Without Our Past

In their growing awareness of the need to keep alive Canada's heritage, individuals, community groups, and small historical societies have long felt the need for a basic guide to the preservation of buildings, particularly buildings which, though they may not warrant provincial or federal protection, are nevertheless important to the history and values of their communities. Using the knowledge gained from many years of experience in various government departments and her familiarity with several successful building conversation projects, Ann Falkner has written this practical handbook for those concerned about preserving heritage structures. She covers clearly and in detail the various problems to be faced and actions to be taken, and analyses the assistance available through legislation at all three levels of government. Without Our Past? deals with inventories and how they are conducted, and, through a series of concrete examples, with the evaluation and selection of worthwhile buildings. It explains acquisition procedures for all types of properties, municipal powers under provincial planning acts, and control through specific zoning. It offers suggestions on how to re-use an outdated structure and how to create a compatible environment around a building, and it points out the value of publicity and local interest in gaining general support and cooperation. In a separate chapter expenses and finances are covered, including fund raising and the increasing monetary benefits of conservation.

"And who among us would deny Jane Austen her happy endings or insist that Cary Grant and Irene Dunne should get back together at the end of The Awful Truth? There are tragedies and there are comedies, aren't there? And they are often more the same than different, rather like men and women, if you ask me. A comedy depends on stopping the story at exactly the right moment." Mia Fredrickson, the wry, vituperative, tragic comic, poet narrator of The Summer Without Men, has been forced to reexamine her own life. One day, out of the blue, after thirty years of marriage, Mia's husband, a renowned neuroscientist, asks her for a "pause." This abrupt request sends her reeling and lands her in a psychiatric ward. The June following Mia's release from the hospital, she returns to the prairie town of her childhood, where her mother lives in an old people's home. Alone in a rented house, she rages and fumes and bemoans her sorry fate. Slowly, however, she is drawn into the lives of those around her—her mother and her close friends,"the Five Swans," and her young neighbor with two small children and a loud angry husband—and the adolescent girls in her poetry workshop whose scheming and petty cruelty carry a threat all their own. From the internationally bestselling author of What I Loved comes Siri Hustvedt's provocative, witty, and revelatory novel about women and girls, love and marriage, and the age-old question of sameness and difference between the sexes.

Contains autobiographies written by women who experienced Nazism from different perspectives: Elfriede Brüning, Hilde Huppert, Greta Kuckhoff, Elisabeth Langgässer, Melita Maschmann, Inge Scholl and Grete Weil. This book examines autobiography as a form of writing at the centre of debates on the 'self', 'truth' and 'history'.

"Argues that technological imperatives like rationalization, universalism, monism, and autonomy have transformed the humanities and altered the relation between humans and nature. Examines technology and its impact on education, historical memory, and technological and literary values in criticism and theory, concluding with an analysis of the fiction of Don DeLillo"--Provided by publisher.

The second part in an epic historical trilogy - The Estonian answer to Wolf Hall - by the nation's greatest modern writer The year is 1563, and by any account Balthasar Russow can be said to have risen in the world. Fresh from his studies in the German town of Stetten, he has assumed the role as pastor of Tallinn's Holy Ghost Church. Moreover, he is betrothed to a maiden of the town - much to the chagrin of her father, who has no wish to welcome peasant stock to the family when there is no shortage of upstanding young German men - and is poised to begin the chronicle that will ensure his everlasting fame. But tribulations still await the now not-quite-young Pastor - Livonia is still plagued by foreign powers, with Tallinn braced to withstand a prolonged Muscovite siege. And he will discover that marriage is a often a battlefield in itself. Translated from the Estonian by Merike Beecher

From an Edgar and Agatha Award winner: A mystery writer must solve the puzzle of her past when she meets the South Carolina family she never knew existed. Popular mystery novelist Molly Hunt knows all about the twists and turns of fiction, but real life has thrown her for a loop. Raised by adoptive parents on Long Island, Molly has just made a stunning discovery: She’s the daughter of South Carolina blue bloods and was kidnapped as an infant from their ancestral home in Charleston. Now, she’s heading south to solve the puzzle of her beginnings—totally unprepared for where it will end. At Mountfort Hall, her birth family’s imposing plantation, Molly comes face to face with her past: her neglected twin sister; her reclusive and mentally imbalanced mother; a calculating cousin, now the Mountfort patriarch who has no tolerance for this lovely new intruder; and a resident psychic who sees into a deadly world all her own. It’s only when Molly discovers a letter from her late father that she comes to realize how much danger she’s in—and what it’ll take to escape the shadows of Mountfort Hall alive. “In one of her smoothest suspense novels . . . Whitney combines a dynamic, likable heroine with eccentric characters, romantic entanglements, family ghosts and a charming setting” (Publishers Weekly). It’s everything readers expect from the “Queen of American gothics” (The New York Times). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Phyllis A. Whitney including rare images from the author’s estate.

In Politics without a Past Shari J. Cohen offers a powerful challenge to common characterizations of postcommunist politics as either a resurgence of aggressive nationalism or an evolution toward Western-style democracy. Cohen draws upon extensive field research to paint a picture of postcommunist political life in which ideological labels are meaningless and exchangeable at will, political parties appear and disappear regularly, and citizens remain unengaged in the political process. In contrast to the conventional wisdom, which locates the roots of widespread intranational strife in deeply rooted national identities from the past, Cohen argues that a profound ideological vacuum has fueled destructive tension throughout postcommunist Europe and the former Soviet Union. She uses Slovakia as a case study to reveal that communist regimes bequeathed an insidious form of historical amnesia to the majority of the political elite and the societies they govern. Slovakia was particularly vulnerable to communist intervention since its precommunist national consciousness was so weak and its only period of statehood prior to 1993 was as a Nazi puppet-state. To demonstrate her argument, Cohen focuses on Slovakia’s failure to forge a collective memory of the World War II experience. She shows how communist socialization prevented Slovaks from tying their individual family stories—of the Jewish deportations, of the anti-Nazi resistance, or of serving in the wartime government—to a larger historical narrative shared with others, leaving them bereft of historical or moral bearings. Politics without a Past develops an analytical framework that will be important for future research in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and beyond. Scholars in political science, history, East European and post-Soviet studies will find Cohen’s methodology and conclusions enlightening. For policymakers, diplomats, and journalists who deal with the region, she offers valuable insights into the elusive nature of postcommunist societies.

Fabulous Fathers HIS AMNESIAC BRIDE… Could Andrew Bennett really be face-to-face with his late wife? She was the woman he'd never stopped loving, without whom he'd felt life wasn't worth living. And now Laura was suddenly, mysteriously back…but she didn't recognize him…or their child. Laura couldn't remember being a wife and mother at all. How could she have forgotten a man like Andrew? So loving, such a good father. And a daughter with eyes so like her own, in need of a mommy. Could Laura be blessed with the chance to make her family whole again? This Fabulous Father can be chosen from the heart….