I had no life experience zero common sense & had never eaten rice I suffered from debilitating anxiety was battling an eating disorder & had just had my heart broken I hoped by leaving to travel the world I would be able to heal myself Instead Lauren's travels were full of bad luck & near-death experiences Over the space of a year she was scammed & assaulted; lost teeth & swallowed a cockroach She fell into leech-infested rice paddies was caught up in a tsunami had the brakes of her motorbike fail & experienced a very unhappy ending during a massage in Thailand It was just as she was about to give up on travel when she stumbled across a handsome New Zealander with a love of challenges ...

There are many ways prospective authors routinely sabotage their own work But why leave it to guesswork? Misstep by misstep How Not to Write a Novel shows how you can ensure that your manuscript never rises above the level of unpublishable drivel; that your characters are unpleasant dimensionless versions of yourself; that your plot is digressive tedious & unconvincing; & that your style is reliant on mangled cliches & sesquipedalian malapropisms Alternatively you can use it to identify the most common mistakes avoid them & actually write a book that works Guardian Award shortlisted novelist Sandra Newman & veteran editor Howard Mittelmark have distilled 30 years of teaching editing writing & reviewing fiction into a hilarious & liberating guide that is the perfect read for anyone who's ever laughed at a badly written piece of prose & for anyone who's ever penned one
- & doesn't want to do it again
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Never has contemporary fiction been more widely discussed & passionately analysed; recent years have seen a huge growth in the number of reading groups & in the interest of a non-academic readership in the discussion of how novels work Drawing on his weekly Guardian column ' Elements of Fiction' John Mullan examines novels mostly of the last ten years many of which have become firm favourites with reading groups He reveals the rich resources of novelistic technique setting recent fiction alongside classics of the past Nick Hornby's adoption of a female narrator is compared to Daniel Defoe's; Ian Mc Ewan's use of weather is set against Austen's & Hardy's; Carole Shield's chapter divisions are likened to Fanny Burney's Each section shows how some basic element of fiction is used Some topics (like plot dialogue or location) will appear familiar to most novel readers; others (metanarrative prolepsis amplification) will open readers' eyes to new ways of understanding & appreciating the ...

All growth is spiritual growth Authors Drs Cloud & Townsend unlock age-old keys to growth from Scripture to help people resolve issues of relationships maturity emotional problems & overall spiritual growth They shatter popular misconceptions about how God operates & show that growth is not about self-actualization but about God's sanctification In this theological foundation to their best-selling book Boundaries they discuss? What the essential processes are that make people grow? How those processes fit into a biblical understanding of spiritual growth & theology? How spiritual growth & real-life issues are one & the same? What the responsibilities are of pastors counselors & others who assist people in growing-and what your own responsibilities are in your personal growth ...

We are attracted whether we know it or not to the hidden aspects of things & people Some teenagers enjoy cutting themselves with razors Some men pay good money to be spanked by prostitutes The average Briton spends over a day a week watching television People slow their cars to look at gory accidents & go to sentimental movies that make them cry In this revealing & witty account Paul Bloom examines the science behind these curious desires attractions & tastes exploring one of the most fascinating & fundamental engines of human behaviour Drawing on insights from child development philosophy neuroscience & behavioural economics How Pleasure Works shows how certain universal habits of the human mind explain what we like & why we like it ...

What a marvellous book this is de Botton dissects what Proust had to say about friendship reading looking carefully paying attention taking your time being alive & adds his own delicious commentary The result is an intoxicating as it is wise amusing as well as stimulating & presented in so fresh a fashion as to be unique I could not stop & now much start all over again' Brian Masters Mail on Sunday De Botton not only has a complete understanding of Proust's life but what is particularly charming about this small readable book is its tongue-in-cheek benignity its lightly held erudition & its generous way of lending itself to what is not only the greatest book of the century but also the darkest & the most eccentric' Edmund White Observer It contains more human interest & play of fancy than most fiction de Botton in emphasizing Proust's healing advisory aspects does us the service of rereading him on our behalf providing of that vast sacred lake a sweet & lucid distillation' John Updike New Yorker De Botton's little book is so charming amusing & sensible that it may even itself change your life' Allan Massie Daily Telegraph This engaging book is one of the most entertaining pieces of literary criticism I have read in a long while' Sunday Telegraph A very enjoyable book' Sebastian Faulks ...

How real is race? What is biological fact what is fiction & where does culture enter? What do we mean by a "colorblind" or "postracial" society or when we say that race is a "social construction"? If race is an invention can we eliminate it? This book now in its second edition employs an activity-oriented approach to address these questions & engage readers in unraveling-and rethinking-the contradictory messages we so often hear about race The authors systematically cover the myth of race as biology & the reality of race as a cultural invention drawing on biocultural & cross-cultural perspectives They then extend the discussion to hot-button issues that arise in tandem with the concept of race such as educational inequalities; slurs & racialized labels; & interracial relationships In so doing they shed light on the intricate dynamic interplay among race culture & biology For an online supplement to How Real Is Race? Second Edition click here ...

How Rich Countries Got Rich is a narrative history of modern economic development from the Italian Renaissance to the present day In it Erik S Reinert shows how rich countries developed through a combination of government intervention protectionism & strategic investment Reinert suggests that this set of policies in various combinations has driven successful development from Renaissance Italy to the modern Far East Yet despite its demonstrable success orthodox development economists have largely ignored this approach & insisted instead on the importance of free trade Reinert presents a strongly revisionist history of economics & shows how the discipline has long been torn between the continental Renaissance tradition on one hand & the free market theories of English & later American economics on the other He argues that our economies were founded on protectionism & state activism & could only later afford the luxury of free trade When our leaders come to lecture poor countries on the right road to riches they do so in almost perfect ignorance of the real history of mass affluence ...

Selected by Sarah Moss as a Book of the Year 2017 in The Big Issue Ten years old & irrepressibly curious Ellie lives with her fisherman father Peter on the wild North Yorkshire coast It's the 1980s & her mother's breakdown is discussed only in whispers with the promise better by Christmas' & no further explanation Steering by the light of her dad's sea-myths her mum's memories of home across the water & a fierce spirit all her own Ellie begins to learn
- in these sudden strange circumstances
- who she is & what she can become By the time the first snowdrops show her innocence has been shed but at great cost This vivacious & deeply moving novel portrays adult breakdown through the eyes of a brightly imaginative child sensitively explores questions of responsibility & care & above all celebrates the power of stories to shape nourish & even save us

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Please note this is a region 2 DVD & will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play Following her sister&s death from drug addiction a high school student is forced to leave her private school to return to her old crime-filled neighborhood where she re-kindles an unlikely passion for the competitive world of step dancing ...