The Solomon Rose

Welcome to this latest collection of fiction produced by the writers and staff at Write On E-Publishing. We've compiled tales of drama, action and intrigue all centered in the most exotic state in the union! No, not Hawaii, Louisiana! With its unique collection of cultures, people and histories; the Bayou State still holds the romance and adventure of the past in the everyday lives of its people. In New Orleans family comes first. Corrine had always accepted her portion of responsibility for the care of her eighty-three year old twin aunts. They were the sweetest little old ladies imaginable. But, it would only take one fateful question to unravel the dark family secret of The Solomon Rose. Hidden below the prevailing atmosphere of Mardi Gras, the world class restaurants and the multitude of festivals is another culture which in many cases is enjoyed solely by the original inhabitants of the city. Through the tales offered in this volume, you have been given the rare opportunity to share in this second, lesser publicized culture and the stories of its past and present. From the bayous and small towns to the City of New Orleans, the Jewel of the Mississippi; we want you to get a good taste of the literary étouffée we've cooked up for you. Bon appetite, chère!

Using Solomon's life and teachings as a foundation, Bruce Fleet offers today's readers a unique, well-grounded, proven method of wise investing. Solomon was more than just a character in the Bible-he was the richest man who ever lived. If we could learn from him directly, what would he teach us about growth in riches and knowledge? And how can we relate his life and wisdom to the society and successful financial planning of our contemporary world? Bruce Fleet's The Solomon Secret brings together instructional parables highlighting the wisdom of history's wealthiest man, with practical and sound financial advice for twenty- first-century readers. In the bestselling tradition of The Richest Man in Babylon, The Solomon Secret follows King Solomon as he mentors his young protégé, Abidan, on the seven basic principles of life and their influence on financial success. Each of these parables illustrates a key principle that Abidan must discover before he can garner more wealth and happiness, and is then followed by Fleet's masterful application of these principles to the reader's life and to the most urgent and essential financial questions of our time. Fleet, a successful financial adviser and owner of a large investment firm, draws from the time-honored and historically proven wisdom of the life of the ancient king to offer-through the siphon of his own talent and perspective-the very best in financial strategies for today's challenging economic climate. An accessible and effective mix of teaching stories with powerful financial lessons, The Solomon Secret is a highly readable, informative guide to becoming wealthy and wise.

Despite his towering presence in premodern Persian letters, Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafiz of Shiraz (d. 1390) remains an elusive and opaque character for many. In order to look behind the hyperbole that surrounds Hafiz's poetry and penetrate the quasi-hagiographical film that obscures the poet himself, this book attempts a contextualisation of Hafiz that is at once socio-political, historical, and literary. Here, Hafiz's ghazals (short, monorhyme, broadly amorous lyric poems) are read comparatively against similar texts composed by his less-studied rivals in the hyper competitive, imitative, and profoundly intertextual environment of fourteenth-century Shiraz. By bringing Hafiz's lyric poetry into productive, detailed dialogue with that of the counterhegemonic satirist, 'Ubayd Zakani (d. 1371), and the marginalised Jahan-Malik Khatun (d. after 1391; the most prolific female poet of premodern Iran), our received understanding of this most iconic of stages in the development of the Persian ghazal is disrupted, and new avenues for literary exploration open up. Looking beyond the particular milieu of Shiraz, this study re-assesses Hafiz's place in the Persian poetic canon through reading his poems alongside those produced by professional poets in other major centres of Persian literary activity who enjoyed comparable fame in the fourteenth century. Recognising the aesthetic achievements of his contemporaries does not diminish the splendour of Hafiz's, rather it forces us to accept that Hafiz was but one member of a band of poets who jostled for the limelight in competing, often intersecting, patronage and reception networks that facilitated intense cultural exchange between the cities of post-Mongol Iran and Iraq. Hafiz's ghazals, characterised as they are by conscious and deliberate hybridity, ambiguity, and polysemy, are products of a creative mind bent on experimenting with genre. While in no way seeking to deny the mystical stratum of the Persian ghazal in its fourteenth-century manifestation, this study emphasises the courtly and profane dimensions of the form, and regards Hafiz through a sober lens with keen attention to his dynamic role at the heart of a vibrant poetic community that was at once both fiercely local and boldly cosmopolitan.

The Jazz Age of the 1920s is an era remembered for illegal liquor, innovative music and dance styles, and burgeoning ideas of social equality. It was also the period during which second-generation Jews began to emerge as a significant demographic in New York City. In TheirOwn Image examines thegrowing cultural visibility of Jewish life amid this vibrant scene. From the vaudeville routines of Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, George Jessel, and Sophie Tucker, to the slew of Broadway comedies about Jewish life and the silent films that showed immigrant families struggling to leave the ghetto, images and representations of Jews became staples of interwar popular culture. Through the performing arts, Jews expressed highly ambivalent feelings about their identification with Jewish and American cultures. Ted Merwin shows how they became American by producing and consuming not images of another group, but images of themselves. As a result, they humanized Jewish stereotypes, softened anti-Semitic attitudes, and laid the groundwork for today's Jewish comedians. An entertaining look at the role popular culture plays in promoting the acculturation of an ethnic group, In Their Own Image enhances our understanding of American Jewish history and provides a model for the study of other groups and their integration into mainstream society.

Jealous curses and hate poems, love lyrics and erotic dances: John Fuller has always written light verse, and Song & Dance is a boisterous and engaging collection, fizzing with intelligence and wit. There are tributes, and there are celebrations. Jokes abound in 'The Spellchecker's Guide to Poetry' and the wine is poured for 'Florio Drinking Song'. Befitting Fuller's musical ear, a host of rhythms beat time. Fans will fall on pleasingly intricate riddles and admire the high-wire gymnastics of unusual verse forms, including the inverted rhopalics of 'The Trans-sexual Circus'. But behind the fun is some sharp criticism of literary attitudinising, and a climactic injunction, to dance while we can, preferably with each other.