This book is an opening - a portal - into your own being. It is likewise a vehicle for your calm passage through the Great Storm. Look through its lens to find where you already are - now - in another world. There you are ready for awakening, ready to find that the storm clouds have long-since parted. Many adventures await you on the other side - while you are finishing the adventures on this side. Be of courage, for your soul is living in that world of peace and joy as we speak. May you find its vibrant presence here within, in the space behind all words.

If you have ever wondered what is happening to humanity on this planet Earth or how tomorrow may differ from today, this book is for you. In its pages you will find a description of the times you are living in--from the vantage point of 500 years in the future. The story of these Letters is startling, yet abundantly affirming and hopeful. Enter into the adventure yourself. Go into the Letters and appreciate what is being delivered. There is no need to wait for the future. It is here, now!

What happens when we dismantle the stigma surrounding mental health in South Asian communities? Muzna Abbas examines historical events, migration patterns, and cultural communities to understand why South Asian migrants fail to adequately address mental health. She shows how culture, gender, and religion intersect to impact immigrants and their posterity. Abbas not only offers facts and figures, but personifies the mental health crisis through letters by South Asians from different walks of life, including a queer adult to his younger self and a young woman in a toxic marriage. The book culminates in a call to action by offering readers advice on seeking culturally-sensitive therapy, self-care practices, and imperative conversations. Letters to My Brown Mother includes heart-wrenching anecdotes and soulful descriptions that promise to educate and change the South Asian community for the better.

Philosopher, author, and lecturer Alan Watts (1915–1973) popularized Zen Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies for the counterculture of the 1960s. Today, new generations are finding his writings and lectures online, while faithful followers worldwide continue to be enlightened by his teachings. The Collected Letters of Alan Watts reveals the remarkable arc of Watts’s colorful and controversial life, from his school days in England to his priesthood in the Anglican Church as chaplain of Northwestern University to his alternative lifestyle and experimentation with LSD in the heyday of the late sixties. His engaging letters cover a vast range of subject matter, with recipients ranging from High Church clergy to high priests of psychedelics, government officials, publishers, critics, family, and fans. They include C. G. Jung, Henry Miller, Gary Snyder, Aldous Huxley, Reinhold Niebuhr, Timothy Leary, Joseph Campbell, and James Hillman. Watts’s letters were curated by two of his daughters, Joan Watts and Anne Watts, who have added rich, behind-the-scenes biographical commentary. Edited by Joan Watts & Anne Watts

Published to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad is a brilliant and highly readable biography of a literary figure of world-wide reputation. Conrad’s impact has been so profound and far-reaching that, eighty years after his death, he remains an essential cultural reference point. Such phrases as “heart of darkness” and “The horror! The horror!” have entered the language, often cited without an awareness of their original contexts. His popular legacy extends to Latin American fiction, to the spy novel, to the terrorist and anarchist character, and to film. The writers he has influenced range from T. S. Eliot to William Faulkner to V. S. Naipaul and John Le Carré. For a writer of “difficult” fiction he has enjoyed a remarkably wide impact, yet as Marlow proclaims in Lord Jim of the figure whose story he tells,“he was one of us,” and so Conrad remains in fascinating ways. Stape’s biography – an intimate portrait, including previously unpublished photographs – offers a Conrad for our times, a man with a deep sense of otherness, of multiple cultural identities and, writing in his third language, a working writer, whose novels and stories are a cornerstone of literary modernism and, indeed, of modernity itself.

Portals have evolved from simple Web applications with multiple links to an enterprise application delivery platform that serves composite applications. In a world where organizations are gearing up with service-oriented architecture (SOA) strategies and re-working existing apps to fit the Web 2.0 programming model, portals are strategic infrastructure components on every CIO s radar. As companies move toward SOA, portlets become an even hotter topic. Portlets provide the user interface for these services. IBM s unwavering commitment to open standards such as Java Specification Request (JSR 168) and strong presence in the application server market (IBM WebSphere Application Server) have helped establish WebSphere Portal as a leader among available portal solutions in the market. "Programming Portlets, Second Edition" takes developers down a path of understanding all the latest concepts, including SOA, AJAX, and best practices to consider when building a J2EEbased portal. The book offers the reader the tools and information necessary to develop portlets and portal applications in two ways. Part 1 focuses on building portlets that will adhere to the JSR 168 API standard. This allows developers who want to use any JSR 168compliant portlet container to quickly build quality portlets. Part 2 extends the focus to building JSR 168compliant portlets for the IBM WebSphere Portal Server and includes information on portlet extensions and WebSphere Portal capabilities that can be leveraged in a portal development effort. Among the many things you will find inside "Programming Portlets, Second Edition" Addition of extensive JSR 168 material Updates for WebSphere Portal (V6) Coverage of new technologies such as IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory and Lotus Workplace Forms Ways to use AJAX in portlets Explanation of how portals and portlets fit into SOA Method for creating JSR 168compliant portlets using IBM WebSphere IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory, Workplace Forms, and creation of portal services Instructions for building complex portlets quickly using Rational Application Developer or WebSphere Portlet Factory Use of JavaServerTM Faces in portlets Proper use of JSTL with regard to portlets Effective integration of Struts in the portal framework Ways of inter-portlet communication Method to build a portlet from the ground up quickly and effectively The best practices of portlet development Valuable information resources, including examples of various types of portlets"

The importance of A. W. N. Pugin (1812-52) in architecture and design in England and beyond is incontestable. The leading architect of the Gothic Revival, Pugin is one of the most significant figures of the mid-nineteenth century and one of the greatest designers. His correspondence furnishes more insight into the man and more information about his work than any other source. This volume, the last of five, contains letters from 1851 and the first months of 1852; after that, Pugin's health failed and he died in September. In the great event of the period, the international exhibition held in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, the display of objects made to Pugin's design, which he planned and oversaw, was an outstanding success, bringing substantial commercial benefit to his colleagues and spreading Pugin's influence even more widely than before. The value of his judgment was recognized in his appointment to two committees in connection with the Great Exhibition. Frantic though the preparations for what came to be known as the Medieval Court were, Pugin made time to write for publication. He issued letters and pamphlets in explanation, defence, and support of the Catholic Church and its re-established hierarchy, and turned again to the conundrum that had long teased him, the relation between the faith and the form, not only architectural, in which it found expression. He completed the book on chancel screens conceived some years before. At home in The Grange at Ramsgate, he continued to design stained glass windows, for other architects as well as his own clients, and supervised the production of cartoons; he poured out designs in his usual fields of metalwork, ceramics, furniture, carving, and wallpaper, and branched out, not always happily, into new areas such as embroidery and the decoration of piano cases. The demand for drawings for Westminster, where the House of Commons was due to open early in 1852, was as incessant as ever. His last child, Edmund Peter, was born in 1851 only a few months before his first grandchild, Mildred. Both were baptized in the church of St Augustine which he was still building next to his house and where he himself was soon to be laid in the vault he provided for the purpose. The volume also includes some letters which have come to light too late for inclusion in their proper chronological places and some texts of doubtful authenticity.