A debut collection that sings with gutbucket colloquialisms, hallucinatory interludes, and Kentucky's storytelling tradition.

Subtitled "a romance," Sabbatical is the story of Susan Rachel Allan Seckler, a sharp young associate professor of early American literature--part Jewish, part Gypsy, and possibly descended from Edgar Allan Poe--and her husband Fenwick Scott Key Turner, a 50-year-old ex-CIA officer currently between careers, a direct descendant of the author of "The Star Spangled Banner" and himself the author of a troublemaking book about his former employer. Seven years into their marriage, they decide to take a sabbatical, a sailboat journey on which they sum up their years together and try to make important decisions about the years ahead. True to its subtitle, the novel combines the mysterious and marvelous (unexplained disappearances, a fabled sea monster in Chesapeake Bay) with romantic love and daring adventure. Sabbatical is quintessential Barth: it involves sailing, twinship, the joy of love and literature, the sorrow of death and disaster, and a playfully complex narrative. The author has written a foreword for this new edition.

This is a collection of essays and short stories accumulated during the 80's and 90's, all loosely connected via a continuous narrative. This is an introduction to a reality that few have time to see while busy with creation of their own. This is a book for intelligent adults who are not afraid of challenging ideas and who insist on the right to think for themselves. The collection is a worm's eye view of British society at the bottom. The narrative is blunt and uncompromising, takes a wry, bitter but often humorous look at many absurdities in the way we conduct our affairs and is more illuminating of humanity in its gloomlight descriptives than the clinically bright light of academic studies by Oxbridge social isolates.

Learn the art of thread painting from Instagram sensation Michelle Staub Cats and dogs seem to always have a paw planted firmly in our hearts. Capture the life in their eyes and the texture of their fur with a unique embroidered pet portrait! Insta-famous artist Michelle Staub puts a modern spin on thread painting with her easy-to-learn approach. Get started with 4 basic embroidery stitches, and follow the detailed tutorials to hone your skills. Capture awe-inspiring details of your pet with lessons in full-color thread painting or go clean with a simple line drawing—the choice is yours. Learn to personalize your art piece with names, dates, and decorative accents. With 20 sample patterns to customize, you can easily recreate any breed! Paint stunningly realistic pet portraits with just a needle and thread Try your hand at two styles—minimal outlines and incredible full-color renderings Make it modern with floral garlands, personalized banners, and crisp lettering Start today with 4 easy stitches and 20 customizable projects

This is the true story of Sabina Shalom who exchanged a brilliant single-life career for marriage and motherhood. After thiry years of making a home for her husband and their two sons, she felt frustrated in her role as live-in-maid and asked her husband for time off with pay! With a back-pack and only fifteen hundred dollars, she traveled fifty thousand miles alone around the world. Stranded in Iran, received by Indira Ghandi in India, she spent the night in a mud hut just a few miles from cannibal country in Papua-New Guinea. Granted an audience with the King of Tonga and trading her clothes for lodgings on Easter Island were some of hte experiences that enabled her to rediscover new strengths and potential long since dormant in a marriage grown stale. But the adjustments the new liberated Sabina and her husband had to make upon her return home six months later, (and thirty pounds thinner) proved to be the most difficult part of her "sabbatical". Ultimately their marriage becomes richer and stronger than either could have imagined. A Marriage Sabbatical is a fascinating and inspirational account of a middle-aged woman's extraordinary, lone, global odyssey in search of herself, told with warmth, candor, and good humor.