Basketball is Jackson O’Connell’s life. Much more than a game, it allows him to cross barriers of class and race, and make new friends from the rival high school. Driven by his passion for hoops, he can almost forget his alcoholic father and a night of violence that tore his family apart. Jackson’s senior year is plagued by volcanic zits, girl shyness, and rumors that isolate him from most of the school. And when team politics keep him off the starting lineup of the basketball team, his ho...

A lifelong climber, seventeen-year-old Jordan spends as much time as he can scaling the crags outside his Washington hometown. His friend A.J., a fellow climber and popular super-jock, keeps the gorilla football players off Jordan's back, and his girlfriend Juana likes the crags as much as he does. All in all, Jordan's got a crimp hold on happiness. But even the tightest grip is useless if a piece of the rock breaks away. For the climber, there are only two absolutes in life: gravity and d...

For a century Bram Stoker’s Dracula has reigned supreme as the undisputed masterpiece of horror writing. We have all grown up beneath the shadow of the elegant Count, at once an attractive, brutal and erotic creature of the night. In 1897 Bram Stoker wrote a story expressing the most persistent nightmare of the human condition. Take this opportunity to dream again…

Drug disasters from Thalidomide to Opren, and other less dramatic cases of drug injury, raise questions about whether the testing and control of medicines provides satisfactory protection for the public. In this revealing study, John Abrahan develops a theoretically challenging realist approach, in order to probe deeply into the work of scientists in the pharmaceutical industry and governmental drug regulatory authorities on both sides of the Atlantic. Through the examination of contempora...

Chess is the ultimate fun strategy game – and this is the perfect introduction to chess, whether you're a budding master or you've never played before.In simple, fun stages, readers will learn what every piece can do, and how to use them on the board. Clear, original board diagrams make the action easy to understand. Readers will also discover the best tactics to use against their opponent, from how to counter the Queen's Gambit to how to avoid the Fool's Mate. There's plenty to di...

Chess is the ultimate fun strategy game – and this is the perfect introduction to chess, whether you're a budding master or you've never played before.In simple, fun stages, readers will learn what every piece can do, and how to use them on the board. Clear, original board diagrams make the action easy to understand. Readers will also discover the best tactics to use against their opponent, from how to counter the Queen's Gambit to how to avoid the Fool's Mate. There's plenty to di...

This volume presents state-of-the-art creative scholarship in political science and area studies with an emphasis on Russia. The contributors, all well-known in their specialties, share the conviction that advancement in the social sciences can only be achieved through plural methodological approaches and interaction with various disciplines. Their work in this collection provides critical analyses of key issues in Russian and post-Soviet studies. It explores the most fruitful ways of stud...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

A beautiful Little Golden Book about a family lovingly celebrating Christmas, originally published in 1950, is back in print--just in time for the holidays!Betty and Bob are excited to spend Christmas in the Country with their grandparents in this classic Little Golden Book, originally published in 1950. From chopping down a Christmas tree to stringing cranberries and singing carols, this is a holiday to cherish. The colorful illustrations by Walt Disney a...

AMAZON BESTSELLER IN BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING Are you ready to take your individual and team performance to the highest level? It's time to get in the right mindset and enter the High Performance Zone! The quest for perfection is not only possible--it's actually our natural state, says author and former Blue Angel pilot, John Foley. Imagine what the same preparation and mindset that allowed him to fly in formation mere inches apart from another jet can do for you, your teams, a...

Parishes are the missing middle in studies of American Catholicism. Between individual Catholics and a global institution, the thousands of local parishes are where Catholicism gets remade. American Parishes showcases what social forces shape parishes, what parishes do, how they do it, and what this says about the future of Catholicism in the United States. Expounding an embedded field approach, this book displays the numerous forces currently reshaping American parishes. It draws from soc...

This book is about humanity and the realization that instead of a right to life, rather we receive the gift of life. Every gift involves a giver and a recipient. Who or what is the giver? As recipient, I can either accept or reject the gift. What does that mean? Am I a blip in the evolutionary process, or am I a creature burdened or blessed with a purpose in life? And what does that mean?