Little Victories, Small Defeats Our world is fully capable of taking an innocent, sensitive, intelligent young man and through death, hypocrisy, retribution and remorse turn him into a drifting, aimless shell of what he might have been. That this happens to James Branaugh is not a story in itself. That James can find his way back from a useless existence, find and give lasting love, and muster the will to redeem his place in society while battling for his life, is a story. That tale comprises the theme of this book. James, the central character, hails from a small farm in the back country of West Virginia. Before his life can really begin, he is left spiritually destitute through the death of his wife and daughter at the hands of a small time drug dealer, and morally adrift by his own redress of the crime. The next several decades of idle wander brings him full circle to his boyhood home. This return is made to finally embrace peace and live his remaining years amid the soothing comfort of the ancestral farm. Before any solace is found, James finds himself in the middle of an old and on-going Machiavellian plot to acquire or control all lands in the immediate area including his own. The ever escalating war of greed is delivered to his doorstep by none other than a US Senator and County Sheriff. Thankfully, James does not have to fight alone, and acquires fellow soldiers in the form of a crippled lawyer, half crazy woodsman, renegade FBI agent and a two-fisted lover. The battles rage from Washington townhouses to high pasture barns and include some decidedly undesirables in hand-to-hand fighting. Someone once said that “all real stories end in death”. Death is no stranger to the characters in this archetypical yarn of good versus evil. Set among bucolic hills, the rustic normalcy of country life serves as counterpoint to the chaotic appeal of contemporary living. The charm of simplicity stands in stark contrast to the narcotic of progress. This blend of contradictory desires and lifestyles forms the backdrop for a reflection on greed gone mad. That James can succeed is given. Whether he does and how he goes about it is the story.

...For the umpteenth time this morning, the thin man with wary eyes pours another cup of coffee and returns to his seat at the dinette table. He performs the task for something to do, just like the sip he takes from the cup, more for action than thirst. There is nothing unfamiliar about, but he studies the air before his face with intensity. His gaze moves from the checkered oilskin tablecloth to the pale light of the only kitchen window and back again. Through a deep mental fog he sees neither. He is lost in thought. The thump of frying pan on the stove top makes him jump. Rina has come into the kitchen without him even noticing, and is now bustling about the kitchen doing cooking things with a familiar ease and her peculiar habit of humming to herself when pleasantly occupied. Her back is straight, hips full and fi rm, and buttocks tightly packed into the confi nes of denim jeans. With the unnerving second sense of some women, she glances over her shoulder with a knowing smile...

(Applause Books). This provocative collection and major publishing event brings together the critical highlights of the well-known New York cultural critic John Simon. Covering a span of more than three decades, it includes previously published work from New York, the Hudson Review, National Review, Opera News, the New Leader, and other notable publications. The theatre volume contains selected reviews that are as eloquent as they are famously provocative-reviews that can enrage but always entertain. Simon covers a wide range of New York productions, from the East Village to Broadway, examining all with the same rigor and high expectations. A SAMPLE: Simon on Vanessa Redgrave in Long Day's Journey into Night: "The highly accomplished Redgrave gets some details right, but the overarching mental unstableness she exudes is so excessive as to make one wonder whether she is playing or being unhinged."

What does a forty-two-year-old, small-town pastor do when he wins one of the most popular singing competitions in the world? Todd Tilghman and his wife, Brooke, share how decades of unrelenting challenges have taught them a joyful mindset of embracing not only winning The Voice but also "every little win" along the way. When Todd Tilghman, pastor and father of eight from Meridian, Mississippi, auditioned for The Voice,he counted it as a win simply to sing in front of an audience other than family and church members. Despite no music or vocal training, he not only made it through the blind audition--with all four celebrity judges vying to coach him--he also won the show's entire eighteenth season. Fans were drawn to Todd's tremendous joy on stage, giving them much-needed inspiration during the hard challenges of a global pandemic. In their first book, Todd and Brooke share how their focus on joy and celebrating every little win has helped them to overcome numerous challenges over their twenty-plus-year marriage. From adopting two children from South Korea to fighting for their newborn son's life to pastoring a small congregation through periods of adversity, Todd and Brooke share the lessons they've learned and the strategies that have moved them from fear to faith to ever-present joy.

This book comprises twenty-two chapters, including previously unpublished material, written over the entire span of Marianne Shapiro's working life. Its opening section on the European heritage begins with a long essay on the Aeneid that breaks new interpretative ground by examining the epic from the perspective of Virgil's implicit prescriptions for leaders and leadership. Chapters on Dante add to the store of knowledge on his minor works as well as the Comedy, and are followed by close readings of Petrarch and Provençal poetry. The American and comparative literature section features an analysis of John Ashbery's New Spirit and a page-by-page commentary on Nabokov's Lolita and Pnin. The book is rounded out by three chapters in a semiotics section, the highlight of which is an analysis of the Christian Trinity based on a deep understanding of Peirce's sign theory.