What She Knew: A Novel

From the Back Cover Rachel Jenner is walking in a Bristol park with her eight-year-old son, Ben, when he asks if he can run ahead. It’s an ordinary request on an ordinary Sunday afternoon, and Rachel has no reason to worry—until Ben vanishes. The police are called, search parties go out, and Rachel, already insecure after her recent divorce, feels herself coming undone. As hours and then days pass without a sign of Ben, everyone who knew him is called into question, from Rachel’s newly married ex-husband to her mother-of-the-year sister. Inevitably, media attention focuses on Rachel too, and the public’s attitude toward her begins to shift from sympathy to suspicion. As she desperately pieces together the threadbare clues, Rachel realizes that nothing is quite as she imagined it to be, not even her own judgment. And the greatest dangers may lie not in the anonymous strangers of every parent’s nightmares, but behind the familiar smiles of those she trusts the most. Where is Ben? The clock is ticking . . . .  “Tightly focused and fast-paced. You won’t rest until you really know what happened.”—Lisa Ballantyne, author of The Guilty One “Every parent’s nightmare. . . deceptively clever.”—Rosamund Lupton, author of Sister “Completely addictive. A nail-biting, sleep-depriving, brilliant read.” —Saskia Sarginson, author of The Twins --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. About the Author Gilly Macmillan is the internationally bestselling author of What She Knew , The Perfect Girl , Odd Child Out , I Know You Know , and The Nanny. She resides in Bristol, England. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Review “Gilly Macmillan introduces some smart variations on the [missing child] theme in her debut mystery...Macmillan enlivens the narrative with emails, newspaper headlines, passages from professional journals, even transcripts from Inspector Clemo’s sessions with a psychotherapist. But her best move is to include vicious blog posts that go viral.” ( New York Times Book Review )“This accomplished, intelligent debut should come with a warning--it’s completely addictive. A nail-biting, sleep-depriving, brilliant read.” (Saskia Sarginson, author of The Twins )“Every parent’s nightmare, handled with intelligence and sensitivity, the novel is also deceptively clever. I found myself racing through to find out what happened.” (Rosamund Lupton, international bestselling author of Sister )“Tightly focused and fast-paced. You won’t rest until you really know what happened.” (Lisa Ballantyne, author of The Guilty One )“A nuanced, completely addictive debut.” ( People )“Heart-in-the-mouth excitement from the start of this electrifyingly good debut…an absolute firecracker of a thriller that convinces and captivates from the word go. A must read.” ( Sunday Mirror )“A mother and son spend an ordinary Sunday at a park near Londontown. Until the boy goes missing. Cue dramatic music. This read’s basically The Changeling meets an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit but set in the UK.” (The Skimm)“What an amazing, gripping, beautifully written debut. WHAT SHE KNEW kept me up late into the night (and scared the life out of me).” (Liane Moriarty, New York Times bestselling author)“One of the brightest debuts I have read this year - a visceral, emotionally charged story….heart-wrenchingly well told and expertly constructed, this deserves to stay on the bestseller list until Christmas” (The Daily Mail)“A terrific debut” (Reader's Digest) --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From the Inside Flap Rachel Jenner is walking in a Bristol park with her eight-year-old son, Ben, when he asks if he can run ahead. It's an ordinary request on an ordinary Sunday afternoon, and Rachel has no reason to worry--until Ben vanishes. The police are called, search parties go out, and Rachel, already insecure after her recent divorce, feels herself coming undone. As hours and then days pass without a sign of Ben, everyone who knew him is called into question, from Rachel's newly married ex-husband to her mother-of-the-year sister. Inevitably, media attention focuses on Rachel too, and the public's attitude toward her begins to shift from sympathy to suspicion. As she desperately pieces together the threadbare clues, Rachel realizes that nothing is quite as she imagined it to be, not even her own judgment. And the greatest dangers may lie not in the anonymous strangers of every parent's nightmares, but behind the familiar smiles of those she trusts the most. Where is Ben? The clock is ticking. . . . --Saskia Sarginson, author of The Twins --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Read more

Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen: Recipes from My Family to Yours: A Cookbook

From Publishers Weekly Grammy Award–winning country singer Trisha Yearwood throws her hat into the celebrity cookbook ring with this cheerful if uninspired collection of home-style Southern recipes. Among family and friends, Yearwood is known for her cooking, she writes, and a foreword by her husband and fellow singer, Garth Brooks, explains that Yearwood's secret is that she cooks with love, a technique not fully explored in this book. Aimed at the kitchen beginner, the book presents a list of necessary equipment and hints on substitutions, like making confectioner's sugar from granulated sugar, and is sprinkled throughout with helpful notes from Yearwood and her mother and sister—both of whom are co-writers. International stardom clearly hasn't dampened Yearwood's enthusiasm for down-home treats like Pimento Cheese Spread, Hashbrown Casserole, and Cranberry Salad with Cool Whip, Cream Cheese and Gelatin. Her family members make frequent appearances in the many color photographs and in the form of favorite dishes like Jack's Brunswick Stew and Gwen's Fried Chicken with Milk Gravy. Yearwood is an advocate for no-fuss, simple cooking with plenty of supermarket shortcuts, and this volume will most appeal to fans who want to get a little closer to Yearwood and Brooks (like a chance to recreate the celebs' wedding cake at home). (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. About the Author TRISHA YEARWOOD started off her recording career as a receptionist at MTM Records and has since had nine number one songs, ten albums, four Gold Record winners, four Platinum Awards, a Double Platinum seller, and a Quadruple Platinum blockbuster. She won back-to-back Country Music Awards as Female Vocalist of the Year in 1997 and 1998 and has been honored with three Grammy Awards. In 2005, Trisha married superstar Garth Brooks, and they currently reside in Oklahoma. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Potato Salad Serves 12 When it comes to potato salad, you like what you like. This recipe is mayonnaise-based, but if you like a mustard-based potato salad, just experiment a little. Add some yellow mustard and leave out a little bit of the mayonnaise. Make these recipes your own by finding out what works for you. Our traditional potato salad uses peeled potatoes, but unpeeled work too, and the skins add some color to your dish. 5 pounds red potatoes, peeled and cut in 1/2-inch cubes 2 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste 4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled, and diced 3/4 cup mayonnaise 1/2 cup sweet pickle relish Black pepper Place the potatoes in a medium saucepan or pressure cooker (see Note). Add 2 teaspoons salt and enough water to cover the potatoes. Boil the potatoes for 30 minutes, or until they are tender when pierced with the point of a knife but hold their shape. Drain the potatoes, transfer them to a large mixing bowl, and allow them to cool completely. Add the chopped eggs, mayonnaise, and sweet relish, and fold gently to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until ready to serve.  From Gwen: Don’t overcook the potatoes. They should hold their shape during mixing. Note: The potatoes may be cooked in a pressure cooker. Sprinkle salt over the potatoes. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions and pressure-cook for 5 minutes. Release the pressure immediately and drain and cool the potatoes. Sweet Potato Soufflé Serves 8This is a nice variation on regular sweet potatoes for a Thanksgiving side dish. It's almost a dessert, it's so sweet!   • 5 medium sweet potatoes (about 9 ounces each)    • 2 large eggs    • 1 cup granulated sugar    • 1 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature    • 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract    • 1/2 cup milk    • Pinch of salt Topping • 1 cup finely chopped pecans    • 1 cup brown sugar, packed    • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour    • 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened 1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Grease a 2 1/2-quart baking dish with butter. On a foil-covered baking sheet, bake the sweet potatoes for 1 hour, or until they are soft. When cool enough to handle, peel the potatoes, place the flesh in a large mixing bowl, and mash until very smooth. Add the eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla, milk, and salt. Combine well with an electric mixer or hand mixer. Turn the mixture into the baking dish. 2. In a medium bowl, stir together the pecans, brown sugar, flour, and butter until thoroughly combined. Spoon the mixture over the sweet potatoes, making an even layer. Bake the casserole for 30 minutes, or until slightly browned. Let the casserole sit for 5 minutes before serving. Read more

House Cleaning Package

Home Cooking with Trisha Yearwood: Stories and Recipes to Share with Family and Friends: A Cookbook

Amazon.com Review Recipe from Home Cooking with Trisha Yearwood : Chicken Pizza serves 12 to 14 Ingredients 2 13.8-ounce cans premade pizza crust dough 4 tablespoons olive oil 2 teaspoons minced garlic 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (about 8 ounces) 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese (about 8 ounces) 1 bell pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into strips 1 red onion, sliced vertically 3 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, grilled and diced 6 slices bacon, cooked until crisp and crumbled Preheat the oven to 350°F. Roll the pizza dough out and fit onto two 15-inch pizza pans. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 teaspoon of garlic on each pizza crust, followed by 1/2 cup each of the mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup of the Cheddar cheese. Scatter half of the bell pepper, sliced onion, chicken, and bacon on top of the cheeses. Sprinkle another 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup Cheddar cheese over each pizza and drizzle each pizza with 1 tablespoon more of olive oil. Bake the pizzas for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the crusts are lightly browned. Slice each pizza into 8 pieces. From Publishers Weekly Singer Trisha Yearwood has found another way to reach her audience—with this follow-up to her successful Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen , she serves up more homey, Southern-inflected fare from her country music kitchen. And this newest is every pinch of salt the sequel—from the foreword by her husband, Garth Brooks, and her intimate personal anecdotes to the recipes donated by family and friends (her grandmother's strawberry cake; Brooks's mother's cabbage rolls, her mama's homemade waffles). Yearwood jumps off with some helpful hints, such as the importance of fresh-shredded cheese and how to use scissors to release a stubborn piecrust. The meat of the book is rib-sticking classics for both special occasions and weeknights, like sweet potato pudding, jalapeño hushpuppies, and a Lowcountry boil. Yearwood's ingredients are not for the faint of heart or high of cholesterol (Garth's Breakfast Bowl, for example is a mix of eggs, frozen tater tots, sausage, bacon, and packaged cheese and garlic tortellini). But Yearwood's enthusiasm and warmth come through, particularly in the handwritten notes at the bottom of the pages. Photos. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. About the Author TRISHA YEARWOOD is a three-time Grammy-award winning country music star and the author of the bestselling cookbook Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen. She is married to megastar Garth Brooks. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. chicken pizza serves 12 to 14 2 13.8-ounce cans premade pizza crust dough4 tablespoons olive oil2 teaspoons minced garlic2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (about 8 ounces)2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese (about 8 ounces)1 bell pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into strips1 red onion, sliced vertically3 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, grilled and diced6 slices bacon, cooked until crisp and crumbled Preheat the oven to 350°F.Roll the pizza dough out and fit onto two 15-inch pizza pans. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 teaspoon of garlic on each pizza crust, followed by 1/2 cup each of the mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup of the Cheddar cheese. Scatter half of the bell pepper, sliced onion, chicken, and bacon on top of the cheeses. Sprinkle another 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup Cheddar cheese over each pizza and drizzle each pizza with 1 tablespoon more of olive oil. Bake the pizzas for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the crusts are lightly browned. Slice each pizza into 8 pieces. Read more

2022 National Park Foundation Wall Calendar: 12-Month Nature Calendar & Photography Collection (Monthly Calendar)

The Book of Bright Ideas: A Novel

About the Author Sandra Kring lives in Wisconsin. Her debut novel, Carry Me Home , was a BookSense Notable Pick and a 2005 Midwest Booksellers’ Choice Award nominee. The Book of Bright Ideas was a 2006 Target Bookmarked™ selection and was named to the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age list in 2007. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One I should have known that summer of 1961 was gonna be the biggest summer of our lives. I should have known it the minute I saw Freeda Malone step out of that pickup, her hair lit up in the sun like hot flames. I should have known it, because Uncle Rudy told me what happens when a wildfire comes along. We were standing in his yard, Uncle Rudy and I, at the foot of a red pine that seemed to stretch to heaven, when a squirrel began knocking pinecones to the ground with soft thuds. Uncle Rudy bent over with a grunt and picked one of the green cones up, rolling it a bit in his callused palm before handing it to me. It was cool in my hands. Sap dripped down the side like tears. “Here’s somethin’ I bet you don’t know, Button,” he said, using the nickname he himself gave me. “That cone there, it ain’t like the cones of most other trees. Most cones, all they need is time, or a squirrel to crack ’em open so they can drop their seeds and start a new tree. But that cone there, it ain’t gonna open up and drop its seeds unless a wildfire comes through here.” “A wildfire?” “That’s right,” Uncle Rudy said, scraping the scalp under his cap with his dirty fingernail. “See them little scales there, how they’re closed up tight like window shutters? Under- neath ’em are the seeds—flat little things, flimsy as a baby’s fingernails—with a point at one end. If a fire comes along, the heat is gonna cause those scales to peel back and drop their seeds, while the ground is still scorching hot. Then that tiny seed is gonna burrow in and take root.” I was nine years old the summer Freeda and Winnalee Malone rushed across our lives like red-hot flames, peeling back the shutters that sat over our hearts and our minds, setting free our sweetest dreams and our worst nightmares. Too young to know at the onset that anything out of the ordinary was about to happen. I was sitting on my knees behind the counter at The Corner Store playing with my new Barbie doll, her tiny outfits lined up on the scuffed linoleum. It was the first day of summer vacation, and Aunt Verdella was watching me because my ma was working for Dr. Wagner, the dentist, taking appointments and sending out bills and stuff like that. Aunt Verdella didn’t work, like my ma, but she’d been filling in at the store for Ada Smithy (who was having a recuperation from an opera- tion, because she’d had some ladies’ troubles). It was Aunt Verdella’s last day, then Ada was coming back, and we could stay at Aunt Verdella’s while she looked after me. Aunt Verdella was standing next to me, the hem of her dress like a blue umbrella above me. She was talking to Fanny Tilman about Ada, and Aunt Verdella’s voice sounded almost like it was crying when she said, “Such a pity, such a pity,” and Fanny Tilman asked her what the pity was for, anyway. “Ada’s well past her prime, so seems to me that not getting the curse from here on out should be more of a blessing than a pity,” she said, and Aunt Verdella said, “But still . . .” While they talked, I was trying to get Barbie’s tweed jacket on, which wasn’t easy because her elbows didn’t bend, and that tiny hand of hers kept snagging on the sleeve. While I was tugging, I was itching. I was looking at the little clothes spread out and trying hard to remember if she was supposed to wear the red jacket with the brown skirt or the green skirt. I cleared my throat a few times, like I always did when I didn’t know what I was supposed to do next, and Aunt Verdella looked down at me. “Button, you’re doin’ that thing with your throat again. What’s the matter, honey?” Aunt Verdella’s voice was loud, so loud that sometimes it pained my ears when she wasn’t even yelling, and her body always reminded me of a snowman made with two balls instead of three. The littlest ball was her head, sitting right on top of one big, fat ball. I stood up. My knees felt gritty and I glanced down at them, hoping they weren’t getting too dirty, because I knew Ma’s lips were gonna pull so tight they’d turn white, like they always did when Aunt Verdella brought me home looking all grubby. “I can’t get her jacket on,” I said. I handed Aunt Verdella my Barbie, the tweed jacket flapping at her back. Aunt Verdella laughed as she took it. Fanny Tilman peered at me, her puffy eyes puckering. “Is that Reece and Jewel’s little one?” she said, like Aunt Verdella could hear her but I couldn’t. I put my head down and stared at a gouge in the gray countertop. “Yep, this is our Button,” Aunt Verdella said. She wrapped her freckly arm—stick-skinny like her legs—around me and pulled me to her biggest ball. It was soft and warm, not snowman-cold at all. “She looks like Jewel,” Mrs. Tilman said, and she sounded a bit sorry about this. I saw her looking at my ears, which were too big for my head, and the face she made made me feel smaller than I already was. Aunt Verdella thought that long hair would hide my ears until I grew into them, but Ma said long hair was too much work to keep neat and she already had enough to do. Every couple of months, she’d snip it short, thin it with those scissors that have missing teeth, then curl it with a Tony perm. When she was done, my hair was bunched up in ten or eleven little pale brown knots. I wanted hair long enough to hang loose past my shoulders and cover my ears when I was around people, and to put up in a ponytail that swished my back when I wasn’t. But, shoot, I knew I’d never have anything but those stubby knots. Aunt Verdella finished dressing Barbie, then handed her to me. I stood there a minute, wanting to ask her which skirt matched, but I didn’t want to talk with Fanny Tilman still looking at me, so I sat back down on the linoleum and stared at the two skirts some more. Aunt Verdella had the door propped open with a big rock, because it was nice outside and the store was too hot with the sun beating through the windows. I was staring at the doll clothes when the sound of metal scraping on pavement filled the store. “Uh-oh, somebody’s losing their muffler,” Aunt Verdella said. The racket from the scraping muffler got louder and sharper before it came to a stop. Aunt Verdella got up on her tiptoes, the tops of her white shoes making folds like Uncle Rudy’s forehead did when she brought home a whole trunkload of junk from the community sale. “Good Lord, look what the cat’s drug into town now,” Fanny Tilman said. “Just what we need, a band of gypsies.” “Oh, Fanny!” Aunt Verdella said. I heard a door creak open, then slam shut. A lady’s voice started talking, but I couldn’t make out what it was saying. I heard some banging and then, “Jesus H. Christ! Is anybody gonna come pump my gas or not?” Folks who got gas at The Corner Store pumped their own gas, except for a couple of old ladies and the outsiders. Aunt Verdella called out, “I’ll be right there, dear!” “Excuse me, Button,” she said as she stepped over me and hurried around the counter. I put my fingertips on the counter and pulled myself up to take a peek. Mrs. Tilman was standing in the open doorway, her purse clutched in her arms like she thought the “gypsies” were going to try swiping it. She was busy gawking, so I stood all the way up and peeked out between the handmade signs Scotch-taped to the window. The bed of the red pickup truck at the pumps, and the wagon towed behind it, were piled high with junky furniture I knew didn’t match and boxes stuffed with bunched-up clothes and dishes that spilled out over the tops. My eyes almost bugged out of my head when I saw the lady who was standing next to the truck while Aunt Verdella pumped her gas. She had the prettiest color hair I’d ever seen. Red, but like a red I’d never set eyes on before: shiny like a pot of melted copper pennies. Not dark, not light, but somewhere in between, and bright like fire. She stretched like a cat, the sleeveless blouse tied at her waist riding up a belly that was flat and the color of buttered toast. She was made like my Barbie doll, with two big bumps under her blouse, a skinny waist, and long legs under kelly-green pedal pushers. She was wearing a pair of sunglasses with a row of rhinestones at the corners that shot rays into my eyes when she turned toward the store. There was something about the lady, too, that shined just as bright as her hair and those rhinestones. Not a warm kind of shining, but a sharp kind, like bright sun jabbing through the window and stinging your eyes. Aunt Verdella cranked her head toward the store and yelled, “Button, bring Auntie the restroom key, will ya?” I stepped up on the wooden stool and reached for the key, which was taped to a ruler so it couldn’t get lost easy, and I hurried it outside. As much as I hated meeting new people, I wanted to see the pretty lady up close. The Barbie lady took off her sunglasses and poked them into her fiery hair, which was piled high on her head in a messy sort of way. She had green eyes like a cat’s, and her eyelids were sparkly with the same color, clear up to her eyebrows. She had real nice ears too. Tiny, and laying flat to her head like ears are supposed to. I handed Aunt Verdella the key, and she gave it to the pretty lady, who was glaring at the truck, a crabby look on her face. “The ladies̵...

All American Christmas

About the Author Rachel Campos-Duffy serves as a cohost of FOX & Friends Weekend . In addition, Campos-Duffy is the host of Moms on FOX Nation. The program aims to shine a light on family life and motherhood with women from across the country. She is also a recurring guest host on the network’s hit shows FOX & Friends and Outnumbered . She is married to former congressman and FOX News Media contributor Sean Duffy. They have nine children. Sean Duffy serves as a FOX News Media contributor, providing political analysis across all FOX News Media platforms. For nearly nine years, Duffy represented the people of Wisconsin’s Seventh Congressional District, the state’s largest district. While in Congress, he served on the Financial Services Committee and as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance. He is married to FOX and Friends Weekend cohost Rachel Campos-Duffy.

I Almost Forgot About You: A Novel

Review "McMillan is a gifted storyteller… The cast of characters enriches the narrative, bringing nuance and clarity to scenes and moving the plot along…. Georgia’s story reminds readers who have clocked a lot of living that it’s never too late to reconnect and reflect on the past as they craft the future they want." — Fort Worth Star Telegram "The ripple effects from Terry McMillan’s breakthrough in contemporary African-American fiction still influence our daily lives... [ I Almost Forgot About You is] much in the same vein of McMillan’s other novels that track Black women’s journeys through self-discovery."— BLAC Detroit "McMillan is a master at her craft. Without a doubt, this book will be a hit with anyone who feels stuck in life and is ready to make a move. McMillan has done it again. Get this book and read about Georgia’s journey. This is another book that should be on everyone’s reading list."— The Baton Rouge Advocate “In I Almost Forgot About You , McMillan gives us a story about the possibility of change at any age couched in her customary vivacious prose and lush portrayals of character and relationships. Watching 50-something Georgia slowly reinvent herself and find lasting love along the way is a joy to behold. Here is a deeply felt, deeply courageous novel about the courage to face yourself and your past to discover—and create—the future you want for yourself.” —The Root "The reader finds herself torn between gritting her teeth at how right McMillan gets the relationships between best friends, ex-spouses, ex-lovers, parents and children and putting the book down to laugh out loud. Run, don't walk and pick up this exuberant summer read." — BookPage “Nobody does female reinvention better than McMillan… another winner for McMillan’s groaning bookshelf of hits.” — AARP magazine “McMillan has written an engaging novel with an appealing cast of women... This near-perfect choice for women’s book club discussions will prompt arguments of what makes a guy too good to be true. Stock up with multiple copies.” – Library Journal (starred review) “Terry McMillan's novels have always been about telling the uncensored truth about friends, family, lovers, and oneself.  Through addictively revealing conversations – including an instructive one about the sexual prowess of men who made the A list – McMillan's narrator is the ideal running commentator on what smart women do to reach the pinnacle of success and what they must do to get the hell out before it's too late. It's a story about both reinvention and acceptance, told in McMillan's quintessential voice, now even more expansive, prismatically perceptive, and laugh-aloud generous in how we talk about love and all its wonders.” —Amy Tan, New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Valley of Amazement “One of my favorite authors since I read Waiting to Exhale in college, Terry McMillan has done it again with this one. Overflowing with her trademark heart and humor, I Almost Forgot About You will inspire you to live a little bigger. I wish Georgia weren’t fictional—I would find her and befriend her.” —Emily Giffin, #1 New York Time s bestselling author of First Comes Love and Something Borrowed “The warmth and wisdom we have come to expect from Terry McMillan are on full display and you won’t be able to walk away from Georgia and her exuberant life. This is that thrilling kind of novel that reminds us how sometimes, fairy tales happen when we least expect them, if only we open ourselves to possibility.” —Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist and An Untamed State About the Author Terry McMillan is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Waiting to Exhale , How Stella Got Her Groove Back, A Day Late and a Dollar Short , and The Interruption of Everything and the editor of Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction . Each of Ms. McMillan’s seven previous novels was a New York Times bestseller, and four have been made into movies: Waiting to Exhale (Twentieth Century Fox, 1995); How Stella Got Her Groove Back (Twentieth Century Fox, 1998); Disappearing Acts (HBO Pictures, 1999); and A Day Late and a Dollar Short (Lifetime, 2014). She lives in California. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Running Out of Time? It’s another exciting Friday night, and I’m curled up in bed--alone, of course--propped up by a sea of pillows, still in my lab coat, the sash so taut it’s suffocating the purple silk dress beneath it, but I don’t care. After a grueling day of back-to-back patients, I’m a few minutes away from being comatose, but I’m also hungry, which is why I’m channel-surfing and waiting for my pizza to get here. I stop when I come to my favorite standby: Law & Order: Criminal Intent, even though I’ve seen almost all of them--including the reruns. These days I usually just watch the first five or ten minutes, long enough to see Detective Goren stride onto the crime scene in his long trench coat, tilt his head to the side while he puts on those rubber gloves, rub the new growth on that beautiful square chin, and bend down to study the victim. It’s at this moment, before he utters a word, when I usually pucker up, blow him a kiss, and then change the channel. I’ve lusted over Detective Goren and yearned to be held against shoulders like his long before my second marriage bottomed out.Truth be told, over the years I’ve fallen in love every Wednesday with Gary Dourdan’s lips as CSI Warrick Brown, and even though I was no Trekkie, Avery Brooks’s deep baritone and sneaky smile made me say “Yes” aloud to the TV. I also let myself be seduced for hours in dark theaters, hypnotized by Benicio del Toro’s dreamy eyes, even though he was a criminal. By Denzel’s swagger when he was a slick gangster. Brad Pitt as a sexy young thief. Ken Watanabe as the most sensual samurai I wanted to ride on a horse with, and I wanted to be a black geisha and torture him until I finally let him have all of me.I hate to admit it, but if I had the energy, I’d kill to have sex with the first one who walked into my bedroom tonight. I’d let him do anything he wanted to do to me. It’s been centuries since I’ve had sex with a real man, and I’m not even sure I’d remember what to do first should I ever get so lucky again. In fact, I think I’d be too uncomfortable, not to mention scared of getting all touchy-feely, and don’t even get me started on him seeing me naked. Hell, this is why I sleep with the remote.When I hear the doorbell, I glance over at the broken blue clouds inside the clock on the night table. I’ve been waiting forty minutes for this pizza, which means they’re going to owe me a free one! I roll off the bed on my side, even though the other side has been empty for years. I walk over to the door and yell, “Be right there!” Then I grab my wallet out of my purse and beeline it to the front door, because I’m starving. That is so not true. I’m just a little hungry. I’m trying to stop lying to myself about little things. I’m still working on the big ones.I open the door, and standing there sweating is a young black kid who can’t be more than eighteen. His head looks like a small globe of shiny black twists that I know are baby dreadlocks. His cheeks are full of brand-new zits. His name tag says free.“I’m so sorry for the delay, ma’am. There was a accident at the bottom of the hill, and I couldn’t get up here, so this one’s on the house.”He looks so sad, and I’m wondering if the price of this pizza is going to be deducted from his little paycheck, but I dare not ask.“I don’t mind paying for it,” I say. “It wasn’t your fault there was an accident.” I take the pizza from him and set it on the metal stairwell.“That’s real thoughtful of you, but I’m just glad this is my last delivery for the night,” he says, leaning to one side as if he’s pretending not to look behind me, but of course he is. “This a real nice crib you got here. I ain’t never seen no yellow floors before. It’s downright wicked.”“Thanks,” I say, and hand him a twenty.He looks as if he’s in shock. “Like I said, ma’am, this pizza is on the house, and I also got some drink coupons you can have, too,” he says, pulling them out of the pocket of his red shirt.“It’s a tip,” I say. “Is your real name Free?”“Yes, ma’am.”“How do you feel about it?”“I dig it. I get asked all the time about it.”“So how old are you, Free?”“I’m eighteen.” He’s still staring at the twenty but then quickly shoves it inside the back pocket of his jeans in case I come to my senses and change my mind. “Are you in college?” I’m hoping he says yes and that he’s taking English so one day soon he’ll stop saying ain’t.“Almost. That’s why I’m working. You really giving me this whole twenty?”I nod. “Do you know what you want to major in?”“Mechanical engineering,” he says with certainty.“That’s great.”“Your husband rich?”“What makes you think I’d have to have a husband to be rich?”“Everybody that live up in these hills is. Even them two dykes that live next door. And they married.”“Those dykes aren’t just my neighbors, they’re also my friends, and they’re lesbians.”“A’right. My bad,” he says, flinging his arms up like Don’t shoot. “I didn’t mean no harm.”“I know. Anyway, I’m divorced. And I’m not rich. But I also don’t struggle.”“You cleaned him out, then, huh?”“No.”Then he gives me the once-over. “You some kind of doctor?”I look down at my lab coat. “Yes. I’m an optometrist.”“Which one is that?”“I help people see clearly,” I say, so as not to complicate it.“Who helps you?” he asks with a smile, which throws me off completely. What a loaded question to ask a woman old enough to be his grandmother. “Just fooling with you, Dr. Young. No disrespect intended.”“None taken, Free.”Who helps me see? See what?“Cool. Well, look, I gotta dash and get this car back to my cousin, but major thanks for the mega-tip, and I have to say it’s nice somebody black gave it to me. Most of the white folks up here ain’t big on tipping, except for them lesbians.”What he just said was a little on the racist and sexist side, but I know he meant well. He runs down the sidewalk and jumps into that raggedy car of his, removes the pizza sign displayed on top, and disappears down the hill. I lean against the doorframe watching him go. I really should’ve praised him for working to pay for college, and if he hadn’t been in such a hurry, I would have loved to tell him that he might find his calling in college and he might not. But I’d also tell him to search until he did. Otherwise he could end up doing something he just happened to be good at, something respectable that might guarantee him a nice income, but one day, when he’s older, like, say, fifty-three soon to be fifty-four, when his kids have grown up and he’s twice divorced and bored with his profession and his life and the thought of trying to change it all--or even where he lives--scares the hell out of him because it feels like it’s too late, I’d tell him to please figure out a way to do it anyway, since I’m an excellent example of what can happen when you don’t.I turn off the porch light, close the door, and I can’t believe all of this is flooding in. I walk across these cool yellow concrete floors and sit on these cool metal stairs and look out at the light jutting up through those soft navy blue waves in the cool black-bottomed pool, and I look up a flight where both of my daughters used to sleep, and I look down to where the library and the guest room are, and I sit here and eat this entire cheese-and-tomato pizza.I am full of regret.Monday mornings are the worst, which is why I left a little early. The freeway is still slow going. But I’m used to it. I crack my window, although it can’t be more than fifty degrees. The dampness coming from the bay can’t eclipse the clarity of this morning as thousands of us slowly descend around a curve, and there waiting for us like a giant postcard is the Bay Bridge and right behind it the San Francisco skyline. This is a beautiful place to live.But then, as typically happens at least once a week, the traffic suddenly comes to a screeching halt. I can see the reason up ahead. A four-car pile-up is blocking two of the five lanes, and everyone is trying to move over to make room for the fire trucks and ambulances I now hear. I just pray no one is hurt. I roll my window all the way down and put the car in park. Some have already turned off their engines. I leave mine running and call my office.When my cell phone rings, I know who it is before I even glance at the screen. “Hello, Miss Early,” I say to my mother, for obvious reasons but also because her name is Earlene.“Hello back to you, Miss Georgia.”Of course I was never any Miss Georgia, because I was born in Bakersfield, where she still lives, and I was named after my late father, whose name was George. There’s hardly a day that goes by when someone doesn’t ask me if I’m from Georgia. In college I just started lying and said yes: Macon. But then they wanted to know why I didn’t have a drawl.“What can I do you for, ma’am? Are you feeling okay?”“I’m probably healthier than you. Anyway, I’m calling for two reasons. I’m going on a cruise for seniors with my church.”“That’s nice,” I say, trying not to laugh, because I’m thinking this is going to be one wild and scandalous cruise.“That’s all you have to say?”“I’m thrilled for you, Ma. I know you go to one of those megachurches, but are there enough seniors in the congregation to fill a whole cruise ship?”“Of course not. There are ten churches, and we’re not going to be the only older people on it.”She’s eighty-one. Soon to be eighty-two.“When and where are you going?”“We leave two weeks and one day from today. For ten whole days! We’re going to four or five islands in the Caribbean that I can’t remember right now. One of them is the Grand Cayman.”“That’s a whole lot of numbers, Ma, but it sounds like so much fun. It’ll be good for you.”“I know. I still miss your brother and your dad, and I get lonely in this condo, and I’ll just go on and admit that I get tired of going to church just so I can have a social life and I don’t have to get dressed up to worship at home. Anyway, I’ll be doing a lot of praying standing in front of those slots.” She laughs.“Okay, Ma, what’s the other thing? Because I’m stuck in traffic, and it looks like it’s about to start moving.”“Well, you know it’s almost time for my annual eye exam, and my cruise conflicts with the date I have on my calendar.”“Ma, it’s not set in stone.”“I know. So I’m hoping to get a rain check to see if we can make it after the holidays, unless you think I need to have it sooner.”“Ma, you don’t have to have the test on the same day every year, but around the same time is just smart to do at your age.”“I’m not senile yet, Georgia.”“I’m not even going to respond to that. And who is we? Please don’t say Dolly.”“Well, it’s not safe for me to drive that far alone anymore, so Dolly is willing to do the driving.”Why me, Lord? Dolly is my older second cousin, whom I love but don’t like that much, because she’s got a nasty attitude and never has anything nice to say about anybody, especially me. I know this to be true, because gossip travels faster within families. She has convinced herself that I think I’m hot shit because I went to college and live in a nice house with a pool. Some relatives I can live without, and Dolly’s on the top of that list.“The boys want to come, too. They haven’t seen you in years, and they’ve been having a hard time finding work.”The boys are over thirty. And haven’t worked in years either. Last time they were here, they smoked marijuana in the bathroom and tried to drink up half the liquor in the bar.“I’m about to start remodeling, so there’ll be no place for them to sleep,” I lie.“Well, it’s about time. And I hope you tone it down some. I feel like I’m walking into a rainbow every time I come through your front door.”“Gotta go. Love you.” I usually give her smooches, but she just hurt my feelings, so I don’t much feel like it.I rush past the tall wall of windows, and Marina, our six-foot Japanese receptionist, waves at me. She’s on the phone, sitting behind the long maple counter. In the four years she’s worked here, she’s worn black every single day--including on her fingernails. From here you can see only her shoulders. She waves, then gives me a slow thumbs-up that all is fine. I wasn’t really worried, but I don’t like to inconvenience patients, even though the situation is more often the reverse.Unlike home, the office is serene. The walls are a pale gray, a warm yellow, and one is white. My mother approves. Nine chairs are white, except for one that’s yellow. Four oblong purple tables are scattered around the area meant for fitting eyewear. Almost every inch of wall space is filled with frames and sunglasses to suit almost every taste and price.One of my most annoying but favorite patients, Mona Kwon, rushes to open the door for me. “Thank you, Mona!” I say, and head on over to Marina. Mona sits in her chair; the one next to the door if it’s empty, or else she’ll stand. She’ll be seventy-five soon. She only needs strong readers but claims she can’t see the tips of her fingernails when she holds them out in front of her. She comes in to have her glasses adjusted at least twice a month. She has forty pair and counting. The techs think she’s probably suffering from dementia. I think she’s just lonely. She also doesn’t like the techs to warm her frames; she insists I do it. After lifting them out of the hot sand and slipping them behind her ears, I watch her stare into the mirror a few minutes too long, as if, or until, she’s satisfied she looks like whoever she wants to be. Read more


The Green Book of Crosswords: 200 Puzzles

About the Author The Puzzle Society is the Web's premier source for challenging, professionally constructed puzzles and games. Updated daily and boasting a gaming archive of more than 8,000 puzzles, The Puzzle Society offers more than 70 nationally syndicated puzzles, including the Washington Post Crossword, Los Angeles Times Crossword, Universal Crossword , Universal Jigsaw , and Daily Jumble .

The New York Times Greatest Hits of Thursday Crossword Puzzles: 100 Medium Puzzles

Review “ Blowout is a rollickingly well-written book, filled with fascinating, exciting and alarming stories about the impact of the oil and gas industry on the world today. . . . [It features] many colorful tales about villains, scoundrels and adventurers. . . . A brilliant description of many of the problems caused by our reliance on fossil fuels.” —The New York Times Book Review “An account of international intrigue, high finance, low characters, and outrageous legal and illegal acts that put the global economy and Western democracy at grave risk . . . [Maddow] tells this tale deliberately and methodically, building her case not as a cable commentator, but as a Rhodes Scholar. . . . She displays a deep understanding of what makes Russia work in the age of Putin.” — Boston Globe “I can’t stress enough what a great storyteller Rachel Maddow is. [She carries] the reader through some hair-raising journalism in such an engaging and propulsive fashion you simply cannot put the book down. . . . It has left a most lasting impression.” — San Francisco Chronicle “At its heart, this book is a tale of two countries, the United States and Russia, and how, as Maddow sees it—individually and together—they have been warped by a rapacious fossil fuel industry. . . . Fulminating comes easy to Rachel Maddow. What sets her apart from other serial fulminators is that she does it with facts—and sardonic wit.” — The Washington Post “All fans of Maddow, and even her detractors, will learn something new from this highly readable yet impressively detailed book. Anyone interested in the covert deals that change the nature of the global environmental and political landscape will devour. A must-have for all collections.” — Library Journal (starred review) “Radiates zing, intelligence, and black humor. Much like its author.” — InStyle “[Maddow] may be a popular, progressive news-and-commentary anchor on MSNBC, but it's not to be forgotten that she holds a doctorate in politics from Oxford and seems to devour whole libraries of data before breakfast each day. . . . Expect a tweetstorm as Maddow’s indictment of a corrupt industry finds readers—and it deserves many.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Known for her intense inquiries into complex subjects, Maddow brings her laser-like intuitiveness and keen and wily perception to Big Oil, that stalwart of global economics, and the shadowy nexus of commerce and politics. Maddow likes murky, the murkier the better, and her examination of the intricacies of off-shore drilling, transnational pipelines, and hydraulic fracking is as deep as the coveted wells themselves. . . . Like trailblazing journalists before her, Maddow exposes both the slapdash and sinister practices underlying geopolitics and energy policies and revels in peeling back the layers of malfeasance to stoke righteous outrage.” — Booklist (starred review) About the Author Rachel Maddow is host of the Emmy Award–winning Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, as well as the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power ; Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth; and Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House . Maddow received a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Stanford University and earned her doctorate in political science at Oxford University. She lives in New York City and Massachusetts with her partner, artist Susan Mikula. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. OneSplendor and FragranceIf you had to point to a beginning, to the exact location of the big bang from which American industrial and economic power began its astounding and sometimes reckless expansion, it would be at the end of a percussion-driven, blunt-force drill bit, lowered through a cast-iron pipe, powered by a six-horsepower steam engine, slamming down and down and down into the earth on a farm in northwest Pennsylvania. At a depth of sixty-nine and a half feet, the operators of the drill struck what they had been looking for, and on August 28, 1859, the crude yet sublime substance—“rock oil,” as it was called at the time—presented itself on the earth’s surface.That discovery, like the big bang itself, is but a subatomic pinhole in space compared with all that has followed. Edwin Laurentine Drake and his hired man, “Uncle Billy” Smith, pulled the equivalent of maybe twenty forty-two-gallon barrels of crude oil from the ground on a good day. The inhabitants of our planet weren’t exactly starving for more in 1859, or at least didn’t yet know they were. The first commercially viable gas-powered engine, and the ensuing addiction, were still a few generations away.Today’s drillers produce an average of more than ninety million barrels of oil worldwide every day, and a lot of natural gas, too, which fuels cars, jets, freight trains, ocean liners, power plants, factories, and farm machinery, as well as the economies of republics, monarchies, and dictatorships around the globe. Nearly a hundred countries, representing six continents, are in the oil and gas game, and many have been in it for a century or more. But the United States got there first (Russia was a very distant second), and only the United States can lay claim to having shaped the industry’s prevailing culture: the tools of its trade, its financing, its administration, its ethic, and its reach. “The organization of the great business of taking petroleum out of the earth, piping the oil over great distances, distilling and refining it, and distributing it in tank steamers, tank wagons, and cans all over the earth,” the president emeritus of Harvard noted in 1915, “was an American invention.”In fact, it could be argued, the oil business as we know it today was the invention of one particular American, John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller was there almost from the beginning. He created and husbanded the exemplar of the industry, Standard Oil, and along the way he helped to popularize the idea of America as the testing ground where the extravagant possibilities and the outsized benefits of free-market capitalism have been proven. Rockefeller, a junior partner in a Cleveland merchant commission house trading in grain, hay, meat, and miscellany when Edwin Drake made his strike in 1859, watched the oil business unfold up close. When he entered the field in 1863, at age twenty-three, he understood his best bet was to concentrate on refining the crude oil and to leave to others the rather messy and costly process of actually getting it out of the ground.Within ten years, Rockefeller had managed to get control of nearly all of the oil refineries in Cleveland, which had established itself as the nation’s main refining center. Rockefeller’s new corporation, Standard Oil, shipped a million barrels of refined oil in a single year. By 1875, thanks to the fire sale that followed the first frightening financial panic and depression in industrialized America, Rockefeller had taken control of every major refining center in the country. “We were all in a sinking ship,” he would later explain, “and we were trying to build a lifeboat to carry us all to shore. . . . The Standard was an angel of mercy, reaching down from the sky, and saying ‘Get in the ark. Put in your old junk. We’ll take the risks!’ ”Standard Oil’s main product at the time was kerosene, which proved a welcome innovation in illumination. It was efficient, effective, plentiful, and reasonably priced. The most widely used lighting oil at the time, which was struck from soft coal, was dirty; whale oil was hard to get (see Moby-Dick) and dwindling in supply; kerosene from petroleum—or rock oil—was just the thing to illuminate the clean, bright new future. “Rock oil emits a dainty light,” promised the new industry. “The brightest and yet the cheapest in the world, a light fit for Kings and Royalists and not unsuitable for Republicans and Democrats.” Farmers and city dwellers could afford to read well into the night. Factory owners could afford to keep their works open around the clock. Rockefeller’s magic potion was a worldwide phenomenon; in 1875, before any European-based company was producing kerosene in bulk, 75 percent of the output from Rockefeller’s American refineries was loaded up and shipped overseas. Cash flowed back across the Atlantic. Standard’s production capacity grew year after year. The efficiencies that followed—economies of scale—allowed Rockefeller to cut the cost of refining by more than 85 percent and to cut the cost to the consumer by 70 percent. Demand swelled, and so did revenues.Rockefeller’s company, meanwhile, just kept eating would-be competitors. About 90 percent of America’s crude flowed through Standard Oil by the end of the 1890s. The company had money and means to produce its own crude, and refine it, and get it shipped to market on its own (always favorable) terms. Standard was capable of controlling the price of oil and railroad freight rates and had cash in the bank to pay off the state and federal legislators who wrote laws governing the industry. “John D. and his colleagues regarded government regulators as nuisances to be bypassed wherever possible,” says Rockefeller’s estimable biographer, Ron Chernow. “He felt that politicians were basically parasites who would shake down businessmen. I mean, all of this bribery he saw as extortion; that is, the politicians shaking him down, rather than his paying off the politicians. . . . I think he regarded these payments really as a business expense.”Standard Oil eventually grew into “the largest business empire on earth,” according to Chernow. “I don’t know that the business world has ever seen an agglomeration of wealth and power on the scale of Standard Oil.” This was the era of consolidation, of the Big Trust, which was nineteenth-century parlance for monopoly—the Sugar Trust, the Beef Trust, the Steel Trust, the Tobacco Trust, the Rope-and-Twine Trust. But the Rockefeller-controlled Oil Trust was the first, the biggest, the most powerful, and easily the most talked-about trust in the country. Rockefeller himself stood with Andrew Carnegie (steel), Philip Armour (meat products), and James Buchanan Duke (cigarettes) as the richest and most powerful commodity producers on the continent. They sat on mounds of private wealth unimaginable in the young republic at the time of Rockefeller’s own birth. John D. died nearly fifty years before the debut of the Forbes 400, the annual listing of the wealthiest private individuals in the country. But when the editors of a book timed to coincide with the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of that list made some calculations, they declared Rockefeller the richest single individual in the history of America. They figured his peak net worth at $305 billion (in 2006 dollars), which means that if John D. were to be magically reanimated today, with his peak fortune still intact, his personal wealth would roughly triple that of the whippersnapper who sat atop the Forbes list in 2019.Millions of barrels of ink have been expended in trying to explain the reasons for Rockefeller’s spectacular achievement, to reveal the cardinal (and perhaps replicable) tactic, to pinpoint the specific innate genius that made it all happen. Theories abound. Take, for instance, what could be called the Bung Theory. A bung is the stopper once used to seal up a barrel of oil, and Rockefeller’s intense interest in this unromantic industrial cog, his keen watch on the monthly bung count, offers a tantalizing lead on the secret to his success. “Your March inventory showed 10,750 bungs on hand,” Rockefeller once wrote to one of his foremen. “The report for April shows 20,000 new bungs bought, 24,000 bungs used, and 6,000 bungs on hand. What became of the other 750 bungs?” Maybe the key was pinching every penny! John D. Rockefeller wasted nothing, see, so he could push his costs down, undercut all competitors on price, and drive them out of the business, or at least into Standard Oil’s angel of mercy ark.Then there is the well-traveled Great Monster Theory. “Run, children, or Rockefeller’ll get you,” was a threat that could strike terror in the Pennsylvania oil patch in the late nineteenth century. The Great Monster Theory gained much currency in the popular mind after Ida Tarbell’s remarkable series of investigative articles published in McClure’s Magazine beginning in 1902, “The History of the Standard Oil Company.” Tarbell, who grew up in the patch, itemized the more than thirty years of Rockefeller’s underhanded, corrupt, predatory behavior that constituted his effort to wipe the field of competitors. He was, in Tarbell’s rendering, a rapacious and devious villain. Widows and orphans, beware. It didn’t hurt that Rockefeller, aged sixty-three at the time of publication, looked ready to inhabit the villain role by then. He was already growing thin and pinched—and worse. “He suffered from something called alopecia. In 1901, he lost not only all the hair on his head; he lost all body hair,” Chernow explains. “Ida Tarbell came along a year later, did this series portraying him as a monster. And since he was hairless and suddenly looked old—and ghoulish—his appearance seemed to ratify what she was saying in the series, so that the timing was particularly unfortunate for Rockefeller.”There is also the Man of His Times Theory. Rockefeller, this theory posits, was simply playing by the very loose set of rules of his day, just like everybody else was. The boundaries of capitalism and democracy in America were still being chalked, the rules of the game still being written. The prevailing ethic was best summed up by one of Rockefeller’s early partners, Henry M. Flagler, who kept a copy of this little ditty on his desk: “Do unto others as they would do unto you—and do it first.” The point of the free market was not to compete but to win. “The most serious charge that can be laid at [Standard’s] door is that it has succeeded,” wrote an oilman who felt compelled to sell out to Rockefeller in the 1880s or suffer the consequences. “It has outwitted its competitors who sought to play the same game but had not so thoroughly mastered the art. . . . In the business battle, the extremity of one is the opportunity of the other. . . . It is the rule of our competitive life that the time when the business rival is on the downward road—when creditors are pressing him hard, when banks are clamoring that he shall meet his paper, when the sheriff is threatening to close his doors—this is the opportunity for the other rival to strike the finishing blow and make merchandise out of the misery of his fellow-man.” Rockefeller’s eldest son and heir offered an exceedingly aromatic metaphor to justify this need to (occasionally, of course) rely on cutthroat tactics. “The American Beauty Rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it,” John D. junior sermonized. “This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working-out of a law of nature and a law of God.”Rockefeller himself had a number of pet theories about his spectacular rise. A devout and puritanical Baptist, John D. was certain there was a higher being at work. “I believe the power to make money is a gift from God,” he explained to one writer, “just as are the instincts for art, music, literature, the doctor’s talent, the nurse’s, yours—to be developed and used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind. Having been endowed with the gift I possess, I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money, and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience.”These various theories, and the many others in circulation, are not mutually exclusive. The whole truth of John D. Rockefeller is complicated and involves pieces of them all. But the rock-bottom fact on which everything else rests is actually quite simple: Standard Oil just kept turning out the finest product on the market, at the lowest price to the consumer. Ka-ching! Read more

Becoming

Review “A serious work of candid reflection by a singular figure of early-twenty-first-century America . . . Becoming is refined and forthright, gracefully written and at times laugh-out-loud funny.” —Isabel Wilkerson, The New York Times Book Review “ Becoming is inspirational without trying to be. From the first words, the very warmth that permeates its author emanates from the pages. . . . Becoming manages to be a coming-of-age tale, a love story and a family saga all in one. More importantly, this book is a reminder that America is still a work-in-progress, and that hope can be an action word if we allow it to be. Becoming is a balm that America needs, from a woman America does not yet deserve.” —Angie Thomas, Time “Deeply personal and refreshingly honest . . . She’s thoughtful, humorous, bracingly revealing, and when it’s time, she does us all the favor of showing us the human side of a man worshipped by so many. . . . It’s human and genuine and welcoming to see the layers of humanity she holds open. . . . Michelle Obama’s story can maybe inspire you to find a path for your own story.” —Shonda Rhimes, Shondaland “A complex, accomplished life recounted with confidence and candor . . . Every page sparkles with directness and grace.” —Douglas Brinkley, The Boston Globe About the Author Michelle Obama served as First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Mrs. Obama started her career as an attorney at the Chicago law firm Sidley & Austin, where she met her future husband, Barack Obama. She later worked in the Chicago mayor’s office, at the University of Chicago, and at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Mrs. Obama also founded the Chicago chapter of Public Allies, an organization that prepares young people for careers in public service. She is the author of the #1 global bestseller Becoming and the #1 national bestseller American Grown . The Obamas currently live in Washington, D.C., and have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.

The New York Times Wednesday Crossword Puzzle Omnibus: 200 Medium-Level Puzzles

About the Author The New York Times is a daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed internationally. Founded in 1851, the newspaper has won 112 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization. Its website receives 30 million unique visitors per month. Will Shortz has been the crossword puzzle editor of The New York Times since 1993. He is also the puzzlemaster on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday and is founder and director of the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. He has edited countless books of crossword puzzles, Sudoku, KenKen, and all manner of brain-busters.

Fear: Trump in the White House

Review “A harrowing portrait of the Trump presidency . . . Again and again, Woodward recounts at length how Trump’s national security team was shaken by his lack of curiosity and knowledge about world affairs and his contempt for the mainstream perspectives of military and intelligence leaders.” — Phillip Rucker and Robert Costa, The Washington Post “A damning picture of the current presidency.” — David Martin, CBS News “An unprecedented inside-the-room look through the eyes of the President's inner circle. . . . stunning.”— CNN “A devastating reported account of the Trump Presidency that will be consulted as a first draft of the grim history it portrays . . . What Woodward has written is not just the story of a deeply flawed President but also, finally, an account of what those surrounding him have chosen to do about it.”— Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker “ Fear is Woodward at his best, the quintessential investigative reporter with an eye for detail and an uncanny ability to get key players to ensure that their perspective is etched into history. Its timing could not be more critical for a nation exhausted by tweets and spin, and trying to assess the danger to democracy posed by a presidency that shatters its norms and demeans its institutions.”— John Diaz, San Francisco Chronicle “In an age of ‘alternative facts’ and corrosive tweets about ‘fake news,’ Woodward is truth’s gold standard. . . . explosive . . . devastating . . . jaw-dropping.”— Jill Abramson, The Washington Post “Woodward's latest book shows the administration is broken, and yet what comes next could be even worse.”— David A. Graham, The Atlantic “[Woodward] is the master and I'd trust him over politicians of either party any day of the week.” — Peter Baker “Woodward . . . depicts the Trump White House as a byzantine, treacherous, often out-of-control operation . . . Mr. Woodward’s book has unsettled the administration and the president in part because it is clear that the author has spoken with so many current and former officials.” — Mark Landler and Maggie Haberman, New York Times “ The more heartening message from FEAR is that we still have institutions and individuals, including Bob Woodward, who will continue checking the most destructive instincts of Donald Trump.” — Joe Scarborough “You can trust that Woodward has gone to inordinate lengths to get to the best obtainable version of the truth.” — Mike Allen, Axios “I wonder how many journalists have arrived in Washington over the years dreaming of becoming the next Bob Woodward . . . Though his books are often sensational, he is the opposite of sensationalist. He’s diligent, rigorous, fastidious about the facts, and studiously ethical. There’s something almost monastic about his method . . . He’s Washington's chronicler in chief.” — Nick Bryant, BBC “No, Bob Woodward is not a Democratic operative. He’s a highly respected journalist who has a track record of writing meticulously detailed books about presidents with an uncanny knack for getting behind-the-scenes details.” — POLITICO Playbook “He’s got tapes. That’s what the Trump White House really did not understand until today, if they understand it even now.” — Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC “I think you’ve always been fair.” — President Donald J. Trump, in a call to Bob Woodward, August 14, 2018 About the Author Bob Woodward is an associate editor at The Washington Post where he has worked for 49 years and reported on every American president from Nixon to Trump. He has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes, first for the Post ’s coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein, and second 20 years later as the lead Po st reporter for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Maltese 2017 Calendar

Large Letter Postcards: The Definitive Guide, 1930s-1950s: The Definitive Guide, 1930s-1950s

About the Author Fred Tenney developed a passion for buying and selling collectibles, particularly postcards. He is a prominent buyer and seller of the large-letter genre. Kevin Hilbert has collected postcards since early childhood and was bitten by the "large letter" bug in the 2000s. They both reside in Arizona

CP69059 - Progressive Blues Rhythm Guitar Method BK/CD