to start over in a most unlikely place: a nine-foot-wide back-alley house in one of Ho Chi Minh City's poorest districts, where neighbors unabashedly stare into windows, generously share their barbecued rat, keep cockroaches for luck, and ultimately help her find joy without Western trappings.Karin Esterhammer was an editor, writer, and travel columnist at the Los Angeles Times for fifteen years. She’s been published in the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, and other publications. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, and three cats.

    But for Pup's older sister Dolly, the magic is more than dabbling. Deformed by a facial birthmark, Dolly desperately wants to be cured, and her obsession with Pup's magic sends her on a dangerous downward spiral into confusion, madness, and possibly murder. And meanwhile, in a squalid boardinghouse not far away, a young Irishman sharpens a set of butcher knives . . .

    The doctrine codified in The Book of the Law and the numerous other Holy Books known as Thelema revealed Aleister Crowley as the Prophet of the new Aeon.In this ground-breaking book, author J. Daniel Gunther provides a penetrating and cohesive analysis of the spiritual doctrine underlying and informing the Aeon of the Child, and the sublime formulas of Initiation encountered by those who would probe its mysteries. Drawing on more than 30 years of experiences as a student and teacher within the Order of the A.·.A.·., the author examines the doctrinal thread of Thelema in its historical, religious, and practical context. This book is written in clear, precise language that will aid those students who seek to navigate the difficult terrain of the spiritual quest. More advanced students will find tantalizing clues to serve as guideposts and eventual confirmation of direct experience. With numerous diagrams and detailed references encompassing ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, the Apocrypha, the Old and New Testaments, alchemy, hermetic Qabalah, and tarot, as well as the writings of Carl Jung and Aleister Crowley.

    Determined to prove them wrong, she tells them that she is having dinner with her fiancé on the following evening. When they show up to the restaurant to see what he looks like, Patricia is forced to coerce a young man into pretending he is there for her.

    She also gave us Come, Tell Me How You Live, a charming, fascinating, and wonderfully witty nonfiction account of her days on an archaeological dig in Syria with her husband, renowned archeologist Max Mallowan. Something completely different from arguably the best-selling author of all time, Come, Tell Me How You Live is an evocative journey to the fascinating Middle East of the 1930s that is sure to delight Dame Agatha’s millions of fans, as well as aficionados of Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody mysteries and eager armchair travelers everywhere.

    In this unusual and engaging work, Ackroyd brings the reader through time into the city whose institutions and idiosyncrasies have permeated much of his works of fiction and nonfiction. Peter Ackroyd sees London as a living, breathing organism, with its own laws of growth and change. Reveling in the city’s riches as well as its raucousness, the author traces thematically its growth from the time of the Druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Anecdotal, insightful, and wonderfully entertaining, London is animated by Ackroyd’s concern for the close relationship between the present and the past, as well as by what he describes as the peculiar “echoic” quality of London, whereby its texture and history actively affect the lives and personalities of its citizens.London confirms Ackroyd’s status as what one critic has called “our age’s greatest London imagination.”

    Oliver Tressilian, a Cornish gentleman who helped the English defeat the Spanish Armada, is betrayed by his ruthless half-brother and seeks refuge in the Middle East, where he takes on a new role as a Barbary pirate.

    They bring alive her family and friends, her surroundings and contemporary events with a freshness unparalleled in modern biographies. Above all we recognize the unmistakable voice of the author of such novels as Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. We see the shift in her writing from witty and amusing descriptions of the social life of town and country, to a thoughtful and constructive tone while writing about the business of literary composition. R.W. Chapman's ground-breaking edition of the collected Letters first appeared in 1932, and a second edition followed twenty years later. Now in this third edition of Jane Austen's Letters, Deirdre Le Faye has added new material that has come to light since 1952, and re-ordered the letters into their correct chronological sequence. She has provided discreet and full annotation to each letter, including its provenance, and information on the watermarks, postmarks, and other physical details of the manuscripts, together with new biographical, topographical, and general indexes. Teachers, students, and fans of Jane Austen, at all levels, will find remarkable insight into one of the most popular novelists ever.

    Skeffington and dismissed him from her thoughts, is surprised to find herself thinking of him. While attempting to understand this unwelcome invasion, she meets, through a series of coincidences and deliberate actions, all those other men whose hearts she has broken. But their lives have irrevocably changed and Fanny is no longer the exquisite beauty with whom they were one so enchanted. If she is to survive, Fanny discovers, she must confront a greatly altered perception of herself. With the delicate piquancy for which she is renowned, Elizabeth von Arnim reveals the complex emotions of ageing and the re-evaluation of self-worth.

    She spent most of her life in England caring for her mother. By age 18 she was convinced she would never marry. She is best remembered for her satirical novel Red Pottage. Red Pottage is the story of adultery and a clergyman who destroys his sister's art. The first plot contained in this novel is that of Rachael West an heiress and her love for a man trapped in an illicit affair who is doomed to die by is own hand. The second plot is about a gifted female writer who is unable to break away and start her own life free of her family.

    Misremembered as the ‘Nine Days Queen’, she has been mythologized as a child-woman destroyed on the altar of political expediency. Behind the legend, however, was an opinionated and often rebellious adolescent who died a passionate leader, not merely a victim. Growing up in Jane’s shadow, her sisters Katherine and Mary would have to tread carefully to survive.The dramatic lives of the younger Grey sisters remain little known, but under English law they were the heirs – and rivals – to the Tudor monarchs Mary and Elizabeth I. The beautiful Katherine ignored Jane’s dying request that she remain faithful to her beliefs, changing her religion to retain Queen Mary’s favour only to then risk life and freedom in a secret marriage that threatened Queen Elizabeth’s throne.While Elizabeth’s closest adviser fought to save Katherine, her younger sister Mary remained at court as the queen’s Maid of Honour. Too plain to be considered significant, it seemed that Lady Mary Grey, at least, would escape the burden of her royal blood. But then she too fell in love, and incurred the queen’s fury.Exploding the many myths of Lady Jane’s life and casting fresh light onto Elizabeth’s reign, acclaimed historian Leanda de Lisle brings the tumultuous world of the Grey sisters to life, at a time when a royal marriage could gain you a kingdom or cost you everything.

    Jan is independent and spirited, but leads a humdrum life, working in an office, and walks out with a very suitable young man. Juliana, at 17 years of age, is getting the upbringing of a young lady in the enormous family mansion, Chidleigh, and her life is devoid of excitement and event.The two heroines can see one another from time to time, momentarily, through some rent in the fabric of time, but never manage to meet and interact. Their lives converge as Juliana's world is turned upside down; her father dies and her notoriously wicked and mysterious brother, Lucian Clare, returns to take his position as head of the family.Lucian recognizes a supernatural power in Juliana, and uses this to reach out to Jan through the ages.

    Delusions and hallucinations feed on each other, flourishing with amazing speed. Locked in a new mode of thinking the paranoid views life as from a cell. In a dozen case studies Dr. Ronald Siegel takes us on a chilling but mesmerizing journey into the dark mysteries of the human mind.We meet a woman who hears her teeth whispering; a beautiful ballet dancer who is in love with a shadow; a UCLA student who believes Hitler is speaking to him through a stolen computer program; and a cocaine addict for whom the invasion of imaginary bugs was strong enough to drive him to commit murder.A dedicated and compassionate scientist, Dr. Siegel follows his patients into the shadowlands where paranoia flourishes--drug addiction, prison, organized crime, and terrorism often at risk to himself. He explores mild cases of patients who vaguely believe something is stalking them to serious cases of patients with apocalyptic visions so intense that they shake the foundations of an entire community. Fascinating, enlightening, and immersive, "reading Whispers is like reading about an exotic and dangerous travel adventure" (The Washington Post).

    . . . The reader falls totally under his spell."—Associated Press The second volume in the multimillion copy bestselling seriesMillions of readers have delighted in the wonderful storytelling and everyday miracles of James Herriot in the over thirty years since his delightful animal stories were first introduced to the world.Now in a new edition for the first time in a decade, All Things Bright and Beautiful is the beloved sequel to Herriot's first collection, All Creatures Great and Small, and picks up as Herriot, now newly married, journeys among the remote hillside farms and valley towns of the Yorkshire Dales, caring for their inhabitants—both two- and four-legged. Throughout, Herriot's deep compassion, humor, and love of life shine out as we laugh, cry, and delight in his portraits of his many, varied animal patients and their equally varied owners."Humor, realism, sensitivity, earthiness; animals comic and tragic; and people droll, pathetic, courageous, eccentric—all of whom he views with the same gentle compassion and a lively sense of the sad, the ridiculous, and the admirable."—Columbus Dispatch

    This entertaining insult generator and flip book collects hundreds of words from Shakespeare's most pointed barbs and allows readers to combine them in creative and hilariously stinging ways. From "apish bald-pated abomination" to "cuckoldly dull-brained blockhead" to "obscene rump-fed hornbeast," each insult can be chosen at random or customized to fit any situation that calls for a literary smackdown. Featuring an informative introduction on Shakespearean wit, and notes on which terms were coined or only used once by the author in his work, this delightful book will sharpen the tongue of Shakespeare fans and insult aficionados without much further ado.