Moll Flanders: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

The novel opens with a distressed letter from Lady Howard to her longtime acquaintance, the Reverend Arthur Villars, in which she reports that Mme. Duval, the grandmother of Villars' ward, Evelina Anville, intends to visit England to renew her acquaintance with her granddaughter Evelina. 18 years earlier, Mme. Duval had broken off her relationship with her daughter Caroline, Evelina's mother, and has never acknowledged Evelina. Reverend Villars fears Mme. Duval's influence could lead Evelina to an untimely, shameful death similar to that of her mother Caroline. To keep Evelina from Mme. Duval, the Reverend lets her visit Howard Grove, Lady Howard's home, on an extended holiday. While she is there, the family learns that Lady Howard's son-in-law, naval officer Captain Mirvan, is returning to England after a 7-year absence. Desperate to join the Mirvans on their trip to London, Evelina entreats her guardian to let her attend them, promising that the visit will last only a few weeks. The Reverend reluctantly consents.
In London, Evelina's beauty and ambiguous social status attract unwanted attention and unkind speculation. Ignorant of the conventions and behaviors of 18th-century London society, she makes a series of humiliating (but humorous) faux pas that further expose her to societal ridicule. She soon earns the attentions of 2 gentlemen: Lord Orville, a handsome and extremely eligible peer and pattern-card of modest, becoming behavior; and Sir Clement Willoughby, a baronet with duplicitous intentions. Evelina's untimely reunion with her grandmother and the Branghtons, her long-unknown extended family, along with the embarrassment their boorish, social-climbing antics cause, soon convince her that Lord Orville is completely out-of-reach.
The Mirvans finally return to the country, taking Evelina and Mme. Duval with them. Spurred by Evelina's greedy cousins, Mme. Duval concocts a plan to sue Sir John Belmont, Evelina's father, and force him to recognize his daughter's claim in court. The Reverend is furious. Lady Howard intervenes and manages to elicit a compromise that sees her write to Sir John, but he responds unfavorably.
Mme. Duval is furious and threatens to rush Evelina back to Paris to pursue the lawsuit. A second compromise sees Evelina return to London with her grandmother, where she is forced to spend time with her ill-bred Branghton cousins and their rowdy friends, but she is distracted by Mr. Macartney, a melancholy and direly-poor Scottish poet. At one point, she misinterprets his acquisition of pistols as a suicide attempt and bids him to look to his salvation; later she learns he had been premeditating armed robbery to change his financial status while tracing his own obscure parentage, as well as recovering from his mother's sudden death and the discovery that his beloved is actually his sister. Evelina charitably gives him her purse. Otherwise, her time with the Branghtons is uniformly mortifying: during her visit to Marylebone pleasure garden, for instance, she's attacked by a drunken sailor and rescued by prostitutes--and in this humiliating company she meets Lord Orville again! Sure that he can never respect her now, she is stunned when he seeks her out in London's unfashionable section and seems interested in renewing their acquaintance. When an insulting letter supposedly from Lord Orville devastates her and makes her believe she misperceived him, she returns home to Berry Hill and falls ill.

163256: A Memoir of Resistance is Michael Englishman’s astonishing story of courage, resourcefulness, and moral fibre as a Dutch Jew during World War II and its aftermath, from the Nazi occupation of Holland in 1940, through his incarceration in numerous death and labour camps, to his eventual liberation by Allied soldiers in 1945 and his emigration to Canada. Surviving by his wits, Englishman escaped death time and again, committing daring acts of bravery to do what he thought was right?helping other prisoners escape and actively participating in the underground resistance.

A man who refused to surrender his spirit despite the loss of his wife and his entire family to the Nazis, Englishman kept a promise he had made to a friend, and sought his friend’s children after the war. With the children’s mother, he made a new life in Canada, where he continued his resistance, tracking neo-Nazi cells and infiltrating their headquarters to destroy their files.

Until his death in August 2007, Englishman remained active, speaking out against racism and hatred in seminars for young people. His gripping story should be widely read and will be of interest to scholars of auto/biography, World War II history, and the Holocaust.

A Must-Have Guide for the Smart Vegan

A vegan lifestyle is the newest hot health trend—thanks in no small part to the smart, fearless, and number one New York Times bestselling Skinny Bitch books. But with so much conflicting information out there, it's not always easy to make the best choices. Now Skinny Bitch coauthor Kim Barnouin is back with a book that makes making the right vegan choice easy. In Skinny Bitch Book of Vegan Swaps, Kim Barnouin takes the mystery out of following a plant-based diet. It's a comprehensive, user-friendly guide that tells you what foods look healthy, but actually aren't, and explains how to avoid the stuff you don't want. And because Kim knows that the concerns of today's savvy eaters run the gamut from calories to carbon footprints, she explains it all.

Skinny Bitch Book of Vegan Swaps offers exciting and tasty alternatives for vegans, whether you're just starting out or have been a vegan for years. Barnouin's fun, no-nonsense voice sparkles on every page and in helpful lists and features like:

• The Best Places for Vegans to Grocery Shop
• Delicious Swaps for Your Favorite Dairy Products
• Top Ten Things to Eat While Stranded in an Airport