The beloved bestselling author of Here for It returns with an all-new collection of heartening, deeply relatable, and laugh-out-loud essays about what happens after happily ever after. “Funny, insightful, and hopeful . . . a profound meditation on what it means to come home, and on finding your way again after the chaos of life takes you off your path.”—John Paul Brammer, author of ¡Hola Papi! After going viral “reading” the chaotic political news, having one-too-many awkward social encounters, and coming to terms with his intersecting identities, R. Eric Thomas finally knew who he was and where he was going. He was living his best life. But then everything changed. In this collection of insightful and hilarious essays, Thomas moves back to his perpetually misunderstood hometown of Baltimore (a place he never wanted to return, even to be buried) and behaving completely out of character. They say you can’t go home again, but what if you and home have changed beyond recognition? From attending his twenty-year high school reunion and discovering another person’s face on his name badge, to splattering an urgent care room with blood à la The Shining, to being terrorized by a plague of gay frogs who’ve overtaken his backyard, Thomas provides the nitty, and sometimes the gritty, details of wrestling with the life he thought he’d left behind while trying to establish a new one. With wit, heart, and hope for the future, Congratulations, The Best Is Over! is the not-so-gentle reminder we all need that even when life doesn’t go according to plan, we can still find our way back home.
The Very Best Men is the story of the CIA's early days as told through the careers of four glamorous, daring, and idealistic men who ran covert operations for the government from the end of World War II to Vietnam. Evan Thomas re-creates the personal dramas and sometimes tragic lives of Frank Wisner, Richard Bissell, Tracy Barnes, and Desmond FitzGerald, who risked everything to contain the Soviet threat. Within the inner circles of Washington, they were regarded as the best and the brightest. They planned and acted to keep the country out of war—by stealth and “political action” and to do by cunning and sleight of hand what great armies could not, must not be allowed to do. In the end, they were too idealistic and too honorable, and were unsuited for the dark, duplicitous life of spying. Their hubris and naïveté led them astray, producing both sensational coups and spectacular blunders like the Bay of Pigs and the failed assassination attempts on foreign leaders in the early 1960s. Thomas draws on the CIA's own secret histories, to which he has had exclusive access, as well as extensive interviews, to bring to life a crucial piece of American history.
The "Greatest Business Book of All Time" (Bloomsbury UK), In Search of Excellence has long been a must-have for the boardroom, business school, and bedside table. Based on a study of forty-three of America's best-run companies from a diverse array of business sectors, In Search of Excellence describes eight basic principles of management -- action-stimulating, people-oriented, profit-maximizing practices -- that made these organizations successful. Joining the HarperBusiness Essentials series, this phenomenal bestseller features a new Authors' Note, and reintroduces these vital principles in an accessible and practical way for today's management reader.
Among his devoted fans, his pieces were known simply as McGs. With a "genius for illuminating that sometimes ephemeral apogee in people's lives when they prove capable of generating a brightly burning spark" (Columbia Journalism Review), Robert McG. Thomas Jr. commemorated fascinating, unconventional lives with signature style and wit. The New York Times received countless letters over the years from readers moved to tears or laughter by a McG. Eschewing traditionally famous subjects, Thomas favored unsung heroes, eccentrics, and underachievers, including: Edward Lowe, the inventor of Kitty Litter ("Cat Owner's Best Friend"); Angelo Zuccotti, the bouncer at El Morocco ("Artist of the Velvet Rope"); and Kay Halle, a glamorous Cleveland department store heiress who received sixty-four marriage proposals ("An Intimate of Century's Giants"). In one of his classic obituaries, Thomas described Anton Rosenberg as a "storied sometime artist and occasional musician who embodied the Greenwich Village hipster ideal of 1950's cool to such a laid-back degree and with such determined detachment that he never amounted to much of anything." Thomas captured life's ironies and defining moments with elegance and a gift for making a sentence sing. He had an uncanny sense of the passion and personality that make each life unique, and the ability, as Joseph Epstein wrote, to "look beyond the facts and the rigid formula of the obit to touch on a deeper truth." Compiled by Chris Calhoun, one of Thomas's most dedicated readers, and with a fittingly sharp introduction from acclaimed novelist and critic Thomas Mallon, 52 McGs. will win legions of new fans to the masterful writer who transformed the obituary into an art form.
The Present Volume Narrates The Tenth Voyage Conducted By The East India Company During The Years 1612-14. The Most Notable Achievement Of The Mission Was The Settlement Of A Factory At Surat And Victory Over The Portuguese, Thus Boosting The National Spirit Of The British And Providing The Establishment Of Hopeful Commerce In India.
How to craft a dynamic personal essay that will get your college application noticed. College admissions—that is, admission to the school of your choice—has become incredibly competitive. Students and their families prepare from grade school onward to shape school "careers" that will give them a leg up in applying to selective colleges. But sterling academic performance, AP classes, high test scores, and sports and other extracurricular activities are no longer enough to guarantee a slot at Stanford, Johns Hopkins, or the Ivies. In Admit One, Thomas Richards focuses on a key aspect of the college admissions decision, one that makes all the difference in applications: good writing. This involves mastering the dreaded personal essay—but more than that, it means "writing" a college application with a consistent overarching narrative, one that tells a student's intimate story. Writing has the ability to render the grain of a student's own voice, fully integrated and fully under their own control. More than any other element of the application, strong writing is capable of revealing applicants as individuals from the inside out, allowing admissions committees to make fine distinctions between otherwise identical candidates. In plain language, Richards draws together this sense of writing as central to college admissions while showing candidates the secrets of creating an effective, beautifully crafted personal essay. From selecting words to shaping sentences, building paragraphs, and even clarifying a voice, Richards's approach is the key to getting a student's application noticed and read. The resulting essay that readers craft will come as close as possible to being a trustworthy representation of a whole person. Treating the college application as a rigorous intellectual exercise, Admit One contains everything students need to know in order to present themselves with clear-edged precision to an application committee.
This Classic Edition Christmas piece features "God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen," "A Virgin Most Pure," "The Babe of Bethlehem," "A Rare Song in Praise of Christmas," "Christ Was Born in Bethlehem," and "The Boar's Head Carol," set in a wonderful medley for performance by the experienced organist. The notation is large and readable with registration suggestions included, and will make a memorable concert piece for the Christmas holiday season.
“The characters in Best Friends...are...recognizably human in their weaknesses and their destinies. It is Berger's genius as an observer and storyteller that we never, for a moment, take our eyes off them.”—Jeffrey Frank, The Washington Post Book World A moving story about childhood friendships falling under the strain of adulthood quickly becomes so much more in this tale that is as absurd as it is true to life from the author of Little Big Man. Roy Courtright and Sam Grendy have been best friends for as long as either of them care to remember. As far as they’re concerned, they’re brothers, but sans the mess of a sibling rivalry. That they’re complete opposites has never mattered. Until now. After Sam suffers a heart attack, Roy and Sam’s wife Kristen both find themselves wishing they had said more—to Sam, and to each other. Just as Roy begins to grapple with these new feelings for Kristen, things go from bad to worse. The woman Roy’s been meaning to break up with has been murdered. What starts off as the charming tale of an oddball friendship quickly becomes a feast of shocking twists, heartbreak, and vengeance that only Thomas Berger could weave. Additional Praise for Best Friends: “Berger’s...style [is] at once elegant and casual, with his usual mix of sweetness and cynicism.”—Los Angeles Times “[Berger’s] precise and exquisite dialogue [are] entertaining, even when the plot is ridiculous. And his deeply ironic view of the world we live in is refreshing, especially these days when irony is in short supply.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “Incorrigibly subversive.”—The Hollywood Reporter “[Best Friends] is, in fact, a compact accomplished novel of ideas. That Berger’s take on adultery, loyalty, friendship and myriad other intangibles is both deeply satirical and deeply felt is perhaps the book’s real wonder.” —LA Weekly “No other writer can build a symphony of seriocomic confusion with such a sure touch. Berger’s terrific plot takes several unforeseen and unsettling turns en route to its savage denouement. And it’s capped by an absolute killer of a final sentence. Nobody writes them like Thomas Berger. Not to be missed.”—Kirkus Reviews
Thomas Burke's writing blends several styles to create a dramatic portrait of London. Limehouse Nights and its various sequels classified Burke as a "purveyor of melodramatic stories of lust and murder among London's lower classes". Both his essays and fiction, focusing particularly on Limehouse Nights, are characterised, seemingly paradoxically, with harsh realities and more romanticised, poetic outlooks. This selection chosen by the critic August Nemocontains the following stories: - The Chink and the Child - The Father of Yoto - Gracie Goodnight - The Paw - The Cue - Beryl, the Croucher and the Rest of England - The Sign of the Lamp
For centuries, philosophers, theologians, moralists, and ordinary people have asked: How should we live? What makes for a good life? In The Best Things in Life, distinguished philosopher Thomas Hurka takes a fresh look at these perennial questions as they arise for us now in the 21st century. Should we value family over career? How do we balance self-interest and serving others? What activities bring us the most joy? While religion, literature, popular psychology, and everyday wisdom all grapple with these questions, philosophy more than anything else uses the tools of reason to make important distinctions, cut away irrelevancies, and distill these issues down to their essentials. Hurka argues that if we are to live a good life, one thing we need to know is which activities and experiences will most likely lead us to happiness and which will keep us from it, while also reminding us that happiness isn't the only thing that makes life good. Hurka explores many topics: four types of good feeling (and the limits of good feeling); how we can improve our baseline level of happiness (making more money, it turns out, isn't the answer); which kinds of knowledge are most worth having; the importance of achieving worthwhile goals; the value of love and friendship; and much more. Unlike many philosophers, he stresses that there isn't just one good in life but many: pleasure, as Epicurus argued, is indeed one, but knowledge, as Socrates contended, is another, as is achievement. And while the great philosophers can help us understand what matters most in life, Hurka shows that we must ultimately decide for ourselves. This delightfully accessible book offers timely guidance on answering the most important question any of us will ever ask: How do we live a good life?
Thomas Lupich is the Preceptor of the International Society of Seekers of the Truth, a retired electrical designer from Princeton Universitys Plasma Physics Laboratory, and a taiji instructor with an interest in science and health. His major interest is Biblical Truth. He, therefore, considers himself a Truth Seeker: an avocation that he recommends to all men. Jesus commanded his disciples to become Seekers of the Truth and Thomas Lupich took Him at His Word. Solomon had this to say, It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter. Thomas has written The Lords Supper Mingle With the Best to expound on the meaning and the blessings of the Eucharist. The Lords Supper has various important layers of meaning, but much more importantly, it tells us how we can be transmuted into beings much like Him. The hope of the author is to share with his readers the Eucharists Light and its ability to transmute lives in the following way. Those that truly partake of the Lords Supper will be mingling with the Best, i.e., The Father and The Son. The mingling will cause much of the Best to rub off on them. What rubs off will make them grow and glow, not only in this present age, but also in the eons to come!
The companion to the Creative Teaching and Learning Toolkit presents over 200 tips, tools and practical strategies for more effective teaching and learning that can be used in your classroom tomorrow.
Through Willow Briggs, a former student whose tragic destiny has haunted him for years, Thomas-El discovers that helping the community, either one student at a time or through collective efforts, is the catalyst for change.
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