Entertain with ease: "24 amusingly themed menus . . . the recipes—simple, classic and, above all, easy—will always be crowd-pleasers." — Publishers WeeklyThe best entertaining isn't about impressing people. It's about welcoming them to a comfortable setting, entertaining them with lively conversation and simple memorable food, and making them feel at home. In Around the Table, accomplished hostess Ellen Wright offers twenty-four seasonal menus, acc...

When released in 2003, The Room, an obscure, self-financed relationship drama by an eccentric self-taught filmmaker named Tommy Wiseau, should have been completely forgotten. Yet nearly two decades later, "the worst movie ever made"—as many a critic would have it—has become the most popular cult film since The Rocky Horror Picture Show.In You Are Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!, contributors explore this priceless cultural artifact, offering fans and film buffs c...

Born in Wisconsin in 1867, Frank Lloyd Wright became obsessed with a set of building blocks his mother had given to him on his ninth birthday. He grew up to become the father of organic architecture and the greatest American architect of all time, having designed more than 1,100 buildings during his lifetime. These included private homes – such as the stunning Fallingwater, churches, temples, a hotel, and the world-famous Guggenheim Museum in New York City. When asked how he could create s...

This volume explores, both in theory and in practice, what “social coordination” is and how public policies can help or hinder the processes of social coordination. In particular, these chapters examine the institutional incentives that motivate public policy decisions and their implementation to achieve specific individual and social goals. Some chapters in this volume are more theoretical, applying insights from the Austrian, Virginia, and Bloomington schools of political economy to publ...

Sitting prominently at the hearth of our homes, television serves as a voice of our modern time. Given our media-saturated society and television’s prominent voice and place in the home, it is likely we learn about our society and selves through these stories. These narratives are not simply entertainment, but powerful socializing agents that shape and reflect the world and our role in it. Television and the Self: Knowledge, Identity, and Media Representation brings together a diverse grou...

Lesbian Step Families: An Ethnography of Love explores five lesbian step families’definitions of the step parent role and how they accomplish parenting tasks, cope with homophobia, and define and interpret their experiences. An intensive feminist qualitative study, the book offers guidelines for counselors and lesbian step families for creating healthy, functioning family structures and environments. It is the first book to concentrate exclusively on lesbian step families rather than on le...

Winner of an Abraham Lincoln Institute Book AwardThough not blind to Abraham Lincoln's imperfections, Black Americans long ago laid a heartfelt claim to his legacy. At the same time, they have consciously reshaped the sixteenth president's image for their own social and political ends. Frederick Hord and Matthew D. Norman's anthology explores the complex nature of views on Lincoln through the writings and thought of Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary Mc...

The second volume of Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times contains sixteen essays on Tennessee women in the forefront of the political, economic, and cultural history of the state and assesses the national and sometimes international scope of their influence. The essays examine women’s lives in the broad sweep of nineteenth- and twentiethcentury history in Tennessee and reenvision the state’s past by placing them at the center of the historical stage and examining their experien...

As pastors' wives, the authors of this devotional personally have experienced or witnessed the issues with which women struggle: identity, marriage, children, work. Reading this devotional is like having a conversation with a trusted friend who knows what you are going through. Over 52 weeks, these authors share from their hearts using engaging Scriptures, real-life inspiration, and practical wisdom they have learned along the way. Each week focuses on one theme, and daily devotions includ...

In this intricate, magnificently imagined sequel to Blue Balliett's international bestseller, Chasing Vermeer, supersleuths Petra and Calder, along with Calder's old friend, Tommy, are cryptically drawn into another art mystery–this time involving a Frank Lloyd Wright architectural masterpiece, the Robie House.When the kids' sixth-grade class attempts to save the Hyde Park landmark from demolition, eerie events are reported: voices float out from within, shadows shift behi...

In Through the Darkness, into the Light, Ellen shares her extraordinary life story. She recalls thoughts and anecdotes from her early life and outlines the path she followed from a loving Christian family in childhood through disillusionment with and disbelief in God to the eventual renewal of her faith. Ellen encountered numerous momentous events, but one was so chilling and terrifying that it changed her life forever, pulling her back into the arms of God, who had never left her....

Home of the first settlement in the United States and known as Old Dominion and The Mother of Presidents, the state of Virginia’s artistic output proves among the most fecund in the nation, evidenced in this ninth volume of The Southern Poetry Anthology. This collection includes well-known, established, and celebrated poets such as Charles Wright, Claudia Emerson, Gregory Orr, Ellen Bryant Voigt, R. T. Smith, Forrest Gander, and Rita Dove, and the editors have dedicated equal focu...