Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Profile and Key Facts About President Harry Truman

Profile and Key Facts About President Harry Truman Truman was conceived on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri. He experienced childhood with ranches and in 1890 his family settled in Independence, Missouri. He had awful visual perception from a young however he wanted to peruse having been instructed by his mom. He particularly preferred history and government. He was a great piano player. He went to neighborhood evaluation and secondary schools. Truman didn't proceed with his training until 1923 on the grounds that he needed to help bring in cash for his family. He attended two years of graduate school from 1923-24. Quick Facts: Harry S Truman Conceived: May 8, 1884, Lamar, MODied: December 26, 1972Parents: John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen Young TrumanTerm of Office: April 12, 1945 - Jan. 20, 1953Spouse: Elizabeth Bess Virginia Wallace (1919)Children: Mary Jane TrumanMajor Events in Office: Atomic Bombsâ dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945), finish of World War II (1945), formation of United Nations (1945), Nuremburg Trials (1945-1946), Truman Doctrineâ (1947), Taft-Hartley Act (1947), making of Israel, Marshall Planâ (1948-1952), NATO Treaty (1949), Korean Conflictâ (1950-1953), Twenty-Second Amendment Ratifiedâ (1951), Hydrogen Bomb Detonated (1952)Famous Quote: Im going to contend energetically. Im going to create some serious trouble for them. Family Truman was the child of John Anderson Truman, a rancher and domesticated animals broker and dynamic Democrat and Martha Ellen Young Truman. He had one brother, Vivian Truman, and one sister, Mary Jane Truman. On June 28, 1919, Truman married Elizabeth Bess Virginia Wallace. They 35 and 34, separately. Together, they had oneâ daughter, Margaret Truman. She is a vocalist and an author, composing histories of her folks as well as puzzles. Harry S Trumans Career Before the Presidency Truman worked at random temp jobs subsequent to moving on from secondary school to enable his family to make a decent living. He helped on his dads ranch from 1906 until he joined the military to battle in World War I. After the war he opened a cap shop which flopped in 1922. Truman was made an adjudicator of Jackson Co., Missouri, which was a regulatory post. From 1926-34, he was the head judge of the area. From 1935-45, he filled in as a Democratic Senator speaking to Missouri. At that point in 1945, he expected the bad habit administration. Military Service Truman was an individual from the National Guard. In 1917, his unit was called up into normal help during World War I. He served from August 1917 until May 1919. He was made an officer of a Field Artillery unit in France. He was a piece of the Meuse-Argonne hostile in 1918 and was at Verdun toward the finish of the war. Turning into the President Truman assumed control over the administration upon Franklin Roosevelts passing on April 12, 1945. At that point in 1948, the Democrats were from the start uncertain about sponsorship Truman however inevitably energized behind him to choose him to run for president. He was contradicted by Republican Thomas E. Dewey, Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, and Progressive Henry Wallace. Truman won with 49% of the well known vote and 303 of the conceivable 531 constituent votes. Occasions and Accomplishments of Harry S Truman’s Presidency The war in Europe finished in May, 1945. In any case, America was still at war with Japan. One of the most significant choices made by Truman or perhaps some other president was the utilization of theâ atomic bombs in Japan. He requested two bombs:â one against Hiroshimaâ on August 6, 1945 and one against Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Trumans objective was to stop the war rapidly maintaining a strategic distance from further misfortunes of associated troops. Japan sued for tranquility on August tenth and gave up on September 2, 1945. Truman was president during the Nuremberg Trialsâ which rebuffed 22 Nazi pioneers for various wrongdoings including violations against mankind. 19 of them were seen as blameworthy. Also,â the United Nationsâ was made so as to attempt to stay away from future universal wars and to help settle clashes calmly. Truman made the Truman Doctrineâ which expressed that it was the obligation of the U.S. to help free people groups who are opposing endeavored oppression by equipped minorities or outside weights. America got together with Great Britain to battle against a Soviet bar of Berlin via transporting more than 2 million tons of provisions to the city. Truman consented to help revamp Europe in what was calledâ the Marshall Plan. America spent over $13 billion dollars to help get Europe in a good place again. In 1948, The Jewish individuals made the province of Israel in Palestine. The U.S. was among the first to perceive theâ new country. From 1950-53, America took an interest in the Korean Conflict. North Korean Communist powers had attacked South Korea. Truman got the UN to concur that the U.S. could oust the North Koreans out of the South. MacArthur was sent in and called for America to do battle with China. Truman would not concur and MacArthur was expelled from his post. The U.S. didn't accomplish its goal in the contention. Other significant issues of Trumans time in office were the Red Scare, the section of the 22nd Amendmentâ limiting a president to two terms,â the Taft-Hartley Act, Trumans Fair Deal, and anâ assassination attemptâ in 1950. Post Presidential Period Truman chose not to look for re-appointment in 1952. He resigned to Independence, Missouri. He stayed dynamic in supporting Democratic contender for the administration. He passed on December 26, 1972. Authentic Significance It was President Truman who settled on an official conclusion to utilize the nuclear bombs on Japan to accelerate the apocalypse War II. His utilization of the bomb was not just an approach to stop what could have been a ridiculous battle on the territory yet additionally to make an impression on the Soviet Union that the U.S. was not reluctant to utilize the bomb if essential. Truman was president during the beginnings of the Cold War and furthermore during the Korean War.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

The American Red Cross (ARC) free essay sample

The American Red Cross was established by Clara Barton in 1881. Barton, a common war nurture, was credited with setting up the early works of what is at present known as the American Red Cross. The strategic the American Red Cross is to offer alleviation to survivors of fiascos and to assist residents with preparing, forestall and react to crises. This association was based on the reason that a large portion of its help would come as volunteers basically offering back to their kindred Americans in the midst of hardship. Throughout the years, the American Red Cross changed into a business intended to deal with fiscal gifts just as labor for those requiring help in the midst of catastrophes or crises. Normally the American Red Cross would have created business morals to administer itself appropriately. Business morals is contained standards, qualities, and guidelines that manage conduct in the realm of business (Ferrell, 2011). The chief is the thing that the business defines as its limits for good business practices and will frequently remain inside the domains of what is adequate for the association. We will compose a custom exposition test on The American Red Cross (ARC) or then again any comparable theme explicitly for you Don't WasteYour Time Recruit WRITER Just 13.90/page Partners screen and focus on the moral practices of its association. The result will decide how the business is seen by the outside world. Qualities are what is regularly acknowledged by society. Business morals have a few advantages which incorporate representative responsibility, financial specialist steadfastness, consumer loyalty, and the primary concern. Worker responsibility depends on those representatives that have made an individual guarantee of penance for that specific business or association. They have connected their work future to the organization and will remain for quite a while. Speculator reliability relies upon how the business capacities regarding keeping its code of morals at a significant level. The notoriety of an organization has a significant impact of whether a financial specialist keeps on partner with the organization. The company’s moral culture can directly affect its benefits also. Hence, picking up investors’ trust and certainty is indispensable to supporting the money related solidness of the firm (Ferrell, 2011). Consumer loyalty is the most significant sponsor of business morals. The organization must make a solid effort to keep up the endorsement looked for through the fulfillment of the steadfast client base. It can do as such by staying aware of the preferences of its clients just as structure a technique that will reinforce the connection between the clients and the partners. The main concern is benefits that the organization can appear toward the year's end. Benefits add to the achievement of the organization and help with its endurance later on job that it plays in deciding whether the organization will stay in presence. Decide and talk about the job that ARC’s partner direction played in this situation. Partner direction is summarized as a comprehension of the necessities of its partners and how those requirements are met as per the general inclination of the partners. Hierarchical capacities include the blend, coordination and arrangement of authoritative abilities, which are coordinated towards the vital motivation behind the association (Keelson, 2013). Hierarchical capacities can likewise be depicted as an authoritative capacity to play out a planned errand, using authoritative assets, to accomplish a specific final product (Keelson, 2013). Three parts of the stakeholder’s direction are: 1) gathering information about the partners, 2) that the data accumulated be dispersed all through the organization by the representatives, 3) the response of the organization to cling to the principles of the partners and what is being done to educate all regarding the desires to surpass or maintain what is normal. The American Red Cross has a commitment to satisfy its job as a non-benefit beneficent association to the partners. Any negative movement or conduct of the association has an immediate reflection on the partners. Beginning with those picked to lead the American Red Cross. Starting with the timespan of 1999, the Red Cross has had seven acting or for all time selected chief to leave office without finishing their full terms. Each left because of an unfortunate behavior on their parts. The American Red Cross was turning into an office known for employing and terminating as opposed to building up a solid authoritative base. In extra to the high pace of executives being terminated or leaving, they would get generous severance pay sums as a piece of their end. Initiative at the lower levels likewise gave indications of shortcoming and doubt as there were episodes of fumbled assets and misappropriation. The American Red Cross refreshed it â€Å"Ethics Rules and Policy† proclamations. All workers and volunteers related with the association were required to sign the record. Congress constrained the American Red Cross to be increasingly noticeable with their practices in 2006 in the midst of charges of missing assets and different bad behaviors. In 2005, after a catastrophic event, an article was distributed in the New York Times relating to the American Red Cross. A few publications relating to the ARC, for example, one raising doubt about the trust and dedication that is allowed to the association (Groscurth, 2013). As indicated by this publication, the American Red Cross speaks to all that is good and bad with the American inclination for bureaucratic calamity reaction to be done by private volunteers as opposed to government (Groscurth, 2013). Decide and talk about the manners by which ARC’s corporate administration neglected to give formalized duty to their partners. There are a few different ways that the American Red Cross corporate administration neglected to give formalized duties to their partners. Starting in the year 1999, with the acquiescence of Elizabeth Dole, the job of the Board of Directors seat individual has been frail. The American Red Cross has sat around idly looking for applicants that have not satisfied the prerequisites need to effectively deal with an enormous combination, for example, the Red Cross. The absence of authority caused a negative impact on the notoriety of an industry that took a long time to construct. There was no standard of discipline for the activities of those trusted to run an association, for example, the Red Cross. The Red Cross didn't investigate refreshing their strategies and techniques until some other time. Partners can be educated by permitting various divisions to participate in comparable practices to be mindful to and address the requests of their different partners (Maigan, 2011). By joining these practices, organizations would get ready to oversee and follow up on partner data substantially more deliberately and productively (Maigan, 2011). Prescribe steps that ARC could follow to improve their partner point of view. To improve their partner point of view, the American Red Cross could be to persistently address stakeholder’s needs as a continuous exertion. They ought to talk about and reexamine the job of the American Red Cross and look for approaches to consistently enhance it. Audit what the ARC rely on and what the stakeholder’s desires are so as to satisfy the requirements adequately. The American Red Cross must keep on checking the entirety of its activities with the goal that errors of the past are not rehashed. All partners ought to be given responsibility for their jobs and permitted to look at what need patching up or rebuilding so the Red Cross can stay an incredible association. References

Monday, August 17, 2020

Fresh Ink May 6, 2014

Fresh Ink May 6, 2014 HARDCOVER RELEASES The Bees by Laline Paull (Ecco)   Born into the lowest class of her rigid, hierarchical society, Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, an Untouchable fit only to clean and remove the bodies of the dead from her orchard hive. As part of the collective, she is taught to Accept, Obey, Serveâ€"work and sacrifice are the highest virtues, and worship of her beloved Queen the only religion. Her society is governed by the priestess class, questions are forbidden, and all thoughts belong to the Hive Mind.  But Flora is not like other beesâ€"a difference that holds profound consequences. With circumstances threatening the hive’s survival, her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw but her courage and strength are an asset. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect pollen. She also finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both profound and ominous.  But when Flora breaks the most sacred law of allâ€"daring to challenge the Queen’s fertilityâ€"enemies abound, from the fearsome fertility police who enforce the strict social hierarchy; to the high priestesses jealously wedded to power. Her deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce maternal love that will bring her into conflict with her conscience, her heart, her societyâ€"and lead her to unthinkable deeds. The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)   It’s November 2004. Barrett Meeks, having lost love yet again, is walking through Central Park when he is inspired to look up at the sky; there he sees a pale, translucent light that seems to regard him in a distinctly godlike way. Barrett doesn’t believe in visionsâ€"or in Godâ€"but he can’t deny what he’s seen. At the same time, in the not-quite-gentrified Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, Tyler, Barrett’s older brother, a struggling musician, is tryingâ€"and failingâ€"to write a wedding song for Beth, his wife-to-be, who is seriously ill.  Tyler is determined to write a song that will be not merely a sentimental ballad but an enduring expression of love. Barrett, haunted by the light, turns unexpectedly to religion. Tyler grows increasingly convinced that only drugs can release his creative powers. Beth tries to face mortality with as much courage as she can summon. The Painter by Peter Heller (Knopf)   Jim Stegner has seen his share of violence and loss. Years ago he shot a man in a bar. His marriage disintegrated. He grieved the one thing he loved. In the wake of tragedy, Jim, a well-known expressionist painter, abandoned the art scene of Santa Fe to start fresh in the valleys of rural Colorado. Now he spends his days painting and fly-fishing, trying to find a way to live with the dark impulses that sometimes overtake him. He works with a lovely model. His paintings fetch excellent prices. But one afternoon, on a dirt road, Jim comes across a man beating a small horse, and a brutal encounter rips his quiet life wide open. Fleeing Colorado, chased by men set on retribution, Jim returns to New Mexico, tormented by his own relentless conscience. History of the Rain by Niall Williams (Bloomsbury USA)   We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. That’s how it seems to me, being alive for a little while, the teller and the told. So says Ruthie Swain. The bedridden daughter of a dead poet, home from college after a collapse (Something Amiss, the doctors say), she is trying to find her father through storiesâ€"and through generations of family history in County Clare (the Swains have the written stories, from salmon-fishing journals to poems, and the maternal MacCarrolls have the oral) and through her own writing (with its Superabundance of Style). Ruthie turns also to the books her father left behind, his library transposed to her bedroom and stacked on the floor, which she pledges to work her way through while she’s still living. In her attic room, with the rain rushing down the windows, Ruthie writes Ireland, with its weather, its rivers, its lilts, and its lows. The stories she uncovers and recounts bring back to life multiple generations buried in this soilâ€"and they might just bring her back into the world again, too. But Enough About You: Essays by Christopher Buckley (Simon Schuster)   In his first book of essays since his 1997 bestseller,  Wry Martinis, Buckley delivers a rare combination of big ideas and truly fun writing. Tackling subjects ranging from “How to Teach Your Four-Year-Old to Ski” to “A Short History of the Bug Zapper,” and “The Art of Sacking” to literary friendships with Joseph Heller and Christopher Hitchens, he is at once a humorous storyteller, astute cultural critic, adventurous traveler, and irreverent historian. Reading these essays is the equivalent of being in the company of a tremendously witty and enlightening companion. Praised as “both deeply informed and deeply funny” by  The Wall Street Journal, Buckley will have you laughing and reflecting in equal measure. After the End by Amy Plum (HarperTeen)   Juneau has grown up knowing that she and the rest of the people in her village are some of  the only survivors of World War III. But when Juneau returns from a hunting trip one day and discovers that everyone in her village has disappeared, she sets off to find them. Leaving the boundaries in remote Alaska  for the very first time, she learns a horrifying truth: There never was a war.  Everything was a lie.Juneau must now make her way in a modern world she never knew existed. But while she’s struggling to rescue her friends and family, someone else is looking for her. Someone who knows the extraordinary truth about the secrets of her past. The Last Kind Words Saloon by Larry McMurtry (Liverlight)   Opening in the settlement of Long Grass, Texas-not quite in Kansas, and nearly New Mexico-we encounter the taciturn Wyatt, whiling away his time in between bottles, and the dentist-turned-gunslinger Doc, more adept at poker than extracting teeth. Now hailed as heroes for their days of subduing drunks in Abilene and Dodge-more often with a mean look than a pistol-Wyatt and Doc are living out the last days of a way of life that is passing into history, two men never more aware of the growing distance between their lives and their legends. Along with Wyatts wife, Jessie, who runs the titular saloon, we meet Lord Ernle, an English baron; the exotic courtesan San Saba, the most beautiful whore on the plains; Charlie Goodnight, the Texas Ranger turned cattle driver last seen in McMurtrys  Comanche Moon, and Nellie Courtright, the witty and irrepressible heroine of  Telegraph Days. McMurtry traces the rich and varied friendship of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday from the town of Long Grass to Buffalo Bills Wild West Show in Denver, then to Mobetie, Texas, and finally to Tombstone, Arizona, culminating with the famed gunfight at the O.K. Corral, rendered here in McMurtrys stark and peerless prose. With the buffalo herds gone, the Comanche defeated, and vast swaths of the Great Plains being enclosed by cattle ranches, Wyatt and Doc live on, even as the storied West that forged their myths disappears. As harsh and beautiful, and as brutal and captivating as the open range it depicts,  The Last Kind Words Salooncelebrates the genius of one of our most original American writers. The Book of You by Claire Kendall (Harper)   Most people dread the prospect of jury duty, but university administrator Clarissa wants nothing more than to be selected for a trial. Every day she serves means a day away from her colleague Rafe, an academic expert on the darker side of folk tales with whom Clarissa spent one drunken night. That encounter only serves to fuel his growing obsession with her, and he is not about to let her slip away.The Book of You is a riveting portrait of a woman terrorizedâ€"emotionally and physicallyâ€"by a man bent on possessing her. As a disturbingly violent crime unfolds in front of her in court, Clarissa finds herself experiencing an equally harrowing nightmare in real life. Realizing that she bears the burden of proof, she uncovers piece by piece the twisted, macabre fairytale Rafe has spun around them both, discovering that the ending he envisions for them is more awful than she could have ever imagined. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Scribner)   Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure’s agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall.In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts o f Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure. The Unwitting by Ellen Feldman (Spiegel Grau)   During the Cold War, many liberal anti-communist writers, artists, musicians, and intellectuals ended up working for organizations that were CIA fronts. CIA protocol dictated that one individual in the various organizations would be investigated, sworn to secrecy, and told about the CIA connection and funding. That individual was, in Agency parlance, witting. Everyone else was unwitting.  The Unwitting  is about a husband who is witting, a wife who is unwitting, and the unraveling of her life when she discovers that the person she is closest to in the world, the husband she loved and trusted, has betrayed her not with another woman but with an allegiance. Wonderland by Stacey DErasmo (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)   Anna Brundage is a rock star. She is tall and sexy, with a powerhouse voice and an unforgettable mane of red hair. She came out of nowhere, an immediate indie sensation. And then, life happened. Anna went down as fast as she went up, and then walked off the scene for seven years. Without a record deal or clamoring fans, she sells a piece of her famous fathers art to finance just one more album and a European comeback tour. Anna is forty-four. This may be her last chance to cement her place in the life she chose, the life she struggled for, the life shes not sure she can sustain. She falls back easily into the ways of the road-sex with strangers, the search for the perfect moment onstage. To see Anna perform is something-watch her find the note, the electric connection with the audience, the transcendence when it all comes together and the music seems to fill the world. ________________________ PAPERBACK RELEASES Authority by Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals)   For thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X has taken the form of a series of expeditions monitored by a secret agency called the Southern Reach. After the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in  Annihilation,  the Southern Reach is in disarray, and John Rodriguez, aka “Control,” is the team’s newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselvesâ€"and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he’s promised to serve. And the consequences will  spread much further than that. The Rathbones by Janice Clark (Anchor)   Mercy, fifteen years old, is the diminutive scion of the Rathbone clan. Her father, the last in the dynasty of New England whalers, has been lost at sea for seven years-ever since the last sperm whale was seen off the coast of Naiwayonk, Connecticut. Mercys memories of her father and of the time before he left grow dimmer each day, and she spends most of her time in the attic hideaway of her reclusive Uncle Mordecai. But when a strange visitor turns up one night, Mercy and Mordecai are forced to flee and set sail on a journey that will bring them deep into the haunted history of the Rathbone family. From the depths of the sea to the lonely heights of the widows walk; from the wisdom of the worn Rathbone wives to the mysterious origins of a sinking island, Mercy and Mordecais enchanting journey will bring them to places they never thought possible. Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie OFarrell (Vintage)   London, 1976. In the thick of a record-breaking heatwave, Gretta Riordans newly-retired husband has cleaned out his bank account and vanished. Now, for the first time in years, the three Riordan children are converging on their childhood home: Michael Francis, a history teacher whose marriage is failing; Monica, with two stepdaughters who despise her and an ugly secret that has driven a wedge between her and the little sister she once adored; and Aoife (pronounced EE-fah), the youngest, whose new life in Manhattan is elaborately arranged to conceal her illiteracy. As the siblings track down clues to their fathers disappearance, they also navigate rocky pasts and long-held secrets. Their search ultimately brings them to their ancestral village in Ireland, where the truth of their familys past is revealed.   The Residue Years by Mitchell S. Jackson (Bloomsbury USA) Mitchell S. Jackson grew up black in a neglected neighborhood in America’s whitest city, Portland, Oregon. In the ’90s, those streets and beyond had fallen under the shadow of crack cocaine and its familiar mayhem. In his commanding debut autobiographical novel, Mitchell writes what it was to come of age in that time and place, with a breakout voice that’s nothing less than extraordinary. The Residue Years  switches between the perspectives of a young man, Champ, and his mother, Grace. Grace is just out of a drug treatment program, trying to stay clean and get her kids back. Champ is trying to do right by his mom and younger brothers, and dreams of reclaiming the only home he and his family have ever shared. But selling crack is the only sure way he knows to achieve his dream. In this world of few options and little opportunity, where love is your strength and your weakness, this family fights for family and against what tears one apart. The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally (Washington Square Press)   In 1915, Naomi and Sally Durance, two spirited Australian sisters, join the war effort as nurses, escaping the confines of their father’s farm and carrying a guilty secret with them. Used to tending the sick as they are, nothing could have prepared them for what they confront, first on a hospital ship near Gallipoli, then on the Western Front.Yet amid the carnage, the sisters become the friends they never were at home and find themselves courageous in the face of extreme danger and also the hostility from some on their own side. There is great bravery, humor, and compassion, too, and the inspiring example of the remarkable women they serve alongside. In France, where Naomi nurses in a hospital set up by the eccentric Lady Tarlton while Sally works in a casualty clearing station, each meets an exceptional man: the kind of men for whom they might give up some of their newfound independenceâ€"if only they all survive. A Guide to Being Born: Stories by Ramona Ausubel (Riverhead Trade)   Major new literary talent Ramona Ausubel combines the otherworldly wisdom of her much-loved debut novel, No One Is Here Except All of Us, with the precision of the short-story form. A Guide toBeing Born is organized around the stages of lifeâ€"love, conception, gestation, birthâ€"and the transformations that happen as people experience deeply altering life events, falling in love, becoming parents, looking toward the end of life. In each of these eleven stories Ausubel’s stunning imagination and humor are moving, entertaining, and provocative, leading readers to see the familiar world in a new way. In “Atria” a pregnant teenager believes she will give birth to any number of strange animals rather than a human baby; in “Catch and Release” a girl discovers the ghost of a Civil War hero living in the woods behind her house; and in “Tributaries” people grow a new arm each time they fall in love. Funny, surprising, and delightfully strangeâ€"all the stories have a strong emotional core; Ausubel’s primary concern is always love, in all its manifestations. Seven Lives and One Great Love, Memories of a Cat by Lena Divani (Europa Editions)   If you have ever lived with cats you know how cunning, tender, ferocious, underhanded, ingenious, foolish and completely adorable they can be. The same words can be used to describe the hero of this novel, Sugar. This is the storyâ€"a love story of epic dimensionsâ€"of Sugar, a cat with a keen wit and a reflective nature, and his human, Madamigella, a writer with a frenetic and impossibly dispersive life. In this his seventh life, Sugar has countless stories to tell and a remarkable talent for telling them. But his real area of expertise lies in his preternatural ability to domesticate his humansâ€"whatever you do, don’t even suggest that we are the ones who domesticate him and his feline relatives! With wit and a broad repertoire of cultural references, Sugar recounts his days and nights spent with Madamigella in a novel that fits squarely into the illustrious tradition of feline literature a la T.S. Eliot, Edgar Allen Poe, Baudelaire, Bukowski, and Celine. The Orphans of Race Point by Patry Francis (Harper Perennial)   Set in the close-knit Portuguese community of Provincetown, Massachusetts,  The Orphans of Race Pointtraces the relationship between Hallie Costa and Gus Silva, who meet as children in the wake of a terrible crime that leaves Gus parentless. Their friendship evolves into an enduring and passionate love that will ask more of them than they ever imagined. On the night of their high school prom, a terrible tragedy devastates their relationship and profoundly alters the course of their lives. And when, a decade later, Gusâ€"now a priestâ€"becomes entangled with a distraught woman named Ava and her daughter Mila, troubled souls who bring back vivid memories of his own damaged past, the unthinkable happens: he is charged with murder. Can Hallie save the man she’s never stopped loving, by not only freeing him from prison but alsoâ€"finallyâ€"the curse of his past? Save Yourself by Kelly Braffet (Broadway Books)   When Patrick and Mike Cusimanos drunken father is sent to jail on manslaughter charges, they find themselves at the apex of local targeting. Patrick struggles to balance public shame, loss, and inappropriate, awkward temptation. He is desperately in love with Mikes live-in girlfriend, Caro, and amid his efforts to do the right thing, a beautiful but troubled high school bad-girl named Layla develops an unsettling obsession for him. As these two young women push Patrick to a dangerous breaking point, Mike settles further and further into a rut of idle avoidance. Meanwhile, Laylas little sister, Verna, is suffering through her first year of high school. Shes become a prime target for her cruel classmates, not just because of her strange name and her fundamentalist parents: Laylas bad-girl rep proves too heavy a shadow for Verna, so she falls in with her sisters circle of outcasts and misfits whose world is far darker than she ever imagined. The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P by Adelle Waldman (Picador)   Nate Piven is a rising star in Brooklyn’s literary scene. After several lean and striving years, he has his pick of both magazine assignments and women: Juliet, the hotshot business reporter; Elisa, his gorgeous ex-girlfriend; and Hannah, “almost universally regarded as nice and smart, or smart and nice,” who is fun and holds her own in conversation with his friends. In  Nate’s  world, wit and conversation are not at all dead. But is romance? Novelist Waldman plunges into the psyche of a modern man who thinks of himself as beyond superficial judgment yet struggles with status anxiety; who is drawn to women yet has a habit of letting them down. With tough-minded intelligence and wry good humor  The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.  is an absorbing tale of one young man’s search for happiness and an inside look at how he really thinks about women, sex, and love. An Untamed State by Roxanne Gay (Grove Press, Black Cat)   Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haitis richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her fathers Port au Prince estate. Held captive by a man who calls himself The Commander, Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom. As it becomes clear her father intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents. Norwegian by Night by Derek Miller (Mariner Books)   Sheldon Horowitz-widowed, impatient, impertinent-has grudgingly agreed to leave New York and move in with his granddaughter, Rhea, and her new husband, Lars, in Norway-a country of blue and ice with one thousand Jews, not one of them a former Marine sniper in the Korean War turned watch repairman. Not until now, anyway. Home alone one morning, Sheldon witnesses a dispute between the woman who lives upstairs and an aggressive stranger. When events turn dire, Sheldon seizes and shields the neighbors young son from the violence, and they flee the scene. As Sheldon and the boy look for a safe haven in an alien world, past and present weave together, forcing them ever forward to a wrenching moment of truth. The Conditions of Love by Dale M. Kushner (Grand Central Publishing)   In 1953, ten-year-old Eunice lives in the backwaters of Wisconsin with her outrageously narcissistic mother, a  manicureeste  and movie star worshipper. Abandoned by her father as an infant, Eunice worries that she will become a misfit like her mother. When her mothers lover, the devoted Sam, moves in, Eunice imagines her life will finally become normal. But her hope dissolves when Sam gets kicked out, and she is again alone with her mother. A freak storm sends Eunice away from all things familiar. Rescued by the shaman-like Rose, Eunices odyssey continues with a stay in a hermits shack and ends with a passionate love affair with an older man. Through her capacity to redefine herself, reject bitterness and keep her heart open, she survives and flourishes. In this, she is both ordinary and heroic. At once fable and realistic story,  The Conditions of Love  is a book about emotional and physical survival. Through sheer force of will, Eunice saves herself from a doomed life. Scissors by Stephane Michaka (Anchor)   Based on the life of the famed short-story writer Raymond Carver, particularly his final, postalcoholic decade,Scissors  is the story of an author whose life is fraught with personal and creative struggle. Raymonds first marriage is intense, passionate, and deeply unhealthy, but his second, to a poet, is filled with love and support. Throughout both, Raymond (and to some extent, his wives) is in an escalating conflict with his editor, Douglas. As his success and confidence grow, Raymond strives harder and harder to ensure that his stories, the most important part of his life, are published as written, but Douglas, who considers the stories as much his as their authors, is determined to publish them only in a heavily edited form. Raymonds former alcoholism and his past and present relationships always lurk in the background; his wives offer their own perspectives on both; and in the end, after Raymonds death, it is Joanne who finally confronts Douglas in a way that Raymond never could .