When Alton's ageing, blind uncle asks him to attend bridge games with him, he agrees. After all, it's better than a crappy summer job in the local shopping mall, and Alton's mother thinks it might secure their way to a good inheritance sometime in the future. But, like all apparently casual choices in any of Louis Sachar's wonderful books, this choice soon turns out to be a lot more complex than Alton could ever have imagined. As his relationship with his uncle develops, and he meets the very attractive Toni, deeply buried secrets are uncovered and a romance that spans decades is finally brought to conclusion. Alton's mother is in for a surprise!

“A book that looks at existence with equal measures of fear, humility and gratitude. In a time when novelists tend to be more concerned with psychology than the soul, that makes it a rare and valuable thing.” --Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal From the author of Mr. Eternity, a darkly comic road novel about a millennial couple facing the ultimate question: how to live and love in an age of catastrophe. Young Miami couple Murphy and Eva have almost decided to have a baby when Yahweh, the Old Testament God, appears to Eva and makes an unwelcome demand: He wants her to be his prophet. He also wants her to manage his social media presence. Yahweh sends the two on a wild road trip across the country, making incomprehensible demands and mandating arcane rituals as they go. He gives them a hundred million dollars, but he asks them to use it to build a temple on top of a landfill. He forces them to endure a period of Biblical wandering in the deserts of the southwest. Along the way they are continually mistaken for another couple, a pair of North Carolina society people, and find themselves attending increasingly bizarre events in their names. At odds with their mission but helpless to disobey, Murphy and Eva search their surroundings for signs of a future they can have faith in. Through wry observations about the biggest things--cosmology and theology--and the smallest things--the joys and irritations of daily life--Thier questions the mysterious forces that shape our fates, and wonders how much free will we really have. Equal parts hilarious and poignant, The World Is a Narrow Bridge asks: What kind of hope can we pass on to the next generation in a frightening but beautiful world?

This report compares the application and testing of the following five independent cathodic protection (CP) systems installed on three reinforced concrete bridge decks: 1) Coke Breeze; 2) Metallized Zinc; 3) Raychem "Ferex 100"; 4) Eltech "Elgard 210"; 5) Conductive Polymer. All five CP systems were installed under a single contract and work was performed by the same contractor during the summer of 1988. Construction methods, materials, and the difficulties encountered in installing each type of system are included. During the six year study period (November 1988 to November 1994), all five systems were monitored regularly. Parameters monitored were driving voltage, current density, and polarization decay. The efficiency of providing corrosion protection for each system based on these parameters is compared.

Victoria ("V. E.") Schwab, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, invites readers to haunted New Orleans in this third installment of her thrillingly spooky City of Ghosts series! Where there are ghosts, Cassidy Blake follows . . .Unless it's the other way around?Cass thinks she might have this ghost-hunting thing down. After all, she and her ghost best friend, Jacob, have survived two haunted cities while traveling for her parents' TV show.But nothing can prepare Cass for New Orleans, which wears all of its hauntings on its sleeve. In a city of ghost tours and tombs, raucous music and all kinds of magic, Cass could get lost in all the colorful, grisly local legends. And the city's biggest surprise is a foe Cass never expected to face: a servant of Death itself.

The Code of Federal Regulations is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government.