When Philip Hensher realized that he didn't know what a close friend's handwriting looked like ("bold or crabbed, sloping or upright, italic or rounded, elegant or slapdash"), he felt that something essential was missing from their friendship. It dawned on him that having abandoned pen and paper for keyboards, we have lost one of the ways by which we come to recognize and know another person. People have written by hand for thousands of years— how, Hensher wondered, have they learned this skill, and what part has it played in their lives? The Missing Ink tells the story of this endangered art. Hensher introduces us to the nineteenth-century handwriting evangelists who traveled across America to convert the masses to the moral worth of copperplate script; he examines the role handwriting plays in the novels of Charles Dickens; he investigates the claims made by the practitioners of graphology that penmanship can reveal personality. But this is also a celebration of the physical act of writing: the treasured fountain pens, chewable ballpoints, and personal embellishments that we stand to lose. Hensher pays tribute to the warmth and personality of the handwritten love note, postcards sent home, and daily diary entries. With the teaching of handwriting now required in only five states and many expert typists barely able to hold a pen, the future of handwriting is in jeopardy. Or is it? Hugely entertaining, witty, and thought-provoking, The Missing Ink will inspire readers to pick up a pen and write.

When Philip Hensher realized that he didn't know what a close friend's handwriting looked like, he felt that something essential was missing from their friendship. But does it really matter that typing and texting have largely taken the place of passionate love letters, secret diary entries and postcards home? From the crucial role of handwriting in a child's development, to the novels of Dickens and Proust - and whether a person's writing really reveals their true personality - The Missing Ink goes in search of the stories and characters that have shaped our handwriting, and how it in turn has shaped us.

Murder leaves a mark Brett Kavanaugh is a tattoo artist and owner of an elite tattoo parlor in Las Vegas. When a girl makes an appointment for a tattoo of the name of her fiancé embedded in a heart, Brett takes the job but the girl never shows. The next thing Brett knows, the police are looking for her client, and the name she wanted on the tattoo isn't her fiancé's...

The latest in the cleverly designed tattoo shop mystery series. Brett Kavanaugh is a tattoo artist and owner of Vegas's hottest tattoo shop, The Painted Lady. And in her spare time, she does some sleuthing. After discovering the corpse of a Dean Martin impersonator-sporting a spider web tattoo and a clip cord from a tattoo machine wrapped around his neck-Brett infiltrates That's Amore, a drive-through wedding chapel, as a bride-to-be looking for the mark of a murderer...

The remarkable true story of the document heist that shocked the world. Like many aspiring writers, David Breithaupt had money problems. But what he also had was unsupervised access to one of the finest special collections libraries in the country. In October 1990, Kenyon College hired Breithaupt as its library’s part-time evening supervisor. In April 2000, he was fired after a Georgia librarian discovered him selling a letter by Flannery O’Connor on eBay, but that was only the tip of the iceberg: for the past ten years, Breithaupt had been browsing the collection, taking from it whatever rare books, manuscripts, and documents caught his eye—W. H. Auden annotated typescripts, a Thomas Pynchon manuscript, and much, much more. It was a large-scale, long-term pillaging of Kenyon College’s most precious works. After he was caught, the American justice system looked like it was about to disappoint the college the way it had countless rare book crime victims before—but Kenyon, refused to let this happen . . .

Patrick Modiano explores the boundaries of recollection in a "mesmerizing, enigmatic novel" (Publishers Weekly) "Nobel Prize winner Modiano's title smartly ties together the theme, plot, and ambience of his latest book . . . The past overlaps and memories half-emerge in classic Modiano fashion, just as a message in invisible ink tentatively reveals itself in the right light."--Library Journal "An enchanting read."--Ploughshares The latest work from Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano, Invisible Ink is a spellbinding tale of memory and its illusions. Private detective Jean Eyben receives an assignment to locate a missing woman, the mysterious Noëlle Lefebvre. While the case proves fruitless, the clues Jean discovers along the way continue to haunt him. Three decades later, he resumes the investigation for himself, revisiting old sites and tracking down witnesses, compelled by reasons he can't explain to follow the cold trail and discover the shocking truth once and for all. A number one best seller in France, hailed by critics as "breathtakingly beautiful" (Les Inrockuptibles) and "refined and dazzling" (Le Journal du Dimanche), Invisible Ink is Modiano's most thrilling and revelatory work to date.

Dee Carmichael, lead singer of the pop sensation The Flamingoes, has been one of Brett Kavanaugh's most dedicated customers at her tattoo shop. When Dee is discovered dead surrounded by ink pots and needles, Brett is branded a suspect. It seems that someone is impersonating Brett. And if she doesn't act fast, the killer is sure to put the dye in dying once again...

***A STANDALONE novel*** Sometimes the things we shouldn’t want become exactly what we need . . . Waitressing at a seedy strip club isn’t ideal, but it pays Sarah Adamson’s tuition. Her goal is to finish her master’s program and get a job that doesn’t involve tight skirts and groping hands. She doesn’t need distractions. Especially not the one that comes in the form of a hot-as-sin tattoo artist who works across the street from her apartment. Kicked out at sixteen, and a high school dropout, Chris Zelter is familiar with wanting things he can’t have. His fractured life has never been easy. As the product of someone else’s bad decisions, he knows exactly what happens when the wrong person controls your marionette strings. Now an accomplished tattoo artist in a renowned studio in Chicago, Chris has it together. Mostly. Apart from his infatuation with Sarah. She’s way out of his league, and Chris knows it. But he’s willing to be her bad decision. At least for now.

The first in a thrilling series from the USA TODAY bestselling author of the Nine Worlds series following an Amazonian woman in modern-day Wisconsin as she struggles to solve two mysterious and shocking murders. It’s been ten years since Melanippe Saka left her Amazon tribe in order to create a normal life for her daughter Harmony. True, running a tattoo parlor in Madison, Wisconsin, while living with your Amazon warrior mother and priestess grandmother is not everyone’s idea of normal, but Mel thinks she’s succeeded at blending in as human. Turns out she’s wrong. Someone knows all about her, someone who’s targeting young Amazonian girls, and no way is Mel going to let Harmony become tangled in this deadly web. With her motherly instinct in overdrive, Ms. Melanippe Saka is quite a force…even when she’s facing a barrage of distractions—including a persistent detective whose interest in Mel goes beyond professional, a sexy tattoo artist with secrets of his own, and a seriously angry Amazon queen who views Mel as a prime suspect. To find answers, Mel will have to do the one thing she swore she’d never do: embrace her powers and admit that you can take the girl out of the tribe...but you can’t take the tribe out of the girl.

Invisible Ink is a helpful, accessible guide to the essential elements of the best storytelling by award-winning writer/director/producer Brian McDonald. Readers learn techniques for building a compelling story around a theme, engaging audiences with writing, creating appealing characters, and much more.