Brian Francis

Dads can be such a drag Life has been a struggle for Toby Goodman. Her mother died by suicide five years ago, and her father left their small town before Toby was born. Now a teenager living on her grandparents’ dairy farm, Toby has trouble letting people in. She keeps even her closest friend, the brash but endearing Trisha, at arms’ length, and recently ended her first relationship, with Trisha’s burnout brother, Mike. Convinced that she is destined to follow her mother’s path, Toby creates a plan to escape her pain. But with the news that her father is coming home and finally wants to meet her, Toby must face the truth of her family’s story. Not only is her father gay, but he’s also a world-famous female impersonator—and a self-absorbed, temperamental man-child who is ill-prepared to be a real parent. When Toby’s careful plans go awry, she is forced to rebuild the life she thought she knew from the ground up. While she may not follow an expected path, through the support of a quirky but lovable circle of friends and family, Toby may finally put together the many different pieces that make up her past, her present, and her future.

A Novel

Break in Case of Emergency

What do you get when you cross the Virgin Mary with Brooke Shields, add a trash-talking beauty queen wannabe and throw in a couple of talking nipples? One of the most laugh-out-loud books you'll read all year. Peter Paddington is 13, overweight, the subject of his classmates' ridicule, and the victim of too many bad movie-of-the-week storylines. When Peter's nipples begin speaking to him one day and inform him of their diabolical plan to expose his secret desires to the world, Peter finds himself cornered in a world that seems to have no tolerance for difference. Peter's only solace is "The Bedtime Movies" -- perfect-world fantasies that lull him to sleep every night. But when the lines between Peter's fantasy world and his reality begin to blur, no one is safe from the depths of Peter's imagination -- especially Peter himself.

Fruit

An entertaining and moving memoir about coming out, looking inwards, and the search for connection, inspired by the responses to a personal ad. In 1992, Brian Francis placed a personal ad in a local newspaper. He was a twenty-one-year-old university student, still very much in the closet, and looking for love. He received twenty-five responses, but there were thirteen letters that went unanswered and spent years tucked away, forgotten, inside a cardboard box. Now, nearly thirty years later, and at a much different stage in his life, Brian has written replies to those letters. Using the letters as a springboard to reflect on all that has changed for him as a gay man over the past three decades, Brian's responses cover a range of topics, including body image, aging, desire, the price of secrecy, and the courage it takes to be unapologetically yourself. Missed Connections is an open-hearted, irreverent, often hilarious, and always bracingly honest examination of the pieces of our past we hold close -- and all that we lose along the way. It is also a profoundly affecting meditation on how Brian's generation, the queer people who emerged following the generation hit hardest by AIDS, were able to step out from the shadows and into the light. In an age when the promise of love is just a tap or swipe away, this extraordinary memoir reminds us that our yearning for connection and self-acceptance is timeless.

A Memoir in Letters Never Sent

Missed Connections

"A sweeping, gripping and timeless story that embraces the traditions we hold close while ushering in a new world. This is a profound, witty and vibrant portrait of a woman who proves it's never too late for second chances"--Jacket flap.

Natural Order

A deeply emotional and well-crafted historical fiction set in the Second World War, 'Oradour' follows the journey of a seemingly disparate group of people who find themselves lost in the war damage of Europe, in the midst of the military action as both soldiers and innocent victims. They fight for the family life they have left behind, and against the war crimes ordered by the small man in the bunker, their lives intricately entwined by what might be Fate to witness one of the greatest tragedies of the War: the massacre of the village of Oradour.An older man, Georges saw military action as a soldier in the Great War, and now it has come again to take away everything he loves, to tear his family apart. He can sit by and do nothing, or he can fight back and take revenge.An upcoming Waffen SS officer, Heinz does his duty for his country, leaving behind his young wife, Hannah, in Dresden and the family life he yearns to come home to. As the war crimes perpetrated by his country grow, he can continue to follow the orders of his superiors, or he can disobey and return home, knowing what the consequences of such an action will be.Frank is an infantryman on the long road back to Dunkirk, determined to not let the war damage his sense of honour or the wounded Polish airman on the stretcher he carries. When a bomb explodes on the road next to him, he can choose to abandon the only other survivor, or to save her.As the lives of these people and those they touch intertwine, the full horrors of the Second World War become shockingly real for those on both sides, but the looming threat of death and destruction is nothing compared to what they will face in the village of Oradour. And what is left after history has crushed its victims and torn families apart?Seldom does a work of Second World War historical fiction weave such lyricism into the experiences of those on both sides of the divide of Europe, or encompass such scope in the morality of the soldiers and civilians caught up in the fighting. The sophistication of 'Oradour' brings to light the suffering brought to so many by one man, and shows how even in the middle of a war, compassion, bravery and understanding can alter the lives of many.

A Village at War

Oradour

Peter Paddington is your typical thirteen-year-old paperboy with a few exceptions. He's 204 pounds, at the mercy of an overactive imagination, and his only friend is a trash-talking beauty queen reject from across the street. As if that wasn't bad enough, Peter's nipples pop out one day and begin speaking to him, threatening to expose his private fantasies to an unkind world. Peter knows that if he could just lose weight, develop a brand-new personality, and get rid of those pesky talking nipples, he'd be able to find the acceptance he desperately craves. But it isn't easy to change who you really are, and Peter, ready or not, is finally forced to confront his secret self. Hilarious and exquisitely touching, this is the funniest and most memorable novel you'll read all year. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

The Secret Fruit of Peter Paddington

Joyce Sparks has lived the whole of her 86 years in the small community of Balsden, Ontario. As a girl, Joyce allowed herself to imagine a future of adventure in the arms of her friend Freddy Pender, whose chin bore a Kirk Douglas cleft and who danced the cha-cha divinely. Though troubled by the whispered assertions of her sister and friends that he wasn't 'normal,' Joyce adored Freddy for all that was un-Balsden in his flamboyant ways. When Freddy led the homecoming parade down the main street, his expertly twirled baton and outrageous white suit gleaming in the sun, Joyce fell head over heels in unrequited love. Years later, Joyce married Charlie, who was nothing like Freddy, and bore a son who very much reminded her of Freddy. Tragic news of her childhood love arrived and Joyce was forced to face how far she should to go to protect the fate and life of her son and the implications her decision had. Today, as her life ebbs away in the bed at Chestnut Park Nursing Home, Joyce ponders the terrible choices she made as a mother and wife and doubts that she can be forgiven, or that she deserves to be. When a young nursing home volunteer named Timothy appears, so much like her long lost son, Joyce wonders if there be some grace in her life after all. Voiced by an unforgettable and heartbreakingly flawed narrator, Natural Order is a masterpiece of empathy, a wry and tender depiction of the end-of-life remembrances and reconciliations that one might undertake when there is nothing more to lose, and no time to waste.

Richard Anderson

Alex Homer

Dave Sussman

Rob Howard

Karli Watson

What is this book about? Written by a high-profile team of ASP.NET experts, this fully updated Professional guide enables you to take full advantage of the power and possibilities of ASP.NET 1.1. You travel beyond the basics of ASP.NET Web pages, server controls, and data management to a complete understanding of Web services, debugging, performance, migration, and real-world applications. All code has been rechecked and verified to work correctly with ASP.NET 1.1, and enhancements like improved security and better performance are thoroughly examined and reviewed. This comprehensive, in-depth, practical guidebook enables you to master new levels of Web application development with the .NET Framework. What does this book cover? Here's what you will learn from this book: How to get started with ASP.NET and the .NET Framework Ways to create ASP.NET pages, work with server controls, and manage data Methods for developing, securing, and configuring Web applications Basics of base class libraries, components, and extensibility Security and performance improvements inherent in version 1.1 How Web services and ASP.NET function in the mobile arena Debugging, performance, migration, and interoperability Processes for applying this knowledge in real-world development contexts Who is this book for? This book is for programmers who have a solid understanding of ASP and want to develop sophisticated ASP.NET 1.1 applications using the .NET Framework. You should be familiar with VB or C-based syntax (C++, JavaTM, or C#).

Professional ASP.NET 1.1

Murray A. Aitkin

Murray Aitkin

John Hinde

"This text examines the theory of statistical modelling with generalised linear models. It also looks at applications of the theory to practical problems, using the GLIM4 package"--Provided by publisher.

Brian Francis

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