Futile Efforts

Futile Efforts PDF

Author: Alexander Michael

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2002-05-24

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 059522489X

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A young boy, his mother and sister are abandoned in a dilapidated house while his brutal father makes a career out of prostituting women. In order to help his mentally disturbed mother and abused sister escape the impoverished conditions under which they live, the boy undertakes extraordinary measures to better himself. He transforms his frail body into a form more suited for the cruel and violent world that was first introduced to him by his father. He also sets out to overcome the learning disability that stands between him and the college education he needs to help his family. It is not, however, until after the unrelated murders of the boy’s brother and best friend that the story takes its darkest turn. Futile Efforts provides a compelling story of psychological intrigue as it depicts the evolution of a scared, frail boy into something that is more frightening than his worst nightmare. What sets Futile Efforts apart from its genre is not the terrible misfortunes described in the story but the responses to those misfortunes. Futile Efforts is made even more compelling by the fact that it is based entirely on a true story.

Futile Efforts

Futile Efforts PDF

Author: Tom Piccirilli

Publisher: Crossroad Press

Published: 2011-07-11

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13:

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"In this disturbing, often grotesque and ultimately mesmerizing collection, Piccirilli (The Cold Spot) reprints 16 stories and 45 poems. Although the star-studded introductions are a nice bonus, Piccirilli's stories are the selling point, and all are standouts. "An Average Insanity, a Common Agony" is an emotionally devastating tale of a man trying to do the right thing for the sake of an innocent creature. "Alchemy" tells the story of five emotionally stunted people whose discovery of a dead body lets them visit their own dark places ("They weren't frightened [by the sight of the corpse]. None of us were. It broke up the monotony"). "With an Ear for My Father's Weeping" manages to be both touching and hysterical. Piccirilli's unique mix of gore, violence and a literate style bordering on the lyrical help make this collection one that horror fans will relish."--Publishers Weekly, starred review. With story introductions by Jack Ketchum, Brian Keene, Edward Lee, Simon Clark, TM Wright, Gary Braunbeck, Thomas Monteleone, Tamara Thorne, Ed Gorman, Ray Garton, and Christopher Golden.

Futile Efforts

Futile Efforts PDF

Author: Alexander Michael

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2002-05-24

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780595730186

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A young boy, his mother and sister are abandoned in a dilapidated house while his brutal father makes a career out of prostituting women. In order to help his mentally disturbed mother and abused sister escape the impoverished conditions under which they live, the boy undertakes extraordinary measures to better himself. He transforms his frail body into a form more suited for the cruel and violent world that was first introduced to him by his father. He also sets out to overcome the learning disability that stands between him and the college education he needs to help his family. It is not, however, until after the unrelated murders of the boys brother and best friend that the story takes its darkest turn. "Futile Efforts" provides a compelling story of psychological intrigue as it depicts the evolution of a scared, frail boy into something that is more frightening than his worst nightmare. What sets "Futile Efforts" apart from its genre is not the terible misfortunes described in the story but the responses to those misfortunes. "Futile Efforts" is made even more compelling by the fact that it is based entirely on a true story.

Bait and Switch

Bait and Switch PDF

Author: Barbara Ehrenreich

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2006-07-25

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1429915706

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The bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed goes back undercover to do for America's ailing middle class what she did for the working poor Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed explored the lives of low-wage workers. Now, in Bait and Switch, she enters another hidden realm of the economy: the shadowy world of the white-collar unemployed. Armed with a plausible résumé of a professional "in transition," she attempts to land a middle-class job—undergoing career coaching and personality testing, then trawling a series of EST-like boot camps, job fairs, networking events, and evangelical job-search ministries. She gets an image makeover, works to project a winning attitude, yet is proselytized, scammed, lectured, and—again and again—rejected. Bait and Switch highlights the people who've done everything right—gotten college degrees, developed marketable skills, and built up impressive résumés—yet have become repeatedly vulnerable to financial disaster, and not simply due to the vagaries of the business cycle. Today's ultra-lean corporations take pride in shedding their "surplus" employees—plunging them, for months or years at a stretch, into the twilight zone of white-collar unemployment, where job searching becomes a full-time job in itself. As Ehrenreich discovers, there are few social supports for these newly disposable workers—and little security even for those who have jobs. Like the now classic Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch is alternately hilarious and tragic, a searing exposé of economic cruelty where we least expect it.

Futile Diplomacy

Futile Diplomacy PDF

Author: Neil Caplan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-23

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 1135250189

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These two volumes provide a careful and balanced behind-the-scenes account of the intricate diplomatic activity of the period between the first and second Arab-Israeli wars. Exploiting a range of available archive sources as well as extensive secondary sources, they provide an authoritative analysis of the positions and strategies which the principal parties and the would-be mediators adopted in the elusive search for a stable peace. The author examines the recurring deadlocks in terms of the motives and calculations of the various parties, and reveals how new incentives of pressures offered by outsiders proved incapable of reversing the serious deterioration of Arab-Israeli relations as the region headed for war at Suez. The text of each volume comprises both analytical-historical chapters and a selection of primary documents from archival sources.

Futile Diplomacy: The United Nations, the great powers, and Middle East peacemaking, 1948-1954

Futile Diplomacy: The United Nations, the great powers, and Middle East peacemaking, 1948-1954 PDF

Author: Neil Caplan

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 454

ISBN-13: 9780714647562

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These four volumes provide a careful and balanced behind-the-scenes account of the intricate diplomatic activity of the period between 1913 and 1956. Exploiting a range of available archive sources as well as extensive secondary sources, they provide an authoritative analysis of the positions and strategies which the principal parties and the would-be mediators adopted in the elusive search for a stable peace. The text of each volume comprises both analytical-historical chapters and a selection of primary documents from archival sources ...