This book is part of the World Voice Project Book Series which invites you to become part of one of the largest emerging Community Learning Networks (CLN) seeking to encourage a participatory culture worldwide. This project selects works that bring about conversation, raise awareness, contrast thoughts and opinions, entertain, inform, and give voice to those who have struggled to be heard. We do this in order to express who "WE" are on a global scale. These works become part of the historical record while inviting the reader to step into another's shoes. The World Voice Project has the goal of fostering the communication and commonality between people across cultures and beyond borders. It is our hope that the World Voice Project might inspire its readers to take hold of their own creative capacity and fashion their life in a way that makes them proud

Telling tales explores the narrative construction of identity within organisations and how this is resisted and challenged by writing coming from other lifestyles. Since the early 1990s, US-inspired changes in workplace culture have radically altered the experience of UK workers. This book argues that the corporate communication supporting these changes, which seeks to align employee behaviour and attitudes with emerging organisational market values, is having a powerful and harmful effect on those whose identity rests in opposing qualitatively-based occupational standards. By focusing on accountability measures, introduced to the public sector post-1997 by New Labour as a means to raise productivity and lower cost, and with forensic attention to a supporting transformational identity discourse, author Angela Lait shows how workers struggle to achieve the satisfaction and fulfilment at work that was once the mainstay of their professional middle class identity. Reading these identity problems into and across business self-help manuals, fiction (Ian McEwan’s Saturday), the writing of celebrity chefs (Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver et al) and autobiography, the argument traces a sickness/recovery dialectic in which sufferers find resistance and solace through engagement with particular types of creative labour. These are, most notably, cookery, gardening and writing, which each employ alternative language and narrative forms that order experience according to more regulated rhythms and rituals, and more productive and stable relationships than are possible in paid employment. Telling tales is a highly-readable, engaging, broad-ranging and interdisciplinary story that will have strong appeal to academics, particularly in literature, sociology, organisational and cultural studies. It will also resonate with anyone trying to reconcile the conflicting work and personal needs of a hectic twenty-four/seven modern world.

In a game where anything goes my life is defined by how I test others. I am a player in the Great Game and the only thing that is keeping me alive is having a life that is interesting and entertaining. For centuries, the Architects have moved people like

What distinguishes us, what sets us apart? How do we know we are good enough? We are told we are worthy, loved beyond all measures. Why do we strive to be loved, only to feel unloved? We strive to feel together, only to feel broken. Maybe it is faith that sets us apart, that defines us, that creates life. Five simple letters, yet one great meaning. The force that keeps us together, that makes us feel loved, that gives us life. Faith. Daring our souls to go beyond what our eyes see. To believe in the unknown and hope for things anew. Faith that shines through when the rain is pouring down. When puddles collect at our feet in a dirty mess, faith wipes us clean. It heals our wounds and brings a smile to the broken hearted.

The Casino in Connecticut is the capital building for those of us in the Great Game who live in New England. My friend Matt is a professional gambler who thought he discovered a game full of high rollers to crash, but it wasn't that simple. Since friends invite their friends along when they do stupid things I came along for the ride. What we discovered is that there are people betting on what utter strangers will do next. These Architects of behavior have the money and power to do more than make you disappear. For centuries, the Architects have moved people like puppets, and encouraged players to become monsters with no law constraining us, but their own. What we share here is our journey into a world where anything is possible, and you will be amazed at how simple this all seems. Based on a true story, and it will have you doubting what you know. Everyone questions if someone has already been pulling their strings. Even the paranoid are right sometimes...

The Casino in Connecticut is the capital building for those of us in the Great Game who live in New England. My friend Matt is a professional gambler who thought he discovered a game full of high rollers to crash, but it wasn't that simple. Since friends invite their friends along when they do stupid things I came along for the ride. What we discovered is that there are people betting on what utter strangers will do next. These Architects of behavior have the money and power to do more than make you disappear. They will make you live a life that the average person believes can only be fantasy, and the alternative is often worse. This mostly true story will make you doubt the facts and make you question if someone really is pulling your strings. Even the paranoid are right sometimes...