A collection of Valéry’s autobiographical writingsMoi presents a selection of Paul Valéry’s writings that portray his inner life as an artist. Included are several short autobiographical pieces in which Valéry talks about his early childhood, his adolescence, his military experience, his travels, his poetry, and his acquaintances. The volume also contains selections from the Valéry-Gide and Valéry-Fourment correspondence, an interview with Valéry entitled ...

A collection of Valéry writings on politics and international affairsPaul Valéry was deeply interested in politics and actively involved in international affairs as a spokesperson for the League of Nations and as France’s representative to two of the League’s bodies—the Committee on Intellectual Co-operation and the Permanent Committee on Arts and Letters. This volume presents some sixty of Valéry’s essays, addresses, and other writings—spanning from 1895 to 1945—i...

London, 2045. Three months into the Coffee Wars, and Britain's caffeine supplies are at critical levels. Brits are drinking even more tea than usual, keeping a stiff upper lip and praying for an end to it all.A secret Government coffee stockpile could save the day . . . but then mysteriously disappears overnight.One man is asked to unravel the missing-coffee mystery. His name is Pond. Howie Pond. And he's in desperate need of a triple espresso. Meanwhile, his journ...

London, 2044. Britain is a Republic. President Jan Polak has vanished overnight from Buckingham Palace, just weeks before an election. Has he been kidnapped? Or even killed? One man is determined to find out—as soon as he's had his breakfast. His name is Pond. Howie Pond—the president's official spokesperson and wannabe secret agent. With just a love of James Bond films to guide him, Howie sets out on a mission to solve the missing-president mystery. But with his journalist girlfr...

The National Book Award–winning translation of Valéry’s singular novel, a strange and powerful philosophical exploration of human consciousnessPaul Valéry was obsessed with exploring the conscious mind, and it was this preoccupation that produced the unusual masterpiece of modern fiction that is Monsieur Teste. Although not autobiographical in any usual sense, Valéry’s only novel is a profoundly personal book, a portrait of a character whose mind is shown ...

An informal dialogue of ideas in which Valéry paints a witty portrait of himselfOffhand, personal, and amusing, Paul Valéry’s Idée Fixe is an informal imaginative dialogue of ideas in which two men vacationing at the sea seek refuge from boredom by engaging in intellectual banter about human nature, the mind, and the haphazard relationship between humans and the world. Since the first-person speaker is unmistakably Valéry, the dialogue is perhaps more than...

The God Who Blesses: 50 Reflections on Blessing and Blessedness is a fresh, imaginative look at a concept that is paradoxically familiar yet also little understood by Christians. Written for the thoughtful lay person, The God Who Blesses explores the who, what, where, when, why and how of blessings, emphasizing their rootedness in God's grace. Included are various case studies of blessing in Scripture. The book also addresses how we trivialize the concept of blessing, when we say things li...

How a grassroots movement led primarily by women shaped Alabama’s environmental consciousness.A Movement of the People: The Roots of Environmental Education and Advocacy in Alabama is a detailed history of the Alabama Environmental Quality Association (AEQA). The AEQA helped to establish groundbreaking environmental protection and natural resource preservation policies for the state and the region and grew into one of the nation’s most progressive environm...

London, 2044. The St. James Park pelicans have gone missing—the day before its rookie, celebrity president unveils the British Republic's new pelican flag. At the same time, British intelligence uncovers coded messages about possible anti-government activity. Who are the bird-nappers and what do they want? And who is behind the secret messages? Agent Howie Pond—license to lunch—reluctantly agrees to try and find out.Howie's fiancée, Britt, has a secret mission of her own— ...

The instant New York Times bestseller about one man's battle to save hundreds of jobs by demonstrating the greatness of American business.The Bassett Furniture Company was once the world's biggest wood furniture manufacturer. Run by the same powerful Virginia family for generations, it was also the center of life in Bassett, Virginia. But beginning in the 1980s, the first waves of Asian competition hit, and ultimately Bassett was forced to send its product...

AS ALEX PRUD’HOMME and his great-aunt Julia Child were completing their collaboration on her memoir, My Life in France, they began to talk about the French obsession with bottled water, which had finally spread to America. From this spark of interest, Prud’homme began what would become an ambitious quest to understand the evolving story of freshwater. What he found was shocking: as the climate warms and world population grows, demand for water has surged, but supp...

The “best all-around book yet on fracking” (San Francisco Chronicle) from a Pulitzer Prize finalist: “Gold's work is a tour de force of contemporary journalism” (Booklist).First invented in 1947, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has not only become a major source of energy, it is changing the way we use energy, and the energy we use. It is both a threat and a godsend for the environment, and it is leading the revival of manufacturing in the Unit...