The Gift Within is a fictional book about Skylar, a tender-hearted Carolina Wren, who is afraid to take flight and is tormented by his siblings. Encouraged by his parents, he overcomes his fear and discovers how to soar by giving away the gift deep within his heart. The book is appropriate for pre-adolescent readers, although it can be easily comprehended by gifted younger readers and read by parents/grandparents to young children. The "hidden" moral of the book is to help readers think ab...

Given the enormous challenges they face, why do so many citizens in developing countries routinely turn out to vote? This Element explores a new explanation grounded in the social origins of electoral participation in emerging democracies, where mobilization requires local collective action. This Element argues that, beyond incentives to express ethnic identity and vote-buying, perceptions of social sanctioning from community-based formal and informal actors galvanize many to vote who migh...

A collection of twenty-nine tales of the Old West featuring previously unpublished stories by such classic Western writers as James Reasoner, Douglas Hirt, McKendree Long, and Michael R. Ritt. Edited by award winning author, L. J. Washburn. Western Fictioneers is the only writers' organization devoted solely to traditional Western fiction, and this huge collection will take readers from the dusty plains of Texas to the sweeping vistas of Montana and beyond.Western Fictioneers was f...

40 Civil War Memoirs of Confederate Soldiers assembles a capacious and often contentious archive of memory, combining battlefield narrative, campaign recollection, naval experience, cavalry adventure, command perspective, and postwar reflection. Its varied prose ranges from formal military testimony to vivid anecdote and elegiac reminiscence, revealing how Confederate participants fashioned accounts of defeat, loyalty, courage, and loss. Read critically, the volume also exposes the omissio...

While there has been sustained interest in Gandhi’s methods and continued academic inquiry, Gandhi's Global Legacy: Moral Methods and Modern Challenges is unique in bringing together an interdisciplinary group of scholars who analyze Gandhi’s tactics, moral methods, and philosophical principles, not just in the fields of social and political activism, but in the areas of philosophy, religion, literature, economics, health, international relations, and interpersonal communication. Bringing ...

Red Frontier is the ultimate journey to the most fascinating world in classic science fiction. Spanning more than 30 hours of listening, this extraordinary collection brings together sixty unforgettable stories that explore Mars as only the greatest writers of the golden age could imagine it—a world of forgotten civilizations, dangerous frontiers, mysterious ruins, and endless possibilities.Featuring timeless adventures from Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Di...

Two buddies, theatre artists and long-time friends Marcus and James, sit at a table and pass the time together playing a made-up game in which they name people, places, or things – Pamela Anderson, microwave ovens, their fathers, Goldman Sachs – and debate whether they are successful or not; in other words, whether they are winners or losers. Each friend seeks to defeat the other, and because one of these men grew up economically privileged, and the other did not, the competition very quic...

In 1679, Samuel Pepys is Secretary to the Admiralty, in charge of the navy, and at the right hand of King Charles.But also in 1679, England is awash with suspicion and fear. In this maelstrom of distrust, Pepys finds himself at the heart of a conspiracy, charged with treason and facing a crooked trial and potential execution.The only person who can save him is his brother, Balthazar, and Balthazar’s twin children, Betty and Sam – precociously smart and deviously determined ...

The story reveals the life of a young man who joined the Army right out of high school. From a small town with five siblings to his first plane ride overseas, he began his service to his country. He started a military career that took him around the world and offered a promising future. The loss his family suffered on October 19, 2005, changed his life more profoundly than any previous pain from losing loved ones. The story also explores the profound pain of experiencing the greatest loss ...

It tells the story of a man with a head injury who finds himself in a stranger's bathroom, unaware of his identity or why he is there.

First published in 1881 and then reprinted in 2000. The materials from which this little work has been compiled are scattered over more than 1000 volumes, some very rare, and to be consulted only in libraries in India, Russia and other parts of the Continent, or in the British Museum. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true ...

Summer 1679 and a Balthasar St Michel is fighting a duel – and winning. A second-generation immigrant, the son of a displaced French aristocrat, a survivor in a foreign land, Balty is obliged by circumstance to become an expert predator. Balty is also the Navy's Muster Master at Deal – but this time he is in serious trouble, accused of stealing the cargo of an English vessel.Balty is hoping his brother-in-law’s influence as the highest official in the Navy Office will save him – bu...