After Ashley’s best friend moves to another country, Ashley feels lonely and insecure. How will she survive through grade six alone? It all changes when she meets a new girl Lily. With her, Ashley learns to appreciate who she is and how to stand up for what’s important to her.

A young escort in Phuket who has closed her heart to love… A wife, who is forced into prostitution by her husband, endeavours to escape as a stowaway on a ship… A man whose self-destructive infatuation towards a Bollywood star ruins many lives… An unorthodox love between an Indian and a coloured girl from the apartheid-ridden South Africa… A speech therapist who makes a differently-abled boy’s dream a reality… A young boy who tries to understand the social stigma attached to rape… A seafarer in England who is saved from disaster on a treacherous night by a mysterious woman… An unassuming man who ends his life, but does not forget his wedding vows even at the moment of death… How will you react to these characters? Facets is an intriguing collection of fourteen irresistible short stories that look at various aspects of human relationships. Cleverly drawn from everyday characters and incidents from various parts of the world, these ingeniously plotted storylines have unexpected emotions and twists.

"Every child in the world has a birthday. But how children celebrate this occasion depends on where they live. In this latest addition to the Around the World series, award-winning author Margriet Ruurs explores the fascinating ways that children experience birthdays. You'll meet fourteen kids from different countries, each celebrating a birthday according to their local traditions. Bram from Belgium never gets to sleep in on his birthday - his family wakes him up by clanging pots and pans. For Ninoshka in India, it's important to give thanks to the Hindu gods and share sweets with her classmates. And some kids don't celebrate their birthdays at all. Instead, Phúc Khang in Vietnam celebrates Tet, when everyone in the country turns one year older. A world map that pinpoints the countries in the book, a Note to Parents and Teachers with interactive activities and a glossary of foreign words and phrases help to enrich the reading experience. Based on interviews with real people from each country, Birthdays Around the World is an invitation to experience a different culture, think about your own birthday celebrations and even learn how to say "Happy Birthday" in another language (like Hawaiian: "Hau oli la hanau" [ho-O-lee LA HA-now])!"--

Some ten thousand years ago Earth was visited by beings from another planet in the Barnard’s Star system. The Babylonians recorded that beings they called the ‘Oannes’ were amphibious creatures who came to Earth for the welfare of the human race. The historian Hellandus describes them as having fishlike features but the head, feet and arms of a man. They instructed humans in everything a civilized nation should know. They built a city beneath Antarctica near the Davis Sea and have lived there peacefully and secretly ever since. But now a rogue Dwarf Star called Zarama threatens the very existence of both Earth and the home planet Nazmos. Their mythology predicts that a being from another planet will avert disaster. Enter Ashley Bonner into this scenario. He has been granted ‘special gifts’ and the Oannes think he may be the predicted one. Can Ashley really prevail against a star a third more massive than the Sun? This is the story of Ashley’s development to manhood from age four to seventy and his ultimate sacrifice to save both worlds.

Catalog of the author's library of 1st editions of the famous English poets and dramatists from Elizabethan times until the present.