An Ideal Husband

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ** ### From Publishers Weekly Chapman, author of the bestselling *The Five Love Languages,* teams up with psychologist Thomas for thoughtful dissection of another tricky subject. Chapman and Thomas choose to tackle the apology because, as with love, understanding it is essential for developing, maintaining and repairing relationships. Apology, however, covers a much broader scope, applying to all varieties of relationships, from the deeply personal connection between intimate partners to the formal relationships between nations. Chapman and Thomas's basic observation that we don't all agree on what constitutes a sincere apology is perhaps not surprising, but it may, as they show, help couples who can't resolve arguments because their apologies aren't accepted. The authors stress that you need to learn the "language" of the person you are apologizing to: for one person, it may be expressing regret, while for another it's accepting responsibility or making restitution. Especially useful is the chapter that helps readers learn which language of apology feels most sincere to them. Chapman and Thomas are most apt when they seek to repair relationships not with large ideas but with simple basics that are too often taken for granted. *(Sept.)* Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ### Review Shows how a good adaptation of a classic can speak to the present age. --*AudioFile*
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Nobody Knows My Name

Told with Baldwin's characteristically unflinching honesty, this collection of illuminating, deeply felt essays examines topics ranging from race relations in the United States to the role of the writer in society, and offers personal accounts of Richard Wright, Norman Mailer and other writers.
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The Shadow of the Rope

\'The Shadow of the Rope\' is a novel about a woman on trial for the murder of her husband. She is found not guilty but public opinion is almost universally against her except for a stranger who offers to marry her and give her protection.
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The Longest Journey

In this searching tragicomedy of manners, personalities, and world views, E. M. Forster explores the "idea of England" he would later develop in Howard's End. Bookish, sensitive, and given to wild enthusiasms, Rickie Elliot is virtually made for a life at Cambridge, where he can subsist on a regimen of biscuits and philosophical debate. But the love-smitten Rickie leaves his natural habitat to marry the devastatingly practical Agnes Pembroke, who brings with her — as a sort of dowry — a teaching position at the abominable Sawston School. From the Trade Paperback edition.
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Reprieve - a short story

The fate of all humankind hung in the balance. Trouble was, they didn't know it. S.S. Wilson is the screenwriter of such films as Tremors and Short Circuit.S.S. Wilson's first novel Tucker's Monster is the Winner of the 2011 Bill Fisher Award for Best First Book - Fiction, presented at the 23rd annual Benjamin Franklin Awards.
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Captains Courageous

The only one of Kipling's novels to be cast in an American setting, Captains Courageous endures as one of literature's most cherished and memorable sea adventures. Harvey Cheyne, spoiled millionaire's son, tumbles overboard from a luxury liner--only to be rescued by the crew of a Gloucester schooner. Thus begins the boy's second voyage into the rugged rites and ways of sailors. Like all Kipling's masterworks, Captains Courageous is an interweaving of art and moral purpose. Angus Wilson has said that it shows "delicacy of craft and violence of feeling, exactitude and wile impressionism, subtlety and true innocence." A popular favorite since its first publication in 1897, the novel remains a classic story of youthful initiation--and a lively tribute to the author's famous code of bravery, loyalty, and honor among men.
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Unforgettable You

For Sheila, a lie is a deal-breaker. But what if it’s not a lie? What if it’s just not the whole truth? Being a popular Dom at the nicest BDSM club in town would be the top of the mountain for lots of guys, but for Steffen Cothran, it’s meant heartache. He lost someone he thought he might be able to have a future with to his best friend when Trish Stinson and Clint Winstead patched things up. He knows he wants a relationship, but so far he’s had trouble finding that one person, the one he knows he's meant to be with, to make that happen. That all changes when Trish and Clint walk into the club with Trish’s best friend, Sheila Brewster. Even though he's met her, he never really had much contact with her. But Clint has a plan: He’s looking for a Dom to protect Sheila in case her abusive ex-boyfriend manages to get paroled. And Clint happens to think that Steffen is a great candidate for that position. Steffen and Sheila’s relationship starts casually and quickly grows into a promising romance. But one question makes all the difference, and when Steffen doesn’t lie but doesn’t tell the whole truth with his answer, Sheila’s left wondering if she can ever trust anyone again. And when Steffen’s little omission shows up on his doorstep in full-blown chaos, the relationship he’d had such high hopes for is shattered, possibly forever. In the aftermath, Sheila sets a course for self-destruction that turns out to be more dangerous than anyone could’ve imagined. With no one to blame but himself, Steffen finds it hard to help a woman who won’t have anything to do with him. Two broken hearts. One huge mistake. A few really bad choices. And a lifetime of pain if things can’t be righted. It may be impossible to mend the broken trust, and their love could be lost forever. The second in the Me, You, and Us series following Adventurous Me, Steffen’s story in Unforgettable You is funny, smart, sweet, kinky hot, and heartbreaking. It’s a tale of what happens when you forget that there’s not a lot of difference between a lie and a partial truth, and what love really means when two people belong together. WARNING: This book contains explicit sexual situations in graphic detail. Not intended for readers under the age of 18. Reader discretion advised.
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Emily Taylor - The Teenage Mum

Having just turned fourteen, Emily is finding life as the only human on Camillo a little lonely. When she decides to start a family she has no idea just what she is letting herself in for... Contains mild swear words and oblique sexual references. Suitable 13 years and up.Kara Laquin wanted nothing more than to forget. Forget the past, live in the present, and ignore the future. When a massive solar flare destroys all electronics and throws the country into chaos, Kara is nearly a whole state away from her lost love, Blaine. He can wait only three days before moving on. With access to fuel limited, she must do anything necessary to get to him before he is forced to move on, but society is crumbling around her. Looters and murderers prowl the cities during the day, and something even worse roams at night.
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Doctor Rat

As the grant-supported, knowledgeable survivor of the most refined scientific experiments, Doctor Rat, Ph.D., dedicates himself to defending mankind against the worldwide rebellions, uprisings, and insurgencies of his fellow animals.
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Sun on the Rocks - The Outdoor Shower

Stevenson teleoperator Clarity Nice elicits assistance from her friend Cynthia, in order to build an outdoor shower on company lawn that will provide a clothing optional amenity. Infringing human resources policy, clashing against police officer Packwood, who prohibits use of the shower, Clarity purchases a shower patent for Stevenson to lift poor company sales, involving Cynthia as lawyer.After a naked lawn party during clothing optional day, Stevenson Garden Products Malibu teleoperator Clarity Nice agrees with her friend Cynthia Stevenson, daughter of company owner Bill Stevenson, to build an outdoor shower on company lawn, in order to bring publicity for the company. Bypassing the head of human resources at Stevenson, Brock Cheevers, Clarity finds out that the municipality of Malibu prohibits the use of a shower on any company garden lawn, and that it has assigned officer Packwood and his nephew Avery to the 'Stevenson shower' case.When the outdoor shower faucet is closed by Packwood, Clarity decides to build a shower inside the premises of Stevenson, near the rooftop pool of the company, so that employees can relax after a rough day's work. To pay for the expense, Clarity uses Cynthia's power of attorney which allows her to charge and spend company money when her father is away on a trip. Learning that Stevenson sales have dropped and looking for new job opportunities inside the company, Clarity decides to purchase a shower patent using company money savings, in order to boost sales by establishing a new shower division at Stevenson. Without any official document backing her, she uses the funds available to pay for the patent, knowing that her initiative may mean that she is out of a job.With a new patent in her hands, Clarity sets out to sell a number of showers at a Las Vegas bathroom and accessories exhibit, in order to refund Stevenson's money, borrowed to buy the patent, and also to avoid being fired by the owner of the garden company himself, Mr. Stevenson, for having used company funds without authorization.
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The Eagle's Throne

Here is a true literary event–the long-awaited new novel by Carlos Fuentes, one of the world’s great writers. By turns a tragedy and a farce, an acidic black comedy and an indictment of modern politics, The Eagle’s Throne is a seriously entertaining and perceptive story of international intrigue, sexual deception, naked ambition, and treacherous betrayal. In the near future, at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Mexico’s idealistic president has dared to vote against the U.S. occupation of Colombia and Washington’s refusal to pay OPEC prices for oil. Retaliation is swift. Concocting a “glitch” in a Florida satellite, America’s president cuts Mexico’s communications systems–no phones, faxes, or e-mails–and plunges the country into an administrative nightmare of colossal proportions. Now, despite the motto that “a Mexican politician never puts anything in writing,” people have no choice but to communicate through letters, which Fuentes crafts with a keen understanding of man’s motives and desires. As the blizzard of activity grows more and more complex, political adversaries come out to prey. The ineffectual president, his scheming cabinet secretary, a thuggish and ruthless police chief, and an unscrupulous, sensual kingmaker are just a few of the fascinating characters maneuvering and jockeying for position to achieve the power they all so desperately crave. From the Hardcover edition.
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Maybe Maby

At times both laugh-out-loud funny and heart-wrenchingly painful, Willow Aster embraces the crazy with this quest for sanity and true love... * I’m having a meltdown. Not the put-her-in-the-loony-bin kind, but the rock-in-the-corner-so-I-can-breathe kind. Maybe they’re one and the same and I really do need to be put away, but I think I just need a little air. I’m bone tired. My eyes look like I haven’t slept in weeks. I’m eating my feelings and developing a pudge that isn’t gonna go anywhere if I keep binging on chocolate, nachos and wine. I’m 28 and everyone has left me. I have no friends. My boyfriend left. My mom died, so technically she left me too. I hate my job. I get this overwhelming 'oh my God, is this what my life is gonna be?' feeling and I want to die. Curl up and die. And since I don’t feel my heartbeat fading or my breathing getting even slightly faint, I panic that I’m gonna have to live. Maybe Maby is a heartbreaking, and at times, hilarious story about coping with loss, finding love in New York, and learning to recognize hope in the middle of it all.
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What Goes and Comes Around

Betrayal, the dreams inspired by popular culture and a slippery slope of debt propel a fashionable working family towards a ruthless criminal's grip. Can the estranged Randalls recover their unity and avert disaster? What Goes and Comes Around adapts and modernises the realist-cum-naturalistic novel, producing a sharp, poignant and sometimes acerbically funny study of contemporary living.The Randalls are the fashionable, aspirant, working family to be found on every street. Until their relationships' frailties are brutally laid bare by explosive revelations. Amid the toxic fallout from the household's spiralling debt, there's the destructive affair of beautiful Cathy - wife and mother-of-two - with her urbane boss.What Goes and Comes Around follows the journeys of four estranged individuals, slowly, painfully grasping that they have constructed their own little worlds on treacherously shaky foundations. Dreams are often flawed and selfish rather than inspired and rewarding, and fashion and consumerism's tempting glitz can't replace the family unit's loving support.Redundancy, a humbling visit to his folk's place and wild idealism rediscovered in rock and roll nostalgia open Ian Randall's eyes to his downfall's inevitability. The abrupt, cruel end of his wife's romance with wealthy, ruinous Michael leads her on a parallel, lonely route to self-discovery. But in the austere modern world, the price of enlightenment could become unbearably high.While their parents struggle to find their feet, young Davie Randall's cheeky entrepreneurialism and his sister Alicia's embryonic musical career attract the unhealthy interest of the local hood, Liam Briggs. His reckless interference puts the kids' lives on the line. Only by pulling together and finding strength in each other again can their stricken parents hope to avert disaster... Isn't it clear that reconciliation and some tough decisions might just help them through their financial crisis to recover, better and wiser human beings?Set in the post-industrial North in the great financial crash's aftermath, What Goes and Comes Around adapts and modernises the realist-cum-naturalistic novel, producing a sharp, poignant and sometimes acerbically funny study of twenty-first century life. Accessible prose and subtle, aesthetic patterning shape a novel that can be enjoyed by all: a penetrating, modern exploration of love, betrayal, debt, dreams and popular culture, and the very economic system we live under.
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Paper Ghosts

There are stories of love, stories of loss. Stories you wouldn't think are real, and yet they are, of course they are, because the people who lived them are here to tell them. Stories of letting go, stories of moving on. Stories of second chances. Stories of people looking for something.Ghost stories, caught on paper to be real.Grayman chronicles a daring and disturbing experiment to decisively end the tenacious threat of global terrorism. A group of powerful corporate and political players lever a desperate world to create a multinational force of surgical strike teams, authorized to cross borders and pursue targets with impunity; armed with advanced weapons, technology and armor; and directed by a cutting-edge artificial intelligence. But more than simply employing high-tech military might, this new army is designed to fight a true “information war” by operating completely in the public eye, their missions crafted for maximum marketability, their operatives shaped into Hollywood-style action heroes.The series focuses on the man being groomed to be the wired public’s greatest hero: Given the “stage name” Mike Ram, he’s charismatic, talented and damaged unknown, pushed by circumstance to become a merciless predator. Initially little more than a trauma-driven serial killer, he’s given a new identity and is re-programmed to kill on cue to satisfy the media’s thirst for violent and visible retribution against an equally vicious enemy. Ram quickly rises from being a murderer on the run to being an untouchably popular celebrity and global leader, as his every action plays out on the public stage.In Book One: Acts of War, the enigmatic “Grayman” has been killing known terrorists throughout Europe in spectacularly brutal fashion. Captured by Coalition forces, he is recruited by a joint military and intelligence project to create the ultimate counter-terror force, only to find himself being carefully groomed into something unthinkable: a popular hero.
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The Spectacular Now

This National Book Award Finalist is now a major motion picture -- one of the most buzzed-about films at Sundance 2013, starring Shailene Woodley (star of The Fault in our Stars and Divergent) and Miles Teller (star of Whiplash). SUTTER KEELY. HE’S the guy you want at your party. He’ll get everyone dancing. He’ ll get everyone in your parents’ pool. Okay, so he’s not exactly a shining academic star. He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men’s shirts for a living. But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram’s V.O., life’s pretty fabuloso, actually. Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee. Aimee’s clueless. Aimee is a social disaster. Aimee needs help, and it’s up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her go forth and prosper. But Aimee’s not like other girls, and before long he’s in way over his head. For the first time in his life, he has the power to make a difference in someone else’s life—or ruin it forever. From the Hardcover edition.
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