Brings together the effective tactics for speaking out for animals and gives voice to activists from around the globe, and explains how others can get involved.

    The expectations are high, the disappointments inevitable, and family is… well, tricky, even at the best of times. This December, I'm going home for Christmas. It's the one time a year I actually get to see my family, and usually it's fine. This time? Well, let's just say navigating the normal crazy will be extra special with a vampire husband that none of my family got to see me marry, a fresh blood craving of my very own, and a more than slight aversion to the sun. Add to that an ex-boyfriend of mine is in town and causing trouble, and my best friend's husband has a big secret, and you have a cocktail for trouble not even my husband's very expensive cognac can ease the strain of.  Tis the season. Hopefully, we'll make it to the New Year alive. Well… as alive as we vampires get. THE VAMPIRE GIRL SERIES Book 1: Vampire Girl (USA Today bestseller, April 2016) Book 2: Midnight Star (USA Today bestseller, May 2016) Book 3: Silver Flame Book 4: Moonlight Prince (USA Today Bestseller, February 2017) Book 5: First Hunter Book 6: Unseen Lord Of Dreams and Dragons (a standalone novel in the VG universe) Novellas in the Vampire Girl Universe: Copper Snare Vampire Librarian: Crimson Cocktail Christmas Cognac

    We have all benefited from the medical discoveries of primate research--vaccines for polio, rubella, and hepatitis B are just a few. But we have also learned more in recent years about how intelligent apes and monkeys really are: they can speak to us with sign language, they can even play video games (and are as obsessed with the games as any human teenager). And activists have also uncovered widespread and unnecessarily callous treatment of animals by researchers (in 1982, a Silver Spring lab was charged with 17 counts of animal cruelty). It is a complex issue, made more difficult by the combative stance of both researchers and animal activists. In The Monkey Wars, Deborah Blum gives a human face to this often caustic debate--and an all-but-human face to the subjects of the struggle, the chimpanzees and monkeys themselves. Blum criss-crosses America to show us first hand the issues and personalities involved. She offers a wide-ranging, informative look at animal rights activists, now numbering some twelve million, from the moderate Animal Welfare Institute to the highly radical Animal Liberation Front (a group destructive enough to be placed on the FBI's terrorist list). And she interviews a wide variety of researchers, many forced to conduct their work protected by barbed wire and alarm systems, men and women for whom death threats and hate mail are common. She takes us to Roger Fouts's research center in Ellensburg, Washington, where we meet five chimpanzees trained in human sign language, and we visit LEMSIP, a research facility in New York State that has no barbed wire, no alarms--and no protesters chanting outside--because its director, Jan Moor-Jankowski, listens to activists with respect and treats his animals humanely. And along the way, Blum offers us insights into the many side-issues involved: the intense battle to win over school kids fought by both sides, and the danger of transplanting animal organs into humans. As it stands now, Blum concludes, the research community and its activist critics are like two different nations, nations locked in a long, bitter, seemingly intractable political standoff....But if you listen hard, there really are people on both sides willing to accept and work within the complex middle. When they can be freely heard, then we will have progressed to another place, beyond this time of hostilities. In The Monkey Wars, Deborah Blum gives these people their voice.

    Then and only then can you legitimately expect to win.” Born to Win guides readers through this plan-prepare-expect strategy. You will learn that when you have the hope that things can change, and a plan to make that change possible, you can take action. Zig Ziglar’s whole-person, balanced-living approach to life has inspired millions to enjoy good health, a new depth of love and gratitude for family and friends, financial security and independence, and spiritual peace of mind. His instruction on how to live a life that leaves no room for regret or worry is the starting point for a joyful, exciting, vibrant life. It is true that when you have prepared yourself to be the right kind of person, you can do what you need to do to expect success. When you truly understand that you were born to win, you can change the world! "It’s going to be the most fun and exciting trip you’ll ever take. It’s filled with more promise of reward than King Solomon’s mines. In short, this journey to the top, which you are going to be taking, is a tremendously exciting trip." —Zig Ziglar

    But with this privilege comes the grave responsibility to respect life, to treat animals with simple dignity and compassion.Somewhere along the way, something has gone wrong.In Dominion, we witness the annual convention of Safari Club International, an organization whose wealthier members will pay up to $20,000 to hunt an elephant, a lion or another animal, either abroad or in American "safari ranches," where the animals are fenced in pens. We attend the annual International Whaling Commission conference, where the skewed politics of the whaling industry come to light, and the focus is on developing more lethal, but not more merciful, methods of harvesting "living marine resources." And we visit a gargantuan American "factory farm," where animals are treated as mere product and raised in conditions of mass confinement, bred for passivity and bulk, inseminated and fed with machines, kept in tightly confined stalls for the entirety of their lives, and slaughtered in a way that maximizes profits and minimizes decency.Throughout Dominion, Scully counters the hypocritical arguments that attempt to excuse animal abuse: from those who argue that the Bible's message permits mankind to use animals as it pleases, to the hunter's argument that through hunting animal populations are controlled, to the popular and "scientifically proven" notions that animals cannot feel pain, experience no emotions, and are not conscious of their own lives.The result is eye opening, painful and infuriating, insightful and rewarding. Dominion is a plea for human benevolence and mercy, a scathing attack on those who would dismiss animal activists as mere sentimentalists, and a demand for reform from the government down to the individual. Matthew Scully has created a groundbreaking work, a book of lasting power and importance for all of us.

    His colleagues resist her argument that human reason is overrated and that the inability to reason does not diminish the value of life; his wife denounces his mother's vegetarianism as a form of moral superiority.At the dinner that follows her first lecture, the guests confront Costello with a range of sympathetic and skeptical reactions to issues of animal rights, touching on broad philosophical, anthropological, and religious perspectives. Painfully for her son, Elizabeth Costello seems offensive and flaky, but—dare he admit it?—strangely on target.Here the internationally renowned writer J. M. Coetzee uses fiction to present a powerfully moving discussion of animal rights in all their complexity. He draws us into Elizabeth Costello's own sense of mortality, her compassion for animals, and her alienation from humans, even from her own family. In his fable, presented as a Tanner Lecture sponsored by the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, Coetzee immerses us in a drama reflecting the real-life situation at hand: a writer delivering a lecture on an emotionally charged issue at a prestigious university. Literature, philosophy, performance, and deep human conviction—Coetzee brings all these elements into play.As in the story of Elizabeth Costello, the Tanner Lecture is followed by responses treating the reader to a variety of perspectives, delivered by leading thinkers in different fields. Coetzee's text is accompanied by an introduction by political philosopher Amy Gutmann and responsive essays by religion scholar Wendy Doniger, primatologist Barbara Smuts, literary theorist Marjorie Garber, and moral philosopher Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation. Together the lecture-fable and the essays explore the palpable social consequences of uncompromising moral conflict and confrontation.

    He committed them to memory by summarizing them in rhymes.These sermons, the fruit of Wurmbrand's extreme deprivations, demonstrate in a personal and stimulating way the relevance of the Bible for today, and reveal unique insights into the character of God.

    It was a chance to bring prosperity to his family’s farm. But something was waiting there among the gold and jewels—something that would take him from the safety of his home and change his life forever.

    Clarissa's amateur sleuth uncle has died, evidently from a heart attack. But was the death truly an accident? An anonymous note hints that her uncle was murdered, and now Clarissa and Paw are determined to sniff out the truth. Soon the duo find themselves nose deep in their uncle's final baffling case: the theft of the fabulous Blue Dolphin diamonds. Clarissa's determination to find her uncle's killer leads her deep into a world of glittering gems and deadly secrets, where each new discovery threatens to bring her to the notice of a ruthless murderer who will stop at nothing to cover his tracks. Can Clarissa and her detective dog Paw crack the case, or will they become the killer's next victims? This is a 5200 word short story/mini mystery. Read time is approx. 30 minutes.

    Now Fetch has even bigger problems than discovering a new house and family: there’s a wild smell in the yard and a dark, mysterious creature inside, watching her.Fetch brings vividly to life that unforgettable first day home with a new pet—from a puppy’s point of view.Stories in the Angel Paws series celebrate the unique bond between canines and humans with heartfelt, moving, and insightful tales for anyone who has ever loved a dog.

    The general public, it seems, is slowly coming to understand that animals like apes, elephants, and dolphins have not just brains, but complicated inner and social lives, and that we need to act accordingly.   Yet that realization hasn’t yet made its presence felt to any great degree in our most intimate relationship with animals: at the dinner table. Sure, there are vegetarians and vegans all over, but at the same time, meat consumption is up, and meat remains a central part of the culinary and dining experience for the majority of people in the developed world.   With Personalities on the Plate, Barbara King asks us to think hard about our meat eating--and how we might reduce it. But this isn’t a polemic intended to convert readers to veganism. What she is interested in is why we’ve not drawn food animals into our concern and just what we do know about the minds and lives of chickens, cows, octopuses, fish, and more. Rooted in the latest science, and built on a mix of firsthand experience (including entomophagy, which, yes, is what you think it is) and close engagement with the work of scientists, farmers, vets, and chefs, Personalities on the Plate is an unforgettable journey through the world of animals we eat. Knowing what we know--and what we may yet learn--what is the proper ethical stance toward eating meat? What are the consequences for the planet? How can we life an ethically and ecologically sound life through our food choices?   We could have no better guide to these fascinatingly thorny questions than King, whose deep empathy embraces human and animal alike. Readers will be moved, provoked, and changed by this powerful book.

    Tameness is the key trait in the domestication of cats, dogs, horses, cows, and other mammals, from rats to reindeer. Surprisingly, with selection for tameness comes a suite of seemingly unrelated alterations, including floppy ears, skeletal and coloration changes, and sex differences. It’s a package deal known as the domestication syndrome, elements of which are also found in humans. Our highly social nature—one of the keys to our evolutionary success—is due to our own tameness. In Domesticated, Richard C. Francis weaves history and anthropology with cutting-edge ideas in genomics and evo devo to tell the story of how we domesticated the world, and ourselves in the process.

    Set against the mean streets of L.A.'s South Bay 'hoods, the book is populated by a cast of vivid characters, including Tupac Shakur, Snoop's one true friend and musical soulmate, cut down at the beginning of a brilliant career, and Suge Knight, whose Death Row Records brought street-level credibility--and gangland tactics--into the corporate suites of the entertainment industry.From the Crip gang members who recruited Snoop virtually off the playground to the pimps and players, whores and hustlers who formed his extended family on the streets and behind prison walls, Tha Doggfather offers a scathing, unexpurgated look at life on the edge in a modern urban jungle. Snoop's rise to the pinnacle of rap stardom is chronicled, along with his nearly career-ending arrest and trial for a murder he didn't commit.Raised to the pinnacle, brought to the brink, Snoop Dogg eventually found sanity and salvation in his relationship with Shantay Taylor, his high school sweetheart. Married in 1997, the couple started a new life with their two young sons, even as Snoop's career reached new heights in his creative collaboration with Master P and No Limit Records.

    It presents the story of how the Course was written, a summary of its teaching, selected quotations from the material, frequently asked questions and answers, and a look at the impact the Course has had. An ideal way to introduce yourself or others to A Course in Miracles.

    In his willingness to share, Sadhguru offers glimpses of the profound wisdom that is otherwise accessible to enlightened beings only.In this volume, Inner Management, Sadhguru shifts our focus to the inside, pointing out a way to establish a true sense of inner peace and well-being - by applying 'Inner Management.'