A novel of one man’s ambitious life and tragic love from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Captains and the Kings. As the twentieth century begins, Frank Clair comes of age near the Canadian border of upstate New York, haunted by early memories of England. Unloved by his parents and bullied by local children, Frank finds happiness only in stolen moments with his friend Jessica. But when fate tears these young friends apart, he fears he will never be truly close to another person again. Striking out for the mountains of Kentucky, Frank attempts to make his fortune in oil. But his artist’s sensibility is ill suited to the cutthroat business world, and a violent showdown sends him back to New York, where he finds work as a magazine writer. Only when he channels his rage and despair into a novel about a family of war profiteers does Frank strike upon a formula for the wealth and success he’s been so desperate to achieve. But when he sets out to find Jessica and win back her heart, Frank discovers that his unlikely rise to the top may have come at a price too high to bear.

BONUS: This edition contains a Once Upon a Time, There Was You discussion guide. Even on their wedding day, John and Irene sensed that they were about to make a mistake. Years later, divorced, dating other people, and living in different parts of the country, they seem to have nothing in common—nothing except the most important person in each of their lives: Sadie, their spirited eighteen-year-old daughter. Feeling smothered by Irene and distanced from John, Sadie is growing more and more attached to her new boyfriend, Ron. When tragedy strikes, Irene and John come together to support the daughter they love so dearly. What takes longer is to remember how they really feel about each other. Elizabeth Berg’s immense talent shines in this unforgettable novel about the power of love, the unshakeable bonds of family, and the beauty of second chances.

On the day the Second World War broke out, Frank White was a 12-year-old schoolboy in Manchester. On the day it ended, he was serving on a Royal Navy warship in the Indian Ocean. In 2013, he started to write this novel. 'What I wanted to do,' he says, 'was to capture that feeling of those times and remind people of what the country went through.' 'Fabulous, often funny . . . the authentic, freewheeling atmosphere of a time when all bets were off' Daily Mail As Churchill and the nation face their darkest hour in 1940, a Lincolnshire village wakes up to a glorious summer's morning. Following Dunkirk, the fate of the whole war will soon rest with the RAF and their desperate effort to win the Battle of Britain. If they fail, Hitler's next step will be invasion. And as the scene comes to life before us over the next six months, this shadow of war will not disappear. From the pub to the church, struggling single mother to the lady of the manor, the paper boy to a traumatised bomb disposal volunteer, this superb jewel of a novel portrays a community of people and weaves together their stories with passion, betrayal, intrigue and suspense. There Was a Time is a triumph of the storyteller's art. This edition includes a new Author's Note and additional illustrations by the author.

It is the summer of 1945, the last and very dangerous days of World War II. The Office of Strategic Services is in close, cooperative contact with Ho Chi Minh and the fighting cadre of the Viet Minh, working against the Japanese. In the closing months of the war, the OSS parachute a team of special operations soldiers into Tonkin, northern Viet Nam. Led by Major John Guthrie and his second-in-command, Captain Edouard Parnell, both experienced officers from their earlier assignments in occupied France and Belgium, the team is tasked with working with Ho Chi Minh against the Japanese in the midst of various groups vying for control of Indochina. Guthrie and his team have to adapt to the entirely different context of Vietnamese politics in order to encourage communist operations against the Japanese. Guthrie in particular, struggles with both his personal and professional conflicts. The relationship that Guthrie and the rest of the OSS team develops with the Viet Minh leadership is of distinct annoyance to French ambitions to regain control of their colony, Indochina. Based on the little-known true story of American and Viet Minh collaboration in 1945, this novel challenges the later-accepted dogma of both those supporting and those opposing the American role in the Viet Nam conflict. This novel notes how what is seen at a later time is often inadequate to understand what actually went on. Its contemporary relevance is simply a mirror of what is always the case in international affairs: today’s enemies can and may be tomorrow’s friends – and most importantly, the reverse is true also.

Now available in its second edition! The first ever book on the Garage Rock and Psychedelic Rock & Roll scene in North Carolina during the 1960s. Interviews with many of the top musicians in North Carolina, and details on the singles, and albums that came from North Carolina during that decade. The book details the Charlotte scene, while also covering that was going on throughout the state.

Introduce your little one to fables and fairy tales from around the world with this spellbinding series of board books for children. Little Bird has broken her wing and can't fly south for the winter with her friends. She has to find shelter, but will any trees offer her a safe place to rest? This charming retelling of a Native American tale of why evergreen trees keep their leaves in winter teaches children about the importance of being kind and sharing. This story is the perfect length for bedtime reading, and Maja Andersen's colorful illustrations bring the magic and wonder of the tale to life. It is sure to be a storybook that little ones will treasure forever.

When I refer to schools in the five essays on education that comprise While Theres Time, I have elementary and secondary schools in mind. I approached this writing from the perspective of an insider, so to speak, as I have worked extensively in the field of education, first as a high school teacher and now as a professor of education in a university. These essays were prompted by dissatisfaction and a desire. Increasingly over the last few years, I have felt uncomfortable with the conventional wisdom in my field about how students ought to be educated. It just didn't set right with me. Labels vary for the mainstream thinking in the profession, but let's call it a progressive or neo-Deweyian (after the philosopher John Dewey) approach. Some might refer to it simply as modern education. Even though its advocates marshal compelling arguments in support of this set of ideas and practices (what they are will be spelled out in the essays), I was finding in my work in schools that it wasn't getting good enough results with students in the classroom, and that in any case it simply didn't fit me as a person or as a professional: my values, my hopes for schools and students and this society. So I felt an inner push to find an educational orientation that I could believe in more than the one that currently dominates in the field of education to the point that it could be called an orthodoxy, or at least find something that complements it, adds to it. These essays represent the results of my quest. I have concluded that the philosophical orientations that we most need to affirm and employ as bases for constructing school programs in our time are the very ones which are most often dismissed by professional educators, namely, conservatism and individualism. In these essays, I go into the specifics of conservative and libertarian orientations to education, explore what all the talk about teaching democracy in the schools is about, contrast sports and schools as settings, and use the concept of personal authenticity in a discussion of the work of teaching. What holds these five essays together is that they all are grounded in a conservative rather than liberal and individual-centered rather than collectivist frame of reference. These essays are self-contained enough to be read out of order, although I did line them up in the way that I think best presents my argument. I hope what I offer here informs the debate in this country over the best route to take in educating our children. I wrote this book with both general readers and professional educators in mind. For general readers, I hope what is here will provide them with a better understanding of how professional educators come at their work, and thereby enable them to deal with school people more effectively and give them some things they can take into account when determining what ought to go on in their children's education, or in schools generally. For people in the profession who read this book--teachers and administrators, those in training to become teachers, and so on--I believe these writings will provide them with a clearer understanding of the predominant thinking in their field; a good way to understand anything is to compare it with something that contrasts with it. I would presume, and hope, that for some educators and educators-to-be this book will provide them with ideas they can use to guide their work. Much of what follows is expressed in the first person. I thought that if I brought myself into this book it would encourage readers to bring themselves into it. I would like readers to see these writings as my half of a conversation. I want them to respond critically to what I have written and extend it, take it farther than I have been able to--and I don't think they have to be active in the field of education to be able to do that. I want readers to decide how, if at all, what I write changes the way they look at things, and what they a