An ancient enemy still lurks among the Universes… With Kelsey Hale's team reunited, she soon learns just how the Eebra-Shee have protected so many for so long against an enemy who destroyed entire Universes. But, she knows something they don't: That a Nief-Pirae ship somehow escaped the Veil designed to keep them contained. A special investigation team of String Weavers and Eebra-Shee Masters soon arrive at a distant, and strangely hostile, Tower. The mysteries deepen with the discovery of disturbingly familiar technology on the planet, a government who wants the Tower gone, corporations run-amok, and a Tower strangely weakened. They must find the answers, and soon. At stake is every life-form, planet, sun, and universe among the infinite multi-universes. Join Kelsey Hale in a coming of age science fiction adventure across alternate universes and encounters with alien planets, species and societies. Thrust into a dangerous journey to places she could have never imagined, she is determined to discover the truth of her mysterious past. A truth that will change her life forever. Titles in "The String Weaver" Series The String Weavers The Phoenix Eggs The Dark Phoenix The Dividers The Tower of Epnos When the Skies Fell Celestial Fire

The chase reverses, with the Weavers becoming the hunted. Dangerous pulsing in the Strings trap Kelsey Hale's Weaver team in a place Captain Delphi Winters recognizes: Universes she and those of her Universe escaped many years before. A Universal Group cruelly ruled by creatures who have harnessed Phoenix Eggs. Creatures who divide Universes for their own destructive gain. No matter how many die in the process. After the division of a Universe goes wrong, the Dividers are on the hunt for the cause. Hiding isn't enough now. The race is on to stop the Dividers before they themselves are captured. A whirlwind of rebellions, old friendships, and new enemies test them as never before. But Professor Hadrian's shadow casts darkness even here, in the unexpected discovery of a piece of Kelsey's mysterious past. Join Kelsey Hale in a coming of age science fiction adventure across alternate universes and encounters with alien planets, species and societies. Thrust into a dangerous journey to places she could have never imagined, she is determined to discover the truth of her mysterious past. A truth that will change her life forever. Titles in "The String Weaver" Series The String Weavers The Phoenix Eggs The Dark Phoenix The Dividers The Tower of Epnos When the Skies Fell Celestial Fire

This is an exciting new edition of R.W. Connell's ground-breaking text, which has become a classic work on the nature and construction of masculine identity. Connell argues that there is not one masculinity, but many different masculinities, each associated with different positions of power. In a world gender order that continues to privilege men over women, but also raises difficult issues for men and boys, his account is more pertinent than ever before. In a substantial new introduction and conclusion, Connell discusses the development of masculinity studies in the ten years since the book's initial publication. He explores global gender relations, new theories, and practical uses of mascunlinity research. Looking to the future, his new concluding chapter addresses the politics of masculinities, and the implications of masculinity research for understanding current world issues. Against the backdrop of an increasingly divided world, dominated by neo-conservative politics, Connell's account highlights a series of compelling questions about the future of human society. This second edition of Connell's classic book will be essential reading for students taking courses on masculinities and gender studies, and will be of interest to students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences.

The study moves from tradition to modernity, explores a range of topics such as: song life in the traditional village; rural–urban tensions; local min’yo ‘preservation societies’; the effects of national and local min’yo contests; the ‘new folk song’ phenomenon; min’yo and tourism; folk song bars; recruitment of professionals; min’yo’s interaction with enka popular songs and with Western-derived foku songu; the impact of mass mediation; and min’yo’s role in maintaining or creating local identity. The book contains a plate section, musical examples, and a compact disc.

INTERACT 2009 was the 12th of a series of INTERACT international c- ferences supported by the IFIP Technical Committee 13 on Human–Computer Interaction. This year,INTERACT washeld in Uppsala (Sweden), organizedby the Swedish Interdisciplinary Interest Group for Human–Computer Interaction (STIMDI) in cooperation with the Department of Information Technology at Uppsala University. Like its predecessors, INTERACT 2009 highlighted, both to the academic and to the industrial world, the importance of the human–computer interaction (HCI) area and its most recent breakthroughs on current applications. Both - perienced HCI researchers and professionals, as well as newcomers to the HCI ?eld, interested in designing or evaluating interactive software, developing new interaction technologies, or investigating overarching theories of HCI, found in INTERACT 2009 a great forum for communication with people of similar int- ests, to encourage collaboration and to learn. INTERACT 2009 had Research and Practice as its special theme. The r- son we selected this theme is that the research within the ?eld has drifted away from the practicalapplicability of its results and that the HCI practice has come to disregard the knowledge and development within the academic community.

Although she is the most popular novelist in history, with over two billion books sold worldwide, Agatha Christie lived a life shrouded in secrecy and fueled by curiosity. Nearly as notorious for her aversion to the press as she was for her 80 books and collections of short stories, Christie made no secret of her need for privacy. Utilizing over 5,000 previously unpublished letters, notes, and documents, award-winning biographer Richard Hack allows Christie to write again, 33 years after her death. Duchess of Death is her story, as full of romance, travel, wealth, and scandal as any mystery Christie ever crafted. There have been numerous biographies of the Queen of Crime, all of which claim to be definitive. However, Duchess of Death is the first to draw from such an enormous number of previously unpublished correspondence and notes, effectively establishing it as the most authoritative, penetrating look at the personal and literary life of Christie.