Many people might assume that growing up in a town with less than three hundred residents would be quite dull and uneventful. But for author Tina Rye Sloan, growing up in tiny Detroit, Alabama, was anything but boring. In her delightful memoir Southern Serendipity, Sloan shares some rather entertaining and almost unbelievable accounts of life in the Deep South. From discovering numerous mischievous uses for dish soap to miraculously surviving a slide off the tin roof of a barn-propelled by a slick coating of baby oil-Sloan provides a look at the rich upbringing she was fortunate to have, despite her family's poverty. Southern Serendipity also offers a glimpse into Southern small-town life during the late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. Sloan inadvertently yet artfully describes many facets of Southern culture, from colloquialisms to gardening to education. The collection of heartwarming stories in Southern Serendipity is based around several families whose lives in this small Southern town were woven together like strong, colorful threads in a tapestry.

"Many of the findings in the book . . . are classics of ecology. . . . A rare and delightful insight into timely science."—Jane Lubchenco, Nature "Estes's refreshing narrative deftly weaves rigorous science with personal reflection to create an absorbing and introspective read that is equal parts memoir, ecological textbook, and motivational guidebook for young ecologists."—Science To newly minted biologist James Estes, the sea otters he was studying in the leafy kelp forests off the coast of Alaska appeared to have an unbalanced relationship with their greater environment. Gorging themselves on the sea urchins that grazed among the kelp, these small charismatic mammals seemed to give little back in return. But as Estes dug deeper, he unearthed a far more complex relationship between the otter and its underwater environment, discovering that otters play a critical role in driving positive ecosystem dynamics. While teasing out the connective threads, he began to question our assumptions about ecological relationships. These questions would ultimately inspire a lifelong quest to better understand the surprising complexity of our natural world and the unexpected ways we discover it. Serendipity tells the story of James Estes’s life as a naturalist and the concepts that have driven his interest in researching the ecological role of top-level predators. Using the relationships between sea otters, kelp, and sea urchins as a touchstone, Estes retraces his investigations of numerous other species, ecosystems, and ecological processes in an attempt to discover why ecologists can learn so many details about the systems in which they work and yet understand so little about the broader processes that influence these systems. Part memoir, part natural history, and deeply inquisitive, Serendipity will entertain and inform readers as it raises thoughtful questions about our relationship with the natural world.

In this book the author narrates the story depicting the criminal minds and activities of fictitious twin brothers. The island of Serendipity is a non-existent island and its location described in the book is imaginary. The main purpose of this book is to bring to the awareness of its readers the abhorrent crimes perpetrated by leaders of several countries on their own citizens, presented as a narrative in this book. Their crimes include genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes. The leaders of those countries are motivated by greed and power with pure malice aforethought and hatred for their countrymen. They have no regard for the sanctity of human life. The author wishes to quote Edmund Burke who said, All that is needed for the evil to succeed is that the decent human beings do nothing.

Southern writers, historians, and artists celebrate the life and career of a beloved mentor, friend, and colleague Edited by southern historians Orville Vernon Burton and Eldred E. Prince, Jr., Becoming Southern Writers pays tribute to South Carolinian Charles Joyner's fifty year career as a southern historian, folklorist, and social activist. Exceptional writers of fact, fiction, and poetry, the contributors to the volume are among Joyner's many friends, admirers, and colleagues as well as those to whom Joyner has served as a mentor. The contributors describe how they came to write about the South and how they came to write about it in the way they do while reflecting on the humanistic tradition of scholarship as lived experience. The contributors constitute a Who's Who of southern writers—from award-winning literary artists to historians. Freed from constraints of their disciplines by Joyner's example, they enthusiastically describe family reunions, involvement in the civil rights movement, research projects, and mentors. While not all contributors are native to the South or the United States and a few write about the South only occasionally, all the essayists root their work in southern history, and all have made distinguished contributions to southern writing. Diverse in theme and style, these writings represent each author's personal reflections on experiences living in and writing about the South while touching on topics that surfaced in Joyner's own works, such as race, family, culture, and place. Whether based on personal or historical events, each one speaks to Joyner's theme that "all history is local history, somewhere."

Calling all chiliheads! This revised edition of Jane Butel's instant classic includes more than 160 recipes to feed the irresistible passion and teach the methods to chili madness. These recipes are not only for chili, but for all kinds of delicious dishes that use chilies in some creative and unexpected ways. Included throughout are bits of legendary origins and spiritual beginnings, a chili rating scale, and cook-off lore. In addition, Jane guides you through parching and peeling your own dried pods and fresh peppers, the 10-Step Chili Fitness Plan, the controversy of beans vs no beans, and beef vs. pork.