In the faraway kingdom of Laviersa, known as the Lands of the Ancients, thirteen-year-old Princess Agatha loves to run on her garden path. But one day, she and her friend Jos discover something odd. The paths curve is gone, and Jos sees a mysterious shape lurking nearby. They soon realize that Crisis, a villain intent on causing mayhem in the kingdom, has stolen the curve. In a dream, Agatha sees what Crisis is using the curve for: a shield that will protect his entire camp and keep him from being defeated. Agatha and Jos decide to set out on an adventure and take back her stolen path piece from the hateful Crisis. The two friends encounter allies and enemies, and sometimes its difficult to tell them apart. The further they go, the more danger they find themselves facing. With Crisis following their every move, Agatha and Jos even have gods helping them on their quest. But they are about to encounter another, more dangerous threat to the kingdom. Can Agatha and Jos save the ones they love in time?

'The Stolen Singer' is a novel by Martha Bellinger. We begin the story following a yet to be named woman who is arriving at a clamoring city—New York. To a chance observer, the prospect would have been deeply suggestive; in the woman it stirred many memories. She put back her veil; her face glowed; a long sigh escaped her lips. Slowly she walked down the steps, along the sloping path to a turn, where she sank down on a bench. A rosy, tired child, rather the worse for mud-pies, and hanging reluctantly at the hand of its nonchalant nurse, brought a bit of the woman's emotion to the surface. She smiled radiantly at the lagging infant. The face revealed by the uplifted veil was of a type to accompany the youthful but womanly figure and the spirited tread. Beautiful she would be counted, without doubt, by many an observer; those who loved her would call her beautiful without stint. But more appealing than her beauty was the fine spirit—a strong, free spirit, loving honesty and courage—which glowed like a flame behind her beauty. Best of all, perhaps, was a touch of quaintness, a slightly comic twist to her lips, an imperceptible alertness of manner, which revealed to the initiated that she had a sense of humor in excellent running order.

Early in the twenty-first century, a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest more in intangible assets, like design, branding, and software, than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and computers. For all sorts of businesses, the ability to deploy assets that one can neither see nor touch is increasingly the main source of long-term success. But this is not just a familiar story of the so-called new economy. Capitalism without Capital shows that the growing importance of intangible assets has also played a role in some of the larger economic changes of the past decade, including the growth in economic inequality and the stagnation of productivity. Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake explore the unusual economic characteristics of intangible investment and discuss how an economy rich in intangibles is fundamentally different from one based on tangibles. Capitalism without Capital concludes by outlining how managers, investors, and policymakers can exploit the characteristics of an intangible age to grow their businesses, portfolios, and economies.

Award winning internationally recognized U.S. fashion designer, Agatha Brown, was born in Texas and graduated Southern Methodist University Fashion School of Design. Known in the fashion world simply as "Agatha", she chronicles her very free spirited, adventurous, and glamorous life. From very humble beginnings and growing up during the Great Depression, she overcame all obstacles to reach the top in her career. Her adventurous travels alone took her to Italy and France to design and produce her collections, and a dangerous trip to Israel three weeks after the Six Day War will keep the reader entranced. In her travels, she meets many fascinating people and celebrities, both the famous and infamous. Her adventures in the Far East and exotic Hong Kong are wildly exciting and her trip to Brazil almost cost her life. Finally, she meets her soul mate, and opens her own company at 550 Seventh Avenue in New York. At the pinnacle of her career, events bring it all crashing down and she starts all over again from the island paradise of Aruba. Her autobiography tells it all. The great successes, the downfalls, the hot passionate love affairs, the heartbreaks, and the adventures that challenge her indomitable free spirit are all here in this thrilling read. Member New York Fashion Council; Named "Guest Designer" Dallas Fashion Mart 1986; Nominated "Best Designer" Mohair Council of America 1985; "Best of Fall" for fragrance "Mystery of Agatha" awarded by www.ashford.com 2000; "Best of 2002" award for fragrances "Imperial Jade Empress and Emperor" by www.lucire.com

The Lady Tilda of Skarsmore is the consummate gentlewoman. But when Alfred, King of the Saxons, gifts her manor to a Viking in return for peace, Tilda sets out to prove that a woman’s touch is stronger than heathen might. She has acted as ealdorman for her people for three years, since her husband’s death in battle. She has proven that a woman can do anything a man can do, usually even better, thank you very much. Soren Guthredson is prepared to conciliate with whatever rotten-toothed, potbellied ealdorman he is dispossessing, but he is literally knocked off his horse when he meets the beautiful Tilda. She is nothing like a Viking woman, and he is puzzled as to why he finds her so damned attractive. Soren is everything Tilda never wanted in a man, but she is drawn to him. If Tilda is not careful, she will find not just her lands, but her heart…Stolen by the Viking

Her name was Samantha Sterling and she was pure gold. Rogan Prescott couldn't get over the way the pigtailed kid who'd been his housekeeper's daughter had grown up. She was all fiery curls and sensuous curves—and sticky fingers, evidently. Because the first time Rogan saw Sam after all these years, she was dripping with diamonds—somebody else's! Like a good "big brother," Rogan decided to help Samantha and find her one of his fellow millionaires to give her diamonds—the old-fashioned way. Little did Rogan know Samantha had secrets of her own, and the only thing she planned on stealing was his twenty-four-karat heart.

From the bestselling author of Assholes: A Theory, a book that—in the tradition of Shopclass as Soulcraft, Barbarian Days and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance—uses the experience and the ethos of surfing to explore key concepts in philosophy. The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once declared "the ideal limit of aquatic sports . . . is waterskiing." The avid surfer and lavishly credentialed academic philosopher Aaron James vigorously disagrees, and in Surfing with Sartre he intends to expound the thinking surfer's view of the matter, in the process elucidating such philosophical categories as freedom, being, phenomenology, morality, epistemology, and even the emerging values of what he terms "leisure capitalism." In developing his unique surfer-philosophical worldview, he draws from his own experience of surfing and from surf culture and lingo, and includes many relevant details from the lives of the philosophers, from Aristotle to Wittgenstein, with whose thought he engages. In the process, he'll speak to readers in search of personal and social meaning in our current anxious moment, by way of doing real, authentic philosophy.

Reproduction of the original.