Most human beings have their own private places, places to hide, places to conceal their most tender feelings, places to dream, cry, nurse wounds and heal, undisturbed by casual public scrutiny, uncaring passersby. I visualize my private place as a big, leafy-green bramble bush, full of protective thorns. These thorns are long and sharp, to be sure, but they are not poisonous. They are there to protect my private place and keep intruders away - - unless I decide to invite them in - - and they do provide safe, secure perches for visitors . . . like you. "I think of my life as a book. It has a beginning and an end, with a finite number of pages in between. Across the years, there have been certain moments, certain feelings and moods, certain experiences and observations, certain days - - good and bad - - that linger in memory, bookmarks in a commonplace life. I am not an artist but I try to paint my sketches and pictures with words, brush stroke word by brush stroke word."

Delving into the mind of this extraordinary woman, this book displays a myriad and variety of personal writings and letters, poems, science fiction short stories and observations on life, here in the USA and in Germany. Have you ever given any thought to how life seems to arrange itself like a battlefield? We struggle to get born and get that first life-giving breath, and it seems like every day from then on we continue to struggle for one reason or another on one battle front or another. If you have struggled to make your way into an elite, tightly-knit group, and struggled to establish some sort of acceptance, rank status, and respect from the members of that group, who would- -on an issue of morality, of basic right and wrong, of honor- -be willing to risk and jeopardize that which he or she has struggled so hard to obtain by speaking out on a clear and obvious wrong being committed? Examine the issues in this book and wonder if some of us will ever find the answer.

Six young people came to the conclusion that the whole world was heading for disaster. The government was no longer anything vaguely resembling the picture most people had of it. The bureaucratic empire-¬builders, the special interest groups, the politicians themselves, for the most part, cared little about those people they supposedly represented and this was slowly becoming something entirely different, a kind of government of itself, by itself, for itself, self-protecting and self-perpetuating, but huge cracks were forming in its foundations. Overpopulation was rapidly proving old man Malthus to be correct in his doctrine that a finite object like the earth could not feed an infinite population. Instead of living, breeding, and dying in their mud huts and tin shacks without once ever questioning the way things were, they were shown all the marvels and wonders of flush toilets, the pleasure of a full belly, the power of a dollar, and, quite reasonably, they wanted it for themselves and their children.

The United States of America became the meadow that I discovered in my early youth and wholly embraced for its freedoms of expression of one's own views, its acceptance of personal differences. I came to explore its freedoms by simply being different, which, all at once, came to be a personality trait to be admired, rather than belittled and berated. Today, the strange land is that which I left behind and I have become a stranger to those I used to know and cherish. This is also the story of one fine American woman. What country is this that it produces such a woman even though coming from the most difficult of childhoods? These beautiful, tough creatures who fight their way through thick and thin and, in the end, triumph over their environment and enemies? There are millions of those American females who, in their own uniqueness, manage this seemingly impossible feat of surviving the worst. Yes, Adelle was unique but that's just about the norm in this country, is it not?

This book is written for small business owners, not-so-small business owners, and all levels of management and supervisory personnel. It is not intended to be an expert's "how to fix it" manual, or a detail-oriented, technically-learned textbook. Rather, it is presented as a series of short, down-to-earth articles discussing various sometimes-overlooked aspects of management problems faced in day-to-day business operations out there in the real world where every unsolved problem, no matter how small, has a negative effect on bottom line figures. Unfortunately, playing ostrich and hoping some of these small "business bugs" will simply wander away without biting you in the nether portions of your anatomy simply doesn't work. They don't go away, they just hang around and grow until they're big enough to forcibly yank your head out of the sand and demand attention.

One of the most extraordinary works of the human imagination and the most important text in the native languages of the Americas, Popul Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life was first made accessible to the public 10 years ago. This new edition retains the quality of the original translation, has been enriched, and includes 20 new illustrations, maps, drawings, and photos.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “brilliant [and] entrancing” (The Guardian) journey into the hidden lives of fungi—the great connectors of the living world—and their astonishing and intimate roles in human life, with the power to heal our bodies, expand our minds, and help us address our most urgent environmental problems. “Grand and dizzying in how thoroughly it recalibrates our understanding of the natural world.”—Ed Yong, author of An Immense World ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—Time, BBC Science Focus, The Daily Mail, Geographical, The Times, The Telegraph, New Statesman, London Evening Standard, Science Friday When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave. In the first edition of this mind-bending book, Sheldrake introduced us to this mysterious but massively diverse kingdom of life. This exquisitely designed volume, abridged from the original, features more than one hundred full-color images that bring the spectacular variety, strangeness, and beauty of fungi to life as never before. Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They are metabolic masters, earth makers, and key players in most of life’s processes. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster. By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms—and our relationships with them—are changing our understanding of how life works. Winner of the Wainwright Prize, the Royal Society Science Book Prize, and the Guild of Food Writers Award • Shortlisted for the British Book Award • Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize