Search results for ""another f*"

Houston, we have a problem! Phineas L. MacGuire (a.k.a. Mac), is less than up-to-date on planetary happenings. (Marsquakes? Who knew?) If he’s going to be the best scientist in the fourth grade, Mac has to set his sights a little higher. Well, actually a lot higher: Outer Space. But, space camp is expensive and Mac’s mom says he can go only if he earns the money himself. But, where is he going to find enough money for a week on Mars (or a pretty close simulation thereof)? Houston, we have another problem: a gigantic, slobbery dog named Lemon Drop. Mac can earn the money he needs walking Mrs. McClosky’s Yellow Lab, but first he needs to survive the walks! Good thing Mac is a scientific genius with friends like Ben and Aretha. Together the three of them discovers that Lemon Drop is no ordinary dog—that Lab is a real-life Lab-oratory.

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When a crowd began to gather outside the jail in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the evening of May 31, 1921, the fate of one of its prisoners, a young black male, seemed assured. Accused of attempting to rape a white woman, Dick Rowland was with little doubt about to be lynched. But in another part of town, a small group of black men, many of them World War I veterans, decided to risk lives for a different vision of justice. Before it was all over, Tulsa had erupted into one of America's worst racial nightmares, leaving scores dead and hundreds of homes and businesses destroyed. Exhaustively researched, Death in a Promised Land is the compelling story of racial ideologies, southwestern politics, and yellow journalism, and of an embattled black community's struggle to hold onto its land and freedom. More than just the chronicle of one of the nation's most devastating race riots, this critically acclaimed study of American race relations is, above all, a gripping story of terror and lawlessness, and of courage, heroism, and human perseverance.

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Growing up in a tiny shack in the Dominican Republic, Felipe Alou never dreamed he would be the first man born and raised in his country to play and manage in Major League Baseball—and also the first to play in the World Series. In this extraordinary autobiography, Alou tells of his real dream to become a doctor, and an improbable turn of events that led to the pro contract. Battling racism in the United States and political turmoil in his home country, Alou persevered, paving the way for his brothers and scores of other Dominicans, including his son Moisés. Alou played seventeen years in the Major Leagues, accumulating more than two thousand hits and two hundred home runs, and then managed for another fourteen years—four with the San Francisco Giants and ten with the Montreal Expos, where he became the winningest manager in franchise history. Alou’s pioneering journey is embedded in the history of baseball, the Dominican Republic, and a remarkable family. Purchase the audio edition.

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Growing up in a tiny shack in the Dominican Republic, Felipe Alou never dreamed he would be the first man born and raised in his country to play and manage in Major League Baseball—and also the first to play in the World Series. In this extraordinary autobiography, Alou tells of his real dream to become a doctor, and an improbable turn of events that led to the pro contract. Battling racism in the United States and political turmoil in his home country, Alou persevered, paving the way for his brothers and scores of other Dominicans, including his son Moisés. Alou played seventeen years in the Major Leagues, accumulating more than two thousand hits and two hundred home runs, and then managed for another fourteen years—four with the San Francisco Giants and ten with the Montreal Expos, where he became the winningest manager in franchise history. Alou’s pioneering journey is embedded in the history of baseball, the Dominican Republic, and a remarkable family. Purchase the audio edition.

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The first European novel, exquisitely translated by Margaret Sayers Peden A timeless story of love, morality, and tragedy, Fernando de Rojas’s Celestina is a classic of Spanish literature. Second only to DonQuixote in its cultural importance, Rojas’s dramatic dialogue presents the elaborate tale of a star-crossed courtship between the young nobleman Calisto and the beautiful maiden Melibea in fifteenth-century Spain. Their unforgettable saga plays out in vibrant exchanges, presented here in a brilliant new translation by award-winning translator Margaret Sayers Peden. After a chance encounter with Melibea entrances Calisto, he enlists the services of Celestina, an aged prostitute, madam, and procuress, to arrange another meeting. She promptly seizes control of the affair, guiding it through a series of mishaps before it meets its tragic end. At times a comic character and at others a self-assertive promoter of women’s sexual license, Celestina is an inimitable personality with a surprisingly modern consciousness, certain to be relished by a new generation of readers.

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This book includes thirty contributions - twenty-nine papers and one artistic contribution - by John's colleagues, former students, and friends, on a variety of topics that represent John's versatility and many interests, including philology, history, natural history, and art. Many of the papers concentrate on the Akkadian speaking world, reflecting one of the major languages John Huehnergard has worked on throughout the years. Eran Cohen reviews and discusses the functional value of Akkadian iprus in conditional clauses in epistolary and legal texts. Lutz Edzard discusses the Akkadian injunctive umma, used in oath formulae. Daniel Fleming asks who were the 'Apiru people mentioned in Egyptian texts in the Late Bronze Age and what was their social standing as is reflected in the Amarna letters. Shlomo Izre'el offers a revised and improved version of his important study of the language of the Amarna letters. Leonid Kogan offers a comparative etymological study of botanical terminology in Akkadian, while Josef Tropper argues that Akkadian poetry, as well as Northwest Semitic poetry, are based on certain metric principles. Wilfred von Soldt lists and discusses personal names ending in -ayu from Amarna. A number of papers deal with Arabic grammarians and their concepts of language. Gideon Goldenberg discusses the concept of vocalic length in Arabic grammatical tradition and in the medieval Hebrew tradition that was its product. Wolfhart Heinrichs's contribution shows that Ibn Khaldun held innovative views of language and its evolution. Several other papers deal with Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible. Steven Fassberg deals with verbal t-forms that do not exhibit the expected metathesis in Hebrew and Aramaic of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Randall Garr studies one class of denominal hiphil verbs and asks why these verbs are assigned to the causative stem despite their non-causative semantic content. Ed Greenstein suggests that the roots of biblical wisdom can be located in second-millennium Canaanite literature by identifying wisdom sayings and themes in the Ugaritic corpus. Jeremy Hutton sheds more light on tG forms in Biblical Hebrew. Paul Korchin explains occurrences of the cohortative in Biblical Hebrew that do not conform to the normative volitive function. Dennis Pardee provides a detailed study of the Hebrew verbal system as primarily expressing aspect, not tense. Gary A. Rendsburg argues in favor of Late Biblical Hebrew features in the book of Haggai. Four papers deal with linguistic aspects of non-Classical Semitic languages. Charles Häberl looks into predicates of verbless sentences in Semitic and particularly in Neo-Mandaic. Geoffrey Khan discusses the functional differences between the preterite and the perfect in NENA. Aaron D. Rubin provides Semitic etymologies of two Modern South Arabian words. Ofra Tirosh-Becker discusses the language of the Judeo-Arabic translation of the books of Prophets. Papers on comparative Semitics are likewise numerous. Jo Ann Hackett takes another look at Ugaritic yaqtul and argues for the existence of a preterite yaqtul on comparative grounds, among others. Rebecca Hasselbach tackles the evasive origin of the Semitic verbal endings -u and -a. Na'ama Pat-El continues the discussion of the origin of the Hebrew relative particle seC- from a syntactic and comparative perspective. Richard C. Steiner proposes a new vowel syncope rule for Proto Semitic. David Testen argues for a different reconstruction of the Semitic case system. Tamar Zewi shows that prepositional phrases can function as subjects in a variety of Semitic languages. Andrzej Zaborski suggests that Berber and Cushitic preserve archaic features that have been lost for the most part in the Semitic languages. There is one paper on an Indo-European language with important ties to Semitic languages in P. Oktor Skjaervo discussion of the Pahlavi verb *awas 'to dry.' Finally, Richard Walton contributes a paper about the jumping spiders of Concord, Massachusetts, a project he labored on with John Huehnergard. The book is beautifully decorated by the drawings of the artist X Bonnie Woods, who prepared special illustration for this volume, based on cuneiform.

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A new and empowering way of looking at and organizing social change! How can we move from serving soup until our elbows ache to solving chronic social ills like hunger or homelessness? How can we break the disastrous cycle of low expectations that leads to chronic social failures? The answers to these questions lie within Momentum, a fresh, zestful way of thinking about and organizing social change work. Today's digital tools—including but not limited to e-mail, the Web, cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), even iPods—promote interactivity and connectedness. But as Momentum shows, these new social media tools are important not for their wizardry but because they connect us to one another in inexpensive, accessible, and massively scalable ways.

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In the distant future, Verloc Nim wakes up in the middle of nowhere suffering from complete amnesia. He remembers nothing of his former life. But when Verloc is handed his diary by a robot-monkey called Churchill, he is able to revisit his past. His life, he discovers, has been a miserable one. He lost his business, his family and his friends, simply because he refused the technological advancements pushed on him by society: the pharyngeal filter, the eye implants, the genetic modifications – Verloc went without all these. He had been astray in a society he deeply resented – until his brother, Conrad, took him to another planet to retrieve a mysterious biorobotic experiment called A MA...

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“This engaging tale offers messages about being oneself, accepting differences, and forging friendships.” —Publishers WeeklyMeet Albie Newton: child genius. He’s a whiz at inventing things. But is he inventive enough to figure out how to make friends? When precocious inventor Albie Newton enters a new preschool, he concocts the perfect plan for making friends. Unfortunately, it involves stealing the hamster’s wheel, snatching the wings off of Dave’s toy airplane, and generally making a giant mess. Now everyone’s angry at Albie! Will his new invention delight the other kids enough to make everything right—and finally win their friendship? With this delightful rhyming picture book, favorite author Josh Funk (Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast) has written another winner.

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Evoking childhood memories and lifelong relationships with humour, poignancy, and preternatural clarity, What Possessed Me also explores the natural world and landscapes in various parts of England, Wales, France, and Greece. Another theme is the work of teaching and other professions seen from the vantage points of provider, recipient, and witness. There are salutes to writers like Edward Thomas, Dannie Abse and Jack Gilbert who, we are told, 'put his life into poetry.' Separate sequences celebrate years of occasional visits to Llandaff Cathedral and its surrounding landscape, and the delights and political revelations of a stay in Athens. This is a book diverse in its moods and subjects but unified by an infectious openness to the moment and to life's joys and sorrows, and an unfolding sense of accumulating experience and insight. It is illuminated by a recurrent sense of inspiration, of 'what possessed me.'

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Erak's Ransom is the seventh thrilling book in John Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice series – over eight million sold worldwide.In the wake of Araluen's uneasy truce with the raiding Skandians comes word that the Skandian leader has been captured by a dangerous desert tribe. The Rangers – and Will – are sent to free him. But the desert is like nothing these warriors have seen before. Strangers in a strange land, they are brutalized by sandstorms, beaten by the unrelenting heat, tricked by one tribe that plays by its own rules, and surprisingly befriended by another. Like a desert mirage, nothing is as it seems. Yet one thing is constant: the bravery of the Rangers.Perfect for fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, Christopher Paolini’s Eragon series and Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series.

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Explores the concept of the non-imperial state, taking a spatial approach to early modern political identitiesFocusing on the Deccan Sultanates of 16th- and 17th-century central India, Local States in an Imperial World promotes the idea that some polities of the time were not aspiring to be empires. Instead of the universalist and hierarchical vision typical of the language of empire, the sultanates presented another brand of state one that prefers negotiation, flexibility and plurality of languages, religions and cultures. Building on theories of early modernity, empire, cosmopolitanism and vernaculars, Roy Fischel considers the components that shaped state and society: people, identities and idioms. He presents a frame for understanding the Deccan Sultanates as a rare case of the early modern non-imperial state, shedding light both on the region and on the imperial world surrounding it.

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It has been long understood that value creation by corporate strategists is determined by their ability to effectively deploy resources across multiple business units. Recently, scholarly attention has been dominated by studies of "synergy", or sharing resources across businesses. However, a second type of resource deployment, "resource redeployability" or "resource configuration", where resources are withdrawn from one business unit and reallocated to another may not only effect firm value creation, but also firm and industry evolution. This volume advances the resource deployment and synergy debate, and how they differentially affect value and firm decision-making. It clarifies the theoretical determinants and effects of each, revisiting prior work that investigates the benefits of synergy-based strategy, and assessing the benefits of an increased focus on redeployability.

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A political theorist teases out the century-old ideological transformation at the heart of contemporary discourse in Muslim nations undergoing political change.The Arab Spring precipitated a crisis in political Islam. In Egypt Islamists have been crushed. In Turkey they have descended into authoritarianism. In Tunisia they govern but without the label of “political Islam.” Andrew March explores how, before this crisis, Islamists developed a unique theory of popular sovereignty, one that promised to determine the future of democracy in the Middle East.This began with the claim of divine sovereignty, the demand to restore the sharīʿa in modern societies. But prominent theorists of political Islam also advanced another principle, the Quranic notion that God’s authority on earth rests not with sultans or with scholars’ interpretation of written law but with the entirety of the Muslim people, the umma. Drawing on this argument, utopian theorists such as Abū’l-Aʿlā Mawdūdī and Sayyid Quṭb released into the intellectual bloodstream the doctrine of the caliphate of man: while God is sovereign, He has appointed the multitude of believers as His vicegerent. The Caliphate of Man argues that the doctrine of the universal human caliphate underpins a specific democratic theory, a kind of Islamic republic of virtue in which the people have authority over the government and religious leaders. But is this an ideal regime destined to survive only as theory?

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The Great American Novel of love and betrayal in the Jazz Age. ‘I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited – they went there’. Considered one of the all-time great American works of fiction, Fitzgerald’s glorious yet ultimately tragic social satire on the Jazz Age encapsulates the exuberance, energy and decadence of an era. After the war, the mysterious Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire pursues wealth, riches and the lady he lost to another man with stoic determination. He buys a mansion across from her house and throws lavish parties to try and entice her. When Gatsby finally does reunite with Daisy Buchanan, tragic events are set in motion. Told through the eyes of his detached and omnipresent neighbour and friend, Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald’s succinct and powerful prose hints at the destruction and tragedy that awaits.

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For almost two millennia, readers of the New Testament have been trying to figure out Paul. The struggle with his words begins already within the canon itself. While Acts portrays with ease a Torah-observant, Pharisaic-messianic Paul working in partnership with James and other leaders in Jerusalem, the author of 2 Peter famously admitted that the apostle to the nations is difficult to understand. From that moment on debate has ebbed and flowed on all things Pauline; on women as leaders in assemblies and on the status of Jews and Gentiles in God's plan, just to mention two of the contentious topics associated with Paul. For clergy, scholar, and lay person, Paul's letters hold weight and continue to draw in new readers. Anders Runesson seeks to listen to the voice of the historical Paul - a Jew proclaiming a form of Judaism to non-Jews to save them from divine wrath - but also to probe what it means to breathe new life into this historical figure in the twenty-first century. "The Paul-within-Judaism movement is here to stay, and Anders Runesson is arguably its most hermeneutically sophisticated spokesperson. In this remarkable book, Runesson expertly guides us through difficult questions of social history, exegesis, ancient reception history, and modern constructive theology, all of which we need in order to understand Paul ‘beyond the parting of the ways paradigm.’" Matthew V. Novenson, University of Edinburgh "In this compelling book, Anders Runesson incarnates Roman-period types of Judaism—thus, the seedbed of later Christianities—within their institutional matrix, the ancient synagogue. Radically reconceiving the so-called “parting of the ways,” he traces a developmental arc from Paul through Theodosius I to explore how and why this apocalyptic Jewish movement, with its odd outreach to ethnic others, became the anti-Jewish arm of the late Roman state. If new ideas are food for thought, Runesson has served a feast." Paula Fredriksen, author of "Paul, the Pagans’ Apostle" "This is the mature fruit of intensive research over a significant period of time, drawing together Runesson’s explorations on Paul and Pauline theology, locating him firmly within his Jewish context on the one hand, and taking seriously that he is addressing gentiles. The historical depth and methodological rigor as well as the key awareness of hermeneutical presuppositions render this a rich and challenging source for scholars and students alike. But this is not only another academic contribution to the important field of Pauline studies, Runesson demonstrates how this approach to Paul is also relevant for theologizing in contemporary churches and interreligious interaction today. Thus the volume is a must for all engaged in Pauline Studies as well as in contemporary church and interreligious work." Kathy Ehrensperger, Abraham Geiger Kolleg, Potsdam "In recent years, Anders Runesson has emerged as a leading voice in the (distinct but related) projects of reading Matthew and Paul "within Judaism." In this significant volume on Paul, he draws on material from a number of his previous articles and book chapters, working it into a cohesive and comprehensive account of Paul's "Judaism for gentiles" and its place within a larger interpretive horizon. Over against approaches that see Paul as the architect of a "parting of the ways," Runesson understands him as working towards a "joining of the ways"-mixed groups of Jewish and gentile Christ-believers existing within the larger environment of Jewish diaspora synagogues. An impressive achievement, highly recommended." Terence L. Donaldson, Professor Emeritus, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto "In these important essays, Anders Runesson provides readers with an account of a thoroughly embodied and socially embedded Paul, a first-century Jewish Messiah follower seeking to live in the Roman world. The volume is a must read for anyone interested in thinking about the historical Paul." Matthew Thiessen, McMaster University, Hamilton "Anders Runesson takes his readers beyond the familiar constructions of Paul, significantly advancing the discussion of how to understand him and his movement. Historical and textual details are interrogated with clear, methodological discipline. The investigation is thoughtful, engaging, and accessible to informed non-specialists as well as scholars." Mark D. Nanos, PhD, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, author of "Reading Paul within Judaism" "Anders Runesson's essays impress for three reasons: First, by breaking with classical models of explanation, his handling of the reconstruction of early Christianity is not only innovative, but when set against the backdrop of historical and hermeneutical considerations, opens up further approaches and new perspectives. Second, because he is well-versed in dealing with literary and archaeological sources, Runesson is skillfully able to reorganize and interpret these factors. And finally, his contributions provide such a welcome interest in historical and theological research that even those who do not agree with all the results are constantly challenged to revisit well-trodden paths in search of fresh insights." Markus Öhler, University of Vienna

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Buy a pair of Levi's, lose the Russian accent, become an American... how hard could it be?Moscow, 1988. After years of antisemitic harassment, countless hours waiting in line for toilet paper, and having zero access to cool jeans, Margarita decides it's time to get the hell out of the Soviet Union. While dreaming of buying the boat-sized Buick she'd seen in a pirated VHS of Miami Vice and getting a taste of whatever it is Bruce Springsteen is singing about, she comes up with a plan to escape Mother Russia for good. When Margarita arrives in the US with her family, she has one objective - become fully American as soon as possible, and leave her Soviet past behind. But she soon learns that finding her new voice is harder than avoiding the KGB.Because, how do you become someone else completely? Is it as simple as changing your name, upgrading your wardrobe and working on your pronunciation of the word 'sheet'? Can you let go of old habits (never, ever throw anything away), or learn to date without hang-ups ('there is no sex in the Soviet Union' after all)? Will you ever stop disappointing your parents, who expect you to become a doctor, a lawyer, an investment banker and a classical pianist - all at the same time? And can you still become the person you dreamed you'd be, while learning to embrace parts of yourself you've wanted to discard for good when you immigrated?Absolutely hilarious, painfully honest and sometimes heart-breaking, the award-winning I Named My Dog Pushkin will have fans of David Sedaris and Samantha Irby howling with laughter at Margarita's failures, her victories and the life lessons she learns as she grows as both a woman and an immigrant, in a world that often doesn't appreciate either. What readers are saying about I Named My Dog Pushkin:'Hilariously funny, whip-smart and absolutely fascinating... Silver shows that the only person she needs to ever become is herself. Just amazing.' Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and With or Without You'Laugh-out-loud funny... a particular pleasure to see our splintered country through the eyes of this determined and appreciative emigree.' NPR Books'An eye-opener... a whole other brand of Jewish humor... The book's wit, drama and erudition appear to me wholly miraculous. Margarita deserves a literary prize.' Alicia Bay Laurel, New York Times bestselling author of Living on the Earth'Hysterically funny and thought-provoking... perfect for anyone fascinated with the USSR' FangirlNation'I thoroughly enjoyed Margarita's witty and acerbic voice. This book was a delight!' Jen Mann, New York Times bestselling author of People I Want to Punch in the Throat'Hilarious... From one USSR immigrant to another... I related a lot.' Margarita Levieva, HBO's The Deuce'Hilarious and thought-provoking.' California Bookwatch'A memoir like this is so very rare, one in which you learn a great deal, while laughing throughout. Highly, highly recommended.' Wandering Educators'Plunges the reader into a world in which Coca-Cola is synonymous with freedom... riveting... moving... Gokun Silver is a gifted, witty writer.' Los Angeles Review of Books'Sure to delight while tugging at your heartstrings.' Jewish Book Council'Had me laughing and smiling all the way through... a perfect balance of wit and seriousness... Superb.' Goodreads reviewer'Laughed my socks off!' Goodreads reviewer'I loved this book so much... I just could not stop reading.' NetGalley reviewer'A sharp, witty memoir... Margarita captured Jewish joy and grief together perfectly.' Goodreads reviewer'Darkly funny... reminiscent of other acerbic comedian authors like Sara Barron... fascinating.' NetGalley reviewer

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The Instruments of Art uses poetry to explore the lives and works of Edvard Munch, Vincent Van Gogh and others, the personal sacrifice involved, the singular vision and inspiration that set them in motion. God's creation, some argue, is a work of art, and Christ's life and death an expression of it. Deane follows this thread in a series of sonnets based on the Stations of the Cross. Another series of poems takes John the Evangelist, 'the one whom Christ loved', as the voice of a poet expressing the hard love and personal commitment demanded by Christ; Deane conducts this exploration experimentally, contrasting and complimenting it with his personal experience of faith through suffering and love. The Old Testament story of Jacob's search for meaning is retold through the poet's own memories of family and becomes an emblem of the universal search for truth and peace. This is a collection written by the light of faith yet shadowed by doubt; it develops an instinctive approach to art that offers an understanding in terms of the highest reaches of suffering humanity.

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National Theatre Connections is an annual festival which brings new plays for young people to schools and youth theatres across the UK and Ireland. Commissioning exciting work from leading playwrights, the festival exposes actors aged 13-19 to the world of professional theatre-making, giving them full control of a theatrical production - from costume and set design to stage management and marketing campaigns. NT Connections have published over 150 original plays and regularly works with 500 theatre companies and 10,000 young people each year. This anthology brings together 9 new plays by some of the UK's most prolific and current writers and artists alongside notes on each of the texts exploring performance for schools and youth groups. Wind / Rush Generation(s) by Mojisola Adebayo This is a play about the British Isles, its past and its present. Set in a senior common room, in a prominent university, a group of 1st year undergraduates are troubled, not by the weight of their workload, but by a ‘noisy’ ghost. So they do what any group self-respecting and intelligent university students would do in such a situation – they get out the Ouija Board to confront their spiritual irritant and lay them to rest – only to be confronted by the full weight of Britain’s colonial past – in all its gory glory. Fusing naturalism, with physical theatre, spoken-word, absurdism, poetry and direct address – this is event-theatre that whips along with the grace, pace and hypnotic magnetism of a hurricane. Tuesday by Alison Carr Tuesday is light, playful and nuanced in tone. And a little bit sci-fi. The play centres on an ordinary Tuesday that suddenly turns very weird indeed when a tear rips across the sky over the school yard. The play touches on themes of friendship, sibling love, family, identity, grief, bullying, loneliness and responsibility. And in the process we might just learn something about ourselves as well as some astronomical theories of the multiverse! A series of public apologies (in response to an unfortunate incident in the school lavatories) by John Donnelly This satirical play is heightened in its naturalism, in its seriousness, in its parody and piercing in its interrogation of how our attempts to define ourselves in public are shaped by the fear of saying the wrong thing. Presented quite literally as a series of public apologies this play is spacious, flexible and welcoming of inventive and imaginative interpretation as each iteration spirals inevitably to its absurdist core. This is a play on words, on convention, on manners, on institutions, on order, online and on point. THE IT by Vivienne Franzmann THE IT is a play about a teenage girl who has something growing inside her. She doesn't know what it is, but she knows it's not a baby. It expands in her body. It starts in her stomach, but quickly outgrows that, until eventually ittakes over the entirety of her insides. It has claws. She feels them. Presented in the style of a direct to camera documentary, this is a darkly comic state of the nation play exploring adolescent mental health and the rage within, written very specifically for today. The Marxist in Heaven by Hattie Naylor The Marxist in Heaven is a play that does exactly what its title page says it’s going to do. The eponymous protagonist ‘wakes up’ in paradise and once they get over the shock of this fundamental contradiction of everything they believe in…..they get straight back to work….and continue their lifelong struggle for equality and fairness for all….even in death. Funny, playful, provocative, pertinent and jam-packed with discourse, disputes, deities and disco dancing by the bucketful, this upbeat buoyant allegory shines its holy light on globalization and asks the salient questions – who are we and what are we doing to ourselves?.....and what conditioner do you use on your hair? Look Up by Andrew Muir Look Up plunges us into a world free from adult intervention, supervision and protection. It’s about seeking the truth for yourself and finding the space to find and be yourself. Nine young people are creating new rules for what they hope will be a new and brighter future full of hope in a world in which they can trust again. Each one of them is unique, original and defiantly individual, break into an abandoned building and set about claiming the space, because that is what they do. They have rituals, they have rules, together they are a tribe, they have faith in themselves….and nothing and no one else. They are the future, unless the real world catches up with them and then all they can hope for is that they don't crash and burn like the adults they ran away from in the first place. Crusaders by Frances Poet A group of teens gather to take their French exam but none of them will step into the exam hall. Because Kyle has had a vision and he’ll use anything, even miracles, to ensure his classmates accompany him. Together they have just seven days to save themselves, save the world and be the future. And Kyle is not the only one who has had the dream. All across the globe, from Azerbaijan to Zambia, children are dreaming and urging their peers to follow them to the promised land. Who will follow? Who will lead? Who will make it? Witches Can’t Be Burned by Silva Semerciyan St. Paul’s have won the schools Playfest competition, three years in a row, by selecting recognised classics from the canon and producing them at an exceptionally high level, it’s a tried and trusted formula. With straight A’s student and drama freak, Anuka cast as Abigail Williams in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the school seem to be well on course for another triumph, which would be a record. However, as rehearsals gain momentum, Anuka has an epiphany. An experience resulting in her asking searching questions surrounding the text, the depiction and perception of female characters, the meaning of loyalty, and the values and traditions underpinning the very foundations of the school. Thus, the scene is set for a confrontation of epic proportions as Anuka seeks to break with tradition, before tradition breaks her and all young women like her and reality begins to take on the ominous hue of Miller’s fictionalized Salem. Dungeness by Chris Thompson . In a remote part of the UK, where nothing ever happens, a group of teenagers share a safe house for LGBT+ young people. While their shared home welcomes difference, it can be tricky for self-appointed group leader Birdie to keep the peace. The group must decide how they want to commemorate an attack that happened to LGBT+ people, in a country far away. How do you take to the streets and protest if you’re not ready to tell the world who you are? If you’re invisible, does your voice still count? A play about love, commemoration and protest.

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'The thrill is that you're actually figuring it out on your own. You're engaging with another language, not just parroting it... It's an excellent way to start, and leaves the listener thinking, Hey, Ich kann do dis.' - New Yorker, David Sedaris, humorist and author, on learning German with the Michel Thomas MethodLooking for a convenient language course that fits your lifestyle and gets you speaking a new language in a matter of weeks, not years? The original no-books, no-homework, no-memorizing method is in tune with the way the brain prefers to receive, store and retrieve information. You'll stick with it because you'll love it.* Pick up Dutch naturally and unforgettably without strain or stress * Learn from listening and speaking, without the pressure of writing or memorizing* Build up your Dutch in manageable steps by thinking out answers for yourselfWHY IS THE METHOD SO SUCCESSFUL?'What you understand, you know; and what you know, you don't forget.' - Michel ThomasBefore there was machine learning, there was Michel Thomas. For over 50 years he worked on decoding languages by breaking them down into their most essential component parts. These 'building blocks' are introduced to the learner sequentially in such a way that you reconstruct the language for yourself - to form your own sentences, to say what you want, when you want. This unique method draws on the principles of instructional psychology and works with the way your brain prefers to receive, store and retrieve information. Knowledge is structured and organized so that you absorb the language easily and don't forget it. The method is designed to eliminate the stress which prevents you from relaxing and allowing the brain to work in the way which accepts learning in a seemingly painless, very exciting and highly motivating way.HOW DO THE COURSES WORK?'All stress inhibits true and effective learning' - Michel Thomas During the course, you will join Michel Thomas Method teachers Cobie Adkins-de Jong and Els Van Geyte and two students in a live lesson, learning from both their successes and their mistakes to keep you motivated and involved throughout the course. You, as the learner, become the third student and participate actively in the class. Within the very first hour you will be able to construct simple phrases by listening and thinking out answers for yourself without the pressure of writing or stress of having to memorize. You will learn at your own pace, pausing and repeating where necessary, and complete the course in about 20-30 hours. By the end of the course, you will understand and have the confidence to speak basic Dutch. WHAT WILL I ACTUALLY ACHIEVE?'I am the architect who builds the house. It's up to you to decorate it.' - Michel ThomasThe Michel Thomas Method will help you kick-start, continue, and flourish in your Dutch language learning journey. It is not intended to get you perfectly fluent, but it will get you speaking and using Dutch, with proper pronunciation, faster than most any other method. It is designed to give you a strong foundation and good working knowledge of a language from which you can expand and later 'add decoration' to. It is a rapid method for learning, but still requires effort and concentration on the part of the learner. WHAT'S NEW IN THIS NEW EDITION?This new edition includes an audio review course to let you quickly revise and consolidate your learning once you've completed the full course.WHAT'S INCLUDED IN THE COURSE?*Foundation Dutch includes 8 audio Course CDs and 2 audio Review CDs to continue and consolidate your knowledge. The booklet is available to download from www.michelthomas.com.*Note that the course content is the same as the previously entitled Total Dutch course, but the CD-ROM has been replaced with audio review CDs. LEARN ANYWHERE!Reclaim your pockets of free time to learn a new language! Don't be tied to chunky books or your computer, Michel Thomas Method audio courses let you learn whenever and wherever you want, in as little or as much time as you have. WHERE DO I GO NEXT?Intermediate Dutch follows on from the Foundation course.

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On fog-shrouded barrier island or deep in winter woods, eighteen essays describe the wild, outer half of Cape Cod. Robert Finch is a vivid witness to our participation, whether as individuals or as communities, in the mysteries of natural experience. As he explains: “One of the primary reasons this place yields so much to me so consistently is that I have invested so much of myself into it, physically, mentally, and emotionally . . . a thousand simple, repeated, physical acts have given this landscape a texture for me so that even its most casual aspect is filled, not with slick charm or abstract nostalgia, but with living, tactile memory.” In these essays, Finch demonstrates once again his profound willingness to ask essential questions. These essays recognize our need for both the human and the nonhuman in our lives; they probe the ambiguities in our response to the terror and beauty of the natural world and the love and aggression we struggle with in our associations with one another. Robert Finch’s remarkable prose offers high entertainment, but also gives us new sympathies for and understanding of both nature and ourselves.

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We have entered the gateway to the apocalypse. This theological concept is the best metaphor to describe the world in which we are already living. Chaos is all around us: political folly, economical delirium, ecological catastrophe, intellectual cynicism, technological simulation of life. This is what Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi suggests in this wry, dark, disconcerting but also brilliant and invigorating journey through the main events that we have witnessed in recent years. One century after the Communist revolution, the very idea that the world could be changed for the better seems dead once and for all. Every time that a new change occurs nowadays, it seems to be a change for the worse. But the fact that nothing can save us any more shouldn’t be seen as a form of fatality or a reason for surrender. On the contrary, if our world is dead, then the space is open for another to appear – a world where apocalypse can shake us out of our zombie-like contemporary existence. The second coming of Communism will have nothing to do with 1917. Apocalypse has to be conceived of as a metaphor, and Communism is a metaphor too: the metaphor of the possible deployment of the potentials of the mind.

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‘This has everything you want from an epic fantasy adventure – devious Gods, hideous monsters, a portal to another dimension and a hero with an enchanted blade. Great stuff’ – Charlie Higson, author of the Young Bond series _________________________ The second book in the sweeping epic fantasy series Whispers of the Gods, perfect for fans of the Summoner trilogy by Taran Matharu and Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo WHEN DESTINIES COLLIDE, WHO WILL EMERGE VICTORIOUS? Lann is hunting monsters. It’s his destiny as bearer of the Dreadblade. But Lann would rather hunt down Kelewulf, the young necromancer who released them into the world. Consumed by his aunt’s death, he can think of nothing but revenge. Across a dark sea, Kelewulf is mastering magic. He has persuaded the High Priestess of Hasz to tutor him. But he’s hiding a more dangerous goal: finding the heart of a god. With this terrible object in hand, he’ll return darkness to the world forever … Lann and Kelewulf know their fates are entwined. When they finally meet, what will prevail? Spells or steel? Vengeance or mercy? Only the gods can guess.

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Velasin vin Aaro never planned to marry at all, let alone a girl from neighbouring Tithena. When an ugly confrontation reveals his preference for men, Vel fears he’s ruined the diplomatic union before it can even begin. But while his family is ready to disown him, the Tithenai envoy has a different solution: for Vel to marry his former intended’s brother instead. Caethari Aeduria always knew he might end up in a political marriage, but his sudden betrothal to a man from Ralia, where such relationships are forbidden, comes as a shock. With an unknown faction willing to kill to end their new alliance, Vel and Cae have no choice but to trust each other. Survival is one thing, but love - as both will learn - is quite another. Byzantine politics, lush sexual energy, and a queer love story that is by turns sweet and sultry, A Strange and Stubborn Endurance is an exploration of gender, identity, and self-worth. It is a book that will live in your heart long after you turn the last page.

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'Heart-wrenching, heart-warming and heartfelt - Mother Ship is a beautifully crafted, warts-and-all love letter to our wonderful NHS' Adam Kay, author of This is Going to Hurt After her identical twin girls are born ten weeks prematurely, Francesca Segal finds herself sitting vigil in the 'mother ship' of neonatal intensive care, all romantic expectations of new parenthood obliterated.As each day brings a fresh challenge for her and her babies, Francesca makes a temporary life among a band of mothers who are vivid, fearless, and inspiring, taking care not only of their children but of one another.Mother Ship is a hymn to the sustaining power of women's friendships, and a loving celebration of the two small girls - and their mother - who defy the odds. A comforting and encouraging read, especially for others enduring the same experience. 'A heart-wrenching insight into what must have been such a fragile, overwhelming and terrifying time - yet there's humour in there too. Beautiful' Giovanna Fletcher 'A beautiful, lyrical memoir that navigates the unpredictable landscape of NICU and the will to survive' Christie Watson, author of The Language of Kindness

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'Be prepared to be amazed' GuardianCan anyone get a perfect memory?Joshua Foer used to be like most of us, forgetting phone numbers and mislaying keys. Then he learnt the art of memory training, and a year later found himself in the finals of the US Memory Championship. He also discovered a truth we often forget: that, even in an age of technology, memory is the key to everything we are.In Moonwalking with Einstein he takes us on an astonishing journey through the mind, from ancient 'memory palace' techniques to neuroscience, from the man who can recall nine thousand books to another who constantly forgets who he is. In doing so, Foer shows how we can all improve our memories.'Captivating ... engaging ... smart and funny' The New York Times'Delightful ... uplifting ... it shows that our minds can do extraordinary things' Wall Street Journal'Great fun ... a book worth remembering' Independent'A lovely exploration of the ways that we preserve our lives and our world in the golden amber of human memory' New Scientist

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What to Do When Someone Dies is another ingenious thriller from the best-loved, bestselling author, Nicci FrenchEllie Faulkner's world has been destroyed. Her husband Greg died in a car crash - and he wasn't alone. In the passenger seat was the body of Milena Livingstone - a woman Ellie's never heard of.But Ellie refuses to leap to the obvious conclusion, despite the whispers and suspicions of those around her. Maybe it's the grief, but Ellie has to find out who this woman was - and prove Greg wasn't having an affair.And soon she is chillingly certain their deaths were no accident. Are Ellie's accusations of murder her way of avoiding the truth about her marriage? Or does an even more sinister discovery await her?Praise for Nicci French:'Relentlessly enjoyable and gripping from the first page to the last' Evening Standard'You'll be totally gripped until a very unexpected twist knocks you for six' Cosmopolitan'You'll be hooked from the first page. A compulsive page-turner' Daily Express

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How African Americans thrived in a West Virginia city By 1930, Huntington had become West Virginia's largest city. Its booming economy and relatively tolerant racial climate attracted African Americans from across Appalachia and the South. Prosperity gave these migrants political clout and spurred the formation of communities that defined black Huntington--factors that empowered blacks to confront institutionalized and industrial racism on the one hand and the white embrace of Jim Crow on the other. Cicero M. Fain III illuminates the unique cultural identity and dynamic sense of accomplishment and purpose that transformed African American life in Huntington. Using interviews and untapped archival materials, Fain details the rise and consolidation of the black working class as it pursued, then fulfilled, its aspirations. He also reveals how African Americans developed a host of strategies--strong kin and social networks, institutional development, property ownership, and legal challenges--to defend their gains in the face of the white status quo. Eye-opening and eloquent, Black Huntington makes visible another facet of the African American experience in Appalachia.

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Anyone who has ever said one thing and meant another has spoken in the mode of allegory. The allegorical expression of ideas pervades literature, art, music, religion, politics, business, and advertising. But how does allegory really work and how should we understand it? For more than forty years, Angus Fletcher's classic book has provided an answer that is still unsurpassed for its comprehensiveness, brilliance, and eloquence. With a preface by Harold Bloom and a substantial new afterword by the author, this edition reintroduces this essential text to a new generation of students and scholars of literature and art. Allegory puts forward a basic theory of allegory as a symbolic mode, shows how it expresses fundamental emotional and cognitive drives, and relates it to a wide variety of aesthetic devices. Revealing the immense richness of the allegorical tradition, the book demonstrates how allegory works in literature and art, as well as everyday speech, sales pitches, and religious and political appeals. In his new afterword, Fletcher documents the rise of a disturbing new type of allegory--allegory without ideas.

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Disguised as a passenger, a homeless woman lives in Paris’s Roissy airport until she meets a man who makes her confront her past. Every day the narrator of this gripping novel hurries from one terminal to another in Charles de Gaulle Roissy airport, Paris, pulling her suitcase behind her, talking to people she meets—but she never boards an airplane. She becomes an “unnoticeable,” a homeless woman disguised as a passenger, protected by her anonymity. When a man who comes to the airport every day to await the Rio-to-Paris flight—the same route on which a plane crashed into the sea a few years earlier—attempts to approach her, she flees, terrified. But eventually, she accepts his kindness and understands his loss, and she gives in to the grief they share, forming a bond with him that becomes more than friendship. A magnificent portrait of a woman who rediscovers herself through a chance connection, Roissy is a powerful, polyphonic book, a glimpse at the infinite capacity of the human spirit to be reborn.

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An aspiring TV journalist faces a shattering moral dilemma and the prospect of losing her career and her life, when she joins an impetuous photographer in the Middle East. A shocking, searingly authentic thriller by award-winning ex-CNN news executive Sarah Sultoon.‘Shocking and visceral, this novel deals with the horrors of war … a brave, important and utterly compelling book’ S J Watson ‘Gritty, hard-hitting and often harrowing … a hugely exciting voice in crime fiction’ Victoria Selman‘A powerhouse writer’ Jo Spain––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––An act of mercyOr the ultimate betrayal…Who decides?Samira is an up-and-coming TV journalist, working the nightshift at a major news channel and yearning for greater things. So when she’s offered a trip to the Middle East, with Kris, the station’s brilliant but impetuous star photographer, she leaps at the chanceIn the field together, Sami and Kris feel invincible, shining a light into the darkest of corners … except the newsroom, and the rest of the world, doesn’t seem to care as much as they do. Until Kris takes the photograph.With a single image of young Sudanese mother, injured in a raid on her camp, Sami and the genocide in Darfur are catapulted into the limelight. But everything is not as it seems, and the shots taken by Kris reveal something deeper and much darker … something that puts not only their careers but their lives in mortal danger.Sarah Sultoon brings all her experience as a CNN news executive to bear on this shocking, searingly authentic thriller, which asks immense questions about the world we live in. You'll never look at a news report in the same way again... ‘A powerful story of the brutality of front-line journalism. Authentic, provocative and terrifyingly relevant’ Will Carver ‘A gritty, jarring page-turner’ Peter Hain ‘Passionate, disturbing storytelling at its best’ James Brabazon ‘You won't read another book like this in 2022! Raw, authentic, powerful ... you won't see the end coming!’ E C Scullion ‘Brilliantly conveys both the exhilaration and the unspeakable horror of life on the international news frontline’ Jo Turner ‘Astute and penetrating, evoking feelings that are long lasting and hard to shake off … Sarah Sultoon is a new and welcome voice in what can be a very crowded genre’ Random Things through My Letterbox ‘A masterclass in storytelling and cinematic in scope’ Live & Deadly ‘Brutally honest, extremely thought-provoking, stark and vivid … impossible to put down’ Jen Med’s Book ReviewsPraise for The Source**Winner: Crime Fiction Lover Best Debut Award**‘A brave and thought-provoking debut novel. Sarah Sultoon tackles a challenging and disturbing subject without sensation, and her sensitive handling, tight plotting and authentic storytelling make for a compelling read’ Adam Hamdy‘A taut and thought-provoking book that’s all the more unnerving for how much it echoes the headlines in real life’ CultureFly‘A tense thriller, a remarkable debut, heartbreaking, but ultimately this is a story of resilience and survival’ New Books Magazine‘A powerful, compelling read that doesn’t shy away from some upsetting truths … written with such energy’ Fanny Blake‘Tautly written and compelling, not afraid to shine a spotlight on the darker forces at work in society’ Rupert Wallis‘So authentic and exhilarating … breathtaking pace and relentless ingenuity’ Nick Paton Walsh, CNN‘A powerful, intense whammy of a debut that is both uncomfortable and exhilarating to read … Thought-provoking, tense, and expressive’ LoveReading‘A gripping, dark thriller’ Geoff Hill, ITV‘A cleverly constructed story that offers an authentic view behind the scenes in a British newsroom … an original and wholly engaging debut. Definitely a name to watch’ Crime Fiction Lover‘My heart was racing … fiction to thrill even the most hard-core adrenaline junkies’ Diana Magnay, Sky News ‘Unflinching and sharply observed. A hard-hitting, deftly woven debut’ Ruth Field‘With this gripping, fast-paced debut thriller, it’s easy to see what made Sultoon such a great journalist’ Clarissa Ward, CNN ‘A hard-hitting, myth-busting rollercoaster of a debut’ Eve Smith‘I could picture and feel each scene, all the fear, tension and hope’ Katie Allen For fans of Holly Watt, Sarah Vaughan, Laura Lippman and Karin Slaughter

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Are we now in an age of "postmodernity"? Even as some on the right have proclaimed the "end of history" or the final triumph of capitalism, we are told by some intellectuals on the left that the "modern" epoch has ended, that the "Enlightenment Project" is dead, that all the old verities and ideologies have lost their relevance, that the old principles of rationality no longer apply, and so on. Yet what is striking about the diagnosis of postmodernity is that it has so much in common with older pronouncements of death, both radical and reactionary versions. What has ended, apparently, is not so much another, different epoch but the same one all over again. In response, today's intellectuals on the left seem to be returning to historical materialism, to class analysis. This collection reflects that move, pinning postmodernism in its place and time. It exposes the erroneous bases of "pro-mo" premises, by identifying the real problems to which the current intellectual fashions offer false - or no - solutions. In so doing, the contributors challenge the limits imposed on action and resistance by those who see liberating "new times" in the contradictions of contemporary capitalism.

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Do you remember Pathé News? Taking the train to the seaside? The purple stains of iodine on the knees of boys in short trousers? Knitted bathing costumes? Then the chances are you were born in or around 1950. To the young people of today, the 1950s seem like another age. But for those born around then, this era of childhood feels like yesterday. This delightful collection of photographic memories will appeal to all who grew up in this post-war decade; they include pictures of children enjoying life out on the streets and bombsites, at home and at school, on holiday and at events. These wonderful period pictures and descriptive captions will bring back this decade of childhood, and jog memories about all aspects of life as it was in post-war Britain. Paul Feeney is the author of several bestselling nostalgia books including A 1950s Childhood and A 1960s Childhood (The History Press). He has also written the bestselling From Ration Book to Ebook (The History Press), which takes a nostalgic look back over the life and times of the post-war baby boomer generation.

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This book shows some contributions presented in the 2010 International Conference on Robotic Welding, Intelligence and Automation (RWIA’2010), Oct. 14-16, 2010, Shanghai, China. Welding handicraft is one of the most primordial and traditional techniques, mainly by manpower and human experiences. Weld quality and efficiency are, therefore, straightly limited by the welder’s skill. In the modern manufacturing, automatic and robotic welding is becoming an inevitable trend. In recent years, the intelligentized techniques for robotic welding have a great development. The current teaching play-back welding robot is not with real-time functions for sensing and adaptive control of weld process. Generally, the key technologies on Intelligentized welding robot and robotic welding process include computer visual and other information sensing, monitoring and real-time feedback control of weld penetration and pool shape and welding quality. Seam tracking is another key technology for welding robot system. Some applications on intelligentized robotic welding technology is also described in this book, it shows a great potential and promising prospect of artificial intelligent technologies in the welding manufacturing.

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'The thrill is that you're actually figuring it out on your own. You're engaging with another language, not just parroting it... It's an excellent way to start, and leaves the listener thinking, Hey, Ich kann do dis.' - New Yorker, David Sedaris, humorist and author, on learning German with the Michel Thomas MethodLooking for a convenient language course that fits your lifestyle and gets you speaking a new language in a matter of weeks, not years? The original no-books, no-homework, no-memorizing method is in tune with the way the brain prefers to receive, store and retrieve information. You'll stick with it because you'll love it. * Pick up Egyptian Arabic naturally and unforgettably without strain or stress* Learn from listening and speaking, without the pressure of writing or memorizing* Build up your Egyptian Arabic in manageable steps by thinking out answers for yourselfWHY IS THE METHOD SO SUCCESSFUL?'What you understand, you know; and what you know, you don't forget.' -Michel ThomasBefore there was machine learning, there was Michel Thomas. For over 50 years he worked on decoding languages by breaking them down into their most essential component parts. These 'building blocks' are introduced to the learner sequentially in such a way that you reconstruct the language for yourself - to form your own sentences, to say what you want, when you want. This unique method draws on the principles of instructional psychology and works with the way your brain prefers to receive, store and retrieve information. Knowledge is structured and organized so that you absorb the language easily and don't forget it. The method is designed to eliminate the stress which prevents you from relaxing and allowing the brain to work in the way which accepts learning in a seemingly painless, very exciting and highly motivating way.HOW DO THE COURSES WORK?'All stress inhibits true and effective learning' - Michel Thomas During the course, you will join Michel Thomas Method teachers Jane Wightwick and Mahmoud Gaafar and two students in a live lesson, learning from both their successes and their mistakes to keep you motivated and involved throughout the course. You, as the learner, become the third student and participate actively in the class. Within the very first hour you will be able to construct simple phrases by listening and thinking out answers for yourself without the pressure of writing or stress of having to memorize. You will learn at your own pace, pausing and repeating where necessary, and complete the course in about 20-30 hours. By the end of the course, you will understand and have the confidence to speak basic Egyptian Arabic. WHAT WILL I ACTUALLY ACHIEVE?'I am the architect who builds the house. It's up to you to decorate it.' - Michel ThomasThe Michel Thomas Method will help you kick-start, continue, and flourish in your Egyptian Arabic language learning journey. It is not intended to get you perfectly fluent, but it will get you speaking and using Egyptian Arabic, with proper pronunciation, faster than most any other method. It is designed to give you a strong foundation and good working knowledge of a language from which you can expand and later 'add decoration' to. It is a rapid method for learning, but still requires effort and concentration on the part of the learner. WHAT'S NEW IN THIS NEW EDITION?This new edition includes an audio review course to let you quickly revise and consolidate your learning once you've completed the full course.WHAT'S INCLUDED IN THE COURSE?*Foundation Egyptian Arabic includes 8 audio course CDs and 2 audio review CDs to continue and consolidate your knowledge. The booklet is available to download from www.michelthomas.com.*Note that the course content is the same as the previously entitled Total Arabic course, but the CD-ROM has been replaced with audio review CDs. LEARN ANYWHERE!Reclaim your pockets of free time to learn a new language! Don't be tied to chunky books or your computer, Michel Thomas Method audio courses let you learn whenever and wherever you want, in as little or as much time as you have. WHERE DO I GO NEXT?Intermediate Egyptian Arabic follows on from the Foundation course.

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BATTLEZONE: ETERNITY Once, military actions were entirely two dimensional, confined to the surface of land and sea, but then submarines and aircraft added a third dimension, vastly extended by spaceflight. Now, consider that if time travel is possible, the fourth dimension of time opens up new possibilities for combat, necessitating new defenses, new strategies and tactics. A battle that was once decisively won might be refought, or a narrow victory might be subtly tilted to the other side. Never mind the history books, they’re only works in progress. There might be even more than four dimensions involved, if parallel universes and alternate realities exist and can be accessed. Imagine a universe where Rome never fell and its troops want to do something about our universe, where it did fall. Or another where more recent wars turned out very differently. Battle is a recurrent motif in the Earth of this universe, and would alternate realities be different or all too similar, with the tune the same, but different lyrics. Supplying the lyrics for spacetime combat in these pages is an all-star general staff including Robert Silverberg, Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, John C. Wright, H. Beam Piper and more. It’s zero hour, in whatever time stream, so grab your time-appropriate weapon, be it sword or ray blaster, buckle on your general issue timeporter belt, and follow the Time Troopers into action across strange aeons! Praise for previous anthologies edited by Hank Davis: Cosmic Corsairs: “Who doesn’t like space pirates? (Well, their victims I guess, but that’s beside the point.) . . . Hank Davis has a fine sense for choosing a wide mix of stories, and this book is no exception. No story is like another, yet they manage to form a whole greater than the parts. From sapient ships to piratical sibling rivalry, pirate detectives to ingenious captives seeking freedom, from alien biology to orbital mechanics, the stories share some of the same elements—pragmatic thinking, moral complexity, loyalty, and betrayal. Definitely a fun one.”—Analog In Space No One Can Hear You Scream: “[T]he 13 tales in this collection blend sf with horror to demonstrate the resiliency of both genres . . . offers strong tales by the genre’s best storytellers.” —Library Journal “[F]irst-rate science fiction, demonstrating how short stories can still entertain.” —The Galveston County Daily News A Cosmic Christmas 2 You: “This creative and sprightly Christmas science fiction anthology spins in some surprising directions. . . . A satisfying read for cold winter evenings . . . a great stocking stuffer for SF fans.” —Publishers Weekly As Time Goes By: “As Time Goes By . . . does an excellent job of exploring not only romance through time travel—relationships enabled or imperiled by voyaging through time—but the intrinsic romance of time travel itself. . . . The range of styles and approaches is as wide as the authors' sensibilities and periods might suggest . . . full of entertaining and poignant stories . . . ” —Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, IntergalacticMedicineShow.com About Star Destroyers, coedited by Christopher Ruocchio: “. . . spectacular space battles and alien contacts . . . themes of military ethics, the uses of artificial intelligence, and the limits of the capacity of the human mind. . . . it is the human interactions and decisions that ultimately drive the stories. . . . will appeal to fans of military and hard science fiction and any readers fascinated by the possibilities of space travel.”—Booklist “. . . stories of giant spaceships at war, at peace, and in the often-gray areas between. . . . a worthy addition to a long tradition of ship-based fiction, and its authors portray captains, arcane astrogators, and civilian child passengers with equal depth. It’s recommended for fans of military SF and space adventure.”—Publishers Weekly “. . . you’d probably expect some tight, action-filled space opera stories of giant space battles . . . and there’s some of that. But there are also espionage stories, rescue missions, political conflicts, alternate histories, even a few humorous tales. . . . each author took the premise in a different direction . . . if I had to identify one common feature to all the stories, it would be that they’re all fun. . . . Like it says, big ships blowing things up. What’s not to like?”—Analog

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Aisling and Julie are bickering on a night out when they are almost run over by a white horse with a red mane. Something strange is going on. The city of Dublin looks changed. Bits of it are familiar, but three castles blaze on the horizon, the pigeons and seagulls are at war with one another and a talking door-knocker leads them to a floating head – they’re definitely a long way from home. When they discover that the city has three queens, all fighting for power, and that strict rules have been imposed on its residents, they decide it’s time to get out of there, and fast. Can Julie and Aisling find the Wormwood Gate and get back to Mortal Realms? And, despite their differences, could it be possible that they like each other more than they first thought? This urban fantasy debut with a shining sense of humour and a subtle love story sparkles with all the beauty and strangeness of Alice in Wonderland

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This book opens the audience’s eyes to the extraordinary scientific secrets hiding in everyday objects. Helping readers increase chemistry knowledge in a fun and entertaining way, the book is perfect as a supplementary textbook or gift to curious professionals and novices.• Appeals to a modern audience of science lovers by discussing multiple examples of chemistry in everyday life• Addresses compounds that affect everyone in one way or another: poisons, pharmaceuticals, foods, and illicit drugs; thereby evoking a powerful emotional response which increases interest in the topic at hand• Focuses on edgy types of stories that chemists generally tend to avoid so as not to paint chemistry in a bad light; however, these are the stories that people find interesting• Provides detailed and sophisticated stories that increase the reader’s fundamental scientific knowledge• Discusses complex topics in an engaging and accessible manner, providing the “how” and “why” that takes readers deeper into the stories

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This annual report is a call to action to recognize the things that are having an impact on the internet today, and to embrace the notion that we as humans can change how we make money, govern societies, and interact with one another online. We invite you to participate in setting an agenda for how we can work together to create an internet that truly puts people first. This book is neither a country-level index nor a doomsday clock. Our intention is to show that while the worldwide consequences of getting things wrong with the internet could be huge - for peace and security, for political and individual freedoms, for human equality - the problems are never so great that nothing can be done. More people than you imagine are working to make the internet healthier by applying their skills, creativity, and personal bravery to business, technology, activism, policy and regulation, education, and community development.

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A huge international bestseller, this heartbreaking tale of a tiny Italian village during two World Wars will stay with you forever.Among the olive groves and vineyards of southern Italy, a boy and a girl are born, moments apart. Far away in the trenches of World War I, their fathers have just died. Now all the men in Vitantonio’s family have been wiped out – all twenty-one. All except him.Growing up together, war seems far away for the two children. But Vitantonio’s mother will do anything to protect her son from the curse of death that seems to hang over the family – and so she tells a lie. It is a lie that will bind Vitantonio and Giovanna, the girl who shares his birthday, together over the years. But as the clouds of another war begin to gather on the horizon, it may ultimately drive them apart...

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The Roman city of Lancaster, on the banks of the River Lune, has an impressive history stretching back centuries. While it was once the home of a thriving Georgian port and later Victorian industries, many tales of the city’s past have been lost. Secret Lancaster examines the lesser-known pieces of the city’s long and unique past, from lost buildings and forgotten events to the city’s notable residents and surviving heritage. Lancaster has many secrets to tell and as you explore its streets and buildings you take a walk into the past, giving an insight into the city’s former life. Join author and archaeologist Billy Howorth on a journey through this inspiring city and its heritage, illustrated with original maps, images and photographs. You may think you know Lancaster, but take another look around and you will find more than you might expect.

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The third zippy and zany tale by Pamela Butchart sees Izzy and her friends plunged into more primary-school craziness. This time, they decide that their new head teacher is a vampire rat, based on his being slightly scary, having the blinds drawn in his office during the day and the fact he's banned garlic bread at lunchtimes. Now they just have to come up with a plan to vanquish him... Another brilliantly funny longer read for the newly confident reader from the best-selling, award-winning, author-illustrator team, Pamela Butchart and Thomas Flintham. Read more of Izzy's adventures! Baby Aliens Got My Teacher The Spy Who Loved School Dinners Attack of the Demon Dinner Ladies To Wee Or Not To Wee! There's a Werewolf in my Tent There's a Yeti in the Playground The Phantom Lollipop Man Icarus Was Ridiculous

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After being summoned to another world and passed over for a power known as the Gift, Yogiri Takatou and Tomochika Dannoura set out on a journey to reunite with the classmates who abandoned them, and to find a way back to their own world. After a small detour to the Garula Canyon, where a Swordmaster set various trials before them, Yogiri accidentally used his power of Instant Death to put a stop to the revival of a Dark God who had been sealed away. Leaving chaos and carnage in their wake, the unlikely pair resume their trek to the capital, where they hope to find their estranged fellow students. However, while Yogiri's abilities have made it smooth sailing so far, his actions have inadvertently shifted the balance of power in the world around them, and now those who rule over their new world are beginning to take notice of him...

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'Everyone who met him commented on the arresting power of Lawrence's bright and sharp blue eyes, and the beard he later grew would be as red as a fox's brush, but it was not his appearance that Ford was describing. It was his menace' Frances Wilson, from her Introduction to The Man Who Loves Islands------------------------------------------------The Man Who Loved Islands presents Lawrence's skilled, intimate and lively portraits of humanity. In the title story a man buys a ninety-nine year lease on an island and finds himself cast off in its timeless world; in 'The Last Laugh' a couple are confronted with uncanny spectral visions, and an eerie faceless laugh; in 'The Fox' two women maintaining a farm feel the dark shadows of war, and a cunning creature threatens to destroy their livelihood. The stories in this collection are about what the characters know and do not know - about themselves, one another, and the circumambient universe.

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We all daydream. We've all experienced that moment when we suddenly realise that instead of paying attention in a meeting or reading a book, our mind has wandered. In that moment, our conscious mind has detached from the current task at hand and has drifted elsewhere. But what if we could harness that power to increase creativity and focus our thoughts?Our attention is a powerful lens which allows us to pick out and filter relevant details from the vast amounts of information our brains receive - so how does our brain decide where to go when it wanders, and why does it focus on one thing over another? How important is daydreaming and why do we do it?Traditionally daydreaming was considered to be a single state of mind. However, recent research has shown that not only are there different states of daydreaming, but these states are actually governed by different neurological pathways, meaning not all mind-wandering is the same!Here, Arnaud Delorme PhD examines the science and theory behind why we daydream, examining its potential purpose. He shows you how to tame your 'monkey mind' and offers easy techniques that will enable you to develop the skill of mind wandering to improve your mood and foster greater creativity."Dr. Arnaud Delorme delves deep into the mysteries of daydreaming in his latest book. Unveiling the diverse neurological pathways of mind wandering, he offers a compelling exploration of how our thoughts are formed and how they shape our perception of the world, integrating scientific rigor with the wisdom of ancient meditation practices."- Deepak Chopra, founder of the Chopra Foundation and Chopra Global, clinical professor at the University of California, Honorary Fellow in Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, and author of over 90 books, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. "We all daydream. You are likely doing it right now as you read this endorsement, but Delorme is on a mission to show the world that far from being a waste of time, mind-wandering can become the very best use of your time. If you have ever been curious about how your mind works, and how to make your thoughts work for you rather than against you, this book is seminal - destined to become a science meets spirit classic read."- Theresa Cheung, Sunday Times Top-10 bestselling dreams and spiritual author, host of White Shores podcast."Dr. Arnaud Delorme's book deconstructs the ubiquitous phenomenon of mind wandering and even explores the fundamental nature of thoughts themselves. It is essential to us all - for the management of everyday living and overall well-being. The book's synthesis of science and practical exercises is nothing short of profound."­- Mark Gober, award-winning author of An End to Upside Down Thinking and board member at the Institute of Noetic Sciences"Delorme skilfully merges what is known about mind-wandering from cognitive psychology and the neurosciences, but this book is not just a dry scientific treatise . . . Highly recommended for those seeking to tame, or at least to understand, the ever-wandering mind."- Dean Radin PhD, Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and author of Real Magic and other books"Join Dr. Arnaud Delorme on a fascinating journey into the human mind. His book not only uncovers the complex science behind daydreaming but also harmonizes it with timeless meditation teachings. This rare blend provides profound insights into taming and harnessing our thoughts to reshape our reality."- Thomas Brothy, Ph.D., president of California Institute for Human Science and author"With the perspective and tools that this book provides, readers will be equipped to both effectively manage their mind wandering and to discover for themselves the potential unique ways in which they flow down the stream of consciousness."- Jonathan Schooler, PhD, Distinguished Professor UC Santa Barbara"A groundbreaking work! Dr. Delorme skilfully guides us through the labyrinth of our own minds. His practical techniques for harnessing your mind are invaluable for anyone looking to enhance focus, mood, and creativity. This book is a rare blend of scientific depth and accessible wisdom."- Prof. Steven Laureys, neurologist, keynote speaker and author of The No-Nonsense Meditation Book"In this engaging and highly accessible book, Delorme offers a refreshingly balanced approach to competing theories about why our minds wander, even when we try valiantly to focus our attention. While the book is a feast for our intellect, the dessert comes when Delorme offers simple practices to help us think clearly and effectively. At a time when we are living with weapons of mass distraction that can easily throw us off course, Delorme gives us effective tools to find clarity and focus."- Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D., author of Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life

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When three people suffer strokes after seeing dazzling lights over Edinburgh, then awake completely recovered, they’re convinced their ordeal is connected to the alien creature discovered on a nearby beach … an adrenaline-soaked, deeply humane, life-affirming first-contact novel from one of Scotland’s most revered authors… **Selected for BBC 2 Between the Covers 2023** ‘All the drive, curiosity and wonder of his crime and mystery novels … science fiction gains a new author’ Derek B Miller ‘If you read one life-affirming book this year, make sure it’s this one’ Nina Pottell, Prima ‘The main characters, their lives and their struggles, are portrayed very vividly. I was straight into this, just like a thriller’ Ivo Graham on Between the Covers –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Connecting will change everything… Lennox is a troubled teenager with no family. Ava is eight months pregnant and fleeing her abusive husband. Heather is a grieving mother and cancer sufferer. They don’t know each other, but when a meteor streaks over Edinburgh, all three suffer instant, catastrophic strokes... ...only to wake up the following day in hospital, miraculously recovered. When news reaches them of an octopus-like creature washed up on the shore near where the meteor came to earth, Lennox senses that some extra-terrestrial force is at play. With the help of Ava, Heather and a journalist, Ewan, he rescues the creature they call 'Sandy' and goes on the run. But they aren’t the only ones with an interest in the alien … close behind are Ava’s husband, the police and a government unit who wants to capture the creature, at all costs. And Sandy’s arrival may have implications beyond anything anyone could imagine… –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ‘This had all the makings of a film … such relatable characters. Writing a story about a mixed-race boy in the care system and two women so brilliantly is so impressive’ Sunetra Sarker on Between the Covers ‘So readable and accessible … I was really rooting for the characters’ Alan Davies on Between the Covers ‘A gateway book to SciFi … I loved it’ Sara Cox on Between the Covers ‘A sci-fi novel that is as moving as it is magical and mysterious. Doug Johnstone has hit it out of the park again’ Mark Billingham ‘A delicious, demanding departure from Doug Johnstone’ Val McDermid ‘Science fiction may be a departure for Johnstone, but he’s approached it like the crime thrillers that made his name, prioritising pace, tension and high stakes … a plea for empathy, compassion and perspective, and a celebration of our capacity to connect with one another, shot through with vivid characters and a sense of wonder’ Herald Scotland ‘An entertaining, fast-paced story of first contact … well told, with relatable characters and important themes making for an emotionally engaging read’ Guardian ‘A gloriously hopeful story and a perfect road trip movie just waiting to be made … I can’t recommend this highly enough’ James Oswald ‘An adrenaline-filled ride of a novel, laced with empathy and understanding for our instinctual need to connect' Rachelle Atalla 'Johnstone's mesmeric story artfully puts Scotland centre stage in a sci-fi drama that is as much about the smallness of mankind and the importance of kinship … Pay attention, Steven Spielberg! This could be your next film’ Marnie Riches ‘A clever and unusual read … I was on a journey with these characters, and completely transfixed’ Susi Holliday ‘Doug Johnstone held me spellbound with this mesmerising tale of wonder and hope’ Marion Todd ‘A heart-warming, fast-paced, often tense look at friendships that surpass all boundaries, and an exploration of the very basic need for connection and a place to belong … divine’ Jen Med’s Book Reviews What readers are saying ***** ‘I wish I could adequately convey how much I loved this book’ ‘A beautiful story … it brought me to tears’ ‘A masterpiece … compassionate, full of love and hope’ ‘An out-of-this-world, mesmerising first-contact story about the striking importance and impact of true connection’ ‘Riveting’ ‘High stakes, high adrenaline and somehow so gentle and moving. This is one of the most beautiful, extraordinary books I’ve ever read’ ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget these characters’

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For inn keeper Holly White, Christmas time in Mistletoe, Maine, is the ultimate holiday gift. Business at the Reindeer Games Inn is booming, her wedding to Sheriff Evan Gray is nearly here, and the annual parade is about to begin. The town is lucky to have another gift this year with the state''s ballet company staying for several performances of The Nutcracker. But disaster strikes when Tiffany, the lead ballerina, shows up dead on a float during the parade, the Rat King''s mask nearby. Holly will have to spruce up her sleuthing skills if she wants to catch the killer before Christmas - and her wedding day. Immediately, Holly discovers that Tiffany had more than a few secrets. She finds out that the star of the show had a super fan that no one knows anything about. And the show''s understudy slips some other intriguing information Holly''s way: not only was Tiffany secretly seeing someone romantically, but there seems to be more than one rat in this company. When Holly discovers a sec

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We have entered the gateway to the apocalypse. This theological concept is the best metaphor to describe the world in which we are already living. Chaos is all around us: political folly, economical delirium, ecological catastrophe, intellectual cynicism, technological simulation of life. This is what Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi suggests in this wry, dark, disconcerting but also brilliant and invigorating journey through the main events that we have witnessed in recent years. One century after the Communist revolution, the very idea that the world could be changed for the better seems dead once and for all. Every time that a new change occurs nowadays, it seems to be a change for the worse. But the fact that nothing can save us any more shouldn’t be seen as a form of fatality or a reason for surrender. On the contrary, if our world is dead, then the space is open for another to appear – a world where apocalypse can shake us out of our zombie-like contemporary existence. The second coming of Communism will have nothing to do with 1917. Apocalypse has to be conceived of as a metaphor, and Communism is a metaphor too: the metaphor of the possible deployment of the potentials of the mind.

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