A remarkable account of the life of Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw, former Lord Mayor, Freeman of the City of Manchester, and President of the Insitute of Mathematics.

In her fourth book of memoirs, Margaret Wharton continues her G.I. bride reminiscences as she paints a picture of life in England before, during, and after World War II. Emphasizing the years from her arrival in the United States until her retirement in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, she tells of her initial homesickness as she is assimilated into a new way of life and describes her years as a housewife in a small suburban town as she raises two sons and resumes her teaching career. She relates the many travels that she and her husband made together, the accounts taken from the detailed journals she assiduously kept of the trips. She also tells something of the Southern family she married into and goes on to talk of the retirement life she and her husband lead in Chapel Hill. Her book is a highly polished piece of work comprising an ingenious blend of people, places, history, geography, and literature. Mrs. Wharton has a vast knowledge of history and excellent control of language along with a vivid descriptive flair. She reproduces her experiences with clarity and conviction. Talk of Many Things offers a colorful, informative, and individual account of a unique experience shared by a number of young women, not only from England, but from many other countries, in the immediate post war years.

“Cheekaah . . . Cheekaah . . . would you do me a favor . . . for Christmas . . . a present . . . would you . . . would you . . . write your life?” How can a grandfather say anything but yes to a twelve-year-old granddaughter? So here is my life. Cheekaah

Let Us Talk of Many Things, first published in 2000, brings together Buckley's finest speeches from throughout his career. Always deliciously provocative, they cover a vast range of topics: the end of the Cold War, manners in politics, the failure of the War on Drugs, the importance of winning the America's Cup, and much else. Reissued with additional speeches, Let Us Talk of Many Things is the ideal gift for any serious conservative.

A walrus and a carpenter encounter some oysters during their walk on the beach--an unfortunate meeting for the oysters.

Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of prac­ticing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct com­plex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By complet­ing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the meth­ods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard key­board, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the sim­ple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Fig­ure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcompo­nents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accu­rate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chain­saws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.

**Named a Best Book of the Year by The Boston Globe, Garden & Gun, Electric Literature, and St. Louis Public Radio** The New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Delights and Inciting Joy is back with exactly the book we need in these unsettling times. Margaret Roach of The New York Times says, “Yes, please. I'll have another dose of delight.” In Ross Gay’s new collection of small, daily wonders, again written over the course of a year, one of America’s most original voices continues his ongoing investigation of delight. For Gay, what delights us is what connects us, what gives us meaning, from the joy of hearing a nostalgic song blasting from a passing car to the pleasure of refusing the “nefarious” scannable QR code menus, from the tiny dog he fell hard for to his mother baking a dozen kinds of cookies for her grandchildren. As always, Gay revels in the natural world—sweet potatoes being harvested, a hummingbird carousing in the beebalm, a sunflower growing out of a wall around the cemetery, the shared bounty from a neighbor’s fig tree—and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us. The Book of (More) Delights is a volume to savor and share.