Falling in love is complicated enough without adding murder to the mix. In the midst of bookstore owner Kate Shannon's growing feelings for a much younger Nikki Harris, a fatal fire in an insurance office across the street adds another challenge--and one that could be deadly. Subsequent fires make life hot as they rush against time to unravel the mystery surrounding the death of Sam Madison, all the while dealing with their newfound attraction. Will the unexpected sparks between these two very different women blind them to the true identity of the arsonist? Or will they be able to stop a killer before anything else goes up in flames?

“Suspenseful…emotionally compelling. I found myself eagerly following in a way I hadn’t remembered for a long time, impatient for the next twist and turn of the story."—NPR An Afghan American woman returns to Kabul to learn the truth about her family and the tragedy that destroyed their lives in this brilliant and compelling novel from the bestselling author of The Pearl That Broke Its Shell, The House Without Windows, and When the Moon Is Low. Kabul, 1978: The daughter of a prominent family, Sitara Zamani lives a privileged life in Afghanistan’s thriving cosmopolitan capital. The 1970s are a time of remarkable promise under the leadership of people like Sardar Daoud, Afghanistan’s progressive president, and Sitara’s beloved father, his right-hand man. But the ten-year-old Sitara’s world is shattered when communists stage a coup, assassinating the president and Sitara’s entire family. Only she survives. Smuggled out of the palace by a guard named Shair, Sitara finds her way to the home of a female American diplomat, who adopts her and raises her in America. In her new country, Sitara takes on a new name—Aryana Shepherd—and throws herself into her studies, eventually becoming a renowned surgeon. A survivor, Aryana has refused to look back, choosing instead to bury the trauma and devastating loss she endured. New York, 2008: Thirty years after that fatal night in Kabul, Aryana’s world is rocked again when an elderly patient appears in her examination room—a man she never expected to see again. It is Shair, the soldier who saved her, yet may have murdered her entire family. Seeing him awakens Aryana’s fury and desire for answers—and, perhaps, revenge. Realizing that she cannot go on without finding the truth, Aryana embarks on a quest that takes her back to Kabul—a battleground between the corrupt government and the fundamentalist Taliban—and through shadowy memories of the world she loved and lost. Bold, illuminating, heartbreaking, yet hopeful, Sparks Like Stars is a story of home—of America and Afghanistan, tragedy and survival, reinvention and remembrance, told in Nadia Hashimi’s singular voice.

Stories are like rare coins, earned through the hard work of living, valuable only as they are exchanged and shared. Our shared humanity is affirmed in our stories, and we’re already connected with each other by the older stories from which our stories spring, by the showers of sparks that ignite our fires. In Showers of Sparks, author Stoddard B. Williams shares stories of his life, remembering and reflecting on times he’s experienced the love of God. Through a collection of poetry and narrative, he shows that stories bridge the spaces that can so easily separate us, such spaces as time and place and relationships. Stories, factual or fictional, become personal expressions of our doubts and beliefs, our convictions and confusions, our hopes and our fears. Showers of Sparks captures Williams’ memories, offering insight into his life and his relationship with God and others.

Can ignorance, mistake, failure shape ways of reading, or do they disrupt its proper practice? What happens when the authority of modern education and culture places canonical western texts in the way of readers who live in worlds remote from their material contexts? The Amateur reads patterns of autodidactism and intellectual self-formation under systems of colonial education that are variously repressive, exclusionary, broken, or narrowly instrumental. It outlines the development of a wide range of writers, activists, and thinkers whose failed relationships with institutions of knowledge curiously enabled their later success as popular intellectuals. Bringing current debates around reading together with the history of higher education in the postcolony, it focuses on three primary locations: Black intellectuals in apartheid-era South Africa in the aftermath of the Bantu Education Act of 1953, 20th century Caribbean writers who sought to understand the disembodied legacy of the diaspora through accidental encounters with literature and history, and writers from late-colonial and postcolonial India whose disruptive self-formation departed from the administrative project of professionalizing a particular kind of colonial subject. Celebrating flawed and accidental forms of reading, writing, and learning along the periphery of the historical British Empire, Majumdar reveals an unexpected account of the humanities in the postcolony.

The Carbon Nanomaterials Sourcebook contains extensive, interdisciplinary coverage of carbon nanomaterials, encompassing the full scope of the field—from physics, chemistry, and materials science to molecular biology, engineering, and medicine—in two comprehensive volumes. Written in a tutorial style, this second volume of the sourcebook: Focuses on nanoparticles, nanocapsules, nanofibers, nanoporous structures, and nanocomposites Describes the fundamental properties, growth mechanisms, and processing of each nanomaterial discussed Explores functionalization for electronic, energy, biomedical, and environmental applications Showcases materials with exceptional properties, synthesis methods, large-scale production techniques, and application prospects Provides the tools necessary for understanding current and future technology developments, including important equations, tables, and graphs Each chapter is dedicated to a different type of carbon nanomaterial and addresses three main areas: formation, properties, and applications. This setup allows for quick and easy search, making the Carbon Nanomaterials Sourcebook: Nanoparticles, Nanocapsules, Nanofibers, Nanoporous Structures, and Nanocomposites a must-have reference for scientists and engineers.

Each generation revises literary history and this is nowhere more evident than in the post-Second World War period. This 2011 Companion offers a comprehensive, authoritative and accessible overview of the diversity of American fiction since the Second World War. Essays by nineteen distinguished scholars provide critical insights into the significant genres, historical contexts, cultural diversity and major authors during a period of enormous American global political and cultural power. This power is overshadowed, nevertheless, by national anxieties growing out of events ranging from the Civil Rights Movement to the rise of feminism; from the Cold War and its fear of Communism and nuclear warfare to the Age of Terror and its different yet related fears of the 'Other'. American fiction since 1945 has faithfully chronicled these anxieties. An essential reference guide, this Companion provides a chronology of the period, as well as guides to further reading.

After 1855 the society's annual reports were included in its Proceedings.