It all happened because of Feeney's Original Astronaut Ice Cream. Those accursed pink bars entranced me with their sugary magic! Life on Gelo was fine until the fur-headed "humans" arrived. They invaded our asteroid with their loud drill machines and their endless greed, stealing our precious iridium to take back to their weird-looking blue-and-green planet. Then the mothership took off and four little fur-heads were marooned here. Luckily, the "kids" have cool things like hologram games and rocket bikes. And they know how to pilot starships! But there's plenty the junior humans don't know, like how to fight a feral thyss-cat or ride an usk-lizard. They're decidedly terrible at dealing with my stink gland (yes, we Xotonians have a stink gland). And they definitely seem powerless against the Vorem, a terrifying breed of rival alien that nightmares are made of. Thank goodness the Earthlings have me and all five of my eyes to look after them! If only I knew how to help them get back home. . . .

Author, activist, and TED speaker Ashton Applewhite has written a rousing manifesto calling for an end to discrimination and prejudice on the basis of age. In our youth obsessed culture, we’re bombarded by media images and messages about the despairs and declines of our later years. Beauty and pharmaceutical companies work overtime to convince people to purchase products that will retain their youthful appearance and vitality. Wrinkles are embarrassing. Gray hair should be colored and bald heads covered with implants. Older minds and bodies are too frail to keep up with the pace of the modern working world and olders should just step aside for the new generation. Ashton Applewhite once held these beliefs too until she realized where this prejudice comes from and the damage it does. Lively, funny, and deeply researched, This Chair Rocks traces her journey from apprehensive boomer to pro-aging radical, and in the process debunks myth after myth about late life. Explaining the roots of ageism in history and how it divides and debases, Applewhite examines how ageist stereotypes cripple the way our brains and bodies function, looks at ageism in the workplace and the bedroom, exposes the cost of the all-American myth of independence, critiques the portrayal of elders as burdens to society, describes what an all-age-friendly world would look like, and offers a rousing call to action. It’s time to create a world of age equality by making discrimination on the basis of age as unacceptable as any other kind of bias. Whether you’re older or hoping to get there, this book will shake you by the shoulders, cheer you up, make you mad, and change the way you see the rest of your life. Age pride! “Wow. This book totally rocks. It arrived on a day when I was in deep confusion and sadness about my age. Everything about it, from my invisibility to my neck. Within four or five wise, passionate pages, I had found insight, illumination, and inspiration. I never use the word empower, but this book has empowered me.” —Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author

A delineation by pen and pencilof the mountains, rivers, lakes, forests water-falls, shores, caqons, walleys, cities, and other picturesque features of our country.

While in his office, Superintendent Sinclair receives a phone call from an unknown caller, who claims that they murdered the Home Secretary in his home. Together with Sylvester Collins, an eccentric sleuth, Sinclair goes to the Home Secretary’s house to investigate the truth of the call, only to discover the body of the victim in a locked room. Is this a bizarre suicide, or is it a skillfully-executed murder? This is the question the duo have in mind as their investigation digs deeper into the victim’s relationship with his daughter and estranged son. Written in 1926, the peak of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, Walter S. Masterman’s The Wrong Letter follows a typical whodunit structure centered around a locked-room mystery, yet the novel stands out with its intricate clue-puzzle and its fresh take on the classical detective-and-assistant dynamic. While Collins and Sinclair’s relationship initially resembles Sherlock Holmes and Watson’s, it soon evolves beyond a mere archetype. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.