He's all Marine --- fighter pilot, king of the clouds, and absolute ruler of his family. Lillian is his wife -- beautiful, southern-bred, with a core of velvet steel. Without her cool head, her kids would be in real trouble. Ben is the oldest, a born athlete whose best never satisfies the big man. Ben's got to stand up, even fight back, against a father who doesn't give in -- not to his men, not to his wife, and certainly not to his son. Bull Meecham is undoubtedly Pat Conroy's most explosive character -- a man you should hate, but a man you will love.

    Featuring rewritten fairytale heroines, goddess wisdom, and poetry that burns with revolution, this collection is an explosion of femininity, empowerment, and personal growth.

    A man of manners and caution, Strauss manages to bring out the best bad girl in Lisa. And before they know it, two very different people from two very different worlds are doing the one thing you should never do at the office: falling in love.In her funny, familiar, heartbreaking new novel, the award-winning author of Blue Italian weaves a tale of family, work, sex, and love--and of all the things we try to leave behind but never really can. . . .

    Navigating the mysterious path from childhood to adulthood, Sarah encounters a naked, winged man, rivalrous ghosts, and gods disguised as beggars.

    

    Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness.In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This self-described sentimental bird is attracted to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and physical pain of loss gives way to memories, this little unit of three begin to heal.In this extraordinary debut - part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief, Max Porter's compassion and bravura style combine to dazzling effect. Full of unexpected humour and profound emotional truth, Grief is the Thing with Feathers marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent.

    His tweets are re-tweeted a hundred times and thousands follow his blog.Then there’s Paul, who stumbles on an old crush while Facebooking. Through research of her online habits, he arranges a “chance” meeting so they can fall in Like with each other.Martin is a cancer survivor with renewed purpose in life thanks to a supportive social media family.It’s a tapestry of people and events woven together with this era’s most abundant thread: social media.“With one Like I can say hi to a friend, support them during a crisis, share in a joke, make someone happy, or reinforce a person’s self esteem. I make myself part of their world. It’s like I stopped by for coffee. But, by Liking, I can also avoid talking to all the people I don’t want to waste time on. Or I can check to see what my ex girlfriend is doing seven or eight times an hour. It’s a double-edged mouse click.”- Anonymous

    His characters, for whom the closest-though hopelessly inadequate-description might be "eccentrics," share the stage with swamp elves and midgets living in the backyard. His fiction is unlike anybody else's and is as dark, hilarious, and affecting as any ever written. It's also writing that lays bare the agony of adolescence and plows, as the Cleveland Plain Dealer once put it, "the fields of puzzling wonder that precede the responsibilities and disappointments of adulthood."What bred and fed Nordan's imagination, his originality, his indefatigable sense of humor? The answers aren't obvious. But now that Lewis Nordan produces, directs, and stars in his own story, we just might find out.Nordan's mother was widowed when he was a baby, and she went back to her home town to remarry and raise her only son "Buddy." Itta Bena, Mississippi, was a prototypical fifties Delta town, so drowsy that even before puberty, Nordan had made his escape plans. What happened next was pretty typical-a stint in the Navy, college in Mississippi, very early marriage, young fatherhood, alcoholism, infidelities, broken hearts. But in Nordan's hands, the typical turns into the transcendent and, at the heart of things, there is always the irrepressible laughter.Horrible things and horribly funny things happen in Boy with Loaded Gun, but it's that heart that leads us through Lewis Nordan's dark tunnel and back into the light.

    At that tender age, her little sister disappeared-never to be found. It was a loss that slowly eroded the family bonds she once relied on. As an adult with a prestigious job in the arts, Julie meets a struggling artist who reminds her so much of her sister, she can't help feeling protective. It is a friendship that begins a long and painful process of healing for Julie, leading her to a house on the Gulf Coast, ravaged by hurricane Katrina, and to stories of family that take her deep into the past.

    Above all, as a very young child she decided one day that even if there was no other person in the world who loved and wanted her, she was going to love and care for herself—and that decision changed the course of her life. Africa’s Child is the story of a mixed-race girl growing up in the Usambara Mountains of Tanzania, East Africa. Raised in an orphanage with no knowledge of her origins or family, she endured abandonment, hardships, severe illnesses, and bullying. Her experiences as a child and teenager included physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, social stigma, and racial discrimination.Yet Nhambu tells her inspiring story with warmth and humor. Her questioning mind probes the African tribal realities and multi-cultural complexities that impacted her life both at the orphanage and schools run by German nuns as well as at an African high school with American nuns. Nhambu not only survived her childhood but triumphed. Her faith and resilience, along with a belief in learning and her tenacious pursuit of an education, sustained her through many challenges. Dance, especially African tribal dance, became the way she healed and nourished her spirit. Through the love and commitment of an American teacher she met in Africa, Nhambu was able to pursue her dream of education and a new life for herself. The first book in her three-part memoir ends as she is leaving Africa for university studies in America on a full scholarship.Maria Nhambu is the creator of Aerobics With Soul®, a fitness workout based on African dance.

    Set on the Eastern shore of Maryland, on the eve of World War II, the story concerns the decline of the once-grand Mason family.From the Hardcover edition.

    An old rancher takes him in and teaches him how to wrangle cattle. The refugee learns to break horses and gains notoriety as a horse whisperer. Soon the stranger and rancher develop a deeply abiding friendship. The old man and his wife come to depend on Travis as they age and become helpless. They devise a plan to deed their ranch to him until their daughter finds out. She allies herself with a wealthy land owner and together they try to prove the old rancher and his wife are incompetent and that Windy, the daughter, should be given power of attorney for her parents. As the battle ensues, the old couple's health deteriorates. Who will prevail in Travis's attempt to find sanctuary? Is blood thicker than water or do those who care for you constitute family? This story, at times poignant, at times humorous, explores family, ranch life, and a friendship between two people from different worlds.

    When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the "ungettable" Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn't wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner's, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick's Cathedral and take the rest as it comes.

    They saw. They came and took what they saw.The Esker sisters are shoppers. Loving, caring, driven, merciless shoppers. Ida never "passes a store without slipping in and buying something to give away." Pola, who only buys in bulk, would have been good in foreign affairs: "If a nation acted up, Aunt Pola would buy it." And Hedy, dearest of them all, proved the whole thing was genetic. Or maybe environmental. Either way, she passed the bug of galloping consumption onto her son.Her son is Joe Reckler. Twenty-six. Yale grad. No job. No ties. Nothing to keep him from joining Mother and the aunts on a week-long shopping extravaganza disguised as a New England Autumn Leaves Tour that takes them everywhere from Bloomingdale's to L. L. Bean. But soon Joe notices a difference between himself and his mega-shopping mentors. You see, he figures you're supposed to pay.

    it contains black & white photographs paired with poetry pieces; giving it a photo diary feels.