Synopsis: The mighty Roman empire rules the world with an iron fist but one nation refuses to bow to the Imperial throne - little Judea -a nation of fierce independence and a monotheist religion. In the midst of these turbulent times, when history turns on its head and B.C. moves into A.D, two women find their lives molded by the intrigues and plots of royalty and clergy. Deborah, fiery and outspoken, comfortable in her birth right as the upper class of Jewish society: he, a Roman Centurion stationed at the cosmopolitan port of Caesarea, where Romans, Greeks and Jews coexist in an uneasy harmony. Joanna, conservative and traditional, from the lowly village of Emmaus, Judea; he, a powerful court official who buys her from the market to save her from a life of slavery and introduces her to the royal court of Herod Antipas. Sometimes, Fiction is needed to bring Fact to life. In the pages of this book, history is brought to life through the lives of these fictional women of substance and the irresistible charisma of one man who met them to paint a timeless story of love in a fickle, uncertain, bubble of time.

Charlie and Josh's interests were the same as most other teenagers: drinking, parties and girls. That was until the day they discovered the Time Bubble. It starts at a bit of fun, jumping a few seconds into the future. Soon things take a more serious turn as the leaps in time increase in duration. When a teenage girl goes missing, and the police become involved, suspicion falls on Charlie. How can he explain where she is? Will anyone believe him? As the long term dangers of the Bubble become clear, one man comes up with a solution - one that could hold the key to his own salvation. Set in a small market town in Southern England in the early 21st century, this light-hearted time travel novel has plenty to delight readers of all ages. This novel is the first part of a trilogy. Global Cooling, the second in the series, is now available.

Examines the 1990s as a period of tranquility and prosperity in the United States, with attention to popular culture, politics, higher education, and economic policy.

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Christopher Knowlton, author of Cattle Kingdom and former Fortune writer, takes an in-depth look at the spectacular Florida land boom of the 1920s and shows how it led directly to the Great Depression. The 1920s in Florida was a time of incredible excess, immense wealth, and precipitous collapse. The decade there produced the largest human migration in American history, far exceeding the settlement of the West, as millions flocked to the grand hotels and the new cities that rose rapidly from the teeming wetlands. The boom spawned a new subdivision civilization—and the most egregious large-scale assault on the environment in the name of “progress.” Nowhere was the glitz and froth of the Roaring Twenties more excessive than in Florida. Here was Vegas before there was a Vegas: gambling was condoned and so was drinking, since prohibition was not enforced. Tycoons, crooks, and celebrities arrived en masse to promote or exploit this new and dazzling American frontier in the sunshine. Yet, the import and deep impact of these historical events have never been explored thoroughly until now. In Bubble in the Sun Christopher Knowlton examines the grand artistic and entrepreneurial visions behind Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Miami Beach, and other storied sites, as well as the darker side of the frenzy. For while giant fortunes were being made and lost and the nightlife raged more raucously than anywhere else, the pure beauty of the Everglades suffered wanton ruination and the workers, mostly black, who built and maintained the boom, endured grievous abuses. Knowlton breathes dynamic life into the forces that made and wrecked Florida during the decade: the real estate moguls Carl Fisher, George Merrick, and Addison Mizner, and the once-in-a-century hurricane whose aftermath triggered the stock market crash. This essential account is a revelatory—and riveting—history of an era that still affects our country today.

A whimsical rhyming children's story about a girl who decides to follow a bubble that doesn't pop.

How to design a world in which we rely less on stuff, and more on people. We're filling up the world with technology and devices, but we've lost sight of an important question: What is this stuff for? What value does it add to our lives? So asks author John Thackara in his new book, In the Bubble: Designing for a Complex World. These are tough questions for the pushers of technology to answer. Our economic system is centered on technology, so it would be no small matter if "tech" ceased to be an end-in-itself in our daily lives. Technology is not going to go away, but the time to discuss the end it will serve is before we deploy it, not after. We need to ask what purpose will be served by the broadband communications, smart materials, wearable computing, and connected appliances that we're unleashing upon the world. We need to ask what impact all this stuff will have on our daily lives. Who will look after it, and how? In the Bubble is about a world based less on stuff and more on people. Thackara describes a transformation that is taking place now—not in a remote science fiction future; it's not about, as he puts it, "the schlock of the new" but about radical innovation already emerging in daily life. We are regaining respect for what people can do that technology can't. In the Bubble describes services designed to help people carry out daily activities in new ways. Many of these services involve technology—ranging from body implants to wide-bodied jets. But objects and systems play a supporting role in a people-centered world. The design focus is on services, not things. And new principles—above all, lightness—inform the way these services are designed and used. At the heart of In the Bubble is a belief, informed by a wealth of real-world examples, that ethics and responsibility can inform design decisions without impeding social and technical innovation.