Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller: but even when he stays safely in his own study at home he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization
- how we got from there being nothing at all to here being us. Bill Bryson's challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us like geology chemistry & particle physics & see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. It's not so much about what we know as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth or what a black hole is or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? On his travels through time & space he encounters a splendid collection of astonishingly eccentric competitive obsessive & foolish scientists like the painfully shy Henry Cavendish who worked out many conundrums like how much the Earth weighed but never bothered to tell anybody about many of his findings. In the company of such extraordinary people Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey & reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.
...

In the bestselling prize-winning A Short History of Nearly Everything" Bill Bryson achieved the seemingly impossible by making the world of science both understandable & entertaining to millions of people around the globe. Now in this glorious new illustrated edition everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization is even more vividly brought to life with stunning full-colour photographs drawings portraits & cartoons." ...

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Brysons quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization
- how we got from there being nothing at all to here being us. His challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us & see if there isnt some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. Its not so much about what we know as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth or what a black hole is or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? On his travels through time & space Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey & reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before. -A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Brysons quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization
- how we got from there being nothing at all to here being us. His challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us & see if there isnt some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. Its not so much about what we know as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth or what a black hole is or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? On his travels through time & space Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey & reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

...

Palaeolithic hunters who learnt how to kill two mammoths instead of one had made progress. Those who learnt how to kill 200
- by
...

The years of the Spanish Civil War filled twentieth-century Spain with hope frustration & drama. Not only did it pit countryman against countryman & neighbour against neighbour but from 1936-39 this bitterly contended struggle sucked in competing & seemingly atavistic forces that were soon to rage across the face of Europe & then the rest of the world: nationalism & republicanism; communism & fascism; anarchism & monarchism; anti-clerical reformism & aristocratic Catholic conservatism. The Guerra Civil" is of enduring interest precisely because it represents much more than just a regional contest for power & governmental legitimacy. It has come to be seen as a seedbed for the titanic political struggles & larger social upheavals that scarred the entire twentieth century. In elegant & accessible prose Julian Casanova tells the gripping story of these years of anguish & trauma which hit the country with a force hitherto unknown at any time in Spains history. Charting the most significant events & battles alongside the main players in the tragedy he provides answers to some of the pressing questions (such as the roots & extent of anti-clerical violence) that have been asked in the seventy years that have passed since the painful defeat of the Second Republic." ...

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" is bestselling author Marina Lewycka's hilarious & award winning debut novel. ' Two years after my mother died my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four & she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade churning up the murky water bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.' Sisters Vera & Nadezhda must aside a lifetime of feuding to save their emigre engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear & boil-in-the-bag cuisine she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth. But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets uncovers fifty years of Europe's darkest history & sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget..." It's rare to find a first novel that gets so much right... Lewycka is a seriously talented comic writer". (" Time Out"). " Hugely enjoyable...yields a golden harvest of family truths". (" Daily Telegraph"). " Delightful funny touching". (" Spectator"). Bestselling author Marina Lewkyca has received great critical acclaim since the publication of her hilarious first novel "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" in 2005 which was the winner of the Bollinger Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction 2005 winner of the Saga Award for Wit 2005 shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2005 & longlisted for the Booker prize 2005. Her other humorous novels " Two Caravans" (published as Strawberry Fields in the USA & Canada) " We Are All made from Glue" & " Various Pets Alive & Dead" are also available from Penguin." ...

The best simply got better. The first edition of this book was already quite simply the best introduction to psychoanalysis ever written & has been appropriately extremely popular with teachers & students alike. The thoroughly updated second edition retains all the powerful features of the first including its remarkable clarity & accessibility. The field will be greatly indebted to these authors for many years." (Professor Peter Fonagy University College London). A Short Introduction to Psychoanalysis offers a user-friendly introduction to arguably the most misunderstood of all the psychological therapies. This fully updated & revised second edition explains what psychoanalysis really is & provides the reader with an overview of its basic concepts historical development critiques & research base. Demonstrating the far reaching influence of psychoanalysis the authors
- all practicing psychoanalysts
- describe how its concepts have been applied beyond the consulting room & examine its place within the spectrum of other psychological theories. The text is enlivened by numerous clinical examples. New to this edition: the book discusses parent infant psychotherapy & mentalization-based therapy (MBT); further investigates psychotherapy in the NHS & the IAPT programme with more on the debate between CBT & analytic approaches;

Includes:: more on dreaming & attachment theory with added examples; &

Includes:: new research studies & addresses the new field of psychosocial studies. This down-to-earth guide provides the ideal 'way-in' to the subject for new trainees. For anyone thinking of becoming a psychoanalyst the book also provides information on the training process & the structure of the profession."





...

Collected here for the first time in a deluxe paperback volume are six of John Steinbecks most widely read & beloved novels--Tortilla Flat The Red Pony Of Mice & Men The Moon Is Down Cannery Row " & " The Pearl." From Steinbecks tale of commitment loneliness & hope in " Of Mice & Men " to his tough yet charming portrait of people on the margins of society in " Cannery Row " to " The Pearl"s examination of the fallacy of the American dream Steinbeck created stories that were realistic rugged & imbued with energy & resilience. @IAm With Sam Lennie came back into the cabin with that look on his face & I said Lennie did you kill another woman? He told me he had done it again he thought. Why do I get stuck with the dangerously disabled? Did Forrest Gump ever hurt anyone? From " Twitterature: The Worlds Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less"" ...

I turned off my brain. It was time to hunt. I took a deep breath drawing in the scent of the blood inside the humans below. They weren't the only humans around but they were the closest. Who you were going to hunt was the kind of decision you had to make before you scented your prey. It was too late now to choose anything. Bree Tanner can barely remember life before she had uncannily powerful sense superhuman reflexes & unstoppable physical strength. Life before she had a relentless thirst for blood...life before she became a vampire. All Bree knows is that living with her fellow newborns has few certainties & even fewer rules: watch you back don't draw attention to yourself & above all make it home by sunrise or die. What she doesn't know: her time as an immortal is quickly running out. Then Bree finds an unexpected friend in Diego a newborn just as curious as Bree about their mysterious creator whom they know only as her. As they come to realize that the newborns are pawns in a game larger than anything they could've imagined Bree & Diego must choose sides & decided whom to trust. But when everything you know about vampires is based on a lie how do you find the truth? In an irresistible combination of danger mystery & romance Stephenie Meyer tells the devastating story of the newborn army as they prepare to close in on Bella Swan in the Cullens following their encounter to its unforgettable conclusion. ...

Fans of The Twilight Saga will be enthralled by the riveting story of Bree Tanner a character introduced in Eclipse & the darker side of the newborn vampire world she inhabits. In another irresistible combination of danger mystery & romance Stephenie Meyer tells the devastating story of Bree & the newborn army as they prepare to close in on Bella Swan & the Cullens following their encounter to its unforgettable conclusion. 'I'm as surprised as anyone about this novella ' said Stephenie Meyer. ' When I began working on it in 2005 it was simply an exercise to help me examine the other side of Eclipse which I was editing at the time. I thought it might end up as a short story that I could include on my website. Then when work started on The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide I thought the Guide would be a good fit for my Bree story. However the story grew longer than I anticipated until it was too long to fit into the Guide. ...