My Dad the Spy


Stewart Copeland
    

How to Learn Any Language: Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and on Your Own


Barry Farber - 1991
    The techniques he presents in "How to Learn Any Language" will have you speaking, reading, writing and enjoying any foreign language you want to learn - or have to learn - in a surprisingly short time.Without beating your head against verb conjugations or noun declensions, you can follow Farber's principles and glide toward proficiency in your chosen language. His method consist of four ground-breaking but simple concepts hailed by language-teaching professionals:

The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language


Mark Forsyth - 2012
    Pretending to work? That’s fudgelling, which may lead to rizzling if you feel sleepy after lunch, though by dinner time you will have become a sparkling deipnosophist.From Mark Forsyth, author of the bestselling The Etymologicon, this is a book of weird words for familiar situations. From ante-jentacular to snudge by way of quafftide and wamblecropt, at last you can say, with utter accuracy, exactly what you mean.

A Camino of the Soul: Learning to Listen When the Universe Whispers


Katharine Elliott - 2016
    Don’t ask what or why...just start” My sister Jeannie, deceased 7 years earlier, wrapped her angel arms around me that September day on the Camino Santiago de Compostela and guided me to my purpose. What is it that magically draws us to step outside our normal realm of existence? That unexplainable energy that sings a calling to our soul? A knowing which came in the late summer of 2011, my pilgrimage was the culmination of several years in which I began learning to listen to the energies of the Universe. Listen to the knowledge my soul cradles deep within. Listen to the love and guidance of my guardian angels. Believe that all I need to know, all I need to understand, is available to me if I simply remain open to the forces of the Universe ...and listen. In September 2014 I followed my soul knowledge and embarked on the Camino Santiago de Compostela, an ancient pilgrimage path some 500 miles crossing the French Pyrenees and west across the north of Spain. A Camino of the Soul - Learning to Listen When the Universe Whispers shares my Camino story and, more importantly, a lesson of growth and transformation.

Prison Time


Shaun Attwood - 2014
    After being attacked by a 20-stone California biker in for stabbing a girlfriend, Shaun writes about the prisoners who befriend, protect and inspire him. They include T-Bone, a massive African American ex-Marine who risks his life saving vulnerable inmates from rape, and Two Tonys, an old-school Mafia murderer who left the corpses of his rivals from Tucson to Alaska. They teach Shaun how to turn incarceration to his advantage, and to learn from his mistakes.Resigned to living alongside violent, mentally-ill, and drug-addicted inmates, Shaun immerses himself in psychology and philosophy to try to make sense of his past behaviour, and begins applying what he learns as he adapts to prison life. Encouraged by Two Tonys to explore fiction as well, Shaun reads over a thousand books which, with support from brilliant psychotherapist Dr. O, speed along his personal development. As his ability to deflect daily threats improves, Shaun begins to look forward to his release with optimism and a new love waiting for him. Yet the words of Aristotle from one of Shaun’s books will prove prophetic: 'We cannot learn without pain'.

Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages


Guy Deutscher - 2010
    But now, acclaimed linguist Guy Deutscher has dared to reopen the issue. Can culture influence language —and vice versa? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? Could our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for "blue"?Challenging the consensus that the fundaments of language are hard-wired in our genes and thus universal, Deutscher argues that the answer to all these questions is—yes. In thrilling fashion, he takes us from Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water —a "she"— becomes a "he" once you dip a tea bag into her, demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial.

I Never Knew There Was a Word For It


Adam Jacot de Boinod - 2010
    All they need is this book!This bumper volume gathers all three of Adam Jacot de Boinod's acclaimed books about language - The Wonder of Whiffling, The Meaning of Tingo and Toujours Tingo (their fans include everyone from Stephen Fry to Michael Palin) - into one highly entertaining, keenly priced compendium. As Mariella Frostup said 'You'll never be lost for words again!'

Last Call: A Memoir


Nancy L. Carr - 2015
    I wanted to be cool. I wanted to fit in. Whatever it took.” She was attractive, popular and determined to grow up in a hurry. How would she have known that at age thirteen, during her first teenage drinking party, her life would play out in such a way that it would rule her life decisions going forward? The handsome boys and pretty girls were guzzling a certain punch, and she wanted to be like them. Tentatively, she ladled the jungle juice from the punch bowl and had her first sip of alcohol. She wanted more. It couldn’t have come at a better time. This is what she’d been searching for –relief. Instant relief. Getting drunk becomes her rite of passage as she careens through junior and senior high school caving in to peer pressure for her need to feel accepted. Through secretarial school and early jobs, her twenties are a blur. Quicker than she can take a tequila shot in a Mexican café, change her lovers weekly, and party with the dregs of society, as well as the socialites and future executives – Nancy finds a lifestyle that seems to work for her. She continues on and drinks and uses cocaine through the snows of Aspen, the desert heat of Scottsdale, the California coast and her Pennsylvania homelands, only to find herself alone and desperate in her quest for love and her own identity. Milk, she decides, has a longer shelf life than her romantic interludes. Surfer Boy, Boston Boy, Blondie Boy. Her big question becomes, who is going to marry her? As she approaches her early 30’s, she thinks getting married will fix her. “I am sitting on my couch finishing up a second bottle of Two Buck Chuck, watching Sarah Jessica Parker on “Sex and the City,” crying and wondering why I’m still single. I understand why Sarah is single. She spends too much money on shoes, and no one wants to marry a shoe whore. She had the perfect man too. She was a fool to let Aidan get away. Ever since high school the perennial question from my parents and friends was always the same, “Are you going to marry him?” It never occurred to Nancy to blame her loneliness on her beverages of choice. She’d kept her career going. She wasn’t an alcoholic. In fact, she relished hearing confessions of real alcoholics so she could assure herself that they—and not she—had a problem. Hello, Black Kettle? This is Pot calling! Terribly alone after receiving her second DUI at age 37, Nancy experiences a moment of clarity. She’s been looking for answers everywhere but the place she least wants to examine: the mirror. What glares back at her is over twenty-four years of living life in the fast lane, zooming by all the red flags. “Sitting in the jail cell I thought about hitting bottom. I could stop digging now. My life couldn’t get any worse….How could years of my free-wheeling lifestyle as a partier, mainly a social drinker, bring me to this place?” Compelled by a judge, Nancy walks into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and begins the hellacious journey of rethinking her life to finally find what she’d been searching for – her true self. Now sober for over ten years, married and with a thriving career, Nancy wants to tell other young women what she wishes someone had told her.

Lunatic Soup


Andrew Fraser - 2008
    After being convicted and disbarred, Fraser became the confidant of one of Australia’s most notorious serial killers, Peter Dupas. What he learned made him the Homicide Squad’s secret weapon. Angry at his treatment in jail and his excessive sentence, the long–time defence lawyer enjoyed the irony of his situation: the authorities who destroyed his career now needed his cooperation. There was never any doubt that Andrew would give evidence, even though he knew that the defence would try to destroy his credibility by bringing up the past he desperately wanted to forget. Fraser paints a vivid picture of the grim, terrifying, and futile reality of maximum security prison life and of his time spent with the murderers, psychopaths, and paedophiles. Lunatic Soup relates his harrowing experiences of the justice system as a prisoner and on the stand as a witness in a murder trial.

Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks


Keith Houston - 2013
    Whether investigating the asterisk (*) and dagger (†)--which alternately illuminated and skewered heretical verses of the early Bible--or the at sign (@), which languished in obscurity for centuries until rescued by the Internet, Keith Houston draws on myriad sources to chart the life and times of these enigmatic squiggles, both exotic (¶) and everyday (&).From the Library of Alexandria to the halls of Bell Labs, figures as diverse as Charlemagne, Vladimir Nabokov, and George W. Bush cross paths with marks as obscure as the interrobang (‽) and as divisive as the dash (--). Ancient Roman graffiti, Venetian trading shorthand, Cold War double agents, and Madison Avenue round out an ever more diverse set of episodes, characters, and artifacts.Richly illustrated, ranging across time, typographies, and countries, Shady Characters will delight and entertain all who cherish the unpredictable and surprising in the writing life.

Nobody Eats Parsley: And other things I learned from my family


David Oakley - 2020
    They're so ridiculous you may think they're fiction. Like the time I went to a drive-in X-rated movie without realizing my parents were in the next car. Or the time I let my kid throw a rock through our living room window. There's the time I bought a camouflage thong in a bait shop and the time I ruined a kid's birthday party. And the other time I ruined a kid's birthday party. I can't guarantee that these stories will make you laugh, but I can guarantee that I didn't make them up.

Fluency Made Easy


Ikenna D. Obi
    Learn how to reach fluency in your goal language fast, fun and easily.

The Superior Person's Book of Words


Peter Bowler - 1979
    Peter Bowler will teach you the practical riches of saying it well with good words, neglected words, and precise words for vocabular exultation!

English the American Way: A Fun ESL Guide to Language Culture in the U.S. w/Audio CD MP3


Sheila MacKechnie Murtha - 2011
    with Audio CD + MP3A fun guide to everything American for the English language learner!The warm and witty authors of Celebrate the American Way: A Fun ESL Guide to Language and Culture in the U.S. get you started on your ESL journey with English the American Way: A Fun ESL Guide to Language & Culture in the U.S.English the American Way is your companion to everyday life in the United States. Engaging, easy-to-follow chapters highlight important topics in American culture, such as: making friends, getting around, dining out, dealing with money, buying a home, what to do in an emergency, visiting the doctor, handling a job interview, and more. Our ESL author experts (Sheila MacKechnie Murtha and Jane Airey O'Connor) give English language learners must-know vocabulary, commonly used phrases, wacky idioms, and sample dialogues that illustrate everyday American life. You'll have fun along the way as you improve your English language and grammar skills with sentence completions, quizzes, and helpful tips. Practice speaking English like an American until you're perfect! Improve your listening and speaking skills with the dialogues included on our audio CD and MP3 download.English the American Way is an excellent resource for ESL students and teachers, English language learners, and professionals of all ages and all nationalities.If you're looking for a fun and easy way to improve your English language skills, this is the book for you!Don't miss the second book in the series… Celebrate the American Way: A Fun ESL Guide to English Language and Culture in the U.S.

The Liar's Bible: A Handbook for Fiction Writers


Lawrence Block - 2011
    Collected here for the first time are those pieces illuminating the tricks of the authorial trade, from creating vibrant characters and generating seamless plots, to conquering writer's block and experimenting with self-publishing.Filled with wit and insight, The Liar's Bible is a must-read for experts, amateurs, and anyone interested in learning to craft great fiction from one of the field's modern masters.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lawrence Block, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author's personal collection."Block is one of the best " -The Washington PostLawrence Block (b. 1938) is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and an internationally acclaimed New York Times bestselling author. His awards include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America and the Cartier Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement Award from the Crime Writers' Association (UK). Although he is best known for his four main mystery series, Block explored a variety of genres, including thrillers and erotica, and developed an early following as a pulp-fiction writer under a number of pseudonyms. Born in Buffalo, New York, Block has three daughters and currently lives with his wife in New York City.