In sixty-seven exquisite watercolors and drawings, nationally famous architect Eugene Aubry captures on paper the sensibilities, the memories, and the grace that evokes Galveston, especially for those who are BOI (“born on the island”). Commissioned by the Galveston Historical Foundation, these works of art are intended to enhance the visual record of the buildings and the unique local architectural style that so many have appreciated over the years.? In the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, Galvestonians became more aware than ever of the treasure of the island’s historical architecture and the vulnerability of this heritage to forces beyond human control. Aubry’s art captures the almost palpable sense of past glories these buildings bring to mind. Aubry—himself BOI—has fashioned these pieces in a way that resonates with those who love the island’s ethos. With a fine eye to the artist’s intent and a mastery of detail, architectural historian Stephen Fox expertly and eloquently introduces the work as a whole and, in discursive captions that accompany each image, informs the reader’s appreciation of Aubry’s art. So much more than a tribute, Born on the Island: The Galveston We Remember stands as a loving homage to Galveston—one that will call its readers home to the island, even if they have never ventured there before.

Chocolate? Check. Tall? Check. Fine? Check. Has his own money? Check. Smart? Check. Knows how to please a woman? Double Check. Chance Douglass knows a two things, tattoos and women and that's all he cares about. He had one motto, never get attached, let them know from jump they weren't anything but sex partner and if they stepped out of line? They had to go. He lives his life to the fullest and if you expect an apology then your barking up the wrong six foot three-inch-tall tree. So, moving to a new town to open another successful tattoo shop seemed like a no brainer. Even if the move is temporary, he was still down for a little fun. That is until he sees her. At the airport, but he was busy handling business and could stop. Then the bar but someone from his past needed her more. So, when the third time presented itself? All bets were off, any and everything was possible.Everything done has a reason, every move has to be thought out before executed. List all possible results before going through with any plan. Be logical, set days for certain things. Never do the unexpected. Queen McDaniel has done the exact same thing for the last twenty years, and that's play chess. But now its time to retire and move on with her life and her friends just want her to have a little fun. Be open, explore, if it sounds like a bad idea then do it, date a little and if push comes to shove don't say no.Chance has something that she wants, and his price is fairly reasonable. Four dates. That's all he wants, and she can walk away a very happy woman. What neither of them expected was to constant interference of life. Her mother can't back off and let her make her own decisions and his brother's cant stay off the women that they love bad side. Every time they turn around something or someone is pulling them back. This unsuspecting duo are in for it, but nothing in life that's worth it is never easy.

The term 'power animal' was introduced into contemporary language in 1980 by anthropologist Michael Harner in his classic work The Way Of The Shaman, and refers to a broad-based animistic and shamanic concept that has entered the English language from the fields of anthropology, ethnography and sociology. The animal is conceived as a tutelary spirit that helps or protects individuals, lineages, and nations. Dogs and man became companions a long time ago, and the dog adopted as a power animal represents speed, agility, courage, protection, justice, nobility and loyalty. Aubry's Dog: Power Animals Within Traditional Witchcraft guides your footsteps on this most ancient of paths ... ,

From golden ice cubes to crepuscular charcoal dust: sunset-inspired cocktail recipes to enliven that special hour This book is an invitation to transform the simple contemplation of a well-mixed cocktail into a sensory experience of "drinking the sunset." In 2020, French artist and architect Guillaume Aubry (born 1982) asked the celebrated Paris-based American mixologist Sterling Hudson to translate his artistic research on sunsets into cocktail recipes. Based on Aubry's research and Hudson's expertise, Sunset Cocktails presents 12 cocktails inspired by the beauty of a sunset, from the dazzling "Regulus," whose saffron ice cube glows gold once submerged in vermouth, to the "Grand Soir," a liquid sunset that infuses a dusting of charcoal into a crisp glass of vodka. With luxurious full-color photographs of the cocktails and the sunsets that inspired them, this volume encourages readers to consider mixology as a creative form of expression in the larger context of art history; in addition to Aubry's own writing on the subject, Japanese poet Ryoko Sekiguchi provides a luminous afterword to prepare readers' imaginations for an aesthetic and gustatory experience. A small-format, easily accessible volume, Sunset Cocktails presents Aubry and Hudson's collaboration with a uniquely poetic flair, encouraging readers to reflect upon society's relationship with sunsets and our collective aesthetic experience of quotidian moments of beauty, whether those manifest as a sunset, a fancy cocktail, or both.

In the wake of radical social movements in the 1960s and 1970s, literary studies’ embrace of politics entailed a widespread rejection of aesthetic considerations. For scholars invested in literature’s role in supporting or challenging dominant ideologies, appreciating literature’s formal beauty seemed frivolous and irresponsible, even complicit with the iniquities of the social order. This suspicion of aesthetics became the default posture within literary scholarship, a means of establishing the rigor of one’s thought and the purity of one’s political commitments. Yet as Timothy Aubry explains, aesthetic pleasure never fully disappeared from the academy. It simply went underground. From New Criticism to the digital humanities, Aubry recasts aesthetics as the complicated, morally ambiguous, embattled yet resilient protagonist in late twentieth-century and early twenty-first–century literary studies. He argues that academic critics never stopped asserting preferences for certain texts, rhetorical strategies, or intellectual responses. Rather than serving as the enemy of formalism and aesthetics, political criticism enabled scholars to promote heightened experiences of perceptual acuity and complexity while adjudicating which formal strategies are best designed to bolster these experiences. Political criticism, in other words, did not eradicate but served covertly to nurture reading practices aimed at achieving aesthetic satisfaction. Guilty Aesthetic Pleasures shows that literary studies’ break with midcentury formalism was not as clean as it once appeared. Today, when so many scholars are advocating renewed attention to textual surfaces and aesthetic experiences, Aubry’s work illuminates the surprisingly vast common ground between the formalists and the schools of criticism that succeeded them.

When Nigel Walden is fourteen, the UNHAPPENINGS begin. His first girlfriend disappears the day after their first kiss with no indication she ever existed. This retroactive change is the first of many only he seems to notice.Several years later, when Nigel is visited by two people from his future, he hopes they can explain why the past keeps rewriting itself around him. But the enigmatic young guide shares very little, and the haggard, incoherent, elderly version of himself is even less reliable. His search for answers takes him fifty-two years forward in time, where he finds himself stranded and alone.And then he meets Helen.Brilliant, hilarious and beautiful, she captivates him. But Nigel's relationships always unhappen, and if they get close it could be fatal for her. Worse, according to the young guide, just by entering Helen's life, Nigel has already set into motion events that will have catastrophic consequences. In his efforts to reverse this, and to find a way to remain with Helen, he discovers the disturbing truth about the unhappenings, and the role he and his future self have played all along.Equal parts time-travel adventure and tragic love story, Unhappenings is a tale of gravely bad choices, and Nigel's struggle not to become what he sees in the preview of his worst self.

The son of a Gypsy woman, Sebastien is found as a newborn baby in the Alps and brought up by Guillaume and his grandchildren Angelina and Jean. Born on the same day, Belle is a beautiful white Pyrenean Mountain Dog who has been neglected and passed on from owner to owner, until one day she escapes from a kennel. When Sebastien rescues the runaway Belle from the wrath of the villagers, the boy and the dog form a lifelong friendship and embark on exciting adventures in the mountains.First published in 1965 to coincide with the internationally successful television series of the same name, Belle and Sebastien is a heart-warming story of camaraderie, adventure and freedom.

Why do Americans read contemporary fiction? This question seems simple, but is it? Do Americans read for the purpose of aesthetic appreciation? To satisfy their own insatiable intellectual curiosities? While other forms of media have come to monopolize consumers’ leisure time, in the past two decades book clubs have proliferated, Amazon has sponsored thriving online discussions, Oprah Winfrey has inspired millions of viewers to read both contemporary works and classics, and novels have retained their devoted following within middlebrow communities. In Reading as Therapy, Timothy Aubry argues that contemporary fiction serves primarily as a therapeutic tool for lonely, dissatisfied middle-class American readers, one that validates their own private dysfunctions while supporting elusive communities of strangers unified by shared feelings. Aubry persuasively makes the case that contemporary literature’s persistent appeal depends upon its capacity to perform a therapeutic function. Aubry traces the growth and proliferation of psychological concepts focused on the subjective interior within mainstream, middle-class society and the impact this has had on contemporary fiction. The prevailing tendency among academic critics has been to decry the personal emphasis of contemporary fiction as complicit with the rise of a narcissistic culture, the ascendency of liberal individualism, and the breakdown of public life. Reading as Therapy, by contrast, underscores the varied ideological effects that therapeutic culture can foster. To uncover the many unpredictable ways in which contemporary literature answers the psychological needs of its readers, Aubry considers several different venues of reader-response—including Oprah’s Book Club and Amazon customer reviews—the promotional strategies of publishing houses, and a variety of contemporary texts, ranging from Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner to Anita Shreve’s The Pilot’s Wife to David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. He concludes that, in the face of an atomistic social landscape, contemporary fiction gives readers a therapeutic vocabulary that both reinforces the private sphere and creates surprising forms of sympathy and solidarity among strangers.