A collection of nine stories explores the lasting influences, good and bad, of our families on our lives, in works that include a man offering advice to his lovesick grandson, a young man trying to repair his relationship with his estranged brother, two siblings unexpectedly reunited at a hospital bedside, and Milly and Charlie Diamond, a long-married couple that mysteriously regains their youth. Original.

Sequestered within the heart of a cosmopolitan city is an exotic world—a place where diamonds, astronomically priced, are bought and sold on the strength of a handshake, and business disputes are resolved according to ancient Jewish principles of arbitration. Yet it is also a modern industry facing the same fundamental global changes affecting all businesses today.In Diamond Stories, Renée Rose Shield leads us into the unexamined realm of wholesale diamond traders in New York. Related to several well-respected traders, she had unprecedented access to a society normally closed to outside inquiry. Here she deftly blends her personal relationship and her anthropological training to provide an insightful exploration of this tradition-bound industry, the new challenges it faces, and the ways both industry and individuals adapt to and endure change.Shield begins with a fascinating history of diamond mining, combining the story of the De Beers cartel, the role of Jews in the trade, and the part diamonds have played both in war and liberation. Throughout, she incorporates commentary by current diamond traders. Succeeding chapters explore the evolving nature of both the global trade and the New York diamond district. Shield takes a close look at the increasingly complex ethnic makeup of the district, illuminates the rarely documented work done by women, chronicles the resilient system of arbitration, and reveals the ways in which many traders work well into their eighties and nineties. Their long lives of work, cushioned by the trade's social environment, offer hints for successful aging in general.

Diamond Pearl Hope is a biracial news reporter. She experiences a hard childhood. Diamond is only ten years old when her black mother dies. She goes to live with relatives who discriminate against her because she is mixed race. Diamond is rescued from abusive family members through adoption. While growing up, she is kept in the dark about her white father. After graduating from college she meets and marries an older abusive man. Diamond gets arrested for assaulting her husband; and comes face to face with the man she thought shed never meet. Diamonds life story comes to a wonderful ending when her white and black relatives unite in love, as one big happy blended family. Book Review BlueInk Review of Diamonds Fate (paperback 978-1-4568-8877-0) revised by Author Angie Singleton, 09/15/2011 This intriguing novel captures the tumultuous life of Diamond Pearl Hope, a biracial news reporter living in Florida. Diamond was born to a white father and African-American mother. Due to the death of her mother, Diamond is forced to go live in a household with family members who frequently torment her, because of her light skin and interracial heritage. Diamond gets adopted by a white couple and experiences life on the other side of the color line, after the horrific death of her grandmother. When Diamond graduates from college, she meets and marries a man twice her age. She learns, firsthand, the intricacies of the criminal justice system, after getting arrested for assaulting her husband, who attacks her in a drunken rage. Struggling to put her life back together, Diamond finds strength in her Christian faith, caring friends and a loving family, including her newly discovered biological father, whom she reconciles with. In the end, Diamond not only wins an award for investigative reporting of domestic violence, she makes peace with those family members whod hurt her in the past; and her black and white relatives unite in a joyful celebration. Written in a distinctive voice Diamonds Fate conjures up past and current history making events such as the O.J. Simpson trial with telling details. References are made to popular music, movies and television shows that influenced society for generations. While the book contains idiosyncrasies or elements not typically found in most novels, such as: the authors personal photo album included in the back of the book and a frequency of italicized words and paragraphs, the story is compelling enough to make for an exciting, enjoyable and enlightening read. Readers interested in Christian and inspirational stories, as well as those curious about the unique challenges facing biracial children, will appreciate this tale of struggle and triumph. Novel is also available in hardcopy and ebook.

Get the Summary of Jason Diamond's Searching for John Hughes in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. "Searching for John Hughes" is a memoir by Jason Diamond that chronicles his journey as a writer and his obsession with the films of John Hughes. Diamond's narrative weaves through his experiences working at a bakery, his strained relationship with his parents, and his struggles with depression and identity. He recounts his childhood in the Chicago suburbs, marked by domestic chaos and a connection to the settings of Hughes' films...

An unprecedented heat and humidity has fallen upon the city of Bridges. People are dying. Crops are failing. And the Inventors can't find the cause. With all she's learned in our previous chapter, Jacqui has what she needs to unravel the conspiracy against the Four Families. The plans that her old nemesis Jack Diamond has set into motion are all that stands in her way. She's ready to stop him. Warning: Bad language, alcoholism, mental illness, animal abuse/death, smoking, gun violence, rioting, infidelity, sexual situations. This series centers a crime family and is intended for adults. This is the eleventh chapter of a 13-part serial novel: * The Jacq of Spades * The Queen of Diamonds * The Ace of Clubs * The King of Hearts * The Ten of Spades * The Five of Diamonds * The Two of Hearts * The Three of Spades * The Knave of Hearts * The Four of Clubs * The Jack of Diamonds <-- you are here * Book 12 coming March 2026 * Book 13 scheduled for March 2028

In 1850, the legendary Koh-i-noor diamond, gem of Eastern potentates, was transferred from the Punjab in India and, in an elaborate ceremony, placed into Queen Victoria’s outstretched hands. This act inaugurated what author Adrienne Munich recognizes in her engaging new book as the empire of diamonds. Diamonds were a symbol of political power—only for the very rich and influential. But, in a development that also reflected the British Empire’s prosperity, the idea of owning a diamond came to be marketed to the middle class. In all kinds of writings, diamonds began to take on an affordable romance. Considering many of the era’s most iconic voices—from Dickens and Tennyson to Kipling and Stevenson—as well as grand entertainments such as The Moonstone, King Solomon’s Mines, and the tales of Sherlock Holmes, Munich explores diamonds as fetishes that seem to contain a living spirit exerting powerful effects, and shows how they scintillated the literary and cultural imagination. Based on close textual attention and rare archival material, and drawing on ideas from material culture, fashion theory, economic criticism, and fetishism, Empire of Diamonds interprets the various meanings of diamonds, revealing a trajectory including Indian celebrity-named diamonds reserved for Asian princes, such as the Great Mogul and the Hope Diamond, their adoption by British royal and aristocratic families, and their discovery in South Africa, the mining of which devastated the area even as it opened the gem up to the middle classes. The story Munich tells eventually finds its way to America, as power and influence cross the Atlantic, bringing diamonds to a wide consumer culture.

"Alan Carr has once more demonstrated his unique ability to combinean encyclopaedic breadth of knowledge with clear pragmatic ideasabout how to apply this knowledge in clinical practice. The2nd edition of this book is more than just an updatewith new sections on common factors in therapy and on integrativemodels of family therapy which are particularly welcome." —Ivan Eisler, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London,UK Editor, Journal of Family Therapy "Carr’s style of comprehensively considering differenttheories and approaches in a practical manner and demonstratingtheir integrative and cohesive properties is exceptionally helpfuland grounding for the reader. There is little doubt that thisvolume will well serve students, trainees and experiencedpractitioners for sometime to come." —Eddy Street, Former Editor of Journal of FamilyTherapy Now in its second edition, Family Therapy: Concepts, Processand Practice has been fully updated to cover recent advances intheory and practice. It offers a critical evaluation of the majorschools of family therapy, provides an integrative model for thepractice of marital and family therapy, and demonstrates how thismodel can be used in everyday practice with a range of commonchild-focused and adult-focused problems. It also provides athorough, up-to-date review of research on the effectiveness offamily therapy and outlines implications for evidence-basedpractice. This popular text now includes exercises that can be used bytrainers and trainees to foster family therapy skills development.Other key features from the first edition are retained,including: Chapter plans at the start of each chapter and a helpfulsummary of key points at the end Suggestions for further reading Glossary of key terms in theoretical chapters Case examples Full details of resources for professionals, including usefulweb sites. Family Therapy: Concepts, Process and Practice is amust-have resource for all students and mental health professionalstraining in family therapy. It will also be of interest toexperienced practitioners, and those who are involved in deliveringtraining programmes.