The words of this 14th-century Kashmiri mystic speak to us across the centuries with clarity and courage.

Illustrations and simple rhymes go from one to ten and back again over the course of a baby's day.

In, "Naked. This is My Story...This is Our Song...", Dr. Masters has, with finesse and conviction, written a basic primer on personal storytelling. With her own mesmerizing story woven throughout, Dr. Masters successfully connects the real with the surreal. Naked is a story within a lesson and a lesson within a story. More than that Naked is life...life bubbling over with success, tragedy, pain, renewal, failure, transformation, and redemption. It is a guttural look at what it means to be a human being...both contemptible and beyond contempt. Naked is the true story of Leslie Masters, a 45 year old physician, single mother of three, soccer mom, cheer and gymnastics coach, cosmetic medicine expert, entrepreneur, small business owner, imperfect, spiritual human being. As she tells her story in the first person singular, Dr. Masters lures the reader onto the mindboggling and at times bewitching trail of recovery and discovery. From DEA officers in her office to mice in her kitchen, Dr. Masters' artistry in storytelling will make you laugh, make you cry and introduce you to emotions you have not known before. With the benevolence and compassion of a trusted friend she holds out her hand and both invites and emboldens the reader to tell the one story that only they can tell...their own story. Dr. Masters reaches deep within the wisdom of the ages and from Plato to Jesus, Buddha to Einstein and Sigmund Freud to Bill Wilson, Dr. Masters helps us transform teachings into "right here, right now" applications. What makes this book special is that it is wretched, raucous, raw and real. Dr. Masters shows with brutal honesty, courage and sophistication just what "telling your story" is all about. Leslie is bright, articulate, and funny...and what she becomes to the reader is a treasured intimate friend. Before the final page has been turned, Dr. Masters has become Leslie...a flawed, broken, faulty, incomplete member of humanity. The result is a captivating work that is relevant, and even necessary, in the world that we all live in today. Fueled by the power of truth, this is a story that needs to be heard.

For over three decades now, David Byrne has been a leading light in American culture - in popular music, experimental theatre, film, television, fine art, and writing. Based on the cultural capital he gained with his groundbreaking band Talking Heads, Byrne is able to enter into collaborations with many artists, some of popular fame -Brian Eno and Jonathan Demme, for example - and others known best in more specialized circles - such as Joseph Kosuth, Twyla Tharp, and Caetano Veloso. The map of Byrne's collaborations, including the casual and incidental ones, reveals an ongoing effort to combine avant-gardism with popular appeal. This highly original and illustrated account of David Byrne's career is structured by choosing a specific abstract approach, or a combination of two approaches, for each chapter, discussing the parallels and contradictions between such approaches to benefit the interpretation of Byrne's art. As a result, the fertile conceptual brew that characterizes Byrne's way of making art is present from the beginning, while each chapter adds to thorough insight and developing perspective.

A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations. The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots--unthinkable under the laws of Robotics--or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence!

As one common story goes, Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, had no idea that there was any shame in their lack of clothes; they were perfectly confident in their birthday suits among the animals of the Garden of Eden. All was well until that day when they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and went scrambling for fig leaves to cover their bodies. Since then, lucrative businesses have arisen to provide many stylish ways to cover our nakedness, for the naked human body now evokes powerful and often contradictory ideas—it thrills and revolts us, signifies innocence and sexual experience, and often marks the difference between nature and society. In A Brief History of Nakedness psychologist Philip Carr-Gomm traces our inescapable preoccupation with nudity. Rather than studying the history of the nude in art or detailing the ways in which the naked body has been denigrated in the media, A Brief History of Nakedness reveals the ways in which religious teachers, politicians, protesters, and cultural icons have used nudity to enlighten or empower themselves as well as entertain us. Among his many examples, Carr-Gomm discusses how advertisers and the media employ images of bare skin—or even simply the word “naked”—to garner our attention, how mystics have used nudity to get closer to God, and how political protesters have discovered that baring all is one of the most effective ways to gain publicity for their cause. Carr-Gomm investigates how this use of something as natural as nakedness actually gets under our skin and evokes complicated and complex emotional responses. From the naked sages of India to modern-day witches and Christian nudists, from Lady Godiva to Lady Gaga, A Brief History of Nakedness surveys the touching, sometimes tragic and often bizarre story of our relationships with our naked bodies.

Wilbur, a naked mole rat who likes to wear clothes, is forced to go before the wise community elder, who surprises the other naked mole rats with his pronouncement.

There has been a huge revival of interest in Victorian women's poetry in the last ten years, and it has led to a major reconfiguration of the English poetic landscape of the nineteenth century. This title offers a key selection of poems by 13 Victorian women poets from Christina Rosetti and Felicia Hemans to the witty, iconoclastic May Kendall. The book starts with a substantial general Introduction which places the work of the poets into a context both historical (that of the poems' production) and modern (that of their past and present reception). Each poet's work is introduced by an expansive headnote which tells the story of her life and writing career. The poems all have full explanatory notes to help readers unfamiliar with the period. A Bibliography lists general sources as well as useful further readings. Written in an engaging and accessible manner, the extensive annotations throughout Victorian Women Poets ensure that this fascinating poetry is enjoyable for undergraduate and non-specialist readers.

For Richard and Sarah, leaving the rat-race of London for the sleepy village of Worth feels like a dream come true. But their new life isn’t quite as idyllic as it first seems. The cottage is tiny and the neighbours are excruciating. Soon they find themselves reverse-commuting back to London on the weekends, just to be with people they like. Then Catherine moves in next door. Smart, sophisticated, beautiful Catherine seems like the answer to their prayers. But will their new best friend turn out to be their enemy?