A Tryst by the Sea


Book Description

Vergilius, Viscount Summerton, has watched his wife of ten years grow more and more distant, and he's determined that this year the marriage will start moving in a better direction. Penelope, Lady Summerton, is also determined that this year will be different. She slips off to a seaside cottage, intending that to be her first step toward a new life free of marital difficulties. Gill ends up at the same seaside inn, where he hopes to plot a wooing no wife can resist.He's determined to reconcile; she's determined to pack his bags, but then the magic of the Siren's Retreat begins to steal over them both... (ISprt)




Strange to Say: Etymology as Serious Entertainment


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“You can’t stop language, because when all’s said and done is never.” In her witty account of the origins of many English words and expressions, Deborah Warren educates as she entertains―and entertain she does, leading her readers through the amazing labyrinthian history of related words. “Language,” she writes, “is all about mutation.” Read here about the first meanings of common words and phrases, including dessert, vodka, lunatic, tulip, dollar, bikini, peeping tom, peter out, and devil’s advocate. A former Latin teacher, Warren is a gifted poet and a writer of great playfulness. Strange to Say is a cornucopia of joyful learning and laughter. Did you know… Lord Cardigan was a British aristocrat and military man known for the sweater jackets he sported. A lying lawyer might pull the wool over a judge’s eyes―yank his wig down across his face. In the original tale of Cinderella, her slippers were made of vair (“fur”)―which in the orally-told story mistakenly turned into the homonym verre (“glass”). Like laundry, lavender evolved from Italian lavanderia, “things to be washed.” The plant was used as a clothes freshener. It smells better than, say, the misspelled Downy Unstopable with the ad that touts its “feisty freshness,” unaware that feisty evolved from Middle English fisten―fart.




The Spinster's Hope Chest


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Confessions of a Christian Spinster


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Encourages, challenges, and orients singles and ministry leaders to the role of the unmarried in church Being single in today's church often feels like a waiting game. You're put on hold in ministry, service, even spiritual growth until you say "I do," and you're either pitied or not seen at all. Unlike today's church, God is not mystified by the presence of unmarried Christ-followers in the pews. In fact, he has masterful plans for those without rings on their fingers. Alisha Plummer points out how God is eager to empower them with purpose and passion. In Confessions of a Christian Spinster, Alisha explores God's design specifically for Christian singlehood through amusing tales and scripturally based truths. She tackles the difficult questions the church often ignores, like: Where do I fit in? Does the church even want me? Has God forgotten about me? What happens if I never get married? Further, she confronts the church, calling for an adjustment to its couple-centric culture, and asking Christians to understand that their single brothers and sisters are not only valued by God but integral to his kingdom. Singles will feel seen through Alisha's words; they'll be encouraged to seize their role in the church and inspire their pastoral staff to reinvent their culture on singleness. Confessions of a Christian Spinster is a powerful resource for those seeking to live and thrive in a perplexed church--and a way forward for the church itself.




Nothing Is Us


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"I cannot say enough good about this memoir. It is remarkable. I became engrossed in it very early on and stayed riveted until the last page!" Pearl Luke, author of novels Madame Zee and Burning Ground, winner of the 2001 commonwealth writer's prize for best first novel. An absolute page-turner, NOTHING IS US is the true story of a boy's escape from his father's abusive grasp. Told in a novelistic style complete with climax and denouement and the imagery and tension of fiction, it deals with racism in the U.S. South, Kennedy's assassination, the Cuban missile crisis, student response to the war in Viet Nam, military culture, and the destructive cult of blind American patriotism. E. David Brown has been writing since the age of thirteen. More than just an artistic endeavor, it has helped him go from being a high school dropout to earning a BA in English with a minor in history from the University of Houston, a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of British Columbia, and a Master of Arts in Administration and Policy Studies in Education from McGill University. Writing helped him survive when he thought he had no future, at times putting food on the table. Both figuratively and literally, it was his means of escape.







The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford


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These Pulitzer Prize-winning stories represent the major short works of fiction by one of the most distinctively American stylists of her day. Jean Stafford communicates the small details of loneliness and connection, the search for freedom and the desire to belong, that not only illuminate whole lives but also convey with an elegant economy of words the sense of the place and time in which her protagonists find themselves. The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford includes the acclaimed story "An Influx of Poets," which has never before appeared in book form.




Bankers Magazine


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Oak Furniture


Book Description

Victor Chinnery's scholarly work covers the history and development of furniture in oak and kindred timbers in the British Isles and New England, from the Middle Ages through to 1800. The subject is broken down into a logical sequence of aspects and each




Vanity Fair


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