Technological advances and changes in society have led to the growth of individuality and the impoverishment of conventional love - which nonetheless prevails in the collective imagination as an ideal. This slow transformation, according to Flávio Gikovate, is excellent news. He believes that adults today have two options, both of which are much better than the possessive conventional relationships of old: to live alone, establishing more superficial emotional and physical connections or to develop relationships based on what he calls +love, which respects individuality and can create ties capable of lasting a lifetime. In this work, Gikovate explains how to take the second path - definitely more difficult, but far more rewarding.

"I love my life thinking that I met you once, i held your hand, you smiled at me and I too did…" Every night, he prepares himself to live another day without her. She always walks beside him with a smile on her face but unseen and unheard to others, then why does he miss her the most? What had happened some years ago which is an unspoken treasure inside him; yeah it's a childhood love story. He felt the love when he saw her for the first time, but even two years of being with her didn't let him to convert those feelings to words. Before it could happen, they were separated by another four-letter word 'hate', but this also made him understand the love. Things were not the same anymore; they were destined to fall apart but the thread connecting them never broke; might got stretched a lot, yeah they were meant to meet. Everything in our life holds its preciousness and value for a certain period of time. Once he was dying to get her back into his life, but now he doesn't, though he loves her the most. Then what does he want? What separated them? The love story which is supposed to have a happy ending years before why still needs an ending? Will it end like a typical Bollywood romantic movie? Or will have a happiest ending ever? What does he mean by 'the best ending'?

A curious figure stalks the pages of a distinct subset of mass-market romance novels, aptly called “desert romances.” Animalistic yet sensitive, dark and attractive, the desert prince or sheikh emanates manliness and raw, sexual power. In the years since September 11, 2001, the sheikh character has steadily risen in popularity in romance novels, even while depictions of Arab masculinity as backward and violent in nature have dominated the cultural landscape. An Imperialist Love Story contributes to the broader conversation about the legacy of orientalist representations of Arabs in Western popular culture. Combining close readings of novels, discursive analysis of blogs and forums, and interviews with authors, Jarmakani explores popular investments in the war on terror by examining the collisions between fantasy and reality in desert romances. Focusing on issues of security, freedom, and liberal multiculturalism, she foregrounds the role that desire plays in contemporary formations of U.S. imperialism. Drawing on transnational feminist theory and cultural studies, An Imperialist Love Story offers a radical reinterpretation of the war on terror, demonstrating romance to be a powerful framework for understanding how it works, and how it perseveres.

Audience studies - a key area in media/cultural studies

Since the 1970s, romance novels have surpassed all other genres in terms of popularity in the United States, accounting for half of all mass market paperbacks sold and driving the digital publishing revolution. Romance Fiction and American Culture brings together scholars from the humanities, social sciences, and publishing to explore American romance fiction from the late eighteenth to the early twenty-first century. Essays on interracial, inspirational, and LGBTQ romance attend to the diversity of the genre, while new areas of inquiry are suggested in contextual and interdisciplinary examinations of romance authorship, readership, and publishing history, of pleasure and respectability in African American romance fiction, and of the dynamic tension between the genre and second wave feminism. As it situates romance fiction among other instances of American love culture, from Civil War diaries to Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, Romance Fiction and American Culture confirms the complexity and enduring importance of this most contested of genres.

The stories in Narrating Estrangement: Autoethnographies of Writing Of(f) Family demonstrate the pain, anguish, and even relief felt by those who contemplate estranging or who are estranged, whether by choice or circumstance. Despite the social assumptions persisting about the everlasting nature of family relationships, when people make the complicated and often difficult decision to disconnect from family members, they experience shame, stigma, and isolation because of social pressures to maintain those relationships at all costs. Each contributor uses the act of storytelling and the autoethnographic mode of scholarship and writing to find clarity in their individual, unique, and complex situations. Several authors’ explorations restore some of what they have lost through estrangement—such as a sense of identity, emotional health and well-being, and feelings of belonging—due to the breakdowns in social and family support systems meant to be unconditional and "permanent." The stories display the wide array of reasons why family members become estranged, delving into different types of estrangement, permanent and/or intermittent. In doing so, the writers in this book demonstrate that family relationships are neither easily categorized nor neatly ended—their impact on an individual’s life continues and changes, even in and through estrangement. This book adds to the ongoing scholarly conversations about family estrangement for students and researchers interested in autoethnography and qualitative inquiry, in a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences, healthcare, and communication studies.

"Albert Wertheim's study of Fugard's plays is both extremely insightful and beautifully written—a book that held my attention from beginning to end. It was a pleasure to read! Wertheim succeeds in communicating the greatness of Fugard as a playwright, actor, and director. He also conveys well what Fugard has learned from other plays and dramatists. Thus, he places Fugard's works not so much in a South African context as in a theatrical context. He also illuminates his interpretations with the help of Fugard's manuscripts, previously available only in South Africa. This book is aimed not only at teachers, students, scholars, and performers of Fugard but also at the person who simply loves going to see a Fugard play at the theatre. —Nancy Topping Bazin, Eminent Scholar and Professor Emeritus, Old Dominion University Considered one of the most brilliant, powerful, and theatrically astute of modern dramatists, South African playwright Athol Fugard is best known for The Blood Knot,"MASTER HAROLD" . . . and the boys, A Lesson from Aloes, and Sizwe Bansi Is Dead. The energy and poignancy of Fugard's work have their origins in the institutionalized racism of his native South Africa, and more recently in the issues facing a new South Africa after apartheid. In The Dramatic Art of Athol Fugard, Albert Wertheim analyzes the form and content of Fugard's dramas, showing that they are more than a dramatic chronicle of South African life and racial problems. Beginning with the specifics of his homeland, Fugard's plays reach out to engage more far-reaching issues of human relationships, race and racism, and the power of art to evoke change. The Dramatic Art of Athol Fugard demonstrates how Fugard's plays enable us to see that what is performed on stage can also be performed in society and in our lives; how, inverting Shakespeare, Athol Fugard makes his stage the world.

Togetherness—the ultimate goal for lovers. Studious Riya started her college life with love being the last thing on her mind. But when she met Aakash, the cupid’s arrow struck hard. Everything seemed magical. The first sight. The first date. The first love. The first kiss. When everything was dreamy and perfect, life threw her a curveball. From blank calls to missed calls on the landline, their love transitioned to mobile phones. But would they be able to survive the test of time and distance? ‘Till the End of Time’ is an innocent love story from an innocent time. Was falling and staying in love in the pre-social media era easy? Perhaps, not all love stories are meant to be forever. Or are they? Is it even love if it is not forever? Is it possible to love someone beyond the expectation of being together and still be happy? A love story that entangles promises of undying love on the one hand and unsaid feelings on the other.

Holmgren examines how capitalism in turn-of-the-century Russia and the Kingdom of Poland affected the elitist culture of literature, publishing, book markets, and readership. Holmgren also draws parallels with and assesses recent literary and publishing developments in Russia and Poland, shedding light on the current book market and the literature of Eastern Europe as a whole. In this ground-breaking book, Beth Holmgren examines how—in turn-of-the-century Russia and its subject, the Kingdom of Poland—capitalism affected the elitist culture of literature, publishing, book markets, and readership. Rewriting Capitalism considers how both "serious" writers and producers of consumer culture coped with the drastic power shift from "serious" literature to market-driven literature.

This writer does it all. Her new wine Drunk Poet is in the making, exotic flavors to pick from inspired by her books. This writer's new perfume line can be purchased at kimmymakescents.com. This new novel, All the Fireflies in France is a one of a kind love-story reader's are going to love written by what they are calling the people's Paperdoll. Heather continues splashing ink onto blank pages collecting the hearts of readers world wide. Her next book is already in the making titled, The Leonardo da Vinci Romance Story. Miss Ramirez is also a song writer in the process of entering the U.K. song writing contest. A quote from this writer known as the peoples Paperdoll. I was born to write, this is my purpose. To live is to write, not to live is not to write. I shall die just as I have lived, as a poetic princess, a queen in the writer's world, as a lyrical writing goddess. I am the people's Paper-doll a title I had to earn. I used to be an unknown writer living as a starving artist,with a hunger to create. I had to keep writing until they read me out. I love my reader's and supporters, I write for them for meant to be reasons, because I am their Paper-doll."