The world of horsemanship is teeming with women and girls who are totally devoted to their trusty steeds. Often, fathers or husbands are involved as well, dragged unwillingly and unknowingly into this alternate reality. One such man is the author of this book, whose life revolves entirely around his wife and her horses. He really doesn't feel connected to horses in any way; he doesn't speak the jargon, and he is locked in an unending struggle with stables, horse trailers, and arenas. Regular nocturnal rude awakenings have been his lot—his experiences include helping a mare give birth, calling the veterinarian any number of times, and of course, packing up and accompanying his wife to competitions long before daybreak. This book is a hilarious insider's view of the "struggles" of the male who is connected with a horse-loving female. Anyone who has spent time in a relationship with either a horse, horsewoman, or long-suffering man will delight in reading it, and laugh out loud at the charming cartoons that ring all-too-true.

Every time the odds were stacked against her, she beat them to keep emerging the winner. Turning every adversity into an adventure of triumph, Priyanka Chopra made her own rules, set a template for success. The riveting inside story of a consistent winner, narrated by the best names in show business, The Dark Horse goes backstage to see how some of her finest works were filmed. And how an unknown girl from Bareilly went on to put India on the global entertainment map. Her life is a Master Class in Winning. A stimulating, compelling read by best-selling author Bharathi S Pradhan.

This anthology examines Love's Labours Lost from a variety of perspectives and through a wide range of materials. Selections discuss the play in terms of historical context, dating, and sources; character analysis; comic elements and verbal conceits; evidence of authorship; performance analysis; and feminist interpretations. Alongside theater reviews, production photographs, and critical commentary, the volume also includes essays written by practicing theater artists who have worked on the play. An index by name, literary work, and concept rounds out this valuable resource.

“Splendid . . . Thom tells the story with humor and eloquence, and a thumping good tale it is, too.”—The Washington Post In one generation, the Clark family of Virginia fought for our nation's independence, and explored, conquered, and settled the continent from sea to shining sea. This powerfully written book recreates the warm life of the family, the dangers of the battlefield, the grueling journeys across an untamed wilderness, and the soul-stirring Lewis and Clark Expedition. This mighty epic is a fitting tribute to the wisdom and courage of Ann Rogers Clark, her husband John, and the ten sons and daughters they nurtured and inspired.

The theme for Shakespeare Survey 53 is Shakespeare and Narrative.

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities. But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra’s married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art. The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain’s most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.

The story of the Bounty mutiny is well known. Fletcher Christian�s mutineers set Captain William Bligh and others adrift in a ship�s boat. Bligh sailed some 5000 kilometres to safety; the mutineers returned to Tahiti before making their way to isolated and uninhabited Pitcairn Island. But what of the Tahitian women who joined the Bounty at Tahiti? Their powerful and compelling story is told in Transit of Venus. Mauatua and her friends and relatives speak directly to us in beautiful and startlingly perceptive ways as they move away from their homeland and pass into the feverish intensity of drunkenness, betrayal and murder that mark the early years on Pitcairn. In so doing they assert their place in a story that has fascinated readers for generations.