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When Runt's mother dies, he’s sent to live with his older sister Helen, whom he hasn’t seen in years, not since she ran away. Avoiding the dreary trailer he now shares with Helen and her creepy boyfriend Cole, Runt spends his days rambling around his new town, especially the local cemetery. There he meets Mitch, a precocious boy in a wheelchair who’s battling cancer. The two lonely boys become fast friends, but as their friendship deepens, each faces a powerful crisis. As Runt and Mitch struggle with the harsh realities of poverty, abuse, and illness, each looks to the other for comfort and courage. Then, Helen’s problems complicate things even further. Can Runt help them both, and himself, too? The empathy, insight, and finely drawn characters seen in V. M. Caldwell’s first two novels are in full view in this moving story of a young boy’s attempts to create a better life for himself and those around him.

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The second book in the Faraman Prophecy epic fantasy series returns to a world of military might and magical Talents as Kerida Nast continues the quest to save her nation.Kerida Nast and her companions have succeeded in finding Jerek Brightwing, the new Luqs of Farama, and uniting him with a part of his Battle Wings, but not all their problems have been solved. Farama is still in the hands of the Halian invaders and their Shekayrin, and it's going to take magical as well as military strength to overcome them. Unexpected help comes from Bakura, the Princess Imperial of the Halians, whose Gifts have been suppressed. As the Voice of her brother the Sky Emperor she has some political power over the Halian military, and she will use it to aid the Faramans, if Kerida can free her from what she sees as a prison. But whether Kerida can help the princess remains to be seen. If she succeeds, Bakura may prove their salvation. But should Kerida fail, all may be lost....

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This fifth volume in the Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation series is an exploration of both the historical nature of the Bible and the character of biblical history writing. In view of recent trends in biblical studies, the age-old question of the relationship between history and faith must again take center stage in hermeneutical discussion. The Art of Biblical History seeks to address basic questions that all Bible readers might ask: Is the Bible a history book? What do we mean by "history" anyway? In what sense is biblical historicity important for faith? Are there guidelines for discovering what historical truth claims a particular passage may be making? The discussions take account of both current thinking among biblical scholars and the best insights of secular historians. The result is an attempt to describe biblical history writing as a kind of representational art and to commend a hermeneutical approach that does justice not merely to the historical or literary or theological character of the Bible, but to all three at once.

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The precarious equilibrium among the four Londons has reached its breaking point. Once brimming with the red vivacity of magic, darkness casts a shadow over the Maresh Empire, leaving a space for another London to rise. Kell-once assumed to be the last surviving Antari-begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. Lila Bard, once a commonplace-but never common-thief, has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery and the Night Spire crew are attempting a race against time to acquire the impossible, as an ancient enemy returns to claim a crown and a fallen hero is desperate to save a decaying world...

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The PA's Story is the book which has taken the Square Mile by storm. Life as the personal assistant to some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the country is a poisoned chalice. As the first line of communication between the big boss and the outside world, a PA also becomes the last frontier of secrecy, confidentiality and trust. Given the right boss, an exhilarating working life can blossom. With the wrong boss, it can become a living hell. Victoria Knowles's unique inside perspective as a woman fighting to thrive in a vice-filled world dominated by men is at once moving, revealing and scandalous. The high-flying city boss lifestyle has been scrutinised ever more in the press for all the wrong reasons of late, and with revelations of sexist bullying, illicit affairs and pornography in the office, this is a shocking expose about the men who have everything and still want more. The PA is an explosive, furious memoir about working in the City of London spanning over a decade.

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A classic of modern travel writing, An Area of Darkness is Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul’s profound reckoning with his ancestral homeland.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by internationally acclaimed author Paul Theroux.Traveling from the bureaucratic morass of Bombay to the ethereal beauty of Kashmir, from a sacred ice cave in the Himalayas to an abandoned temple near Madras, Naipaul encounters a dizzying cross-section of humanity: browbeaten government workers and imperious servants, a suavely self-serving holy man and a deluded American religious seeker. An Area of Darkness also abounds with Naipaul’s strikingly original responses to India’s paralyzing caste system, its acceptance of poverty and squalor, and the conflict between its desire for self-determination and its nostalgia for the British raj. This may be the most elegant and passionate book ever written about the subcontinent.

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In Born Southern, V. Lynn Kennedy addresses the pivotal roles of birth and motherhood in slaveholding families and communities in the Old South. She assesses the power structures of race, gender, and class-both in the household and in the public sphere-and how they functioned to construct a distinct antebellum southern society. Kennedy's unique approach links the experiences of black and white women, examining how childbirth and motherhood created strong ties to family, community, and region for both. She also moves beyond a simple exploration of birth as a physiological event, examining the social and cultural circumstances surrounding it: family and community support networks, the beliefs and practices of local midwives, and the roles of men as fathers and professionals. The southern household-and the relationships among its members-is the focus of the first part of the book. Integrating the experiences of all women, black and white, rich and poor, free and enslaved, these narratives suggest the complexities of shared experiences that united women in a common purpose but also divided them according to status. The second part moves the discussion from the private household into the public sphere, exploring how southerners used birth and motherhood to negotiate public, professional, and political identities. Kennedy's systematic and thoughtful study distinguishes southern approaches to childbirth and motherhood from northern ones, showing how slavery and rural living contributed to a particularly southern experience.

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To thrive in the highly competitive health care marketplace,organizations must consistently demonstrate their ability tocontain costs, improve quality, and increase customer satisfaction.In Raising Standards in American Health Care, nationally acclaimedhealth care management expert V. Clay Sherman shows managers andexecutives how to utilize the powerful management force ofstrategic standardization to overcome the most common barriers tothese challenges-and increase competitive advantage. "Sherman gives us many embraceable ideas to work with, and hismessage remains solid: our health care organizations must betransformed by standardizing best practices. This is a refreshing,even exciting approach to the very foundation of setting newstandards for health care excellence."--William G. Gonzalez, chiefhealth system officer, Spectrum Health, Grand Rapids, MI; Top 100Hospitals Winner 1994, 1995, 1998; America's Top 100 IntegratedHealth Care Systems Winner 1998

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First book on rubber used as a construction material dedicated to the chemical process industry Despite the long history of rubber as a construction material, this book is a unique publication as it comprehensively looks at the material with respect to the anti-corrosion requirements of the multitude of industries where rubber is used, both on land and offshore. This guide documents how rubber reliably meets the threats of corrosion and contributes to the longevity of the equipment. Chapters on ebonite, natural, and synthetic rubbers, examine their relevant properties and chemical resistance. The book details the practical aspects and handling of rubber lined equipment: thin-walled structures, vacuum vessels, ducts, large diameter tanks, agitators, and fully lined pipes (both inside and outside). Molded and fabricated products of ebonite and soft rubber as well as hand-made rubber products are shown along with vulcanization technology, testing and inspections, measurements and standards. Several case studies are included demonstrating the preferential choice of rubber as a construction material as well as practical applications and techniques of its usage in the chlor-alkali, fertilizer, mineral processing and other core chemical processing industries, which are the largest consumers of rubber as a material of construction. The volume ends with a section on aging and prediction of service life. Rubber as a Construction Material for Corrosion Protection will be used by chemical engineers, rubber technologists, students, research workers worldwide in the rubber industry and process industries such as fertilizer, mining and ore, oil & gas, paper and pulp, steel plants, as well as people engaged in corrosion protection. The book will also be very useful to the construction industry.

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During forty years of travel, V. S. Naipaul has created a wide-ranging body of work, an exceptional and sustained meditation on our world. Now his finest pieces of reflection and reportage – many of which have been unavailable for some time – are collected in one volume. With an abiding faith in modernity balanced by a sense of wonder about the past, Naipaul has explored an astonishing variety of societies and peoples through the prism of his experience. Whether writing about Indian mutinies and despair, Mobutu’s mad reign in Zaire, or the New York mayoral elections, he demonstrates time and again that no one has a shrewder intuition of the ways in which the world works. Infused with a deeply felt humanism, The Writer and the World attests powerfully not only to Naipaul’s status as the great English prose stylist of our time but also to his keen, often prophetic, understanding. ‘All [of these essays] are worth reading (and rereading), both for the contemporary and historical information and insight they artfully impart and for what they tell us about a uniquely complex writer’ Spectator

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Miguel Street, V. S. Naipaul’s first written work of fiction, is set in a derelict corner of Port of Spain, Trinidad, during World War Two and is narrated by an unnamed, precociously observant neighbourhood boy. We are introduced to a galaxy of characters, from Popo the carpenter, who neglects his livelihood to build ‘the wild thing without a name’, to Man-man, who goes from running for public office to staging his own crucifixion, and the dreaded Big-Foot, the bully with glass tear ducts. As well as the lovely Mrs Hereira, in thrall to her monstrous husband. V. S. Naipaul writes with prescient wisdom and crackling wit about the lives and legends that make up Miguel Street: a living theatre, a world in microcosm, a cacophony of sights, sounds and smells – all seen through the eyes of a fatherless boy. The language, the idioms and the observations are priceless and timeless and Miguel Street overflows with life on every page. This is an astonishing novel about hope, despair, poverty and laughter; and an enchanting and exuberant tribute to V. S. Naipaul’s childhood home.

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A remarkable companion piece to The Writer and the World, Naipaul’s previous volume of highly acclaimed essays, Literary Occasions is a stirring contribution to the fading art of the critic, and a revelation of a life in letters.In these eleven extended pieces V. S. Naipaul charts more than half a century of personal enquiry into the mysteries of the written word and of fiction in particular. Here are his boyhood experiences of reading books and his first youthful efforts at writing them; the evolution of his ideas about the extent to which individual cultures shape identities and influence literary forms; observations on Conrad, his literary forebear; the moving preface he wrote to the only book his father ever published; and his reflections on his career, ending with his celebrated Nobel lecture, ‘Two Worlds’. ‘He is an exceptionally good and perceptive critic – a few passages on Dickens are worth whole books by others – and when he addresses the art of fiction he not only writes beautifully (as always) but with complete humility’ New Statesman

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The Mystic Masseur, V. S. Naipaul’s first published novel, is the story of the rise and rise of Ganesh, from failed primary school teacher and struggling masseur to author, revered mystic and MBE – a journey equally memorable for its hilarity as its bewildering success. An unforgettable cast of characters witness this meteoric ascent: Ganesh’s father-in-law, Ramlogan, whose shop gave the impression that ‘every morning someone went over everything in it – scales, Ramlogan, and all – with a greased rag’; his aunt, the Great Belcher, with her troubling wind; his wife Leela, and her fondness for putting a punctuation mark after every word. Soon, Ganesh’s small hut is filled with books (1,500, as his wife will attest), and his trousers and shirt disappear to be replaced by more suitable attire for a proper mystic. As ‘The Woman Who Couldn’t Eat’ and ‘Lover Boy’, the man who fell in love with his bicycle, line up to be cured, it looks like the mystic masseur is surely destined for greatness. In one of the author’s finest comic creations we see the immense sensitivity, humour and endlessly inventive imagination that have become the hallmarks of V. S. Naipaul’s genius.

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Cardiology - Clinical Methods is a concise resource for postgraduate students preparing for exams. Divided into ten chapters, the book begins with a chapter on history taking, followed by arterial pulse, blood pressure, jugular venous pulse and precordial examination palpitation. Further chapters cover heart sounds, and the book closes with a chapter on systolic and diastolic sounds. Each chapter in Cardiology – Clinical Methods begins with a chapter outline to introduce the topic and assist revision. Common exam cases are discussed in detail, and enhanced by images and information tables throughout the book. Key Points Guide to clinical methods in cardiology for postgraduate students Chapters on arterial and jugular venous pulse, blood pressure and heart sounds Images and information tables throughout

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A 128-page exercise book. This highly practical yet playful exercise book has been designed specifically for false beginners in English. There are over 200 progressively challenging exercises designed as games, along with answers. At the end of each chapter, you can also self-assess your language level. No aspect of the language has been left out: grammar, spelling, syntax, pronunciation and even accentuation of words!

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