Night of Battle

Vandals of the Void

The Pygmy Planet

Madame Gil Blas

The Paliser case

La moria grandissima began its terrible journey across the European and Asian continents in 1347, leaving unimaginable devastation in its wake. Five years later, twenty-five million people were dead, felled by the scourge that would come to be called the Black Death. The Great Mortality is the extraordinary epic account of the worst natural disaster in European history -- a drama of courage, cowardice, misery, madness, and sacrifice that brilliantly illuminates humankind's darkest days when an old world ended and a new world was born.

It's time to take back our country.Now. It's that simple. It's that urgent.So begins Dick Morris and Eileen McGann's latest and most important book. They say that we must act before President Barack Obama fully implements his radical political agenda. Because after Obama has won his war on prosperity and canceled the war on terror, it will be too late to regain our liberty or our security.At a time when we needed a pragmatic centrist to lead us out of recession, we got a doctrinaire socialist who wants to use the crisis to put the government in charge of the economy and enact European socialism here in the United States. Cars, banks what's nextHe will keep at it until Washington governs every major business in America and sets all our salaries.It's a catastrophe.Dick Morris and Eileen McGann saw the meltdown coming. In their book Outrage, they called out the house of cards that was Fannie Mae. In Fleeced, they went after the credit card companies, the subprime mortgage lenders, and the hedge fund billionaires who conspired to wreck the economy and Barack Obama, whose policies, they predicted last summer, would "trigger a stock market crash." Now, in Catastrophe, Morris and McGann take a hard look at America in free fall and at how Obama is transforming a vulnerable America into a socialist state.They tell the truth about Obama and his radical policies: He will destroy our health care system so that no one gets adequate care. He designed his bank rescue plan to pave the way for nation-alization of the banks and socialization of the economy. He firmly believes in government control of our major industries he's already commandeered the banks and the automobile industry. He plans to reshape the political landscape to keep the left in power for decades by cooking the census, enfranchising illegal immigrants, muzzling talk radio, and coercing workers into unions. He is attacking those who fight terrorism while letting the terrorists go free. He gives aid to Hamas while Shariah Law threatens to take over America. He has repealed the Declaration of Independence and put us under a worldwide, European-dominated financial regulatory system. But Obama is not working alone. Morris and McGann spell out how Congress is complicit: How Senator Chris Dodd and Congressman Charlie Rangel use special interests and special friends for their own enrichment and glorification. How Ted Kennedy Jr. is exploiting his father's health care power. "This is no time for apathy or alienation or hopelessness," Morris and McGann remind us. "It's a time for action." And that action must begin now before it's too late.

it's so simple! get crafting and create your very own adorable needle-felt zoo.Cute kittens, delightful dachshunds, fabulous foxes, and lovely lions are easy and fun to make when you know how to needle-felt.Needle-felting is a great craft for beginners and the simplest way to create cute, quirky little characters. This book shows you how, with clear text and step-by-step photos.

The landmark The Healing Touch: The Proven Massage Program, now updated and revised.Distinguished veterinarian and animal psychologist Dr. Michael W. Fox shares his pioneering 6-step massage technique through detailed illustrations, photos, and easy-to-read instructions, and provides information on how to understand your cat's anatomy, develop a massage routine, use massage to diagnose illness, and integrate it as part of overall care for your cat.This proven massage program for cats helps affirm the human-animal bond by providing instruction on why cats need massage, how to understand your cat's body language, how to give a diagnostic or therapeutic massage, and how to keep your cat healthy. 60 black & white drawings, photos, resources, index.

For more than twenty years, Dr. Holland has pioneered the study of psychological problems of cancer patients and their families -- whom she calls "the real experts." In The Human Side of Cancer, she shares what she has learned from all of them about facing this life-threatening illness and what truly helps along the cancer journey. This book is the next best thing to sitting in Dr. Holland's office and talking with her about the uncertainty and anxiety elicited by this disease. And it is a book that inspires hope -- through stories of the simple courage of ordinary people confronting cancer.

In Feeling Strong, noted psychoanalyst Ethel S. Person redefines the notion of power. Power is often narrowly understood as the force exerted by the politicians and business leaders who seem to be in charge and by the rich and famous who monopolize our headlines. The whiff of evil we often catch when the subject of power is in the air comes from this one conception of power-- the drive for dominance over other people, or, in its most extreme form, an overriding and often ruthless lust for total command. But this is far too limited a definition of power.Pointing to a more fulfilling sense of self-empowerment than is being touted in pop-psychology manuals of our time, Feeling Strong shows us that power is really our ability to produce an effect, to make something we want to happen actually take place. Power is a desire and a drive, and it central in our lives, dictating much of our behavior and consuming much of our interior lives.We all have a need to possess power, use it, understand it and negotiate it. This holds true not just in mediating our sex and love lives, our family lives and friendships, our work relationships but in seeking to realize our dreams, whether in pursuit of our ambitions, expression of our creative impulses, or in our need to identify with something larger than ourselves. These separate kinds of power are best described as interpersonal power and personal power, respectively, and they call on different parts of our psyche. Ideally, we acquire competence in both domains.Drawing from her expertise honed in clinical practice, as well as from examples in literature and true-life vignettes, Person shows how we can achieve authentic power, a fundamental and potentially benevolent part of human nature that allows us to experience ourselves as authentically strong. To find something that matters; to live life at a higher pitch; to feel inner certainty; to find a personality of your own and effectively plot our own life story -- these are the forms of power explored in the book. To achieve and maintain such empowerment always entails struggle and is a life-long journey. Feeling Strong will lead the way.

Annie Dillard has written eleven books, including the memoir of her parents, An American Childhood; the Northwest pioneer epic The Living; and the nonfiction narrative Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. A gregarious recluse, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In 1955 the murderers of Emmett Till, a black Mississippi youth, were acquitted of their crime, undoubtedly because they were white. Forty years later, O. J. Simpson, whom many thought would be charged with murder by virtue of the DNA evidence against him, went free after his attorney portrayed him as a victim of racism. Clearly, a sea change had taken place in American culture, but how had it happenedIn this important new work, distinguished race relations scholar Shelby Steele argues that the age of white supremacy has given way to an age of white guilt -- and neither has been good for African Americans.As the civil rights victories of the 1960s dealt a blow to racial discrimination, American institutions started acknowledging their injustices, and white Americans -- who held the power in those institutions -- began to lose their moral authority. Since then, our governments and universities, eager to reclaim legitimacy and avoid charges of racism, have made a show of taking responsibility for the problems of black Americans. In doing so, Steele asserts, they have only further exploited blacks, viewing them always as victims, never as equals. This phenomenon, which he calls white guilt, is a way for whites to keep up appearances, to feel righteous, and to acquire an easy moral authority -- all without addressing the real underlying problems of African Americans. Steele argues that calls for diversity and programs of affirmative action serve only to stigmatize minorities, portraying them not as capable individuals but as people defined by their membership in a group for which exceptions must be made.Through his articulate analysis and engrossing recollections of the last half-century of American race relations, Steele calls for a new culture of personal responsibility, a commitment to principles that can fill the moral void created by white guilt. White leaders must stop using minorities as a means to establish their moral authority -- and black leaders must stop indulging them. As White Guilt eloquently concludes, the alternative is a dangerous ethical relativism that extends beyond race relations into all parts of American life.

From the moment Jeff Guidry saw the emaciated baby eagle with broken wings, his life was changed. For weeks he and the staff at Sarvey Wildlife Care Center tended to the grievously injured bird. Miraculously, she recovered, and Jeff, a center volunteer, became her devoted caretaker. Though Freedom would never fly, she had Jeff as her wings. And after Jeff was diagnosed with stage 3 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2000, Freedom returned his gift. Between sessions of debilitating chemotherapy, Jeff went back to Sarvey and began taking Freedom for walks that soothed his spirit and gave him the strength to fight. When he learned he was cancer free, Jeff's first stop was Sarvey to walk with Freedom. Somehow this special bird seemed to understand the significance of the day. For the very first time she wrapped both her wings around Jeff, enveloping him in an avian hug. In March 2008, Jeff shared his extraordinary experience with his friend Gayle in an e-mail of eight hundred words:When Freedom came in she could not stand. Both wings were broken, her left wing in 4 places. . . . We here at the Sarvey Wildlife Care Center made the decision to give her a chance at life. . . . That e-mail would unexpectedly circle the globe and inspire countless fans eager to know more. In An Eagle Named Freedom, Jeff tells the full story of his bond with Freedom and introduces the other wildlife and volunteers who have been saved by Sarvey. A tender tale of hope, love, trust, and life, this moving true story is an affirmation of the spiritual connection that humans and animals share.

Young Americans are returning to the roots of a simpler culture Americana. It's more than mere nostalgia; it's a conscious celebration of community and sustainability. It's a movement born in response to the ever-accelerating pace of modern life and Internet technology overload. All over the country, people are returning to an appreciation for the simpler things in life, which are brilliantly surveyed in United States of Americana the first comprehensive handbook to all things Americana.Music: Renewed interest in the legends of country, blues, gospel, and folk (Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Hank Williams, and Leadbelly); the rise and evolution of alt-country music and the Americana genre (Fleet Foxes, Wilco, the Decemberists, and T Bone Burnett)Fashion: Wearing American heritage clothing and footwear (Red Wing boots, Filson jackets, Carhartt overalls, and Pendleton wool shirts)Grooming: Returning to straight-razor shaving and old-fashioned barber shops D.I.Y.: Taking up handmade crafts (knitting, needlepoint, and soap making), as well as home canning (pickling and preserving) The speakeasy renaissance: Drinking Prohibition- and pre-Prohibition-era cocktails (old-fashioned, gin fizz, and sidecar) Entertainment: Seeking out burlesque, circuses, and the vinyl LP

By night, Brian Johnson sings in the biggest rock ’n’ roll band on the planet. But by day, AC/DC’s frontman drives balls to the wall. Cars and rock ’n’ roll—they were made for each other. When he was a young boy growing up in a working-class English town, Brian developed what would become a lifelong passion for cars, trolling junkyards and even pretending to drive the family car. From there, he steamed up the windows of his old Mini Cooper as a teenager, spent untold time in hygienically challenged tour buses with helpful signs such as No Shitting Allowed. Shagging Expected, was chauffeured in leather-trimmed limos, and raced cars to a checkered flag. Featuring guest stars Cliff Williams, Malcolm and Angus Young, and many, many others, even Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rockers and Rollers is a tribute to Brian’s obsession with four wheels. By turns surprising, poignant, funny, and maybe a little bit bawdy, these are the stories of a man who drives as hard as he rocks.

The golden age of tennis came crashing down suddenly at the 1981 U.S. Open when the stoical Swede, Bj?rn Borg, lost to his brash young rival, John McEnroe, in the final at Flushing Meadows. Through the lens of that era's final tournament, and the play of the other semifinalists, Jimmy Connors and Vitas Gerulaitis, High Strung chronicles the lives and careers of the men who made those Wild West days of tennis so memorable: "Ice Borg," who secretly harbored an inner madman; McEnroe, the tortured, bratty genius; Connors, the game's beloved blue-collar anti-hero; Ilie Nastase, the Romanian clown; Gerulaitis, the New York charmer; and Ivan Lendl, who became a harbinger of tennis's high-powered future. The struggles these men shared were as compelling off the court as they were on.

In this hilarious and moving book, popular English humorist Miles Kington faces cancer and death with his sparkling trademark wit, musing on everything from board games and yodeling to the prospect of being outlived by his dog.When some people are told they have only a few months to live, they might travel around the world or write their memoirs or put their affairs in order. When it happened at the age of 66 to Miles Kington-one of England's best-loved humorists-he did what he did best, offering sharp, wry, laugh-out-loud observations and ideas about his situation. Following his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, Kington proposes crazier and crazier ideas for his next book (what he calls "cashing in on cancer") in a series of letters to his literary agent, Gill.And what sort of things capture Kington's attention in his waning monthsThe sudden grimness of those 1,000 Places to See Before You Die books, for example. (What about 100 Things to Do Before You Die, Without Leaving Home?, he suggests. Instead of bungee jumping and whitewater rafting, learn to whistle with two fingers in your mouth, yodel, or steam open envelopes.) The irony that his dog, Berry, will probably outlive him, or the semi-outrageous idea of creating a funeral video:The answer is quite simple.Make a video in advance of my farewell speech, to be shown on a monitor, from the pulpit, or on a screen behind the stage, or wherever the best place would be.I have already visualised the opening shot.It is of me, smiling ruefully, and saying to camera: "Hello. I'm sorry I couldn't be here in person with you today."Mischievous and utterly original, Miles Kington's words in the face of death are memorable and surprisingly uplifting.

It has been said that dreams are the windows to the soul -- andnow those windows can be opened wide! The book you hold in your hands is a concise compendium of pre*ive information, an easy-to-use reference guide to the meanings and import of the remarkable visions that visit us while we sleep.Here in one volume are the essential keys to unlocking themysteries of the subconscious -- and to putting the power of dreams at your fingertips! The meaning behind more than 800 dream symbols The history of dream interpretation Lucid, repetitive, and sequential dreams Sleep patterns and the workings of the unconscious mind How to keep a "dream diary"

A delicate flower Lady Caroline Burroughs is desperate. Her unscrupulous guardian is squandering away her inheritance, and now wants to gain complete control over her dwindling wealth by forcing her to wed his aged crony. But Caroline has found a solution to her woes. Though it means surrendering her long-cherished dream of marring for love, she agrees to a preemptive temporary union with a devilishly handsome stranger a brave and noble Scotsman who believes that love is an illusion.A thorny romanceMajor Hugh MacColme has every reason to hate the British since the Crown stole his ancestral castle and sent his father and brother into exile. And he never imagined he would end up marrying one of the enemy. But a year spent in the intimate company of an exquisite English rose seems a small price to pay for recovering his birthright. For tender-hearted Caroline, however, the difficult part will be coping with her unexpected desire for this proud and distant man no use for is the warm and healing love he truly needs.

Street fighting. Brazilian jujitsu. Grappling. Welcome to BJ Penn's island. Don't worry, he won't hurt you (much). For the last decade, BJ Penn has been one of the most successful and feared fighters in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), rising through the ranks to become, pound for pound, one of the best in the world. Along the way, people have been quick to judge, praise, criticize, and hype him. They have torn him down only to build him back up. They have spilled ink and blood trying to understand what makes him the provocative and controversial fighter that he is.Why I Fight is the answer that everyone critics, fans, commentators, pundits, and perhaps even Dana White, current president of the UFC has been waiting for. In his own words, Penn tells the story of his life spent fighting, explaining what led a scrappy teenager from the rough streets of Hilo, Hawaii, onto the biggest stage in all of mixed martial arts (MMA). From his earliest days, becoming one of the preeminent practitioners of Brazilian jujitsu in the world, to his first MMA fights and his battles with UFC champions like Matt Hughes and Georges St-Pierre, Penn shows that in life, just like in the Octagon, he is never one to back down from a fight.A blunt and brutal look at his hardest-fought victories and his most frustrating defeats, Why I Fight is the story of how BJ Penn became one of only two fighters in UFC history to hold belts in two different weight classes. It is the story of a kid from Hawaii who loved to fight. It is the story of a true prodigy.