This book drives the reader in a deliberately contorted maze of freethinking. Much like the tunnel of miracles, it is full of unexpected stories, ideas, colors, and free speech, turning the political correctness principle in political directness delivery. The secret aim is to make the reader that finishes the book smile and think, What a ride!

(Applause Books). Mastery of craft depends on repetition: the more opportunities student actors have to be guided through analyzing scripts, the more likely they are to develop a reliable process for making choices when the time comes to work independently. That's why Acting on the Script contains eight short plays, which can be used independently or as parts of one full-length play, giving aspiring actors the practice they need to tell the story of the play and of their characters clearly, believably, and compellingly. With each new scene, readers are given the opportunity to think through the analysis and synthesis process independently, then they are guided clearly through that process. The first section reintroduces the basic elements of acting craft. The book then lays out how these elements relate to a script in general and then more specifically by using a short play to illustrate the basic principles. The second section focuses on specific analysis and synthesis problems using original scenes especially composed to help students develop their analysis and choice-making skills and to address individual acting issues. The plays, already tested in classes and two productions (one professional and one college), are filled with the kinds of acting problems that beginning actors often have trouble with and need to learn to solve. In addition, specific problems that actors might have with certain types of material are addressed as well.

Told across two timelines and tapping into a horrific crime, All the Little Liars is a gripping novel about toxic friendship, the ripple effects of murder, and sisterly love that asks: how much would you sacrifice to belong? California 2003: Finn “Kat” Jackman is a 10-year-old girl living with her tween sister, father, and beloved housekeeper. When a 13-year-old girl disappears from a party at Turtle Lake, and the word LIAR written in blood is discovered on the trunk of a nearby tree, Kat’s life is turned upside down. What we know: Three teenagers went to the lake that night but only two came back. Later, they confess to murdering their friend. But why? And did they act alone? And what was the involvement of the mysterious and alluring Manson-like figure Ryder Grady? What REALLY happened at Turtle Lake?: You think you know. Think again.

BE PREPARED. You find yourself in a world of astronauts and aliens, of barbarians and fairies, of angels and teenage eldritch gods. Man-eating porn stars, feral environmentalists, color-shifters, cemented time-travelers, babies birthed from fish bowls. What is this strange and beautiful place? FEED YOUR FICTION ADDICTION. These stories are gritty, spicy, slightly neurotic. They're hot and cold, black and white, soft and sharp. Witness fresh hot authors of fiction in their debut, but be careful--you might get burned! A genre descended from editorial slush piles, vanity presses, and scribbled napkins, this is the absolute best of the New New Ultra Weird. This canonic anthology chronicles the development of a legendary new genre from its humble origins to its great acclaim by Gary Busey himself. You don't want to miss the New New Ultra Weird!

"A hugely absorbing first novel from a writer with a fluid, vivid style and a rare knack for balancing the pleasure of entertainment with the deeper gratification of insight. More, please.” —Maggie Shipstead, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) "A story about Russia, the United States, friendship, identity, defection, and deception that is smart, startling, and worth reading regardless of when you were born.” —Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine "Holt's beguiling debut… in which there is no difference between personal and political betrayal, vividly conjures the anxieties of the Cold War without ever lapsing into nostalgia." —The New Yorker Sarah Zuckerman and Jennifer Jones are best friends in an upscale part of Washington, D.C., in the politically charged 1980s. Sarah is the shy, wary product of an unhappy home: her father abandoned the family to return to his native England; her agoraphobic mother is obsessed with fears of nuclear war. Jenny is an all-American girl who has seemingly perfect parents. With Cold War rhetoric reaching a fever pitch in 1982, the ten-year-old girls write letters to Soviet premier Yuri Andropov asking for peace. But only Jenny's letter receives a response, and Sarah is left behind when her friend accepts the Kremlin's invitation to visit the USSR and becomes an international media sensation. The girls' icy relationship still hasn't thawed when Jenny and her parents die tragically in a plane crash in 1985. Ten years later, Sarah is about to graduate from college when she receives a mysterious letter from Moscow suggesting that Jenny's death might have been a hoax. She sets off to the former Soviet Union in search of the truth, but the more she delves into her personal Cold War history, the harder it is to separate facts from propaganda. You Are One of Them is a taut, moving debut about the ways in which we define ourselves against others and the secrets we keep from those who are closest to us. In her insightful forensic of a mourned friendship, Holt illuminates the long lasting sting of abandonment and the measures we take to bring back those we have lost.

Edward Wilson (1872-1912) accompanied Robert Falcon Scott on both his celebrated Antarctic voyages: the Discovery Expedition of 1901-1904 and the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910-1913. Wilson served as Junior Surgeon and Zoologist on Discovery and, on this expedition, with Scott and Ernest Shackleton he set a new Furthest South on 30 December 1902. He was Chief of Scientific Staff on the Terra Nova Expedition and reached the South Pole with Scott, Lawrence Oates, Henry Robertson Bowers and Edgar Evans on 18 January 1912, arriving there four weeks after the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Wilson and his four companions died on the return journey. Trained as a physician, Wilson was also a skilled artist. His drawings and paintings lavishly illustrated both expeditions. He was the last major exploration artist; technological developments in the field of photography were soon to make cameras practical as a way of recording journeys into the unknown. This biography, the first full account of the Antarctic hero, traces his life from childhood to his tragic death.

The Devil's Mistress by J.W. Brodie-Innes is about young Isabelle Goudie married to boring old John Gilbert. Isabelle attempts to find love, excitement, and meaning in her life. Excerpt: "IF the story which follows were to be regarded as a work of imagination, it might justly be characterized as too wildly fanciful to deserve even serious consideration. But it is not this: it is an attempt to portray exactly one of the most curious phases of belief or superstition that ever passed over this country, the witchcraft, namely, of the latter part of the seventeenth century."