Agatha Award-winning author Joan Hess, the prolific creator of the Claire Malloy and Maggody mysteries, is beloved for her clever sleuths, quirky characters, and her ingenious plotting. We invite you to enjoy this delightful Claire Malloy mystery, and to discover why Sharyn McCrumb calls Joan Hess "the patron saint of comic mystery." At Farberville High, it's reading, writing...and murder. Who knows what evil lurks in the halls of Farbervilles' high school-or what blackmail is hidden in Miss Demeanor's Falcon Crier advice column? Certainly not bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy-until her daughter Caron persuades her to substitute for disgraced column editor and journalism teacher Emily Parchester. Surely Miss Parchester cannot be guilty of embezzlement. But the petty charges graduate to murder when Principal Weiss gets his last licks from Miss Parchester's peach compote. Miss Parchester herself, last seen at a local sanitarium, is suddenly missing. And now it's up to Claire to find someone who's been schooled in the fine art of murder...

This delightfully warm and informal guide transforms the ins and outs of etiquette into lessons for everyday life. In her role as Ms. Demeanor, Mary Mitchell has corresponded with children from all over the country and answered their questions about what to do in all kinds of social situations.

Joan Hess’s humorous cozy mystery series takes place in the small and colorful town of Farberville, Arkansas, where widow and single mother Claire Malloy struggles with keeping her small local bookstore in the black. But she also must deal with the drama of her young teenage daughter Caron (WHO SPEAKS IN ALL CAPS), being married to Deputy Police Chief Peter Rosen, and murder. Strangled Prose Mildred, author of a smutty new romance, is found murdered after a party at Claire’s bookstore. Claire is left wondering who could have hated Mildred with such passion, but soon finds that the romances contained as much fact as fiction—and perhaps hold the clue to the killer’s identity! The Murder at the Mimosa Inn Claire brings her petulant daughter Caron along to a mock-murder weekend at the charming Mimosa Inn. But fiction becomes alarmingly real as the mock-victim isn’t just playing dead—he’s really been murdered. More determined than ever to find the killer, Claire combs the grounds of the country inn for this most unwelcome guest. Dear Miss Demeanor The scandals mount in Farberville when a respected teacher is fired for pilfering petty cash and suggestive letters are sent to the local advice columnist. Claire Malloy, working undercover to investigate the possible embezzlement, finds herself in the thick of it all when the high school principal is murdered and the killer is still on the loose.

"This valuable guide made an immediately favorable impression on me--I recommend it." --Letitia Baldridge Business communications expert Mary Mitchell gives business people and job seekers everything they need to make the right first impression, whether in person--at job interviews, sales calls, or social gatherings--or via letter, fax, or e-mail. Based on Mitchell's popular corporate seminars which have been attended by employees of Arthur Young, Ritz Carlton Hotels, Merck, and other top firms, The First Five Minutes. Gives practical tips on cultural customs, body language, and cross-dressing customs. * Uses realistic scenarios and sample dialogues to show readers what to do and what not to do in every type of first-meeting business situation. * Explains and simplifies the new and changing rules of conduct in today's global business environment. MARY MITCHELL (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is President of Uncommon Courtesies, a firm specializing in teaching business people better communication and relationships through improved social skills. She writes a syndicated column called "Ms. Demeanor" for King features, is the Prodigy online modern manners expert, and is the author of The Idiot's Guide to Etiquette. JOHN CORR (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a writer with the Philadelphia Inquirer.

You’re no idiot, of course. You know how important it is to handle sticky situations with tact and poise, and that it’s downright rude to talk with your mouth full or slurp your soup. You’re always careful to mind your manners, but when you have to make an introduction or attend a business banquet, you feel like a blundering buffoon. Don’t take your name off the social register just yet! The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Etiquette, Second Edition, will show you how to be polished, polite, and professional, whether you’re at home, at work, or at play. In this Complete Idiot’s Guide®, you get: • Simple solutions to common dining dilemmas. • Easy-to-follow gift-giving guidelines. • Foolproof ways to prepare a wedding. • Invaluable tips on sports and travel etiquette.

It takes a lot of courage to walk away from a successful surgical career to become a yoga teacher. Especially after all the years of highly competitive schooling, followed by the mental, emotional, and physical stresses of surgical training. James K. Weber, however, took that huge leap—and along the way, he scored a third chance to make it right with the love of his life. It wasn’t until after several heart attacks that a plan to leave the profession took hold. He came to think of his heart attacks as the key to improved health—something that would propel him to strike off on a new path. In this memoir, he recalls how he made such a huge decision. As you read his story, you won’t be able to help but reflect on the critical decisions that you’ve made or deferred at the crossroads of your own life. Eminently readable and filled with anecdotes, reflections, pathos, and humor, this is an autobiography unlike any other—a testimony to the hardiness of the human spirit.

"This book shows that manners, far from being superficial adornments of behaviour, are thoroughly interwoven with our personalities and the structures of our societies. The concept of ‘informalization’ provides both an invaluable addition to Norbert Elias’s theory of civilizing processes and a most useful tool for understanding how changes in manners are related to shifts in the balances of power between social classes, sexes, and generations" - Johan Goudsblom, University of Amsterdam "Cas Wouters stakes out a powerful theory about changes in human relationships in the Western world over the past twelve decades... essential reading for anyone interested in the contemporary human condition." - Theory and Society "It is written in clear, unequivocal language, abounds with detail and replaces many normative statements about the alienating state of contemporary, capitalist, mass-consumption-oriented bureaucracy.... A nuanced, subtle and theoretically informed analysis of the sometimes quite chaotic civilising process of the last century′ - Figurations This original book explains the sweeping changes to twentieth-century regimes of manners and self. Broad in scope and deep in analytic reach, it provides a wealth of empirical evidence to demonstrate how changes in the code of manners and emotions in four countries (Germany, Netherlands, England and the US) have undergone increasing informalization. From the growing taboo toward the displays of superiority and inferiority and diminishing social and psychicogical distance between people, it reveals an ′emancipation of emotions′ and the new representation of emotion at the centre of personality. This thought-provoking book traces: The increasing permissiveness in public and private manners, such as introductions, the use of personal pronouns, social kissing, dancing, and dating. The ascent and integration of a wide variety of groups - including the working classes, women, youth and immigrants - and the sweeping changes this has imposed on relations of social inferiority and superiority. Shifts in self-regulation that require manners to seem ′natural′, at ease and authentic. Rising external social constraints towards being reflexive, showing presence of mind, considerateness, role-taking, and the ability to tolerate and control conflicts. Growing interdependence and social integration, declining power differences and the diminishing social and psychic distance between people. Continuing the analysis of Sex and Manners (SAGE, 2004), this book is a dazzling work of historical sociology.