Better Off Without Em

Describes the author's road trip investigation into the cultural divide of the United States during which he met possum-hunting conservatives and prayer warriors before concluding that both sides might benefit if the South seceded.

This gripping bestseller, first published in 1966, has continued to captivate readers with its wide-ranging yet intimate portrait of an America sundered by racial conflict. David Champlin is a black man born into poverty in Depression-era New Orleans who makes his way up the ladder of success, only to sacrifice everything to lead his people in the civil rights movement. Sara Kent is the white girl who loves David from the moment she first sees him, and who struggles against his belief that a marriage for them would be wrong in the violent world he has to confront. And the “five smooth stones” are those the biblical David carried against Goliath. By the time this novel comes to its climax of horror, bloodshed, and hope, readers will be convinced that its enduring popularity is fully justified.

This brilliant classic of speculative fiction imagines the aftermath of an extraordinary global occurrence that forces Earth’s men and women to exist in parallel dimensions Like every other family, the Gaunts are devastated by the unexplained phenomenon that occurs one Tuesday afternoon in February. In an instant, every female on Earth is mysteriously transported to a different plane, forced to live apart from the males, who have been left behind. Suddenly trapped in two parallel realities—with the bonds of love, trust, sex, and stability that formed the foundation of their relationship abruptly severed—Bill and Paula Gaunt must separately reexamine who they truly are and what they are capable of as existence itself becomes a struggle in one world that descends into violence and brutality, and another that is soon plagued by famine and despair. Originally published more than half a century ago, Philip Wylie’s provocative science fiction classic remains a masterful work of intelligence and imagination. The Disappearance is a breathtaking, thought-provoking exploration of gender roles and expectations that reveals stark truths about who we are as men and women—and as the interconnected members of a fallible human race.

Reproduction of the original: Samantha On the Women Question by Marietta Holley

A fascinating, thoroughly researched historical novel of Haiti and Africa, and the early United States, outlining Haitians battle for freedom seen through the eyes of one man. It features Albion Hamlin, who comes to Boston in 1800 to defend a man accused of violating the Alien and Sedition Act. In a whirlwind of action, Hamlin is jailed, then escapes to Haiti in search of his client's daughter, Lydia Bailey, with whom he has fallen in love simply by gazing at her portrait.

Traveling with circus sideshow performers after fleeing an oppressive school for wayward girls, Portia Remini feels out of place among her exotic companions while wondering about her missing father and fearing capture by the school's sinister headmaster. 20,000 first printing.

Is it the war to end all wars - or war without end? It is 1917, and the United States are fighting a war on two fronts. In the north, from the Pacific to Quebec, US forces in the air and on land are locked in battle against Canada and Great Britain. To the south, at the heart of a line that stretches from the Gulf of California to the Atlantic, General Custer intends to do what none of his predecessors have done - to smash through the Confederate lines in Tennessee. Into this vast, seething cauldron plunges a new generation of weapons - submarines, barrels, attack planes, poison gas and flame throwers - changing the shape of war and the balance of power. 'The wizard of If.' Chicago Sun-Times 'The standard-bearer for alternate history.' USA Today

Old sins cast long shadows... Thirty years on from a horrific series of child murders in London, Josephine Tey sets out to write a novel about the crimes' perpetrators: Amelia Sach and Annie Walters, the notorious Finchley baby farmers. Meanwhile, her friend, Inspector Archie Penrose is investigating the sadistic murder of a young seamstress, found dead amid preparations for a star-studded charity gala. The girl's death seems to be the result of a long-standing domestic feud, but Archie is unconvinced; and when a second young woman is involved in an horrific accident soon afterwards, the search begins for a vicious killer who will stop at nothing to keep the past where it belongs...

When Danish immigrant soldier Hans Olufsen heads west in 1856 seeking land of his own, he meets and marries an Indian woman named Little Feather. They settle in the Sheyenne River Valley of what is now North Dakota. Together they negotiate many disputes and settlements between the white man and the Indians. Hundreds of whites are killed during the Minnesota Sioux Uprising of 1862. Hans must use artillery skills that he learned in the Danish army to defend Fort Abercrombie. When some three hundred Indians are imprisoned and condemned to death, Hans and Little Feather go to Washington DC with a preacher to plead for President Abraham Lincoln's intervention. Lincoln frees all but thirty-eight of the Indians, of whom one is Little Feather's nephew. Following the Civil War, Hans and Little Feather return home, where Little Feather teaches prairie survival and English to the immigrant women. But after the massacre of General Custer and his troops in 1876, the community turns against Little Feather and her children. This social upheaval threatens to destroy all that Hans and Little Feather have worked so hard to create. It Just Didn't Happen tells the story of their adventurous and loving life together.

In this stunning retelling of World War II, Harry Turtledove has created a blockbuster saga that is thrilling, troubling, and utterly compelling. It is 1943, the third summer of the new war between the Confederate States of America and the United States, a war that will turn on the deeds of ordinary soldiers, extraordinary heroes, and a colorful cast of spies, politicians, rebels, and everyday citizens. The CSA president, Jake Featherstone, has greatly miscalculated the North’s resilience. In Ohio, where Confederate victory was once almost certain, Featherstone’s army is crumbling, and reinforcements of uninspired Mexican troops cannot stanch a Northern assault on the heartland. The tide of war is changing, and victory seems within the grasp of the USA. Still, new fighting flares from Denver to Los Angeles. Indeed, as the air, ground, and water burn with molten fury, new and demonic tools of killing are unleashed, and secret wars are unfolding. The U.S. government in Philadelphia has proof that the tyrannical Featherstone is murdering African Americans by the tens of thousands in a Texas gulag called Determination. And the leaders of both sides know full well that the world’s next great power will not be the one with the biggest army but the nation that wins the race against nature and science—and smashes open the power of the atom. In Settling Accounts, Harry Turtledove blends vivid fictional characters with a cast inspired by history, including the Socialist assistant secretary of war Franklin Delano Roosevelt and beleaguered Confederate military commander Nathan Bedford Forrest. In The Grapple, he takes his spellbinding vision to new heights as he captures the heart and soul of a generation born and raised amid unimaginable violence. This is a struggle of conquest and conscience, played out on American soil.

This is the classic series from Pulitzer Prize-winning historical novelist Kenneth Roberts, all featuring characters from the town of Arundel, Maine. Arundel follows Steven Nason as he joins Benedict Arnold in his march to Quebec during the American Revolution.

Puberty at Eighty is a self deprecating analysis of his life at sea and on shore in many lands, many occupations and in hard times and in good.

Why does society enjoy hating their villains with such passion? Are the judgments ever wrong? Can these villains be so easily tagged? These are the questions that the nine-year-old Sami Avery begins to ask and continues to ask in her poignant yet tumultuous journey through life. Sami struggles through devastating situations while learning that things aren't always cut and dry, black and white, or good and bad. Through hard work, and a stubborn spark of self-worth, she begins to create her own destiny. Leaving her hometown at sixteen, she confronts a part of herself, which she finds shameful and, like most others, will never admit that she was a part of. As the years go by, social norms continue to improve and, like others, she leaves ignorance in her past. Sami's experiences come full circle, however, in her thirties, when she falls in love with, and marries, a man twenty years her senior. She comes to more fully understand how insidious ignorance in judgments can be. Deeply depressed, she is nearly destroyed by it, until a single moment when all the events of her life come together. She remembers the strength she witnessed in a mentor who had dealt with the echoes of prejudice throughout the entirety of his life. Her epiphany is about connection, love and, most importantly, about forgiving ignorance.

Karen Rutledge had grown up in seclusion from a devastated world. But now she was alone in the open to face the unknown. Would she find a place among those seeking to rebuild civilization? And can that civilization survive? Cover and illustrations by Katrin Orav.

This is a selection of the best plays of Chikamatsu, one of the greatest Japanese dramatists. Master of the marionette and popular dramas, he had, until the publication of this book, remained unknown to western readers owing to the difficulty of translating the work into English. The introduction provides a comprehensive survey of the history of Japanese drama which will assist the reader in better understanding the plays.

When drugs and gang graffiti upset a quiet town in Pennsylvania's Pocono mountains, a local pastor teams up with a New Age shop owner to track down the culprits.

Extraterrestrials obviously have seeped into our consciousness. Finally, in a hilarious send-up of self-help manuals, Emmy Award-winning author Joe Tripician fearlessly tackles the whole spectrumaliens, UFOs, true believers, government deceptions and other things paranormal. Peppered with facts, conspiracies, opinion, and events too incredible not to be made up (but aren't).

You’re holding a briefcase full of practical tools that can boost your leadership skills and help you identify and develop associates who can move the organization forward. Author Michael L. Ryan is president and CEO of Human Resource Professionals, which helps agencies, companies, and other organizations boost leadership skills and cultivate top talent. In this guide, Ryan leads managers on a quest to become leaders. Through case studies, statistics, and secrets he discovered during a fifty-year career, you can learn how to recruit, attract, and retain excellent employees; create a workplace that encourages employees to motivate themselves; counsel, coach, and constructively resolve conflicts; stay out of trouble with lawyers and government agencies; and communicate effectively in writing, orally, and nonverbally. He also offers insights on becoming a better listener, balancing work and life, and implementing the necessary change to accomplish your goals. While books and manuals sit on a shelf and collect dust, a briefcase is kept handy and carried around. Wear this one out and keep it near you at all times, and you’ll be on your way to becoming a leader and accomplishing business objectives.

In A Late Encounter with the Civil War, Michael Kreyling confronts the changing nature of our relationship to the anniversary of the war that nearly split the United States. When significant anniversaries arrive in the histories of groups such as families, businesses, or nations, their members set aside time to formally remember their shared past. This phenomenon—this social or collective memory—reveals as much about a group's sense of place in the present as it does about the events of the past. So it is with the Civil War. As a nation, we have formally remembered two Civil War anniversaries, the 50th and 100th. We are now in the complicated process of remembering the war for a third time. Kreyling reminds us that we were a different “we” for each of the earlier commemorations, and that “we” are certainly different now, and not only because the president in office for the 150th anniversary represents a member of the race for whose emancipation from slavery the war was waged. These essays explore the conscious and unconscious mechanisms by which each era has staged, written, and thought about the meaning of the Civil War. Kreyling engages the not-quite-conscious agendas at work in the rituals of remembering through fiction, film, graphic novels, and other forms of expression. Each cultural example wrestles with the current burden of remembering: What are we attempting to do with a memory that, to many, seems irrelevant or so far in the past as to be almost irretrievable?