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Time, it has been said, is the enemy. In an era of harried lives, time seems increasingly precious as hours and days telescope and our lives often seem to be flitting past. And yet, at other times, the minutes drag on, each tick of the clock excruciatingly drawn out. What explains this seeming paradox?
Based upon a full decade's empirical research, Michael G. Flaherty's new book offers remarkable insights on this most universal human experience. Flaherty surveys hundreds of individuals of all ages in an attempt to ascertain how such phenomena as suffering, violence, danger, boredom, exhilaration, concentration, shock, and novelty influence our perception of time. Their stories make for intriguing reading, by turns familiar and exotic, mundane and dramatic, horrific and funny.
A qualitative and quantitative tour de force, A Watched Pot presents what may well be the first fully integrated theory of time and will be of interest to scientists, humanists, social scientists and the educated public alike.
A Choice Outstanding Academic Book.

“When Cal Thomas speaks, I try to listen. I’ve been listening to him for a LONG time!" — Mike Huckabee 

“For more than 40 years, Cal Thomas had a front row seat to some of America's most contentious public policy debates. And for more than four decades, Cal wielded his pen to speak truth to power and to advance traditional conservative values. Cal's stories and tales from that front row—as the watchman—are sure to entertain!” — Mike Pence

"A new bestselling page-turner." — Washington Examiner

“This is what I have done—and am continuing to do—as I seek to serve God first and then my country.”—Cal Thomas

Cal Thomas—one of the most popular syndicated columnists in the country—is America’s “Watchman” in the night.

In A Watchman in the Night, Cal Thomas takes the reader on a “road trip” through over fifty years of journalism and American life, serving as a “watchman” on culture and politics and seeking to conform it to a standard that never changes. 

A watchman “keeps guard over a building at night, to protect it from fire, vandals, or thieves.” Thomas is a believer that certain values and principles never change and has critiqued misbehavior and wrong-headedness by people on “his side” from the start. “If values and Truth mean anything,” Thomas says, “they must be applied equally. Hypocrisy and heresy cannot be ignored no matter the source.” In the book, Thomas does not stigmatize labels, such as “conservative” and “religious,” because Thomas says: “It allows people to define me and others by their perception of those labels. Ask me a question and I will give you my answer.

For over fifty years in journalism, Thomas has offered incisive, humorous and often corrective commentary to our social, political, and religious conversations. An early commitment to addressing publicly what he sees has marked Thomas’ entire career. Cal has always called both parties, both sides of the American political divide, to account, to take the high road and to honor our civic and religious ideals with compatible behavior to the very best of our ability. This increasingly “radical” approach to public life has won him many friends on both sides of the political aisle, hundreds of thousands of faithful readers of his columns, and a continuous barrage of accolades and “hate mail,” much of it charming when it is not too foul to repeat.

Cal came to the Christian faith while a young journalist at a dinner led by Dr. Richard Halverson, Pastor at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, MD, and later, Chaplain of the United States Senate. This experience informed the rest of Cal’s life as he hosted his own private dinners for members of the press and members of Congress from both parties leading to deep friendships with Senator Ted Kennedy and many others, friendships which became a hallmark of Cal’s life despite wide political differences. For over two decades, Cal has hosted the National Prayer Breakfast Media Dinner as a continuation of his commitment to the reality that a relationship with Jesus Christ can change a person’s life and ultimately change a nation, and that things of such import are best discussed over dinner. The book includes tones about faith, but focuses on American social, cultural and political currents.

A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America is a living history of our times, of who we were then and who we are now and who we might become (for better or worse) in the future, and a remarkable chronicle of modern American life.

If you are in charge of the user experience, development, or strategy for a web site, A Web for Everyone will help you make your site accessible without sacrificing design or innovation. Rooted in universal design principles, this book provides solutions: practical advice and examples of how to create sites that everyone can use.

Named one of 75 Notable Translations of 2024 by World Literature Today

The debut English language poetry collection by noted Mexican author Isabel Zapata, A Whale is a Country explores humanity's relationship to the natural world through a multitude of poignant angles.

Although the road to bringing our whole selves to work in a genuine and authentic fashion is sometimes fraught with difficulties, it remains—for talent development professionals—the best path forward in blazing a trail for others to follow. In this issue of TD at Work, Emmanuel V. Dalavai, Jeanne Koehler, and Jennifer Meiss share:

• Definitions of whole-self principles
• The role of psychological safety in supporting that mindset
• The four intelligences and how they relate to whole‑self theory
• How to foster well-being with an employee-centric framework
• How to use data and internal programs to create a culture of well-being
• The enduring impact of mutual trust

The Tools & Resources in this issue are a Self-Reflection Worksheet and a Pulse of the Organization Template.

A Wider Type of Freedom brings together stories of the social movements, intellectuals, artists, and cultural formations that have centered racial justice and the abolition of white supremacy as the foundation for a universal liberation. Daniel Martinez HoSang taps into moments across time and place to reveal the longstanding drive toward a vision of universal emancipation. From the nineteenth century's abolition democracy and the struggle to end forced sterilizations, to the twentieth century's domestic worker organizing campaigns, to the twenty-first century's environmental justice movement, he reveals a bold, shared desire to realize the antithesis of "a philosophy based on a contempt for life," as articulated by Martin Luther King Jr. Rather than seeking "equal rights" within failed systems, these efforts generated new visions that embraced human difference, vulnerability, and interdependence as core productive facets of our collective experience.

In the “vigorous, well-informed” (Kirkus Reviews) A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, the co-hosts of the popular education podcast Have You Heard expose the potent network of conservative elected officials, advocacy groups, funders, and think tanks that are pushing a radical vision to do away with public education.

“Cut[ing] through the rhetorical fog surrounding a host of free-market reforms and innovations” (Mike Rose), Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire lay bare the dogma of privatization and reveal how it fits into the current context of right-wing political movements. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door “goes above and beyond the typical explanations” (SchoolPolicy.org), giving readers an up-close look at the policies—school vouchers, the war on teachers’ unions, tax credit scholarships, virtual schools, and more—driving the movement’s agenda.

Called “well-researched, carefully argued, and alarming” by Library Journal, this smart, essential book has already incited a public reckoning on behalf of the millions of families served by the American educational system—and many more who stand to suffer from its unmaking. “Just as with good sci-fi,” according to Jacobin, “the authors make a compelling case that, based on our current trajectory, a nightmare future is closer than we think.”

Gerald Arbuthnot receives a promotion from Lord Illingworth, a worldly politician who has a sordid history of women, one of whom is Gerald’s widowed mother. When their connection is revealed, the young man questions his past, present and future aspirations.

A Woman of No Importance opens with a high-class party featuring a group of society’s most illustrious citizens. In the midst of the event, Gerald Arbuthnot enters and announces his new position as secretary to the renown, Lord Illingworth. It’s an exciting opportunity that pleases Miss Hester Worsley, an American visitor and admirer of Gerald. What should be a cause for celebration becomes an awkward moment of truth between Lord Illingworth and Gerald’s mother, Mrs. Rachel Arbuthnot.

Set in the late-nineteenth century, A Woman of No Importance is a commentary on contemporary English society. One family’s façade is broken by a hidden truth testing the relationship of mother and son. It’s a provocative tale about the power of seduction and political ambition.

With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of A Woman of No Importance is both modern and readable.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Nathaniel Hawthorne presents a multilayered story consisting of six Greek myths that are told from a unique perspective and appeals to all readers, specifically children. His writing style transcends age to deliver a family-friendly narrative.

A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys is a compilation of classic stories inspired by Greek mythology. Hawthorne’s interpretation is filtered through the fictional character, Eustace Bright, a college student who’s entertaining a group of children. The book features “The Gorgon's Head,” a popular epic that follows Perseus and his quest to slay Medusa. There’s also “The Paradise of Children,” a cautionary tale about Pandora’s box, and “The Golden Touch,” which recalls the story of King Midas.

Originally published in 1851, A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys continues to stand the test of time. Its stories are literary staples that have been adapted for multiple mediums. The collection also produced the sequel, Tanglewood Tales, which was released in 1853.

With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys is both modern and readable.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

The past twenty-five years have brought a dramatic expansion of scholarship in maritime history, including new research on piracy, long-distance trade, and seafaring cultures. Yet maritime history still inhabits an isolated corner of world history, according to editors Lauren Benton and Nathan Perl-Rosenthal. Benton and Perl-Rosenthal urge historians to place the relationship between maritime and terrestrial processes at the center of the field and to analyze the links between global maritime practices and major transformations in world history.

A World at Sea consists of nine original essays that sharpen and expand our understanding of practices and processes across the land-sea divide and the way they influenced global change. The first section highlights the regulatory order of the seas as shaped by strategies of land-based polities and their agents and by conflicts at sea. The second section studies documentary practices that aggregated and conveyed information about sea voyages and encounters, and it traces the wide-ranging impact of the explosion of new information about the maritime world. Probing the political symbolism of the land-sea divide as a threshold of power, the last section features essays that examine the relationship between littoral geographies and sociolegal practices spanning land and sea. Maritime history, the contributors show, matters because the oceans were key sites of experimentation, innovation, and disruption that reflected and sparked wide-ranging global change.

Contributors: Lauren Benton, Adam Clulow, Xing Hang, David Igler, Jeppe Mulich, Lisa Norling, Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, Carla Rahn Phillips, Catherine Phipps, Matthew Raffety, Margaret Schotte.

Over the last few decades Marta Harnecker has emerged as one of Latin America’s most incisive socialist thinkers. In A World to Build, she grapples with the question that has bedeviled every movement for radical social change: how do you construct a new world within the framework of the old? Harnecker draws on lessons from socialist movements in Latin America, especially Venezuela, where she served as an advisor to the Chávez administration and was a director of the Centro Internacional Miranda.





A World to Build begins with the struggle for socialism today. Harnecker offers a useful overview of the changing political map in Latin America, examining the trajectories of several progressive Latin American governments as they work to develop alternative models to capitalism. She combines analysis of concrete events with a refined theoretical understanding of grassroots democracy, the state, and the barriers imposed by capital. For Harnecker, twenty-first century socialism is a historical process as well as a theoretical project, one that requires imagination no less than courage. She is a lucid guide to the movements that are fighting, right now, to build a better world, and an important voice for those who wish to follow that path.

From September 2011 to September 2012,
Ambassador Nasser Abdulaziz Al-Nasser of Qatar presided over the 66th session
of the “world’s parliament” – the United Nations General Assembly. It was a
critical moment in international affairs as the UN responded to a range of
global challenges, from the world financial crisis to the Arab Spring. In A
Year at the Helm of the General Assembly, Al-Nasser presents a high-level
look inside the organization, assessing its strengths and weaknesses, its
successes and struggles. He recounts dramatic moments, such as replacing the
Libyan delegation, and a tireless schedule of overseas travel, including joint
visits with the Secretary-General to Libya and Somalia. His work takes him from
major international summits such as the Conference on Sustainable Development
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Rio+20) to the European Parliament, which he was the
first General Assembly President to address, to academic institutions from
Oxford to Moscow to Morocco.






Al-Nasser
structures the book as he did his 66th session, around four main
themes or “pillars:” mediation, UN reform, natural disaster prevention and
response, and sustainable development.He offers a wide range of recommendations to intergovernmental
institutions, to states, to the public sector, and to individuals. Al-Nasser was determined to leave behind
a General Assembly that the people of the world could look up to and depend on.
This volume is a testament to all that he accomplished in that regard, and a
unique resource for those interested in knowing more about the world’s most
representative body at a crucial moment in history.

A fun collection of 24 amigurumi friend couples to crochet throughout the year. A Year of Amigurumi Friends is a book of crochet patterns featuring loveable animal character duos representing each month of the year.

Inspired by seasonal activities, holidays, and events, readers and makers will have their hands busy all year long. You can follow along with the stories and characters as you enjoy a year of making with these crochet amigurumi patterns.

The character designs feature different construction techniques, colour changes, textured stitches, and all the main characters have cute accessories to make this an exciting pattern collection for amigurumi and crochet lovers.

A Year of Amigurumi Friends features:

• Crochet patterns for fun character duos and their cute accessories for a year of making.

• Amigurumi makes based on events and themes for each month throughout the year including holidays and special occasions.

• Step-by-step instructions for all the crochet techniques required including assembling and finishing the amigurumi toys.

Get your kids moving and giggling with the delightful suggestions in A Year of Mini-Moves for the In-Sync Child created by Carol Kranowitz and Joye Newman. Here are fifty-two weekly schedules that will incorporate quick movement activities into your day. These whimsical digital pages can also be printed and posted to brighten your walls at the clinic, at home and at school.

Pediatricians, teachers and other early childhood specialists now recognize that early motor development is one of the most important factors in the physical, emotional, academic and overall success of the child. Each of these mini-moves addresses one or more sensory, perceptual and visual motor skills that are the foundation of all future physical, cognitive, and emotional development.

Use these whimsical mini-moves at the beginning of your day or therapy session, at transition times or as inspiration for a more elaborate movement experience. Adapt each move to suit the abilities of the children.

The objective of the e-book A Year of Mini-Moves for the In-Sync Child is to reinforce the brain-body connection, while giving the child a moving experience that will last a lifetime!

For many of us, the modern world is overwhelming. Fast-paced. Hard-edged. Exhausting. People are craving more peace. It's no wonder we have seen the social media trend of returning to traditional skills and ways of life. People are craving change. A return to simple and peaceful living. But could this be more than a pretty aesthetic? Is there more connection to be found in living a handmade, homegrown and slow life?

In A YEAR TO SLOW DOWN Rachel Bearn shares her own experience of how reducing her pace helped her begin to heal from severe chronic illness and connect deeper with her faith. Over twelve months she shares the benefits of living slowly, quietly and in the present moment, dependent on God and God alone - as he always intended for us.

This is a practical guidebook that takes readers through the four seasons of the year, incorporating the festivals and celebrations that have punctuated the Christian calendar for generations and encouraging you to live seasonally and in the moment.

52 readings, each with a scripture passage and prayer, from one of our most loved and respected Christian leaders and speakers. Each reading contains a story, often startling and arresting, from Andrew’s astonishingly eventful ministry, blended with his reflections on life and faith.

Building a team while guiding each individual to recognize their full potential and, simultaneously, contribute to the greater good of the team and the organization is one of the biggest challenges for leaders. Some keys to the success of any workplace team include defining a shared vision of what you’re trying to accomplish as a group, ensuring you have the right individuals on your team, and taking purposeful action that will lead to accomplishing the intended goals. In this issue of TD at Work, Laurel Schulert helps you to:

• Define your team’s vision and goals for the future
• Explore which roles belong on your team
• Interview and select the right candidates
• Lead your team to achieve visionary performance
• Retain your team members

The Tools & Resources in this issue are a Team Strategy Plan and a Goal Definition Worksheet.

Important insights into the life and mind of one of the most significant civil rights leaders of the twentieth century

A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, was one of the most effective black trade unionists in America. Once known as "the most dangerous black man in America," he was a radical journalist, a labor leader, and a pioneer of civil rights strategies. His protegé Bayard Rustin noted that, "With the exception of W.E.B. Du Bois, he was probably the greatest civil rights leader of the twentieth century until Martin Luther King."

Scholarship has traditionally portrayed Randolph as an atheist and anti-religious, his connections to African American religion either ignored or misrepresented. Taylor places Randolph within the context of American religious history and uncovers his complex relationship to African American religion. She demonstrates that Randolph’s religiosity covered a wide spectrum of liberal Protestant beliefs, from a religious humanism on the left, to orthodox theological positions on the right, never straying far from his African Methodist roots.

Important insights into the life and mind of one of the most significant civil rights leaders of the twentieth century

A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, was one of the most effective black trade unionists in America. Once known as "the most dangerous black man in America," he was a radical journalist, a labor leader, and a pioneer of civil rights strategies. His protegé Bayard Rustin noted that, "With the exception of W.E.B. Du Bois, he was probably the greatest civil rights leader of the twentieth century until Martin Luther King."

Scholarship has traditionally portrayed Randolph as an atheist and anti-religious, his connections to African American religion either ignored or misrepresented. Taylor places Randolph within the context of American religious history and uncovers his complex relationship to African American religion. She demonstrates that Randolph’s religiosity covered a wide spectrum of liberal Protestant beliefs, from a religious humanism on the left, to orthodox theological positions on the right, never straying far from his African Methodist roots.

Aaron Sisson lives a humble life in the English Midlands. He works as a union official for the coal mines, but his real passion is music. As an amateur, but very talented flautist, Aaron dreams of a big career as a beloved musician. Though, with his small community and unglamorous job at the coal mine, this dream seems unattainable. Trapped in an unhappy marriage, and unsatisfied at work, Aaron becomes more and more frustrated with his life. Finally, when he feels that he cannot take it any longer, Aaron abandons his two kids and wife to run away to Italy. As he begins his journey Aaron feels hopeful for the first time in a long time. However, the journey proves to be more trouble than Aaron expected. When he falls ill, he befriends Rawdon Lilly, a cynical writer. After Rawdon nurses Aaron through his sickness, Aaron is free to continue on to Florence. Upon entering a social circle of intellectuals and artists, he experiences a higher level of conversation—discussions about politics, leadership, and expression. Feeling liberated, Aaron has an affair with an aristocratic woman, excited at all the new pleasures he is experiencing. Of course, it comes at a cost. In a city struggling in the aftermath of a war that wiped out generations, talks of revolution and change echo in the streets, and Aaron’s eyes are opened to social and political problems he had never considered. With complicated characters and beautifully written prose, Aaron’s Rod by the prolific author, D.H Lawrence, is a unique perspective on how World War Ⅰ affected the individual. Looking beyond just the death toll of the war, Aaron’s Rod examines those who were left behind, the political turmoil that followed, and the emotional plight of the individual. With allusions to the bible and complicated questions on both the battle and partnership between art and intellect, Aaron’s Rod poses thought-provoking questions about all levels of Western society. This edition of Aaron’s Rod by D.H Lawrence is now presented in an easy-to-read font and features a unique and eye-catching new cover design. With these accommodations, Aaron’s Rod is restored to its original genius while being updated to modern standards.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Abandoned by Jules Verne is a crossover sequel of two of Verne’s most popular novels, In search of Castaways and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Set during the American Civil War, five Northern prisoners of war band together despite their different backgrounds. Cyrus is a railroad engineer, Gideon is a journalist, Neb is an ex-slave, Pencroff is a sailor, and Harbert is Pencroff’s protégé and son. Together, the five prisoners escape their captors by hijacking a hydrogen-filled observation balloon. They fly away from their captor, and begin their journey accompanied with Cyrus’ dog, Top. Though they thought their escape would end their troubles, the group soon learn that their journey has only just begun. After accidently flying through a turbulent storm, the five crash onto an unknown island. Now, with a destroyed vessel, they are stranded in a strange land. Accepting their predicament, they name the island and start working together to sustain themselves. By combining their respective expertise, the five are able to build a home, a ship, a rudimentary telegraph, and they even domesticate an orangutan and name them Jupiter. Though they never stop missing home, Cyrus, Gideon, Neb, Pencroff, Harbert, Top, and Jupiter form a new society. However, when strange items and mysterious fires start appearing on the island, their home is threatened once more as they set out to find explanations for these inexplicable occurrences.

Abandoned joins the ranks of the other incredible adventure novels written by Jules Verne. As a crossover sequel, Abandoned combined characters from two other popular Verne novels, yet still developed them with sentiment and avid description as if they were being introduced for the first time. With themes of unity and ingenuity, Abandoned depicts an adventure both thrilling, and touching. Abandoned has inspired many film adaptations, proving that the narrative survives the test of time and satisfies audiences nearly one-hundred and fifty years later.

This edition of Abandoned by Jules Verne features a new, eye-catching cover design and is printed in a modern, easy-to-read font, crafting an accessible and enjoyable experience for modern readers.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Two interesting items:
The author's article in New York Archives
A letter regarding foundlings in The Riverdale Press
In the nineteenth century, foundlings—children abandoned by their desperately poor, typically unmarried mothers, usually shortly after birth—were commonplace in European society. There were asylums in every major city to house abandoned babies, and writers made them the heroes of their fiction, most notably Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. In American cities before the Civil War the situation was different, with foundlings relegated to the poorhouse instead of institutions designed specifically for their care. By the eve of the Civil War, New York City in particular had an epidemic of foundlings on its hands due to the rapid and often interlinked phenomena of urban development, population growth, immigration, and mass poverty. Only then did the city's leaders begin to worry about the welfare and future of its abandoned children.
In Abandoned, Julie Miller offers a fascinating, frustrating, and often heartbreaking history of a once devastating, now forgotten social problem that wracked America's biggest metropolis, New York City. Filled with anecdotes and personal stories, Miller traces the shift in attitudes toward foundlings from ignorance, apathy, and sometimes pity for the children and their mothers to that of recognition of the problem as a sign of urban moral decline and in need of systematic intervention. Assistance came from public officials and religious reformers who constructed four institutions: the Nursery and Child's Hospital's foundling asylum, the New York Infant Asylum, the New York Foundling Asylum, and the public Infant Hospital, located on Randall's Island in the East River.
Ultimately, the foundling asylums were unable to significantly improve children’s lives, and by the early twentieth century, three out of the four foundling asylums had closed, as adoption took the place of abandonment and foster care took the place of institutions. Today the word foundling has been largely forgotten. Fortunately, Abandoned rescues its history from obscurity.

Winner of the 2020 Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice

A deeply affecting exposé of America's hidden crisis of disconnected youth, in the tradition of Matthew Desmond and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

For the majority of young adults today, the transition to independence is a time of excitement and possibility. But 4.5 million young people—or a stunning 11.5 percent of youth aged sixteen to twenty-four—experience entry into adulthood as abrupt abandonment, a time of disconnection from school, work, and family. For this growing population of Americans, which includes kids aging out of foster care and those entangled with the justice system, life screeches to a halt when adulthood arrives. Abandoned is the first-ever exploration of this tale of dead ends and broken dreams.

Author Anne Kim skillfully weaves heart-rending stories of young people navigating early adulthood alone, in communities where poverty is endemic and opportunities almost nonexistent. She then describes a growing awareness—including new research from the field of adolescent brain science—that "emerging adulthood" is just as crucial a developmental period as early childhood, and she profiles an array of unheralded programs that provide young people with the supports they need to achieve self-sufficiency.

A major work of deeply reported narrative nonfiction, Abandoned joins the small shelf of books that change the way we see our society and point to a different path forward.

Dissident Cuban writer, photographer, and pioneering blogger Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo presents a collection of surreal, irony-laden photos and texts from his native city. His “diary of dystopia”—an unexpected fusion of images and words—brings us closer to Havana’s scaffolded and crumbling facades, ramshackle waterfronts, and teeming human bodies. In this book, as beautiful and bleak as Havana itself, Pardo guides us through the relics and fables of an exhausted Revolution in the waning days of Castro’s Cuba.

A: Because she can't walk.

Q: Why were you ironing in the nude anyway?
A: No wait, I can explain...

Q: Why would this happen to you?
A: Why wouldn't it?

People ask the silliest things.

But for Jade and John Reynolds it's the silence surrounding disability that's the strangest of all.

When Jade unexpectedly suffered from a rare condition which left her paralysed and in a wheelchair at the age of twelve, she never imagined that she'd one day meet her husband John and that together they would take to social media to dispel the stigma surrounding disability, one story at a time.

From questions about suffering and sex to family and faith, Jade and John speak honestly and humorously about life as an inter-able couple. And here, they bring together the big questions (and big jokes) that have made them so popular online onto the page in a debut book that will help you reframe your hardship into reasons to hope.

It's time to discover that no matter what life throws at you, you are truly, able to laugh.

A personal and political manifesto vying for an antiracist socialist feminist movement of movements

The world is burning, flooding, and politically exploding, to the point where it’s become clear that neoliberal feminism—the kind that aims to elect The First Woman President—will never be enough. In this book, Zillah Eisenstein asks us to consider what it would mean to thread “socialism” to feminism; then, what it would mean to thread “abolitionism” to socialist feminism. She asks all of us, especially white women, to consider what it would mean to risk everything to abolish white supremacy, to uproot the structural knot of sex, race, gender, and class growing from that imperial whiteness. If we are to create a revolution that is totally liberatory, we need to pool together in a new working class, building a radical movement made of movements.

Eisenstein’s manifesto is built on almost half a century of her antiracist socialist feminist work. But now, she writes with a new urgency and imaginativeness. Eisenstein asks us not to be limited by reforms, but to radicalize each other on differing fronts. Our task is to build bridges, to connect disparate and passionate people across aisles, state lines, picket lines, and more. The genius force demanding that we abolish white supremacy can also create a new “we” for all of us—a humanity universally accepting of our complexities and differences. We are in uncharted waters, but that is exactly where we need to be.

It is increasingly implausible to speak of a purely domestic abortion law, as the legal debates around the world draw on precedents and influences of different national and regional contexts. While the United States and Western Europe may have been the vanguard of abortion law reform in the latter half of the twentieth century, Central and South America are proving to be laboratories of thought and innovation in the twenty-first century, as are particular countries in Africa and Asia. Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective offers a fresh look at significant transnational legal developments in recent years, examining key judicial decisions, constitutional texts, and regulatory reforms of abortion law in order to envision ways ahead.

The chapters investigate issues of access, rights, and justice, as well as social constructions of women, sexuality, and pregnancy, through different legal procedures and regimes. They address the promises and risks of using legal procedure to achieve reproductive justice from different national, regional, and international vantage points; how public and courtroom debates are framed within medical, religious, and human rights arguments; the meaning of different narratives that recur in abortion litigation and language; and how respect for women and prenatal life is expressed in various legal regimes. By exploring how legal actors advocate, regulate, and adjudicate the issue of abortion, this timely volume seeks to build on existing developments to bring about change of a larger order.

Contributors: Luis Roberto Barroso, Paola Bergallo, Rebecca J. Cook, Bernard M. Dickens, Joanna N. Erdman, Lisa M. Kelly, Adriana Lamačková, Julieta Lemaitre, Alejandro Madrazo, Charles G. Ngwena, Rachel Rebouché, Ruth Rubio-Marín, Sally Sheldon, Reva B. Siegel, Verónica Undurraga, Melissa Upreti.

Accessing abortion services in rural areas under conditions of liberal abortion legislation is neither straightforward nor simple. As the South African example shows, the liberalisation of abortion legislation was the first step in granting pregnant persons access to abortion care. Despite this and some progress in implementation, many challenges persist resulting in a lack of services, especially in areas where distances and transport costs are a factor.

Drawing on the findings of a study conducted in three rural districts of the Eastern Cape, the authors highlight the complexities involved in understanding problematic or unwanted pregnancies and abortion services within these communities; the reported barriers to, and facilitators of, access to abortion services among rural populations; and preferences for types of abortion services.

A key finding is the conundrum of costs versus confidentiality: lack of confidentiality involves additional costs to access services outside the area; high costs mean that confidentiality may have to be foregone, which leads to stigma. The authors place the findings within a reparative reproductive justice framework and present a comprehensive set of recommendations.

Abortion Services and Reproductive Justice in Rural South Africa is an insightful and informative resource – the first of its kind – for scholars in health and sociology, reproductive health policy makers, national planners, health facility managers and providers, and activists.

Abracadabra, Sunshine is a series of ever-turning letters written to lovers, friends, and family as a testament to human perseverance and to art-making as a continuous defiance against the often overwhelming complexities and hardships of existence. Darting from the Czech Republic to the Andromeda Galaxy, from the films of Godard to the tales of the Brothers Grimm and the Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang, these poems foreground our animal need for love and connection against the background of our historical obsession with destruction. By turns dour and deeply hopeful, Booth’s poems extol the communal and healing powers of vulnerability and love.

Introduces the life and significance of Abraham in a way that will enlighten both complete beginners and people who thought they knew all they needed to know about him.

Abraham follows the biblical account of Abraham and his family in Genesis, while drawing out key points of reflection and action during Lent Written by a brilliant new biblical scholar with a gift for communicating the very latest scholarship in ways that make sense to the non-expert.

Abraham is a Lent book that takes the story of Abraham in Genesis as the basis for a series of six Lenten studies.

There is a single chapter for each of the six weeks focusing on an extract from Genesis. Each chapter is followed by a set of questions arising from it, which could be used by groups or individuals, as well as suggested further reading.

Each chapter begins and ends with discussion addressed to the reader and his or her own experience of moving through Lent. This discussion is related to the chosen passage from the Abraham narratives for that week, and will not assume any previous or background knowledge of biblical scholarship.

In each chapter the reader is offered an interpretation of the chosen passage that is fresh and designed to resonate with their own personal experience. The book gently challenges some traditional ideas about Abraham and his presentation in the Bible.

In 1678, the Puritan minister Samuel Nowell preached a sermon he called "Abraham in Arms," in which he urged his listeners to remember that "Hence it is no wayes unbecoming a Christian to learn to be a Souldier." The title of Nowell's sermon was well chosen. Abraham of the Old Testament resonated deeply with New England men, as he embodied the ideal of the householder-patriarch, at once obedient to God and the unquestioned leader of his family and his people in war and peace. Yet enemies challenged Abraham's authority in New England: Indians threatened the safety of his household, subordinates in his own family threatened his status, and wives and daughters taken into captivity became baptized Catholics, married French or Indian men, and refused to return to New England.

In a bold reinterpretation of the years between 1620 and 1763, Ann M. Little reveals how ideas about gender and family life were central to the ways people in colonial New England, and their neighbors in New France and Indian Country, described their experiences in cross-cultural warfare. Little argues that English, French, and Indian people had broadly similar ideas about gender and authority. Because they understood both warfare and political power to be intertwined expressions of manhood, colonial warfare may be understood as a contest of different styles of masculinity. For New England men, what had once been a masculinity based on household headship, Christian piety, and the duty to protect family and faith became one built around the more abstract notions of British nationalism, anti-Catholicism, and soldiering for the Empire.

Based on archival research in both French and English sources, court records, captivity narratives, and the private correspondence of ministers and war officials, Abraham in Arms reconstructs colonial New England as a frontier borderland in which religious, cultural, linguistic, and geographic boundaries were permeable, fragile, and contested by Europeans and Indians alike.

An artistic discussion on the critical potential of African American expressive culture

In a major reassessment of African American culture, Phillip Brian Harper intervenes in the ongoing debate about the “proper” depiction of black people. He advocates for African American aesthetic abstractionism—a representational mode whereby an artwork, rather than striving for realist verisimilitude, vigorously asserts its essentially artificial character. Maintaining that realist representation reaffirms the very social facts that it might have been understood to challenge, Harper contends that abstractionism shows up the actual constructedness of those facts, thereby subjecting them to critical scrutiny and making them amenable to transformation.

Arguing against the need for “positive” representations, Abstractionist Aesthetics displaces realism as the primary mode of African American representational aesthetics, re-centers literature as a principal site of African American cultural politics, and elevates experimental prose within the domain of African American literature. Drawing on examples across a variety of artistic production, including the visual work of Fred Wilson and Kara Walker, the music of Billie Holiday and Cecil Taylor, and the prose and verse writings of Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, and John Keene, this book poses urgent questions about how racial blackness is made to assume certain social meanings. In the process, African American aesthetics are upended, rendering abstractionism as the most powerful modality for Black representation.

In this touching, empowering picture book debut, a girl and her beloved abuelita lean on each other as they contend with racism while running errands in the city.

Spending time at home with Abuelita means pancakes, puddle-jumping, and nail-painting. But venturing out into the city is not always as fun. On the bus and at the grocery store, people are impatient and suspicious—sometimes they even yell. Sad, angry, and scared, the story’s young narrator decides not to leave home again . . . until a moment of empowerment helps her see the strength she and Abuelita share when they face the world together. Warm, expressive illustrations by Rafael Mayani highlight the tenderness in Abuelita and the narrator’s relationship. 

Este debut literario relata la profunda y conmovedora historia de cómo una niña y su abuelita enfrentan varias manifestaciones del racismo en su vida cotidiana.

El tiempo en casa con Abuelita es divertido. Incluye comer panqueques, saltar charcos y pintarse las uñas. Mientras que las salidas para hacer compras no siempre son divertidas. En el supermercado y en el bus la gente es impaciente y desconfiada. A veces alzan la voz y gritan. Esto entristece, enfada y atemoriza a la niña protagonista de la historia. Ella decide nunca más salir de su casa. Esto cambia cuando en un instante la pequeña se da cuenta que unidas, ella y Abuelita, son mucho más fuertes.

Los cálidos y expresivos dibujos de Rafael Mayani ilustran magníficamente la ternura que existe entre la narradora y su querida Abuelita.

To meet the food demand of the growing population, there's a need to increase the amount of protein produced from animals. Pork is the second largest contributor of global meat consumption. Identifying ways to increase the efficiency of pig production is pivotal to meeting the US and global demand for nutrients and maintaining resilient supply chains. Genome editing technology can accelerate genetic improvements by introgressing novel traits, decreasing the number of generations required to incorporate the desired allele(s), providing solutions to animal welfare concerns, maximizing nutrient yield, and reducing the use of resources. The technology provides scientists a tool to incorporate multiple genetic traits into a line of livestock species or introduce novel traits. This review highlights the methods for generating genetically engineered pigs beginning with the production of embryos and ending with techniques for performing the genetic modifications. Available swine models designed to benefit production agriculture are highlighted.

Tools for People with Disabilities from a Person with a Disability

"Access Your Drive and Enjoy the Ride is fun, practical, and no-nonsense."—Stephanie Thomas, TEDx Speaker and founder, stylist, and editor-in-chief of the disability fashion lifestyle website, CUR8ABLE

#1 New Release in Physically Disabled Education

Lauren “Lolo'' Spencer provides a candid and real inside look into the life of being a person with a disability. This disability advocate embarks on the importance of visibility for the disabled community because representation matters!

Words from someone doing the work. Lolo Spencer gained popularity as a YouTube personality. On her platform, Sitting Pretty, she encourages viewers to achieve their dreams through making strong choices. Lolo shares how she navigates daily life with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). 

You are more than your limits. Choosing to see herself as more than a person with a disability and wheelchair user, Lolo chooses to live a bold and courageous life now because representation matters. She created this intersectional guide to provide tools for people with disabilities to thrive in personal growth, independence, and community building. Add this guide to your list of inclusion books!

Inside, you’ll find:

• An intersectional guide on how to grow personally and professionally
• Tools for people with disabilities to live a full life despite limitations and expectations
• Words from the inspiring Lauren “Lolo” Spencer, your favorite disability advocate

If you're looking for gifts for people with disabilities to get encouraged like Disability Visibility, Demystifying Disability, or Rolling Warrior, you’ll love Access Your Drive and Enjoy the Ride.

A history of design that is often overlooked—until we need it

Have you ever hit the big blue button to activate automatic doors? Have you ever used an ergonomic kitchen tool? Have you ever used curb cuts to roll a stroller across an intersection? If you have, then you’ve benefited from accessible design—design for people with physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities. These ubiquitous touchstones of modern life were once anything but. Disability advocates fought tirelessly to ensure that the needs of people with disabilities became a standard part of public design thinking. That fight took many forms worldwide, but in the United States it became a civil rights issue; activists used design to make an argument about the place of people with disabilities in public life.

In the aftermath of World War II, with injured veterans returning home and the polio epidemic reaching the Oval Office, the needs of people with disabilities came forcibly into the public eye as they never had before. The US became the first country to enact federal accessibility laws, beginning with the Architectural Barriers Act in 1968 and continuing through the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, bringing about a wholesale rethinking of our built environment. This progression wasn’t straightforward or easy. Early legislation and design efforts were often haphazard or poorly implemented, with decidedly mixed results. Political resistance to accommodating the needs of people with disabilities was strong; so, too, was resistance among architectural and industrial designers, for whom accessible design wasn’t “real” design.

Bess Williamson provides an extraordinary look at everyday design, marrying accessibility with aesthetic, to provide an insight into a world in which we are all active participants, but often passive onlookers. Richly detailed, with stories of politics and innovation, Williamson’s Accessible America takes us through this important history, showing how American ideas of individualism and rights came to shape the material world, often with unexpected consequences.

Explores the global landscape of abortion law reform

In many countries, barriers to abortion access—legal, cultural, or practical—have been dismantled in places as diverse as Mexico, Kenya, Thailand, and Ireland. Yet, in a few countries—the United States and Poland to name two—obstacles to abortion abound. Why? Why do some countries find abortion access a publicly polarizing issue and others a relatively uncontroversial health and family decision? Why has abortion access been a rallying point for progressive political organizing and, in others, the site of democratic backsliding?

In Accessing Abortion, expert academics and lawyers look to countries that have passed permissive abortion laws to make visible how legislation both settled and stirred conflict in politically-divided environments. By comparing the process of enacting laws in these countries, the volume spotlights current social mobilization for and against abortion rights. At the same time, the volume assesses how these varied and comparative national developments unfolded in an international and transnational context where the floor of what countries can do is set by international human rights norms. Ultimately, this collection aims to show how law and public policy functions to facilitate both permissive and restrictive abortion law reform, and how that reform then changes the delivery of abortion services. Providing a sustained comparative analysis of the costs and benefits of legislating and/or judicializing abortion rights across the globe, Accessing Abortion assesses what is missing from contemporary conversations on reproductive justice.

Accessories to Modernity explores the ways in which feminine fashion accessories, such as cashmere shawls, parasols, fans, and handbags, became essential instruments in the bourgeois idealization of womanhood in nineteenth-century France. Considering how these fashionable objects were portrayed in fashion journals and illustrations, as well as fiction, the book explores the histories and cultural weight of the objects themselves and offers fresh readings of works by Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola, some of the most widely read novels of the period.

As social boundaries were becoming more and more fluid in the nineteenth century, one effort to impose order over the looming confusion came, in the case of women, through fashion, and the fashion accessory thus became an ever more crucial tool through which social distinction could be created, projected, and maintained. Looking through the lens of fashion, Susan Hiner explores the interplay of imperialist expansion and domestic rituals, the assertion of privilege in the face of increasing social mobility, gendering practices and their relation to social hierarchies, and the rise of commodity culture and woman's paradoxical status as both consumer and object within it.

Through her close focus on these luxury objects, Hiner reframes the feminine fashion accessory as a key symbol of modernity that bridges the erotic and proper, the domestic and exotic, and mass production and the work of art while making a larger claim about the "accessory" status—in terms of both complicity and subordination—of bourgeois women in nineteenth-century France. Women were not simply passive bystanders but rather were themselves accessories to the work of modernity from which they were ostensibly excluded.