A richly imagined portrait of an immigrant woman in the heady and unpredictable first half of the twentieth century. Sweeping and panoramic, You Were There Before My Eyes is the epic and intimate story of a young woman who chafes at the stifling routine and tradition of her small, turn-of-the-century Italian village. When an opportunity presents itself for her to emigrate to America, her hunger for escape compels her to leave everything behind for the gleaming promises that await her and her young husband in Mr. Ford’s factories. Determined to survive, and perhaps even thrive, young Jane finds herself navigating not just a new language and country, but a world poised upon the edge of economic and social revolution—and war. As Jane searches for inner fulfillment while building young family, the tide of history ebbs and flows. From the chaos of Ellis Island to the melting pot of industrial Detroit, You Were There Before My Eyes spills over with colorful characters and vivid period details. Maria Riva paints an authentic portrait of immigrant America and poignantly captures the ever evolving nature of the American dream.

In Caroline Bock's Before My Eyes, Claire has spent the last few months taking care of her six-year-old sister, Izzy, as their mother lies in a hospital bed. Claire believes she has everything under control until she meets a guy online who appears to be a kindred spirit. Claire is initially flattered by the attention but when she meets Max, the shy state senator's son, her feelings become complicated. Working alongside Max at a beachfront food stand is Barkley. Lonely and obsessive, Barkley has been hearing a voice in his head. Narrated in turns by Claire, Max, and Barkley, Before My Eyes captures a moment when possibilities should be opening up, but instead everything teeters on the brink of destruction.

"Before our eyes gather more than thirty new poems by Eleanor Wilner, along with representative selections from her seven previous works"--Back cover.

TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GRACIE IS always flying under the radar of her overworked parents and outspoken siblings. But when she buys an old journal at a yard sale, Gracie is stunned to realize that everything she writes in the journal comes true—though sometimes in unexpected ways. At first Gracie uses the journal selfishly, controlling her mother’s BlackBerry and eliminating the dress code at school. But then she starts to think about bigger issues: what about world hunger? Global warming? World peace Unfortunately, before she can make headway on any of those issues, the journal falls into the wrong hands—and soon Gracie and her best friend/crush Dylan are rushing around town trying to undo the damage! This fun, warm, emotionally honest novel is both a fantastic adventure and a testament to the power of writing to change the world.

Visual, auditory, tactile--ever attentive to perception--Lawrence Joseph's third book of poems, Before Our Eyes, generously, almost exotically, blends various tones, atmospheres, and textures into forms of concentrated, pitch-perfect invention. The poet, an astute aesthetician, is also astutely conscious of history, a critical observer of public life. He explores the American identity. He investigates meaning and language. He celebrates the mysteries of beauty and love. The result is a poetry of illuminating effects which captures a profound sense of what it's like to be alive, and what it means to write poetry, in a radically changing time.

This new book by Malcolm Parkes makes a fundamental contribution to the history of handwriting. Handwriting is a versatile medium that has always allowed individual scribes the opportunity for self-expression, despite the limitations of the pen and the finite number of possible movements.The purpose of this study is to focus on the writing of scribes from late antiquity to the beginning of the sixteenth century, and to identify those features which are a scribe's personal contribution to the techniques and art of handwriting. The book opens with three chapters surveying the various environments in which scribes worked in the medieval West. The following five, based on the author's Lyell Lectures at the University of Oxford, then examine different aspects of the subject, starting with the basic processes of handwriting and copying. Next come discussions of developments in rapid handwriting, with its consequent influence on new alphabets; on more formal 'set hands'; and on the adaptation of movements of the pen to produce elements of style corresponding to changes in the prevailing sense of decorum. The final chapter looks at the significance of some customized images produced by handwriting on the page. The text is illustrated with 69 plates, and accompanied by a glossary of the technical terms applied to handwriting, which in itself makes a significant contribution to the subject.