Since his band Van Halen burst onto the scene with their self-titled debut album in 1978, Eddie had been hailed as an icon not only to fans of rock music and heavy metal, but to performers across all genres and around the world. Van Halen’s debut sounded unlike anything that listeners had heard before and remains a quintessential rock album of the era. Over the course of more than four decades, Eddie gained renown for his innovative guitar playing, and particularly for popularizing the tapping guitar solo technique. Unfortunately for Eddie and his legions of fans, he died before he was ever able to put his life down to paper in his own words, and much of his compelling backstory has remained elusive—until now. In Eruption, music journalists Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill share with fans, new and old alike, a candid, compulsively readable, and definitive oral history of the most influential rock guitarist since Jimi Hendrix. It is based on more than 50+ hours of unreleased interviews they recorded with Eddie Van Halen over the years, most of them conducted at the legendary 5150 studios at  Ed’s home in Los Angeles. The heart of Eruption is drawn from these intimate and wide-ranging talks, as well as conversations with family, friends, and colleagues. In addition to discussing his greatest triumphs as a groundbreaking musician, including an unprecedented dive into Van Halen’s masterpiece 1984, the book also takes an unflinching look at Edward’s early struggles as young Dutch immigrant unable to speak the English language, which resulted in lifelong issues with social anxiety and substance abuse. Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen also examines his brilliance as an inventor who changed the face of guitar manufacturing.As entertaining as it is revealing, Eruption is the closest readers will ever get to hearing Eddie’s side of the story when it comes to his extraordinary life.

    While working a nine-to-five proves to be less exciting than jet-setting around the world executing bad guys, it’s at least a lot safer. After so many years of searching, Kahllah has finally found peace--or so it seems.When a police officer is murdered and a familiar flower is left at the crime scene, all signs point to it being the work of the Black Lotus. Someone is trying to frame her! Things get even more complicated when the case is handed to Detective James Wolf, a former adversary who has since become a friend to Kahllah. The department’s most skilled tracker, Wolf’s orders are to bring in the Black Lotus, dead or alive.To clear her name, Kahllah is forced out of retirement and once again must don the mask of the Black Lotus. She races against time to catch the real killer while trying to outrun her most formidable rival. Their deadly game of hunter and prey leads to a shocking truth buried under a mountain of lies, as Kahllah attempts to find justice in a world devoid of light.

    It tells the story of William Stoner, who attends the state university to study agronomy, but instead falls in love with English literature and becomes an academic. The novel narrates the many disappointments and struggles in Stoner's academic and personal life, including his estrangement from his wife and daughter, set against the backdrop of the first half of the twentieth century.In his entry in the Bookmarked series, author Steve Almond writes about why Stoner has endured, and the manner in which it speaks to the impoverishment of the inner life in America. Almond will also use the book as a launching pad for an investigation of America’s soul, in the process, writing about his own struggles as a student of writing, as a father and husband, and as a man grappling with his own mortality.

    From basic cross-stitch and chain stitch to more complicated couching, laid work, and drawn thread work, this is the stitch bible for embroiderers wishing to improve their technique and add new dimensions to their work. Stitches are arranged according to their use, including outlines, filling stitches, isolated stitches, motifs, edgings, hems, insertions, flat stitches, backgrounds, and textures. Concealed spiral binding allows embroiderers to read and practice simultaneously.- 200 photographed stitches accompanied by 400 illustrations- Stitch selector for easy reference to all 200 stitches- Glossary of embroidery stitches and techniques

    At thirty-one, she spends a summer in Greece; there, alone on a tranquil island, she begins writing stories about her grandmother’s experiences in 1940s Egypt, her mother’s youth in 1960s Greece, and finally, her own life in contemporary America—trying to make sense of her future by exploring the past. Spanning Thair’s life from thirty-one to thirty-six, The Greek Persuasion explores human sexuality, the complexity of mother-daughter relationships, and the choices women of different generations make when choosing—or settling—for “Mr. (or Ms.) Good Enough.” Will Thair ever find that missing part of her that Zeus chopped off with his magic sword? Or is the concept of The One just one big fairy tale that has left her searching for someone who doesn’t exist?

    Kate is the final heir to a family fortune, but nothing is simple in the tragic history of the Romanov clan. In order to claim the royal riches, Kate must find a long-missing alexandrite gem-the Romanov Stone-which is no easy task.Simon Blake, a respected New York gemologist, will be her companion as they travel overseas in search of the legendary jewel. They will not be fighting historians or archaeologists, however. Instead, they must go up against jewel thieves, members of a blood-thirsty crime syndicate, and a sinister cleric trained in mind control.Simon wants to find the stone as much as Kate does, but his romantic feelings for her make him more protective than proactive. He wants no harm to come to Kate, whereas she is fiercely driven by the need to make sense of her family history. She knows she deserves the fortune. Kate will find the alexandrite and restore honor to the Romanov line-if it's the last thing she does.

     We all know what a .300 hitter looks like. The same with a 20-game winner. Those numbers are ingrained in our brains. But do they mean as much as we think? Do we feel the same way when we hear a batter has a .390 wOBA? How about a pitcher with a 1.2 WHIP? These statistics are the future of modern baseball, and no fan should be in the dark about how these metrics apply to the game.In the last twenty years, an avalanche of analytics has taken over the way the game is played, managed, and assessed, but the statistics that drive the sport (metrics like wRC+, FIP, and WAR, just to name a few) read like alphabet soup to a large number of fans who still think batting average, RBIs, and wins are the best barometers for baseball players.In A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics, MLB.com reporter and columnist Anthony Castrovince has taken on the role as explainer to help such fans understand why the old stats don’t always add up. Readers will also learn where these modern stats came from, what they convey, and how to use them to evaluate players of the present, past, and future. For instance, what if we told you that when Joe DiMaggio had his famous 56-game hitting streak in 1941, helping him win the AL MVP, that there was, perhaps, someone more deserving? In fact, the great Ted Williams actually had a higher fWAR, bWAR, wRC+, OPS, OPS+, ISO, RC . . . well, you get the picture. So, streak or no streak, Williams should have been league MVP.An introductory course on sabermetrics, A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics is an easily digestible resource that readers can keep turning back to when they see a modern metric referenced in today’s baseball coverage.

    And who better to teach us how to DIY our lives than the über-crafty editors of BUST, the quirky, raw, and real magazine “for women who have something to get off their chests”? In The BUST DIY Guide to Life, magazine founders Debbie Stoller (of Stitch ’n Bitch fame) and Laurie Henzel have culled more than 250 of the best DIY and craft projects from its 15-year history. Organized by category—beauty and health, fashion, food and entertaining, career, finance, travel, and sex—and written in BUST’s trademark brazen and witty style, this quintessential DIY encyclopedia from the quintessential DIY magazine is eclectic, empowering, hilarious, and downright practical, truly capturing the spirit of women today.Praise for the BUST DIY Guide to Life:“This lifestyle manual will come in handy when you need anything from a headache remedy to a dirt-cheap wedding.” —Entertainment Weekly“Has tips on beauty, fashion, and finance, too, all with attitude. But our dog-eared pages? Decorating, all the way.” -- Los Angeles Times“It’s a rare do-it-yourself book that combines instructions for both homemade pot holders and Tantric sex. But The Bust DIY Guide to Life isn’t your typical how-to manual. The book, by Bust magazine cofounders Laurie Henzel and Debbie Stoller, is an irreverent yet informative guide to much of what life throws your way—removing laundry stains, lubricating a bicycle chain, even planning a wedding on the cheap.” —Akron Beacon Journal "Looking for one source to provide answers on how to do practical things? This is it! A friendly compendium that shows you (with many pictures and diagrams) how to replace a broken zipper, make soap, turn your bell bottoms into straight-leg jeans, how to buy an old house, how to buy a vintage car, how to skateboard and lots more." —The Fresno Bee

    Jakes pens a compelling story that unites love, suspense, and faith into one heart-wrenching package.Based on the film, Woman Thou Art Loosed: On the Seventh Day, executive-produced by T.D. Jakes, a novel that follows the lives of a couple whose love and commitment are tested when their only child is kidnapped right from under them in their gated community in New Orleans. David, a respected college professor and his wife, Kari, appear to be the perfect church-going prosperous couple when their young daughter is abducted. The police immediately launch an investigation and set out to find the child of this high-profile couple. Reports surface of a serial child-kidnapper on the loose with a pattern of killing his victims on the seventh day, so there’s no time to waste. In pursuit of information relevant to the case, they uncover information about Kari whose past threatens their marriage and challenges their capacity to forgive.

    For a hundred years, generations of women from Gee’s Bend have quilted together, sharing stories, trading recipes, singing hymns—all the while stitchin’ and pullin’ thread through cloth. Every day Baby Girl listens, watches, and waits, until she’s called to sit at the quilting frame. Piece by piece, she puzzles her quilt together—telling not just her story, but the story of her family, the story of Gee’s Bend, and the story of her ancestors’ struggle for freedom.

    Artfully it explores in a fresh way the perennial interest of children in the "olden times" of a family.Maud and Amelia are two old sisters who live at each end of a long, long bed. Although they, disagree about most things, they do agree that their plain white bedspread is the most boring feature of their boring life. So they decide to decorate it, each embroidering on it their recollection of the house in which they grew up, Maud, a fine needlewoman, remembers all her stitches: spider stitch, pineapple, bugle, buttonhole, and the others. Amelia has forgotten hers, but she remembers the happiness and excitement, the people and animals that filled the house. When finished, the bedspread is a surprise, but each treasures it in her own way.This lovely story, which young and old can enjoy together or separately, is a rich feast of pleasure for the eye and heart.

    Those involved in marketing, design, advertising, and retail need to be as informed as possible about the usage of color as a means of instant communication in order to make appropriate color decisions.This guide explains the emotional response to color and covers the latest guidelines for effective color combinations including the integration of color trends. With up-to-date visuals and printing formulas to eliminate guess-work, this guide empowers and equips its users to make smart informed decisions.

    

    She lived through the Civil War and Reconstruction, and eventually owned a cotton farm with her family, all the while relying on her skills with the needle to clothe and feed her children.   Later she began making pictorial quilts, using each square to illustrate Bible stories and local legends. She exhibited her quilts at local cotton fairs, and though she never traveled outside of Georgia, her quilts are now priceless examples of African American folk art.   Barbara Herkert’s lyrical narrative and Vanessa Newton’s patchwork illustrations bring this important artist to life in a moving picture-book biography.

    If you had the chance to go back and fix the past, could you change the outcome and outrun your destiny? Sam Baird is lost. Is she experiencing a bout of amnesia or worse, slipping into the depths of madness? Her memories have been erased and everything she thought she knew is gone. She cannot even be certain of her name. She looks at the man standing beside her at the lake’s edge, but he is focused on something poking out from the water. She hears a whisper. Has he said something to her? Or is it just her intuition, warning her? She closes her eyes, but there is nothing except darkness. The man beside her is both a stranger and strikingly familiar. She knows this man, and she has been in this exact moment—with this man, in this place, in this time—before. But this time is different. Because this time, she runs. Slowly, things begin to fall into place. She remembers now that she is supposed to move to New York City. She is supposed to get her law degree. She has her whole life planned. Running was the right choice, the safe choice. But if Sam has really made the right choice this time, then why is it that she cannot stop thinking about the man at the lake? And why is it that he has jumped from her visions into her reality? Is she bound to this man and this life? Or is she strong enough to stray from the path she had always believed she was destined to walk?