Tales from the nation’s favourite storyteller about man’s best friend who will do anything to protect their loving owners. ‘Shadow’: Aman and his mother live in war-torn Afghanistan. When a Western dog appears at the mouth of their cave, it soon becomes Aman’s constant companion, his shadow as he calls her. But life is becoming increasingly dangerous for Aman and his family… ‘Cool!’: Michael Morpurgo’s inspiring new story of Robbie, a boy in a coma – victim of a car accident. Locked inside his own head, able to hear but not move or speak, Robbie tries to keep himself from slipping ever deeper into unconsciousness. ‘Born to Run’: When Patrick saves a litter of greyhound puppies from the canal, he can’t bear to hand them all over to the RSPCA. He pleads with his parents: couldn’t he just keep one of them? Patrick christens his puppy Best Mate, and that’s what he becomes. Until one day Best Mate is kidnapped by a greyhound trainer, and begins a new life as a champion race dog. Suzie, the greyhound trainer’s step-daughter, loves Best Mate on first sight and gives him a new name, Bright Eyes. But what will happen when he can’t run any more?

Three unforgettable life-affirming journeys from the nation’s favourite storyteller to capture your heart. ‘Alone on a Wide Wide Sea’: How far would you go to find yourself? When orphaned Arthur Hobhouse is shipped to Australia after WWII he loses his sister, his country and everything he knows. Now, at the end of his life, Arthur has built a special boat for his daughter Allie, whose love of the sea is as strong and as vital as her father's. Now Allie has a boat that will take her to England solo, across the world's roughest seas, in search of her father's long-lost sister… Will the threads of Arthur's life finally come together? ‘Running Wild’: An epic and heart-rending jungle adventure. For Will and his mother, going to Indonesia isn't just a holiday. It's an escape. But when Will is riding an elephant called Oona moments before the tsunami comes crashing in, it’s up to Oona to get them away as fast as possible. But she doesn’t stop. With nothing on his back but a shirt and nothing to sustain him but a bottle of water, Will must learn to survive deep in the jungle. Luckily, though, he's not completely alone… He's got Oona. ‘Dear Olly’: A moving story of a brother, a sister and… a swallow and how all are in some way victims of the horrors of landmines. Three separate stories are woven into one powerful and moving novel whose central theme exposes the horrors of war and of landmines, but also the endurance of the human spirit.

A Documentary History of Arkansas provides a comprehensive look at Arkansas history from the state's earliest events to the present. Here are newspaper articles, government bulletins, legislative acts, broadsides, letters, and speeches that, taken collectively, give a firsthand glimpse at how the twenty-fifth state's history was made. Enhanced by additional documents and brought up to date since its original publication in 1984, this new edition is the standard source for essential primary documents illustrating the state's political, social, economic, educational, and environmental history.

"Can it still be hurricane season? Must be, because here come Serge A. Storms and his perpetually stoned bro, Coleman, in Tim Dorsey’s gonzo crime caper.” –New York Times Book ReviewThe “compulsively irreverent and shockingly funny” (Boston Globe) Tim Dorsey returns with an insanely entertaining tale in which the inimitable Serge A. Storms sees dead people and investigates a creepy urban myth that may be all too real.Though another devastating hurricane is raking Florida, its awesome power can’t stop the Sunshine State’s most loyal son, Serge A. Storms, from his latest scenic road trip: a cemetery tour. With his best bro Colman riding shotgun, Serge hits the highway in his ’69 gold Plymouth Satellite, putting pedal to the metal on a grand tour of the past. Beginning in Key West, the sunshine boys’ odyssey includes a forgotten mass grave in Palm Beach county holding the remains of African Americans killed by the Great Hurricane of 1928, and the resting place of one world-famous television dolphin (RIP Flipper) from the 1960s.But one deadland—a haunted old sugar field—holds more than just the bones of those who’ve passed. For years, local children have whispered about a boogeyman hiding among the stalks. Could it be the same maniac known as Naked Florida man who’s been raising hell all over the place? There are few things Serge loves more than solving a good mystery and bestowing justice on miscreants who sully his beloved home’s good name. With his partner bong boy, Florida’s psycho superhero will find the truth in this hilariously violent delight—packed with history, lore, and plenty of motel antics—from the insanely ingenious Tim Dorsey.

From the author of the number-one international bestseller The History of Bees, a captivating story of the power of nature and the human spirit that explores the threat of a devastating worldwide drought, witnessed through the lives of a father, a daughter, and a woman who will risk her life to save the future.In 2019, seventy-year-old Signe sets sail alone on a hazardous voyage across the ocean in a sailboat. On board, a cargo that can change lives. Signe is haunted by memories of the love of her life, whom she’ll meet again soon. In 2041, David and his young daughter, Lou, flee from a drought-stricken Southern Europe that has been ravaged by thirst and war. Separated from the rest of their family and desperate to find them, they discover an ancient sailboat in a dried-out garden, miles away from the nearest shore. Signe’s sailboat. As David and Lou discover Signe’s personal effects, her long ago journey becomes inexorably linked to their own. An evocative tale of the search for love and connection, The End of the Ocean is a profoundly moving father daughter story of survival and a clarion call for climate action.

Get the first three urban fantasy novels from?New York Times?bestselling author Vicki Pettersson's?the Signs of the Zodiac series in one e-book, including:?The Scent of Shadows,?The Taste of Night, and?The Touch of Twilight. Thriller fans won't want to miss this action-packed supernatural series featuring a young woman who discovers she has the ability to detect evil and a perilous destiny as a member of the enigmatic Zodiac.

You are a good person. You are one of the 84 million Americans who volunteer with a charity. You are part of a national donor pool that contributes nearly $200 billion to good causes every year. But you wonder: Why don't your efforts seem to make a differenceFifteen years ago, Robert Egger asked himself this same question as he reluctantly climbed aboard a food service truck for a night of volunteering to help serve meals to the homeless. He wondered why there were still people waiting in line for soup in this day and age. Where were the drug counselors, the job trainers, and the support team to help these men and women get off the streetsWhy were volunteers buying supplies from grocery stores when restaurants were throwing away unused fresh food every nightWhy had politicians, citizens, and local businesses allowed charity to become an end in itselfWhy wasn't there an efficient way to solve the problemRobert knew there had to be a better way. In 1989, he started the D.C. Central Kitchen by collecting unused food from local restaurants, caterers, and hotels and bringing it back to a central location where hot, nutritious meals were prepared and distributed to agencies around the city. Since then, the D.C. Central Kitchen has been named one of President Bush Sr.'s Thousand Points of Light and has become one of the most respected and emulated nonprofit agencies in the world, producing and distributing more than 4,000 meals a day. Its highly successful 12-week job-training program equips former homeless transients and drug addicts with culinary and life skills to gain employment in the restaurant business. In Begging for Change, Robert Egger looks back on his experience and exposes the startling lack of logic, waste, and ineffectiveness he has encountered during his years in the nonprofit sector, and calls for reform of this $800 billion industry from the inside out. In his entertaining and inimitable way, he weaves stories from his days in music, when he encountered legends such as Sarah Vaughan, Mel Torme, and Iggy Pop, together with stories from his experiences in the hunger movement -- and recently as volunteer interim director to help clean up the beleaguered United Way National Capital Area. He asks for nonprofits to be more innovative and results-driven, for corporate and nonprofit leaders to be more focused and responsible, and for citizens who contribute their time and money to be smarter and more demanding of nonprofits and what they provide in return. Robert's appeal to common sense will resonate with readers who are tired of hearing the same nonprofit fund-raising appeals and pity-based messages. Instead of asking the "who" and "what" of giving, he leads the way in asking the "how" and "why" in order to move beyond our 19th-century concept of charity, and usher in a 21st-century model of change and reform for nonprofits. Enlightening and provocative, engaging and moving, this book is essential reading for nonprofit managers, corporate leaders, and, most of all, any citizen who has ever cared enough to give of themselves to a worthy cause.

In their irresistible novel, Hot Property, Michele, Samantha, and Sabrina Kleier—the stars of HGTV’s hit real estate reality show Selling New York—bring readers past the doormen and into the glitz, gilding, and gossip of Manhattan society.Elizabeth Chase and her daughters, Kate and Isabel, are the leading ladies of New York City real estate. At Chase Residential, their family-run firm, they spend their days walking the city’s highest society through the most luxurious properties in the most fashionable neighborhoods. Though the town houses have marble floors and the co-ops park views, life behind closed doors isn’t always as glamorous as it seems. From the enigmatic Countess who just won’t make an offer to the billionaire mogul seeking more than an apartment from his lovely realtor, from backstabbing brokers to cutthroat bidding wars, the Chases’ work keeps them on their toes. But life is about to become even more complicated. Just as Isabel and her boyfriend decide to take the next step, Kate finds herself with a broken heart and an uncertain future. And when Chase Resi?dential’s very existence is threatened by a terrible betrayal, the family comes together to save the business that is at the center of each of their lives. Hot Property gives readers a peek inside the white-glove-protected doors of New York’s most exclusive enclaves—from the Upper East Side to Tribeca and back up to Central Park—while telling a story of family, loyalty, and all the other things money can’t buy.

Super-bestselling Chef Paul Prudhomme and his 11 brothers and sisters remember—and cook—the greatest native cooking in the history of America, garnered from their early years in the deep south of Louisiana. The Prudhomme Family Cookbook brings the old days of Cajun cooking right into your home.

The crisp, honeycomb texture of waffles and the golden delicacy of pancakes are the perfect base for a host of delectable tastes. In The Best of Waffles & Pancakes, Jane Stacey has gathered a delicious assortment of recipes for just about every occasion. Incorporating whole grains, nuts, fresh fruits, and vegetables, she serves up favorites such as German Apple Pancake, Buttermilk Waffles, and Sourdough Pancakes, as well as inspired new lunch and dinner creations -- Cheddar & Onion Waffles with Chutney, Sweet Corn Cakes. Desserts couldn't be more tempting, from Belgian Waffles with Strawberries & Cream to Caramel-Pecan Waffles to Chocolate Crepes. Regional and ethnic influences are represented as well in such flavorful and hearty recipes as Blue Corn Pancakes, Potato Pancakes with Roasted Garlic, and Wild Rice & Smoked Cheddar Pancakes.With more than 45 inspired recipes and full-color photographs, The Best of Waffles & Pancakes is proof that these two wonderful foods are much more than simple breakfast fare.

For the first time, read the entire Soldier Son trilogy as one ebook … at a special price!In Book One, Shaman's Crossing, Nevare Burvelle was destined from birth to be a soldier. The second son of a newly anointed nobleman, he must endure the rigors of military training at the elite King's Cavella Academy—and survive the hatred, cruelty, and derision of his aristocratic classmates—before joining the King of Gernia's brutal campaign of territorial expansion. And it continues in the next two novels, Forest Mage and Renegade's Magic.

At an event honoring Daisy Bates as 1990's Distinguished Citizen then-governor Bill Clinton called her "e;the most distinguished Arkansas citizen of all time."e; Her classic account of the 1957 Little Rock School Crisis, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, couldn't be found on most bookstore shelves in 1962 and was banned throughout the South. In 1988, after the University of Arkansas Press reprinted it, it won an American Book Award. On September 3, 1957, Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to surround all-white Central High School and prevent the entry of nine black students, challenging the Supreme Court's 1954 order to integrate all public schools. On September 25, Daisy Bates, an official of the NAACP in Arkansas, led the nine children into the school with the help of federal troops sent by President Eisenhower-the first time in eighty-one years that a president had dispatched troops to the South to protect the constitutional rights of black Americans. This new edition of Bates's own story about these historic events is being issued to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Little Rock School crisis in 2007.

In The Chasm Companion, The Chasm Group's Paul Wiefels presents readers with a new analysis of the ideas introduced in bestselling author Geoffrey Moore's classic books, Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado, and focuses on how to translate these ideas into actionable strategy and implementation programs. This step-by-step fieldbook is organized around three major concepts: how high-tech markets develop, creating market development strategy, and executing go-to-market programs based on the strategy.

Relentless and ominous, the drumbeat echoes across the land: Social Security is on the verge of bankruptcy. These repeated warnings have become a dismal article of faith for the millions of Americans who pay Social Security taxes and expect to collect benefits someday. But they are flatly untrue. Social Security today is on a stronger financial footing than it has been for decades. The Plot Against Social Security will explain who is really behind the efforts to reform this system and will show that the most frequently proposed fix increased privatization will damage it beyond repair by undermining retirement security for generations to come. Award-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik also offers a clear set of remedies for those few elements of Social Security that do need repair proposals that will shore up the most efficient social insurance program in America's history, rather than destroying it in the name of reform.

JFK is in the Oval Office. "Love Me Do" is climbing the charts. And in West Berlin, a wealthy ex-black marketeer, the Dane, is offering a stolen spy satellite for sale. Nothing unusual there, except the asking price: half a billion dollars. Too much for any satellite—unless it's Hitler's legendary, long-lost Project Archangel.Archangel, it's rumored, is a device capable of shifting the balance of the Cold War. To find it, Mallory and Morse fly to the Monaco Grand Prix and infiltrate the Dane's entourage: a pair of lovely and vicious blonde twins, a ravishing Polish giantess with a taste for movie magazines, and an American ex-mercenary with quiet eyes and hands like stone. The Dane is both a perfect host and a savage killer, and has already done one of the Consultancy's agents to death. But their greatest peril may come from the long-buried passions of the icily beautiful Laura Morse. . . .

"How Do We Ever Speak with One Voice Again in Our Divided and Angry Country?" It is amazing how one America is isolated from the "other" America. The red/blue state divisions run so deep that it is possible to live without any interaction ideological or otherwise with those who hold different opinions than oneself. We are a people alienated, from ourselves and from our government. The authors, an odd mix across the Blue/Red divide one a founder of the modern evangelical movement, the other a liberal Jewish former Clinton aide hold an extended conversation across many months, several states, and two countries sometimes contentious, sometimes funny, exploring the idea of how unlikely pairings and thus, the entire country can come together. They argue that we're entering a new era in history, and now is the time to rise up to it; to make ourselves able to tackle the enormous problems in our laps; to, in effect, move mountains.

Set in Grahamstown, South Africa, during the 1990s at the height of political unrest and opposition to apartheid, this is the bittersweet story of two people whose lives intertwine with-out them knowing each other-one a heavy-drinking white man and the other the young daughter of a black activist.Reuben Cohen van Tonder's battle with unresolved grief and his search for hidden peace and Vita Mbuli's innocent resolve to remove the bad luck that has troubled her family for generations climax together in a wondrous resolution of personal and national triumph. In this captivating and heartfelt novel, Patricia Schonstein captures the harsh and brutal realities of South Africa's past with its raw and sore racism, interlacing them with enchantment, tenderness, forgiveness . . . and hope.

Why do we see pigeons as lowly urban pests and how did they become such common city dwellersCourtney Humphries traces the natural history of the pigeon, recounting how these shy birds that once made their homes on the sparse cliffs of sea coasts came to dominate our urban public spaces. While detailing this evolution, Humphries introduces us to synanthropy: The concept that animals can become dependent on humans without ceasing to be wild; they can adapt to the cityscape as if it were a field or a forest.Superdove simultaneously explores the pigeon's cultural transformation, from its life in the dovecotes of ancient Egypt to its service in the trenches of World War I, to its feats within the pigeon-racing societies of today. While the dove is traditionally recognized as a symbol of peace, the pigeon has long inspired a different sort of fetishistic devotion from breeders, eaters, and artists and from those who recognized and exploited the pigeon's astounding abilities. Because of their fecundity, pigeons were symbols of fertility associated with Aphrodite, while their keen ability to find their way home made them ideal messengers and even pilots. Their usefulness largely forgotten, today's pigeons have become as ubiquitous and reviled as rats. But Superdove reveals something more surprising: By using pigeons for our own purposes, we humans have changed their evolution. And in doing so, we have helped make pigeons the ideal city dwellers they are today. In the tradition of Rats, the book that made its namesake rodents famous, Superdove is the fascinating story of the pigeon's journey from the wild to the city the home they'll never leave.

"It began with a promising cancer drug, the brainchild of a gifted researcher, and grew into an insider trading scandal that ensnared one of America's most successful women. The story of ImClone Systems and its "miracle" cancer drug, Erbitux, is the quintessential business saga of the late 1990s. It's the story of big money and cutting-edgescience, celebrity, greed, and slipshod business practices; the story of biotech hype and hope and every kind of excess.At the center of it all stands a single, enigmatic figure named Sam Waksal. A brilliant, mercurial, and desperate-to-be-liked entrepreneur, Waksal was addicted to the trappings of wealth and fame that accrued to a darling of the stock market and the overheated atmosphere of biotech IPOs. At the height of his stardom, Waksal hobnobbed with Martha Stewart in New York and Carl Icahn in the Hamptons, hosted parties at his fabulous art-filled loft, and was a fixture in the gossip columns. He promised that Erbitux would "change oncology," and would soon be making $1 billion a year.But as Waksal partied late into the night, desperate cancer patients languished, waiting for his drug to come to market. When the FDA withheld approval of Erbitux, the charming scientist who had always stayed just one step ahead of bankruptcy panicked and desperately tried to cash in his stock before the bad news hit Wall Street.Waksal is now in jail, the first of the Enron-era white-collar criminals to be sentenced. Yet his cancer drug has proved more durable than his evanescent profits. Erbitux remains promising, the leading example of a new way to fight cancer, and patients and investors hope it will be available soon.

Slaphappy is reporter Thomas Hackett's penetrating look at the world of professional wrestling, for those who love the spectacle and for the sport's skeptics and the uninitiated. Through interviews with wrestlers, promoters, and fans, Hackett explores the full range of issues that swirl around wrestling culture -- fame, masculinity, violence, aggression, performance, and play. Among the lessons of professional wrestling is that deceit is a fundamental fact of American life. And yet, paradoxically, the one thing wrestling isn't is dishonest. Although wrestlers play pretend, wrestling itself doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is -- fantastically absurd, a very American kind of madness. Celebrity-obsessed, pathologically narcissistic, murderously competitive, it both epitomizes and parodies the delusional egoism at the heart of the culture.More than that, wrestling provides its fans and performers a medium for thinking about "getting over" in America today. This spectacle of excess may be the apotheosis of American imbecility, but it is also defiant, hopeful, liberating, and unifying -- a throwback to the raucous pleasures of early theater. Fans aren't detached connoisseurs, looking satirically down on life, concealing their anxieties in the cold comforts of irony. They are total participants in a carnival of their own making, shouting epithets, throwing chairs, expatiating their worries in a crowd's triumphant foolishness.It is, Slaphappy concludes, all the stuff of human culture. Where does fantasy end and reality beginWhere does the performance stop and life take overWriting with affection and discernment, Hackett gets deep into the culture, discovering that the make-believe competition of wrestling is indeed "real" for millions of young men -- real in the sense that something real and important is at stake: their worth as men.

Since its creation in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has become the most visited National Park Services site. Each year, 4.5 million people come to the Wall. Many of them leave letters or other special objects. Every night, park rangers collect and inventory these mementos now numbering well over 90,000 and put them into government storage.Michael Sofarelli, the son of a Vietnam War veteran, has combed through the archives searching for the most gripping letters and objects: a mother awaiting word of her missing son, a former comrade recounting a battle story, a pair of well-worn ballet slippers, and a collection of cigars. These items are not only a tribute to the fallen soldiers; they pay tribute as well to the families and friends who waited at home and the comrades who have never forgotten their brothers. They tell the story of a war that is still being fought by many who served and a conflict that changed the lives of many Americans forever.