Winner of a Golden Crown Literary Society Award and a Rainbow Award. This sweeping novel follows childhood sweethearts Rona and Shelli as they come of age and face impossible choices. Passion and heartbreak come alive in this lyrical exploration of love, friendship, and family in Israel. A Small Country about to Vanish is Rona and Shelli's love-hate relationship with an ancient piano, each other and their difficult homeland - a country physically too small and politically too volatile to maintain its own existence. Wise and compassionate Rona believes in fairness and equality and shows a rare ability to feel empathy for her supposed enemies, while her friends and family want security first. Shelli, an avid reader of Holocaust literature, raises old but relevant questions. Must history repeat itself? How do we know when the political pot of hatred has boiled beneath us, making it necessary to leave our belongings behind and relocate, to save ourselves and our family?

Nobody Small-a story of love and need. A dwarf named Nobody Small, a curious, cute tiny boy with a tenacious drive and unyielding loyalty to God, perseveres on an unbelievable journey. Sincere and serious in his search for love, a new family, and home, he prays for closure every day. Unsure of his future, being so young and so small, he relentlessly braves the toughest trials in his urgent quest, surpassing all odds of survival in a highly judgmental world. Years earlier, he learned of his abandonment as an infant and was reared by loving foster parents. Nevertheless, he yearned to know what prompted his parents' decision and queried the rationale of such an inhumane act. At last, after many weary days of sleeping in places his tiny frame would fit, eating discarded packaged food left on the ground or in trash cans, and drinking water or soda in capped bottles, he finally approaches a large white house with a warm, inviting, ornate brown front door. Once inside this welcoming abode, his unstable life makes a complete about-face! Sally, the owner, has an adorable cat named Momar, who instantly attaches himself to the tiny stranger. Her grandchildren soon expose Nobody to unimaginable sights and sounds as they take him on a long walk with an itchy desire to explore an old church under renovation. Before his admittance to the hospital, nobody meets and befriends a horse named Barney. This encounter divulges to him the fascinating world of a grand equestrian lifestyle. He constantly thanks God for answering his list of human desires. However, multiple surprises are waiting in the near future for this once-unhappy orphaned child, all planned by God and unfolding in his time-only in His time!

From the Industrial Revolution to the age of artificial intelligence, Carl Benedikt Frey offers a sweeping account of the history of technological progress and how it has radically shifted the distribution of economic and political power among society's members. As the author shows, the Industrial Revolution created unprecedented wealth and prosperity over the long run, but the immediate consequences of mechanization were devastating for large swaths of the population.These trends broadly mirror those in our current age of automation. But, just as the Industrial Revolution eventually brought about extraordinary benefits for society, artificial intelligence systems have the potential to do the same. Benedikt Frey demonstrates that in the midst of another technological revolution, the lessons of the past can help us to more effectively face the present. --From publisher description.

An offer to switch winter snow in Canada for summer sunshine in New Zealand presents a wonderful opportunity for magazine writer Blossom O'Sage. Her assignment is simple: find and interview the man who spent a long lonely winter in Antarctica's Dry Valley region. The challenge is that Dermot Strongman and his family, through extreme circumstances, quietly disappeared from the public eye some 30 years earlier. They have effectively vanished. Blossom's investigation leads to a tiny village along the remote and beautiful Forgotten World Highway. Her story uncovers the strangest of tales and a chance encounter that forces her to confront her own emotions. Blossom finds courage in the shadows and realizes that what we see is perhaps only one-ninth of what exists.

Includes papers and proceedings of the annual meeting of the American Economic Association. Covers all areas of economic research.