This is an enthrawling short story that starts with instant anxiety, drama and fear. In this Story RUBY is faced with conflict and danger immediatley. This short story will grip instantly.There are as many Gods in this universe as there are beings. And the game we play is called “Touch.” It’s a form of spiritual hugging. Easy to begin, pretty much impossible to bring to a close.How it came about: Before the beginning of the universe, before there even was a universe, we all held hands—well, figuratively speaking. We touched, I guess would describe it (hence the name of the game), and touching we synchronized, and synchronized we decided (on three, everyone: 1-2-3) to BE. So now we all WERE. Simplicity itself.Then we decided to decide (on three, everyone) for the universe to BE. And so it WAS and still IS. Very much so. And, yes, I’m talking about this physical, Capital-U Universe, the one with galaxies, stars, planets, black holes, oceans, parking tickets, crazy politicians, and inane commercials. Yes, this one.The rules of “Touch” are few and simple.Rule number One says that once we’ve made the Big One—which is basically somewhere to play this game—anyone of us can, if synchronized with (i.e., touching) anyone else—either one or many as the case may be—decide on a new smaller (I guess that would be lower-case-u) universe, within the Big One. “Sub-universe” would be as good a word as any. And from then on they, those who co-decided, would share this thing, this co-created sub-universe, and it will remain real as anything, going forward.Nazi Germany was/is a pretty blatant example of this, if deadly and in very bad taste. Rome was/is another. Soccer huddles, too.Your marriage is probably one. Trysts often are. Most romances, for sure.Now, according to rule number Two, to end one of these sub-universes (for they can all be brought to a close, i.e., ceased), all you have to do is re-synchronize and non-decide the thing. Non-decide might also be a word for it. You know, like dis-appear. First it appears then it disappears—first you decide then you non-decide. But non-decide is closer to the truth, so we’ll stick with that.So, first you decide, then you non-decide. Really, it’s as easy as 1-2-3. Could not be simpler. And to end the Big One altogether (and this is rule number Three), all we have to do is re-synchronize and non-decide IT. I ask you, what could be simpler?On paper.For, oh yeah, there is a rule number Four (and why we agreed on this one I shall never know, but it’s on the books, I’m afraid, and still very much in force): In order to end the Big One, in order to un-BE (non-decide) the entire universe, each and every sub-universe, large and small, must first be non-decided. That’s right, before we can all touch and un-BE the lot, i.e., the Big One, we must clear out all the sub-ones.I guess we decided this into the “Touch” rules to protect the Big One, to make it hard to vanish, i.e., make it last. And that has worked (and still works) like a charm for the Big One, as you know, is still very much in play.Needless to say, this all happened a few unforeseen complications ago, for by last count there were 8,444,547,856,334 first generation sub-universes on this planet alone, and each of these have since sprouted many, many, many generations of subs who in turn, well you get the point.And to make matters a little more harrowing (from the standpoint of climbing back out of this sizeable hole by ending the Big One), by now most of us have not only forgotten the name of the game, but that this is all, in fact, a game.And, sad to say, the handful who do remember are mostly locked up (for their own protection, or so the story goes).

Sometimes it's hard to move on from the person you were to the person you want to be!After being released from rehab Leighton is determined to finally put his demons to bed, but some ghosts won't go quietly.

The Recipe for the Perfect Bar Cart! Like with any good drink, the secret to creating a winning bar cart is to understand its components. The Bar Cart Bible breaks down these elements and provides you with the necessary information, including:300+ cocktail recipesBottles to have on handA glassware guideRequired equipmentMeasurement chartsDefinitions of bartending terminologyGarnish suggestionsMixology tips4 pieces of frame-ready, decorative artNow isn't it time for a drink?

In this contemplative mystery novel, because death is unknown, life becomes the puzzle. War In A Beautiful Country follows Regina as she is suddenly forced to find her way through a newly dangerous life already rocked by emotional loss and artistic disappointment. An unexpected event, turns everything around.Last weekend I was looking through my computer. Over the years I've written short stories on whatever subject that interested me at the moment. Here is a sample for you to enjoy. In the properties of each file I found the earliest date recorded on my present computer and listed it. I included it for your information only. I only did minor editing to clean up the stories. I only ask one thing. After you read these stories, please go to the end of the book and click on the link and let me know how you liked each story. A simple GOOD, BAD, TERRIBLE, QUIT POLLUTING THE INTERNET WITH E-BOOKS, or any other comment will let me know which type of stories you like. I don't aim to please, because I write for my enjoyment, whether you like them or not. However, I do listen and sometimes change my mind.Back before I knew about e-books I took a writing course online. One of the questions asked was my goal to get published. Because I knew that the publishing houses controlled writers, I replied that I wanted to collect a thousand rejection slips. The instructor praised me for my attitude because she said that many aspiring writers gave up after rejections by the print publication houses. I failed because I only collected seven before I discovered online publishing at Smashwords. No use banging my head against a brick wall where someones else's preconceived ideas limit my freedom of expression.

When a bunch of unwanted kitchen appliances discover they are up for auction on the Internet they decide to take action - and fast! Using only their powers as gadgets they plan to escape from their suburban home and the household's bully-boy son Zack.This adventure-packed full-length 69,000 word book is a must for readers aged eight years-old and upwards.The Gadgets come alive in a book that lifts the lid on what life is really like on your kitchen worktop. You will never look at those appliances the same way again. The gadgets which include a blender, fat fryer, knife, coffee machine, ice cream maker, grill, warming tray and many more must escape from their environment using their powers as gadgets. If they don't succeed they will be auctioned off on the Internet and the shame of being a second-hand gadget is too much to bear.But they are in fear of 12 year-old bully boy Zack who wreaks havoc wherever he goes. Even if they do manage to get outside they have to find somewhere to hide and with the Garden Gang on the loose the outside world can be very frightening.This adventure-packed full-length 69,000 word book has unforgettable characters like Deep Fat the fryer, Jane Dough the bread-maker, Blade the handsome kitchen knife and many many more. Follow the gadgets' fantastic adventures and endearing relationships in this first of a series of books.

The classic book on the development of human language by the world’s leading expert on language and the mind. In this classic, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistics Society of America. This edition includes an update on advances in the science of language since The Language Instinct was first published.

A cross country train trip proves to be the most dangerous trip Rachel Payne has ever taken. Plagued by nightmares and unable to eat or sleep, she begins to feel like she's losing her mind. Then, she and six other passengers become trapped in a train car by a sadistic, demon-possessed young man. Rachel is faced with betrayal and death as the demon threatens to murder them all.33 year-old Rachel Payne is on her way to start a life new. Divorced, childless, and penniless, Rachel has nothing to show for her life, and nothing to lose. The life she has been living never felt right to her. She went to college, got a job, got married, had a house and cars, tried to have children but couldn't. While she tried to fit the mold of a “normal” woman in society, she always felt there was something else out there, waiting for her.The 51 hour train route from Chicago to San Francisco proves to be the most dangerous trip she’s ever taken. Plagued by nightmares and unable to eat or sleep, she begins to feel like she's losing her mind. Then, she and six other passengers become trapped in a train car by a sadistic, demon-possessed young man. Rachel is faced with betrayal and death as the demon exposes the passengers' deadly sins and threatens to murder them all. Armed with only an innate ability to identify the demon for what it is, Rachel endures the first of many horrors that will inevitably consume her life.

This book contains ten short stories written by William Forde, the founder of Anger Management and a leading Relaxation Trainer in Great Britain for over 50 years. It has been written for the 5-9 year-old reader and provides an ideal 10-minute reading slot fill for children during morning assemblies at school and before going to sleep at night. The stories deal with child problem issues of today.In areas of educational, social and moral development, the power of ‘story-telling’ remains unsurpassed. It is an important avenue of effective communication and learning between parent and child; teacher and pupil. ‘Everyone and Everything’ are short punchy stories that maintain the interest of the 5-9 year-old child.‘Story-telling’ stimulates the imaginative and creative processes of the mind and body and makes more things possible than would otherwise be achieved without it. To storytell about issues concerning behaviour that creates everyday problems for the child reader and which can relate to emotions that the child finds difficult to healthily express is a sure-fire way of grabbing their attention time span.The ten stories in ‘Everyone and Everything’ were written for the 5-9-year-old reader in 1990. While they helped to raise a lot of money through their sales for ‘Children in Need’ during November, 1990, their true value is that they can greatly assist in the improvement of aggressive and tense behaviours by children today.I wanted all of the stories I wrote in ‘Everyone and Everything’ to embrace and include the basic principles of Relaxation Training methods and Anger Management aspects of behaviour. As the original founder of ‘Anger Management’ courses in Great Britain during the early 70s and a leading exponent and instructor of Relaxation Training since the age of 22 years, I felt suitably equipped to write about those aspects of behaviour.‘Everyone and Everything’ was my very first published children’s book and proved so popular with children, class-room teachers and school heads that approximately 4,000 copies were sold within the Kirklees Community during November, 1990 alone.‘Everyone and Everything’ went on to prove so popular with heads of schools in subsequent years, not only because of the issues the stories raised, but because of their length and language used. They were easy to read and be read to, and for busy head teachers, the stories could be used ideally within a ten-minute morning-assembly slot. I offer this book freely as an e-book and would advise the school teachers and head teachers of our Primary School Children to consider the merits of reintroducing some of the stories therein to their future school assemblies. I would also ask any downloader of this book who enjoys its content, to promote its readership base and to make a small donation to the Children in Need Appeal next November.William Forde 22nd May, 2012

Outside the Palace Walls is quick tale of a king and the chasm between sheltered royalty and the reality of his kingdom.A 13 year old boy of the Yoruba ethnic group of what used to be South Western Nigeria gets caught in the intriguing world of changes sweeping the political landscape in his native Yoruba state, which in itself, is a fragment of the Nigerian state broken up by coups, corruption and ethnic disputes. The raging storm of political antecedents forces the boy to take a philosophical yet seemingly childish entry into the world of his nation's cultural, social and political landscape. With historical information supplied by the few adults around him, scholarly storytellers who believe that history and past incidents are the best predictors of future incidents, he is forced to take the role of a rising younger generation whose heroic actions can clean the past mistakes of the men made by the nation’s corrupt political class, he puts down his thoughts and experiences through a whirlwind of events. His story forms the trigger that eventually establishes a new system of government in a state where democracy is considered a failure. What will you see if you look at the political landscape through the eyes of a child?Will these responsibilities become the initiation of a good man made by the politics played around him or be the birth of a new generation of men carrying the genes of the old class.

This is a short essay about fan fiction and it being a world wide thing.When a vengeful physicist captures Agent Six of Hearts and blasts him backwards through time, he has one chance to prevent her from unleashing a catastrophe. If he can find and destroy the components of her time machine, he can stop her from ever building it – but the components are under lock and key. Luckily, he crosses paths with teenage super-thief Ashley Arthur. Unluckily, she has her own agenda... From the award-winning author of The Cut Out and 400 Minutes Of Danger, this is a non-stop roller coaster ride through spacetime.

Poor Folk is an epistolary novel -- that is, a tale told as a series of letters between the characters. And oh, what characters these are! Makar Dievushkin Alexievitch is a copy writer, barely squeaking by; Barbara Dobroselova Alexievna works as a seamstress, and both face the sort of everyday humiliation society puts upon the poor. These are people respected by no one, not even by themselves. These are folks too poor, in their circumstances, to marry; the love between them is a chaste and proper thing, a love that brings some readers to tears. But it isn't maudlin, either; Fyodor Dostoevsky has something profound to say about these people and this circumstance. And he says it very well. When the book was first published a leading Russian literary critic of the day -- Belinsky -- prophesied that Dostoevsky would become a literary giant. It isn't hard to see how he came to that conclusion, and in hindsight, he was surely was correct.

A play about ‘second chances’ based upon the four 'Sleezy the Fox’ stories that the late Princess Diana used to read to her children, William and Harry when they were aged 9 and 7 years respectively. Written by the founder of ‘Anger Management’ courses in Great Britain in the 70s, the stories were originally written for the purposes of radio transmission and are highly popular with schools.This play has been adapted from the four ‘Sleezy the Fox’ stories, which were recorded in the early 1990s for the original purpose of radio transmission.The prominent theme of the story is one of ‘second chances’, something that all of us require from time to time in our lives.In my earlier years of development, I needed ‘second chances’ on many occasions and was lucky enough to have received ‘second chances’ at crucial periods of my life. ‘Second chances’ not only redeemed my character, but it also reformed my behaviour from that of thief to one of honest citizen.In later life, as a Probation Officer and the founder of ‘Anger Management’ courses in Great Britain in the early 70s, I was able to afford the opportunity of receiving a ‘second chance’ to many people who displayed aggressive impulses that they were initially unable to control and manage.When Princes William and Harry were 9 and 7 years old respectively, their mother came across these stories, contacted me and requested that I send her a copy of my 'Douglas the Dragon' and 'Sleezy the Fox' stories that she wanted to read to her sons at their bedtime. It is a nice thought to know that the next King of England was read the stories of ‘Sleezy the Fox’ as a child by his mother, the late Princess Diana.The play has been written in a manner that makes it ideally suitable to be performed by schools and is arranged in such a way as to make the inclusion of a number of selected and suitable songs at appropriately spaced junctures possible to turn it into a Musical Play.

OVER 60 WEEKS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST With a new Afterword by the author   In The Power of Habit, Pulitzer Prize–winning business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. Distilling vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives that take us from the boardrooms of Procter & Gamble to sidelines of the NFL to the front lines of the civil rights movement, Duhigg presents a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential. At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, being more productive, and achieving success is understanding how habits work. As Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NPR BESTSELLER • WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER • LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER • USA TODAY BESTSELLER • PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Wall Street Journal • Financial Times “Sharp, provocative, and useful.”—Jim Collins “Few [books] become essential manuals for business and living. The Power of Habit is an exception. Charles Duhigg not only explains how habits are formed but how to kick bad ones and hang on to the good.”—Financial Times “A flat-out great read.”—David Allen, bestselling author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity   “You’ll never look at yourself, your organization, or your world quite the same way.”—Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of Drive and A Whole New Mind *  “Entertaining . . . enjoyable . . . fascinating . . . a serious look at the science of habit formation and change.”—The New York Times Book Review “Cue: see cover. Routine: read book. Reward: fully comprehend the art of manipulation.”—Bloomberg Businessweek   “Absolutely fascinating.”—Wired “A fresh examination of how routine behaviors take hold and whether they are susceptible to change . . . The stories that Duhigg has knitted together are all fascinating in their own right, but take on an added dimension when wedded to his examination of habits.”*— Associated Press   “There’s been a lot of research over the past several years about how our habits shape us, and this work is beautifully described in the new book The Power of Habit.”—David Brooks, *The New York Times  * “A first-rate book—based on an impressive mass of research, written in a lively style and providing just the right balance of intellectual seriousness with practical advice on how to break our bad habits.”—The Economist  * “I have been spinning like a top since reading The Power of Habit, New York Times journalist Charles Duhigg’s fascinating best-seller about how people, businesses and organizations develop the positive routines that make them productive—and happy.”—*The Washington Post From the Trade Paperback edition.

Thirty-four years have gone by since an ingenious biochemist, named Louis Picard, invented the ultimate anti-aging drug in 1981, that is known as Telomerax. An apocalyptic novel based on political and scientific facts, “The Last Enemy” blends reality and fiction with a reflection on human nature and her possible future.“The last enemy to be destroyed shall be death”, wrote St. Paul in his letters. But what if someone has already managed to defeat it? Thirty-four years have gone by since an ingenious biochemist, named Louis Picard, invented the ultimate anti-aging drug in 1981, that is known as Telomerax. Louis was obliged to form a selected group of technology entrepreneurs, finance mavens, and secret service professionals to help strategically spread knowledge of the drug. The discovery of Telomerax carried obvious dangers with it, eventually leading to the collapse of society and the near-extinction of mankind, in the ruthless war that broke out. Survivors set out to design a new society, specially designed for the half-gods that individuals were becoming. An action-packed and thrilling apocalyptic novel, “The Last Enemy”, brings to light many issues that we face today, from the clash between the power of the state and the right of citizens, to respecting our limits and controlling the human drive to push ourselves beyond those very limits.