Beachy Head is a bit of quintessential England–a seaside promontory where green pastures roll to the edge of chalk cliffs, a place of sheep and wind and ineffable beauty. But it is also a major landmark on the map of self-inflicted death. Since 1965, some five hundred people have ended their lives by jumping or driving or simply walking off the 535-foot cliffs, making Beachy Head one of the most popular suicide spots in the world. And still they come, every week another one or two–the young and the old, the terminally ill and the vigorously healthy, the bereft, the insane, the despairing. Why here? Why so many? One chilly English spring, American writer and teacher Tom Hunt left his home and family and journeyed to this bucolic landscape to find out. In a narrative that seamlessly weaves together personal memoir, history, travelogue, and investigative journalism, Hunt recounts a season of disturbing revelations (including that Princess Diana allegedly came here intending to jump). Still reeling from a suicide in his own family, Hunt arrives in England obsessed with Beachy Head’s grisly mystique, yet utterly unsure of what he would discover. Gradually, with typical English reserve, the people who haunt this extraordinary place release their secrets. Servers in the local tavern–known among residents as the Last Stop Pub–whisper about their encounters with hollow-eyed men and women in their final hours. The celebrated local witch asserts his belief that the place was once used for human sacrifice. The kindly coroner provides access to suicide notes, photographs, and the Sudden Death file. “It’s a very cold solution,” confides a wheelchair-bound ex-hippie who miraculously survived his own jump. In the course of wrenching interviews with bereft family members, watchful taxi drivers, and brave rescue workers, it dawns on Hunt that in each of us is a will to die every bit as tenacious and unyielding as the desire to live–and that Beachy Head stiffens and heightens this death wish. It’s a stage that all but begs to be leapt from. A work of terrible sadness and harrowing revelations, Cliffs of Despair is the account of an unforgettable journey to a place where beauty and death collide.

Deep within the cavern-riddled chalk cliffs above the English Channel there brews a threat to the very sanity of the people of Britain. A startling madness infects the members of the Explorer’s Club in London, the debacle coinciding with the disappearance of Alice St. Ives and the murder of the lighthouse keeper at Beachy Head. Langdon St. Ives sets out to rescue his wife and to stop the accelerating train of events hurtling he and his friends into a dark tunnel of madness and death.

Robert Pinsky, “our finest living example of [the American civic poet]” (New York Times), gathers poems that cope with the most extreme human emotions. Despair, mania, rage, guilt, derangement, fantasy: poetry is our most intimate source for the urgent, varied experience of human emotion. Poems get under our skin; they offer solace with the balm, and the sting, of understanding. In The Book of Poetry for Hard Times, former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky curates poems that explore the expanses of human emotion across centuries, from Shakespeare to Terrance Hayes, Dante to Patricia Lockwood. Each poem reveals something new about our most profound and universal experiences; taken together they offer a sweeping ode to the power of poetry. “For anyone who knows these human feelings—and almost everyone does—this book will become an essential companion.”—Eavan Boland

From Cary Elwes, who played the iconic role of Westley in The Princess Bride, comes a first-person behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and “one of the greatest poets of our age … the Thoreau of our era” (Edward Hirsch) comes a thrilling story, in verse, of nineteenth-century Hawaii. Here is the story of an attempt by the government to seize and constrain possible victims of leprosy and the determination of one small family not to be taken. A tale of the perils and glories of their flight into the wilds of the island of Kauai, pursued by a gunboat full of soldiers. A brilliant capturing—inspired by the poet's respect for the people of these islands—of their life, their history, the gods and goddesses of their mythic past. A somber revelation of the wrecking of their culture through the exploitative incursions of Europeans and Americans. An epic narrative that enthralls with the grandeur of its language and of its vision.

The collection of poems in this book were chosen with everyone in mind. The child who may be ready to question so many things, those who love nature and can just bubble over with watching something as simple as an insect or a golden sunset. The many who have ones and their hearts are breaking and they need to be reminded there are no Good Byes in Heaven! Maybe you need a special poem to tell someone how you feel, or a unique Gift for most any occasion. I believe Stroll With Me will sweetly whisper to each soul and help them find many Golden Nuggets.

Are you ready to transform your students into passionate storytellers? Packed with practical, time-saving classroom resources, this manual makes planning and implementing the Seven Steps just as fun as learning it! Inside this Step-by-Step guide, you’ll find: • theory and techniques for each Step • annotated writing samples showing the techniques in action • fun and flexible curriculum-aligned writing activities and templates • over 100 differentiated writing topics, plus picture prompts • planning and assessment resources • a ‘Putting It All Together’ chapter.

Darkenesses, book two of the Corean Chronicles, continues the epic fantasy series by L. E. Modesitt, Jr., author of the bestselling Saga of Recluce. Enter this new and exciting world. Millennia ago, a magical disaster caused the fall of a civilization, the end of a golden age. New civilizations emerged from the ancient destruction and chaos, knowing little of the past or the disaster. Corus today is a world of contending countries, humans, and supernatural creatures. It is a place of magical powers, and of a few people who are talented enough to use them. Alusius, a captain of the Twenty-first Company, faces new challenges, both military and magical. A would-be conqueror has somehow revived sorcerous creatures of legend to assist in his crusade to reunite the continent under his rule. Neither the officers above him nor the men under him know it, but Alusius's Talent is their only hope for victory, or even survival. The Corean Chronicles Legacies Darknesses Scepters Alector’s Choice Cadmian’s Choice Soarer’s Choice The Lord-Protector’s Daughter Lady-Protector Other series by this author: The Saga of Recluce Imager Portfolio The Spellsong Cycle The Ghost Books The Ecolitan Matter At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.