And when she is offered a place as an exchange student at a school in America it seems as if her dreams will be fulfilled. welcoming ... until she starts having to live in the suffocating and repressed atmosphere of their suburban mansion and things begin to go terribly wrong. of American Beauty in its dissection of engrained prejudices and middle-class hypocrisy. In Lou Connor, Hyland has created a larger-than-life protagonist who mesmerises the reader with her vivacity and vulnerability, from hopeful beginning to unexpected, haunting end.

    Consuelo, the elder, is thought of as pensive and book-loving, the serious child-la niña seria-while Mili, her younger sister, is seen as vivacious, a ray of tropical sunshine. Two daughters: one dark, one light; one to offer comfort and consolation, the other to charm and delight. But, for all the joy both girls should bring, something is not right in this Puerto Rican family; a tragedia is developing, like a tumor, at its core.In this fierce, funny, and sometimes startling novel, we follow a young woman's quest to negotiate her own terms of survival within the confines of her culture and her family.magazine"Judith Ortiz Cofer has created a character who takes us by the hand on a journey of self-discovery. She reminds readers young and old never to forget our own responsibilities, and to enjoy life with all its joys and sorrows."--Bessy Reyna, MultiCultural Review

    Lawrence Lipton's fascinating book is one of the first complete, unbiased studies of the strange, important offshoot of society.

    The Cannes Film Festival jury voted unanimously to award the 2004 Best Picture Award to Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11. Since then, it has gone on to smash all box office records for a documentary and created an international discussion about the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader is a powerful and informative book that includes the complete screenplay of the most provocative film of the year. The book also includes extensive sources that back up all facts in the film, as well as articles, letters, photos, and cartoons about the most influential documentary of all time.

    Read it!"—CHRISTOPHER MOOREJoin cult favorite Tony Vigorito in his award-winning underground hit chronicling the party at the end of time. A mischievous artist kicks off a game of graffiti tag on a local overpass by painting the simple phrase, “Uh-oh.” An anonymous interlocutor writes back: “When?” Someone slyly answers: “Just a couple of days.” But what happens in just a couple of days? Professor Blip Korterly is arrested, his friend Dr. Flake Fountain is drafted into a shadow-government research project to develop the ultimate biological weapon, and an accidental outbreak turns into a merry-hearted, babble-inducing apocalypse that will either destroy humankind or take it to the next step in evolution."Just a Couple of Days. From this seemingly harmless bit of highway graffiti springs Tony Vigorito's inventive debut novel, a madcap adventure of a sinister government plot and an apocalyptic vision worthy of Kurt Vonnegut... After being conscripted as the genetics expert for a secret military project, Dr. Flake Fountain, a molecular geneticist at a major university, is thrust into the (literally) underground development of a biological agent with the power to disable enemies’ symbolic capacity, leaving them unable to communicate. But Just a Couple of Days is no mere sci-fi daydream. Vigorito’s research is impressive, and the narrative pops with linguistic acrobatics reminiscent of Tom Robbins… Vigorito engages in consistently dazzling wordplay, and readers will eagerly follow the narrative as it moves beyond the conventional boundaries of storytelling… An underground cult classic." —Kirkus Reviews

    He also gave it a figure of enduring romantic allure–fiery, restless, extravagant, a prodigal gambler and inveterate seducer of women. Having forged a dazzling, controversial career that cost him the enmity of one tsar and won him the patronage of another, he died at the age of thirty-eight, following a duel with a French officer who was paying unscrupulous attention to his wife.In his magnificent, prizewinning Pushkin, T. J. Binyon lifts the veil of the iconic poet’s myth to reveal the complexity and pathos of his life while brilliantly evoking Russia in all its nineteenth-century splendor. Combining exemplary scholarship with the pace and detail of a great novel, Pushkin elevates biography to a work of art.

    Born deaf, blind, and mute, with no way to express herself or comprehend those around her, she flew into primal rages against anyone who tried to help her, fighting tooth and nail with a strength born of furious, unknowing desperation. Then Annie Sullivan came. Half-blind herself, but possessing an almost fanatical determination, she would begin a frightening and incredibly moving struggle to tame the wild girl no one could reach, and bring Helen into the world at last....

    L. Mencken is to be confronted with the sad realization that most of what we find in newspapers and journals today is mere sludge. While an Alexander Cockburn or a Christopher Hitchens can churn out a brilliant, at times almost sublime piece of invective, the sad fact is that for all their talent, they are mere polemicists. Mencken, however, was a true contrarian, and, for that reason, he had far more scope for his talents. It would be quite fair to call him a true American genius whose range and Mark Twain-like skepticism leave the reader sometimes convulsed with laughter, sometimes completely enraged, but always transfixed with admiration.In this volume of more than 600 pages, Mencken has collected more than 100 choice passages, ranging from men, women, and southerners to religion, politics, music, literature, and the arts. This selection is a pure delight, and, while not every piece entertains, one cannot help but be awed by this true polymath and regret not having him around today.Edited and annotated by H.L.M., this is a selection from his out-of-print writings. They come mostly from books—the six of the PREJUDICES series, A BOOK OF BURLESQUES, IN DEFENSE OF WOMEN, NOTES ON DEMOCRACY, MAKING A PRESIDENT, A BOOK OF CALUMNY, TREATISE ON RIGHT AND WRONG—but there are also magazine and newspaper pieces that never got between covers (from the American Mercury, the Smart Set, and the Baltimore Evening Sun) and some notes that were never previously published at all.Readers will find edification and amusement in his estimates of a variety of Americans—Woodrow Wilson, Aimee Semple McPherson, Roosevelt I and Roosevelt II, James Gibbons Huneker, Rudolph Valentino, Calvin Coolidge, Ring Lardner, Theodore Dreiser, and Walt Whitman. Those musically inclined will enjoy his pieces on Beethoven, Schubert, and Wagner, and there is material for a hundred controversies in his selections on Joseph Conrad, Thorstein Veblen, Nietzsche, and Madame Blavatsky.The author chose selections form his out of print writings: his books, magazines and newspaper pieces.(from Barnes & Noble)

    Combining science with a sense of adventure, she conveys the sheer excitement of her work, from riding the tail of a white whale to saving animals harmed by drift nets or toxic spills.

    Here are over 100 memorable misstatements by our syntactically challenged president, collected, annotated, and introduced by Slate magazine's Jacob Weisberg. "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." "We'll let our friends be the peacekeepers and the great country called America will be the pacemakers." "It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it." "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." "I do know I'm ready for the job [the presidency]. And if not, that's just the way it goes.

    Telling the story of two sisters-Olivia, a hotshot Hollywood producer whose life is unraveling, and Maddie, an unflaggingly optimistic, seriously ill midwesterner whose idealism has always driven Olivia crazy-The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters offers a startlingly poignant reminder of how hope can grow in even the darkest places.

    Hersh who traveled more than 50,000 miles around the United States and interviewed nearly fifty members of Charlie Company to write this book.

    She may not be pretty yet, but she’s definitely already a real person. She loves learning about people who aren’t boring. Take Eloise home with you and she’ll introduce you to life at The Plaza. You’ll be glad you did!

    At its core are the candid assessments of former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, the only member of Bush's cabinet to leave and speak frankly about how and why the administration has come to its core policies and decisions -- from cutting taxes for the rich to conducting preemptive war.O'Neill's account is supported by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind's interviews with numerous participants in the administration, by transcripts of meetings, and by voluminous documents. The result is a disclosure of breadth and depth unparalleled for an ongoing presidency. As readers are taken to the very epicenter of government, Suskind presents an astonishing picture of a president so carefully managed in his public posture that he is a mystery to most Americans. Now, he is revealed.

    Robert's classic guide to smooth, orderly, and fairly conducted meetings has sold close to five million copies in nine editions. The only book containing the completely developed Robert's Rules of Order subject matter, this latest edition will continue the book's reputation as the gold standard of meeting procedure for parliamentarians and novice club presidents and members alike. Thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the past decade's technological advances and usage, this tenth edition contains new information on how to conduct meetings over the Internet, on phone and video conference calls, and with members in absentia. The best book from which to learn all about running and taking an effective part in meetings, General Robert's gift of order is as indispensable now as it was a century ago.