This is a poignant memoir about a young woman who triumphed over tragedy; a mother and daughter's love; and the indomitable power of the human spirit.

This gripping and darkly funny memoir “is a testament to the undeniable, indestructible love between a mother and a daughter” (Isaac Mizrahi). Liz Scheier’s mother was a news junkie, a hilarious storyteller, a fast-talking charmer you couldn’t look away from, a single mother whose devotion crossed the line into obsession, and—when in the grips of the mental illness that plagued her—a masterful liar. On an otherwise uneventful afternoon when Scheier was eighteen, her mother sauntered into the room and dropped two bombshells. First, that she had been married for most of the previous two decades to a man Liz had never heard of and, second, that the man she had claimed was Liz’s dead father was entirely fictional. She’d made him up—his name, the stories, everything. Those big lies were the start, but not the end; it had taken dozens of smaller lies to support them, and by the time she was done she had built a fairy-tale, half-true life for the two of them. Judith Scheier’s charm was more than matched by her eccentricity, and Liz had always known there was something wrong in their home. After all, other mothers didn’t raise a child single-handedly with no visible source of income, or hide their children behind fake Social Security numbers, or host giant parties in a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment only to throw raging tantrums when the door closed behind the guests. Now, decades later, armed with clues to her father’s identity—and as her mother’s worsening dementia reveals truths she never intended to share—Liz attempts to uncover the real answers to the mysteries underpinning her childhood. Trying to construct a “normal” life out of decidedly abnormal roots, she navigates her own circuitous path to adulthood: a bizarre breakup, an unexpected romance, and the birth of her son and daughter. Along the way, Liz wrestles with questions of what we owe our parents even when they fail us, and of how to share her mother’s hilarity, limitless love, and creativity with children—without passing down the trauma of her mental illness. Never Simple is the story of enduring the legacy of a hard-to-love parent with compassion, humor, and, ultimately, self-preservation.

A cloth bag containing eight copies of the title, that may also include a folder.

Power up your Python with object-oriented programming and learn how to write powerful, efficient, and re-usable code. Object-Oriented Python is an intuitive and thorough guide to mastering object-oriented programming from the ground up. You’ll cover the basics of building classes and creating objects, and put theory into practice using the pygame package with clear examples that help visualize the object-oriented style. You’ll explore the key concepts of object-oriented programming — encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance — and learn not just how to code with objects, but the absolute best practices for doing so. Finally, you’ll bring it all together by building a complex video game, complete with full animations and sounds. The book covers two fully functional Python code packages that will speed up development of graphical user interface (GUI) programs in Python.

First Published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This textbook guides students through rhetorical and assignment analysis, the writing process, researching, citing, rhetorical modes, and critical reading. Using accessible but rigorous readings by professionals throughout the college composition field, the Oregon Writes Writing Textbook aligns directly to the statewide writing outcomes for English Composition courses in Oregon. Created through a grant from Open Oregon in 2015-16, this book collects previously published articles, essays, and chapters released under Creative Commons licenses into one free textbook available for online access or print-on-demand.