DescriptionVanity Fair, with its rich cast of characters, takes place on the snakes-and-ladders board of life. Amelia Sedley, daughter of a wealthy merchant, has a loving mother to supervise her courtship. Becky Sharp, an orphan, has to use her wit, charm, and resourcefulness to escape from her destiny as a governess. This she does ruthlessly, musing: "I think I could become a good woman, if I has 5000 pounds a year." Thackeray's story is set at the time of the battle of Waterloo, in which the Sedley fortunes are lost - and Amelia is back to square one - while Becky rises with contemptuous ease.
DescriptionBecky Sharp, a willful, resourceful, and charming pleasure-seeker, uses her finishing school credentials and connections to get a job as a governess. In her new position, she wins the hearts of the moneyed young and old and is soon living well beyond her means. Meanwhile, her boarding-school friend Amelia Sedley is honest but poor and must give her son into the care of his grandfather, who will have nothing to do with her. The two meet up again at the novel's ironic climax. Vanity Fair provides a moral tapestry of early 19th-century English manners, with a persistent theme of the folly of the good at heart and the evil of those endowed with grace and wit.
DescriptionRamona just wants everyone to be happy. If only her father would smile and joke again, her mother would look less worried, her sister would be cheerful, and Picky-picky would eat his cat food. But Ramona's father has lost his job, and nobody in the Quimby household is in a very good mood. Ramona tries to cheer up the family as only Ramona can (by rehearsing for life as a rich and famous star of television commercials, for instance) but her best efforts only make things worse. Her sister, Beezus, calls her a pest, her parents lose patience with her, and her teacher claims she's forgotten her manners. But when her father admits he wouldn't trade her for a million dollars, Ramona knows everything is going to work out fine in the end.
DescriptionDemetri has written for NBC's Late Night with Conan O' Brien and performed on the show numerous times, as well as on Late Night with David Letterman, Last Call with Carson Daly, and numerous others. He is the latest correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart with his critiques on pop culture. Recorded live in February 2006 at the Lakeshore Theater in Chicago. Track 1: The Start Track 2: Some Jokes Track 3: The Remix Track 4: Other Jokes Track 5: Sames and Opposites Track 6: These Jokes Track 7: Personal Information Waltz Track 8: One Story Track 9: Some More Jokes Track 10: The Jokes with Guitar Track 11: The Grapes Song Track 12: The Wisdom Song Track 13: [Untitled Track]…
DescriptionBack on Earth with nothing more to show for his long, strange trip through time and space than a ratty towel and a plastic shopping bag, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription, the mysterious disappearance of Earth's dolphins, and the discovery of his battered copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy all conspire to give Arthur the sneaking suspicion that something otherworldly is indeed going on. God only knows what it all means. And fortunately, He left behind a Final Message of explanation. But since it's light-years away from Earth, on a star surrounded by souvenir booths, finding out what it is will mean hitching a ride to the far reaches of space aboard a UFO with a giant robot. But what else is new?
DescriptionImagine discovering what successful people have in common, distilling it into a set of simple practices, and using them to transform your company, your career, and your life. Written by three thought leaders in organizational development and self-improvem…
