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COLLOQUIAL SLOVENE is easy to use and completely up to date!Specially written by an experienced teacher for self-study or class use, the course offers a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Slovene. No prior knowledge of the language is required.What makes COLLOQUIAL SLOVENE your best choice in personal language learning?Interactive – lots of exercises for regular practiceClear – concise grammar notesPractical – useful vocabulary and pronunciation guideComplete – including answer key and reference sectionWhether you're a business traveller, or about to take up a daring challenge in adventure tourism, you may be studying to teach or even looking forward to a holiday - if you'd like to get up and running with Slovene this rewarding course will take you from complete beginner to confidently putting your language skills to use in a wide range of everyday situationsCourse components:The complete course comprises the book and audio materials. These are available to purchase separately

"Overall this is one of the better books I have seen of this type.... Highly recommended.” — Michele Jackson, Tarot Passages The Cosmic Tarot book is an inspiring interpretation of the tarot, and an ideal companion to the Cosmic Tarot deck by artist Norbert Lösche. Each Major Arcana card is described in terms of “The Cosmos,” “The Human Community,” and “The Individual.” The Minor Arcana cards focus on personal ambitions, hopes and fears, and loves, with special attention to relationships. Says Michele Jackson, tarotpassages.com: “Overall this is one of the better books I have seen of this type. The author is obviously well versed on the subject of Tarot and has skillfully applied her knowledge to this deck. Highly recommended.”(A previous edition of this book was published by U.S. Games Systems, Inc.)

In 1959 Tove Jansson, the creator of Moomin Valley and its magical inhabitants, illustrated a Swedish edition of Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark. It proved an inspired choice, as the enigmatic charms of Jansson’s illustrative style bring to life the beauty and strangeness of Carroll’s tale. Remarkably, amid the success of Tove Jannson’s Moomin books, her unique edition of The Hunting of the Snark was forgotten for over 50 years. Now, for the first time, these beautiful illustrations are matched with Carroll’s original English text, so that readers can encounter this wonderful adventure afresh.商品除瑕疵品外，恕不接受退換貨因拍攝略有色差，圖片僅供參考，顏色請以實際收到商品為準

Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design' - Dieter Rams. Dieter Rams' life and work are indelibly linked to his thoughts about how people live, and how they can live better. Products he designed in the 1960s are still being produced and sold today - only one demonstration of the strength of his work.This comprehensive monograph covers both Rams' life and his work, as well as his ideas on good design, which continue to inspire designers and consumers today. A personal foreword by Jonathan Ive evokes the influence that Rams has had on his own work and, by extention, the objects with which so many of us share our everyday lives. An introduction and an essay by Klaus Kemp tell the story of Rams' early life, his training as an architect, and the intellectual context in which his ideas were developed. The next four chapters examine Rams' work and his life - which are more or less synonymous - in depth. This includes hi

Readers of the “Frank” stories know that The Unifactor is in control of everythingthat happens to the characters that abide there, and that however extremethe experiences they undergo may be, in the end nothing really changes. Thatgoes treble for Frank himself, who is kept in a state of total ineducability by theunseen forces of that haunted realm. And so the question arises: what wouldhappen if Frank were to leave The Unifactor?That question is answered in Congress of the Animals, Jim Woodring's much-anticipatedsecond full-length graphic novel, and first starring his signaturecharacter Frank. In this gripping saga an act of casual rudeness sets into motiona chain of events which propels Frank into a world where he is on his own atlast; and like so many who leave home, Frank finds himself contending withrealities of which he had no previous inkling.In Congress of the Animals we are treated to the pitiful spectacle of Frank losing his house, taking a factory job, fallingin with bad comp

Can a one-legged boy become a great samurai warrior? Meet some unique aspiring champions in this kick-off to an exciting new martial arts series.Niya Moto is the only one-legged samurai kid in Japan, famous for falling flat on his face in the dirt. The one school that will accept him is the Cockroach Ryu, led by the legendary sensei Ki-Yaga. He may be an old man overly fond of naps, but Ki-Yaga is also known for taking in kids that the world has judged harshly: an albino girl with extra fingers and toes, a boy who is blind, a big kid whose past makes him loath to fight. A warrior in his time, Ki-Yaga demands excellence in everything from sword fighting to poetry. But can the ragtag Cockroaches make the treacherous journey to the Samurai Trainee Games, never mind take on the all-conquering Dragons? In a fast-moving, action-filled tale that draws on true details of feudal Japan, Niya finds there’s no fear they can’t face as long as they stick together — for

Revered management thinker Peter F. Drucker is our trusted guide in this thoughtful, day-by-day companion that offers his penetrating and practical wisdom. Amid the multiple pressures of our daily work lives, The Daily Drucker provides the inspiration and advice to meet the many challenges we face. With his trademark clarity, vision, and humanity, Drucker sets out his ideas on a broad swath of key topics, from time management, to innovation, to outsourcing, providing useful insights for each day of the year.These 366 daily readings have been harvested from Drucker's lifetime of work. At the bottom of each page, the reader will find an action point that spells out exactly how to put Drucker's ideas into practice. It is as if the wisest and most action-oriented management consultant in the world is in the room, offering his timeless gems of advice. The Daily Drucker is for anyone who seeks to understand and put to use Drucker's powerful words and ideas.

More than 1 million books sold in the Practice Makes Perfect series!Based on the successful approach of the series, a clear and engaging introduction to Portuguese, specifically designed for beginnersConsisting of 60 compact units, each lesson in Practice Makes Perfect: Beginning Portuguese with Two Audio CDs can be completed in just 20 minutes. Rather than focusing on grammar, each accessible lesson includes essential vocabulary, an easy-to-follow dialogue, an engaging exercise for you to practice what you've learned, a section on common phrases, and an interesting cultural comment. This approach allows you to master the basics of Portuguese communication without being intimidated by grammar. Each dialogue is given in Portuguese and voiced by native speakers. Every new word or phrase for the dialogues is given in the vocabulary section, and each dialogue appears on an audio recording, giving you the opportunity to hear correct pronunciation and develop your own speaking skills.Practic

One of Isaac Asimov’s SF masterpieces, this stand-alone novel is a monument of the flowering of SF in the 20th century. It is widely regarded as Asimov’s single best SF novel and one every SF fan should read.Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a member of the elite of the future. One of the few who live in Eternity, a location outside of place and time, Harlan’s job is to create carefully controlled and enacted Reality Changes. These Changes are small, exactingly calculated shifts in the course of history made for the benefit of humankind. Though each Change has been made for the greater good, there are always costs.During one of his assignments, Harlan meets and falls in love with Noÿs Lambent, a woman who lives in real time and space. Then Harlan learns that Noÿs will cease to exist after the next change, and risks everything to sneak her into Eternity.Unfortunately, they are caught. Harlan’s punishment? His next assignment: kill the woman he loves before the paradox they have created resul

5,000 Years of Textiles is an authoritative reference and a visual delight, with examples from the Far East to the Americas, from Africa to Scandinavia, and from Egyptian artifacts dating from 3000 BC to the most up-to-date modern craftwork and furnishings.? The new coffee table format is larger (8 1/2 x 10 3/4), and more beautiful than before.?The book includes an expert guide to nine fundamental textile techniques, from rug weaving and tapestry to felt and bark cloth. Each is clearly explained, using line drawings and close-up color details from actual textiles, to show how people from many different traditions have made and decorated cloth through the centuries. The breathtaking wealth of illustrations drawn from major collections all over the world includes costumes, period interiors, archival photographs, and a vast range of fabrics, from the simplest handwoven cloths to sumptuous brocades and exquisite embroidery.

That Monday afternoon, in high-school gyms across America, kids were battling for the only glory American culture seems to want to dispense to the young these days: sports glory.? But at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California, in a gear-cluttered classroom, a different type of “cool” was brewing.? A physics teacher with a dream – the first public high-school teacher ever to win a MacArthur Genius Award -- had rounded up a band of high-I.Q. students who wanted to put their technical know-how to work.? If you asked these brainiacs what the stakes were that first week of their project, they’d have told you it was all about winning a robotics competition – building the ultimate robot and prevailing in a machine-to-machine contest in front of 25,000 screaming fans at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.?But for their mentor, Amir Abo-Shaeer, much more hung in the balance. ?The fact was, Amir had in mind a different vision for education, one based not on rote learning -- on absorbing facts and fig

Why are homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks of New York in the winter, when the abandoned apartment buildings in the city have four times as many dwelling units as there are homeless people in the city? Why did Russians have to import food to feed people in Moscow, when Russia itself has vast amounts of some of the richest farmland in Europe within easy driving distance? Why did unemployment reach 25 percent and American corporations as a whole operate in the red for two years in a row during the Great Depression of the 1930s?All these very different—but equally puzzling and needless—tragedies grew out of a failure to understand and apply basic economic principles. Explaining these principles for the general public in plain English, with neither graphs nor equations nor jargon, is the goal and the achievement of Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. Professor Sowell has taught economics at leading colleges and universities across the country and now uses his years of experience to br

Top Gear's iconic driver, the Stig, is finally?revealed! Ben Collins divulges how he came to be Top Gear's iconic driver, as well as what it's like to thrash an Aston Martin DBS, train for the Army, face the terror of Jeremy Clarkson's underwear, and much more. When the Black Stig disappeared off the end of an aircraft carrier in 2003, audiences were introduced to the White Stig—faster, stranger, and harder to keep clean. Ever since, millions have wondered—who is the man in the white suit? They're about to find out. Ben Collins caught the car the bug young, kicking his dad's boss in the balls for not giving him a company Jag, and this was the attitude that eventually led him to spend seven years sharing a cabin with Jeremy Clarkson's underwear, James May's PhD thesis, and Richard Hammond's hairspray. Now he tells all about life inside the iconic white helmet: what it's like to guide a blind ex-RAF officer around the Top Gear track, pit a drug dealer's Mitsubishi Evo against a Trojan ta

Halloween, 1963. They call him the October Boy, or Ol’ Hacksaw Face, or Sawtooth Jack. Whatever the name, everybody in this small Midwestern town knows who he is. How he rises from the cornfields every Halloween, a butcher knife in his hand, and makes his way toward town, where gangs of teenage boys eagerly await their chance to confront the legendary nightmare. Both the hunter and the hunted, the October Boy is the prize in an annual rite of life and death. Pete McCormick knows that killing the October Boy is his one chance to escape a dead-end future in this one-horse town. He’s willing to risk everything, including his life, to be a winner for once. But before the night is over, Pete will look into the saw-toothed face of horror--and discover the terrifying true secret of the October Boy . . .Winner of the Stoker Award and named one of the 100 Best Novels of 2006 by Publishers Weekly, Dark Harvest is a powerhouse thrill-ride with all the resonance of Shirley Jackson’s "The Lott

A literary event: one of the most celebrated novels ever written, in a magnificent new translation. Seven years ago, the incomparable Lydia Davis brought us an award- winning, rapturously reviewed new translation of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way that was hailed as "clear and true to the music of the original" (Los Angeles Times) and "a work of creation in its own right" (Claire Messud, Newsday). Now she turns her gifts to the book that defined the novel as an art form. When Emma Rouault marries dull, provincial doctor Charles Bovary, her dreams of an elegant and passionate life crumble. She escapes into sentimental novels but finds her fantasies dashed by the tedium of her days. Motherhood proves to be a burden; religion is only a brief distraction. She spends lavishly and embarks on a series of disappointing affairs. Soon heartbroken and crippled by debts, Emma takes drastic action with tragic consequences for her husband and daughter. When published in 1857, Madame Bovary was embraced

A fascinating account from a highly acclaimed writer of the life and charming inhabitants of a typical countryside village, and how it must adapt and change in order to survive in the modern worldThe countryside is in crisis. The shops are closing down in the villages, there is no school for miles around and, when they grow up, the few remaining children will escape to a less arduous life in the city. The village as we have known it for centuries must adapt to survive, but what will be lost in the process? In this book Geert Mak returns to the small Netherlands village of his childhood, Jorwerd (pop. 330 and falling), and meets the present-day Jorwerders: a stubborn, stoic people for whom the flat, windswept landscape has been a source of livelihood for generations, but is now rarely more than a tourist attraction. He has tea with the butcher's wife, drops in on the pub for a beer, and recounts the stirring story of Old Peet, a farmhand who was born, lived, and died in Jorwerd. Such me

From action to static, fully clothed to nude, and full-body to close-up poses, this high resolution figure reference enables digital artists to give their creations ultra-realistic features and traditional artists to create detailed or monumental-size paintings and drawings. This comprehensive figure study of a single female model provides 360-degree surround and detailed views of every part of the body from multiple angles with particular attention given to the most challenging areas such as eyes, hands, and feet. Phonemes show the mouth in 10 different positions—A, C, E,?F, L, M, O, U, W, and rest—and images of expressions register six universally recognized emotions—anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, and surprise—plus neutral. The?figure reference?is designed for use in a computer, is PC and Mac compatible, and only requires standard photo-viewing software such as that built into Windows and OS X. Images are photographed at 21 megapixels; cropped to eliminate excess backgroun

LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is off the chain in the fastest, fiercest, and highest-stakes case of his life. Fortune Liquors is a small shop in a tough South L.A. neighborhood, a store Bosch has known for years. The murder of John Li, the store's owner, hits Bosch hard, and he promises Li's family that he'll find the killer. The world Bosch steps into next is unknown territory. He brings in a detective from the Asian Gang Unit for help with translation--not just of languages but also of the cultural norms and expectations that guided Li's life. He uncovers a link to a Hong Kong triad, a lethal and far-reaching crime ring that follows many immigrants to their new lives in the U.S. And instantly his world explodes. The one good thing in Bosch's life, the person he holds most dear, is taken from him and Bosch travels to Hong Kong in an all-or-nothing bid to regain what he's lost. In a place known as Nine Dragons, as the city's Hungry Ghosts festival burns around him, Bosch puts aside everyt

The traditional landscape genre was radically transformed in the 1960s when many artists stopped merely representing the land and made their mark directly in the environment. Drawn by vast, uncultivated spaces of desert and mountain as well as by post-industrial wastelands, artists such as Michael Heizer, Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson moved earth to create colossal primal symbols. Others punctuated the horizon with man-made signposts, such as Christo's Running Fence and Walter de Maria's The Lightning Field. For Richard Long, journeys became works of art while Dennis Oppenheim immersed his entire body in the contours of the land. In this broad survey of Land Art, Brian Wallis discusses the key artists, works and issues that define Land Art historically, as well as its later ramifications.This book fully documents the 1960s Land Art movement and surveys examples of Environmental Art to the present day. Earthworks, environments, performances and actions by artists ranging from Ana Mendi

"Half the Sky is a call to arms, a call for help, a call for contributions, but also a call for volunteers. It asks us to open our eyes to this enormous humanitarian issue. It does 80 with exquisitely crafted prose and sensationally interesting material...I really do think this is one of the most important books I have ever reviewed."---Carolyn See, The Washington PostFrom the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, here is a passionate call to arms against the oppression of women around the globe---"the central moral challenge" of our time. Through inspiring stories of extraordinary women, Kristof and WuDunn show that the most effective way to fight global poverty is to unleash the potential of women. They also offer an uplifting do-it-yourself tool kit for those who want to help."Superb...As Rachel Carson's Silent Spring once catalyzed us to save our birds and better steward our earth, Half the Sky stands to become a classic, spurring us to spare impoverished wom

The influence of intellectuals is not only greater than in previous eras but also takes a very different form from that envisioned by those like Machiavelli and others who have wanted to directly influence rulers. It has not been by shaping the opinions or directing the actions of the holders of power that modern intellectuals have most influenced the course of events, but by shaping public opinion in ways that affect the actions of power holders in democratic societies, whether or not those power holders accept the general vision or the particular policies favored by intellectuals. Even government leaders with disdain or contempt for intellectuals have had to bend to the climate of opinion shaped by those intellectuals.Intellectuals and Society not only examines the track record of intellectuals in the things they have advocated but also analyzes the incentives and constraints under which their views and visions have emerged. One of the most surprising aspects of this study is how oft

Marlene Dumas, a South Africa-born, Amsterdam-based painter, is one of the world's most admired artists, a titan of contemporary painting. Her work recalls the painterly gestures of Expressionism while combining the critical distance of conceptual art with the pleasures of eroticism. Through her delicately painted oil-on-canvas or ink-and-watercolor depictions of the female form as well as portraits of children and erotic scenes, she makes a commentary on the state of painting today. What does it mean to be a woman working within the predominantly male genre of expressionist painting? The artist often depicts women: their expressions, their bodies, their facial typologies, their self-image, and their ideals.The relationship between art and female beauty or between art-historical models and twentieth-century supermodels are constant themes in Dumas' work. She does not paint from life but deliberately chooses 'stock' images from a variety of sources, from magazine cuttings to picture pos

Samuel Johnson is a writer of such significance that his era — the second half of the 18th century — is known as the Age of Johnson. Starting out as a Grub Street journalist, he made his mark on history as a poet, author, moralist, literary critic, political commentator, and lexiconographer. We, as moderns, need to know this man, and W. Jackson Bate's formidable biography, with its uncanny depth and empathy, is the book that makes that happen. Professor W. Jackson Bate is a lyrical writer who deftly explains the effect Johnson has had on scholars, critics, and readers of all kinds through the past 200 years: "The reason Johnson has always fascinated so many people of different kinds," Bate writes, "is not simply that [he] is so vividly picturesque and quotable . . . The deeper secret of his hypnotic attraction, especially during our own generation, lies in the immense reassurance he gives to human nature." Bate delves deep into the character that formed Johnson's intellect and fueled h

Allardyce Nicoll's History of English Drama, 1660–1900 was an immense scholarly achievement and the work of one man. Nicoll's History, which tells the story of English drama from the reopening of the theatres at the time of the Restoration right through to the end of the Victorian period, was viewed by Notes and Queries (1952) as 'a great work of exploration, a detailed guide to the untrodden acres of our dramatic history, hitherto largely ignored as barren and devoid of interest'. The History is reissued in seven paperback volumes, available separately and as a set. In volumes 1–5 Nicoll describes the conditions of the stage, actors and managers as well as dramatic genres. The sixth and seventh volumes offer a comprehensive list of all the plays known to have been produced or printed in England between 1660 and 1930, with their authors and alternative titles; it has thus independent value as well as providing an index to the earlier volumes.

Anonymous photography has a magic all its own. The intriguing images assembled here by collector and curator Robert Flynn Johnson are all mysterious, but their appeal is various. By turns poignant, humorous, erotic, and disturbing, their subject is the human condition. In ten stunning chapters every aspect of human experience--both public and private--is explored. Richly reproduced and with subtle tonalities marking their age, over 220 photographs showcase the work of photographers whose identities have been lost in time. The images are never anything less than mesmerizing and include previously unseen portraits of such stars as Cary Grant, Richard Burton, and Marlene Dietrich. Introduced by Alexander McCall Smith, this follow-up to Johnson's widely acclaimed Anonymous touches on birth, marriage, death, disease, hope, glory, and despair and a plethora of additional emotions, events, and human states, and will capture the imagination of any reader.Copub: Thames and Hudson

The kidneys are responsible for many key bodily functions, but their primary role as a filter of toxins makes them extremely susceptible to disease. Often these diseases can only be diagnosed through a renal biopsy, a complicated procedure requiring ancillary immunologic and molecular diagnostic techniques. This book covers all methods used by renal pathologists to diagnose a wide range of kidney diseases. Unlike most literature on renal pathology, this book is situated on the midpoint between encyclopedic and superficial coverage, written for the signing-out pathologist. While focusing on tumors and transplantation rejection, a full spectrum of infectious, inflammatory, and congenital disorders is covered in both pediatric and adult populations and is analyzed not only by light microscopy but by each applicable diagnostic modality available. The text is illustrated with more than 1,000 photomicrographs and diagrams, including a CD-ROM of all images.

Born to a wealthy and powerful yakuza boss, Shoko Tendo lived the early years of her life in luxury. However, when she was six, everything changed: her father was jailed, and the family fell into debt. Bullied by her classmates because of her father's activities, and terrorized at home by her father, who became a drunken, violent monster after his release from prison, Tendo rebelled. As a teenager she became a drug addict and a member of a girl gang. At the age of 15 she spent eight months in a juvenile detention center after getting into a fight with another gang.During Japan's bubble economy of the eighties, Tendo worked as a bar hostess, attracting many rich and loyal customers, and earning money to help her family out of debt. But there were also abusive clients, one of whom beat her so badly that her face was left permanently scarred. Her mother died, plunging Tendo into a depression so deep that she tried to commit suicide.Somehow, Tendo overcame these tough times. A turning poin

At the end of the 19th century, a group of young Glasgow-based painters established an international reputation for realism and plein-air landscape painting. Led by James Guthrie, John Lavery, Arthur Melville, George Henry, and E. A. Hornel, the Glasgow Boys, as they came to be known, shared an enthusiasm for strong, fresh colors, naturalistic subject matter, and a willingness to travel outside Scotland for subjects and settings. Their enthusiasm for naturalism was equaled only by their dislike of the Scottish arts establishment. In this widely acclaimed book, Roger Billcliffe describes not only the work of the individual artists but also their rejection by local collectors and officialdom before European success caused their work to become much in demand. First published 20 years ago, the book rekindled interest in the group and their work. Now redesigned with more than 200 illustrations in color, it introduces the collective to a new generation of readers and collectors.

The amazing Bob! The amazing Boynton! Because who else but Sandra Boynton could imagine 15 Bobs in one book? Actually, that's 14 Bobs, and one Simon James Alexander Ragsdale the Third (he's a turtle). which gives Fifteen Animals! the added dimension of being a unique counting book—count the Bobs, count the pets, count the bunnies, count the fish. The latest of the Boynton on Board Books, Fifteen Animals! also comes with a free song available via download. It's all the energy and appeal of Boynton: the lively language, distinctive illustrations, and inimitable characters. And music. And counting. And, for the first time, a person character, an earnest little boy who loves animals and happily sings:I really like animals,I like them a lot.Fifteen animals is what I’ve got.I’ve got fifteen animals.They're friendly and tame, andI’ve given each one a special name.Make that Bob.商品除瑕疵品外，恕不接受退換貨因拍攝略有色差，圖片僅供參考，顏色請以實際收到商品為準

"What is Shadowline? It is the place where things meet: light and shadows, hope and despair, good and evil. It is, to me, the most interesting place to hunt for stories." So begins this stunningly realized and beautifully rendered new work from master storyteller and artist Iain McCaig. McCaig is best known for his work as a principal designer on the three Star Wars prequels, including the iconic characters Queen Amidala and Darth Maul, as well as his work on many major motion pictures, television, and video games. His work can be seen in such acclaimed films as Terminator 2, Hook, Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, Interview with a Vampire, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Shadowline presents a stunning portfolio of more than two decades of McCaig's masterful concept designs and storyboards, cover art and illustrations, as well as his private sketchbooks and personal paintings, all woven together within the confines of an engrossing, otherworldly tale. "

Either we make you rich or we make you dead.On a bleak January night at the outbreak of the Gulf War, Mr. Richard Onslow Roper, a very special visitor, arrives with his entourage at a Zurich hotel. The night manager, Jonathan Pine, recognizes him immediately—and prays that the identification is not mutual.Welcome to the new era of espionage, where the habits and rules forged in the darkest days of the Cold War are applied to an even more harrowing end. This is Roper's world—a world of illegal arms dealers and drug smugglers, men whose ruthlessness is matched only by their hunger for unlimited wealth.Enter Leonard Burr, former British intelligence officer turned international policeman. Burr recruits Pine to his cause, and launches him on an undercover odyssey that takes him from Zurich to the desolate coast of Cornwall, and eventually to a village in Quebec where he obtains the identity that will be his tickets of entry to Roper's island hideaway in the Bahamas.In what is perhaps John

Hailed everywhere as a masterpiece of suspense, John le CarrAc's return to Africa is the story of Bruno Salvador (aka Salvo), the 25-year-old orphaned love child of an Irish missionary and a Congolese woman. Quickly rising to the top of his profession as an interpreter, Salvo is dispatched by British Intelligence to a top-secret meeting between Western financiers and East Congolese warlords, where he hears things not meant for his ears - and is forced to interpret matters never intended for his reawoken African conscience. By turns thriller, love story, and comic allegory of our times, THE MISSION SONGAyrecounts Salvo's heroically naA_ve journey out of the dark of Western hypocrisy and into the heart of lightness."A ragingly readable adventure tale. . . . Every issue of today is here: class warfare, race, torture, immigration, language. But THE MISSION SONG is also a tender love story, a fast-paced thriller, and a story with as many brilliant minor characters as major. Like another fav

SANCTAPHRAX WILL BE destroyed by the energy of the Mother Storm. . . . Far over the Edge, the Mother Storm is brewing—a storm more terrifying than any seen in the lifetime of any Edgelander. Sweeping in from the open sky, it must strike the source of the Edgewater River to bring new energy to the land. But in its way is Sanctaphrax, a magnificent city built on a floating rock and tethered to the land by a massive chain. Only one person can save the Edgelands from certain disaster: Twig, the young sky pirate captain who dared to sail over the Edge—and returned with his memory shattered and his crew flung far and wide. But to recover his memory and take action, Twig must first find his lost crew. And this means a journey back into the Deepwoods, and beyond. . . .“As before, Stewart’s descriptions are brilliant; Riddell’s line drawings are exquisitely detailed and notably grotesque. . . . Altogether this series is so exceptional that if I had any chance of collecting, I’d bet good money o

A new Peterson Field Guide to 200 of the most common and interesting birds in eastern North America, written especially for kids ages eight to twelve.Increasingly popular among all ages, birding is an especially popular family friendly activity. This fun and lively guide provides just the right amount of information for kids who have an interest in birds and want to learn more. Each of the 200 species is described on a full page packed with information and written in an engaging style."Wow!" bursts contain particularly interesting facts about each bird. Range maps are easy to read and each one includes a key, so that small hands won’t have to flip again and again to the front or back of the book. There is even a space for young birders to check off birds they have spotted and the date the species was seen. Color photographs are used for identification purposes, and black-and-white line drawings by Julie Zickefoose illustrate interesting behaviors or characteristics.A birder since child

A city has many lives and layers. London has more than most. Not all the layers are underground, and not all the lives belong to the living. Twelve-year-old George Chapman is about to find this out the hard way. When, in a tiny act of rebellion, George breaks the head from a stone dragon outside the Natural History Museum, he awakes an ancient power. This power has been dormant for centuries but the results are instant and terrifying: A stone Pterodactyl unpeels from the wall and starts chasing George. He runs for his life but it seems that no one can see what he's running from. No one, except Edie, who is also trapped in this strange world.And this is just the beginning as the statues of London awakea€|This is a story of statues coming to life; of a struggle between those with souls and those without; of how one boy who has been emotionally abandoned manages to find hope.

Tucker is a streetwise city mouse. He thought he’d seen it all. But he’s never met a cricket before, which really isn’t surprising, because, along with his friend Harry Cat, Tucker lives in the very heart of New York City—the Times Square subway station. Chester Cricket never intended to leave his Connecticut meadow. He’d be there still if he hadn’t followed the entrancing aroma of liverwurst right into someone’s picnic basket. Now, like any tourist in the city, he wants to look around. And he could not have found two better guides—and friends—than Tucker and Harry. The trio have many adventures—from taking in the sights and sounds of Broadway to escaping a smoky fire.Chester makes a third friend, too. It is a boy, Mario, who rescues Chester from a dusty corner of the subway station and brings him to live in the safety of his parents’ newsstand. He hopes at first to keep Chester as a pet, but Mario soon understands that the cricket is more than that. Because Chester has a hidden talent

OverviewAn innovative behavioral approach to leadership from the bestselling author of Bringing Out the Best in PeopleManagement guru Aubrey Daniels delivers a proven, scientifically grounded approach to great leadership with Measure of a Leader. This book turns conventional leadership wisdom on its head, showing how to focus on the behavior of followers to craft a powerful leadership style.Structuring their message around the indicators of follower behavior that predict a leader's influence, Aubrey and James Daniels show exactly how to impact the growth of a business, its customers, and the marketplace. Even more important, the authors' system gives managers the tools to adapt the approach, creating positive behavior that can improve the performance of their people. Managers are transformed into leaders, creating a legacy that perpetually generates greater momentum, commitment, initiative, and reciprocity throughout an organization.Includes leadership examples from top companies such

This wide ranging but self-contained account of the spectral theory of non-self-adjoint linear operators is ideal for postgraduate students and researchers, and contains many illustrative examples and exercises. Fredholm theory, Hilbert-Schmidt and trace class operators are discussed, as are one-parameter semigroups and perturbations of their generators. Two chapters are devoted to using these tools to analyze Markov semigroups. The text also provides a thorough account of the new theory of pseudospectra, and presents the recent analysis by the author and Barry Simon of the form of the pseudospectra at the boundary of the numerical range. This was a key ingredient in the determination of properties of the zeros of certain orthogonal polynomials on the unit circle. Finally, two methods, both very recent, for obtaining bounds on the eigenvalues of non-self-adjoint Schrodinger operators are described. The text concludes with a description of the surprising spectral properties of the non-s

With passion, critical questioning, and humor, Adrienne Rich suggests how poetry has actually been lived in the world, past and present. In this essay, which was the basis for her speech upon accepting the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, she ranges among themes including poetry's disparagement as "either immoral or unprofitable," the politics of translation, how poetry enters into extreme situations, different poetries as conversations across place and time. In its openness to many voices, Poetry and Commitment offers a perspective on poetry in an ever more divided and violent world. "I hope never to idealize poetry--it has suffered enough from that. Poetry is not a healing lotion, an emotional massage, a kind of linguistic aromatherapy. Neither is it a blueprint, nor an instruction manual, nor a billboard."

It's backwards! It's inside out! It's every letter for itself! This laugh-out-loud romp is not your average alphabet book!Z is tired of always having to be last when the alphabet family lines up. He is demanding fair and equal treatment! The letters (more or less) agree to go backwards, but it's not long before P has some ideas of his own. And so does H, for that matter. In fact, it seems as if almost every letter has a different opinion about how the alphabet should be arranged. It's chaos! It's pandemonium! And it's definitely not as easy as A-B-C! Filled with visually humorous details, Bob Kolar's colorful illustrations are the perfect foil for Alethea Kontis's snappy story about the comic confusion that comes when the letters of the alphabet, like a class of unruly children, step out of order and show that each one has a mind of its own.