This is a new title to add to the well established & highly regarded Professional" series. Aimed at those who already have basic skills but are now thinking of doing an intermediate course on the subject or starting up their own business this book offers expert advice on all aspects of soft furnishings. Whether you hope to develop your passion into a rewarding career or simply want to add finishing touches your own home this book will show you how to produce schemes & specify effectively for them. Colours & fabrics are all covered along with window treatments chair coverings & household linen. Create bright fresh items for your home & be inspired by the beautiful projects featured all broken down into easy-to-follow steps: chairs tables beds curtains & window treatments are all considered. As with all the books in the series a basics section at the front takes you through all the essential techniques which are clearly explained & illustrated with step-by-step photographs." ...

The ultimate developers' guide to Visual Studio 2012 This expert Wrox guide is what you need to get up & running quickly on Visual Studio 2012. Written by a Microsoft Visual C MVP it guides you through the integrated development environment (IDE) showing you how to maximize all new tools & improvements. Offers programmers a fast way to IDE-centric programming success Demonstrates new IDE features including the new Metro style app project templates & Windows 8 app store features Explains each feature then illustrates the context in which it will help you solve problems Covers timely & essential topics related to rich client app development web applications application services file configuration debugging & testing & more Helps advanced users customize & extend Visual Studio through the Automation Model writing macros working with the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) & more Provides ample detail for programmers who are new to Visual Studio 2012 as well as for experienced programmers exploring the advanced capabilities of the IDE Professional Visual Studio 2012 uses a unique IDE-centric approach to help you get up & running quickly on this exciting new release. ...

The hero of Charlotte Brontes first novel escapes a dreary clerkship in industrial Yorkshire by taking a job as a teacher in Belgium. There however his entanglement with the sensuous but manipulative Zoraide Reuter complicates his affections for a penniless girl who is both teacher & pupil in Reuters school. ...

The Professor is Charlotte Brontes first novel in which she audaciously inhabits the voice & consciousness of a man William Crimsworth. Like Jane Eyre he is parentless; like Lucy Snowe in Villette he leaves the certainties of England to forge a life in Brussels. But as a man William has freedom of action & as a writer Bronte is correspondingly liberated exploring the relationship between power & sexual desire. Williams first person narration reveals his attraction to the dominating directress of the girls school where he teaches played out in the schools secret garden. Balanced against this is his more temperate relationship with one of his pupils Frances Henri in which mastery & submission interplay. The Professor was published only after Charlotte Brontes death; today it gives us a fascinating insight into the first stirrings of her supreme creative imagination. ...

Harper Collins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved essential classics. ' The Professor' is Charlotte Bronte's first novel reflecting her own experience of life in Brussels & published after her untimely death. Viewed as a precursor to the narrative style & characterisation she perfected in her later works such as ' Jane Eyre' the novel is Bronte's portrayal of a love story from a male perspective. Writing from the point of view of orphaned young teacher William Crimsworth
- the sole male protagonist among Bronte's works
- the author allows herself a freedom of action in love & will that reveals her character's loves desires & ambitions as he forges a new life on his own terms in Brussels. William finds himself caught between the desire he feels for Zoraide Reuter the beguiling head of the girls' school where he teaches & the gentle love he feels for one of his pupils Frances Henri. Exploring questions of love identity freedom & independence ' The Professor' is an important work in the small opus that is Charlotte Bronte's significant contribution to English literature.

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This revision skills book gives all secondary students a clear practical method to revise effectively for all exams. Its packed full of handy tips & techniques thatll improve your revision & make the facts stick in your head & its pocket-sized so you can easily take it anywhere. There are also a few jokes to lighten the mood. Its exactly what you need to prepared for your KS3 GCSE or A-level exams! ...

The Professor of Truth" is the newest novel by Saltire prizewinner James Robertson. Twenty-one years after his wife & daughter were murdered in the bombing of a plane over Scotland Alan Tealing a university lecturer still does not know the truth of what really happened on that terrible night. Obsessed by the details of what he has come to call The Case he is sure that the man convicted of the atrocity was not responsible & that he himself has thus been deprived not only of justice but also of any chance of escape from his enduring grief. When an American intelligence officer apparently terminally ill & determined to settle his own accounts before death arrives on his doorstep with information about a key witness in the trial a fateful sequence of events is set in motion. Alan decides that he must travel to Australia to confront this witness whose evidence he has always disbelieved in the hope that this might at last be the breakthrough for which he has waited so long. Praise for " The Testament of Gideon Mack": " The story of a Presbyterian minister who comes back from a near-death experience claiming that he has met the devil this is both a hugely gripping tale & a fascinating examination of the difference between faith & belief". ("FT Magazine"). "A masterly piece of storytelling (and Scottish soul-reaching)". (James Naughtie " Herald"). Praise for " And the Land Lay Still": "A wonderful novel.. .panoramic illuminating & compassionate.. .the book represents nothing less than a landmark for the novel in Scotland & underlines the author's position as one of Britain's best contemporary novelists". (Irvine Welsh " Guardian"). " Bold discursive & deep Robertson's sweeping history of life & politics in twentieth-century Scotland should not be ignored". (" Observer"). James Robertson is the author of four previous novels " The Fanatic" " Joseph Knight" " The Testament of Gideon Mack" & " And the Land Lay Still". " Joseph Knight" was awarded the two major Scottish literary awards in 2003/4
- the Saltire Book of the Year & the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year
- & " The Testament of Gideon Mack" was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize picked by Richard & Judy's Book Club & shortlisted for the Saltire Book of the Year award. " And the Land Lay Still" was the winner of the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award 2010."

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School maths is not the interesting part. The real fun is elsewhere. Like a magpie Ian Stewart has collected the most enlightening entertaining & vexing curiosities of maths over the years
- now the private collection is displayed in his cabinet. There are some hidden gems of logic geometry & probability
- like how to extract a cherry from a cocktail glass (harder than you think) a pop up dodecahedron the real reason why you cant divide anything by zero & some tips for making money by proving the obvious. Scattered among these are keys to unlocking the mysteries of Fermats last theorem the Poincare Conjecture chaos theory & the P/NP problem for which a million dollar prize is on offer. There are beguiling secrets about familiar names like Pythagoras or prime numbers as well as anecdotes about great mathematicians. Pull out the drawers of the Professors cabinet & who knows what could happen?

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Ian Stewart author of the bestselling Professor Stewarts Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities" presents a new & magical mix of games puzzles paradoxes brainteasers & riddles. He mingles these with forays into ancient & modern mathematical thought appallingly hilarious mathematical jokes & enquiries into the great mathematical challenges of the present & past. Amongst a host of arcane & astonishing facts about every kind of number from irrational or imaginary to complex or cuneiform we find out: how to organise chaos; how matter balances anti-matter; how to turn a sphere inside out (without creasing it); why you cant comb a hairy ball; & how to calculate pi by observing the stars. & we get some tantalizing glimpses of the maths of life & the universe. Mind-stretching enlightening & endlessly amusing Professor Stewarts new entertainment will stimulate delight & enthrall." ...

Author Bryan Bland has led thousands of birding tours to more than 70 countries. On one such trip a bemused waiter once posed the question: Where is the profit in birding?" Bryan is famed as one of birdings greatest story-tellers & he uses his book to answer this question emphatically. In short theres more to birding than just birds although these clearly provide a great deal of interest & pleasure. In addition history dramatic scenery location filming plus much else from world politics to the crucial life-enhancing role of music are all featured in this light-hearted examination of the profit of birding. Tales include scrapes with terrorists running 50 miles across the landslide-strewn Himalayas in order to keep an appointment with a tour group & Britains first-ever breeding pair of Parrot Crossbills using Bryans beard to build their nest! Birders & non-birders alike will enjoy the humorous anecdotal narrative while the lively text is accompanied by many of the authors photographs & exquisite line-drawings." ...