The Oxford Beginners Italian Dictionary is an innovative guide to learning Italian. Designed specifically for English-speaking adult learners who are either learning from scratch or refreshing lost language skills it offers an easy to use dictionary extra help with vocabulary & essential information on living & interacting in the Italian-speaking world. The dictionary is exceptionally easy to use because it moves away from the traditional dictionary layout. All main translations are preceded by an equals sign so that they are instantly identifiable & all parts of the entry are spelt out in full avoiding confusing jargon & abbreviations. Grammar & usage notes throughout the text warn of possible translation pitfalls & thousands of example phrases show how the language is used in context. The 30-page Learning & Lifestyle kit gives key information on both the Italian language with a list of the words you really need to know grammar help & verb tables & on life in the Italian-speaking world: background information on lifestyle & culture tips on etiquette & interaction in the language & a phrasefinder for use when travelling. The Oxford Beginners Italian Dictionary is your essential companion to learning Italian. ...

The Oxford Beginners Russian Dictionary is an innovative guide to learning Russian. Designed specifically for English-speaking adult learners who are either learning from scratch or refreshing lost language skills it offers an easy to use dictionary extra help with vocabulary & essential information on living & interacting in the Russian-speaking world. The dictionary is exceptionally easy to use because it moves away from the traditional dictionary layout. All main translations are preceded by an equals sign so that they are instantly identifiable & all parts of the entry are spelt out in full avoiding confusing jargon & abbreviations. Grammar & usage notes throughout the text warn of possible translation pitfalls & thousands of example phrases show how the language is used in context. The 30-page Learning & Lifestyle kit gives key information on both the Russian language with a list of the words you really need to know grammar help & verb tables & on life in the Russian-speaking world: background information on lifestyle & culture tips on etiquette & interaction in the language & a phrasefinder for use when travelling. The Oxford Beginners Russian Dictionary is your essential companion to learning Russian. ...

The Oxford Beginner's Chinese Dictionary is an innovative guide to learning Chinese. Designed specifically for English-speaking adult learners who are either learning from scratch or refreshing lost language skills it offers an easy to use dictionary extra help with vocabulary & essential information on living & interacting in the Chinese-speaking world. The dictionary is exceptionally easy to use because it moves away from the traditional dictionary layout. All main translations are preceded by an equals sign so that they are instantly identifiable & all parts of the entry are spelt out in full avoiding confusing jargon & abbreviations. Grammar & usage notes throughout the text warn of possible translation pitfalls & thousands of example phrases show how the language is used in context. The 30-page Learning & Lifestyle kit gives key information on both the Chinese language with a list of the words you really need to know grammar help & verb tables & on life in the Chinese-speaking world: background information on lifestyle & culture tips on etiquette & interaction in the language & a phrasefinder for use when travelling. The Oxford Beginner's Chinese Dictionary is your essential companion to learning Chinese. ...

The Oxford Beginner's Japanese Dictionary is an innovative guide to learning Japanese. Designed specifically for English-speaking adult learners who are either learning from scratch or refreshing lost language skills it offers an easy to use dictionary extra help with vocabulary & essential information on living & interacting in the Japanese-speaking world. The dictionary is exceptionally easy to use because it moves away from the traditional dictionary layout. All main translations are preceded by an equals sign so that they are instantly identifiable & all parts of the entry are spelt out in full avoiding confusing jargon & abbreviations. Grammar & usage notes throughout the text warn of possible translation pitfalls & thousands of example phrases show how the language is used in context. The 30-page Learning & Lifestyle kit gives key information on both the Japanese language with a list of the words you really need to know grammar help & verb tables & on life in the Japanese-speaking world: background information on lifestyle & culture tips on etiquette & interaction in the language & a phrasefinder for use when travelling. The Oxford Beginner's Japanese Dictionary is your essential companion to learning Japanese. ...

The Oxford Bible Commentary is an exciting new ecumenical verse-by-verse commentary on the whole Bible including all the books of the Apocrypha for use by Christians Jews & members of other religious traditions or of none. 1.5 million words long it has been written by a team of internationally respected biblical scholars chosen for their expertise & ability to communicate rather than for their adherence to any particular faith. Now available in paperback the Oxford Bible Commentary will provide the one-volume resource for the Bible for the 21st century. ...

In The Oxford Book of American Short Stories Joyce Carol Oates offers a sweeping survey of American short fiction in a collection of fifty-nine tales that combines classic works with many different unexpected gems & that invites readers to explore a wealth of important pieces by women & minority writers. The collection ranges from time-honoured works by Irving Poe & Hemingway to modern classics by authors such as Bharati Mukherjee Amy Tan Alice Adams David Leavitt Bobbie Ann Mason & Tim OBrien. ...

To coincide with the centenary of Oxford Childrens Books we are proud to present this definitive new collection. Including all the major childrens poets & with a wonderful range of both classic & modern favourites this is a book that will be treasured for a lifetime. The poems are enhanced with black & white artwork from a number of top childrens illustrators to create a truly special package which should be on every childs bookshelf. ...

The Oxford Book of English Short Stories edited by A. S. Byatt herself the author of several collections of short stories is the first anthology to specifically take the English short story as its theme. The 37 stories featured here are selected from the nineteenth & twentieth centuries ranging from Dickens Trollope & Hardy to J. G. Ballard Angela Carter & Ian Mc Ewan though many draw ingeniously from the richness of earlier English literary writing. There are all sorts of threads of connection & contrast running through these stories. Their subjects vary from the sublime to the ridiculous from the momentous to the trivial from the grim to the farcical. There is English empiricism English pragmatism English starkness English humour English satire English dandyism English horror & English whimsy. There are examples of social realism from rural poverty to blitzed London; ghost stories & tales of the supernatural; surreal fantasy & science fiction. There are stories of sensibility precisely delineated from Hardy's reluctant bride to the shocked heroine of Elizabeth Taylor's The Blush from H. E. Bates's brilliant fusion of class sex death & landscape to D. H. Lawrence's exploration of a consciousness slowly detaching itself from its world. There are exuberant stories by Saki & Waugh Wodehouse & Firbank with a particularly English range from high irony to pure orchestrated farce. The very range & scope of the collection celebrates the eccentric differences & excellences of English short stories. Some of A. S. Byatt's choices clearly take their place in the grand tradition of story-telling while others are more unusual. Many break all the rules of unity of tone & narrative appearing to be one kind of story before unexpectedly turning into another. They pack together comedy & tragedy farce & delicacy elegance & the grotesque with language as various as the subject matter. As A. S. Byatt explains: ' My only criterion was that those stories I selected should be startling & satisfying & if possible make the hairs on the neck prickle with excitement aesthetic or narrative'. ...

Here is a treasure-house of over seven centuries of English poetry chosen & introduced by Christopher Ricks whom Auden described as 'exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding'. The Oxford Book of English Verse created in 1900 by Arthur Quiller-Couch & selected anew in 1972 by Helen Gardner has established itself as the foremost anthology of English poetry: ample in span liberal in the kinds of poetry presented. This completely fresh selection brings in new poems & poets from all ages & extends the range by another half-century to include many twentieth-century figures not featured before
- among them Philip Larkin & Samuel Beckett Thom Gunn & Elaine Feinstein
- right up to Ted Hughes & Seamus Heaney. Here as before are lyric (beginning with medieval song) satire hymn ode sonnet elegy ballad.. .but also kinds of poetry not previously admitted: the riches of dramatic verse by Marlowe Shakespeare Jonson Webster; great works of translation that are themselves true English poetry such as Chapman's Homer (bringing in its happy wake Keats's ' On First Looking into Chapman's Homer') Dryden's Juvenal & many others; well-loved nursery rhymes limericks even clerihews. English poetry from all parts of the British Isles is firmly represented
- Henryson & Mac Diarmid for example now join Dunbar & Burns from Scotland; James Henry Austin Clarke & J. M. Synge now join Allingham & Yeats from Ireland; R. S. Thomas joins Dylan Thomas from Wales
- & Edward Taylor & Anne Bradstreet writing in America before its independence in the 1770s are given a rightful & rewarding place. Some of the greatest long poems are here in their entirety
- Wordsworth's ' Tintern Abbey' Coleridge's ' Rime of the Ancient Mariner' & Christina Rossetti's ' Goblin Market'
- alongside some of the shortest haikus squibs & epigrams. Generous & wide-ranging mixing familiar with fresh delights this is an anthology to move & delight all who find themselves loving English verse.





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The Oxford Book of Flexible Carols is the perfect resource for choirs of all types & sizes. Each piece is presented with flexible scoring options clearly explained throughout enabling performance by various combinations of singers. With carols for Advent Christmas New Year & Epiphany & a fabulous range of accessible quality material this is a must-have collection for all choirs at Christmas. ...