Virago modern classic

Emma and Henry Lingard and Holly and Felix Craven are neighbors, old friends, durably wedded. Each thinks he understands the other well; better, perhaps, than he understands himself. All except Emma. She cries for help out of her private nightmares, but no one listens. Her recourse is a fantasy life written out in unsent letters. Then a series of crises shatters the tenuous balance of Emma's life and the routine of their days...

Falling for the Professor... All the village assumed that Margo Pearson was to marry George, but unexpectedly meeting Professor Gijs van Kessel made her pause for thought. But being a plain, practical girl, Margo knew the professor was most unlikely to look her way. It took a tragic accident to bring an offer of marriage--from the professor. It was a practical proposal, but as Margo was taken into the bosom of his family over Christmas in Holland, she did wonder whether he might, someday, return her love....

"After decades of steady growth, the world's food supply is no longer keeping up with population increases. These are the findings in this fourth volume in the Worldwatch Environmental Alert series from the Worldwatch Institute." According to Lester Brown and Hal Kane, the world's farmers can no longer be counted on to feed adequately the projected additions to our numbers. Achieving a humane balance between food and people now depends more on family planners than on farmers. "In this volume, the authors propose a global strategy to restore food security and a budget to implement it. Their global food security budget calls for stepped-up expenditures on both sides of the food/population equation. It includes investments not only to provide family planning services to all who want them, but also to eliminate the underlying causes of high fertility, such as female illiteracy. It also includes investments in an extensive reforestation and soil conservation effort, one that will arrest the deterioration of the agricultural resource base."--Jacket.

"Maurice Guest" by "Henry Handel Richardson" is a novel likely written during the late 19th century. The story centers around Maurice Guest, a young man with aspirations of becoming a successful musician in Leipzig, Germany. As he navigates his new environment, his dreams of artistic achievement are both buoyed and challenged by his relationships with others, especially a mysterious and captivating woman named Louise Dufrayer. The opening of the novel introduces Maurice as he emerges from a concert at the Gewandhaus, feeling inspired and full of ambition. He wanders through the vibrant streets of Leipzig, absorbing the lively atmosphere around him, but also grappling with feelings of loneliness and homesickness. His journey takes a pivotal turn when he encounters the young and spirited Madeleine Wade, who becomes an ally in his musical aspirations, contrasting with his budding fascination for the enigmatic Louise. Throughout this initial segment, the reader witnesses the depths of Maurice’s yearning for connection and artistic fulfillment as he confronts the realities of life in a foreign city, setting the stage for the complexities and developments of his character and relationships to unfold.

An American family in small Vermont village.

Don Juan, that notorious libertine, has disappeared. Has he been dragged down to hell by demons, as rumored ― or has he escaped? Doña Ana, the woman he tried to seduce, will stop at nothing to discover the truth. Set in a rural eighteenth-century Spain rife with suspicion and cruelty, and featuring a glorious cast of peasants, aristocrats and vengeful ghosts, this moving, surprising tragicomedy is also Sylvia Townsend Warner's response to the dark days of the Spanish Civil War.