Lainie Commins, a freelance designer of children's toys, hires attorney Matthew Hope for a lawsuit against her old employers, Brett and Etta Toland. At stake are the lucrative rights to Gladly, a teddy bear with crossed eyes and corrective lenses. It's a straightforward case--until Brett Toland is shot in the throat aboard his luxury yacht and Lainie becomes the chief suspect.

M. A. Screech, best known for his translations of Montaigne and Rabelais, has collected a series of brilliant essays on the question of when laughter was acceptable to the Western Church. During a time of reform and concerns about heresy, laugher becomes a subtle measure of when and how one can risk rule-breaking. While it could be cruel to mock those who fell into error, it wasas Screech points out so much better than burning them. Professor Screech explores what inspired laughter in the Renaissance, and whether it could be innocent."

Does the Anzac ethos have roots in atheism? Does prayer have a place in Parliament? Should 'creation science' be taught in Australian schools? The Australian Book of Atheism is the first collection to explore atheism from an Australian viewpoint. Bringing together essays from 33 of the nation's pre-eminent atheist, rationalist, humanist, and sceptical thinkers, it canvasses a range of opinions on religion and secularism in Australia.

This book is about the culture of American Christianity and what it does to our understanding of God, self, and community as reflected in the way Christians worship.

Laughter, joy, and inspiration awaits the reader of Barbara Eubanks' second book, "And the Angels Laughed". Barbara finds humor in unusual places. As a pastor's wife, she spends much time in church-related events. Eubanks blends humor beautifully with devotions, drawing readers closer to the Lord.

In this book, Ghil'ad Zuckermann introduces revivalistics, a new trans-disciplinary field of enquiry surrounding language reclamation, revitalization, and reinvigoration. Applying lessons from the Hebrew revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to contemporary endangered languages, Zuckermann takes readers along a fascinating and multifaceted journey into language revival and provides new insights into language genesis. Beginning with a critical analysis of Israeli-the language resulting from the Hebrew revival-Zuckermann's radical theory contradicts conventional accounts of the Hebrew revival and challenges the family tree model of historical linguistics. Revivalistics demonstrates how grammatical cross-fertilization with the revivalists' mother tongues is inevitable in the case of successful "revival languages." The second part of the book then applies these lessons from the Israeli language to revival movements in Australia and globally, describing the "why" and "how" of revivalistics. With examples from the Barngarla Aboriginal language of South Australia, Zuckermann proposes ethical, aesthetic, and utilitarian reasons for language revival and offers practical methods for reviving languages. Based on years of the author's research, fieldwork, and personal experience with language revivals all over the globe, Revivalistics offers ground-breaking theoretical and pragmatic contributions to the field of language reclamation, revitalization, and reinvigoration.

Author Laurel Lorraine Lancer, PhD, taught in the public school system for forty-five years, working with special education students of all ages. In Love Is in This Room, Dr. Lancer invites readers into her life and her classroom as she shares intimate stories from her career. She built special relationships with both her students and her colleagues and is a vocal advocate for the merits of this level of personal and professional investment. Many close relationships that she gained in teaching and counseling her students have endured for many years. She describes the changes in education over her years in the public school system, and she decries the "robotic" transformation of teachers by current education methods. She has taught students who were emotionally disturbed, learning disabled, autistic, intellectually disabled, and gifted. She chronicles the development of special education in her district and gives poignant stories about her many individual students. This book relates Dr. Lancer's teaching approach with many memorable students. It is her hope that her love for her students and for teaching shines through her words.