He makes me smile even when I’m angry at the whole world and being with him makes me stronger.Of course, the first time we worked together he called me an arrogant heartless bastard. Mind you, I had just referred to him as “the spineless wonder from the Land of Too Naive to Survive”. It wasn’t like I realized he was listening.It took a long time of working together before we starting to respect each other, and longer still before I realized he was the center of my world. It took a lot of sarcasm (him) and name-calling (me) before we got to that point.Perhaps you could tell the story of how we got from there to here.Photo Description: A beautiful monochrome photo featuring a handsome man, his head lying on his lover’s naked back, savoring the moment with his eyes closed. Maybe he’s dreaming of how perfect their life is.This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Love Has No Boundaries" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story.

    Showing Tobias how much he loves him isn’t the issue, but Noah isn’t sure Tobias is going to see how perfect his surprise is. But everyone thinks puppies are cute, right? Tobias has always known when his gentle giant of a husband is hiding something. The Valentine’s Day surprise is no different, except that it seems to be making Noah a nervous wreck. But since their holidays have always been low-key, he’s not sure what there is to worry about…unless his sexy husband is hiding something a lot more interesting than a bouquet of roses. Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about flowers and cards, not puppy play and sexy secrets, but sometimes perfection involves looking a little outside the box. 28k words Story Contains: mild BDSM and puppy play

    When an out of control argument leaves Rock living on base for a while, it takes some well-meaning friends to get the two of them back together.Rig and Rock may be stubborn and hot-tempered, but they know what they have is worth the trouble. Can they find a way to work out their demons in a more constructive way than fighting? Rock thinks he has an answer that will work for both of them in this Jarheads story.

    Now, for the 25th Anniversary of Eightball, Fantagraphics is collecting these long out-of-print issues in a slipcased set of two hardcover volumes, reproducing each issue in facsimile form exactly as they were originally published. Included are over 450 pages of vintage Clowes, including such seminal serialized graphic novels/strips/rants as Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Ghost World, Pussey, I Hate You Deeply, Sexual Frustration, Ugly Girls, Why I Hate Christians, Message to the People of the Future, Paranoid, My Suicide, Chicago, Art School Confidential, On Sports, Zubrick and Pogeybait, Hippypants and Peace-Bear, Grip Glutz, The Sensual Santa, Feldman, and so many more."

    Hades opens Brandywine Investigations after his divorce and his subsequent move to the modern world. If he was hoping for boring infidelity cases and lost dogs, he’s sorely mistaken as murder and mayhem find his agency and his extended family at an astonishing rate.Includes:Canines, Crosshairs & Corpses: Brandywine Investigations #1No Enemy But Time: Brandywine Investigations #2Dragons, Diamonds & Discord: Brandywine Investigations #3Please note: The stories in this omnibus have been reedited, and expanded by about 18K (total.)

    How does Gabe know this? He receives a letter and a ticket to the ball, from Mike. Gabe isn't sure he'll ever be ready to move on, but in deference to Mike's memory, he attends the ball.What Gabe doesn't know, is that his best friend, Tom, the one constant in his life since college, has also received a letter from Mike. Will Gabe be able to move forward and remember a long forgotten love, or will his world come crumbling down around his ears, again?

    When she is offered a temporary position as a personal assistant to a powerful man, Dietrich Moore, she can’t refuse. Spending a month on the sandy beaches of Portugal doesn't seem like work, but it doesn't take long for her employer to get under her skin in the most intimate of waysKnown as ruthless and dominant in everything he does, Dietrich takes what he wants without thought and without remorse. Though already in a D/s relationship with Stellan Alfonso, an ex-quarterback and businessman, Dietrich feels something is still missing in his life. It isn't until he meets Blythe that he realizes she is the only one who can complete their relationship. Dietrich and Stellan are about to use the next four weeks to show Blythe exactly what it means to be submissive in every way.

    Michael Beschloss, in The Los Angeles Times, said that it succeeds brilliantly. The New York Times called it rock solid and The Washington Post hailed it as invaluable. And SidneyBlumenthal in The Boston Globe wrote that it was dense with astonishing incidents.Now Dallek has condensed his two-volume masterpiece into what is surely the finest one-volume biography of Johnson available. Based on years of research in over 450 manuscript collections and oral histories, as well as numerous personal interviews, this biography follows Johnson, the human dynamo, from the Texas hill country to the White House. We see LBJ, in the House and the Senate, whirl his way through sixteen- and eighteen-hour days, talking, urging, demanding, reaching for influence and power, in an uncommonly successful congressional career. Then, in the White House, we see Johnson asthe visionary leader who worked his will on Congress like no president before or since, enacting a range of crucial legislation, from Medicare and environmental protection to the most significant advances in civil rights for black Americans ever achieved. And we see the depth of Johnson's privateanguish as he became increasingly ensnared in Vietnam.In these pages Johnson emerges as a man of towering intensity and anguished insecurity, of grandiose ambition and grave self-doubt, a man who was brilliant, crude, intimidating, compassionate, overbearing, driven: A tornado in pants. Gracefully written and delicately balanced, this

    I’ve only met the guy once and my impression was unsettling at best, so the thought of him accessing my phone with all its private contents fills me with nothing but dread.But I have Callum’s phone with me, so when he starts teasing me about some of my apps I figure it’s fair game to dive into its contents. What one guy needs with twelve different hook-up apps, I’ll never know.We agree to overnight the phones as soon as Callum arrives home, but it turns out a lot can happen on a six hour flight to Ireland, and I find that when the time comes, I’m not so eager to give up this connection to him…

    Written in a tone that evokes McCarthy’s unrelenting classic Blood Meridian, the novel tells the story of Germán Alcántara Carnero, a dangerous campesino fighting to survive in rural 20th century Mexico, and also a metaphor for the spiraling violence of contemporary Mexican society.” —Culture TripSet on a desolate, unnamed mesa, Emiliano Monge’s The Arid Sky distills the essence of a Latin America ruthlessly hollowed out by uncontainable violence. This is an unsparing yet magnificent land, whose only constants are loneliness, hatred, loyalty, and the struggle to return some small measure of meaning to life.Thundering and inventive, The Arid Sky narrates the signature moments in the life of Germán Alcantara Carnero: a man who is both exaltedly, viscerally real and an ageless, nameless being capable of embodying entire eras, cultures, and conflicts. Monge’s roadmap—an escape across borders, the disappearance of a young girl, the confrontation between a father and his son, the birth of a sick child, and murder—takes readers on a journey to the core of humankind that posits a challenge of the kind only great literature can pose.

    But one of his students not only witnessed it, but decided to use the incident to blackmail his teacher Threatened with exposure, Okano must submit to Tokiwa's perverted will or have his shameful secret exposed.

    Mike is an uneducated rascal, one step ahead of prison and a court-martial. He's given one chance to redeem himself: if he wants to stay out of jail, he has to keep Professor James Hardmore alive. No matter what.James is everything Mike isn't--suave, educated, intellectual, and rich. He's also a conscientious objector and he's made a deal with the army--three months on the island breaking codes as long as he doesn't have to kill anyone.Mike is Catholic, the son of immigrants, and has never acted on his desires. James is Jewish, the son of Boston society, and experienced in love between men. During their hazardous stay on the island, they teach each other about life, friendship, and survival. With only them to say what's right and wrong, the men make a deal: Mike must give himself to James for one day, submit to him completely, and James will allow Mike to take him whenever Mike wants to slake his sexual needs.But once the war is over, can they keep the promises made on those hot Pacific nights and find one place both of them can call home?

    Drawing the flowers he remembers from his mother's greenhouse provides a pale substitute for authentic living color, but it's the best he can find. Sean spends his days lost in his software while listening to the same songs on the same radio stations day after day. He would give almost anything to hear the mistakes of a live performance, but a space colony is hardly an ideal place to find an amateur musician.A chance meeting shows Evan a glimpse of real color and Sean a taste of real music, but neither expects to see the other again. Then Evan's greatest accomplishment fails, endangering the entire colony, and Sean becomes his last chance at fixing it.

    Now, Ty finds himself cut loose from his Navy career after months of rehab from a debilitating head injury. At a loss as to what to do with his life, he travels to Willow Springs Ranch in Arizona to visit his surrogate father, only to arrive minutes after his oldest friend's death. Ty must come to terms with the loss while he fights to keep the PTSD from pulling him under. The last thing he's ready to think about is his growing attraction for another man.Rancher Cass Cartwright's relationships never last more than a few hours, and that's just the way he likes it. Now he's in danger of doing the one thing he swore never to do: fall in love. Can Cass convince Ty to let go of his past or will sabotage at the ranch kill their love before it has a chance to grow?Hold Tight:Sheriff Holden Titus had organized his fresh start down to the last detail. Except for the part about the bomb that blew his plans all to hell. Now he’s running out of time, without a job, without a home, and struggling to get back on his feet. Literally.Despite the impolite rejection, Drew knows he didn’t have the wrong impression months ago when he asked the sheriff to dance, but he never expected to have Holden’s life in his hands. Literally.Thanks to some meddlesome matchmaking, the two men are now temporary housemates at the Willow Springs Ranch and Drew is determined to help Holden heal, both physically and emotionally. Even if it means he has to drag the other man kicking and screaming to physical therapy…and out of the closet. In fact, that might be kind of fun.The problem is, Holden doesn’t consider himself in the closet…but not all secrets are created equal.Taking Chance:Officer Chance Carter is pretty sure he'd still enjoy being on either end of a good ass reaming--just not the one from his supervisor that lands him on an involuntary extended vacation. Another holiday season with nothing to do except visit an old friend.Former hospital corpsman Bryan Mitchell doesn't feel less than honorable, but that's what his discharge paperwork states. Now he is down and out in Kingman, Arizona until the charity of a stranger lands him a temporary job for the holidays.When two federal employees go missing during a highly controversial wild horse roundup, the two Willow Springs Ranch newcomers are drafted to help in the search, but if rumors of a local anti-government militia are true, Chance and Bryan may be in serious trouble--and from something far more dangerous than their mutual attraction.

    A translator must take into account rules that are not strictly linguistic but, broadly speaking, cultural.' Umberto Eco is of the world's most brilliant and entertaining writers on literature and language. In this accessible and dazzling study, he turns his eye on the subject of translations and the problems the differences between cultures can cause. The book is full of little gems about mistranslations and misunderstandings.For example when you put 'Studies in the logic of Charles Sanders Peirce' through an internet translation machine, it becomes 'Studies in the logic of the Charles of sandpaper grinding machines Peirce'. In Italian 'ratto' has no connotation of 'contemptible person' but denotes speed ('you dirty rat' could take on a whole new meaning!) What could be a weighty subject is never dull, fired by Eco's immense wit and erudition, providing an entertaining read that illuminates the process of negotation that all translators must make