Once Upon A Picnic

While Mom and Dad do nothing but daydream at the picnic, the young boy keeps very active noticing all kinds of things going on around them.

While it is often acknowledged that Margaret Atwood's novels are rife with allusions from the oral tradition of myth, legends, fables, and fairy tales, the implications of her liberal usage bear study. The essays in this volume have been written by some of the most influential Margaret Atwood scholars internationally, each exploring Atwood’s use of primal, indeed archetypal, narratives to illuminate her fiction and poetry. These essays interact with all types of such narratives, from fairy tales and legends, to Greek, Roman, Biblical, and pagan mythologies, to contemporary processes of myth and tale creation. And, as the works in this collection demonstrate, Atwood’s use of myths and fairy tales allows for an abundance of old, yet fresh material for contemporary readers. By reconciling, yet by also revisioning, the archetypal motifs, characters, and narratives, Atwood’s writings present a familiar, yet unique, reading experience.

Violet When my mum gets sick, I volunteer to fill in for her and clean some hot jock's penthouse. I've heard all the rumors about him, so the plan is get in, clean some toilet bowls, and get out. After my last experience with a "sports hero," I'm done with that sort of guy. But Lucas Carter is full of surprises. He wants to help me clean and is nothing like the toad the press has made him out to be. Resistance may be futile for some girls, but not me. Then he asks me to help him with the interior design of his new place. I can't say, no. It's going to look great on my resume. Unfortunately, spending time with Lucas is dangerous. He's so charming and sweet, but I can't let myself forget––once a player, always a player. Each book in the British Bad Boys series is STANDALONE: * Cinderella and the Geek * Once Upon A Player * Not So Happily Ever After

The year is 1935. Bettina, just turned six, is spending her summer vacation with Granny and Dada, her grandmother and grandfather, in Kalenda, a small North Texas town. In addition to her grandparents, the household includes Franky, their cook / housekeeper / laundress, whose husband Professor, principal of the K-12 Negro school, drives Franky to work and spends time at the kitchen table with Dada, discussing world events, and Rufus, the gardener / handyman / chauffeur. Frequent visitors are Nanny, Granny's crippled younger sister, and her husband, Harry, who drive into town from their small farm in an old Pierce Arrow which only Nanny can drive and only in second gear, and Uncle, Granny's younger brother, who lives alone near the railroad tracks with his two hunting dogs. Among the colorful townsfolk are Dolly (wife of Jolly), who has no children but has a wondrous doll collection for all the town's children to enjoy; Scrap, the trash man, who drives a mule-drawn cart to pick up castoffs which he turns into treasures; Miss Annie, the widow of a sea captain, who wears trousers, smokes an occasional cigar,and drives a bright yellow roadster; and Woodrow, confused but harmless, who thinks he is the President of the United States. But through all the delights of a carefree, almost magical summer, is woven the shadow of eight-year-old Billy Jack, the mostly unsupervised son of a mother long gone and a father who works in the oil fields. Billy Jack has told Bettina that Mrs. Crone, a strange neighbor who dresses all in black, is a witch. Bettina is afraid of Mrs. Crone, as well as of the frowning life-size angel with its sword unsheathed, which Mrs. Crone erected at the entrance of Townview Cemetery.

The memoirs and musings of Constantine Michael Xeros, a native of Dallas, Texas, from a family of immigrant Greeks from the Peloponnesus, educated in the public schools and the Holy Trinity Parish, WWII veteran, graduate of Texas A&M University.

Once Upon The Water is a series of adventures that take you fishing along with the author from Canada to Mexico with numerous stops closer to Mike Yurks home in the upper Mid West. But the adventures are more than travels to faraway places and catching fish. They are memories shared with friends and family that make them. There are recollections of fishing over the years with a cousin, taking Mikes 82 year old mother fishing, a tribute to the grandfather who taught Mike how to fish, and reminiscences of his father while fishing his fathers favorite trout stream. Adventures with his son and sons-in-law illustrate the special relationships formed and crazy antics occurring while fishing together. A lazy day of fishing on a hot summer day with Mikes wife evoke the joys of when the living is easy. There are fishing tales from Alabama in an email from England and a testimonial to a buddy who travels from Germany to fish in America. Join Mike and long time friends as they fish when it is twenty below zero on a winter day in northern Minnesota, a trip when they catch walleyes from a remote lake in Canada and on another adventure where they fish for smallmouth bass that are as big as footballs. Old bonds are rekindled with family and friends during an annual gathering where the champagne and memories flow. An old and new friend fish together in Key West and a new fishing buddy is found due to a chance encounter on the way to Mexico. Fishing is an adventure not because of where you are or what you catch but because of the people who share it with you. It all starts once upon the water.

A quirky, thrilling, darkly-funny page-turner that explores the fuzzy lines between sanity and insanity, magic and reality, love and duty. It’s 1969. An eight-year-old girl, Elizabeth Squire, has a choice to make: to be disabled by the circumstances of her own botched birth or to become extraordinary. In Buffy Cram’s captivating new novel, Elizabeth narrates the story of her childhood in the late sixties, describing how she came to be at a Vancouver halfway house at the age of nineteen. Once Upon an Effing Time chronicles the sometime-exploitative relationship between Elizabeth and Margaret, her mother, and the bizarre and criminal misadventures they have after running away from Ontario’s cheese belt and their “Big Sad Story.” Attempting to bond with her neglectful mother, Elizabeth learns to adopt personas and live multiple lives, transforms into a fortune teller named MeMe who speaks primarily in Bob Dylan lyrics, and joins an American hippie doomsday cult. Elizabeth’s life is fragmented between ordinary childhood pleasures and indulging her mother’s conspiracy theories about the upcoming moon landing by hiding pamphlets in New York City public library books. Throughout, Buffy Cram weaves humour and heartbreak together to form an engaging narrative about cults—the cult of family, the cult of counterculture, the cult of Rock n’ Roll—and the role of story within those cults.

Everyone is turning matchmaker to hook up newly-single Gaam with girls of their choice, but Gaam is busy with his image makeover and being rude to Sonam – who dumped him in first-year – whenever he gets a chance to do so in his encounters with GPRS (Garima-Pinky-Renu-Sonam); to gratify his urge for ‘cheap enjoyment’. Slash has a whirlwind SMS romance with a love-sick guy who mistakes Slash for a girl. Prem Bhai and Lokha resume chasing Darjeeling girls, though a different college, this time, and Lokha, as usual, is balancing multiple girlfriends at a time. A new, pornoholic, mustard-oil smelling roommate is forcibly thrown into Gaam’s room. An invitation to a Sikkim wedding. A trip down memory lane to grandma’s village. A nightmarish Guwahati-Siliguri bus journey. A senior who needs marathon body massage sessions whenever he pays a visit to the juniors’ hostel… …and many more amusing stories adorn this addictive sequel to the hilarious and much-loved Once Upon a Time in College as it follows the trials and tribulations of the protagonist, Gaam, and his band of friends and seniors in North Bengal Medical College.