Baseball Chronicles: A Collection of 32 Classic Storybooks captures the essence and nostalgia of America's pastime through a rich tapestry of stories that span myriad literary styles and contextual settings. Within this anthology, readers will find an exploration of the game's cultural impact, a testament to its roots, and its evolution through history. From dramatic narratives to humorous anecdotes, the collection showcases the multifaceted relationship between baseball and society, often...

J. E. Copus'Äôs "As Gold in the Furnace" is a compelling exploration of transformation and resilience, narrated through the struggles of individuals facing intense personal trials. The title itself evokes a metaphorical crucible, signifying how extreme adversity can refine the human spirit. Copus employs a poetic and lyrical style, rich in imagery and emotional depth, allowing readers to engage with the characters'Äô inner turmoil and triumphs. Set against a backdrop of socio-cultural uphe...

This book provides a comprehensive insight into contemporary management challenges shaped by digital transformation, operational excellence, and data-driven human resource strategies. It presents innovative frameworks for decision-making, workforce optimization, and financial innovation by integrating theoretical perspectives with real-world applications. With contributions from international scholars, it offers fresh perspectives on emerging technologies, sustainability, and business inte...

Digital transformation is reshaping how organizations create value, manage resources, and respond to an increasingly complex global environment. Data-Centric Business and Applications: Data-Driven Management – How Digital Transformation Shapes New Organizational Paradigms and Brings Challenges and Opportunities for the Modern Era brings together peer-reviewed research presented at the Poprad Economic and Management Forum (PEMF2025), offering a comprehensive view of how data-driven technolo...

Julia Copus's poems bring humanity and light to some of our most intimate and solitary moments, repeatedly breathing life into loss. In two previous collections, she has been feted as among the most compelling poets to have emerged in recent years; now, in The World's Two Smallest Humans, she is writing at her most captivating yet. These finely tuned poems are the fruit of her upbringing in a musical family, an affinity with the Classics, a fascination with the arc of time, and an unflinch...

It was night in the village - a still, dark night -and Harry the Hog was sleeping tight.In her house at the foot of Piggyback Hill,also asleep, was Candy Stripe Lil.The second Harry and Lil story from acclaimed Faber poet Julia Copus, who has recently turned her hand to picture books for the first time! The tale of a hog - and his friend Candy Stripe Lil - kept awake by mysterious noises in the night is sure to delight adults ...

100 poems to reach for on dark nights, selected by Julia Copus.These are poems to wander about in and commit to memory so they can be stored away in the deep heart's core; places to visit and return to at will.Poems that reawaken the senses and offer new ways of looking; that unsettle us and reconnect us to the world that surrounds us; that bring us to a place of greater clarity.Life Support includes a star-studded cast of authors including William Wordswort...

This book reflects on how the economies, social characteristics, ways of life and global relationships of rural areas of Europe have changed in recent years. This reveals a need to refresh the concepts we use to understand, measure and describe rural communities and their development potential. This book argues that Europe has 'outgrown' many of the stereotypes usually associated with it, with substantial implications for European Rural Policy.Rural structural change and its evolvi...

Drawing on classical and emerging research perspectives, this comprehensive book provides an up-to-date review of local government in Europe.Featuring an impressive range of contributors from both eastern and western Europe, the book addresses three main topics: territorial reforms, democratic empowerment of citizens and the role of local leadership, as well as new trends in local finances.Acknowledging their inherent diversity, the book examines the ways that local governm...

This book challenges the notion that bigger local government is always better. Whilst the central government in Britain has often supported increases in local government size, the book argues that this has been detrimental, and has caused the erosion of distinctive community identities that were previously represented by local authorities empowered to make significant local choices about services and future strategy. Drawing from national and international evidence, it offers an alternativ...

Directly elected mayors are political leaders who are selected directly by citizens and head multi-functional local government authorities. This book examines the contexts, features and debates around this model of leadership, and how in practice political leadership is exercised through it.The book draws on examples from Europe, the US, and Australasia to examine the impacts, practices, and debates of mayoral leadership in different cities and countries. Themes that recur througho...

WINNER OF THE DEREK WALCOTT PRIZE FOR POETRYJulia Copus's new collection, Girlhood, is a book of transgressed boundaries and seductive veneers. Restlessly inquisitive, it exposes the shifting power balance between things on the verge of becoming and the forces that threaten to destroy them.Reading these poems, we have the sense of encountering a series of filmic installations arranged by episode in a gallery. Lost, censored or disparaged voices speak out from seclude...