An umbrella offers protection and covering from the outside elements. An umbrella shields one from what you dont want to experience. Dads can picture themselves as an umbrella over their daughters as they grow up. A dads role is to protect, cover and shield his daughter from unwanted and outside elements. My prayer is that the reader would stand above the rest in their parenting efforts. Be the kind of dad that rises to the challenge and embraces the battle. This book examines the tumultuous culture that girls are growing up in and will help dads begin to understand their role in the battle. There are firsthand testimonies from quality young women who will report what their fathers did that cultivated a close father/daughter relationship. In addition, you will hear from dads who worked hard at being great fathers and learn by their example. I will share personal experiences that have shaped my parenting and provided me with the insight, conviction and motivation I needed to be the right kind of dad for my daughter. God bless you in the sacred task of raising a daughter. I pray this book will empower you in the process. Alan Smyth

Prize Possession is a history of United States policy towards the Panama Canal, focusing principally on the first two generations of American tenure of the Canal Zone between 1904 and 1955. John Major also provides an extensive look at the nineteenth-century background, the making of the 1903 canal treaty with Panama, the move after 1955 towards the new treaty settlement of 1977, and the crucial significance of the Canal to American policy-makers and their public. The book is based for the most part on the hitherto largely untapped sources of US government agencies, namely, the State, War, and Navy Department, and the Canal Zone administration, as well as on the papers of notable dramatis personae such as Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and Philippe Bunau-Varilla. As such it makes an important and original contribution to our knowledge and understanding of a subject which has not yet received its due from historians.

Gryffin Strain: His Female By Madison Hayes The human Chiarra is on the run. When she manages to cross the dangerous maelstrom, seeking refuge among the fascinating Gryffin, she never expects to become the prize in a vicious contest between two magnificent males. Descended from the winged gryffins and armed with poisonous barbs on their knuckles, the mighty Gryffin are humanoid creatures both deadly and dangerous. They are feared for their power and strength, though regarded as "animal" by the prejudiced humans dwelling on the far side of the treacherous divide. And yet, human females are highly prized as mates-it is perhaps every Gryffin male's fantasy to have a woman like Chiarra in his fold. Determined to save the girl from certain death, Jarrk fights for the right to claim her-only to be shamed in front of his people by the hostile, arrogant little human. Thus ensues a battle of wills between the two-a struggle born of pride, prejudice and misconception-fired by a dangerous, unwanted attraction that cannot be denied. By the time Chiarra's past catches up to her, Jarrk has developed a taste for all this sensual creature can offer him-and claimed Chiarra as his own. He'll kill the man who dares to touch his female. Now they are on the run, but a Gryffin and human together make a conspicuous pair. Though they might outwit the men who seek Chiarra's life, they'll never outrun the huge reward offered for her capture. Only a combination of human ingenuity and animal instinct will save them-only with unconditional trust can they find the true promise of love. Kingdom of Khal: Redeeming Davik By Madison Hayes Set in an ancient world peopled by strange races with paranormal abilities, Davik's story takes you to the Kingdom of Khal, where civil war between North and South threatens to tear the country apart. When the besieging army captures a beautiful Northern Rebel, the girl gives her word to submit to the two Southern Princes in return for their promise to neither force nor bind her. Almost from the start, Prince Davik regrets enslaving the North Country girl. Even more, he resents having to share Petra with his brother. But Davik, experiencing arousal overload, is unable to deny his body's insatiable demand for the quiet, mysterious beauty. After four days and nights of relentless sex, Davik realizes he can no longer take part in Petra's sexual coercion. He's poised to free the girl when his life is abruptly, tragically changed, and the tables are turned. Now cold, determined hatred threatens to destroy The Prince of Khal; only by love will he be redeemed. Davik discovers revenge to be a haunting victory while Petra risks love and life to repair the Southern Prince-and return him to power.

From the renowned author of Possession, The Children’s Book is the absorbing story of the close of what has been called the Edwardian summer: the deceptively languid, blissful period that ended with the cataclysmic destruction of World War I. In this compelling novel, A.S. Byatt summons up a whole era, revealing that beneath its golden surface lay tensions that would explode into war, revolution and unbelievable change — for the generation that came of age before 1914 and, most of all, for their children. The novel centres around Olive Wellwood, a fairy tale writer, and her circle, which includes the brilliant, erratic craftsman Benedict Fludd and his apprentice Phillip Warren, a runaway from the poverty of the Potteries; Prosper Cain, the soldier who directs what will become the Victoria and Albert Museum; Olive’s brother-in-law Basil Wellwood, an officer of the Bank of England; and many others from every layer of society. A.S. Byatt traces their lives in intimate detail and moves between generations, following the children who must choose whether to follow the roles expected of them or stand up to their parents’ “porcelain socialism.” Olive’s daughter Dorothy wishes to become a doctor, while her other daughter, Hedda, wants to fight for votes for women. Her son Tom, sent to an upper-class school, wants nothing more than to spend time in the woods, tracking birds and foxes. Her nephew Charles becomes embroiled with German-influenced revolutionaries. Their portraits connect the political issues at the heart of nascent feminism and socialism with grave personal dilemmas, interlacing until The Children’s Book becomes a perfect depiction of an entire world. Olive is a fairy tale writer in the era of Peter Pan and Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind In the Willows, not long after Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. At a time when children in England suffered deprivation by the millions, the concept of childhood was being refined and elaborated in ways that still influence us today. For each of her children, Olive writes a special, private book, bound in a different colour and placed on a shelf; when these same children are ferried off into the unremitting destruction of the Great War, the reader is left to wonder who the real children in this novel are. The Children’s Book is an astonishing novel. It is an historical feat that brings to life an era that helped shape our own as well as a gripping, personal novel about parents and children, life’s most painful struggles and its richest pleasures. No other writer could have imagined it or created it.

Slight revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago.

How the United States became an imperial power by bowing to pressure to defend its citizens' overseas investments Throughout the twentieth century, the U.S. government willingly deployed power, hard and soft, to protect American investments all around the globe. Why did the United States get into the business of defending its citizens' property rights abroad? The Empire Trap looks at how modern U.S. involvement in the empire business began, how American foreign policy became increasingly tied to the sway of private financial interests, and how postwar administrations finally extricated the United States from economic interventionism, even though the government had the will and power to continue. Noel Maurer examines the ways that American investors initially influenced their government to intercede to protect investments in locations such as Central America and the Caribbean. Costs were small—at least at the outset—but with each incremental step, American policy became increasingly entangled with the goals of those they were backing, making disengagement more difficult. Maurer discusses how, all the way through the 1970s, the United States not only failed to resist pressure to defend American investments, but also remained unsuccessful at altering internal institutions of other countries in order to make property rights secure in the absence of active American involvement. Foreign nations expropriated American investments, but in almost every case the U.S. government's employment of economic sanctions or covert action obtained market value or more in compensation—despite the growing strategic risks. The advent of institutions focusing on international arbitration finally gave the executive branch a credible political excuse not to act. Maurer cautions that these institutions are now under strain and that a collapse might open the empire trap once more. With shrewd and timely analysis, this book considers American patterns of foreign intervention and the nation's changing role as an imperial power.

A photo-journey through the homes and lives of 30 families, revealing culture and economic levels around the world.

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book • Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction • Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction “Easily the funniest book I’ve read this year.” —GQ “Masterly funny debut novel . . . Erudite but never pretentious, The Idiot will make you crave more books by Batuman.” —Sloane Crosley, Vanity Fair A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself. The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings. At the end of the school year, Ivan goes to Budapest for the summer, and Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside, to teach English in a program run by one of Ivan's friends. On the way, she spends two weeks visiting Paris with Svetlana. Selin's summer in Europe does not resonate with anything she has previously heard about the typical experiences of American college students, or indeed of any other kinds of people. For Selin, this is a journey further inside herself: a coming to grips with the ineffable and exhilarating confusion of first love, and with the growing consciousness that she is doomed to become a writer. With superlative emotional and intellectual sensitivity, mordant wit, and pitch-perfect style, Batuman dramatizes the uncertainty of life on the cusp of adulthood. Her prose is a rare and inimitable combination of tenderness and wisdom; its logic as natural and inscrutable as that of memory itself. The Idiot is a heroic yet self-effacing reckoning with the terror and joy of becoming a person in a world that is as intoxicating as it is disquieting. Batuman's fiction is unguarded against both life's affronts and its beauty--and has at its command the complete range of thinking and feeling which they entail. Named one the best books of the year by Refinery29 • Mashable One • Elle Magazine • The New York Times • Bookpage • Vogue • NPR • Buzzfeed •The Millions

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How many times do we as believers find ourselves on the wrong track trying to do the will of God but accomplishing nothing? How many times must we point our fingers at our pastors and Bible study teachers and blame them for all of our short-comings? It is time for us to learn who is really in charge a very hard task for many of us because we are so use to blaming others for some or all of our faults. When you finally begin to face reality, you'll soon discover that you and you alone are responsible for the fix that you are in. Even so, theyyour pastors, Bible study teachers, and the likeare still held accountable because they are preachers and teachers of the gospel. There are many scary believers out there who will not say a word for the gospel; you too are accountable for not spreading the word of God. God cannot use a wall-flower; you are not even good for yourself, and you must walk in the love of God in order to be useful to the name Jesus. If not you are not walking in the promise, then you are no good to the gospel. It is no longer about you once you cross over; its about Jesus in you, accomplishing the will of the Father. When you read this book and you get offended in any way, you just keep on reading; the Holy Spirit will open up the pages of these words He has provided to us. May the Holy Spirit bless you richly in Jesus!