When you are the mother of boys, it seems like this question is on a continuous tape loop in your head. Humor columnist Sharon O’Donnell knows this feeling. In House of Testosterone, she chronicles her adventures raising three sons and reining in her über-male, forgetful husband, Kevin. She shares her stories of welcoming her third son into the world, resisting the gravitational pull of the “guy zone,” and running a household immersed in a world of sports, bathroom humor, and laundry. O’Donnell’s spirit shines through as she struggles to find some “me time” or survive another comical family vacation.These entertaining episodes of child- (and husband-) rearing lovingly illustrate why Sharon calls herself “Lady of the House of Testosterone.”

    This book assists all players in their efforts to improve, and provides fresh insights into the opening and early middlegame.Rowson presents many new ideas on how Black should best combat White's early initiative, and make use of the extra information that he gains as a result of moving second. For instance, he shows that in some cases a situation he calls 'Zugzwang Lite' can arise, where White finds himself lacking any constructive moves. He also takes a close look at the theories of two players who, in differing styles, have specialized in championing Black's cause: Mihai Suba and Andras Adorjan. Readers are also equipped with a 'mental toolkit' that will enable them to handle many typical over-the-board situations with greater success, and avoid a variety of psychological pitfalls.Chess for Zebras offers fresh insights into human idiosyncrasies in all phases of the game. The depth and breadth of this book will therefore help players to appreciate chess at a more profound level, and make steps towards sustained and significant improvement.

    The Stoddard girls—responsible Mayme, whip-smart tomboy Jeanine, and bookish Bea—know no life but an itinerant one, trailing their father from town to town as he searches for work on the pipelines and derricks; that is, when he's not spending his meager earnings at gambling joints, race tracks, and dance halls. And in every small town in which the windblown family settles, mother Elizabeth does her level best to make each sparse, temporary house they inhabit a home.But the fall of 1937 ushers in a year of devastating drought and dust storms, and the family's fortunes sink further than they ever anticipated when a questionable "accident" leaves Elizabeth and her girls alone to confront the cruelest hardships of these hardest of times. With no choice left to them, they return to the abandoned family farm.It is Jeanine, proud and stubborn, who single-mindedly devotes herself to rebuilding the farm and their lives. But hard work and good intentions won't make ends meet or pay the back taxes they owe on their land. In desperation, the Stoddard women place their last hopes for salvation in a wildcat oil well that eats up what little they have left . . . and on the back of late patriarch Jack's one true legacy, a dangerous racehorse named Smoky Joe. And Jeanine, the fatherless "daddy's girl," must decide if she will gamble it all . . . on love.

    Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most inspiring political drama in the world. Mandela: An Illustrated Autobiography tells the extraordinary story of Nelson Mandela's life, an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph. With nearly 200 stunning photographs - many of them published here for the first time - and with text adapted from his remarkable memoir Long Walk to Freedom, this moving book captures the indomitable spirit of a moral giant and dramatically portrays his struggle toward freedom. Mandela's journey is vividly and eloquently recounted: the development of his political consciousness, his pivotal role in the formation of the African National Congress Youth League, his years underground - which led to a sentence of life imprisonment in 1964 - and his twenty-seven years behind bars. He also movingly recounts the momentous events leading up to his victory in South Africa's first-ever multiracial elections in 1994.

    6th edition, Updated September 2014 color print

    She discovers a sympathetic ear in her nurse Anna Howard, who finds herself drawn into the Fitzgerald’s tumultuous lives and wonders which of them is the true genius. But in taking greater emotional risks to save Zelda, Anna may end up paying a far higher price than she ever intended.In this thoroughly researched, deeply moving novel, Erika Robuck explores the boundaries of female friendship, the complexity of marital devotion, and the sources of both art and madness.

    England. Jean, a young and somewhat ignorant woman, is engaged to the politician Stonor, who is up for election for Cabinet Minister. At her aunt Lady John's house, she meets the beautiful and mysterious Miss Levering, an independent lady who has lived through a great deal in her past and is now fighting for women's rights. When Jean hears Miss Levering talk about the horrible situation of young, poor and homeless women in England, she is shocked. Slowly she gets interested in the suffragette's movement, something her fiancé did not expect to be so strong. But then Jean learns that Stonor's annoyance about her involvment in the matter and her interest in Miss Levering has other reasons that dive into his past.

    Bored with the stultifying etiquette of the Hapsburg Court and her dutiful but unexciting husband, Franz Joseph, Sisi comes to England to hunt. She comes looking for excitement and she finds it in the dashing form of Captain Bay Middleton, the only man in Europe who can outride her. Ten years younger than her and engaged to the rich and devoted Charlotte, Bay has everything to lose by falling for a woman who can never be his. But Bay and the Empress are as reckless as each other, and their mutual attraction is a force that cannot be denied.Full of passion and drama, THE FORTUNE HUNTER tells the true story of a nineteenth century Queen of Hearts and a cavalry captain, and the struggle between love and duty.

    Beginning with the rise of ancient seafaring civilizations at Oc Eco and moving on to the glory of the Cambodian empire in the first millennium, through European colonization and the struggle for independence in the twentieth century, Osborne traces the history of the region that comprises the modern nations of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Burma, and China. Vibrant, insightful, and eminently readable, The Mekong is a rousing history of a dynamic region that has fascinated readers the world over.

    The gravy train hasn’t stopped in the hollers of western Virginia for more than thirty years when Stony Shelor starts his junior year at Jubal Early High. Class divides and racism are still the hardened norms as the Eisenhower years draw to a close. Violence lies coiled under the calm surface, ready to strike at any time. On the high school front, the cool boys are taking their wardrobe and music cues from hip TV private dick Peter Gunn, and Dobie Gillis is teaching them how to hit on pretty girls. There’s no help for Stony on the horizon, though. Mary Lou Martin is the girl of his dreams, and she hardly knows Stony exists. In addition, Stony can’t seem to stay out of juvenile court and just may end up in reform school. A long, difficult year stretches out in front of him when a new boy arrives in town. Likeable bullshit artist Jack Newcomb dresses like Peter Gunn, uses moves like Dobie Gillis, and plays pretty good jazz clarinet. Jack draws Stony into his fantasy of being a private detective, and the two boys start hanging around the county sheriff’s office. Accepted as sources of amusement and free labor, the aspiring gumshoes land their first case after the district attorney’s house is burglarized. Later, the boys hatch an ingenious scheme to help the deputies raid an illegal speakeasy and brothel. All the intrigue feels like fun and games to Jack and Stony until a gunfight with a hillbilly boy almost gets them killed. The stakes rise even higher when the boys find themselves facing off against the Ku Klux Klan.

    Distilled from the teachings of more than one hundred sages in three continents, it offers an extraordinary variety of underlying themes, from "the inner significance of outward service" to "real and imagined desire". A book of enormous breath and depth it emphasizes experience over theory and it is this characteristic of Sufic study which provides its impact and vitality. Valuable as it is, this book's publication in the West has only recently become possible, because only recently has the West been able to accept the fluid thinking of the East and to reject the old rigid systems that have only appearance of wisdom. As a master teacher says in these pages, "The wisdom which is invisible but which sustains is a hundred times better than the appearance of wisdom, for that has itself to be sustained."

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    It opens a window onto the Catholic faith and will open the minds of believers and skeptics alike.” --Peggy NoonanThe Catholic Church may be the most controversial institution in the world. Some find its teachings inexplicable, puzzling, even cruel. In this incisive new work, George Weigel suggests that we look at Catholicism and its controversies from “inside” the convictions that make those controversies not only possible, but necessary. The truths of Catholicism then come into clearer focus as affirmations and celebrations of human life and human love, even as they challenge us to imagine a daring future for humanity and for ourselves.Is Jesus uniquely the savior of the world? Is the moral life about rules or about happiness? Doesn’t suffering contradict the biblical claim that God is good? How does the Catholic Church think about other Christians and about other great world religions? In an engaging, accessible style, George Weigel leads us into the truth of Catholicism: the truth about a love that creates a vast, liberating terrain on which to live a fully human life.

    Now Lady must find a way to survive on the cold, hard streets. After landing a dead-end job at a donut shop, Lady wonders how she will ever make it out of a six-dollar-an-hour existence. Then she meets Cream, the leader of one of the most notorious gangs in New York City. Cream quickly decides that he wants to own this beauty and recruits her for his prostitution ring. Lady joins the "Cream Team," but she has no intentions of working the streets forever. In fact, she plans to run the show and she's willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. But the streets don't love nobody, and it's not long before Lady is deep in a game she can no longer control. The question is: Will she be able to get out of the game before the game claims her?

    A. L. Kennedy’s men and women huddle in foreign hotel rooms, immobilized by travel-sickness and betrayal. They plan seductions on the line at a cheese shop. They’re undone by a passing embrace in the office men’s room. Their passion is so urgent and imperious that it invades the stories they tell their children.By turns chaste and ferociously sexy, funny and unbearably sad, every story in Indelible Acts is a testament to the lengths to which desire drives us. And all are marked by Kennedy’s wisdom and humanity, and language that captures the briefest tremor of the infatuated heart.