Word: sheaf
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...meantime, parents want better schools now. And in spite of the obstacles, they are organizing charter schools in droves and flocking to what few exist. Principal David Lehman of West Michigan Academy of Environmental Science, near Grand Rapids, has a sheaf of applications several inches thick for the year 1997, though his school has no track record. This summer he got a letter from Amy and Ron Larva of Grand Rapids. Their child was not yet born, they wrote, but they wanted to reserve a kindergarten spot for the year...
...loan to a private company that has been set up, instead of buying the materials directly." As collateral for the loan, the company associated with the nuclear facility would deposit the appropriate amount of rare metals with a Swiss bank. Reaching under his coat, the former colonel extracted a sheaf of papers. "Here is a suggested contract. This way, it isn't reported to Moscow as an export sale, which avoids certain bureaucratic problems." Then came the clincher: when the deal was completed, the company that had received the development loan would be allowed to go bankrupt, and my companion...
Thom Jones' first book is a sheaf of extraordinary short stories, most of them about scarred, damaged men on the far side of violence. The viewpoint doesn't vary much: a straight-on, wondering stare back through the wreckage. The narrator of the superb title story cripples another Marine in a squabble during training, survives three tours of combat in Vietnam, then, overmatched in a prizefight and too stubborn to fall down, outpoints his opponent but suffers brain damage that leads to worsening epilepsy. "What a goddamn fool," he says of himself. He wrestles with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche without improving...
Other climbers read such details and shrug. Mistake or mischance, there is nothing useful to say. This is not because the deaths are meaningless but because their meaning seems alarmingly personal. They raise the sort of dust that stirs in every mountaineer's sheaf of recollections: soft snow breaks out from under your boots on a steep slope. You slide, gaining speed. Then some mountain god flips a coin, and it comes up heads. You stop sliding, safe as a baby, a few yards above a long drop. Nothing...
...magnitude of the case was not immediately appreciated. Reporting on the custody battle over Moses, Dylan and the couple's biological son Satchel, last week's tabloids trumpeted the more lurid aspects of the rumpus -- such as the offer by Farrow's lawyer to show the court a sheaf of "pornographic" photos that Allen had taken of Soon-Yi -- before Judge Phyllis Gangel-Jacob sensibly called the two stars into her chambers and told them to shut up. But the December ruling has consequences beyond the front page. It sets an implicit precedent for unmarried couples, including homosexuals, to adopt...