NOW A HALLMARK ORIGINAL MOVIE! Nancy Naigle delivers a heartwarming Christmas story that proves you can always go home again in Hope at Christmas. Sydney Ragsdale is looking for a fresh start far away from her controlling ex-husband and the self-doubt that has plagued her since the divorce. Returning to her childhood home in Hopewell, North Carolina is just what her soul needs. Praying some Christmas magic will follow her she moves with her daughter to a farmhouse that once belonged to her grandparents. While there Sydney finds solace working at The Book Bea, her favorite bookstore. Single dad Kevin MacAlea, Mac to his friends, is the local high school history teacher and baseball coach. He is also the towns best kept secret—he has been playing Santa since his son was born twelve years ago. Mac loves the enchantment of the season and wants his son to share in his joy. When a catastrophe forces The Book Bea to close before the end of the year, everyone in the small town is feeling the loss. While Sydney is already off-balance by the bad news, her ex-husband breaks a promise to their daughter that sends her running away and threatens the relationship that she has begun with Mac. As Sydney and Mac try to figure out what their next steps are together they will soon discover that there’s always hope at Christmas.

“Revelatory…fascinating” (The New York Times): The first definitive biography of Bob Hope, featuring exclusive and extensive reporting that makes the persuasive case that he was the most important entertainer of the twentieth century. With his topical jokes and his all-American, brash-but-cowardly screen character, Bob Hope was the only entertainer to achieve top-rated success in every major mass-entertainment medium of the century, from vaudeville in the 1920s all the way to television in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. He virtually invented modern stand-up comedy. Above all, he helped redefine the very notion of what it means to be a star: a savvy businessman, an enterprising builder of his own brand, and a public-spirited entertainer whose Christmas military tours and unflagging work for charity set the standard for public service in Hollywood. As Richard Zoglin shows in this “entertaining and important book” (The Wall Street Journal), there is still much to be learned about this most public of figures, from his secret first marriage and his stint in reform school, to his indiscriminate womanizing and his ambivalent relationships with Bing Crosby and Johnny Carson. Hope could be cold, self-centered, tight with a buck, and perhaps the least introspective man in Hollywood. But he was also a tireless worker, devoted to his fans, and generous with friends. “Scrupulously researched, likely definitive, and as entertaining and as important (to an understanding of twentieth- and twenty-first-century pop culture) as its subject once genuinely was” (Vanity Fair), Hope is both a celebration of the entertainer and a complex portrait of a gifted but flawed man. “A wonderful biography,” says Woody Allen. “For me, it’s a feast.”

From the manger of Jesus Christ to the 21st century, this encyclopedia explores more than 2,000 years of Christmas past and present through 966 entries packed with a wide variety of historical and pop-culture subjects. Entries detail customs and traditions from around the world as well as classic Christmas movies, TV series/specials and animated cartoons. Arranged alphabetically by entry name, the book includes the historical background of popular sacred and secular songs as well as accounts of beloved literary works with Christmas themes from such noted authors as Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Hans Christian Andersen, Pearl Buck, Henry Van Dyke and others. All things Christmas are available here in one comprehensive volume.

Christmas characters and food, Christmas-linked holidays and music, Santa Claus and traditions. Related to Annunciation, Incarnation; Crucifixion; Advent, the four weeks preceding Christmas; and the period between the day after Thanksgiving and the Sunday after New Year”s Day, the American holiday season. Christmas or Christmas Day is a holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity. Aspects of celebration may include gift-giving, Christmas trees, display of Nativity sets, church attendance, the Father Christmas/Santa Claus myth, and family gatherings. Users of the Gregorian calendar observe the holiday on December 25. Some Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate on December 25 by the Julian calendar, which currently corresponds to January 7 on the Gregorian calendar. These dates are merely traditional; the great majority of scholars agree that the actual birthdate of Jesus is unknown. In Western culture, the holiday is characterized by the exchange of gifts among friends and family members, some of the gifts being attributed to Santa Claus (also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Basil and Father Frost). However, various local and regional Christmas traditions are still practiced, despite the widespread influence of American, British and Australian Christmas motifs disseminated by film, popular literature, television, and other media.

Reporter: "What's it like to be Bob Hope?"Hope: "I wouldn't have it any other way."From Bob Hope's early career as an upstart among professionals like Jack Benny and Milton Berle in the rollicking world of traveling comedians, to his blazing success as a radio, television, and film star, this completely revised and updated version of William Faith's acclaimed biography takes a straightforward, appreciative, and very funny look at Hope's life and times on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Filled with anecdotes, photographs, and plenty of jokes, the book reveals the real Bob Hope from his boyhood in England and youth in Cleveland to his present status as a living legend-a full-blooded, authentic appraisal of the man and his humor, a comic institution who is also a brilliant businessman, manipulator of the media, and politically influential figure. And of course Hope is the man who brought laughter and cheer (and long-legged beauties) to GIs throughout the world. At a time when patriotic fervor has never been running higher it's worth recalling the singular tribute paid Hope by none other than John Steinbeck: "When the time for recognition of service to the nation in wartime comes to be considered, Bob Hope should be high on the list.... He gets laughter wherever he goes from men who need laughter." Happy 100th, Bob!

This carefully crafted ebook: "The Little City of Hope (Christmas Classic)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909) was an American writer noted for his many novels, especially those set in Italy, and for his classic weird and fantastic stories. Excerpt: "It's worth while to be a great inventor to be able to make things like that!" he cried, and Overholt was as much pleased by the praise as an opera singer is who is called out three times before the curtain after the first act. So the little City of Hope grew, and they both felt that Hope herself was soon coming to dwell therein, if she had not come already."