This book is a comprehensive guide to Canasta, part of the rummy family of card games that originated in Uruguay. Contents Include: Definitions; Canasta; The Origin of Canasta; The Pack; Rules for Canasta; Alternative Rules for Canasta; These Situations Will Arise; Canasta for Two; Canasta for Three; Canasta for Four; About Melding; Planning the Attack; Planning the Defence; Summing up the Tactics; The Tactical Value of Red Threes; The Acaba Rule; Conventions; The Ethics of Canasta. This book contains classic material dating back to the 1900s and before. The content has been carefully selected for its interest and relevance to a modern audience.

"Sams Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days" continues to be one of the most popular, best-selling Java tutorials on the market. Written by two expert technical writers, it has been acclaimed for its clear and personable writing, for its extensive use of examples, and for its logical and complete organization. This new edition of the book maintains and improves upon all these qualities, while updating, revising, and reorganizing the material to cover the latest developments in Java and to expand the book's coverage of core Java programming topics.Sun's new version of Java 2 Standard Edition--SDK version 1.4--is expected to be released by the end of 2001. According to Sun, version 1.4 builds upon Java's cross-platform support and security model with new features and functionality, enhanced performance and scalability, and improved reliability and serviceability.

Street-smart, wickedly funny, piercingly perceptive, and eloquent enough to win a Pulitzer Prize, Mike Royko continues to have legions of devoted fans who still wonder “what Royko would have said” about some outrageous piece of news. One thing he hardly ever wrote or talked about, though, was his private life, especially the time he shared with his first wife, Carol. She was the love of his life, and her premature death at the age of forty-four shook him to his soul. Mike’s unforgettable public tribute to Carol was a heart-wrenching column written on what would have been her forty-fifth birthday, “November Farewell.” His most famous and requested piece, it was the end of an untold story. Royko in Love offers that story’s moving and utterly beguiling beginning in letters that “Mick” Royko, then a young airman, wrote to his childhood sweetheart, Carol Duckman. He had been in love with her since they were kids on Chicago’s northwest side, but she was a beauty and he was, well, anything but. Before leaving for Korea, he was crushed to hear she was getting married, but after returning to Blaine Air Force Base in Washington, he learned she was getting a divorce. Mick soon began to woo Carol in a stream of letters that are as fervent as they are funny. Collected here for the first time, Royko’s letters to Carol are a mixture of sweet seduction, sarcastic observations on military life, a Chicago kid’s wry view of rural folk, the pain of self-doubt, and the fear of losing what is finally so close, but literally so far. His only weapons against Carol’s many suitors were his pen, his ardor, and his brilliance. And they won her heart.

In the tradition of Isabel Allende, a family saga that explores the lives touched by the tragedies of Chile's vibrant history Imprisoned and tortured in the aftermath of the 1973 coup while her love, Manuel, is savagely murdered, Eugenia Aldunate is a rare survivor of the countless "disappeared" that would haunt Chile's collective memory for decades. While still in prison, Eugenia discovers she is pregnant and is exiled to Mexico, then the United States to raise her daughter alone, forbidden to return. She builds a quiet life for herself, but the scars on her arms to do not fade. Horrific nightmares plague Eugenia each night, while each morning she aches for her homeland. Nearly twenty years after her exile, Eugenia is called back to Chile to testify in Manuel's murder and seek justice for the others who disappeared. A rare living witness to these "camps," Eugenia must come to grips with the legacy of violence and trauma inflicted by Pinochet's dictatorship and find truth and solace in the stories of those she left behind. In the tradition of Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss and Julia Alvarez's In the Time of Butterflies, Beyond the Ties of Blood is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit and the transcendence of family.

Book 4 of the Becoming Adam series continues the contemporary saga that has become the love/unlove story of Michael and Jenthe beautiful wife Michael abandoned in her garden in search of his dream to find "Eve," the woman with whom he hopes to share a perfect love gone right. Michael knew when he left home that he was growing older, that he didn't have a whole lot of time to fulfill his fantasy. Now he discovers a time bomb growing in his body; he's told that he is dying. How do Michael's dear ones, the women he met along the way, handle the news? How does Jen react? Will they move closer or further apart? What pearls of wisdom and what true experiences does Michael add to the stories hospice nurse Suzanne tells as he unexpectedly begins to live out his own dying? Does law of attraction continue to play a big part in his life? Michael concludes this book by writing: "I am content because I rise above contention and go forward with love and purpose. Its easy to be who I am, I am Becoming Adam, I walk always towards the greater light. It is there in the garden that a perfect love awaits my coming. Ill soon be there, Im going home . . ." Is he referring to a garden in heaven, or is Michael going home to Jen?

Many people ask why a 14 year old child would enter a convent and even more ask why she would leave. In Seventeen Minus Two I answer these questions. This book relates not only life in this particular convent in the 50s and 60s but the difficulty of the author to reenter a world she was totally unprepared to meet. Short stories of several of her classmates are imbedded in the book. Two of them have died; one from natural causes, one was murdered. The book tells of a child who experienced abuse and her struggle to overcome her feelings of inferiority as well as a lifelong battle with depression. All her life her main desire was to work within and serve the Church. She continually came up against the authority figures in the Church who disregarded her as a person and devalued what she had to offer.

In the season of miracles, the greatest miracle of all is love. For Robin Greer, Christmas is about tradition and family. After her army-brat childhood, she wants nothing more than to plant solid roots and create a stable, permanent home for her young son, Philip. Christmas is a time to celebrate that home, and she and Philip celebrate in style, decorating their house, baking treats and listening to holiday music. Jesse Lawson’s view of the holiday is quite the opposite. Growing up in an oppressively pious family, he has rejected religion. To him, Christmas is about hypocrisy and commercialism. A legal aid attorney, he can’t enjoy the spirit of the season when his inner-city clients are facing eviction in the middle of a cold New England winter. Yet he can’t resist Robin and her open-hearted embrace of all things Christmas. And she can’t resist this thoughtful, questioning, complex man who seems to understand the true meaning of the holiday better than she does. Winner of the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award.

RUSSIA, 1918 The young Soviet state is in turmoil. Chekists walk along the streets. Hunger, cold and mud crawl away in the former aristocratic quarters of Moscow. The old order has been turned upside down, leaving room for political infighting and dark subterfuge. This is the world Erast Fandorin - the celebrated detective - wakes up to after three years in a coma. His faithful assistant Masa might have nursed him successfully back to life, but there is no guarantee that the old Fandorin, with his razor-sharp intellect and superhuman strength, will ever be back. Determined to leave behind Moscow - a city he doesn't recognise anymore - Fandorin embarks on one last great adventure. But who can he trust in a country torn apart by civil war?