Justin knows he's a lucky guy. He might live with his parents and work at their winery, but he's an omega living in a community of alphas and omegas. He doesn't have to hide who he is, he's got a great job doing something that he loves and he lives in some of the most beautiful country in the world. The problem is that once Aaron, a local alpha, declared his interest, none of the other local alphas were willing to get in Aaron's way. It doesn't matter that Justin's not interested in Aaron; as long as Aaron refuses to take Justin's "no" for an answer, Justin will have to stay single. When an injured alpha staggers in, carrying a small child with him, Justin isn't thinking about mating or about Aaron. He thinks that Eric is someone who needs help. Eric has escaped something terrible down in West Virginia, and lost his mate in the process. If Justin gets a little attached, that's only natural. When Aaron's jealousy starts to endanger Eric and his child, will Justin have to make a desperate choice to save them?
For centuries Italy has been many things to many people. In this brilliant anthology and traveler's companion, twenty-eight first-rate women writers reveal why the land that is the heart and soul of European civilization is so seductive to women. Kate Simon walks us through a Siena filled with surprises and luminous beauty. Elizabeth Spencer writes of first coming to Italy and finding "home." Shirley Hazzard explores the mysteries of Naples. Muriel Spark writes on Venice, Edith Wharton on Rome, George Eliot on Florence, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison on San Gimignano, Patricia Hampl on Assisi. Other wonderful writers contemplate the idiosyncratic glories of Italy's architecture, cooking, art, and landscape; its culture; its places and people. As these writers tell their stories--in fiction, memoir, and essay--of coming to understand Italy, they explore the complexity of their passions for it, mingling affection and ecstasy with intellectual curiosity. Organized geographically--from northern Italy to Rome and on to the south, Desiring Italy offers an enchanting journey for readers and travelers. Including the following contents: From Italian Backgrounds: Picturesque Milan by Edith Wharton “Cauliflower Heads” by Francine Prose From Rambles in Germany and Italy: Letters from Venice by Mary Shelley From The World of Venice: On Women by Jan Morris From The Classic Italian Cookbook: Preface, Italian Cooking: Where Does It Come From?, The Italian Art of Eating, Restaurants, The Bacaro Experience, Gelati Venice in Fall and Winter by Muriel Spark From Embassy to Constantinople: To Lady Mar by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu From The Enchanted April: VI, VIII by Elizabeth von Arnim From Roadside Songs of Tuscany: The Ballad of Saint Zita, A Tuscan Lullaby by Francesca Alexander From Casa Guidi Windows: Casa Guidi Windows, Bellosguardo by Elizabeth Barrett Browning From Romola: Proem From The Stones of Florence: V From Italy: The Places in Between: Siena From Images and Shadows: La Foce & from War in Val D’Orcia: An Italian War Diary 1943-1944 by Iris Origo From A Valley in Italy: The Many Seasons of a Villa in Umbria: I, VI by Lisa St. Aubin de Terán Umbrian Spring by Patricia Hampl From Florence Nightingale in Rome: Letter VI From Dispatches from Europe to the New York Tribune, 1846-1850: Dispatch 14, Dispatch 19, Dispatch 30 From Middlemarch: The Wedding Journey by George Eliot “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton From Rome and a Villa: Fountains by Eleanor Clark From A Time in Rome: The Smile by Elizabeth Bowen From The Light in the Piazza: Introduction & “The White Azalea” by Elizabeth Spencer From Pleasure of Ruins by Rose Macaulay From The Bay of Noon: I, IV, VIII by Shirley Hazzard From Torregreca: Life, Death, Miracles: The Setting, A Night at San Fortunato, The Project Realized, Epilogue by Ann Cornelisen From The Islands of Italy: Sicily, Palermo by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison From On Persephone’s Island: A Sicilian Journal: Prologue, Winter by Mary Taylor Simeti
From antique shop windows and farm stand displays to rustic table settings, lovingly tended gardens, and covered bridges, these 31 richly detailed illustrations celebrate the timeless charm of rural life.
A portrait of the most fashionable grape in the wine world, pairing vivid narrative and stunning photography to showcase top Pinot producers in California and Oregon.
This is a biography of Thomas Jefferson at leisure, enjoying two of his passions--wine and travel. Twelve of the sixteen chapters cover Jefferson's five years in France where he served as our minister and traveled through France, England, Germany, Italy and Holland. "Passions" was selected by Robert M. Parker, Jr. as "1995 Wine Book of the Year," and was the winner of the 1995 "Veuve Clicquot Wine Book of the Year" competition. It is a marvelous account of America's first wine connoisseur and gourmet.--Amazon.com.
"Country Girl is Edna O'Brien's exquisite account of her dashing, barrier-busting, up-and-down life."-National Public Radio When Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the twentieth century. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation. Starting with O'Brien's birth in a grand but deteriorating house in Ireland, her story moves through convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, the wild parties of the '60s in London, and encounters with Hollywood giants, pop stars, and literary titans. There is love and unrequited love, and the glamour of trips to America as a celebrated writer and the guest of Jackie Onassis and Hillary Clinton. Country Girl is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that have imprinted upon and enhanced one lifetime.
An historical narrative of epic scope, An American Passion is a story of adventure, political intrigue, war, and romance set on the Northern Plains during the last several decades of the Nineteenth Century. While faithfully adhering to the sketchy and often contradictory historical record, the epic offers a vivid, imaginatively realized account of the life of the mysterious Crazy Horse, legendary war chief of the Lakota Sioux. A man who typically let his actions do his speaking for him and who died young, assassinated at the hands of the U.S. Government in his mid-thirties, Crazy Horse's story is related by five different narrators. An American Passion opens with a prologue spoken by the Missouri River, the mighty river of the Great Plains. With the historical context established, Crazy Horse's life, from his birth to his death little more than a year following his great victory over George Armstrong Custer at the Little Big Horn, is related retrospectively by his grieving father Worm, a notable medicine man of the tribe. The net major section of the epic is narrated by the woman for whom Crazy Horse risked his life and the welfare of his people. Black Buffalo Woman's tale is a tragedy in the vein of Romeo and Juliet's. Unlike the story of Shakespeare's fallen lovers, however, the love story of Crazy Horse and Black Buffalo Woman has never been related in its full, gripping complexity as it is in An American Passion. Amazingly, after his nearly fatal attempt to take Black Buffalo Woman as his wife Crazy Horse went on to marry, and the third major narration of An American Passion is that of Black Shawl, his fiercely loyal and devoted widow and the mother of his only known child. Telling her story at about the time Sitting Bull was returning to the reservation after having been released from prison by the U.S. Government, a bitter but not a hopeless woman, Black Shawl focuses on the early death of her daughter by Crazy Horse and on her final days in captivity with Crazy Horse. The epic concludes with the account of He Dog, a loyal friend of Crazy Horse, having fought beside him throughout his days as the greatest warrior among the Sioux. He Dog lived to be nearly a hundred years old and served as a respected judge in the Indian courts on the reservation. Told from the vantage point of 1910, some 33 years after the killing of Crazy Horse, He Dog's narration is largely a tribute to his friend, a consideration of the differences in character and temperament between himself and Crazy Horse, and an elegy to what might have been and, perhaps, may some day yet be. In the depth and breadth of its portrayal of major figures in Crazy Horse's life who are little more than footnotes in the historical record, and in the insight it offers into the heart and mind of a great and complicated man, a man who lived and died, ultimately, as an enigma even to the people who revered (and revere) him, An American Passion is a unique, emotionally engaging account of the final days of the resistance of the Native Americans of the Northern Plains to that juggernaut of forces which, having achieved its objective, destroyed a culture, though not a people.
Many theorists have addressed a central concern of current political theory by contending that the dithering intellectualism of left politics prevents genuine political action. Arguments and Fists confronts this concern by refuting these arguments, and reconciling philosophical debates with the realities of current activism. By looking at theorists such as Montesquieu, Kant, Rousseau, the book contradicts current academic debates and also goes against contemporary theory's image of the liberal political agent as a narrowly rational abstraction. Mika LaVaque-Manty also argues that progressive political philosophy and political action go hand in hand. He then ventures past Kant and Rousseau to talk about specific environmental activism, finding middle ground between the two while asserting that the liberal urge for political reform stems from sound philosophical considerations about the nature of politics and isn't the cowardly afterthoughts some theorists have called it. Arguments and Fists then puts these theoretical insights to use, examining environmental justice movements and varieties of environmental radicalism, showing how liberal theory illuminates concrete contemporary political practices.
Conflict, mistrust and a tragedy...There is nothing quiet about the village of Turnham Malpas. When the rector, Peter, takes his family to Africa for a year so that he can work in a mission, the villagers are bereft. What's more, the locum, Anna, has rather modern ideas and the parishioners determined to keep an eye on her. Then she brings a down-and-out petty thief into their midst, sparking conflict within the community. The Women's Institute comes up with the idea of raising funds for Peter's mission and holds an upmarket pyjama party, midnight skinny dipping and an afternoon's horse racing. Then a message arrives from Peter with the most devastating news - and the villagers are more determined than ever to raise a substantial sum for the mission.
Offering a fresh perspective on women's fiction for a broad reading audience—fans as well as librarians—this book defines and maps the genre, and describes hundreds of relevant titles. Women's Fiction: A Guide to Popular Reading Interests celebrates the books in this broad genre—titles that explore the lives of female protagonists, with a focus on their relationships with family, friends, and lovers. After a brief introductory history and a chapter that defines the characteristics of women's fiction, the author showcases annotations and suggestions of approximately 300 titles by more than 100 authors. She explains how women's fiction differs from romance fiction, enabling readers to appreciate this rich body of literature that encompasses titles as diverse as Meg Cabot's lighthearted chick lit to the more serious novels of Elizabeth Berg and Maeve Binchy. The book identifies some of the most popular and enduring women's fiction authors and titles, and provides invaluable reading lists and readalike suggestions that will be appreciated by both librarians and general readers.
