Laugh And Lie Down

Providing an alphabetical listing of sexual language and locution in 16th and 17th-century English, this book draws especially on the more immediate literary modes: the theatre, broadside ballads, newsbooks and pamphlets. The aim is to assist the reader of Shakespearean and Stuart literature to identify metaphors and elucidate meanings; and more broadly, to chart, through illustrative quotation, shifting and recurrent linguistic patterns. Linguistic habit is closely bound up with the ideas and assumptions of a period, and the figurative language of sexuality across this period is highly illuminating of socio-cultural change as well as linguistic development. Thus the entries offer as much to those concerned with social history and the history of ideas as to the reader of Shakespeare or Dryden.

Kristin van Ogtrop knows she's lucky-fulfilling career, great husband, three healthy kids, and, depending on the hamster count, an impressive roster of pets. You could also say she's half-insane, but name one working mom who isn't. Using stories and insights from her own life, van Ogtrop offers a lexicon for working moms everywhere. Terms and concepts illustrate the highs (kids who know where their soccer cleats are, coworkers who don't hit "Reply All," dogs who helpfully eat whatever falls from the table) and the lows (getting out of the house in the morning, getting along with everyone at the office, getting willful kids into bed) of balancing work and family. Filled with amusing and resonant observations, Just Let Me Lie Down establishes van Ogtrop as the Erma Bombeck of the new millennium.

Shakespeare and the Embodied Heroine is a bold new investigation of Shakespeare's female characters using the late plays and the early adaptations written and staged during the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

Lesley Lyle presents the surprising scientific evidence that reveals the importance of laughter for our mental and physical health, our prosperity, our relationships, our careers – in fact, every aspect of our lives. Drawing inspiration from Laughter Yoga, a movement founded in India by Dr Madan Kataria that uses laughter and breathing exercises to bring about amazing changes in the health and well-being of thousands of individuals, Lesley reveals: The scientific evidence of laughter's beneficial effects on our health, including lowering blood pressure and improving concentration The emotional aspects of laughter and how it can alleviate anxiety, stress and depression The spiritual aspects of laughter and how it can help provide a sense of connection and wholeness Throughout Lesley reveals how to bring more laughter into your daily life, including practising simple but fun exercises that will help you see opportunities for laughter in the most unexpected places. Laughter can be simulated as an exercise in a group; with eye contact and childlike playfulness, it soon turns into real and contagious laughter. This is a book that will delight, as well as inform – most importantly, it will positively change your life.