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A Russian Perspective on Theoretical Archaeology: The Life and Work of Leo S. Klejn
by Stephen LeachBoth the work and the life of Leo S. Klejn, Russia’s foremost archaeological theorist, remain generally unrecognized by Western scholars. Until now. In this biography and summary of his work, Stephen Leach outlines Klejn’s wide-ranging theoretical contributions on the place and nature of archaeology. The book details-Klejn’s diverse work on ethnogenesis, migration, Homeric studies, pagan Slavic religion, homosexuality, and the history of archaeology;-his life challenges as a Russian Jewish scholar, jailed for homosexuality by the KGB and for his challenges to Marxist dogma;-his key contributions to theoretical archaeology and, in particular, Klejn’s comparisons between archaeologists and forensic scientists.
A Rusty Gun
by Noel 'Razor' SmithAs a gun-wielding bank robber, Noel 'Razor' Smith was top of the criminal tree, enjoying the excitement and benefits of a dangerous and adrenalin-filled career. But he'd also spent the greater part of his adult life in prison, an environment where respect and basic survival were guaranteed only to those prepared to use the most brutal violence. In his new book, Smith takes the story on from his highly acclaimed memoir A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun, and describes how he came to realize that the game wasn't worth the candle. In his mid-forties he applied to enter Grendon, then the only prison in Britain offering intense therapeutic treatment to hardened criminals. He went from a brutal high-security prison, HMP Whitemoor, to an institution where he was encouraged to investigate just why his life had been given over to violence and crime. Smith paints an unforgettable portrait of the hardened and severely damaged inmates of Grendon, many of them guilty of famous crimes, and their attempts to turn round their lives. And in particular his own arduous five-year journey to re-enter society as a straight citizen.
A STRATEGY FOR ASSESSING SCIENCE: Behavioral and Social Research on Aging
by National Research Council of the National AcademiesA Strategy for Assessing Science offers strategic advice on the perennial issue of assessing rates of progress in different scientific fields. It considers available knowledge about how science makes progress and examines a range of decision-making strategies for addressing key science policy concerns. These include avoiding undue conservatism that may arise from the influence of established disciplines; achieving rational, high-quality, accountable, and transparent decision processes; and establishing an appropriate balance of influence between scientific communities and agency science managers. A Strategy for Assessing Science identifies principles for setting priorities and specific recommendations for the context of behavioral and social research on aging.
A Sacred Duty
by Ester RasbandRecounts the exciting true story of how Richard Wilkins, as a delegate at an important UN conference, used the principles of the First Presidency's proclamation to defend the traditional family against a vigorous, modern-day attack. This engaging account offers readers an example of how the gospel and devoted individuals can affect the course of history and changes the hearts of humanity.
A Sacred Sex Devotional: 365 Inspiring Thoughts to Enhance Intimacy
by Rafael LorenzoA year's worth of sacred and sensual quotations to inspire and renew love's fires.• Spans the world's cultures and religious traditions.• An invaluable resource for couples following the path of Tantric spirituality.What has happened to the language of lovers? Where are the rich, sensual, erotic, and alluring words that can describe our feelings and emotions? For centuries in cultures throughout the world there have been poetic and evocative words used to express the ecstatic feelings that men and women share in that marvelous and mysterious moment of being in love. For people who want to find their way back to that moment, this book contains inspirations that reveal the sacred tradition of ecstasy in love and sexuality. This celebration of love contains a vast and diverse body of writings on sacred sexuality from Aboriginal Australia, Celtic Ireland, India, Japan, and China to ancient Greece and Rome and Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe. This treasure trove exalting the powers of love will kindle the fires of romance and offer playful and profound ways to contact the divine through earthly love.
A Safe Place for Caleb: An Interactive Book for Kids, Teens and Adults with Issues of Attachment, Grief, Loss or Early Trauma
by Paul J. Chara Jane M. Berns Kathleen A. CharaA Safe Place for Caleb is a comprehensive and richly illustrated resource for individuals of all ages who are dealing with attachment problems. Parents, professionals, and lay people will find this book helpful in understanding and addressing attachment disorders in children, adolescents, and adults. The first half of the book is an interactive story that follows the experiences of Caleb, a young boy who relates his difficulties and frustrations in forming and sustaining healthy relationships. He learns strategies for coping with attachment issues during his journey to the Safe Tree House, where he is introduced to the four 'attachment healing keys'. These act as therapeutic tools to unlock difficulties with attachment, and are presented using text and illustrations that are easily accessible for readers of all ages, even for young children. The second half of the book presents a summary of current scientific thought on attachment styles and disorders, and provides a wide array of assessment tools, photocopiable material and healing techniques to address attachment difficulties. Lists of helpful organizations and relevant reading materials are also presented. Based on established psychological principles, the book is a unique and imaginative guide for professionals, parents, caregivers, and people of all ages who are dealing with attachment issues.
A Safe Place to Grow: A Group Treatment Manual for Children in Conflicted, Violent, and Separating Homes
by Erin Moore Vivienne Roseby Janet Johnston Bettina GentnerDiscover the effective group treatment strategies that help your school-aged clients! A child immersed in a conflicted family life may be forced to cope with a multitude of trauma, including violence, abuse, and insecurity. In A Safe Place to Grow: A Group Treatment Manual for Children in Conflicted, Violent, and Separating Homes, highly respected experts give mental health professionals the tools to provide effective group treatment for children scarred by family environments of conflict and abuse. This easy-to-understand, step-by-step manual is a developmentally appropriate treatment curriculum for traumatized school-aged children. Age-appropriate sections separate therapy for big or little kids, focusing on efficacy while presenting a comfortable multi-ethnic, multi-cultural model. A Safe Place to Grow has easy-to-understand descriptions of techniques, with each session in the curriculum containing games and activities that are therapeutic yet flexible enough to be modified whenever the situation warrants. A chapter is included to helpfully troubleshoot problems encountered when in session with either age group of children. Useful illustrations accompany the text, along with a comprehensive bibliography listing additional therapeutic resources for different types of family problems. Appendixes are included for instruction on psycho-educational groups for parents that enhance their sensitivity to their children&’s needs, as well as providing an evaluation study of the group model itself.A Safe Place to Grow provides a sequence of activities within the group model aimed at each of these five goals: creating common ground and safety exploring the language and complexity of feeling defining and understanding the self defining and revising roles and relationships restoring a moral orderA Safe Place to Grow is an essential resource for social workers, psychologists, family and child therapists, school counselors, and battered women and children&’s advocates.
A Safe Place: The True Story of a Father, a Son, a Murder
by Lorenzo CarcaterraFrom the book: I was fourteen, walking on a beach in Ischia, a Mediterranean island forty miles off the coast of Naples, when I found out about my father. A white cotton towel hung around my neck, the morning sun warmed my back and soft waves rolled against a pea-green fishing boat. A cluster of children were building sand castles by the shore while three German tourists nodded in approval. It was mid-July 1969, my first summer away from home and the most peaceful time in my life. My mother, slumped and weary, stood at my side, staring out to sea. She hardly noticed the Moroccan merchant who was offering good buys on cheap goods or the beach bum selling cool slices of fresh coconut. She reached for my hand, her brown eyes softened by the passing years. "It's time you knew the truth," she said. "About your father." ...
A Safeway in Arizona
by Tom ZoellnerA riveting account of the state of Arizona, seen through the lens of the Tucson shootings On January 8, 2011, twenty-two-year-old Jared Lee Loughner opened fire at a Tucson meet-and-greet held by U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords. The incident left six people dead and eighteen injured, including Giffords, whom he shot in the head. Award-winning author and fifth generation Arizonan Tom Zoellner, a longtime friend of Giffords's and a field organizer on her Congressional campaign, uses the tragedy as a jumping-off point to expose the fault lines in Arizona's political and socioeconomic landscape that allowed this to happen: the harmful political rhetoric, the inept state government, the lingering effects of the housing market's boom and bust, the proliferation and accessibility of guns, the lack of established communities, and the hysteria surrounding issues of race and immigration. Zoellner's account includes interviews with those directly involved and effected, including Arizona's controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Zoellner offers a revealing portrait of the Southwestern state at a critical moment in history- and as a symbol of the nation's discontents and uncertainties. Ultimately, it is his rallying cry for a saner, more civil way of life
A Sailor's Logbook: A Season Aboard Great Lakes Freighters
by Mark L. ThompsonIn this firsthand account of life aboard the ships of the Great Lakes, Mark Thompson weaves together the threads of a story that relives a centuries-old tradition. Thompson began his logbook after he reported for duty aboard the Calcite II at Fraser Shipyard in Superior, Wisconsin, for the 1996 shipping season. A Sailor's Logbook is the first such book to chronicle a sailor's life at the end of the twentieth century. Not just a detailing of weather, cargo, and crew relations, A Sailor's Logbook is also an account of the daily lives of a diverse group of crewmembers as they share their sailing knowledge, "sea stories," and the many memories that accompany the pictures. Although there are ample resources in museums, archival collections, and company files regarding statistical logbook information, A Sailor's Logbook details the intricacies of daily life on a Great Lakes freighter. Thompson navigates the reader through the waters of the Great Lakes and his own life in this very special narrative.
A Savage Order: How the World's Deadliest Countries Can Forge a Path to Security
by Rachel KleinfeldThe most violent places in the world today are not at war. More people have died in Mexico in recent years than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. These parts of the world are instead buckling under a maelstrom of gangs, organized crime, political conflict, corruption, and state brutality. Such devastating violence can feel hopeless, yet some places—from Colombia to the Republic of Georgia—have been able to recover. In this powerfully argued and urgent book, Rachel Kleinfeld examines why some democracies, including our own, are crippled by extreme violence and how they can regain security. Drawing on fifteen years of study and firsthand field research—interviewing generals, former guerrillas, activists, politicians, mobsters, and law enforcement in countries around the world—Kleinfeld tells the stories of societies that successfully fought seemingly ingrained violence and offers penetrating conclusions about what must be done to build governments that are able to protect the lives of their citizens. Taking on existing literature and popular theories about war, crime, and foreign intervention, A Savage Order is a blistering yet inspiring investigation into what makes some countries peaceful and others war zones, and a blueprint for what we can do to help.
A Scarlet Pansy
by Robert ScullyFirst published in 1932, A Scarlet Pansy is an extraordinarily vivid and richly textured depiction of American queer life in the early twentieth century, tracing the coming-of-age of androgynous Fay Etrange. Born in small-town Pennsylvania and struggling with her difference, Fay eventually accepts her gender and sexualnonconformity and immerses herself in the fairy subculture of New York City. A self-proclaimed “oncer”—never tricking with same man twice—she immerses herself in the nightclubs, theaters, and street life of the city, cavorting with kindred spirits including female impersonators, streetwalkers, and hustlers as well as other fairies and connoisseurs of rough trade. While reveling in these exploits she becomes a successful banker and later attends medical school, where she receives training in obstetrics. There she also develops her life’s ambition to find a cure for gonorrhea, a disease supposedly “fastened on mankind as a penalty for enjoying love.”A Scarlet Pansy stands apart from similar fiction of its time—as well as that of the ensuing decades—by celebrating rather than pathologizing its effeminate and sexually adventurous protagonist. In this edition, republished for the first time in its original unexpurgated form, Robert J. Corber examines the way in which it flew in the face of other literature of the time in its treatment of gender expression and same-sex desire. He places the novel squarely within its social and cultural context of nearly a century ago while taking into account the book’s checkered publication history as well as the question of the novel’s unknown author.Much more than cultural artifact, A Scarlet Pansy remains a uniquely delightful and penetrating work of literature, resonating as much with present-day culture as it is illuminating of our understanding of queer history and challenging our notions of what makes a man a woman, and vice-versa.
A Scattered People
by Gerald McfarlandThe movement of millions of ordinary people westward across the American continent was one of the great folk migrations of all time, stretching over two centuries and thousands of hard-traveled miles. Using a canvas as broad as the country itself, Gerald McFarland turns this journey into a resonant personal experience by retelling the stories of five generations of a single, real family--who are, in fact, his own pioneer ancestors. A Scattered People is a true-life saga that takes us from colonial settlements along the east coast to the California shore at the dawn of the twentieth century. Its cast is as rich as a historical novel's: a born-again Christian farmer in eighteenth-century Connecticut; a Davy Crockettish rifleman in frontier Virginia; an infantryman at Antietam; a bold teen-age girl who forsakes Kansas for a New Mexico schoolhouse. They become our witnesses for the era's key events: the American Revolution, the Indian wars, the Gold Rush, Bleeding Kansas and Harper's Ferry, the Civil War, the Chicago Fire, booms and busts, political battles and technological upheavals. By fits and starts, by foot and oxen, covered wagon and rail, the succeeding generations make their way west, and we watch a family tree--and a nation--develop and grow. What motivated men and women to take the risks of such moves, and what actually awaited them in each new home? By recreating in close focus that fundamental act of democratic aspiration--pulling up stakes and moving west--A Scattered People gives us an intimate and surprising new sense of the meaning of the American Dream.
A Scent of Sandalwood: Indo-Ismaili Religious Lyrics
by Aziz EsmailThe Ginans are religious lyrics which have long been a central part of the religious life of the Indian Mizari Ismaili community (known as Khojas), and continue to form their living poetic tradition. Aziz Esmail's translation is suggestive of the depth of religious thought, feeling and imagination out of which this poetry was born, and the lyrical beauty of the form in which this experience found a voice. The poetry of the Ginans illustrates an historically and culturally specific conception of the world, and of the norms peculiar to that culture, as well as a religious perception that forms a significant part of the religious experience of mankind. This volume will appeal both to specialists and more general readers, including Indologists, scholars of Islam in the Subcontinent, students of Comparative Religion, Comparative Literature, and those with an interest in mystical or devotional poetry.
A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska: The Story of Hannah Breece
by Jane Jacobs Hannah BreeceHannah Breece braved the Alaskan wilderness nearly a century ago to teach native children how to become Americans. A proud and fiercely independent woman, she struggled against great odds to establish federally sponsored schools in remote settlements. This is*her own story of her many adventures on the Alaskan frontier. Breece compiled a draft of her experiences from her diaries and letters, but never completed the project. Before she died, she entrusted the manuscript to her great-niece Jane Jacobs, and this delightful book is the result. " Hannah Breece was a paradox, as'Jane Jacobs writes in her foreword. A woman ahead of her time, she set off alone for the frontier at a time when few women worked outside their homes. But she was also deeply devoted to the conven' tions of her late-nineteenth-century world: A firm prohibitionist and a devout Christian, she felt a strong moral commitment to bringing native children into the so-called civilized world. On her own in the wilderness, Breece went from adventure to adventure as she struggled to maintain the various schools. Her world includes many eccentric characters: gold prospectors and fur traders, tribal chiefs and native youngsters, prim dowagers and Russian priests. Jane Jacobs visited the communities her great aunt described to fill in some of the gaps in her story. Her original research complements Hannah Breece's story to give us a vivid picture of old Alaska, of the infant settlements of Juneau, Kodiak, Seward and Fairbanks, and of the amazing woman who conquered its frozen wilderness, loved its children and, for nearly fifteen years, made it her home.
A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska: The Story of Hannah Breece
by Hannah BreeceWhen Hannah Breece came to Alaska in 1904, it was a remote lawless wilderness of prospectors, murderous bootleggers, tribal chiefs, and Russian priests. She spent fourteen years educating Athabascans, Aleuts, Inuits, and Russians with the stubborn generosity of a born teacher and the clarity of an original and independent mind. Jane Jacobs, Hannah's great-niece, here offers an historical context to Breece's remarkable eyewitness account, filling in the narrative gaps, but always allowing the original words to ring clearly. It is more than an adventure story: it is a powerful work of women's history that provides important--and, at times, unsettling--insights into the unexamined assumptions and attitudes that governed white settler's behavior toward native communities at the turn of the century. "An unforgettable...story of a remarkable woman who lived a heroic life."--The New York TimesFrom the Trade Paperback edition.
A Science of Otherness?: Rereading the History of Western and US Criminological Thought
by Yoav MehozayThis book presents a critical history of Western criminological thought from the Enlightenment to the development of modern criminological theories, mainly in the United States, over the last hundred years. It explores a variety of approaches including the classical school, the various currents of positivist criminology, and the managerial movement. Mehozay contends that Western criminological thought can be seen as an ideological project based on ‘otherness’, justifying social hierarchies and sustaining the control of some people over others. He demonstrates how ideologies of otherness, such as the non-rational other, the pathological other and more, validate projects of control, exclusion, modernization, and care.
A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays: [1944]
by Bronislaw MalinowskiPublished, posthumously, this volume is both a summing up and a reformulation of Malinowski's functional theory of culture.
A Scottish Ballad Book (Routledge Library Editions: Folklore)
by David BuchanThe popular appeal of the ballad is perennial, and few literary genres give so much pleasure to so many kinds of people. This anthology, first published in 1973, is drawn from the richest ballad tradition in Britain, that of the Northeast of Scotland. It provides a fresh and original choice of songs that ranges from the old ballads like ‘Gil Brenton’ and ‘Willie’s Lady’ to the bothy ballads like ‘The Tarves Rant’. The collection illustrates the development of a tradition over the centuries from the oral stage down to the modern, and exemplifies the methods of composition and transmission, the kinds of ballad-story, and the types of ballad-text found in the various stages of a ballad tradition. It illustrates the variety of subject matter, and indicates lines of relationship with other genres of Folklore Studies. A substantial section, containing what are widely acknowledged as the best of all British ballads, the oral ballads of Anna Brown, demonstrates clearly that the ballads are not merely simple or crude poems; in their oral form, they are narrative songs of some complexity and sophistication. This anthology is complementary to Dr Buchan’s The Ballad and the Folk.
A Sea in Flames: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Blowout
by Carl SafinaCarl Safina has been hailed as one of the top 100 conservations of the 20th century (Audubon Magazine) andA Sea in Flamesis his blistering account of the months-long manmade disaster that tormented a region and mesmerized the nation. Traveling across the Gulf to make sense of an ever-changing story and its often-nonsensical twists, Safina expertly deconstructs the series of calamitous misjudgments that caused theDeepwater Horizonblowout, zeroes in on BP’s misstatements, evasions, and denials, reassesses his own reaction to the government’s crisis handling, and reviews the consequences of the leak-and what he considers the real problems, which the press largely overlooked. Safina takes us deep inside the faulty thinking that caused the lethal explosion. We join him on aerial surveys across an oil-coated sea. We confront pelicans and other wildlife whose blue universe fades to black. Safina skewers the excuses and the silly jargon-like “junk shot” and “top kill”-that made the tragedy feel like a comedy of horrors-and highlighted Big Oil’s appalling lack of preparedness for an event that was inevitable. Based on extensive research and interviews with fishermen, coastal residents, biologists, and government officials,A Sea In Flameshas some surprising answers on whether it was “Obama’s Katrina,” whether the Coast Guard was as inept in its response as BP was misleading, and whether this worst unintended release of oil in history was really America’s worst ecological disaster. Impassioned, moving, and even sharply funny,A Sea in Flamesis ultimately an indictment of America’s main addiction. Safina writes: “In the end, this is a chronicle of a summer of pain-and hope. Hope that the full potential of this catastrophe would not materialize, hope that the harm done would heal faster than feared, and hope that even if we didn’t suffer the absolutely worst-we’d still learn the big lesson here. We may have gotten two out of three. That’s not good enough. Because: there’ll be a next time. ” From the Hardcover edition.
A Sea of Stories: The Shaping Power of Narrative in Gay and Lesbian Cultures: A Festschrift for John P. DeCecco
by John Dececco, Phd Sonya L JonesTake a look at how narrative has shaped gay and lesbian cultureA Sea of Stories: The Shaping Power of Narrative in Gay and Lesbian Cultures: A Festschrift for John P. De Cecco is an unforgettable collection of personal narratives that explores the historical, psychological, and sociological contexts of homosexuality in locations ranging from Nazi Germany to Colorado. Some of the prominent authors in this collection include David Bergman, Louis Crew, Diana Hume George, and Ruth Vanita. Scholars in gay and lesbian studies, political movements, cultural studies, and narratology, and anyone interested in gay history will want to explore these intriguing narratives on topics such as sex and sin in the South, selling gay literature before Stonewall, growing up gay in India, and the story of an interracial male couple facing homophobic ignorance in a small town.A Sea of Stories also contains creative fiction and nonfiction love stories, war stories, oral stories, and bibliographies, and a beautiful post-Stonewell and post-modern narrative set on a South African seascape that tells the story of two professional men and the possibility of a kiss. For a complete list of contents, please visit our Web site at www.haworthpressinc.com.This book offers you a variety of narratives that cover a wide range, including: memoirs of gay Holocaust survivors and the emergence of the first lesbian and gay book club in its wake homophobia in the workplace and the use of coming-out stories to enhance workplace diversity the establishment of a gay/straight alliance in a Salt Lake City high school that is heavily dominated by Mormons gay literary heritage that examines the works of Langston Hughes as well as Martin Duberman, Paul Monette, and Edmund White in relation to the lesbian 70s creative nonfiction about a woman's love for another woman, her lifelong friend Provincetown's remarkable community response to the AIDS epidemicA collection of chapters written by the colleagues and former students of John P. De Cecco, pioneering editor of the Journal of Homosexuality, A Sea of Stories takes its title from a phrase Dr. De Cecco used in his keynote address to the “History and Memory” conference at Allegheny College in 1997. This conference sparked the idea for this collection of essays that examine the homosexual experience through historical, psychological, and sociological viewpoints and homosexuality in literature. These courageous stories will assist readers to know themselves more deeply, to identify wih others, and to interpret gay and lesbian experiences in different narrative forms.
A Sea of Transience: Poetics, Politics and Aesthetics along the Black Sea Coast
by Martin Demant Frederiksen Tamta KhalvashiTransience is found in every meeting and form of coexistence between people and things that live and exist by, or move across or along, the Black Sea. It may come in various forms and guises, from de facto states, tourism, migration, trafficking or military troops, and it needs to be written and captured in sensuous, affective and imaginative ways. With particular attention to poetics, politics and aesthetics, this volume focuses on the scales of transient moments and histories, and enables readers to see and sense the many forms of transience that occur in a given landscape, sea or space.
A Search for Origins: Science, history and South Africa's 'Cradle of Humankind'
by Philip Bonner,Amanda Esterhuysen & Trefor JenkinsA study of the 'Cradle of Humanity and its history.The 'Cradle of Humankind' (COH), bordering Gauteng and the North-West Province, was declared a World Heritage Site for the wealth of the human and animal fossils found there. Research based on fossils found in the area as well as signs of early human habitation have shed new light on the evolution of humankind and on the significant role that southern Africa played in the development of modern humans. A Search for Origins aims to provide an overview of the history of the COH, and of the important discoveries that have been made there, for a non-specialist audience. A number of general accounts have been written which have concentrated on the palaeontological discoveries made there. No systematic account written by specialists in their disciplines has, however, been published about the wider history of the COH and surrounding areas. In particular, no overview spanning the evolution of early plant and animal life, human development and recent and colonial history as reflected in discoveries linked to the COH, has been attempted. This edited volume frames the scientific advances that have been made in the COH against the intellectual and political background out of which they emerged. The multi-disciplinary approach - from a wide range of specialists -is innovative and ground-breaking.
A Season On The Reservation: My Sojourn With The White Mountain Apaches
by Stephen Singular Kareem Abdul-JabbarKareem Abdul-Jabbar has always been fascinated by history -- nineteenth-century American history in particular. Tired of L.A., restless and looking for new adventure, challenge, and discovery, he decides to go live among the Apaches he's read about. <P><P> He encounters a complex reality. The kids on the Alchesay Falcons team don't easily embrace what he's trying to teach them on the court. Gradually they begin to learn from him as he begins to learn from them. He teaches them to push out of their comfort zone and try new things, both in sports and in life. They give him something he didn't quite expect: a way to reconnect with his passion for basketball. <P><P> This is a story about the qualities we have in common and the things that still divide us in terms of race, culture, and history. Along the way, we get to know the kids, the coaches, the town of Whiteriver and Alchesay High, the tribe -- but most of all, we get closer to Kareem, a man well into middle age who wants to pass along his knowledge and experience in basketball and life. Kareem gives something back, and in so doing receives more than he ever imagined.
A Season of Grief
by Bill ValentineThis unique book celebrates a long-term, interracial relationship and details the everyday struggles of a surviving partner trying to carry on in a radically changed world.A Season of Grief chronicles the author's emotional descent after the violent death of his partner of 21 years. Bill Valentine's journal of fear, anger, denial, and loneliness captures the glimmers of hope, moments of serendipity, and mysterious coincidences that emerged from his full-time devotion to grief following the death of Joe Lopes. Lopes died along with 264 others when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in November 2001 in route to the Dominican Republic. It was the second deadliest accident in U.S. aviation history. He is a word always on my lips as I try to work him into a conversation. He is a memory that I strive to keep alive. So yes, in this sense, he is not gone. But in reality, he is. He is gone as my lover. He is gone as my life partner. He is gone as my soul mate, the only person to whom I periodically bared my soul. He is gone as my best friend, the only person to whom I ever attached that label. So pardon me while I still hang on to the notion that he is not here with me. Pardon me while I cling stubbornly to the insistence that he is gone.Valentine's candid and thoughtful account of his heartbreaking efforts to make sense of his partner's death-and survive in a world without him-is by turns, funny, frightening, sobering, and surprising. In the nine months following the tragedy of Flight 587, Valentine finds every waking moment of his life affected by his partner's absence-from mundane household chores to major life decisions. A Season of Grief is a story told in darkness and light, of hurt and healing, love and loneliness, but mostly, of a man who learns to live with his partner's absence through the persistent, surprising evidence of his presence. Our job on earth is to live with uncertainty, ambiguity, and hope. We are given a limited tool set but one, in my opinion, that's sufficient for the job. Sufficient to allow us to be engaged in life-to love, grieve, work, play, celebrate, and despair. We have a remarkable ability to rebound and grow. We have been granted the capacity for wonder and laughter-especially at ourselves. These last two gifts were bestowed generously on Joe and he, in turn, taught me how vital they are.Making a strong case for gay marriage, A Season of Grief chronicles Valentine's struggles to be recognized as a surviving spouse, including a historic lawsuit with Lambda Legal Defense and Education fund against the New York State Workers Compensation Board. Valentine and Lopes took every conceivable step to formalize their relationship, including New York City Domestic Partnership, but the Workers Compensation Board and a New York State appeals court refused to recognize Valentine as a legal surviving spouse.Grief doesn't come with a set of instructions. But A Season of Grief can help guide you through the lonely journey that follows the death of a loved one. Valentine's memoir is a testament to the healing power of reality and the enduring nature of love.