This is an excellent tool for anyone who wants to gain confidence in his or her speaking abilities.

The Pope walks out of the Vatican and into the rest of the world. He quickly becomes more famous than he ever was, and sightings of the Pope are reported across the globe including The Last Ranchman bar in Manyberries, a village in the lower righthand corner of Alberta. As the Pope sits alone, looking like a broken-down cowboy in a neon JESUS SAVES T-shirt and dunking fries in beer, the barroom regulars debate if he’s really the pontiff. With 97.3 percent of Manyberries’ population of 75 in agreement that the man in the bar is the Pope, the expected boost in tourism fails to materialize. Instead there is a series of strange events—infidelity, murder, spontaneous human combustion—until the pontiff is found on top of the town’s grain elevator with arms outstretched as if he’s gathering in the world. At the “end of Civilization itself,” as the locals call Manyberries, almost anything can—and does—happen. “Block” Broderick Crawford III tells this surreal tale of a handful of quirky residents whose lives are turned upside down—or right side up?—by the Pope’s presence. Block shares his own story alongside the town’s and its motley crew of characters and historic figures—from the inventor of the “sex box,” Wilhelm Reich, to Ordinarius Professor, Kaspar Heisenberg, father of the father of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Although Block is heartbroken by his sometime girlfriend Genevieve La Guadeloupe—who is found lying on top of the Pope in a field during a summer snowstorm—and ponders the foibles of human existence, he continues to search for meaning in an increasingly irrational world. Absurdist yet hopeful, The Pope Moves to Manyberries is a spirited satire that will appeal to the guileless and jaded alike.

The strangest things are happening in Heart Lake, and Sheriff Sam Mendenhall is trying to keep the peace. The trouble really begins when his former sweetheart Beth Simon returns. Their undeniable attraction leads them to the little cabin in the woods where they fell in love years ago. Original.

First published in 1988, this book contains entries on famous American Humorists. Humor has been present in American literature, from the beginning, and has developed characteristics that reflect the American character, both regional and national. Although American literature was, in the past, treated as inferior to British literature, there has always been a large popular audience for the genre, which this book shows. The figures with entries in this encyclopedia not only amuse in their writing, but also aim to enlighten- setting out to expose the foibles and foolishness of society and the individuals who compose it. It is the manner in which these authors try to accomplish this end that determines whether they appear in the volume. Indeed, the book will demonstrate that the best humor has at its base, a ready understanding of human nature.

This book is a historical drama beginning in Liverpool in 1911. It follows the lives of three children, Dave, 16, Sam, 14 and Mary Anne, aged 6. When Dave accidentally kills a man in self-defence while trying to steal a few bottles of whisky to sell for food, he is terrified of the consequences of his actions. He knows the friends of the man he killed will find him. Badly injured after having his face slashed with a broken bottle, Dave was further traumatized when on arriving home he finds his mother dead. When he and Sam found the cache of guinea coins she secreted away for them, they knew they could get away. They chose America. Gradually from small beginnings as bookies runners, they drift into a life of crime. With the introduction of prohibition, Sam and Dave become rumrunners and when with the help of a ship's captain and Albert Rothwell one of the richest men in America they acquire a distillery, their fortunes are made. Their lives follow a path of revenge when Suzy, Sam's wife is murdered. But when Dave meets up with his past, life for the brother's take a horrific turn.

Further adventures and nautical education of the boys at the Beech Hill Industrial School.