Spice Up Your Speechifying

A book of quotes but with a difference. This book of quotes was written with an aim to help people spice up their speeches, interactions and writing. Also as a bedside reading. It is not a simple book of quotes but the author has value-added with additional information on quotes, author or situation when the quote was written. It is a book that can be savoured and read over time and re-re-visited and enjoyed every time. An evergreen book.

Speechifying collects the most important speeches of Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole—noted Black feminist anthropologist, the first Black female president of Spelman College, former director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art, and former chair and president of the National Council of Negro Women. A powerful and eloquent orator, Dr. Cole demonstrates her commitment to the success of historically Black colleges and universities, her ideas about the central importance of diversity and inclusion in higher education, the impact of growing up in the segregated South on her life and activism, and her belief in public service. Drawing on a range of Black thinkers, writers, and artists as well as biblical scripture and spirituals, her speeches give voice to the most urgent and polarizing issues of our time while inspiring transformational leadership and change. Speechifying also includes interviews with Dr. Cole that highlight her perspective as a Black feminist, her dedication to public speaking and “speechifying” in the tradition of the Black church, and the impact that her leadership and mentorship have had on generations of Black feminist scholars.

This “sterling debut” short story collection explores immigrant life in prose that is “crisp and economical but also poetic and full of imagery” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). The nine linked stories of Reema Rajbanshi’s Sugar, Smoke, Song are set in the Bronx, California, India, and Brazil. Following the secrets and passions of young women, these stories and their narrators cross genres and rules to arrive at unforeseen lives. A subway rider remembers enacting the gods with her estranged twin; a concert usher discovers her tango-dancing boyfriend’s lover; and a literacy worker confesses the gambles she and others have lost through the bluesy singers she admires. Told through semi-experimental play with nonlinear plots, plural narrators, and hybrid prose, these stories embody the experiences of immigrants from Africa, Asia and South America who carrying histories both unseen and cyclically lived.

The story is set mainly in and around Boston, with some action taking place in Brighton Beach, Coney Island. A female torso is discovered buried on Middlesex Fells. A sergeant at the local county precinct knows there are wider implications and asks the Boston Police Department for assistance. The case is passed to Sergeant Investigator Lynden Deller and his detective team, Hilly Marsden and Glynn Taylor. Deller's friend is the Deputy Coroner, Mason Bridger, and he carries out the autopsy. His preliminary report tells Deller that the torso may at one time have been a gynandromorph and had been surgically corrected'. Both men assume the amputations were carried out to hide the identity of the woman but the killer, or killers, has made a mistake. The woman has had a breast augmentation at some point in her past and the implants carry serial numbers. Lynden Deller is an unusual man. His ancestors, from Boston, England, were among the first settlers in Massachusetts. He hails from a very wealthy, Brahmin background and his brother, Charles, runs the family's multi-million dollar financial corporation. Deller and his sister Nell are totally different in character to their older brother in that they have turned their back on the wealth and dedicated themselves to assisting in the public good. Nell is an immunologist and bacteriologist and devotes most of her time abroad among the afflicted of the Third World. Their mother, Andrea, is a social butterfly who judges no-one harshly and loves her children equally. She runs charity events and donates her time to raising money and giving a good deal of her own. Her husband, Deller's father, died of a stroke in his early fifties. Miller Killaine is a billionaire but is descended from poor Irish immigrant stock. The Killaine Corporation, the legal one, own all types of businesses across America and beyond. He also heads a secretive, shell corporation whose illegal activities have been in operation for more than a century. He hates the Brahmin stock. His son, Emmet, is a different individual, having been moulded by his gentle mother. Emmet was engaged to the girl, Charlotte Alverdia, in Mason Bridger's refrigerated drawer. He does not know straight away that his father had the girl killed after she told Emmet her most guarded secret and he broke their engagement. When she left she took with her a family heirloom, an engagement ring valued at almost $2,000,000, and some papers that tell of a secret only Miller Killaine and one other person know. He will remove anyone to keep that secret. Problems arise when the ring and papers are not returned by Charlotte's killers and they demand a ransom for the jewellery and the papers. Killaine has to hire more thorough men to hunt down those who dared to doublecross him. From there the hunt for Killaine's possessions becomes more convoluted as the months pass. There are others involved, such as a gang of Romani Bulgarians and a man by the name of Russian Peter, who are on Killaine's payroll. These men are all dangerous but none is more dangerous than Killaine's most trusted contract operator. He was originally Polish and his real name was Zadufin. (FIN to those who can afford to pay for his services.) When he escaped Poland, he took his dead brother's name as a mark of respect and love. Before he left, and after his father was the cause of his brother's death, he cut the old man's throat and made Polish black sausage with the blood and spices; just the way his father had shown him. He has made the sausage many times since; in Denmark, Canada and America. He lives on a bluff on Martha's Vineyard in a house that looks across Nantucket Sound. He is the only man that Miller Killaine fears. Emmet meets Nell at a fund raiser run by his father at Garavogue, the family mansion. The Deller family are guests along with 300 other wealthy donors. Emmet and Nell eventually fall for one another but Nell is

This is the reissued Colour Oxford English Dictionary. The Colour Oxford English Dictionary offers the most accurate and up-to-date coverage of essential, everyday vocabulary, with 90,000 words, phrases, and definitions based on evidence from the Oxford English Corpus, a unique databank comprising hundreds of millions of words of English. Definitions are easy to understand, given in a clear, simple style, and avoiding technical language. There are also hundreds of notes on spelling and grammar. The centre section gives guidance on the use of good English, with information on spelling and grammar. The centre section gives guidance on the use of good English, with information on spelling, punctuation, word classes, and word formation. Includes 6 months' access to Oxford Dictionaries Online at oxforddictionaries.com.