Beyond Charm

«Etiquette is synonymous with courtesy, honesty, authenticity and all the qualities that bring added value to the human capital. » - Cleo, 2009 «Sophisticated and charming, Ms. Shirley epitomizes the qualities she seeks to impart. » - Selections Education, 2008 «Shirley Shalaby has gone to great lengths to help others develop their personality and add beauty to their everyday lives.» - Identity, 2007 «Each one of us is blessed with an inner beauty struggling to be recognized. » - Al Ahram Weekly, 2007 «She was brought up in a home full of beauty; her mother, a fashion designer, taught her how to talk and walk nicely and basically, to behave. She hoped that her little daughter would one day become a famous fashion designer. In fact, the daughter has fulfilled her mother’s dream and more. » - Egyptian Mail, 2008

Dawn is 16 and starting yet another new school. Dawn hopes it will be different this time. Dawn finds a toy centaur in a moving box. Dawn meets Amelia. . . Dawn gets bullied at school and at home. Dawn stumbles into another world. . .literally. BEYOND THE THRESHOLD is a young adult story of believing in oneself, learning to trust, first loves, and found families.

'One of the greatest books of a very great thinker' Michael Tanner Beyond Good and Evil confirmed Nietzsche's position as the towering European philosopher of his age. The work dramatically rejects traditional Western thought with its notions of truth and God, good and evil. Nietzsche seeks to demonstrate that the Christian world is steeped in a false piety and infected with a 'slave morality'. With wit and energy, he turns from this critique to a philosophy that celebrates the present and demands that the individual impose their own 'will to power' upon the world. Translated by R. J. HOLLINGDALE With an Introduction by MICHAEL TANNER

Bestselling crafts book author Sherri Haab offers a new take on the classic friendship bracelet with 35 fresh, fashionable, and modern designs! A hugely popular rite of passage for girls all over the world, the friendship bracelet has recently become a fashion staple for women of all ages, incorporating various braiding, knotting, weaving, and embellishment materials and techniques. The techniques and materials of the classic friendship bracelet trace their roots to Central and South America, and the fashion world's renewed interest in all things ethnic have transported it to the runway, inspiring celebrities, models, and fashion mavens like Beyonce, Heidi Klum, Lauren Conrad, Bar Rafaeli, and Rita Ora to sport "stacks" of ultra-chic wrist candy and retailers to sell expensive versions. In Charm Love Friendship Bracelets, bestselling crafts book author Sherri Haab offers a new take on the classic friendship bracelet that shows how to make pretty, chic, and wearable polymer clay charms and beads and combine them with traditional knotting/macrame, braiding, wrapping, and other techniques using inexpensive threads, cording, beads, and findings to create 35 fresh, fashionable, and modern designs. The book covers essential supplies, knotting techniques (with step-by-step illustrations), and working with polymer clay. The designs take a timeless classic and give it a new twist with fun, fashion-forward projects that let you customize your creations with easy-to-make polymer clay charms and beads as well as other easy-to-find embellishments.

Joseph Epstein takes on that most enchanting (and, alas, increasingly rare) of human gifts, charm. “Almost everyone will recognize when he or she is in the presence of charm,” he writes. “Charm is magic of a kind; it casts a spell. In the presence of charm the world seems lighter and lovelier. A charming person can cause you to forget your problems, at least temporarily, to hold the world’s dreariness at bay. Charm is a reminder that the world is filled with jolly prospects and delightful possibilities. Watching Fred Astaire dance, or listening to Blossom Dearie sing, or reading the poems of C.P. Cavafy, or merely looking at Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner, one recalls that the world can be a pretty damn fine place.”

Charm in Literature from Classical to Modernism: Charmed Life discusses charm as both an emotional and aesthetic phenomenon. Beginning with the first appearance of literary charm in the Sirens episode of the Odyssey, Richard Beckman traces charm throughout canonical literature, examining the metamorphoses of charm through the millennia. The book examines the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Proust, Joyce, Mann, and others, considering the multiplicity of ways charm is defined, depicted, and utilized by authors. Positioning these poems, dramas, and novels as case studies, Beckman reveals the mercurial yet enduring connotations of charm.