Up and Down Stairs brings to life this hierarchy, showing how large numbers of people lived together under strict segregation and how sometimes this segregation was broken, as with the famous marriage of a squire to his dairymaid at Uppark. Jeremy Musson captures the voices of the servants who ran these vast houses and made them work. From unpublished memoirs to letters, wages, and newspaper articles, he pieces together their daily lives from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The story of domestic servants is inseparable from the story of the country house as an icon of power, civilization, and luxury. This is particularly true with the great estates such as Chatsworth, Hatfield, Burghley and Wilton. Jeremy Musson looks at how these grand houses were, for centuries, admired and imitated around the world.

    Seven days a week, its army of 300,000 letter carriers delivers 513 million pieces of mail, forty percent of the world’s volume. It is far more efficient than any other mail service—more than twice as efficient as the Japanese and easily outpacing the Germans and British. And the USPS has a storied history. Founded by Benjamin Franklin, it was the information network that bound far-flung Americans together, fostered a common culture, and helped American business to prosper. A first class stamp remains one of the greatest bargains of all time, and yet, the USPS is slowly vanishing. Critics say it is slow and archaic. Mail volume is down. The workforce is shrinking. Post offices are closing.In Neither Snow Nor Rain, journalist Devin Leonard tackles the fascinating, centuries-long history of the USPS, from the first letter carriers through Franklin’s days, when postmasters worked out of their homes and post roads cut new paths through the wilderness. Under Andrew Jackson, the post office was molded into a vast patronage machine, and by the 1870s, over seventy percent of federal employees were postal workers. As the country boomed, USPS aggressively developed new technology, from mobile post offices on railroads and air mail service to mechanical sorting machines and optical character readers.Neither Snow Nor Rain is a rich, multifaceted history, full of remarkable characters, from the stamp-collecting FDR, to the revolutionaries who challenged USPS’s monopoly on mail, to the renegade union members who brought the system—and the country—to a halt in the 1970s. An exciting and engrossing read, Neither Snow Nor Rain is the first major history of the USPS in over fifty years.

    But for all the novelty of the sitcom based on Charles Addams’s groundbreaking New Yorker cartoons, Hollywood’s Addams family paled beside the cartoonist’s. “Not half as evil as my original characters,” sighed Addams.Though the haunted-household cartoons developed a following among New Yorker readers long before the 1960s sitcom, and the Addams and their seedy Victorian mansion soon became recognizable types, the artist with the well-known signature “Chas Addams” remained an enigma. Called “the Bela Lugosi of the cartoonists,” Addams was the cartoonist everyone–even Hitchcock–wanted to meet. He was bedeviled by rumors. People claimed that he slept in a coffin, collected severed fingers sent by fans, and suffered bouts of madness that sent him to the insane asylum.The true Addams was even more fabulous than the wildest stories and cartoons. Here was a sunny, funny urbane man, “a normal American boy,” as he called himself, with a dog who hated children and a taste for crossbows. While producing a unique body of work featuring lovingly drawn homicidal spouses, demonic children, genteel monsters, and an everyday world crosshatched with magic, Addams raced classic sports cars, juggled beautiful women (Joan Fontaine, Jackie Kennedy, and Greta Garbo, to name a few), and charmed everyone. But though his pursuits suggest lighthearted romantic comedy, Addams’s life had its sinister side. Far darker than anything Addams created with a brush was his relationship with a dangerous woman who forever changed his life.In this first biography of the great cartoonist, written with exclusive access to Addams’s intimates and his private papers, we finally meet the man behind the famed cartoons and circling rumors. Here is his surprising childhood in New Jersey, the cartoon that offended the Nazis, the friend whose early death Addams long mourned. Here are his wives, the stories behind his most famous–and some of his most private–cartoons, and the Addams whom even his closest friends didn’t know.With wit, humor, poignancy, and insight–enhanced by rare family photographs, classic and previously unpublished cartoons, and private drawings–Linda H. Davis paints an engaging and endearing portrait of a marvelous American original.One of America’s most gifted biographers, Linda Davis has given us an engrossing, unforgettable portrait of the legendary New Yorker cartoonist. In Davis’s empathetic narrative and in accompanying cartoons, photographs, and drawings, the great artist lives again in all his eccentric brilliance,ghoulish sense of humor, fecund love life, and warm and gentle humanity. Beautifully written and exhaustively researched, Chas Addams: A Cartoonist’s Life deserves to win every literary prize there is for best biography.--Stephen B. Oates, Paul Murray Kendall Professor of Biography and Professor History Emeritus, The University of Massachusetts at Amherst “If you don’t appreciate martinis with eyeballs in them, this is not the book for you. For the rest of us here is an irresistible riot of a read, an exhilarating expertly mixed cocktail of words and images. Charles Addams’s life was crowded with women–famous women, smart women, witty women, garden-variety drop-dead beautiful women–but in Linda Davis he has truly met his match.” --Stacy Schiff, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Vera “Seldom have we found as satisfying a fit of subject and author as this. Linda Davis has distilled years of research, travel and interviews into a rollicking and fascinating review of Addams’s astonishing life as artist, playboy and–from time to time–husband. We can all be grateful that Addams and Davis finally found one another.”--Harrison Kinney,author of James Thurber: His Life and Times

    

    This highly successful program takes a functional approach to the process of management, with a focus on active planning, leading, organizing, and controlling. Ricky Griffin's straightforward writing style and well-researched in-text examples have made this book uncommonly student-friendly. The Ninth Edition has been significantly revised to reflect the most recent issues that managers face, with a new and enhanced focus on the service sector, ethics, global management, and information technology. Additionally, the text integrates issues such as the balance of theory and practice and uses examples based on small companies and non-profit organizations to underscore the idea that management is not simply confined to large businesses.

    Lillian Low's homespun values-people come in all flavors just like ice cream-bring joy and humor into the Low house. When restless Joe Low ditches one suburb for another because he wants a do-over, Lillian tells him, "How the hell many do you need? Don't you know that wherever you go, you've got to take yourself with you?" Along for the ride is the colorful, extended Low clan, who turn up to celebrate the arrival of Joe and Lillian's army of kids. They eat, sing, Joe gets plastered, and all too often, scotch-fired arguments lead to some good old-fashioned fistfights. The mayhem that actually started the brawl gets swept under the carpet, and when Curran finally pulls it up, pandemonium emerges from hell with a vengeance. Through the vision of a sensitive young girl with a wickedly funny voice, "Secondhand Scotch" uncorks some harsh realities, but never ceases to warm and entertain.

    As photographers, we frequently have difficulty speaking about images because, frankly, we don’t know how to think about them. And if we don’t know how to think about a photograph and its “visual language”– how an image is constructed, how it works, and why it works–then, when we’re behind the camera, are we really making images that best communicate our vision, our original intent? Vision–crucial as it is–is not the ultimate goal of photography; expression is the goal. And to best express ourselves, it is necessary to learn and use the grammar and vocabulary of the visual language.Photographically Speaking is about learning photography’s visual language to better speak to why and how a photograph succeeds, and in turn to consciously use that visual language in the creation of our own photographs, making us stronger photographers who are able to fully express and communicate our vision. By breaking up the visual language into two main components–“elements” make up its vocabulary, and “decisions” are its grammar–David duChemin transforms what has traditionally been esoteric and difficult subject matter into an accessible and practical discussion that photographers can immediately use to improve their craft. Elements are the “words” of the image, what we place within the frame–lines, curves, light, color, contrast. Decisions are the choices we make in assembling those elements to best express and communicate our vision–the use of framing, perspective, point of view, balance, focus, exposure.All content within the frame has meaning, and duChemin establishes that photographers must consciously and deliberately choose the elements that go within their frame and make the decisions about how that frame is constructed and presented. In the second half of the book, duChemin applies this methodology to his own craft, as he explores the visual language in 20 of his own images, discussing how the intentional choices of elements and decisions that went into their creation contribute to their success.

    I’m not just a firefighter. I’m also the newly appointed Alpha of the Shadowbrook wolf-shifter pack. But that isn’t the only thing that’s changed. I’ve partnered with Grace. The sexy police officer in search of missing children. She knows it’s best to accept my help. But Grace is smart. She also knows that I can’t keep my hands off of her. Well, neither can she. She won’t admit it, but we’re meant to be. I want to claim her as my mate. Mark her as mine. Grace may not be a shifter, but her past is as dark as mine. And her future uncertain. Her protection is my responsibility. And her heart? She’ll hand it to me sooner or later. Note: Adults Only. This is the third book of firefighter wolves shifter series with a HEA and no cliff-hangers. Fans of Terry Bolryder, Zoe Chant, Harmony Raines and T.S. Joyce may like this shapeshifter series.

    Now he’s back in Peregrine Bay, looking for a new life and second chance. Julia Kerrigan’s life rebounded after the sudden betrayal of the one man she ever loved. As president of a successful real estate company, she’s built a new life and future, pushing the painful past behind her. Adam’s reason for accepting the job as the town’s new Police Chief can be explained in one word—Julia. He wants her back and will do whatever is necessary to achieve his goal, even knowing his biggest hurdle is the woman he still loves. As they begin to reconnect, a terrible scandal breaks loose with Julia and Adam at the center. Will the threat to their lives and reputations destroy their fledgling romance? Can Adam identify and eliminate the danger to Julia before he’s had a chance to reclaim her love? Read Reclaiming Love, Book One in my new contemporary romance series, Kerrigans of Peregrine Bay. This book is a 36,000 word novella.

    He comes to her rescue…MAYAI first noticed Sheriff Ajax when he moved to town.Trying to ignore his sexy presence, I trained my focus on school.Little did I know he was a Daddy, and he’d been searching for the perfect little.There was no way he’d train his sights on me.I wasn’t nearly perfect enough for him.But when he catches me in a dangerous situation, he doesn’t hesitate to protect me.Is this lust?Or is this finally my one true love?AJAXAfter a string of ex-lovers cheated on me, I’d sworn off love.I moved to a small town as the next Sheriff to protect myself, and my heart.I never thought I’d encounter a Little here.And Maya isn’t just any little—she’s gorgeous.Addictive, sweet, and incredibly sassy, I’m in deep.When I see her in danger, I have to help her.After holding her in my arms, I’m done for.We’re bound to one another for life.Daddy Claiming his Little is a sexy, short, Age Play romance featuring two consenting adults who are the perfect match for each other. It includes some DDlg elements, some moments of suspense, lots of lust and love, and a Happily Ever After you can root for. Enjoy!This is Book One of the Sheriff Daddies Little Girl series, a collection of standalone novelettes exploring the Daddies of a little West Virginia Town, an area full of mystery and romance. The books can be read in any order.

    Yeah. That's exactly what I told her. I needed a way out from an arranged marriage. What could be a better candidate than a girl I hooked up with? Oh, and on top of that... She's carrying my baby. Bringing me a problem on top of my already irritating job. But the way her body is speaking to me... I'm already undressing her with my eyes. Maybe I just want to keep her. Forever. Even if both of us don't want to admit it... We need each other.

    

    Eleven-year-old Nannerl Mozart is performing before the crowned heads of Europe with her younger brother, Wolfgang. But behind the glamour lurk dark difficulties-- the hardship of travel, agonizing bouts of illness, and the constant concern over money. Their father, Leopold, is driven by a desire to bring his son's genius to the attention of the world. But what about Nannerl? Is she not just as talented? In a time where women's choices are limited, what hope does she have of ever realizing her own dreams?

    Here are the funniest and most feline cats ever assembled in 101 cartoons, the cream of the cream, from sixty-five years of the New Yorker.

    Montana 1886 Abigail Long had promised to become Nathan Grantly’s mail order bride. But she had changed her mind at the last minute. The tragedy that had struck had made it unthinkable that she go to Montana and start a new life with a man she hadn’t even met. Tall, handsome Nathan Grantly wasn’t the kind of rancher to take no for an answer. The widower had a prosperous ranch to run and he needed a wife to bring up his young daughter. So Nathan did what came naturally. He came to claim his wife. Will Abby be able to resist Nathan and the lure of her new life in Montana? And what will Nathan do when he finds out the real reason Abby was reluctant to become his wife, and what it means for their future together? Can Abby fulfil her dreams in the wilds of Montana? This is the first in a new series of sweet historical romances, Montana Ranchers Brides.