One of the nation's great literary critics shares memories of growing up as an outcast in suburban Detroit, reaching deep back into his own family's history to paint a portrait of a life lived as an outsider in America.

Author of the widely acclaimed New York Times Notable Book, The Gutenberg Elegies, distinguished critic and essayist Birkerts explores in this brilliantly written memoir what it means to be an American with roots in a distant culture.

Colin Scott is a top literary agent at a firm representing some of the biggest names in publishing. He's worked hard to reach this place, yet now it seems routine and aggravating. On top of the creeping cynicism in his professional life, Colin and his wife are desperate to have a baby. As the pressure mounts, he finds himself questioning almost every decision he's ever made. And he seems to be having a nervous breakdown. Then disaster strikes. On a much-needed vacation in Mexico, his wife's parasail malfunctions and she plunges to her death. From that point on, Colin's life goes from bad to worse as he loses his job and, apparently, his mind.

From grief and mourning to aging and relationships, poet and Redbook contributor Judith Viorst presents a thoughtful and researched study in this examination of love, loss, and letting go. Drawing on psychoanalysis, literature, and personal experience, Necessary Losses is a philosophy for understanding and accepting life’s inevitabilities. In Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst turns her considerable talents to a serious and far-reaching subject: how we grow and change through the losses that are a certain and necessary part of life. She argues persuasively that through the loss of our mothers’ protection, the loss of the impossible expectations we bring to relationships, the loss of our younger selves, and the loss of our loved ones through separation and death, we gain deeper perspective, true maturity, and fuller wisdom about life. She has written a book that is both life affirming and life changing.

The 'reasonable person' is used to assess the acceptability of behaviour in many areas of the law. This notion has attracted a great deal of criticism as it presupposes uncontested notions of 'normal' behaviour. This book explores whether there are deeper foundations to these criticisms.

Released to the public for the first time, writings by the incomparable Barton Biggs Long considered one of the best brains on Wall Street, Barton Biggs acquired the stature of a legend within his lifetime. Among his many coups, he accurately called the rise and fall of the dot-com market, and was an energetic promoter of emerging markets, including China, well before American businesses began flocking there—and he made vast fortunes for his clients, in the process. But, as this fascinating book confirms, it wasn't Biggs's genius as a market analyst and hedge fund manager alone that made him special. The product of a keen and broad-ranging intellect in full command of his subjects—and the English language—the letters compiled in this volume leave no doubt that Barton Biggs was one of the most interesting observers of Wall Street, the financial world, and the human comedy, ever to set pen to paper. Released from Morgan Stanley's archives and made public for the first time, the letters compiled in this volume add new luster to Biggs's reputation as a first-class finance author Address the most essential aspects of high-frequency trading, from formulation of ideas to performance evaluation Shares Biggs's fascinating insights and uncannily accurate predictions about an array of economic and financial topics, liberally peppered with historical references and wry humor Organized thematically, the letters showcase Barton Biggs's observations on finance, economics and the stock market, from 1980 to 2003

Facing Feelings in Faith Communities is based on a simple premise: We have emotions because we need them. God created us as affectively competent beings, William Kondrath argues, to help us understand our world and to give appropriate signals to people around us about what we are experiencing. When we express our feelings clearly, other people can more easily respond in ways that are helpful to us, thus enhancing our relationships and the work we might do together. Kondrath also recognizes that unfortunately, for many of us, our emotional software was infected early on with viruses (early familial and social conditioning) that distorted the way we responded to natural stimuli. Because we are underusing or misusing our emotional capacities, we are missing out on the opportunity to express our full humanity. Fortunately, we can re-program our emotional software. Facing Feelings in Faith Communities help us restore our emotional systems to their original state, or at least invites us to imagine how we would live differently if our emotional expressions were more nearly congruent with the situations and events we encounter. Kondrath invites us to explore six feelings--fear, anger, sadness, peace, power, and joy--through poetry, meditation on an evocative drawing, as well as through his own analysis of each feeling. Congregational Resources for Facing Feelings is a companion collection to this book. For more information, click here.

There have been many great and enduring works of literature by Caribbean authors over the last century. The Caribbean Contemporary Classics collection celebrates these deep and vibrant stories, overflowing with life and acute observations about society. 'Falling in the spaces between knowing and not knowing, between silence and not speaking' Told from the perspective of Marlene, Songs of Silence is a vivid collection of reflections and recollections that meander through life in rural Jamaica, observing the lives and bonds of its colourful, boisterous inhabitants. Rich, poetical and profoundly contemplative, the recollections transcend the gossip and intrigue, the unsaid thoughts and silences, to ossify in a maturation of selfhood. It is not the 'Bam! Baddam!' of Papacita but rather the murmur of the river, this inexplicable river, and its cool morning misty silence that settles across this collection, singing to it and to the reader in a thoughtful lull and soft hum.