Suzanne Schlosberg's friends dubbed her the Cal Ripken of celibacy. Given the common belief among single women that all the good men are either married or gay, Suzanne's predicament is hardly extraordinary, but what she does to end the streak makes for a hilarious tale. Suzanne hits bottom when her younger sister gets engaged, leaving her less than a year to find a date for the wedding. She shifts into overdrive, experimenting with Internet dating, speed dating, and other bizarre 21st century match-making rituals. But after enduring every indignity of singlehood, she ultimately learns to ask herself: Does she really need a man to find happiness?
In this wickedly funny first novel-think Legally Blonde in Oxford-a young New York woman exchanges her corporate job for a year of books, blokes, beers, and new best friends in graduate school in England. Alexandra Brennan is fed up with her dead end New York City job-and even more fed up of running into her smug ex-boyfriend. So when he crosses the line by telling her that she'll never get into graduate school in the United Kingdom, that's precisely what she does. Armed with imported cigarettes and extra strength coffee, Alex leaves home and crosses the Atlantic to face all that Great Britain and grad school have to offer, including ill-considered romantic interludes, a red-headed nemesis with intellectual pretensions and ulterior motives, a preponderance of eighties music, and more books than she can possibly read in a year. What she discovers, however, is that instead of running away from home - she may have actually found it. With a cheeky sense of humor and terrific cast of characters, English as a Second Language is a funny and irreverent novel about a young woman's misadventures on the path to adulthood.
This book is an authoritative collection of contributions in the field of soft-computing. Based on selected works presented at the 6th World Conference on Soft Computing, held on May 22-25, 2016, in Berkeley, USA, it describes new theoretical advances, as well as cutting-edge methods and applications. Theories cover a wealth of topics, such as fuzzy logic, cognitive modeling, Bayesian and probabilistic methods, multi-criteria decision making, utility theory, approximate reasoning, human-centric computing and many others. Applications concerns a number of fields, such as internet and semantic web, social networks and trust, control and robotics, computer vision, medicine and bioinformatics, as well as finance, security and e-Commerce, among others. Dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of Fuzzy Logic and to the 95th Birthday Anniversary of Lotfi A. Zadeh, the book not only offers a timely view on the field, yet it also discusses thought-provoking developments and challenges, thus fostering new research directions in the diverse areas of soft computing.
Upon its first publication, Loving with a Vengeance was a groundbreaking study of women readers and their relationship to mass-market romance fiction. Feminist scholar and cultural critic Tania Modleski has revisited her widely read book, bringing to this new edition a review of the issues that have, in the intervening years, shaped and reshaped questions of women's reading. With her trademark acuity and understanding of the power both of the mass-produced object, film, television, or popular literature, and the complex workings of reading and reception, she offers here a framework for thinking about one of popular culture's central issues. This edition includes a new introduction, a new chapter, and changes throughout the existing text.
Nursing a baby - it's the most simple, natural thing in the world, right? Then why is it so fraught and freighted for so many women? In Unbuttoned, a collection of essays edited by Dana Sullivan and Maureen Connolly, 25 women share their thoughts and feelings about breastfeeding, all from the standpoint of personal experience. By turns enlightening, entertaining, moving, and thought provoking, their stories are sure to get readers talking. The essays are as varied as women themselves. Best - selling author Julia Glass describes nursing her two sons after being treated for breast cancer. Rebecca Walker remembers breastfeeding her seriously ill baby in the neonatal intensive care unit. And humorist Suzanne Schlosberg milks the logistics of nursing twins for laughs, while columnist Patricia Berry defends her decision to bottle - feed her three daughters. Linda Murray, editor - in - chief ofBabyCenter.com, contributes a thoughtful foreword. The essays are organized in a way that echoes the chronology of the nursing experience itself. In Part One, Latching On, women share their stories about starting breastfeeding; by Part Four, Letting Go, they've moved on to the sometimes - wistful, sometimes - welcome process of weaning. In these pages are laughter and tears, love and longing, tenderness and temper tantrums - and above all, a multifaceted portrait of what it means to nurture a baby. Unbuttoned makes a wonderful gift for new or expectant mothers, not to mention their partners. It's also an intriguing selection for book groups or moms' groups, who will surely find much to discuss among the essays. Even women whose nursing days are well behind (or ahead) of them will find food for thought in this insightful collection.
Rachel Morgan must keep her friends close—and her enemies closer—in the next Hollows novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kim Harrison, now in mass market. Rachel Morgan, witch-born demon, has one unspoken rule: take chances, but pay for them yourself. With it, she has turned enemies into allies, found her place with her demon kin, and stepped up as the subrosa of Cincinnati—responsible for keeping the paranormal community at peace and in line. Life is...good? Even better, her best friend, Ivy Tamwood, is returning home. Nothing’s simple, though, and Ivy’s not coming alone. The vampires’ ruling council insists she escort one of the long undead, hell-bent on proving that Rachel killed Cincy’s master vampire to take over the city. Which, of course, Rachel totally did not do. She only transformed her a little. With Rachel’s friends distracted by their own lives and problems, she reaches out to a new ally for help—the demon Hodin. But this trickster has his own agenda. In the end, the only way for Rachel to save herself and the city may be to forge a new understanding with her estranged demon teacher, Al. There’s just one problem: Al would sell his own soul to be rid of her....
You can admit it-you're a virgin. Everyone was at one point. And no, we're not talking about sex. We don't care who you've slept with (okay, we do, but that will have to wait for another book). What we're talking about is that you've never before been to a wine tasting, bought real art (posters from college don't count), had a personal trainer, nor known the proper way to eat or order sushi. Life is full of firsts-thankfully this book is here to help. This perfect guide for Virgins, non-and Born-Again Virgins, makes sure that your first times (or second or third) are done right. Filled with advice from Go-to-Girls who are experts in their fields, A Virgin's Guide to Everything is like having a cool, older sister who's always willing to show you the way.
Taking up where Emily Post and Miss Manners left off, Diane Mapes counsels the dating-distressed on today’s new rules of courtship. This smart, savvy etiquette guide addresses both nuts-and-bolts questions (Who asks? Who pays? Who makes the first call? Who brings out the condoms?) as well as the more puzzling aspects of modern romance (Do I really need to tell my new girlfriend that I had her investigated?). Advice, behavioral examples, and dating horror stories are gleaned from a number of sources, including singles, psychologists, scholars, authors, etiquette experts, relationship coaches, and the most well-mannered people on earth, Southern women and gay men. From how to avoid dating a serial killer to what to do at a snuggle part, How to Date provides single men and women, gay and straight, with a step-by-step road map for navigating today’s romantic quicksand with humor, grace, and aplomb.
