combined punk, glam, and hard rock into the biggest, most theatrical and irresistible package the world had ever seen. With hard work, passion, and some luck, the vision manifested in reality - and this is a profound true story finding identity, of how Frank Feranna became Nikki Sixx. And it's a road map to the ways you can overcome anything, and achieve all of your goals, if only you put your mind to it.

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The mesmerizing, larger-than-life tale of an eccentric adventurer who traversed some of the greatest frontiers of the twentieth century, from uncharted Arctic wastelands to the underground resistance networks of World War II."An absolute joy...Wanderlust is a compelling introduction to one of the most charismatic explorers to ever cross the ice."—New York Times Book ReviewDeep in the Arctic wilderness, Peter Freuchen awoke to find himself buried alive under the snow. During a sudden blizzard the night before, he had taken shelter underneath his dogsled and become trapped there while he slept. Now, as feeling drained from his body, he managed to claw a hole through the ice only to find himself in even greater danger: his beard, wet with condensation from his struggling breath, had frozen to his sled runners and lashed his head in place, exposing it to icy winds that needed only a few minutes to kill him… But if Freuchen could escape that, he could escape anything.Freuchen’s life seemed ripped from the pages of an adventure novel—and provided fodder for many books of his own. A wildly eccentric Dane with an out-of-nowhere sense of humor, his insatiable curiosity drove him from the twilight years of Arctic exploration to the Golden Age of Hollywood, and from the burgeoning field of climate research to the Danish underground during World War II. He conducted jaw-dropping expeditions, survived a Nazi prison camp, and overcame a devastating injury that robbed him of his foot and very nearly his life. Through it all, he was guided not only by restlessness but also by ideals that were remarkably ahead of his time, championing Indigenous communities, environmental stewardship, and starting conversations that continue today. Meticulously researched and grippingly written, Wanderlust is an unforgettable tale of daring and discovery, an inspiring portrait of restlessness and grit, and a powerful meditation on our relationship to the planet and our fellow human beings. Reid Mitenbuler’s exquisite book restores a heroic giant of the last century back into public view.

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Robert Baden-Powell was Britain's first celebrity. A conflicted character - militarist and pacifist, macho man and drag artist, elitist and socialist - he was one of the 20th century's most influential and, latterly, controversial Englishmen, finding fame not once, but twice - and for two very different reasons. Before donning his trademark shorts, the man known for inventing the Scouts is hailed a hero of the Second Boer War, the first military conflict covered in great detail by the media. Reports of his unconventional methods of holding a Boer army at bay, despite being woefully outnumbered, at the South African town of Mafeking, make global headlines and when he returns home to England, hordes of adoring fans pack London's streets, waving flags and declaring him the Hero of Mafeking. The same ingenuity, reconnaissance skills and spectacular eccentricity that win him this military acclaim become the foundations of his second mission, that of saving Victorian boys from poverty and despair, and himself from having to grow up, by teaching them scouting. A youth movement is born which today boasts 54 million members throughout the world. This book examines Baden-Powell's dual personality, or his two lives' as he called them, including his difficult childhood with a domineering and unaffectionate mother whom he loved even after she forced him into the army at 19, dashing his dreams of becoming an artist. It looks at his military career and his love of drama and at why protesters wanted to topple his statue on Poole Quay in the pandemic summer of 2020. It also considers a recently-discovered telegraph that adds fuel to the speculation over the nature of his relationship with a fellow-soldier that endured for 30 years - until he married a 22-year-old woman in secret when he was 55. Baden-Powell achieved great prominence, as well as notoriety, in both his military and scouting lives, driven largely by a constant yearning to win his mother's approval.

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In April 1917, Lenin arrived at Petrograd's Finland Station and set foot on Russian soil for the first time in over a decade. For most of the past seventeen years, the Bolshevik leader had lived in exile, moving between Europe's many "Russian colonies"--large and politically active communities of émigrés in London, Paris, and Geneva, among other cities. Thousands of fellow exiles who followed Lenin on his eastward trek in 1917 were in a similar predicament. The returnees plunged themselves into politics, competing to shape the future of a vast country recently liberated from tsarist rule. Yet these activists had been absent from their homeland for so long that their ideas reflected the Russia imagined by residents of the faraway colonies as much as they did events on the ground. The 1917 revolution marked the dawn of a new day in Russian politics, but it also represented the continuation of decades-long conversations that had begun in emigration and were exported back to Russia. Faith Hillis examines how émigré communities evolved into revolutionary social experiments in the heart of bourgeois cities. Feminists, nationalist activists, and Jewish intellectuals seeking to liberate and uplift populations oppressed by the tsarist regime treated the colonies as utopian communities, creating new networks, institutions, and cultural practices that reflected their values and realized the ideal world of the future in the present. The colonies also influenced their European host societies, informing international debates about the meaning of freedom on both the left and the right. Émigrés' efforts to transform the world played crucial roles in the articulation of socialism, liberalism, anarchism, and Zionism across borders. But they also produced unexpected--and explosive--discontents that defined the course of twentieth-century history. This groundbreaking transnational work demonstrates the indelible marks the Russian colonies left on European politics, legal cultures, and social practices, while underscoring their role during a pivotal period of Russian history.

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Three friends, three single mums, one quest to find love… It’s 8:30am and I’m already utterly exhausted. My son has lost his football boots, my daughter is ready for school dressed only in her vest and knickers, and of course, my 1-year-old has filled his nappy for what feels like the tenth time this morning. As for my husband? He’s decided marriage doesn’t suit him, and well… buggered off. All hope of ‘me time’ has but dwindled to sipping half a glass of wine whilst shouting after the kids. But everything is about to change. I’m taking control of my life! I’ve joined… a book club. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Wow… live a little.’ But my fellow book clubbers, Amanda and Janey, are my lifelines. They understand the daily struggle because they’re mothers too. And in between the prosecco, Doritos and googling everything about Mr Darcy on SparkNotes, they’ve convinced me to go on a date with my boss. A single mum of three looking for romance… what could possibly go wrong? A gloriously funny and relatable read for anyone who just needs a little more ‘me time’. Fans of Why Mummy Drinks and Has Anyone Seen my Sex Life? will snort with laughter at this utterly hilarious and heart-warming read. Readers LOVE The Single Mums’ Book Club! “OMG!! You have no idea how much I needed this… I. Could. Not. Stop. Laughing.” Heidi Lynn’s Book Reviews, 5 stars “Hilarious from the first few pages it hooked me instantly. Full of Victoria Cooke’s trademark humour… this was a joy to read!” – Rachel’s Random Resources, 5 Stars “I adored this book. The writing was witty, funny and heartbreakingly serious when it was appropriate… one of my favourites of this year.” – NetGalley Reviewer, 5 Stars “I loved the whole journey and could also relate to Stephanie at some points in the book! Absolute 5 star read for me!” – NetGalley Reviewer, 5 Stars “A bright sparkle of a read!” – NetGalley Reviewer, 5 Stars

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Freedom Is an Endless Meeting offers vivid portraits of American experiments in participatory democracy throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on meticulous research and more than one hundred interviews with activists, Francesca Polletta challenges the conventional wisdom that participatory democracy is worthy in purpose but unworkable in practice. Instead, she shows that social movements have often used bottom-up decision making as a powerful tool for political change.Polletta traces the history of democracy in early labor struggles and pre-World War II pacifism, in the civil rights, new left, and women's liberation movements of the sixties and seventies, and in today's faith-based organizing and anti-corporate globalization campaigns. In the process, she uncovers neglected sources of democratic inspiration—Depression-era labor educators and Mississippi voting registration workers, among them—as well as practical strategies of social protest. But Freedom Is an Endless Meeting also highlights the obstacles that arise when activists model their democracies after familiar nonpolitical relationships such as friendship, tutelage, and religious fellowship. Doing so has brought into their deliberations the trust, respect, and caring typical of those relationships. But it has also fostered values that run counter to democracy, such as exclusivity and an aversion to rules, and these have been the fault lines around which participatory democracies have often splintered. Indeed, Polletta attributes the fragility of the form less to its basic inefficiency or inequity than to the gaps between activists' democratic commitments and the cultural models on which they have depended to enact those commitments. The challenge, she concludes, is to forge new kinds of democratic relationships, ones that balance trust with accountability, respect with openness to disagreement, and caring with inclusiveness.For anyone concerned about the prospects for democracy in America, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting will offer abundant historical, theoretical, and practical insights. "This is an excellent study of activist politics in the United States over the past century. . . . Assiduously researched, impressively informed by a great number of thoughtful interviews with key members of American social movements, and deeply engaged with its subject matter, the book is likely to become a key text in the study of grass-roots democracy in America."—Kate Fullbrook, Times Literary Supplement"Polletta's portrayal challenges the common assumption that morality and strategy are incompatible, that those who aim at winning must compromise principle while those who insist on morality are destined to be ineffective. . . . Rather than dwell on trying to explain the decline of 60s movements, Polletta shows how participatory democracy has become the guiding framework for many of today's activists."—Richard Flacks, Los Angeles Times Book Review "In Freedom Is an Endless Meeting, Francesca Polletta has produced a remarkable work of historical sociology. . . . She provides the fullest theoretical work of historical sociology. . . . She provides the fullest theoretical picture of participatory democracy, rich with nuance, ambiguity, and irony, that this reviewer has yet seen. . . . This wise book should be studied closely by both academics and by social change activists."—Stewart Burns, Journal of American History

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***Unmissable, hilarious and kind, this is the first novel from Kathryn Wallace, who blogs as I Know, I Need to Stop Talking***"SAM! AVA! Get downstairs, NOW. Have you done your TEETH? HAIR? SHOES? Come on, come on, come on, we're going to be bastarding late again. No, I haven't seen Lego Optimus Prime, and nor do I give a shit about his whereabouts. Sam, will you stop winding your sister up and take this model of the Shard that I painstakingly sat up and created for you last night so that I wouldn't be in trouble with your teacher. I mean, so that you wouldn't be in trouble with your teacher. No, it doesn't smell of 'dirty wine'. Well, maybe it does a little bit. Look, Sam, I haven't got time to argue. Just hold your nose and get in the car, okay? AVA! TEETH! HAIR! SHOES!" Gemma is only just holding it together - she's a single parent, she's turning 40 and her seven-year-old daughter has drawn a cruelly accurate picture which locates Gemma's boobs somewhere around her knees. So when her new next-door neighbour, Becky, suggests that Gemma should start dating again, it takes a lot of self-control not to laugh in her face. But Becky is very persuasive and before long Gemma finds herself juggling a full-time job, the increasingly insane demands of the school mums' Facebook group and the tricky etiquette of a new dating world. Not only that, but Gemma has to manage her attraction to her daughter's teacher, Tom, who has swapped his life in the City for teaching thirty six to seven year olds spelling, grammar, basic fractions - and why it's not ok to call your classmate a stinky poo-bum...It's going to be a long year - and one in which Gemma and Becky will learn a really crucial lesson: that in the end, being a good parent is just about being good enough.Readers love this hilarious, fast paced slice of family life:***** Utterly hysterical - NetGalley Reader***** Brilliant... Funny, touching and modern... just amazing - NetGalley Reader***** I have been a mum at the school gates and the observations in this book are spot on. I shall be recommending it to all the school mums I know - NetGalley Reader**** A perfect read to snort with laughter over whilst lying in a bath with a glass of bubbles (if you can get the kids to stay out of the bathroom for long enough)! - NetGalley Reader**** Kathryn Wallace has Absolutely Smashed It with this novel. I loved it and couldn't put it down... had me properly laughing out loud several times - NetGalley Reader**** This will make you giggle about life as a parent where we are all spinning plates of different sizes and at different speeds. I would recommend wholeheartedly to fellow friends who are also spinning their own plates! - NetGalley Reader***** A hilariously, honest, open, recognisable and highly relatable story - NetGalley Reader***** A light hearted but honest look at mummies, yummy mummies and can't quite manage everything mummies - NetGalley Reader

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A jaw-dropping visual voyage of fun facts discovery exploring the deep waters of the sea and the mysterious creatures that live in it.Uncover our oceans' secrets in this kid's book with a remarkable array of 80 sharks as well as other fascinating sea creatures that lurk in her depths! This comprehensive encyclopedia for children covers a diverse range of ocean inhabitants in mesmerizing detail.Incredible 3D digital images, breath-taking photography, and intricate cutaways reveal more about the species of the ocean depths than ever before, complemented by informative kid-friendly profile text to turn your little ones into ocean experts!Super Shark is so much more than just an educational book about sharks. From Barrel Shrimp to Blue Sharks, Starfish to Bat Fish, and Hammerhead Sharks to deep-sea monsters, rays, and eels, this book is packed with unbelievable facts about animal behavior and anatomy. New x-ray artworks utilize cross-sections to strip layers away and show key anatomical features in great detail. It highlights the deadliest predators and the most venomous creatures and explains how and why their bodies work the way they do. The combination of spectacular photography and clear authoritative text truly makes Super Shark the ultimate visual guide to the oceans' most peculiar creatures and their stories.What are you waiting for? Dive in and become an expert of the deep blue! Explore – Discover – Learn!Super Shark takes you deep beneath the waves to meet some of the most amazing and unusual creatures on the planet. Find out how a hammerhead searches for prey, and discover what makes the pufferfish such a prickly fellow. Learn about the fastest fish in the water and get right under the skin of one of the deadliest predators of the sea - the great white shark!These are some of the crazy creatures you'll encounter in this kid's reference book: - The Basking Shark, whose open mouth is so big a child could stand up in it- The Tiger Shark, who happens to be the least fussy eater- The Narwhal, affectionately known as the unicorn of the sea- The Great White Shark, who can jump 10ft (3m) out of the waterThis book sits on the esteemed "Children's Book Council Children's Choices List Selection" - an International Literary Association. This is but one of the DK Super series of books for kids! Add Super Human, Super Space, Super Bug, Super Earth, and more to your collection to learn more about the world around you.

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Change is inevitable. This is the only constant in our lives. Yet, change is also something that we fear. We seek comfort in the familiar, in routines and in conventions. We are afraid of things that we don't know or we don’t understand. We fear change because we don’t know how change will affect us. Change, however, is necessary for progress. Sometimes, change happens naturally due to circumstances beyond our control, and sometimes we initiate change because we can or because we must. In 2020, we experienced the biggest change of our lifetimes. For a brief moment in history, the world came to a halt. Then, everything changed. Many things that we used to take for granted no longer applied. We experienced major disruptions to our daily lives. As if in some kind of perfect storm, so many things happened all at once – global pandemic, social inequalities, climate change, racial injustices, riots and unrests, gender struggles and rapid advances of new technologies. This book started to take shape in the midst of it all, and in a way, it is a time capsule of how we experienced the birth of what became known as the 'new normal'. Designers are the kind of people who thrive in times of change. In fact, it is their job to create change. The nature of their job is such that they have to take an existing situation and change it into a better, or a more preferred situation. Some do this by relying on their imagination and personal experiences, and some use evidence-based research to inform their work. Regardless of this, many share the belief that they can somehow make the world a better place – on a micro or a macro level. During this period of massive change, Gjoko Muratovski invited ten highly influential design figures – including iconic design leaders such as Carole Bilson, Karim Rashid, Bruce Mau, Steven Heller and Don Norman – to reflect on the state of things today. In return, each one of them shares a highly personal account on why change is good. The book also features a foreword written by the president of the World Design Organisation (WDO), Srini Srinisavan, and a conclusion by one of the greatest design philosophers of our time, Ken Friedman. By looking to the past and reflecting on the present, these designers project very personal images of the future that they would like to see. The conversations are very broad, and they cover highly diverse topics. From the effects of the pandemic, to issues of race and gender, notions of beauty, technology and industry, to global and local economies, politics, power, privilege and the importance of community. A 'must-read' for anyone interested in how designers and design can change the world. Gjoko Muratovski is a university executive, award-winning designer and innovation consultant working with leading organisations, Fortune 500 companies and governments from around the world, and a fellow of the Design Research Society.

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Creation Story explores parallels and intersections in the works of Dial and his fellow Alabamians, the remarkable quilters of Gee's Bend. In the tradition of African American cemetery constructions and yard art, these artists harness the tactile properties and symbolic associations of cast-off materials in creating an art of profound beauty and evocative power. Produced against a backdrop of poverty and racism, these artworks have an appeal that crosses aesthetic, social, and geographical boundaries, earning them wide recognition as being among the most compelling art of our time.The quilters of Gee's Bend, a small rural community near Selma, Alabama, use salvaged fabric in orchestrations of strong colours, dynamic patterns, and eccentric geometric shapes. While drawing from classic traditions of American quilt making, their sensitivity to the evocative power of materials and fine balance of optical tension and harmony marks their quilts as truly original. The New York Times has called them ""some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced."" Going beyond the beauty and tactile richness of the Gee's Bend quilts, the densely layered assemblages of Thornton Dial are, in his words, ""about ideas, and about life, and the experiences of the world."" A keen observer and interpreter of his times, Dial uses the technique of bricolage--the aesthetic reconfiguring of found objects--to reflect on personal memories, insights into root causes of racism and poverty, and news events and programs he sees on television. The Wall Street Journal has called Dial's works ""tough, beautiful, disturbing, seductive, improvisatory, unignorable, fierce, exhilarating, ambiguous--and much more."" While Dial's social symbolism contrasts with the inherent abstraction of the Gee's Bend quilts, the two are linked by an appreciation for the poetic and evidentiary power of raw materials, which they transform into expressions of beauty and truth. The artworks reproduced in this exhibition catalogue are drawn from the extensive collection of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia. The 43 colour plates are accompanied by illustrated essays by curators Paul Arnett and Joanne Cubbs.

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The Wayfarer’s End follows the human person’s journey to union with God in the theologies of Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas Aquinas. It argues that these seminal thinkers of the 13th Century emphasize scriptural notions of divine rewards as ordering principles for the graced movement of human viators to eternal life. Divine rewards emerge as a fundamental category through the study’s emphasis on Thomas and Bonaventure as scriptural commentators and preachers whose work in sacra pagina structures the content of their sacra doctrina. Shawn Colberg places Bonaventure’s and Aquinas’s scriptural, dogmatic, and polemical works into conversation and illumines their mutually edifying depictions of the way to eternal life.Looking to the journey itself, The Wayfarer’s End demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the roles played by God and human beings in the movement to full beatitude. To that end, it explores the relationships between grace and human nature, the effects of sin on the human person, the vital themes of predestination, conversion, perseverance, and the place of “reward-worthy” human action within the overall movement toward union with God. While St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas both stress the priority of grace and divine action for the journey, the study also illustrates their distinct frameworks for human action, unpacking Bonaventure’s preference for the language of acceptatio versus Thomas’s emphasis on ordinatio. This difference inflects their language of rewards, their exposition of scripture, and the scope of free human action in the movement to union with God. This study places the two most seminal theologians of the 13th Century into conversation on central and enduring topics of Christian life. Such a comparative study has been sorely lacking in the field of studies on Aquinas and Bonaventure. It offers insight to those interested in high scholastic thought, Franciscan and Dominican understandings of human salvation, and Thomist and Franciscan theology as it pertains to questions of the Reformation, including biblical exegesis on justification and sanctification. Above all, the study appreciates and foregrounds the richness of Bonaventure’s and Aquinas’s vocations: mendicant theologians concerned to share the fruits of contemplation with fellow friars and others seeking the goal of the wayfarer’s end.

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Este libro ofrece la primera revisión en forma de volumen monográfico de las transferencias culturales de Gran Bretaña a España en el siglo XVIII. A close reading of the cultural exchanges between England and Spain in the18th century as seen in the periodical press. Este libro ofrece la primera revisión en forma de volumen monográfico de las transferencias culturales de Gran Bretaña a España en el siglo XVIII, centrándose en particular en el género más novedoso del setecientos, la pódica. Para ello, explora el fenómeno hasta ahora difuso de la anglomanía - moda de las ideas, influencias y estilos ingleses que dominó la Europa del setecientos - y su fenómeno opuesto, la anglofobia, en tres tipos de prensa bien diferenciados, todo ello en conjunción con la propia coyuntura nacional y el programa de reformas borbónico. Además, esta obra enfatiza la labor de estos periodistas y periódicos, así como sus conexiones con el poder, a la vez que los sitúa como agentes fundamentales de esa red europea de intercambios materiales e intelectuales que sustentó la República de las Letras. Con todo ello, este volumen contribuye a la serie de debates dedicados a la reevaluación de la Ilustración española que buscan situarla en el mapa de las Luces Europeas de entonces y de ahora. LETICIA VILLAMEDIANA GONZÁLEZ es Profesora Titular en el Departamento de Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Warwick. This book constitutes the first monographic study of the cultural transfers from Great Britain to Spain through 18th-Century periodical press, one of the most innovative genres of the period. It exploresthe notion of anglomania - the craze for all things English which spread throughout all Europe - and its reactive phenomenon, anglophobia, offering a contextualised analysis of the transmission, reception and adaptation of BritishEnlightened ideas and reforms in three different types of Spanish periodicals. In so doing, this volume brings to the fore the work of some understudied writers and journalists and situates these important periodicals and their connections to power as a key part of a wider European context of material and intellectual exchanges that sustained the Republic of Letters. This in turn, contributes to recent scholarship arguing for a central place of Spain in the intellectual map of the Enlightenment. LETICIA VILLAMEDIANA GONZÁLEZ is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Hispanic Studies at the University of Warwick.

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A darkly witty, deeply affecting, and finely crafted memoir by the Big Bang Theory and Speechless star and comedian, John Ross Bowie. From his earliest memories of watching Rhoda with his parents in their tiny Hell’s Kitchen apartment, John knew that he wanted to be an actor. The strange, alternate world of television—where people always cracked the perfect joke, lived in glamorous Upper East Side buildings, and made up immediately after fighting—seemed far better than his own home life, with a mother and father on the brink of divorce and a neighborhood full of crumbling pre-war architecture and not-so-occasional muggings. And yet that other world also seems unattainable. Besides crippling stage fright (which would take him years to overomce) John's father, ever aloof and cynical, has instilled within him the notion that acting is “no job for a man.”His father would impart that while theater, film, and television should be consumed and even debated, to create was no way to make a living or support a family. Putting aside his acting dreams, John stumbles through his twenties. He tries his hand at teaching and other traditional occupations, but nothing feels nearly as fulfilling as playing with his fleetingly on-the-map punk band, Egghead.When he and his bandmates break up, John lands a joyless job copywriting for a consulting agency and slips into a dark depression. He loses weight, begins drinking heavily, and his relationships flounder. But everything changes when John discovers improv (and anti-depressants). As a part of New York’s now-famous Upright Citizens Brigade, John not only explores his passion for acting and comedy—and begins to envision himself doing so professionally—he also meets his future wife and fellow actor, Jamie Denbo.No Job for a Man follows the couple as they relocate to Los Angeles and try to make it in the arts, meeting success and failure, wins and losses, despair and hope along the way. Though his father chronically refuses to acknowledge pride in his adult son’s accomplishments, John comes to realize what being a man truly means.

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In 1893, after a major British bank failure, a run on U.S. gold reserves, and a late-June stock-market crash, America was in the throes of a serious economic depression. Unemployment rose, foreclosures climbed, and popular unrest mounted. By the following spring, businessman and Populist agitator Jacob S. Coxey was fed up with government inactivity in the face of the crisis. With the help of eccentric showman Carl Browne, he led a group of several hundred unemployed wage earners, small farmers, and crossroads merchants on a march from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington, D.C., to present a "petition in boots" for government-financed jobs building and repairing the nation's roads. On May 1, the Coxeyites descended on the center of government, where Coxey attempted to deliver a speech on the Capitol steps. The police attacked, a melee ensued, and Coxey and Browne spent a month in jail. Meanwhile, other Coxey-inspired contingents were on their way east from places as far away as San Francisco and Portland. Some of them even hijacked trains along the way. Who was Coxey, and what motivated him-along with the angry marchers who joined his cause? What did other Americans think of the protesters? Was there ever any chance that the protesters' demands would be met? Where did the agitators fit in with the politics of their day, and how did their actions jibe with the other labor-related protests happening that year? In this concise and gripping narrative, Benjamin F. Alexander contextualizes the march by vividly describing the misery wrought by the Panic of '93. Alexander brings both Coxey and his fellow leaders to life, along with the reporters and spies who traveled with them and the diverse group of captivated newspaper readers who followed the progress of the marches and train heists. Coxey's Army explains how the demands of the Coxeyites-far from being the wild schemes of a small group of cranks-fit into a larger history of economic theories that received serious attention long before and long after the Coxey march. Despite running a gauntlet of ridicule, the marchers laid down a rough outline of what, some forty years later, emerged as the New Deal.

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Learn how to make data-driven research accessible to decision makers, policymakers, and the general public Many researchers, scholars, and analysts fail to develop communication strategies that work in today’s crowded landscape of content, research, and data. To be successful, modern researchersneed to share their insights with the wider audience that lies beyond academia. Elevate the Debate helps researchers of all types more effectively communicate their work in any number of areas, from traditional news outlets to the new media platforms of the digital age. After reading this book, you will be inspired and equipped to use traditional and digital media environments to your advantage. This real-world guide helps you present your data-driven research with greater clarity, coherence, and impact. An array of practical strategies and proven techniques enables you to make your research accessible to diverse audiences, form engaging narratives, and design and implement meaningful outreach plans. Each chapter examines a specific communications strategy, such as data visualization, presentation skills, social media, blog writing, and reporter interactions. Written by expert members of the Urban Institute’s Communication department, and edited by Jonathan Schwabish, a Senior Fellow at Urban, Elevate the Debate guides you on how to use the media environment to your advantage and make a difference through policy insights and policy solutions. This valuable book teaches you how to: Develop and apply data-driven and story-focused communication Use the “Pyramid Philosophy” of rooting accessible, engaging communications products in sophisticated research. Solve problems with your research by defining goals and recommending conclusions-based actions Identify the researchers, organizations, funders, influencers, and policymakers who are most important to your goals and precisely target their information needs Employ communication styles and strategies to get your work in the hands of people who can use it and act upon it. Elevate the Debate: A Multi-layered Approach to Communicating Your Research is a must-have resource for academic researches, policy researchers, and all analysts of data-driven research.

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Updated with color and gray scale illustrations, a companion website housing supplementary material, and new sections covering recent developments in antenna analysis and designThis book introduces the fundamental principles of antenna theory and explains how to apply them to the analysis, design, and measurements of antennas. Due to the variety of methods of analysis and design, and the different antenna structures available, the applications covered in this book are made to some of the most basic and practical antenna configurations. Among these antenna configurations are linear dipoles; loops; arrays; broadband antennas; aperture antennas; horns; microstrip antennas; and reflector antennas. The text contains sufficient mathematical detail to enable undergraduate and beginning graduate students in electrical engineering and physics to follow the flow of analysis and design. Readers should have a basic knowledge of undergraduate electromagnetic theory, including Maxwell’s equations and the wave equation, introductory physics, and differential and integral calculus. Presents new sections on flexible and conformal bowtie, Vivaldi antenna, antenna miniaturization, antennas for mobile communications, dielectric resonator antennas, and scale modeling Provides color and gray scale figures and illustrations to better depict antenna radiation characteristics Includes access to a companion website housing MATLAB programs, Java-based applets and animations, Power Point notes, Java-based interactive questionnaires and a solutions manual for instructors Introduces over 100 additional end-of-chapter problems Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design, Fourth Edition is designed to meet the needs of senior undergraduate and beginning graduate level students in electrical engineering and physics, as well as practicing engineers and antenna designers.Constantine A. Balanis received his BSEE degree from the Virginia Tech in 1964, his MEE degree from the University of Virginia in 1966, his PhD in Electrical Engineering from The Ohio State University in 1969, and an Honorary Doctorate from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2004. From 1964 to 1970, he was with the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA, and from 1970 to 1983, he was with the Department of Electrical Engineering of West Virginia University. In 1983 he joined Arizona State University and is now Regents' Professor of Electrical Engineering. Dr. Balanis is also a life fellow of the IEEE.

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Thirty years after it was first published, the issues raised in The Jury and the Defense of Insanity remain pertinent. Rita James Simon examines how motivated and competent juries are, how well jurors understand and follow judges' instructions, their understand-ing of expert testimony, and the extent to which their own backgrounds and experiences influence their decisions. Simon provides a rare opportunity to observe how jurors go about the process of deliberating and reaching a verdict by following them into the jury room and recording their deliberations. This pathbreaking study of jury room behavior provides compelling evidence of the effectiveness of our trial by jury system.The Jury and the Defense of Insanity was the product of an experimental study con-ducted as part of the University of Chicago Jury Project. Over 1,000 jurors were chosen to participate, not as volunteers, but as part of their regular jury duty, in two experimental trials, one on a charge of housebreaking, the other of incest. In each the insanity de-fense was raised. Court judges instructed the jurors to consider the recorded trials they were about to hear with all the care and seriousness they would give to a real criminal prosecution, and the taped recordings of their deliberations make it clear that they did just that. These recordings, along with responses to detailed questionnaires, yielded significant data, equally applicable to civil as to criminal cases. We learn their reactions to their fellow jurors; personal evaluations of the quality and effectiveness of delibera-tions; the degree to which religion, sex, social status, education, and like factors affect participation in and influence on the course of the deliberation; and the recounting of and reliance upon personal experience in seeking to reach a verdict, among other in-sights furnished by this study.This is an exact record—not a description or recollected account—of the struggle of a jury to weigh evidence and achieve a just verdict. For lawyers whose job it is to win civil and criminal cases, for behavioral scientists who study male and female reactions in their cultural environment to the circumstances that confront them, and to all who are interested in how people behave and why, in a dramatic, socially significant situation, this is a fascinating and revealing book.

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For anyone who ever loved All Creatures Great and Small, Annie England Noblin’s newest novel—about a big city vet transplanted to a small Wisconsin town—is pure delight as we meet aging alpacas, stump-tailed cats, goats in tutus, a vagabond border collie named Kevin, and the people who think they own them. And through it all, Goldie McKenzie, DVM, navigating the small town of Blue Dog, Wisconsin.Welcome to Blue Dog Valley. Home of the Fighting Elk. Population 3,411. When Goldie McKenzie, DVM, vet to the L.A. pet stars, arrives from Los Angeles to Blue Dog Valley she realizes three things. Never agree to upend your life when you’re hungover Pot-belly pigs are not true farm animals She’s going to need a warmer coat At first Goldie is nothing more than a fish out of water, with few clients and few friends. But after a less than pleasant encounter with a man whose dog is suffering from a possibly fatal case of bloat, she’s finally earning the trust and goodwill from her fellow Blue Dog Valley citizens. Her clientele grows to include the many farm animals in the town, including a horse named Large Marge, a cape-wearing therapy alpaca, and a yardful of sweater-wearing goats. Add in Kevin, the “worst sheepdog in Blue Dog Valley,” and a Sphinx cat named Airport, and Goldie is having the best time a vet can have. . . aside from the annoying attractive town grump, Cohen, who seems intent on making sure she always feels like an outsider.With her newfound goodwill, Goldie comes up with an idea to reinvigorate the once flourishing Blue Dog Valley: a Christmas carnival. A petting zoo, pictures with Santa, a baking contest, what more could they want? After only some brief resistance from Cohen and his father, they begin the great plan to reinvigorate Blue Dog Valley.Will Christmas be enough to salvage this dying town—and be enough to bring Goldie closer to a certain grumpy man?

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Text in English and German. Peter Hübner began his career as an orthopaedic shoemaker and moved on to cabinet-making before studying architecture. In the 1960s he became a successful designer of prefabricated buildings and sanitary units. This expertise gained him a chair in building construction at the University of Stuttgart where, in collaboration with fellow professor Peter Sulzer, he undertook a series of experiments that changed the course of his architecture. It began with an elaboration of the Walter Segal building method, but culminated in a student hostel designed, built and lived-in by architectural students at Stuttgart University's Vaihingen campus. Using student labour and superfluous or recycled materials it was very cheap, but it also reflected the capabilities and aspirations of its owners in a surprising and potent way, imbuing them with confidence. Hübner was struck by the importance of building as a social process, and understood that the mechanised construction he had earlier been involved in had largely taken the soul out of it. As word about the Vaihingen project got about, Hübner received requests for more cheap self-help buildings and discovered a new professional role as facilitator and ringmaster. Unable to predict how these improvised buildings would turn out, he yielded up the aesthetic control of the designer-despot in favour of experiencing the pleasure of human relationships as a project unfolds. Most new buildings are received by their users with comparative indifference, but the self-help projects engender passionate commitment, and it continues long after they are finished. People identify with the spaces they helped to determine, and naturally appropriate them. As a producer of such anarchic work, it is perhaps surprising to discover that Hübner has also long been at the forefront of CAD, but this is a natural development of systematisation, for if computers can calculate all the variants and irregularities, we need no longer conform to Ford's production line. Hübner uses three-dimensional programmes which connect design directly with production. His work also responds to ecological concerns, not only through the use of recycled and low-energy materials and in avoiding toxicity, but also in passive energy collection. All these issues are explored in the book.

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As World War II recedes further into the past, still each year hundreds of new books are published about some aspect of this global conflict. Many offer new insights from recently declassified documents. Other's look to re-interpret what was thought to be well understood events. This book is no exception. The history of U-402, a Type VIIC German U-boat, is another tile in the mosaic of the war, and more specifically the Battle of the Atlantic. U-402's conning tower was emblazoned with the shield of its sponsoring German city of Karlsruhe. Upon that shield was the Latin word Fidelitas' -Fidelity -and Baron Siegfried Freiherr von Forstner, the U-boat's captain, embodied that word through his deep sense of loyalty to his profession, country, and crew. Born of an aristocratic military family, with a tradition of U-boat service, von Forstner served without the pretentiousness of title, even after winning the Ritterkreuz (Knight's Cross). He fought the war like a knight of old, with a defined code of chivalry, as he duelled with escorts, went to the aid of fellow U-boats, and rescued his enemy from the sea. As the North Atlantic battlefield grew deadlier with each successive patrol, von Forstner remained focused on his duty to sink Allied tonnage while keeping his crew alive. His daring and conduct at sea captured the respect of Captain, US Coast Guard (Ret) John M Waters, who was a Watch Officer onboard the escort USCGC _Ingham_ that fought U-402 in several convoy battles. After the war, he became the unexpected chronicler of his former enemy, and established an enduring friendship with von Forstner's family. The story of von Forstner and U-402 parallels the rise and fall of the Wolfpack, and reflects the ebb and flow of the Battle of the Atlantic from the early operations in European waters, to Operation _Paukenschlag_ (Drumbeat) off the US East Coast, to the climatic convoy battles of the North Atlantic in 1943\. This is a truly gripping account of the Atlantic conflict, and the large selection of photographs adds a realism and authenticity found in very few accounts of the U-boat war.

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Magic, adventure, and friendship collide in warm and funny novel about the power of self-acceptance to change the world. Jewel’s your average eighth grader. Awkward relationship with a cute boy, ex-BFFs with a popular girl, mom issues at home. You’ve read it all before. Except for one thing: Jewel has a unicorn horn on her head. (Okay, and one other thing, but it’s just too weird to mention here!) Jewel tries to stay invisible at school, looking forward to the day when she can finally leave her small town behind, making art with her fellow weirdos, and obsessively reading graphic novels with her best friends. But when she’s selected to represent her school at the regional French speaking competition, she decides she’s had enough of the shy life. The horn needs to come off. What happens when you have the ability to become the girl you’ve always wanted to be? When you don’t know your true self, how do you know your true friends? What happens when everything in your life—your biggest struggle, your greatest joy, and your dearest friends—all combine in one calamitous adventure? With a sparkle of magic, a treasure trove of true determination, and help from all her friends both real and invisible, Jewel just might survive this year with her heart—and her head—intact. THE ULTIMATE EMPATHY READ: The unicorn horn in this book is a perfect symbol for all the ways every young person feels strange, different, or unusual in any way. While readers’ specific situations may differ from Jewel’s, her struggle for self-acceptance will resonate with readers of all stripes, circumstances, and backgrounds. A RICH, FANTASTIC FANTASY: At the heart of this book is a rich, multi-layered fantasy adventure that will have all readers thinking twice about the stories they read, the friends they have, and the superpowers they may not even know they possess. IRRESISTIBLE MIDDLE SCHOOL DRAMA: Catty ex-friends, terrifyingly unapproachable boys, embarrassing dance proposals, inspirational teachers—this book has all the hallmarks of everyone’s favorite middle grade fare. UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTERS: Readers won’t want to leave this world behind! The main characters and the families in this book are real, warmly drawn, and endlessly relatable. Readers will return to the book just to live in the world for a little bit longer. RELATABLE FAMILY ISSUES: Jewel’s family deals with situations that will be very familiar to most readers: high hopes for the future, never having enough money, and the distance between what we want and what we have. The family dynamics are relatable, too: Jewel’s single mom works a low-paying job, and they live in an apartment with Jewel’s grandma. The warmth of this family despite their difficulties will stay with readers long after they close the cover. Perfect for: tweens, fans of unicorns, fantasy readers, parents, educators

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When Otto Ecroyd embarked on a voyage to sail a broken boat from Norway to France - and failed - he decided to do what any other hapless adventurer would do: cycle from Alaska to Mexico. But, as Otto says, he 'had never ridden further than across town.' So, with no experience, the wrong type of bike and with panniers overflowing with lentils, Otto pedals across vast American landscapes, cowers from juggernaut RVs, and all the while wonders when he will next meet a grizzly bear. En route, Otto's wit and self-deprecating charm ensure he wins many friends, from an array of regional characters, to a cosmopolitan mix of fellow long-distance cyclists, each with their own motivation for riding the hard miles. With some, he cycles leisurely in tandem; with others, in lungbusting sprints; and with others still, in bedraggled pelotons. But then, this is no grand depart from the daily grind to the upper echelons of sport, for Otto is not in it for the competition - just the adventure of a lifetime. Northbound and Down isn't Ranulph Fiennes crossing Antarctica, or 'The Man Who Cycled the World'. It's more entertaining than that. Three months in North America, 100km a day on a bike. The places, the people, the misadventures of the journey. Like a Bill Bryson book if Bill stayed out of the pub once in a while. The local wildlife in the northern frontier. The moose, the bears, the refugees from 'The Lower 48' states. The characters in cowboy country. People who defy any stereotype of heartland America, and those who definitely don't. Down the Pacific Coast, redwood forests, hippie surf towns, mansions and homeless camps. Californian plastic perfection and the weirdness of the American dream. The preparation for cycling 5,000 miles was questionable at best. The furthest Otto had ridden before landing in Anchorage was from London to Brighton. He rode through a golf course and along a motorway, did laps of Gatwick airport and rolled into Brighton two hours late, ready for bed. He learned how to fix a puncture from YouTube and discovered that not all Porsche drivers are dickheads. Otto's touring skills start from a low base. The steep learning curve and daily struggles with reality on the road bring humour to the book. The challenge and the shared experience with people along the way leads to a lasting sense of the rewards of adventure. Otto's motivations for embarking on this adventure were relatable ones. He was bored at work, too old to get wasted in every hostel in Latin America and too poor for a proper mid-life crisis. This is the story of a normal guy breaking out of the daily grind. Cheryl Strayed's 'Wild', but inspired by a struggle against a life on autopilot rather than a life collapsing. A whole middle class, middle career and middle fulfilled generation is in a similar position. They are searching for inspiration. Northbound and Down gives them a taste of this, without having to miss a mortgage payment. Northbound and Down is the everyman's take on breaking the everyday.

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PUBLISHED BY EUREKA PRESS, TOKYO, AND DISTRIBUTED BY ROUTLEDGE OUTSIDE JAPAN.The scholar and diplomat Sir Ernest Satow was the best-known Westerner who lived in Meiji Japan. Although he rose to become British Minister to Japan, the most interesting part of his career was the start of it, when he witnessed, and in a small way influenced, the fall of the bakufu and the Meiji Restoration. He wrote an account of this in a memoir called A Diplomat in Japan in 1921, which was based on the diaries transcribed in this volume. These diaries, hitherto unpublished, reveal the original material from which he crafted his memoir, as well as the material (about one-third of the diaries in total) he omitted. In various respects, the memoir is a sanitized account, written partly in Bangkok in the 1880s, and completed in retirement at the urging of younger relatives. In A Diplomat in Japan, Satow comes across as an assured young statesman, who, with his excellent Japanese and ability to make contact with the key players, was able to perceive the direction that the turbulent and confused events he witnessed was taking. In the diaries, he is a little less assured and not quite so percipient and interspersed with tales of meeting the likes of Saigō Takamori and Sakamoto Ryōma, are stories such as that of the paternity claim against him by a Japanese woman in Nagasaki. The part of the diaries relating to Satow’s stay in China (Shanghai and Peking from January to August 1862) has never before been transcribed or published, and is the most interesting part on a human level. It was an environment in which Satow, aged just 18, was forced to grow up fast, and we see him and his fellow student interpreters behaving badly on numerous occasions. Yet we also see the breadth of his intellect in the books he was reading and his informed interest in everything he saw around him. The editors have added extensive annotations and explanations to these diaries, making this book an indispensable reference work for students of bakumatsu Japan, and indeed anybody who wants to understand the story of how a very young, very clever, but rather awkward Englishman could have penetrated the very highest levels of the Japanese hierarchy to witness the transformation of the country from a feudal, inward-looking society to one that would become a major industrialized power to shock the world.

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“What makes the modern university different from any other corporation?” asked Columbia’s Andrew Delbanco recently in the New York Times. “There is more and more reason to think: less and less,” he answered. In this provocative book, Frank Donoghue shows how this growing corporate culture of higher education threatens its most fundamental values by erasing one of its defining features: the tenured professor. Taking a clear-eyed look at American higher education over the last twenty years, Donoghue outlines a web of forces—social, political, and institutional—dismantling the professoriate. Today, fewer than 30 percent of college and university teachers are tenured or on tenure tracks, and signs point to a future where professors will disappear. Why? What will universities look like without professors? Who will teach? Why should it matter? The fate of the professor, Donoghue shows, has always been tied to that of the liberal arts —with the humanities at its core. The rise to prominence of the American university has been defined by the strength of the humanities and by the central role of the autonomous, tenured professor who can be both scholar and teacher. Yet in today’s market-driven, rank- and ratings-obsessed world of higher education, corporate logic prevails: faculties are to be managed for optimal efficiency, productivity, and competitive advantage; casual armies of adjuncts and graduate students now fill the demand for teachers. Bypassing the distractions of the culture wars and other “crises,” Donoghue sheds light on the structural changes in higher education—the rise of community colleges and for-profit universities, the frenzied pursuit of prestige everywhere, the brutally competitive realities facing new Ph.D.s —that threaten the survival of professors as we’ve known them. There are no quick fixes in The Last Professors; rather, Donoghue offers his fellow teachers and scholars an essential field guide to making their way in a world that no longer has room for their dreams. First published in 2008, "The Last Professors" have largely had its arguments borne out in the interim, as the percentage of courses taught by tenured professors continues to dwindle. This new edition includes a substantial Preface that elaborates on recent developments and offers tough but productive analysis that will be crucial for today's academics to heed.

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“What makes the modern university different from any other corporation?” asked Columbia’s Andrew Delbanco recently in the New York Times. “There is more and more reason to think: less and less,” he answered. In this provocative book, Frank Donoghue shows how this growing corporate culture of higher education threatens its most fundamental values by erasing one of its defining features: the tenured professor. Taking a clear-eyed look at American higher education over the last twenty years, Donoghue outlines a web of forces—social, political, and institutional—dismantling the professoriate. Today, fewer than 30 percent of college and university teachers are tenured or on tenure tracks, and signs point to a future where professors will disappear. Why? What will universities look like without professors? Who will teach? Why should it matter? The fate of the professor, Donoghue shows, has always been tied to that of the liberal arts —with the humanities at its core. The rise to prominence of the American university has been defined by the strength of the humanities and by the central role of the autonomous, tenured professor who can be both scholar and teacher. Yet in today’s market-driven, rank- and ratings-obsessed world of higher education, corporate logic prevails: faculties are to be managed for optimal efficiency, productivity, and competitive advantage; casual armies of adjuncts and graduate students now fill the demand for teachers. Bypassing the distractions of the culture wars and other “crises,” Donoghue sheds light on the structural changes in higher education—the rise of community colleges and for-profit universities, the frenzied pursuit of prestige everywhere, the brutally competitive realities facing new Ph.D.s —that threaten the survival of professors as we’ve known them. There are no quick fixes in The Last Professors; rather, Donoghue offers his fellow teachers and scholars an essential field guide to making their way in a world that no longer has room for their dreams. First published in 2008, "The Last Professors" have largely had its arguments borne out in the interim, as the percentage of courses taught by tenured professors continues to dwindle. This new edition includes a substantial Preface that elaborates on recent developments and offers tough but productive analysis that will be crucial for today's academics to heed.

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"A tour de force" - New York Times Book Review"Ambitious, finely detailed and compulsively readable" - Locus"It is a book that feels fundamentally true; it is a book to live in" - Washington PostFor Kivrin Engle, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing a bullet-proof backstory. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received.But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history's darkest hours.Winner of both the 1993 Hugo and Nebula Best Novel awards, this is a science fiction classic.Read what everyone is saying about Doomsday Book:'By the time I finished the book, I had the feeling I also spent time living with these medieval men, women and children. The novel is that powerful' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'I can't stop thinking about Doomsday Book. I can't get the images out of my head. I can't get the train of thought out of my head. I can't stop my throat from tightening or my jaw from clenching' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'I was fascinated by CW's take on time travel and the mirroring of the plague in the future with the past's Black Death, but moreover, the characters snuck up on me and tore my soul apart' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'A lovely and heart-wrenching story, highly recommended. It's much more about the characters than the hard science. Kivrin's - and the villagers' - bravery in the face of death and tragedy hit me right in the heart' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'This is the mostest bestest time travel novel ever written . . . Connie Willis is just too bloody good' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'The strengths of this novel are its attention to Historical details, the engaging and believable characters suitable to an era and the dark but hopeful tones and themes of the story' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'I read this book for the first time about six years ago and barely survived it, I was so involved in everything that was happening. Connie Willis is an amazing writer' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

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Two cities. Two spies. Which woman survives? Pianist: NOUN. Informal. A person who operates or controls a radio transmitter – often in code. July, 1940Blitz-ridden London: Marnie Fern’s life is torn apart when her grandfather is killed in an air raid. But once she discovers that he’d been working undercover as a radio operative – or pianist – for the Dutch resistance, Marnie knows she must complete his mission – no matter the cost… Nazi-occupied Amsterdam: At the other end of the wireless, fellow pianist Corrie Bakker is caught in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse as she desperately tries to keep her loved ones out of the line of fire – even if it means sacrificing herself… Bound together by the invisible wires of their radios, the two women lead parallel lives in their home cities, as both are betrayed by those they trust the most. But when the Nazis close in on one of them, only the other can save her… The next gripping and heartbreaking WWII historical fiction novel from international bestseller, Mandy Robotham. Real readers love The War Pianist: ‘A story packed with everything historical fiction readers need: espionage and betrayal to plights and flights…I learnt so much!…Brilliantly paced with twists and turns, courage and bravery and a touch of romance.’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Rich in detail and almost impossible to put down…I loved it.’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A front row seat to the survival of the Blitz in London as well as the Dutch resistance work. Fascinating…riveting.’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A book that captures your attention from the first page to the last. Mandy Robotham is a master storyteller…the tension mounts on every page and I could not put it down. Highly recommended.’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘My favourite of Mandy’s books so far. I loved Marnie, Willem and Corrie and the relationship among the three of them. The strength and resolve of these characters is so inspiring and captivating…A perfectly composed novel for lovers of historical fiction…Every bit of this novel comes alive. Bravo!’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A gripping and heartbreaking WWII novel…If you love historical fiction, then this is a must-read.’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Mandy Robotham has done it again! A thoroughly well researched and interesting narrative set during WWII…Another five star read for me.’ Real Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Las voces del camino presents 75 songs in Spanish, including songs from Singing the Living Tradition plus fresh selections from Spanish-speaking cultures the world over. Perfect for churches with Spanish-speaking congregants and others seeking multicultural programming. For songs that are not in Singing the Living Tradition, a synopsis of the lyrics is provided. Spiral bound"There are many of our favorite hymns from Singing the Living Tradition rendered in poetic, idiomatic Spanish. There are many new songs from Taizé and other original sources. There are also hymns based on folk songs and familiar melodies including the Jewish tradition. The music in this hymnal spans the globe! I will urge my congregation to buy copies of Las Voces del Camino as I truly believe its inclusion will enhance worship and open the door to another section of the demographic of our city. I strongly recommend this hymnal. I believe that it will soon be seen as an enduring blessing to the UU community." - Dr. Leon Burke III, Eliot Chapel, St. Louis, MO"The UUA's new Spanish language songbook, Las Voces del Camino is a powerful new worship resource for UU congregations and choirs - whether they are bi-lingual or they hope to expand their cultural and spiritual perspective through incorporation of Spanish texts and music in worship. Italian director Federico Fellini said, "A different language is a different vision of life." Las Voces del Camino offers us a different, expanded vision of our living tradition - one that is sure to enrich and enliven our worship and congregational lives." - Elizabeth Norton, director of adult choirs, First Parish, Concord, MA"Las Voces del Camino joins other Unitarian Universalist songbooks in offering expanded congregational repertoire. Singable translations of music already known to UUs combine with new songs. This publication will do much to encourage congregations in spiritual growth and to continue to develop a world community." - Keith Arnold, minister of music, Jefferson Unitarian Church

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In the first five centuries of the common era, the kiss was a distinctive and near-ubiquitous marker of Christianity. Although Christians did not invent the kiss—Jewish and pagan literature is filled with references to kisses between lovers, family members, and individuals in relationships of power and subordination—Christians kissed one another in highly specific settings and in ways that set them off from the non-Christian population. Christians kissed each other during prayer, Eucharist, baptism, and ordination and in connection with greeting, funerals, monastic vows, and martyrdom. As Michael Philip Penn shows in Kissing Christians, this ritual kiss played a key role in defining group membership and strengthening the social bond between the communal body and its individual members. Kissing Christians presents the first comprehensive study of the ritual kiss and how controversies surrounding it became part of larger debates regarding the internal structure of Christian communities and their relations with outsiders. Penn traces how Christian writers exalted those who kissed only fellow Christians, proclaimed that Jews did not have a kiss, prohibited exchanging the kiss with potential heretics, privileged the confessor's kiss, prohibited Christian men and women from kissing each other, and forbade laity from kissing clergy. Kissing Christians also investigates connections between kissing and group cohesion, kissing practices and purity concerns, and how Christian leaders used the motif of the kiss of Judas to examine theological notions of loyalty, unity, forgiveness, hierarchy, and subversion. Exploring connections between bodies, power, and performance, Kissing Christians bridges the gap between cultural and liturgical approaches to antiquity. It breaks significant new ground in its application of literary and sociological theory to liturgical history and will have a profound impact on these fields.

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Fantastic world-building meets spellbinding storytelling in this must-read fan-favourite from Esslemont. Ideal for fans of Steven Erikson, David Gemmell and Brandon Sanderson.'The world building is truly impressive . . . the action scenes well written . . . Esslemont's writing style addictive and engaging . . .' -- RISING SHADOW.NET'Esslemont . . . seamlessly weaves great characters, action sequences and genuine humour into a fascinating narrative . . .' -- THE CRITICAL DRAGON.COM'Never really slows down and the book is so engrossing I finished it within a week' -- ***** Reader review'Ian C Esslemont strikes again!' -- ***** Reader review'Another winner' -- ***** Reader review'Absolutely brilliant' -- ***** Reader review*************************************************************************************************After the disappointments of Li Heng, Dancer and Kellanved wash up on a small insignificant island named Malaz. Immediately, of course, Kellanved plans to take it over. To do so they join forces with a small band of Napans who have fled a civil war on their own home island. The plan, however, soon goes awry as Kellanved develops a strange and dangerous fascination for a mysterious ancient structure found on the island...The chaos in the region extends to the metaphysical planes also as a young priest of D'rek starts to question the rot at the heart of the worship of the god of decay. And back in Li Heng, Dassem, now the proclaimed Sword of Hood, finds himself being blamed for a plague which leads him to a crisis of faith - and searching for answers.During all this, war with the neighbouring island of Nap threatens, recruited allies wonder at Kellanved's sanity, and powerful entities take more of an interest in the little mage from Dal Hon. Dancer faces a hard choice: should he give up on his partnership? Especially when the fellow's obsession with shadows and ancient artefacts brings the both of them alarmingly close to death and destruction.After all, who in his right mind would actually wish to enter an Elder mystery known to everyone as the 'Deadhouse'?

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In 1839, the Abbé Jacques Suchet was sent to the Algerian city of Constantine, recently conquered by French forces, to minister to the new French colonial population there. He commented favorably on the Arabs' Muslim religiosity, perhaps seeing them as fertile ground for missionary work. In the mid-1870s, when the Abbé Edmond Lambert toured another colonial Algerian city, he recorded that Arabs were inherently "liars, thieves, lazy in body and spirit" and that even their seeming piety was insincere. In the space of less than forty years, some French Catholics went from viewing Muslims in Algeria as fellow religious devotees, potential converts, and allies against French secularism to viewing them as enemies of civilization. Sacred Rivals focuses on French Catholic ideas about Islam and Arab-ness-"Catholic orientalism"-in the context of religious culture wars in France and of missionary work in colonial Algeria. It examines the way the stereotype of "Islam" was used and abused in religious and political debates in French society, as well as actual missionary encounters with Muslims in Algeria, where missionaries and their potential converts came into intimate, daily contact. It reveals that, counter-intuitively, it was sometimes the most conservative Catholics who spoke most sympathetically of Muslim religiosity. "Liberal," mainstream Catholics were often quicker to denigrate Islam as backward, fanatical, and dangerously theocratic. As Catholics increasingly came to identify with France's more secular "civilizing mission," any admiration for Islam would be eclipsed by a more racialized, colonialist view of Islam. Disillusioned with the possibility of Muslim conversion and seeking an explanation for their failure, even missionaries in Algeria joined in with racially-coded attacks on "Arab" Islam. Through stories of personal encounters, Sacred Rivals exposes the ways in which religious prejudices against Muslims transformed into racial ones, as well as the ways in which Algerian Muslims adapted, used, and resisted French culture and imperialism.

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For fans of Minecraft and graphic novels, a full-color box set of three adventures for reluctant and beginner readers.In this dark, edgy series, Battle Station Prime, Pell, Logan, and Maddy encounter spies, rebels, conspiracy theories, hacks, and danger unlike anything we’ve covered before.Escape from Fortress City (Book #1)In a world where everyone is judged on their wealth and how many orbs they have, Pell, Logan, and Maddy can’t keep up, no matter how hard they try. When Pell’s Uncle Colin suggests they take themselves off the grid and leave Fortress City to join him in the Wild West, they leap at the chance. At Colin’s direction, they erase all traces of their existence in Fortress City’s databases and leave under cover of darkness.Almost immediately, they rethink their decision, as they battle hostile monsters and the elements just to stay alive and reach their destination. When they finally get to Uncle Colin’s homestead, they are devastated to find it is run-down and barely livable. Shortly after they arrive, Uncle Colin unceremoniously bids them farewell and takes off on a secret mission. The kids, disillusioned, go back to Fortress City, only to be turned away because they are no longer in the system.The kids are forced to return to the homestead and use only their knowledge and resources to fortify it against the elements and hostile invaders. As they struggle to stay alive, they begin to wonder: what is Uncle Colin really up to, and will he ever come back?Saving Fortress City (Book #2)In the second installment of Battle Station Prime, Pell, Logan, and Maddy join Uncle Colin’s secret rebel society as junior insurgents.At first, they are happy to take down the system that failed them and kept them back, but when they receive intelligence of a dangerous presence in the center of Obsidian, they are faced with a decision: save the city or let it be destroyed.Against Uncle Colin’s advice, the kids plot to sneak into the impenetrable heart of Obsidian to remove the danger, risking everything to save the city that turned them away.Quest for the Enchanted Sword (Book #3)After defeating the skeleton army invasion, things get awfully quiet at Battle Station Prime. School is in session, and the students are finally falling into a routine. One ordinary day, while Pell is daydreaming about a life of adventure, his ears perk up. His teacher speaks of a magical realm with an enchanted sword that only a true hero — the Chosen One — can possess.After reading more about the legend, clues in the text make Pell think that he may be the Chosen One and this is his calling. Pell enlists the help of Logan and Maddy to embark on a hero’s quest. To their surprise, as they set out, they are joined by others who believe that the hero’s quest is theirs. At first, the opposing groups compete to see who can find the magical realm and get to the sword first, but as the going gets tough, the teams must work together to cross the challenging frozen landscape, battling natural enemies and using their survival skills. As the groups get closer to their goal, they uncover secrets long hidden about the true nature of one of their fellow travelers: that the Chosen One has been traveling with them all along, and it’s someone they never suspected.

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In her first collection of essays, Molly McQuade performs the role of the ideal reader-passionately interested in ideas and irrepressibly ambivalent. She considers poetry from its composition or translation to its publication, critical reception, and consumption. Her close readings of poems by Emily Dickinson and John Ashbery, among others, offer new insights for those readers blinded by familiarity. She reflects on the consequences of literary friendships, such as Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop's, and contends with hostile influences and their benefits-in her own case, confronting and absorbing the work of E.B. White.But McQuade refuses to stay within the lines that describe poetry per se. Her thoughts on the genre are also enriched by discussions of distinctly nonverbal poetic expression in painting and film, theater and dance. McQuade invigorates prosody's perennial questions-form and function, fashion and faction-and addresses the importance of humor as an elixir for thinking. She dares to define the subject of poetry itself as pleasure. "Poetry," she ventures, "doesn't need to be literary."In every instance, these essays feature a fine mind's play on the page as well as McQuade's characteristic expertise: an awareness that is at once historically informed and hip. If metaphor itself expands the mind's capacity for contrary ideas, then McQuade is a metaphor made manifest. Among writers on writing, here is a writer who is utterly and remarkably unlike any other.Molly McQuade's essays and criticism have appeared in The Village Voice, Hungry Mind Review, New England Review, Boston Review, Newsday, the Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere. She has served as editor of the monthly Poetry Calendar magazine and previously founded and edited the poetry review column of Publishers Weekly. Her writing has received fellowships and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the Illinois Arts Council. Her first book, An Unsentimental Education, a collection of biographical portraits of writers, was published in 1995 by the University of Chicago Press. Her poetry, nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, ha

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For the last thirty years, singer Mary Black has been a dominant presence on the Irish music scene, an award-winning artist with many bestselling albums to her name. Now, in this long-awaited memoir, Mary takes us back to the roots of her musical heritage and to the influences that helped to shape her as an artist and a woman. Born into a musical family, Mary Black – a feisty tomboy who could hold her own when it came to sparring with her brothers and anyone else brave enough to take her on – began singing folk songs from the age of ten. Music played an important role in the family home and, performing with her brothers and her sister Frances, Mary built her highly successful career on the bedrock of these early years. From the pubs and clubs of her hometown, Dublin, she went on to perform in some of the most prestigious venues across the world. Always committed to exploring new material from the best writers, her unique talent attracted acclaim from critics, fellow artists and the public alike. It also led to a host of bestselling albums, including the multi-platinum No Frontiers, which spent more than a year in the Irish Top 30. Mary’s love of singing was matched only by the love she had for her family. As she recalls the inevitable tensions that arose when trying to juggle family life and a high-profile career, she tells of her struggle to combine the two contrasting aspects of her life. It was only through gritty determination, hard work and a fair amount of laughter that Mary was able to enjoy major success as an artist and, at the same time, raise a close and loving family with her husband Joe. Refreshingly honest, and written with warmth and humour, Down the Crooked Road offers a unique insight into the life and career of one of our most gifted singers – an artist who, during the course of her long career, has captured the hearts of millions around the world.

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The Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans curls around an old sugar plantation that long housed one of America’s most painful secrets. Locals knew it as Carville, the site of the only leprosy colony in the continental United States, where generations of afflicted Americans were isolated—often against their will and until their deaths. Following the trail of an unexpected family connection, acclaimed journalist Pam Fessler has unearthed the lost world of the patients, nurses, doctors, and researchers at Carville who struggled for over a century to eradicate Hansen’s disease, the modern name for leprosy. Amid widespread public anxiety about foreign contamination and contagion, patients were deprived of basic rights—denied the right to vote, restricted from leaving Carville, and often forbidden from contact with their own parents or children. Neighbors fretted over their presence and newspapers warned of their dangerous condition, which was seen as a biblical “curse” rather than a medical diagnosis. Though shunned by their fellow Americans, patients surprisingly made Carville more a refuge than a prison. Many carved out meaningful lives, building a vibrant community and finding solace, brotherhood, and even love behind the barbed-wire fence that surrounded them. Among the memorable figures we meet in Fessler’s masterful narrative are John Early, a pioneering crusader for patients’ rights, and the unlucky Landry siblings—all five of whom eventually called Carville home—as well as a butcher from New York, a 19-year-old debutante from New Orleans, and a pharmacist from Texas who became the voice of Carville around the world. Though Jim Crow reigned in the South and racial animus prevailed elsewhere, Carville took in people of all faiths, colors, and backgrounds. Aided by their heroic caretakers, patients rallied to find a cure for Hansen’s disease and to fight the insidious stigma that surrounded it. Weaving together a wealth of archival material with original interviews as well as firsthand accounts from her own family, Fessler has created an enthralling account of a lost American history. In our new age of infectious disease, Carville’s Cure demonstrates the necessity of combating misinformation and stigma if we hope to control the spread of illness without demonizing victims and needlessly destroying lives.

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Commanding biography that tells the full story of this enigmatic political leader's life and political career for the first time, from township youth and student activist to president of the post-apartheid state. President Cyril Ramaphosa is South Africa's fifth post-apartheid president. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as the founder of the National Union of Mineworkers. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February 1990, Ramaphosa was at the head of the reception committee that greeted him. Chosen as secretary general of the African National Congress in 1991, Ramaphosa led the ANC's team in negotiating the country's post-apartheid constitution.Thwarted in his ambition to succeed Mandela, he exchanged political leadership for commerce, ultimately becoming one of the country's wealthiest businessmen, a breeder of exotic cattle, and a philanthropist. This fully revised and extended edition charts Ramaphosa's early life and education, and his career in trade unionism - including the 1987 21-day miners' strike when he committed the union to the wider liberation struggle - politics, and constitution-building. Extensive new chapters explore his contribution to the National Planning Commission, the effects of the Marikana massacre on his political prospects, and the real story behind his rise to the deputy presidency of the country in 2014. They set out the constraints Ramaphosa faced as Jacob Zuma's deputy, and explain how he ultimately triumphed in the election of the ANC's new president in 2017. The book concludes with an analysis of the challenges Ramaphosa faces as the country's fifth post-apartheid president. Based on numerous personal conversations with Ramaphosa over the past decade, and on rich interviews with many of the subject's friends and contemporaries,this new biography offers a frank appraisal of one of South Africa's most enigmatic political figures. ANTHONY BUTLER is Professor of Political Studies at the University of Cape Town. He has been a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and a past Director of the Policy and Administration programme at Birkbeck College, University of London, and Chair in Political Studies at the University of the Witswatersrand. Exclusive sales rightsin the UK, Europe and North America, non-exclusive elsewhere (not for sale in South Africa - Jacana)

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Casts new and valuable light on English musical history and on Enlightenment culture more generally. This is a book guaranteed to make waves. It skilfully weaves the story of one key musical figure into the story of one key institution, which it then weaves into the general story of music in eighteenth-century England. Anyone reading it will come away with fresh knowledge and perceptions - plus a great urge to hear Cooke's music.' Michael Talbot, Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Liverpool and Fellow of the British Academy. Amidst the cosmopolitan, fashion obsessed concert life of later eighteenth century London there existed a discrete musical counterculture centred round a club known as the Academy of Ancient Music. Now largely forgotten, this enlightened school of musical thinkers sought to further music by proffering an alternative vision based on a high minded intellectual curiosity. Perceiving only ear-tickling ostentation in the showy styles that delighted London audiences, they aspired to raise the status of music as an art of profound expression, informed by its past and founded on universal harmonic principles. Central to this group of musical thinkers was the modest yet highly accomplished musician-scholar Benjamin Cooke, who both embodied and reflected this counterculture. As organist of Westminster Abbey and conductor of the Academy of Ancient Music for much of the second half of the eighteenth century, Cooke enjoyed prominence in his day as a composer, organist, teacher, and theorist. This book shows how, through his creativity, historicism and theorising, Cooke was instrumental in proffering an Enlightenment-inspired reassessment of musical composition and thinking at the Academy. The picture portrayed counters the current tendency to dismiss eighteenth-century English musicians as conservative and provincial. Casting new and valuable light on English musical history and on Enlightenment culture more generally, this book reveals how the agenda for musical advancement shared by Cooke and his Academy associates foreshadowed key developments that would mould European music of the nineteenth century and after. It includes an extensive bibliography, a detailed overview of the Cooke Collection at the Royal College of Music and a complete list of Cooke's works. TIM EGGINGTON is College Librarian at Queens'College, Cambridge.

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"In this thought-provoking, handsomely illustrated book, Italian neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso considers the fundamental differences between plants and animals and challenges our assumptions about which is the ‘higher’ form of life.” —The Wall Street Journal “Fascinating…full of optimism…this quick, accessible read will appeal to anyone with interest in how plants continue to surprise us.” —Library Journal Do plants have intelligence? Do they have memory? Are they better problem solvers than people? The Revolutionary Genius of Plants—a fascinating, paradigm-shifting work that upends everything you thought you knew about plants—makes a compelling scientific case that these and other astonishing ideas are all true.Plants make up eighty percent of the weight of all living things on earth, and yet it is easy to forget that these innocuous, beautiful organisms are responsible for not only the air that lets us survive, but for many of our modern comforts: our medicine, food supply, even our fossil fuels. On the forefront of uncovering the essential truths about plants, world-renowned scientist Stefano Mancuso reveals the surprisingly sophisticated ability of plants to innovate, to remember, and to learn, offering us creative solutions to the most vexing technological and ecological problems that face us today. Despite not having brains or central nervous systems, plants perceive their surroundings with an even greater sensitivity than animals. They efficiently explore and react promptly to potentially damaging external events thanks to their cooperative, shared systems; without any central command centers, they are able to remember prior catastrophic events and to actively adapt to new ones. Every page of The Revolutionary Genius of Plants bubbles over with Stefano Mancuso’s infectious love for plants and for the eye-opening research that makes it more and more clear how remarkable our fellow inhabitants on this planet really are. In his hands, complicated science is wonderfully accessible, and he has loaded the book with gorgeous photographs that make for an unforgettable reading experience. The Revolutionary Genius of Plants opens the doors to a new understanding of life on earth.

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The Heinemann Book of Caribbean Poetry described Kendel Hippolyte as 'perhaps the outstanding Caribbean poet of his generation'. Until now his poetry has only been available in anthologies and slim collections which have been little seen outside St. Lucia. Birthright reveals him as a poet who combines acute intelligence and passion, a barbed wit and lyrical tenderness.He writes with satirical anger from the perspective of an island marginalised by the international money markets in a prophetic voice whose ancestry is Blake, Whitman and Lawrence, married to the contemporary influences of reggae, rastafarian word-play and a dread cosmology. He writes, too, with an acute control of formal structures, of sound, rhythm and rhyme - there are sonnets and even a villanelle - but like 'Bunny Wailer flailing Apollyon with a single song', his poetry has 'a deepdown spiritual chanting rising upfull-I'. Whilst acknowledging a debt of influence and admiration to his fellow St. Lucian, Derek Walcott, Kendel Hippolyte's poetry has a direct force which is in the best sense a corrective to Walcott's tendency to romanticise the St. Lucian landscape and people."It is clear that Hippolyte's social consciousness is subordinated to his fascination with words, with the poetics of language, and so in the end we are left with a sense of having taken a journey with a poet who loves the musicality of his words. His more overtly craft conscious neo-formalist pieces are deft, efficient and never strained. Villanelles, sonnets and interesting rhyming verse show his discipline and the quiet concentration of a poet who does not write for the rat race of the publishing world, but for himself. One gets the sense of a writer working in a laboratory patiently, waiting for the right image to come, and then placing it there only when it comes. This calm, this devotion is enviable for frenetic writers like myself who act as if there is a death wish on our heads or a promise of early passing. Our poetry, one suspects, suffers. Hippolyte shows no such anxiety and the result is verse of remarkable grace and beauty."Kwame Dawes.Kendel Hippolyte was born in St.Lucia in 1952, he studied and lived in Jamaica in the 1970s, where he explored his talents as a poet, playwright and director.

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WINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY 2023A Times Best Literary Non-Fiction Book of the YearCritic and writer Darryl Pinckney recalls his friendship and apprenticeship with Elizabeth Hardwick and Barbara Epstein and the introduction they offered him to the New York literary world.At the start of the 1970s, Darryl Pinckney arrived in New York City and at Columbia University and enrolled in Elizabeth Hardwick's writing class at Barnard. After he graduated, he was welcomed into her home as a friend and mentee, and he became close with Hardwick and her best friend, neighbor, and fellow founder of The New York Review of Books, Barbara Epstein. Pinckney found himself at the heart of the New York literary world. He was surrounded by the great writers of the time, like Susan Sontag, Robert Lowell, and Mary McCarthy, as well as the overlapping cultural revolutions and communities that swept New York: the New Wave in film, rock, and writing; the art of Felice Rosser, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lucy Sante, Howard Brookner, and Nan Goldin; the influence of feminism on American culture and literature; the black arts movement confronted by black feminism; and New Negro veterans experiencing the return of their youth as history. Pinckney filtered the avant-garde life he was exposed to downtown and the radical intellectual tradition of The Review through the moral values he inherited and adapted from abolitionist and Reconstruction black culture.In Come Back in September, Pinckney recalls his introduction to New York and the writing life. The critic and novelist intimately captures this revolutionary, brilliant, and troubled period in American letters. Elizabeth Hardwick was not only the link to the intellectual heart of New York, but also a source of continual support and inspiration-the way she worked, her artistry, and the beauty of her voice. Through his memories of the city and of Hardwick, we see the emergence and evolution of Pinckney himself: as a young man, as a New Yorker, and as one of the essential intellectuals of our time.

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