Mark Powell

Shy Walsh might be the greatest female fighter of her time, but a loss in a Vegas title fight, and the sneaking suspicion that she wanted to lose, sends her reeling back to her Central Florida home and her dying mother. She needs some perspective, she needs to pull herself together. But one day she meets Thomas Clayton, a doctor recently released from prison, and everything changes. They fall in love, maybe, but Tommy has his own demons, and what begins as an attempt to build a life together quickly devolves into a criminal enterprise that spans the state. Helpless in the face of addiction and guilt, and, most especially, the peculiar brokenness of being American in the 21st Century, Shy and Tommy descend into a nightmare existence of crime and isolation. Hurricane Season is a noir thriller about fighting and addiction, prison and drugs; but more than that, it is a love story set in the carnage of an America wrecked by inequality. Early Praise"Brutal and poetic, Mark Powell's story will retune your heart strings, you'll begin with a triple-espresso and end with triple-shots of Kentucky bourbon and no chaser, it's a smooth burn." -Frank Bill, author of Back to the Dirt "In Hurricane Season Mark Powell writes about the places where America happens - its hospitals, prisons, fighting gyms, and roadside motels. This is an indispensable work of fiction about the contemporary South in all its tragic complexities. A book brimming with heart, as propulsive as it is wise." -Caleb Johnson, author of Treeborne

Hurricane Season

A Novel

Lioness

Small Treasons

Chris Offutt

Appalachia Now hops on the back of a motorcycle for a wild ride through the hills we know best--Vicco, Hazard, branches, mine access roads. Fiddle tunes and black lung and the photoelectric gleam of stars. But these haunting stories take us way beyond the familiar. They are as skillfully wrought with the visible world as they are with the luminous being in the hollow of a cupped hand. I couldn't put this book down and when I did, my heart ached to step back inside the pages. Karen McElmurray

Short Stories of Contemporary Appalachia

Appalachia Now

"Tess Maynard's life is coming apart. At home with her three young children in her husband's small north Georgia hometown, she is steadily becoming obsessed with an American journalist captured in Syria and being held by ISIS, sensing an eerie resonance between his captivity and her own. Meanwhile, the life of her husband is also beginning to unravel. John Maynard is a psychologist working as a college counselor. But in a former life-a life that becomes his obsession-he worked as a government contractor at a CIA black site in Eastern Europe where suspected terrorists, and one innocent civilian, were tortured. Now the Justice Department is threatening an investigation, but not if John will cooperate in an ongoing operation: a professor at the college where he works is rumored to be involved with an organization masking a militant group. As John and Tess work to salvage their life together a young man in Atlanta is slowly becoming radicalized-groomed by the professor John is meant to report on-to fight not in Syria but at home in the US. Eventually all three lives intersect, with devastating consequences"--

Deco for Divers

Simon Clarke

'In Company: Intermediate' is a business English course for professional adults. It systematically develops key language skills through motivating activities that reflect the real world of modern business. The student's book contains 20 self-contained units organised into four main categories: talking points, networking, desk work and meetings. Each unit is based around a particular skill or sub-skill and extra grammar and vocabulary work is available in the section 'Grammar and Lexis links' at the end of the book.

In company. Intermediate : [Student's book]

“'You set yourself up as judge, jury, and executioner,’ Pamela had said, but that was wrong: you set yourself up as angel, and await the word of God.” Luther Redding lost his job, and almost lost his wife, Pamela, and teenaged daughters Katie and Lucy, when the real estate bubble burst in Florida. Now he pilots a Reaper drone over the mountains of Afghanistan from a command center in the bowels of Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base, studying a target’s pattern of life and awaiting the command to end that life. Meanwhile Bobby Rosen has returned home from his tours in Iraq to a broken marriage and an estranged son, his promising military career cut short in a moment of terrible violence in a Sadr City marketplace. As the tales of Luther and Bobby unfold, Mark Powell masterfully engages with the vexing, bifurcated lives of combatants in the global war on terror, those who are simultaneously here and there and thus never fully freed from the life-and-death chaos of the battlefield. As Bobby sets off on a drug-fueled road trip with his brother Donny, newly released from prison and consumed by his own inescapable impulses, a sudden death in the Redding household sends Luther’s daughter Katie spiraling into grief and self-destruction. Soon the lives of the Reddings and the Rosens intersect as the collateral damage from the war on terror sends these families into a rapid descent of violence and moral ambiguity that seems hauntingly familiar to Bobby while placing Katie in a position much like her father's—more removed witness than active participant in the bloody war unfolding in front of her. Overarching questions of faith and redemption clash with the rough-hewn realities of terror and loss, all to explosive ends in Powell’s dark vision of modern Americana. Novelist Ron Rash has deemed Powell “the best Appalachian novelist of his generation.” In this, his fourth novel, Powell broadens the southern backdrop of his earlier work into a sprawling thriller taking readers from the Middle East to Charleston, southern Georgia, Tampa, Miami, New Orleans, and into the storied American West. In its themes, perspectives, and pacing, The Sheltering recalls the work of Robert Stone, Jim Harrison, and Ben Fountain while further establishing Powell as a unique voice capable of interrogating unfathomable truths with a beauty and cohesion of language that challenges our assumptions of the human spirit.

The Sheltering

“The best Appalachian novelist of his generation.” —Ron Rash, author of Serena and The Cove "The Dark Corner is one of the most riveting and beautifully written novels that I have ever read. Trouble drives the story, as it does in all great fiction, but grace, that feeling of mercy that all men hunger for, is the ultimate subject, and that's just part of the reason that Mark Powell is one of America's most brilliant writers." —Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff “Mark Powell’s third novel powerfully tackles the ongoing curses of drugs, real estate development, veterans’ plights, and other regional cultural banes that plague an Appalachia still very much alive and with us as its own chameleon-like animal. Brimming with fury and beauty, The Dark Corner is a thing wrought to be feared and admired.” —Casey Clabough, author of Confederado “Powell’s work is so clearly sourced to the wellspring of all spiritual understanding—this physical world...He is heir to the literary lineage of Melville, Conrad, Flannery O’Connor, Denis Johnson, and Robert Stone.” —Pete Duval, author of Rear View A troubled Episcopal priest and would-be activist, Malcolm Walker has failed twice over—first in an effort to shock his New England congregants out of their complacency and second in an attempt at suicide. Discharged from the hospital and haunted by images of the Iraq War and Abu Ghraib, he heads home to the mountains of northwestern South Carolina, the state’s “dark corner,” where a gathering storm of private grief and public rage awaits him. Malcolm’s life soon converges with people as damaged in their own ways as he is: his older brother, Dallas, a onetime college football star who has made a comfortable living in real-estate development but is now being drawn ever more deeply into an extremist militia; his dying father, Elijah, still plagued by traumatic memories of Vietnam and the death of his wife; and Jordan Taylor, a young, drug-addicted woman who is being ruthlessly exploited by Dallas’s viperous business partner, Leighton Clatter. As Malcolm tries to restart his life, he enters into a relationship with Jordan that offers both of them fleeting glimpses of heaven, even as hellish realities continue to threaten them. In The Dark Corner, Mark Powell confronts crucial issues currently shaping our culture: environmentalism and the disappearance of wild places, the crippling effects of wars past and present, drug abuse, and the rise of right-wing paranoia. With his skillful plotting, feel for place, and gift for creating complex and compelling characters, Powell evokes a world as vivid and immediate as the latest news cycle, while at the same time he offers a nuanced reflection on timeless themes of violence, longing, redemption, faith, and love. MARK POWELL is the author of two previous novels published by the University of Tennessee Press, Prodigals and the Peter Taylor Prize–winning Blood Kin. The recipient of National Endowment for the Arts and Breadloaf Writers’ Conference fellowships, as well as the Chaffin Award for fiction, he is an assistant professor of English at Stetson University.

The Dark Corner

Stanley dreams of making it big as a DJ, playing the all-nighters with his sidekick Clive; Pow-Wow's as tough as the next kid, patrolling the streets with his gang; Sylvia just wants to escape from the grind of looking after her ageing mother. When Clive and Stanley join forces to establish a male escort agency, the situation hots up... This is a picture of inner city London. Mark Powell has created a gritty, contemporary landscape filled with a vibrant cast of characters, from wannabe gangsters to professional psychics. Slick, fast-paced and surprisingly tender, BOX is an engrossing window on contemporary London as well as a satisfying page-turner.

Stefan Behrens

Boldizsar Kalmar

Min Hoon Kim

Arunima Ray

Based on Fields medal winning work of Michael Freedman, this book explores the disc embedding theorem for 4-dimensional manifolds. This theorem underpins virtually all our understanding of topological 4-manifolds. Most famously, this includes the 4-dimensional Poincaré conjecture in the topological category. The Disc Embedding Theorem contains the first thorough and approachable exposition of Freedman's proof of the disc embedding theorem, with many new details. A self-contained account of decomposition space theory, a beautiful but outmoded branch of topology that produces non-differentiable homeomorphisms between manifolds, is provided, as well as a stand-alone interlude that explains the disc embedding theorem's key role in all known homeomorphism classifications of 4-manifolds via surgery theory and the s-cobordism theorem. Additionally, the ramifications of the disc embedding theorem within the study of topological 4-manifolds, for example Frank Quinn's development of fundamental tools like transversality are broadly described. The book is written for mathematicians, within the subfield of topology, specifically interested in the study of 4-dimensional spaces, and includes numerous professionally rendered figures.

The Disc Embedding Theorem

Buch

Presenting in English

Ron Martinez

Rosi Jillett

NEW BUSINESS MATTERS is a stimulating language course for students of business English. Its unique lexical syllabus precisely identifies what business students need to learn in order to increase their understanding, fluency, and communicative power in English. Each unit is based on a specially written article, rich in the language of company life, followed by language activities which ensure that learners engage with the language and interact with each other.

Business English with a Lexical Approach

New Business Matters

A pack that contains the Student's Book and webcode access to online components. It allows students to practise language online and on the move and see their progress. It also gives access to additional material such as audio, video, answer key, glossary, phrase banks and worksheets.

In Company 3.0 Upper Intermediate Level Student's Book Pack

Jenny Hockey

Andy Clayden

Trish Green

This book unravels the many different experiences, meanings and realities of natural burial. Twenty years after the first natural burial ground opened there is an opportunity to reflect on how a concept for a very different approach to caring for our dead has become a reality: new providers, new landscapes and a hybrid of new and traditional rituals. In this short time the natural burial movement has flourished. In the UK there are more than 200 sites, and the concept has travelled to North America, Holland, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. This survey of natural burials draws on interviews with those involved in the natural burial process – including burial ground managers, celebrants, priests, bereaved family, funeral directors – providing a variety of viewpoints on the concept as a philosophy and landscape practice. Site surveys, design plans and case studies illustrate the challenges involved in creating a natural burial site, and a key longitudinal case study of a single site investigates the evolving nature of the practice. Natural Burial is the first book on this subject to bring together all the groups and individuals involved in the practice, explaining the facts behind this type of burial and exploring a topic which is attracting significant media interest and an upsurge of sites internationally.

Landscape, Practice and Experience

Natural Burial

International Negotiations is an exciting new short course (15-20 hours) for Business English learners who want to excel at negotiating. Drawing on inspirational advice from leading experts in negotiation, International Negotiations takes students through the entire negotiation process, from preparing to negotiate to closing the deal. The ten modules give learners the essential language, skills and techniques needed for successful negotiations and cover topics such as relationship-building, questioning techniques, decoding body language, bargaining and the powers of persuasion. Challenging role-plays and skill-building games further develop key negotiation and language skills, while the Key and Commentary provide valuable insights into all aspects of negotiating, including the importance of understanding cultural differences when negotiating.

Mark Powell

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