Letters are tangible language. Joining together in endless combinations to actually show speech, letters convey our messages and tell our stories. While we encounter these tiny shapes hundreds of times a day, we take for granted the long, fascinating history behind one of the most fundamental of human inventions -- the alphabet. The heart of the book is the 26 fact-filled “biographies” of letters A through Z, each one identifying the letter’s particular significance for modern readers, tracing its development from ancient forms, and discussing its noteworthy role in literature and other media. We learn, for example, why the letter X has a sinister and sexual aura, how B came to signify second best, why the word “mother” in many languages starts with M, and what is the story of O. Packed with information and lavishly illustrated, Letter Perfect is not only accessible and entertaining, but essential to the appreciation of our own language.

No matter if you are new to scrapbooking or have been at it for a while, this 288-page book will help you tell your stories and make this hobby a fun and fulfilling part of your busy life. Don't worry about using every photo, working chronologically, making every project a masterpiece, or spending lots of time and money. There's no right way to scrapbook ? just do what makes the most sense to you and enjoy it. This giant compilation presents more than 550 of the best projects and ideas from Simple ScrapbooksR magazine. LEARN: Our Fast, Friendly Formula for completing albums; blueprints for layouts; cropping photos; planning colors; making digital pages; fonts; handwriting; writing from the heart. USE: Workspaces; storage; patterned papers; accents; stickers; rubber stamping; bindings. DO: Step It Up on layouts with extra accents; make albums for weddings, babies, childhood, Christmas, family personalities, and more. SHARE: How 10 busy women find time to scrapbook. Scrapbooking Made Easy (Leisure Arts #15946)

By all accounts, Charles Taylor was scum. A womanizing moneyman with a penchant for homemade porn, his death comes as little surprise to the New York financial world. For Detective Amanda Ross, Charles Taylor should be just another name on a case file. But recent events have left Amanda doubting her fitness as a cop, and finding out who killed Charles Taylor is the one way she believes she can regain her footing. It couldn't hurt her chances with Taylor's beautiful sister Pamela, either.

Once nearly as ubiquitous as dictionaries and cookbooks are today, letter-writing manuals and their predecessors served to instruct individuals not only on the art of letter composition but also, in effect, on personal conduct. Poster and Mitchell contend that the study of letter-writing theory, which bridges rhetorical theory and grammatical studies, represents an emerging discipline in need of definition. In this volume, they gather the contributions of eleven experts to sketch the contours of epistolary theory and collect the historic and bibliographic materials - from Isocrates to email - that form the basis for its study.

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together