Come join a meeting of the First Love Cookie Club! On Christmas Eve, if you sleep with kismet cookies under your pillow and dream of your own true love, he will be your destiny.Carrie MacGregor doesn't believe this not one bit. She might be a paid up member of the Cookie Club and the local Sweethearts Knitting Club, but she's not about to give in to the forced ho-ho-ho of the season. And whyMark Leland. When he left town he broke Carrie's heart. Now, the local-guy-made good is back, hosting the reality show Fact or Fantasy.'Fact: Mark broke her heart. Fantasy: her friends think they'll be getting back together. But could the magic of a Twilight, Texas Christmas make Carrie's secret dreams come true?And don't miss The Christmas Cookie Chronicles: Raylene available November 29thfrom Avon Impulse!

Master Your Coursework with Collins College OutlinesThe Collins College Outline for Western Civilization to 1500 covers all major events from the earliest known civilizations of Egypt and Sumer to the Greek and Roman Empires through the feudal times, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, finally concluding with the threshold of the Modern Age. Completely revised and updated by Dr. John Chuchiak, Western Civilization to 1500 includes a test yourself seion with answers and complete explanations at the end of each chapter. Also included are bibliographies for further reading, as well as maps, timelines, and illustrations.The Collins College Outlines are a completely revised, in-depth series of study guides for all areas of study, including the Humanities, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Science, Language, History, and Business. Featuring the most up-to-date information, each book is written by a seasoned professor in the field and focuses on a simplified and general overview of the subje for college students and, where appropriate, Advanced Placement students. Each Collins College Outline is fully integrated with the major curriculum for its subje and is a perfe supplement for any standard textbook.

In writing, style matters. Our favorite writers often entertain, move, and inspire us less by what they say than by how they say it. In The Sound on the Page, acclaimed author, teacher, and critic Ben Yagoda offers practical and incisive help for writers on developing and discovering their own style and voice. This wonderfully rich and readable book features interviews with more than 40 of our most important authors discussing their literary style, including:Dave BarryHarold BloomSupreme Court Justice Stephen BreyerBill BrysonMichael ChabonAndrei CodrescuJunot DíazAdam GopnikJamaica KincaidMichael KinsleyElmore LeonardElizabeth McCracken Susan OrleanCynthia OzickAnna QuindlenJonathan RabanDavid ThomsonTobias Wolff

Two hundred years ago, only the most reckless or eccentric Europeans had dared to traverse the unmapped territory of the modern-day Middle East. But in 1798, more than 150 French engineers, artists, doctors, and scientists even a poet and a musicologist traveled to the Nile Valley under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte and his invading army. Hazarding hunger, hardship, uncertainty, and disease, Napoleon's "savants" risked their lives in pursuit of discovery. The first large-scale interaction between Europeans and Muslims in the modern era, the audacious expedition was both a triumph and a disaster, resulting in finds of immense historical and scientific importance (including the ruins of the colossal pyramids and the Rosetta Stone) and in countless tragic deaths through plague, privation, madness, or violence.Acclaimed journalist Nina Burleigh brings readers back to the landmark adventure at the dawn of the modern era that ultimately revealed the deepest secrets of ancient Egypt to a curious continent.

For more than a decade Letting Go has provided hundreds of thousands of parents with valuable insights, information, comfort, and guidance throughout the emotional and social changes of their children's college years from the senior year in high school through college graduation. Based on real-life experience and recommended by colleges and universities around the country, this indispensable book has been updated and revised, offering even more compassionate, practical, and up-to-the-minute information. When should parents encourage independenceWhen should they interveneWhat issues of identity and intimacy await studentsWhat are normal feelings of disorientation and loneliness for students and for parentsWhat is different about today's college environmentWhat new concerns about safety, health and wellness, and stress will affect incoming classes?

Soccer is much more than a game, or even a way of life. It is a perfect window into the cross currents of today's world, with all its joys and its sorrows. In this remarkably insightful, wide ranging work of reportage, Franklin Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shining a spotlight on the clash of civilizations, the international economy, and just about everything in between. How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.

"During the summer before he went to college, he was obnoxious; he said, 'There's a reason I'm acting this way; it will make it easier for you to have me leave.'""When she was packing to leave, she was completely preoccupied with how many sheets and towels to take. I was thinking, 'My kid is leaving home forever, and life is taken up with minutiae.'"It's an emotional rollercoaster, a combination of missing him and feeling happy and excited for him."New BeginningsYou've taught them how to do their laundry, brought them a year's supply of toothpaste and shampoo, and lectured them on the do's and dont's of life beyond your home. The time has come for your child to leave for college -- but are you prepared to say goodbye?Written by a mother who survived the perils of packing her own child off to school, When Your Kid Goes to College provides supportive, reassuring, and helpful tips for handling this inevitable but difficult separation. Comprehensive and accessible, this practical guide includes info on: Teaching your child how to live on his own, from balancing a checkbook to dealing with a roomate. The difference between financial and emotioanl dependence -- and how to keep them separate. Helping your spouse, younger children, and even pets deal with the transition when your child leaves -- and when she returns. How to fill -- and even enjoy -- the hole that your child's absence leaves. Saying goodbye isn't the end of the world; it's the beginning of an exciting new one for your child-and you!

Hip: The History is the story of how American pop culture has evolved throughout the twentieth century to its current position as world cultural touchstone. How did hip become such an obsessionFrom sex and music to fashion and commerce, John Leland tracks the arc of ideas as they move from subterranean Bohemia to Madison Avenue and back again. Hip: The History examines how hip has helped shape -- and continues to influence -- America's view of itself, and provides an incisive account of hip's quest for authenticity.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

In Summer World: A Season of Bounty, Bernd Heinrich brings us the same bottomless reserve of wonder and reverence for the teeming animal life of backwoods New England that he brought us in Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival. Now he is focusing on the animal kingdom in the extremes of the warmer months, with all its feeding, nesting, fighting, and mating.Whether presenting disquisitions on ant wars, the predatory characteristics of wasps, the mating rituals of woodpeckers, or describing an encounter with a road full of wood frogs, Summer World never stops observing the beautifully complex interactions of animals and plants with nature, giving extraordinary depth to the relationships between habitat and the warming of the earth. How can cicadas survive and thrive at temperatures pushing 115°FDo hummingbirds know what they're up against before they migrate over the Gulf of MexicoWhy do some trees stop growing taller even when three months of warm weather remainWith awe and unmatched expertise, Heinrich explores hundreds of questions like these. Exquisitely illustrated with dozens of the author's own drawings, Summer World is Bernd Heinrich's most engaging book to date, a fascinating work from one of our very best science writers.

Former baseball slugger Darryl Strawberry, whose achievements on the field were often overshadowed by his struggles off the field, recounts the highs, the lows, and the lessons of hope and survival he learned along the way.The youngest son of Henry and Ruby Strawberry, Darryl grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Los Angeles, where he channeled his energy into baseball and basketball. The New York Mets drafted him in 1980, and he won the National League Rookie of the Year Award in 1983. Strawberry became the first National League player voted to the All-Star Game in each of his first four full seasons. Throughout the eighties and nineties, however, Strawberry faced many personal challenges, includ-ing drug use, tax evasion, solicitation, and allegations of domestic violence. His seasons with the Dodgers, Giants, and Yankees were interrupted by suspensions, visits to rehab, and treatment for colon cancer. But in 2006, Strawberry's life changed course dramatically. With his wife, Tracy, he devoted himself to his church and to his work with children and adults affected by autism and other developmental disorders.For the first time, in his own words, Darryl Strawberry delivers his inspirational narrative the extraordinary story of his life.

Debutante cotillions. Million-dollar homes. Summers in Martha's Vineyard. Membership in the Links, Jack,Jill, Deltas, Boule, and AKAs. An obsession with the right schools, families, social clubs, and skin complexion. This is the world of the black upper class and the focus of the first book written about the black elite by a member of this hard-to-penetrate group.Author and TV commentator Lawrence Otis Graham, one of the nation's most prominent spokesmen on race and class, spent six years interviewing the wealthiest black families in America. He includes historical photos of a people that made their first millions in the 1870s. Graham tells who's in and who's not in the group today with separate chapters on the elite in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Nashville, and New Orleans. A new Introduction explains the controversy that the book elicited from both the black and white communities.

With his ear for the small town and his knack for finding the needle of humor in life's haystack, Philip Gulley might well be Indiana's answer to Missouri's Mark Twain. In I Love You, Miss Huddleston we are transported to 1970's Danville, Indiana, the everyone-knows-your-business town where Gulley still lives today, to witness the uproarious story of Gulley's young life, including his infatuation with his comely sixth-grade teacher, his dalliance with sin eating meat on Friday and inappropriate activities with a mannequin named Ginger and his checkered start with organized religion.Sister Mary John had shown us a flannelgraph of the apostles receiving the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. They looked quite happy, except that their hair was on fire. . . . I was suspicious of a religion whose highpoint was the igniting of one's head, and my enthusiasm for church, which had never been great, began to fade. Even as Kennedy was facing down Khrushchev, Danny Millardo and his band of youthful thugs conducted a reign of terror still unmatched in the annals of Indiana history. With Gulley's sharp wit and keen observation, I Love You, Miss Huddleston captures these dramas and more, revisiting a childhood of unrelieved and happy chaos.From beginning to end, Gulley recalls the hilarity (and heightened dangers) of those wonder years and the easy charm of midwestern life.

From New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, to the Smithsonian Institution in D.C., to Boston's Museum of Fine Art, to dozens of regional museums throughout the United States, no museum was off-limits to legendary art thief Myles Connor. He has used every technique in the book, from breaking and entering, to cat burglary, to false identities and elaborate con jobs. He once even grabbed a Rembrandt off a wall in broad daylight and simply ran like hell. His IQ is at genius level, and his charm is legendary. The fact that he was in jail at the time of the famous robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum which remains the largest art theft in American history has not stopped the FBI from considering him a top suspect in that still unsolved robbery.How did the son of a decorated policeman grow up to become one of Boston's most notorious criminalsHow did he survive a decades-long feud with the Boston police and the FBIHow did he manage to escape one jail sentence with a simple fake gun carved out of soapHow did he trade the return of a famous Rembrandt in exchange for early release from another sentenceThe Art of the Heist is a roller-coaster ride of a life, by a man who was drawn to misadventure at every turn. As a promising young rock star, Myles Connor started collecting Japanese swords and weapons. Soon his collection expanded through less than legitimate means, and his education in European masters and modern artists accelerated. Disguised as an art collector, he spent time in the archives of museums far and wide, and visited after hours to take advantage of what he learned by day.Along the way, he robbed banks, warehouses, trailers, and estate homes. He engaged in rooftop shootouts with the police. He walked the streets of Boston in disguise while dozens of policemen were out searching for him. The Art of the Heist is part confession, part thrill ride, and impossible to put down.

At turns humorous, irreverent, poignant and tender, The Book of Dads brings together twenty well-known and beloved writers on the subject of fatherhood, offering fathers or anyone who has been or loved a parent unrivaled insights into the complexity of fatherhood as it's experienced now. It is a literary reader for the contemporary dad, hip and on point, but with an eye toward becoming a classic for readers return to again and again. Contributors include Ben Fountain, Charles Baxter, Jim Shepard, Clyde Edgerton, Neal Pollack, Rick Bragg, Anthony Doerr, Michael Thomas, Davy Rothbart, Richard Bausch, Nick Flynn, Brandon R. Schrand, Rick Bass, Sebastian Matthews, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Steve Almond, David Gessner, Darin Strauss, Brock Clarke, and Sven Birkerts

When someone is diagnosed with a serious illness, he or she is taking the first step on a challenging and confusing journey. For many, it is as if they are traveling alone to someplace entirely new, with only faded directions back to their old lives. Often, even their loved ones can only guess at what they must be experiencing. Michael Stein, M.D., uses the stories of his own patients to consider the personal narrative of sickness. Beautifully written and keenly insightful, The Lonely Patient is a valuable book for patients and their caregivers as well as a probing inquiry into this universal experience.

That this story is still unfolding makes it especially exciting to read. These men are still in their workshops, tinkering their way into orbit.David Gelles, FORBES On June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne, built by aircraft designer Burt Rutan, entered space and ushered in the commercial space age. Investment capital began to pour into the new commercial spaceflight industry. Richard Branson's VirginGalactic plans to ferry space tourists out of the atmosphere. Las Vegas hotelier Robert Bigelow is developing the world's first commercial space station (i.e., space hotel). These space entrepreneurs, including Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, now see space as the next big thing.In Rocketeers, Michael Belfiore goes behind the scenes of this nascent industry, capturing its wild-west, anything-goes flavor. Likening his research to hanging out in the Wright brothers barn, Belfiore offers an inspiring and entertaining look at the people who are not afraid to make their bold dreams a reality. The commercial space race is heating up so fast you need a cheat sheet to keep track of all the billionaires and gamblers vying to be the first private entrepreneur to blast paying customers into orbit. [Belfiore] does a stellar job introducing an intriguing cast of characters. Mark Horowitz, Wired The privatization of space travel is an essential step toward realizing our cosmic destiny. In his engaging, highly readable Rocketeers, Michael Belfiore tells the fascinating story of the entrepreneurs who have already made it happen. Buzz Aldrin A riveting, you-are-there account of how this ragtag collection of innovative thinkers, brave pilots, and bold visionaries is right now launching one of the most exciting new industries in history. Belfiore's eloquent writing and exhaustive reporting really bring this mysterious, secretive world to life.Eric Adams, Popular Science

In the tradition of Friday Night Lights comes an unforgettable portrait of a small New Jersey town that became known throughout the world for the remarkable exploits of its Little League stars. Summertime in Toms River means two things: tourists and champions. The tourists head for the beaches; the 12-year-old Little League champions can be found on the baseball diamonds, where they win titles at the local, regional, and international levels.The Toms River dynasty began in the 1990s, when the team made it to the Little League World Series three times in five years and brought home a historic world championship victory in 1998. But with each passing summer in Toms River comes renewed pressure, as the latest collection of All-Stars strives to leave its mark on the town's imposing baseball legacy.In Six Good Innings, acclaimed sportswriter Mark Kreidler deftly illuminates the sometimes tense relationship between Toms River and the team that carries the town's hopes and dreams. Following the most recent juggernaut through one tumultuous All-Star season, Kreidler chronicles how the coach, John Puleo, works to strike a balance between healthy competition and bloodless ambition, and how the players themselves reckon with their own fleeting fame as they tumble headlong into adolescence.Puleo, a man with a gift for inspiring young athletes, commands a team whose recent string of successes has led to speculation that this might be the squad to extend the Toms River tradition of reaching Williamsport, site of the Little League World Series. But along the path to glory, Puleo's players will deal with unexpected injuries, a brutally difficult schedule of games, and the daunting knowledge that they have been identified throughout their region and within the neighborhood blocks of their own baseball-crazy town as the team to beat.With deep empathy, incisive reporting, and intimate access, Kreidler weaves the stories of the coaches, the parents, the fans, and the true boys of summer into a memorable tableau.

He was supposed to be the next Nolan Ryan: Roger Clemens, the fearless, hard-nosed Texan with a 98-mph fastball and a propensity to throw at the heads of opposing hitters. Yet shortly after his arrival in the major leagues in 1984, it became apparent that the Ryan comparisons were simply unfair Roger Clemens was significantly better.Over 24 seasons, the Rocket would go on to win 354 games, an unprecedented seven Cy Young Awards and two World Series trophies. In 1986 he set the major league record with 20 strikeouts in a nine-inning game, then matched it a decade later. He would be routinely praised for representing the game in a just and righteous manner a living, breathing example of the power of determination and hard work. "Roger Clemens," a teammate once said, "is an American hero."But the statistics and hoopla obscure a far darker story. Along with myriad playoff chokes, womanizing (including a 10-year affair with then-teenage country singer Mindy McCready), a violent streak (most famously triggered by former Mets star Mike Piazza) and his use of steroids and human growth hormones, Clemens has spent years trying to hide his darkest secret a family tragedy involving drugs and, ultimately, death.The author of the New York Times bestsellers Boys Will Be Boys and The Bad Guys Won!, Jeff Pearlman conducted nearly 500 interviews with Clemens' family, friends and teammates to present a portrait that goes beyond the familiar newspaper stories and magazine profiles. Reconstructing the pitcher's life from his childhood in Ohio to college ball in Texas and on to the mounds of Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium Pearlman reveals the real Roger Clemens: a flawed and troubled man whose rage for baseball immortality took him to superhuman heights but ultimately brought him crashing to earth.

From Homer to Harry Potter, from Chaucer to Charlotte's Web, acompelling book of quizzes on history's most influential literary worksand writers Did a whale named "Mocha Dick" inspire Melville's masterpieceWho was the first poet to speak at a presidential inaugurationWhich French-speaking high school football star shook up the literary worldDo you freeze when someone mentions FaulknerWhen the conversation turns to the Odyssey, do you want to take a hikeHave no fear. For years, Kenneth C. Davis's New York Times bestselling Don't Know Much About books have enlightened and enthralled us with a winning blend of fascinating facts and wonderfully irreverent fun. Now he sets his sights on our literary IQ in Don't Know Much About Literature. With this rich treasure trove of knowledge and intriguing information about the world's great books and authors, Kenneth Davis and his daughter, Jenny, demystify Dracula, capture Kafka, and help you brush up on your Bront in the inimitable and endlessly entertaining Don't Know Much About style.

When eight-year-old Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana (1590-1662) entered one of the preeminent convents in Bologna in 1598, she had no idea what cloistered life had in store for her. Thanks to clandestine instruction from a local maestro di cappella-and despite the church hierarchy's vehement opposition to all convent music-Vizzana became the star of the convent, composing works so thoroughly modern and expressive that a recent critic described them as "e;historical treasures."e; But at the very moment when Vizzana's works appeared in 1623-she would be the only Bolognese nun ever to publish her music-extraordinary troubles beset her and her fellow nuns, as episcopal authorities arrived to investigate anonymous allegations of sisterly improprieties with male members of their order.?Craig A. Monson retells the story of Vizzana and the nuns of Santa Cristina to elucidate the role that music played in the lives of these cloistered women. Gifted singers, instrumentalists, and composers, these nuns used music not only to forge links with the community beyond convent walls, but also to challenge and circumvent ecclesiastical authority. Monson explains how the sisters of Santa Cristina-refusing to accept what the church hierarchy called God's will and what the nuns perceived as a besmirching of their honor-fought back with words and music, and when these proved futile, with bricks, roof tiles, and stones. These women defied one Bolognese archbishop after another, cardinals in Rome, and even the pope himself, until threats of excommunication and abandonment by their families brought them to their knees twenty-five years later. By then, Santa Cristina's imaginative but frail composer literally had been driven mad by the conflict.?Monson's fascinating narrative relies heavily on the words of its various protagonists, on both sides of the cloister wall, who emerge vividly as imaginative, independent-minded, and not always sympathetic figures. In restoring the musically gifted Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana to history, Monson introduces readers to the full range of captivating characters who played their parts in seventeenth-century convent life.?

Allan H. Meltzer's monumental history of the Federal Reserve System tells the story of one of America's most influential but least understood public institutions. This first volume covers the period from the Federal Reserve's founding in 1913 through the Treasury-Federal Reserve Accord of 1951, which marked the beginning of a larger and greatly changed institution.To understand why the Federal Reserve acted as it did at key points in its history, Meltzer draws on meeting minutes, correspondence, and other internal documents (many made public only during the 1970s) to trace the reasoning behind its policy decisions. He explains, for instance, why the Federal Reserve remained passive throughout most of the economic decline that led to the Great Depression, and how the Board's actions helped to produce the deep recession of 1937 and 1938. He also highlights the impact on the institution of individuals such as Benjamin Strong, governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the 1920s, who played a key role in the adoption of a more active monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. Meltzer also examines the influence the Federal Reserve has had on international affairs, from attempts to build a new international financial system in the 1920s to the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 that established the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and the failure of the London Economic Conference of 1933.Written by one of the world's leading economists, this magisterial biography of the Federal Reserve and the people who helped shape it will interest economists, central bankers, historians, political scientists, policymakers, and anyone seeking a deep understanding of the institution that controls America's purse strings."e;It was 'an unprecedented orgy of extravagance, a mania for speculation, overextended business in nearly all lines and in every section of the country.' An Alan Greenspan rumination about the irrational exuberance of the late 1990sTry the 1920 annual report of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve. . . . To understand why the Fed acted as it did-at these critical moments and many others-would require years of study, poring over letters, the minutes of meetings and internal Fed documents. Such a task would naturally deter most scholars of economic history but not, thank goodness, Allan Meltzer."e;-Wall Street Journal"e;A seminal work that anyone interested in the inner workings of the U. S. central bank should read. A work that scholars will mine for years to come."e;-John M. Berry, Washington Post"e;An exceptionally clear story about why, as the ideas that actually informed policy evolved, things sometimes went well and sometimes went badly. . . . One can only hope that we do not have to wait too long for the second installment."e;-David Laidler, Journal of Economic Literature"e;A thorough narrative history of a high order. Meltzer's analysis is persuasive and acute. His work will stand for a generation as the benchmark history of the world's most powerful economic institution. It is an impressive, even awe-inspiring achievement."e;-Sir Howard Davies, Times Higher Education Supplement