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"Tarah Carson has hidden the secret for years. No one--not her mother, her friends at Bluford High, or even her boyfriend, Cooper Hodden--knows what her uncle did to her years ago. Tarah hoped to keep it that way. But an upcoming reunion is forcing Tarah's past into the present." --Back cover.

The Venice Literary Review is a book of short essays and musings about aging, the challenges of change, a move to Florida from New York during the pandemic, adjustment to a highly regulated gated community for retirees, diminishing physical abilities, memories of the past, and the struggles of being a writer.

The first biography in many years of Henry IIIThe son and successor of Bad King John, Henry III reigned for 56 years from 1216, the first child king in England for 200 years. England went on to prosper during his reign and his greatest monument is Westminster Abbey, which he made the seat of his government—indeed, Henry III was the first English King to call a parliament. Though often overlooked by historians, Henry III was a unique figure coming out of a chivalric yet Gothic era: a compulsive builder of daunting castles and epic sepulchres; a powerful, unyielding monarch who faced down the De Montfort rebellion and waged war with Wales and France; and, much more than his father, Henry was the king who really hammered out the terms of the Magna Carta with the barons. John Paul Davis brings all his forensic skills and insights to the grand story of the Gothic King in this, the only biography in print of a most remarkable monarch.

As we begin the third millennium there is cause for cautious optimism regarding the human prospect. Democratic revolutions and the doctrine of universal human rights have captured the imagination of large sectors of humanity, while major advances in science and technology continue to conquer disease and extend life, contributing to rising standards of living, affluence, and cultural freedom on a worldwide basis. Paradoxically, at the same time ancient authoritarian fundamentalist religions have grown in vitriolic intensity along with bizarre New Age, media-driven paranormal belief systems. Also surprising is the resurgence of primitive tribal and ethnic loyalties, unleashing wars of intolerance and bitterness. In Skepticism and Humanism, Paul Kurtz locates these threatening developments within a long-standing and largely unchallenged theological worldview. He proposes, as an alternative to religion, a new cultural paradigm rooted in scientific naturalism, rationalism, and a humanistic outlook. An estimated 60 percent of scientists are atheists or agnostics. However, the skeptical world view has been given little currency even in advanced societies, because of a cultural prohibition against the criticism of religion. At the same time, science has become increasingly narrow and specialized so that few people can draw on its broader intellectual and cultural implications. Skepticism and Humanism attempts to meet this need. It defends skepticism as a method for developing reliable knowledge by using scientific inquiry and reason to test all claims to truth. It also defends scientific naturalism-an evolutionary view of nature, life, and the human species. Kurtz sees the dominant religious doctrines as drawn from an agricultural/nomadic past, and emphasizes the need for a new outlook applicable to the postindustrial information age. At the same time, he rejects postmodernism for abandoning science and embracing a form of nihilism. There can be no doubt that as a new global civilization emerges, scientific naturalism, rationalism, and secular humanism have something significant to say about the meaning of life. Skepticism and Humanism shows how they can to foster democratic values and social prosperity. The book will be important for philosophers, scientists, and all those concerned with contemporary issues.

Blue knows you are here - and wants you gone. Blue, The Earth, is feeling rough. The time has now come for a consultation and radical treatment plan to remove what ails him- the Human race. Michael Johnson is woken by a strange unnatural light at 3am on a January morning. There is no electricity, no television or radio and no explanation as to what has occurred. He walks through the strange light to the beach where he finds bodies floating in the sea. - The treatment has begun. Patient Blue is an irreverent contemporary novel tinged with dark humour. The story focuses on the lives loves, death and resurrection of a diverse group of characters facing catastrophic events beyond their control. The action is set against a background of cataclysmic upheavals as Blue, undergoes radical treatment to remove a very persistent and tenacious ailment once and for all.