Most Popular Books by Elizabeth Edwards

Roy and Sarah Edwards have enjoyed a dramatically different lifestyle from the majority of us. For more than thirty years they lived full time aboard their cruising home, Cockatoo, which Roy first purchased back in the swinging 60''s. Cockatoo, built for the British Admiralty in 1943 as a steam pinnace, was sold out of service and converted to a yacht before Roy found her in his quest for a craft which would allow him to fulfil his dream. Ever since he was a boy he knew he wanted to spend a life on the high seas. He studied navigation when he left school before being called up for National Service. During this time he served on HMS Barleycorn, a bar boat at that time based in Scottish waters. “There''s a future for you in the Royal Navy Edwards,” his skipper told him when the obligatory two years were up. But Roy had other ideas. He didn''t want to be tied down and posted to places beyond his control. After being de-mobbed he bought a fleet of day boats on the East coast of England and ran his own boatyard. Later he took up commercial sea going, working first in the North Sea then later in the Persian Gulf where he became a well-respected tug master working offshore for an American Oilfield Construction company. Sarah, too, had a passion for the sea and used to gaze wistfully out over it as a child admiring its ever changing moods. “Sometimes so calm and peaceful, sometimes so rough and angry.” At a tender age, as soon as she could swim, Sarah would be invited to stay with Aunt Phil. Her Aunt had had a passion for boats ever since she was at Cambridge University. She had bought her own boat on which she lived aboard full time. Sarah jumped at the chance to stay and revelled in the freedom and life style so different from the Victorian, strictly run, country-house hotel in which she was brought up. One day this lifestyle would be for her too. “East, West, Med''s Best” covers the mad, glorious days of the heady 1980''s before technology ruled the world as we now know it. Roy and Sarah were a couple who knew what they wanted and where they were going, who worked together with a common bond and natural understanding of what was needed and when. “You can never neglect the moods of the sea or Nature,” says Sarah. “She is so much more powerful than we are. One hand for yourself and one for the boat was a comment made on many an occasion as wind and wave violently rocked Cockatoo causing her to roll roughly and relentlessly.” ''You don''t have to be mad but it helps,'' became another seasoned saying, always expressed with a laugh, aboard ''Cockatoo''. The tales Sarah has to tell about their experiences and the people they have met along the way make sometimes for exciting, sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant reading but always, at the back of it all is that taste for adventure which brings its own understanding and compassion.

In July 1897 Sir Benjamin Stone announced the formation of the National Photographic Record Association. The NPRA was the most high profile part of a much wider photographic survey movement at the end of the 19th century. The prime objective of this association was to record antiquities, ancient buildings and customs of specific historical interest for the future. This book, by leading photo historians James and Edwards examines in detail Stone''s central role and presents over 100 photos, many of which have never been published before.

This collection explores, in the words of Australian writer Beverley Farmer, "the experience of being foreign". And whilst the majority of stories are rooted in some kind of travel experience, each sees its characters negotiating times of isolation or dislocation in their lives for which ''the voyage''--physical, emotional or psychological--is often a catalyst for entering into yet another ''new'' space. In the title story, "New feet", Mrs Butler seeks a self-imposed isolation from her native cultural milieu, literally erasing her own footprints in her attempt to construct a new life for herself; whilst in "Kill the old red rooster when she comes," two `intrepid women travellers'' in India complacently repeat the mistakes of their forebears until a natural event disorients them completely. For others, displacement, at least initially, occurs closer to home. The first-person narrator of "Dectomy" negotiates her way through a brief, disastrous, international marriage; and the children, Christopher ("Bubble-and-Squeak"), Mazie ("What any dog wants to hear") and Eddie ("What the sea wants") experience moments of foreignness that are disturbingly alienating. As an overall concept, New Feet attempts to investigate characters who step into being strange and who rarely, within the scope of each story, ''return''. In this sense, being foreign is not foreign in itself, but something which, like the skin of one''s feet, the characters across the collection must continually grow into and out of.

Borderline: Swan Song of an Unfinished Life is the story of my mother, Helen Louise, and her suicide, how it affected my life, and my own ''dance'' with the California Mental Health system. You will laugh. You will cry. You will look at the issue of mental health from a ''survivor''s'' viewpoint, and come to understand this (still) ''taboo'' subject a bit better than before. This life is a journey--sometimes full of sunshine and laughter--sometimes full of storms and silence. I hope that in sharing my personal journey, it will help you with yours.

The aim of this study was to explore the factors that influenced women to choose care in a birth centre in the South Wales Valleys, and to ascertain their expectations and experiences of care in the antenatal period and during labour. The possibility of complications arising during normal pregnancy is a well-known phenomenon, leading to a woman''s care being transferred from a midwife to an obstetrician. For women intending to give birth in the birth centre, this also meant having care transferred to the District General Hospital eight miles distant. Experiences of those women who had care transferred were of a particular interest. Even though transfer is a common occurrence, little research exploring the effects of this from the woman''s perspective has been carried out. The study was qualitative, using thematic analysis based on Gadamerian phenomenological principles. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with a purposeful sample of twenty women who described their antenatal experiences. Five of the women were later transferred from midwifery-led to obstetric-led care in the obstetric unit, with three of the transfers occurring during labour. A second interview was held with these five women to explore their experiences further. Key findings indicate that women choose the birth centre for its friendly, welcoming environment and woman-centred midwifery care. The influence and importance of family around the time of birth was a notable feature. Women transferred in labour subsequently experienced a different model of care, which for one woman meant that she remained empowered to make choices and decisions about her labour, whilst two other women felt some aspects of care to be mechanistic and impersonal. Recommendations from the study include further, larger scale research into women''s experiences of transfer. Areas where specific guidance and education may be beneficial are suggested, to give a better understanding of those aspects of transfer that might affect women.

We present a theoretical framework that posits compulsive buying behavior as a function of various psychological processes and personality traits. We analyze data from actual consumers using a new constrained maximum likelihood clusterwise regression procedure to examine the nature of consumer heterogeneity in compulsive buying behavior. This empirical analysis distinguishes between 2 clusters, or groups, of compulsive buyers in terms of differential drivers of their compulsive buying. A posterior regression analysis reveals additional differences in background characteristics for each cluster. A discussion of future research issues and other applications is provided.

Clinical studies suggest that gonadal steroids influence seizure activity, particularly in persons with temporal lobe epilepsy. In turn, limbic seizures may alter reproductive function. We determined the roles of gonadal hormones in altering limbic seizure thresholds and the development of motor seizures, as well as the role of limbic seizures in causing reproductive dysfunction in the adult rat. ''Methods.'' Studies used both ''in vivo '' kindling of animals and ''in vitro'' kindling of hippocampal slices. ''Results''. (1) Effect of hormones on seizures: In ovariectomized females, estradiol-17ß (E2) significantly lowered amygdala/seizure thresholds, facilitated amygdala and hippocampal kindling, and increased serum corticosterone levels. E2 and corticosterone, either alone or in combination, facilitated kindling. In contrast, progesterone (P4) significantly increased amygdala seizure thresholds and slowed the rate of amygdala and hippocampal kindling. P4 also suppressed stage-5 seizures in approximately 60% of intact kindled females. The anticonvulsant effects Of P4 may be receptor mediated, since treatment of epileptic hippocampal slices for 1 h with P4 and R5020 (a P4 receptor agonist), but not allopregnanolone (the P4 metabolite), significantly decreased epileptiform responses. In male rats, testosterone and its two metabolites, E2 and dihydrotestosterone, all facilitated kindling. Blockade of either androgen or E2 responses in the male significantly slowed kindling rates, as compared to intact controls. (2) Effect of seizures on reproductive function: In female rats, amygdala kindled seizures caused the cessation of estrous cycles, the development of polyfollicular ovaries, and an increase in serum E2 levels. In male rats, amygdala kindled seizures increased serum concentrations of testosterone, prolactin, and E 2, and increased testis, epididymis and pituitary weight. In contrast, generalized seizures in male rats caused a transient hypogonadal state that was restored within 6 weeks of the last seizure. ''Conclusions.'' These results suggest that E2 is proconvulsive in both sexes, and that P4 receptor responses in the female are anticonvulsive. Antagonism of E2 mediated effects in the male brain and/or potentiation of progestin effects in either sex may have potential therapeutic value for men and women with temporal lobe epilepsy.