In the flare of the flames a life-force flickers. Why did Kick Vivid, singer in The Fifth Season, touring a post-religious world, agree to find the boy? And why does the omnipotent Universal Services pursue him so relentlessly when its dominance of the modern world is already almost total? Kick can find the truth at the heart of almost any situation – but this is different in a way even he can’t define. So much - everything perhaps – is within easy reach; pleasure, resources, the future...souls. And while Universal Services are selling life after death, not everyone is buying. There is laughter to be had, after all, in any life led and especially within the touring family. Kick promised to find the boy. He doesn’t know why. Universal Services do. It might be the flames that throw dancing shadows over everything around – or, maybe, simply nothing is as it seems. They say your life flashes before your eyes when you are about to die. When there’s nothing left to believe in, what do you believe in?

Many people in Great Britain and the United States can recall elderly relatives who remembered long stretches of verse learned at school decades earlier, yet most of us were never required to recite in class. Heart Beats is the first book to examine how poetry recitation came to assume a central place in past curricular programs, and to investigate when and why the once-mandatory exercise declined. Telling the story of a lost pedagogical practice and its wide-ranging effects on two sides of the Atlantic, Catherine Robson explores how recitation altered the ordinary people who committed poems to heart, and changed the worlds in which they lived. Heart Beats begins by investigating recitation's progress within British and American public educational systems over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and weighs the factors that influenced which poems were most frequently assigned. Robson then scrutinizes the recitational fortunes of three short works that were once classroom classics: Felicia Hemans's "Casabianca," Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," and Charles Wolfe's "Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna." To conclude, the book considers W. E. Henley's "Invictus" and Rudyard Kipling's "If--," asking why the idea of the memorized poem arouses such different responses in the United States and Great Britain today. Focusing on vital connections between poems, individuals, and their communities, Heart Beats is an important study of the history and power of memorized poetry.

A beautiful photographic board book featuring babies from all over the world and the sounds their hearts make as they beat with love. No matter what language we speak, no matter where we live in the world, our hearts beat with the same rhythm. We may hear and say the sounds differently—doki doki in Japanese, tu tump tu tump in Italian, dugeun dugeun in Korean, dhak dhak in Urdu, boum boum in French and thump thump in English—but when our hearts beat, all the sounds mean the same thing: you are alive and you are loved.

A “heroic” biography of John Cage and his “awakening through Zen Buddhism”—“a kind of love story” about a brilliant American pioneer of the creative arts who transformed himself and his culture (The New York Times) Composer John Cage sought the silence of a mind at peace with itself—and found it in Zen Buddhism, a spiritual path that changed both his music and his view of the universe. “Remarkably researched, exquisitely written,” Where the Heart Beats weaves together “a great many threads of cultural history” (Maria Popova, Brain Pickings) to illuminate Cage’s struggle to accept himself and his relationship with choreographer Merce Cunningham. Freed to be his own man, Cage originated exciting experiments that set him at the epicenter of a new avant-garde forming in the 1950s. Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, Allan Kaprow, Morton Feldman, and Leo Castelli were among those influenced by his ‘teaching’ and ‘preaching.’ Where the Heart Beats shows the blossoming of Zen in the very heart of American culture.

Success is not reserved for the smartest or most talented--it's earned by those who want it the most. Heart conquers all and the triumphant always go all in, never settling for anything less than their best effort. As a leading heart transplant surgeon, Dr. Brian Lima's life story is a testament to that mantra. He's living proof that slow and steady still wins the race, and that the American Dream is alive and well. He persevered through countless challenges growing up in a Cuban immigrant family and defied the odds every step of the way. To fulfill his impossible dream, Dr. Lima opted for the road less traveled, enduring nearly twenty years of rigorous education and surgical training at some of the most prestigious institutions in the world. In Heart to Beat, Dr. Lima shares the lessons learned throughout his improbable rise to the pinnacle of success in the medical field. He breaks down the keys to advancing well beyond your comfort zone and perceived limitations, regardless of your field of interest. No dream is too far-fetched and his Heart Way approach to life will help unleash your full potential and surpass your wildest expectations!

The heart is our most important organ and perhaps our most mysterious. Every day it pumps 9000 litres of blood and beats around 100,000 times. But the heart is more than just a pump. In all major human cultures, it is seen as the source of love, sympathy, joy, courage, strength and wisdom. Why is this so? Having witnessed the extraordinary complexity and unpredictability of human hearts in the operating theatre – each one individual in its make-up, like a fingerprint – heart surgeon Reinhard Friedl went on a search for answers. He examined closely the latest findings in neurocardiology and psychocardiology, and in The Beat of Life he shares his discoveries. In the tradition of Giulia Enders’ Gut and Norman Doidge’s The Brain That Changes Itself, he uses riveting personal stories to illustrate the complex relationship between the heart, the brain and the psyche. The Beat of Life ends with a plea: that we recognise the heart’s wisdom and adopt a more heart-centred way of living, which will lead to greater health.

A revolutionary, personalized guide to preventing heart disease—America’s #1 killer Heart disease is the #1 cause of death in America. It affects 81 million Americans and is the culprit in one of every two deaths in the United States. Most people think that they are not at risk of a heart attack if they control their cholesterol and blood pressure, but they aren’t aware of other major risk factors. The good news is that with the right information and strategies, heart attacks are preventable—even if heart disease runs in the family. In Beat the Heart Attack Gene, world-renowned cardiovascular specialists Bradley Bale, MD and Amy Doneen, ARNP, present a new model for understanding and preventing heart disease. They explain the three different genetic types of cholesterol profiles and tailor treatments for each type, using their cutting-edge Bale/Doneen Method, a comprehensive, evidence-based medical treatment plan that detects cardiovascular disease (CVD) at early stages and stabilizes it with individualized medical and lifestyle therapy. Beat the Heart Attack Gene includes easy quizzes and self-tests that show how to determine cholesterol genotype as well as advice for how to apply that knowledge through and individualized lifestyle advice. For heart attack and stroke survivors, the Bale/Doneen Method also helps prevent recurrences by identifying and treating what's triggering the patient's disease—a crucial step that many cardiologists neglect. With their proven method utilized by healthcare professionals worldwide, Bale and Doneen empower readers by alerting them to potential health threats, and then offer personalized strategies so they can live healthy, active lives without fear of heart attack or stroke. Specifically, Beat the Heart Attack Gene addresses: *The hidden cause of most heart attacks *Early prevention methods *The dangerous cholesterol most doctors don’t check *Major red flags for heart attack and stroke risk, including gum disease *The genes that increase cardiovascular risk as much as smoking *The best and worst supplements and foods for your heart *10 surprising ways to prevent heart attacks