I am but a leaf carried by the winds of destiny, and I find myself faced with the task of navigating the traditions of a society I never imagined I would challenge. How can I, with mere words, capture the essence of a journey that breaks the bonds of the tangible and the comprehensible? It is I who leave the placid shores of gentle comfort, launching myself into the turbulent waters of passion. Passion, with its evocative name, a burning and eternal feeling, becomes the stage where my destiny unfolds in all its glory. It is here, in the vigor of youth, that I meet the one who would change my life forever - oh Darius, how his name still echoes in the caverns of my heart, like the last breath of a wilting rose. He is the embodiment of the eternal paradox - love and suffering, blessing and opprobrium, all contained in a single being. Our love is an explosion of emotions, bright as a star and devastating in equal measure. For a moment, I believe I have defied the immutable laws of tradition, freeing him from the chains of his family heritage. But society, in its cruel and infinite wisdom, has other plans for our love. Traditions and prejudices judge us, suffocating passion, are like implacable forces that claim what belongs to them, tearing him from my arms as easily as winter steals the leaves from the trees. The forces that separate us - the intrigues and rivalries of our families (Gareth and Shadowthorn) - are like the tides of the ocean: relentless, inexorable. And he, my beloved wanderer, disappears into the misty horizon without a goodbye, leaving only the echo of his passing in the void of my being. Alone, I face the abyss left by his departure. I fear that his family's legacy will repeat itself, like an eternal cycle of the seasons. But my heart, filled with the light of our love, proves to be stronger than the shadows that threaten to swallow me. Now, as I make my own way through the labyrinths of existence, I feel him watching from afar—a silent guardian on the shores of my personal world. He understands, as I do, that I must navigate the stormy seas of life alone to discover the fundamental truths of my being. Our story, etched on the pages of time, is a testament to the fundamental duality of existence. Every joy and every pain we experience are like drops of water that make up the greater ocean of life. We are blessed and martyred, we experience the best and worst of each other and of ourselves. And yet, in the end, love emerges as the fundamental force of this world we share. Like the roots that hold a tree steady against the storms, the love we share keeps us eternally connected, transcending the barriers of time, space, and circumstance. This is my story—a chronicle of love—a reflection of life in miniature, vast and mysterious, and ineffably beautiful. And in the end, after all the suffering and all the trials, we are able to truly love. And that, dear reader, makes every moment of this journey worthwhile.

A 12-year-old boy, mourning the death of his mother, takes refuge in the myths and fairytales she always loved--and finds that his reality and a fantasy world start to meld.

In the ethereal mists of the seven Arcan kingdoms, when magic still flowed freely through the veins of creation, the first glimpses of what would become the noblest of odysseys appeared. A young paladin, Elius, son of the blessed Von Gareth lineage, was gifted with a spark of heroism so overwhelming that his courage eclipsed the very brilliance of the ancient blade he wielded. But the young paladin was more than a son of the Von Gareth house. This was the firstborn of two houses, the Von Gareth and the S. Darkan, a progeny fated or condemned by the ancient gods to master the secrets of the arcane arts, light and darkness. In the golden years of his youth, Elius was raised under the zealous care of his progenitor, the noble Elia Von Gareth, and the venerable Isaah Darkan, his grandmother with hair as silver as the moonlight. In the pleasant comfort of his home, in the peaceful village of Raio de Sol in Grammaria, the boy grew up lulled by the ancient whispers of the ancient forests and by the epic tales of glory and valiant deeds that the matriarch told him, sparks of heroism that would light the torch of your own glorious destiny. There, in that sacred retreat, Elius was nourished with legends of immortal warriors, powerful sorcerers and feats as great as those of his own mother. However, dark clouds began to cover those once idyllic places. The evil Antracus, the newly crowned Dark Lord, has begun to spread his poison of evil across the arcane realms, gathering an army of mercenaries and demons to subjugate the free lands under his despotic reign. And one fateful night, his most terrible minion, the specter Miticus, burst in shadow through the chambers of House Von Gareth, snatching the beloved Elia into his spectral clutches and igniting an unstoppable war between the houses of Grammaria and NightGlen. At his adoring mother's screams of pure terror, Elius's heart burned with a holy fury, as if the very flames of Hell burned in his youthful chest. Wielding the flaming sword of his ancestors, the young paladin set out in an aftermath of rage and unbreakable determination, vowing not to cease his journey until Elia was freed from the shadows that had captured her. His steps then led him to the cursed gates of NightGlen, the mirrored city where Antracus had erected his fortress of darkness. Infiltrating through dark alleys and haunted alleys, Elius entered the forbidden realm of shadows, defying the vile creatures that guarded the walls of his own evil. However, his impetuosity did not go unnoticed, and soon the Dark Lord himself sent his most fearsome creature, the Shadowspawn, to capture the daring warrior, whether alive or dead. In a desperate escape from the underworld, Elius ran towards the ruins of an ancient temple, pleading with the arcane gods for protection and allies for his noble crusade. For he knew that, alone, he would never be a match for the legions of Antracus - although his determination burned as brightly as the blade of fire he wielded. "Come to me, valiant champions and mages of pure spirit!", shouted the young man to the starry heavens. "Join this warrior on his journey for justice and freedom! For the time has come to break the shackles of darkness and bring back light to these blessed lands!" And so, under the watchful eye of the silver moon, Elius waited for those who would heed his call to heroism, ready to gather a brotherhood of champions and begin the greatest battle of his life. For the day had come to challenge Antracus himself and free his beloved mother from the clutches of evil, no matter how high the cost to be paid.

In this entertaining and informative book, Walter Friedman chronicles the remarkable metamorphosis of the American salesman from itinerant amateur to trained expert. From the mid-nineteenth century to the eve of World War II, the development of sales management transformed an economy populated by peddlers and canvassers to one driven by professional salesmen and executives. From book agents flogging Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs to John H. Patterson's famous pyramid strategy at National Cash Register to the determined efforts by Ford and Chevrolet to craft surefire sales pitches for their dealers, selling evolved from an art to a science. "Salesmanship" as a term and a concept arose around the turn of the century, paralleling the new science of mass production. Managers assembled professional forces of neat responsible salesmen who were presented as hardworking pillars of society, no longer the butt of endless "traveling salesmen" jokes. People became prospects; their homes became territories. As an NCR representative said, the modern salesman "let the light of reason into dark places." The study of selling itself became an industry, producing academic disciplines devoted to marketing, consumer behavior, and industrial psychology. At Carnegie Mellon's Bureau of Salesmanship Research, Walter Dill Scott studied the characteristics of successful salesmen and ways to motivate consumers to buy. Full of engaging portraits and illuminating insights, Birth of a Salesman is a singular contribution that offers a clear understanding of the transformation of salesmanship in modern America. Reviews of this book: The history Friedman weaves is engrossing and the book hits stride with entertaining chapters on Mark Twain's marketing of the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (apparently Twain was as talented a businessman as a writer) and on the shift from the drummer--the middleman between wholesalers and regional shopkeepers--to the department store...In Birth of a Salesman, Friedman has crafted a history of an 'inherently unlikable process' with depth, affection and intelligent analysis. --Carlo Wolff, Boston Globe I very much enjoyed reading this book. It is well written, well argued, and thoroughly researched. Salesmen, Friedman argues, helped distribute the products of America's increasingly bountiful manufacturing industries, invented new forms of managerial hierarchies, investigated the psychology of desire, and were in the vanguard of America's transformation from a producer to a consumer society. He powerfully shows that the rise of modern business practices and the emergence of a particularly American culture of consumption can only be fully understood if we examine the history of selling. --Sven Beckert, author of The Monied Metropolis Walter Friedman's Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America is an important book. The modern industrial economy, created in the United States and Europe between the 1880s and the 1930s, required the integration of large-scale production and marketing. The evolution of mass production is a well-known story, but Friedman is the first to fill in the crucial marketing side of that industrial revolution. --Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., author of The Visible Hand and Scale and Scope With wit and verve, Walter Friedman gives us a cast of memorable characters who turned salesmanship from ballyhoo to behaviorism, from silliness to science. Informed by prodigious research, Birth of a Salesman also clarifies the birth of modern marketing--from an angle that humanizes its subject through wry, ironic, but serious analysis. This is a pioneering work on a subject crucial to American social, cultural, and business history. --Thomas K. McCraw, author of Creating Modern Capitalism

YouTube is one of the most well-known and widely discussed sites of participatory media in the contemporary online environment, and it is the first genuinely mass-popular platform for user-created video. In this timely and comprehensive introduction to how YouTube is being used and why it matters, Burgess and Green discuss the ways that it relates to wider transformations in culture, society and the economy. The book critically examines the public debates surrounding the site, demonstrating how it is central to struggles for authority and control in the new media environment. Drawing on a range of theoretical sources and empirical research, the authors discuss how YouTube is being used by the media industries, by audiences and amateur producers, and by particular communities of interest, and the ways in which these uses challenge existing ideas about cultural ‘production’ and ‘consumption’. Rich with both concrete examples and featuring specially commissioned chapters by Henry Jenkins and John Hartley, the book is essential reading for anyone interested in the contemporary and future implications of online media. It will be particularly valuable for students and scholars in media, communication and cultural studies.

In the triumphant conclusion to the Sevenwaters Trilogy, an epic battle between the forces of good and evil decides the fate of the Old Ones.

From the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning bestseller Ishmael and its sequel, My Ishmael, comes a powerful novel with one of the most profound spiritual testaments of our time “A compelling ‘humantale’ that will unglue, stun, shock, and rearrange everything you’ve learned and assume about Western civilization and our future.”—Paul Hawken, author of The Ecology of Commerce Father Jared Osborne has received an extraordinary assignment from his superiors: Investigate an itinerant preacher stirring up deep trouble in central Europe. His followers call him B, but his enemies say he’s something else: the Antichrist. However, the man Osborne tracks across a landscape of bars, cabarets, and seedy meeting halls is no blasphemous monster—though an earlier era would undoubtedly have rushed him to the burning stake. For B claims to be enunciating a gospel written not on any stone or parchment but in our very genes, opening up a spiritual direction for humanity that would have been unimaginable to any of the prophets or saviors of traditional religion. Pressed by his superiors for a judgement, Osborne is driven to penetrate B’s inner circle, where he soon finds himself an anguished collaborator in the dismantling of his own religious foundations. More than a masterful novel of adventure and suspense, The Story of B is a rich source of compelling ideas from an author who challenges us to rethink our most cherished beliefs. Explore Daniel Quinn’s spiritual Ishmael trilogy: ISHMAEL • MY ISHMAEL • THE STORY OF B