This book provides a long-overdue look at the challenges and rewards of nonromantic friendships between women and men. Drawing from a range of literature and her own extensive research, the author presents her examination of these relationships in a clear organizational framework. Topics covered include the everyday dynamics of cross-sex friendships and their societal effects and influences. The author also explores ways that these relationships are developed and maintained, and ways they may come to an end. Illustrated with numerous interviews and segments of conversations between male and female friends, the book offers important insight into such issues as gender-role expectancies, relationship norms and goals, and cultural assumptions about friendship and sexuality. The book will suit readers in sociology, social psychology, communication and gender studies, as well as others interested in social networks and personal relationships, including family and couple therapists. It will also serve as a classroom text in undergraduate and graduate-level courses in interpersonal communication, close relationships, gender studies and social psychology.

Beautiful, popular and with a husband at the very top of the corporate ladder, Eleanor Geddes has it all, but behind closed doors she's a remote and deeply insecure woman with a secret fear which is about to be realised, as her husband is busy making plans which are set to blow her perfect life apart.Eleanor's friend Ruth Palmer doesn't know it yet, but she's got a problem too. Her marriage feels stale and her husband's working long hours at the office ... or is he?But Ruth's got bigger problems. A drunken kiss with her good friend Helen sets Ruth's life on a downward spiral of sexual frustration, denial and guilt. She turns to drink in a desperate attempt to fight her feelings, but a shocking declaration suddenly changes the course of three families' lives forever.

Cambridge English Readers is an exciting new series of original fiction, specially written for learners of English Graded into six levels - from elementary to advanced - the stories in this series provide easy and enjoyable reading on a wide of range of contemporary topics and themes.

Tiffany Clark recently had her 35th birthday, and she isn't married, something that worries her parents to no end. To make matters worse, her sister's wedding is quickly approaching and Tiffany has no date. When her mom threatens to pair her up with someone she doesn't want, Tiffany takes matters into her own hands and asks her best friend, Tyler Jackson, to pose as her boyfriend. It'll only be for the wedding. The lie won't go any further than that. But in a moment of frustration, Tyler blurts out that he and Tiffany are married. That's okay, though. Because as soon as they get back to Omaha, Tiffany will tell them the truth. Only, it's a little hard to do that when her very excited parents are coming to visit "the happy newlyweds". In this romantic comedy, Tyler and Tiffany are about to learn there is no such thing as a little white lie.

Modern, original fiction for learners of English.

The contemporary church's debate on the inclusion of same-sex individuals and their relationships has devolved into diametrically opposed positions. Rather than resolving the argument, the conversation between the two sides reflects the impasse that is taking place in denominations across the West. It is clear that the dispute cannot be resolved while couched in these terms. In this timely work, Steven Schafer invites the reader to move beyond the terms of the current debate toward the underlying doctrinal concerns so often glossed over by that discussion. This book is a work of hermeneutics that engages the contemporary discussion on the legitimacy of same-sex relationships with the grand theological narrative handed down by the church. By placing four contemporary revisionists in dialogue with the work of Augustine, the book provides language and theological avenues to reframe the debate and contributes to the church's ongoing discernment.

This book offers nothing less than a new vision for Christian marriage at a time of unprecedented social and theological change. It breaks new ground in drawing on earlier traditions of betrothal and informal marriage in welcoming some forms of pre-marital cohabitation, and provides a new defence of the link between marriage and procreation by sketching a theology of liberation for children. Christian principles for the use of contraception by married and not-yet-married couples are restated, and a comprehensive theology of marriage is worked out, based on re-worked biblical models. Marriage as a Christian sacrament, mutually administered in a lifelong partnership of equals is affirmed. A chapter on divorce brings new light to bear on legitimate theological grounds for 'the parting of the ways'. The question of whether marriage is a heterosexual institution is addressed, and particular attention is paid throughout the book to overcoming the distorting effect of the overwhelming androcentric bias of much Christian thought on marriage, to the experience of wives, and to all those women and men for whom marriage is not their vocation.