When a little Amish boy in Bird-in-Hand is diagnosed with leukemia, the Plain community rallies around him - as do Martha, Mary, and Elizabeth, and Secondhand Blessings becomes a staging area to gather donated goods for a fund-raising auction. The little boy's grandfather, Alvin Miller, donates a racehorse he recently acquired, along with a valuable saddle, to the cause. But when Alvin's stable is set on fire and both the horse and saddle disappear, Martha and her sisters are thrust into solving a mystery that follows horse dealers and trainers from Virginia to Pennsylvania to Maryland. Meanwhile, Martha gets disturbing news from her family in Kansas. Her own granddaughter, Celeste, has fallen ill. Will the mystery behind the fire and disappearance of Alvin's prize horse remain unsolved while Martha tends to the needs of her faraway family? -back cover.

Plain ugly examines depictions of physically repellent characters in a striking range of early modern literary and visual texts, offering fascinating insights into the ways in which ugliness and deformity were perceived and represented, particularly with regard to gender and the construction of identity. Available in paperback for the first time, the book focuses closely on English literary culture but also engages with wider European perspectives, drawing on a wide array of primary sources including Italian and other European visual art. Offering illuminating close readings of texts from both high and low culture, it will interest scholars in English literature, cultural studies, women’s studies, history and art history, as well as postgraduate and undergraduate students in these disciplines. As an accessible and absorbing account of the power dynamics informing depictions of ugliness (and beauty) in relation to some of the quirkiest literary and visual material to be found in early modern culture, it will also appeal to a wider audience.

Biography of Peggy Ann Garner, Oscar-winning actress of the 1945 film, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

The Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch is a tract of 8,000 acres on the Sonoita Plain that was established in 1968 by the Appleton family and is now part of the sanctuary system of the National Audubon Society. To all appearances it is an ordinary piece of land, but for the last 35 years it has been treated in an extraordinary way - by leaving it alone. No grazing to influence grass production. No dam building to hold back flash floods. No pest control. No firefighting. By employing such nonaction, might we gain a glimpse of what this land was like hundreds, even thousands, of years ago? Through essays and photographs focusing on the Research Ranch Sanctuary and surrounding area, this book reveals the complex ecology and unique aesthetics of its grasslands and savannas. Carl and Jane Bock and Stephen E. Strom share a passion for the remarkable beauty found here, and in their book they describe its environment, biodiversity, and human history.