For no fault of her own, a young girls’ dreams are suddenly shattered. Consumed with guilt, she finds herself crossing, from the person she was, to the person she was becoming. Tormented by her ill-fated choices she refutes the support of her loving family and trusted friends. Alone, Sarah journeys to a place visited many times before. But this time, it would be different.

Is all human behavior based on self-interest? Many social and biological theories would argue so, but such a perspective does not explain the many truly heroic acts committed by people willing to risk their lives to help others. Kristen Monroe boldly lays the groundwork for a social theory toward altruism by examining the experiences described by altruists themselves.

In The Winter Drey —Part II of Sean Dixon's Trilogy of the Tree—Rolf the Ranger is contemplating his many problems. He's ten feet tall and still growing. He's so shy that he speaks only single words. And his sister, Freya, is gone—flown away on her new wings. Rolf is lonely. He needs a friend. Will it be the little squirrel Rat-A-Task, who speaks to him from the rafters of his bedroom and urges Rolf to set out on a mysterious journey? Or perhaps Rolf 's friend will be the man they see in the woods, a man who carves stories in the trunks of trees and calls himself Egil the Poet. And then there are the sons and daughters of Erik Blood-Ax, a band of Viking warriors who want to restore the old ways as a new religion, brought by a young Christian king, threatens to take over the land. All will meet in the vast and beautiful branches of the Tree of the World. It is where their destinies will become intertwined, and where a nine-year-old giant just might discover the courage to be who he really is.

A seminal work by one of the most influential figures of the English folk revival of the 1950s, Folk Song in England (1967) is an expansive account of the development of English traditional song, from the very oldest, ritual verse, through epic balladry, to the development of lyrical song in the industrial era. In a unique and ambitious approach, Lloyd marries the tradition of folk-song scholarship, largely derived from Cecil Sharp, with the radical historiography of E. P. Thompson, and in so doing produces a work of exceptional insight. In particular, his defining of 'industrial folk song' reveals traditional verse as an ebullient, living expression of the working people, perfectly adaptable to reflect their ways and conditions of life.