It is fall of 2015, and Jake is a line cook-or at least he was, until he and his entire team were let go from their jobs following a suspected E.coli outbreak traced to their restaurant. Jake-who has always been a stickler for food safety-suspects that the outbreak is actually part of a larger problem that the news has been referring to as The Event, a series of changes encompassing dramatic shifts in weather and decline in the integrity of the nation's food supply. The deaths were in fact caused by a new deadly strain of bacteria, and its reach is expanding, affecting people all over the United States. As the Event sweeps the country, killing first thousand and then tens of thousands, Jake recalls his culinary career-particularly his life with fellow chef, Carla-and struggles desperately to determine how he can make a difference. A novel based on the reality of our food supply's truly fragile nature, The Event That Changed Everything explores environmental issues, farming, and restaurant life through the eyes of two chefs doing their best to meet the challenges of a changing world.

After catching one too many beatdowns from the local bullies, Marvin looks online to find the one man that can show him how to fight back, the master of the most lethal system out today. What does it take to change the will of a man? Who can he count on to show him a new way? How will he find the right path in life if his pathway home is fraught with danger? If he can't even protect himself, then how can he defend his family? Who can he turn to for help, and who will always be there by his side when it needs it the most? Take the journey with Marvin as he is instructed in the KT3 system. Learn as Master Wong guides him through the basics and on through the four pillars of his lethal style of Kung Fu Tactics 3. A style that will guide not only Marvin but you yourself to become more than you ever thought possible! Surprise, Speed, and Direct Violent Action thrust him into the dark and perilous world he never knew existed. A place where back-alley gyms, high-tech gadgetry, and secret doorways and passages come flooding into his world. Journey with Marvin side by side as destiny guides him to the Event That Changed Everything! Welcome to KT3. Welcome to the future.

Baker Standish would rather do anything than stand in front of a history classroom full of disinterested teenagers. He chose a career outside of academia. His mentor, Professor Bill Jamison, suggested Lineal Chronology as the ideal career choice for a US History major. Baker Standish was overwhelmed by his new responsibilities. A Timekeeper’s duties were far reaching, farther than he could have ever imagined. One of the hazards of the job was something HR Manager Kara Leflar called Timekeeper confusion. Between the confusion and his persistent earworm, Baker wondered if his career choice was a good one. Against a backdrop of his own reality, Baker engages in mission after mission to set the links in the chain of events that create reality in the proper order. Someone is messing with the clock and it’s a constant struggle to reset it.

The orphan has turned out to be an extraordinarily versatile literary figure. By juxtaposing diverse fictional representations of orphans, this volume sheds light on the development of cultural concepts such as childhood, family, the status of parental legacy, individualism, identity and charity. The first chapter argues that the figure of the orphan was suitable for negotiating a remarkable range of cultural anxieties and discourses in novels from the Victorian period. This is followed by a discussion of both the (rare) examples of novels from the first half of the 20th century in which main characters are orphaned at a young age and Anglophone narratives written from the 1980s onward, when the figure of the orphan proliferated once more. The trope of the picaro, the theme of absence and the problem of parental substitutes are among the issues addressed in contemporary orphan narratives. The book also looks at the orphan motif in three popular fantasy series, namely Rowling’s Harry Potter septology, Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy and Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. It then traces the development of the orphan motif from the end of the 19th century to the present in a range of different types of comics, including funnies and gag-a-day strips, superhero comics, underground comix, and autobiographical comics.

An Arcadian Vision is about spirituality and faith. Author John W. Ekstedt presents faith as something enhanced through the exercise of the spirit. Faith is imagined as a real quality of life that can be acquired and improved upon through spiritual growth. Faith, as a gift of God and as an attribute of human beings, exists in time and space. People carry it with them wherever they are and exhibit it in the way they present themselves or in the actions they take. It is made better with practice, and many people go to specific places for the purpose of growing in it. An Arcadian Vision was written in such a place. The original Arcadia was a retreat in the Peloponnese Mountains of ancient Greece. It was considered a place of great beauty and pastoral repose. Over time the word Arcadia has come to refer to an ideal suitable for writing in poetry or prose. To be Arcadian is to be a pleasing presence in an imperfect world. An Arcadian Vision is prose emerging from a place for spiritual exercise in the northern Rocky Mountains of Canada. It is about church as a means by which people improve their faith. It examines how people do the exercises that give form to their faith.