I remember Syl and Other Stories is a collection of dark stories set in West Africa. Valentine Umelo won the BBC African Performance Playwriting competition in 2002 with his radio play 'Knight in Shining Armour'. He also won a UNESCO residency award for his short story writing at the Ranieri Civetelli Institute in Umbra, Italy in 2006.

This is a collection of 14 absorbing short stories on a variety of interesting subjects. In Goodbye Old Friends, an elderly man is faced with losing his beloved team of mules. His health is failing and the care and companionship of his faithful friends of 15 years is his only reason to continue living. As he sits alone, during the night before the mules are to be taken by his son, he reflects on his long and adventurous life. The final goodbye to his old friends is a heart-wrenching scene. The other 13 stories cover a wide spectrum of subject matter.

Do you consider yourself well-versed in Canadas history? Ever heard of Domagaya, the Laurentian Iroquois who saved Jacques Cartiers expedition to the New World by teaching him the cure for scurvy? Or Charles Lennox, the Governor-General who died from the bite of a pet fox? Theres the Chief Justice of Upper Canada kept a pet alligator in his historic home, and Constable Pedley of the Mounties, who transported a sick missionary hundreds of miles through the Northern Alberta wilderness to get medical help while putting his own life at risk. Learn about the American bankers yacht, the S.S. Ramona, which faithfully served in the Royal Canadian Navy during the Battle of the Atlantic and ended her days plying the South Seas as a shrimp boat. All of these were true heroes of Canada. A collection of little-known tales of heroism from Canadas history, Last of the Rinkrats and Other Stories tells twenty-three unforgettable true stories of Canadas unsung heroes and forgotten characters.

In January 2012, one of EastEnders' longest-serving and best-loved characters breathed her last when Pat Butcher succumbed to cancer. Her departure from the show gave actress Pam St Clement time to reflect, not only on almost 26 years playing a role that she loved, but also on her whole life. Pam's mother died when she was a baby, leaving her with a father whose life didn't really have space for a child. What followed was an itinerant childhood, with various stepmothers and foster families, before an advertisement in The Lady took 11-year-old Pamela to the farm in Devon that was to become her true home, with the 'aunts' who became her surrogate parents. Time on the farm at Dartmoor, where she discovered her love of animals, alternated with life at The Warren boarding school in West Sussex, where she discovered her passion for acting. On leaving school, Pam was unsure of what direction to take but gradually realised that acting was what she wanted to do with her life. So, in 1966, Pam took up a place at drama school. Pam settled in London and worked on stage and television throughout the sixties and seventies, before her first appearance on EastEnders in 1986 and the offer of a permanent role a few months later. This memoir is far more than simply an actor's tale. Quite apart from her fascinating and unique childhood, Pam also recalls her involvement in the women's movement of the 1970s, her lifelong love of animals and the worries about her weight that have dogged her since her teenage years. It is also a tribute to Pat Butcher, for whom Pam retains a huge affection. This incredibly warm memoir reveals the woman behind the popular EastEnders' character, a woman who, apart perhaps from her earrings, couldn't be more different from Pat.

Spanning a century, from Kate Chopin and Fannie Hurst to J. California Cooper and Elana Dykewomon, this bold and deeply satisfying anthology of women's stories explores women's relationships to, and perceptions of, their physical selves. Addressing the peculiarities, the pleasures, and the shames of body politics, these stories of bodies that refuse to be contained offer a variety of perspectives on fully inhabiting the flesh. Whether celebrating bodies deemed transgressive or simply daring to acknowledge that such bodies exist, these diverse literary representations of fatness render the excessive body brilliantly, unapologetically visible. Book jacket.

When John Updike died in 2009, tributes from the literary establishment were immediate and fulsome. However, no one reading reviews of Updike's work in the late 1960s would have predicted that kind of praise for a man who was known then as a brilliant stylist who had nothing to say. What changed? Why? And what is likely to be his legacy? These are the questions that Becoming John Updike pursues by examining the journalistic and academic response to his writings. Several things about Updike's career make a reception study appropriate. First, he was prolific: he began publishing fiction and essays in 1956, published his first book in 1958, and from then on, brought out at least one new book each year. Second, his books were reviewed widely - usually in major American newspapers and magazines, and often in foreign ones as well. Third, Updike quickly became a darling of academics; the first book about his work was published in 1967, less than a decade after his own first book. More than three dozen books and hundreds of articles of academic criticism have been devoted to Updike. The present volume will appeal to the continuing interest in Updike's writing among academics and general readers alike. Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University. Among other books, he has written volumes on Austen, Dickens, Tennyson, and Matthew Arnold for Camden House's Literary Criticism in Perspective series.

Henry Harper from Troup County Georgia joined the Confederate Army along with his two brothers and numerous cousins. This is the story of their war experiences from joining up in 1861 until homecoming in 1865.