This is the story of how Emery Walters became whom he was supposed to be. I knew I was male at an early age, something that was a societal no-no in the 1950s and still is in parts of the country today. Burying my male identity, I strove to be the best woman possible. But after raising my four wonderful children from two debilitating marriages, I found myself alone and nearly penniless. That was when Emery asserted his identity. Life became better with the shift from female to male, a third marriage, and a wife who, herself, transitioned from male to female.

Retells an Armenian folktale about a fox who has his tail cut off after he steals some milk and how he bargains to get it back.

Sixteen-year-old Jansin Nordqvist is on the verge of graduating from the black ops factory known as the Academy. She's smart and deadly and knows three things with absolute certainty. She knows that when the world flooded and civilization retreated deep underground, there was no one left on the surface. She knows that the only species to thrive there are the toads, a primate/amphibian hybrid with a serious mean streak. Most of all, she knows there's no place on Earth where you can hide from the hypercanes, continent-sized storms that have raged for decades. Jansin has been lied to. On all counts. Faced with the truth in the form of a charismatic young survivor named Will, Jansin vows that her former masters will regret making her what she is...

Life can and will change for good or bad. Whether sudden or planned, physical or emotional, personal or professional, big or small, one fine day we will all have to face a new normal. When your day comes, what will you do? One fine day, unimaginable tragedy happened to Sameer Bhide. His entire life came crashing down, starting with a life-changing, debilitating stroke, the loss of work, and a divorce. One Fine Day is the amazing story of his struggle to come back from the brink with the help of a diverse community of friends and caretakers, as well as an integration of Western medicine with Eastern holistic care. Sameer’s example of positivity, gratitude, and grace will help you accept a new normal— whatever it may be—as a gift. In sharing his personal story, experiences, ideas, approaches, and suggestions, he hopes One Fine Day will help readers: > build resilience to face any life change or adversity > find positivity, express gratitude, and build perseverance in the healing process > look at the unexpected benefits and find possibilities in any life change > find possibility where most people would see none (the art of the possible) > adjust to a new life that they may not have chosen > supplement cutting-edge Western medicine with holistic Eastern medicine and care

Adam Watson's interest in snow began at 7, the Cairngorms at 9, mountaineering and ski-mountaineering in later boyhood. His book recounts many fine days on the hill in Scotland, Iceland and northern Scandinavia on foot or ski, often on his own in wonderful places that excited him beyond measure. He tells what it was like to be with four remarkable Scots who greatly influenced him as a young naturalist and mountaineer, Seton Gordon, Bob Scott o the Derry, Tom Weir and Tom Patey. The beauty and variety of the hill, the weather and the wildlife were and are an inspiration to him, and his descriptions touch on this. In these modern times of pervasive regulation and politically correct control, this book is a breath of fresh air as a proclamation of the value and wonder that are the greatest joys of lone exploration on the spur of the moment. Author Adam Watson, BSc, PhD, DSc, DUniv, raised in lowland Aberdeenshire, is a retired research ecologist aged 80. He began lifelong interests on winter snow in 1937, snow patches in 1938, the Cairngorms in 1939. A mountaineer and ski-mountaineer since boyhood, he has experienced Scotland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, mainland Canada, Newfoundland, Baffin Island, Finland, Switzerland, Italy, Vancouver Island and Alaska. His main research was and is on population biology, behaviour and habitat of northern birds and mammals. In retirement he has contributed 16 scientific publications on snow patches since 1994. He is a Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Royal Meteorological Society, Royal Society of Edinburgh, and Society of Biology. Since 1954 he has been a member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club and since 1968 author of the Club's District Guide to the Cairngorms. This book is testimony to the idea that Exploring for yourself by your own free will, without formal courses or training, is the best joy the hills can give (my Preface, The Cairngorms, 1975). Now I would add 'without detailed planning', for my best days have been lone trips begun without such planning, indeed on the spur of moment and weather, almost chance events. Four chapters salute Scots to whom I owed much as a young naturalist and mountaineer, Seton Gordon, Bob Scott, Tom Patey and Tom Weir. They held to the above idea. Reading Seton Gordon's Cairngorm Hills of Scotland in 1939 changed my life. I wanted to be in these hills at all seasons. Exploration by one's own free will is best pervaded by humility and wonder. Alien to this are avalanche alerts, 'challenge' walks, 'character-building', courses, Duke of Edinburgh Awards, guided walks, hill-runs, interpretive boards, marker cairns, outdoor centres, qualifications, rangers, route-cards, school outings, signposts, sponsored walks, tests of snowpack stability, text messages sent as avalanche alerts to mobile phones, transceivers, visitor centres, 'walk of the day', wardens, and 'wilderness walks'. Also alien are Munros, Corbetts and other anthropocentric designations, those who 'bag' them as if hills were shot birds, and assault, attack, battle, conquer, conquest, fight, vanquish and victory as if hills were enemies. Many with flashing camera, global positioning, map, compass, mobile phone, and survival equipment are unsafe, as rescue accounts often reveal. Even climbers have been rescued after neglecting navigation on easy ground after completing rock climbs or ice climbs. Those who behave as if alone on an icecap when nobody else knows where they are and no help is possible, have greater inherent safety. They are also more likely to understand and appreciate the hill and its weather, snow, wildlife and indigenous folk.

It is a summer's day in 1946. The English village of Wealding is no longer troubled by distant sirens, yet the rustling coils of barbed wire are a reminder that something, some quality of life, has evaporated. Together again after years of separation, Laura and Stephen Marshall and their daughter Victoria are forced to manage without 'those anonymous caps and aprons who lived out of sight and pulled the strings'. Their rambling garden refuses to be tamed, the house seems perceptibly to crumble. But alone on a hillside, as evening falls, Laura comes to see what it would have meant if the war had been lost, and looks to the future with a new hope and optimism. First published in 1947, this subtle, finely wrought novel presents a memorable portrait of the aftermath of war, its effect upon a marriage, charting, too, a gradual but significant change in the nature of English middle-class life.

This is the portrait of an unusual woman and a memoir of an already distant era, brought alive again by her story. Her two identities are tied to Italy before the Second World War and to post-war Britain. Paulina DOffizi is full of contradictions as her life was full of contrasts. Her story emerges through digressions and various points-of-view. She is a domineering woman and a demanding mother, to whom her child means the whole world. And the world is full of disappointments and unexpected twists of fate.