"Horatio Cotton, aka "Bob," has been looking for some combination of spiritual and carnal salvation his entire life. When he steals a self-help book called Magnificent Vibration: Discover Your True Purpose from a bookstore and calls the number scrawled inside the front cover, he discovers that he has a direct line to God, and that God likes to mess with him. Soon enough Bob finds a partner in Alice, a surprisingly sexy and good-humored nun, and they travel from America to Scotland and try to answer questions, such as Why are we here? What is love? Is there a Loch Ness monster? Does God send text messages? MAGNIFICENT VIBRATION is smart, savvy, rambunctious, and hilarious novel, about the biggest questions that one man - or mankind - has ever asked"--
"In this remarkable journey, Mark Woods captures the essence of our National Parks: their serenity and majesty, complexity and vitality--and their power to heal." --Ken Burns Many childhood summers, Mark Woods piled into a station wagon with his parents and two sisters and headed to America's national parks. Mark’s most vivid childhood memories are set against a backdrop of mountains, woods, and fireflies in places like Redwood, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon national parks. On the eve of turning fifty and a little burned-out, Mark decided to reconnect with the great outdoors. He'd spend a year visiting the national parks. He planned to take his mother to a park she'd not yet visited and to re-create his childhood trips with his wife and their iPad-generation daughter. But then the unthinkable happened: his mother was diagnosed with cancer, given just months to live. Mark had initially intended to write a book about the future of the national parks, but Lassoing the Sun grew into something more: a book about family, the parks, the legacies we inherit and the ones we leave behind.
In Dublin, 1918, a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu is a small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love, in "Donoghue's best novel since Room" (Kirkus Reviews). In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work. In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.
Between 1982 and 1989, Pelafina H. Lièvre sent her son, Johnny Truant, a series of letters from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute, a psychiatric facility in Ohio where she spent the final years of her life. Beautiful, heartfelt, and tragic, this correspondence reveals the powerful and deeply moving relationship between a brilliant though mentally ill mother and the precocious, gifted young son she never ceases to love. Originally contained within the monumental House of Leaves, this collection stands alone as a stunning portrait of mother and child. It is presented here along with a foreword by Walden D. Wyhrta and eleven previously unavailable letters.
Harrow the Ninth, an Amazon pick for Best SFF of 2020 and the New York Times and USA Today bestselling sequel to Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor's haunted space station. The Locked Tomb is a 2023 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Series! “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space! Decadent nobles vie to serve the deathless emperor! Skeletons!” —Charles Stross on Gideon the Ninth “Unlike anything I've ever read.” —V.E. Schwab on Gideon the Ninth “Deft, tense and atmospheric, compellingly immersive and wildly original.” —The New York Times on Gideon the Ninth She answered the Emperor's call. She arrived with her arts, her wits, and her only friend. In victory, her world has turned to ash. After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman's shoulders. Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath — but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her. Sealed in the gothic gloom of the Emperor's Mithraeum with three unfriendly teachers, hunted by the mad ghost of a murdered planet, Harrow must confront two unwelcome questions: is somebody trying to kill her? And if they succeeded, would the universe be better off? THE LOCKED TOMB SERIES BOOK 1: Gideon the Ninth BOOK 2: Harrow the Ninth BOOK 3: Nona the Ninth BOOK 4: Alecto the Ninth At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
"The book is about the stories of our students; teachers; essential workers and local businesses during the Lock Down Restrictions. It also includes articles, poems, and reflections written by the students; and interviews with some inspiring figures, including Chris Hipkins, Minister of Health and Dr Ashley Bloomfield, Director-General of Health. Nadia Lim, former All Black Kieran Read, James Lowe and Shane Cameron also share their thoughts on the year the world came to a standstill"--Back cover.
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • Celebrated food blogger and best-selling cookbook author Deb Perelman knows just the thing for a Tuesday night, or your most special occasion—from salads and slaws that make perfect side dishes (or a full meal) to savory tarts and galettes; from Mushroom Bourguignon to Chocolate Hazelnut Crepe. “Innovative, creative, and effortlessly funny." —Cooking Light Deb Perelman loves to cook. She isn’t a chef or a restaurant owner—she’s never even waitressed. Cooking in her tiny Manhattan kitchen was, at least at first, for special occasions—and, too often, an unnecessarily daunting venture. Deb found herself overwhelmed by the number of recipes available to her. Have you ever searched for the perfect birthday cake on Google? You’ll get more than three million results. Where do you start? What if you pick a recipe that’s downright bad? With the same warmth, candor, and can-do spirit her award-winning blog, Smitten Kitchen, is known for, here Deb presents more than 100 recipes—almost entirely new, plus a few favorites from the site—that guarantee delicious results every time. Gorgeously illustrated with hundreds of her beautiful color photographs, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook is all about approachable, uncompromised home cooking. Here you’ll find better uses for your favorite vegetables: asparagus blanketing a pizza; ratatouille dressing up a sandwich; cauliflower masquerading as pesto. These are recipes you’ll bookmark and use so often they become your own, recipes you’ll slip to a friend who wants to impress her new in-laws, and recipes with simple ingredients that yield amazing results in a minimum amount of time. Deb tells you her favorite summer cocktail; how to lose your fear of cooking for a crowd; and the essential items you need for your own kitchen. From salads and slaws that make perfect side dishes (or a full meal) to savory tarts and galettes; from Mushroom Bourguignon to Chocolate Hazelnut Crepe Cake, Deb knows just the thing for a Tuesday night, or your most special occasion. Look for Deb Perelman’s latest cookbook, Smitten Kitchen Keepers!
What is creativity, and where does it come from? Creativity and Development explores the fascinating connections and tensions between creativity research and developmental psychology, two fields that have largely progressed independently of each other-until now. In this book, scholars influential in both fields explore the emergence of new ideas, and the development of the people and situations that bring them to fruition. The uniquely collaborative nature of Oxford's Counterpoints series allows them to engage in a dialogue, addressing the key issues and potential benefits of exploring the connections between creativity and development. Creativity and Development is based on the observation that both creativity and development are processes that occur in complex systems, in which later stages or changes emerge from the prior state of the system. In the 1970s and 1980s, creativity researchers shifted their focus from personality traits to cognitive and social processes, and the co-authors of this volume are some of the most influential figures in this shift. The central focus on system processes results in three related volume themes: how the outcomes of creativity and development emerge from dynamical processes, the interrelation between individual processes and social processes, and the role of mediating artifacts and domains in developmental and creative processes. The chapters touch on a wide range of important topics, with the authors drawing on their decades of research into creativity and development. Readers will learn about the creativity of children's play, the creative aspects of children's thinking, the creative processes of scientists, the role of education and teaching in creative development, and the role of multiple intelligences in both creativity and development. The final chapter is an important dialogue between the authors, who engage in a roundtable discussion and explore key questions facing contemporary researchers, such as: Does society suppress children's creativity? Are creativity and development specific to an intelligence or a domain? What role do social and cultural contexts play in creativity and development? Creativity and Development presents a powerful argument that both creativity scholars and developmental psychologists will benefit by becoming more familiar with each other's work.
How many fat quarters does it take to make a quilt: 6, 8, 10, 12, 14? The choice is yours! America's favorite fabric cut gets a fun makeover in a dozen all-new patterns from popular blogger Andy Knowlton. In her signature happy color palette, Andy shares easy-to-sew quilts that will inspire quilters to break into those bundles, unfold their singles, or even cut yardage into 18" × 22" chunks of fabric to re-create her cheerful designs. Stars, pinwheels, arrows, and Churn Dashes are just a few of the classic motifs that get Andy's fresh fat-quarter treatment. No more excuses and no time to lose - quilters will love reducing and restocking their stashes to make these fat-quarter-friendly projects.
