This anthology brings together into one volume the most influential and commonly taught works of existentialism. Contributors include Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ralph Ellison, Martin Heidegger, Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo.

    Michael Straczynski brought his ambitious vision to the screen.Then launch into a comprehensive overview of the groundbreaking premiere season, including in-depth, episode-by-episode summaries of all of the first twenty-two shows--from the pilot, "The Gathering," through the climactic season finale, "Chrysalis"--with analysis by author and B5 expert Jane Killick.Veteran viewers or first-time fans, relive the adventure--or find out what you've been missing--with the complete companions to Babylon 5!

    As the group grew in fame and notoriety, incidents of bad behavior mounted alarmingly. Whether it's Geezer's lyrical journeys into the underworld or the gun-obsessed Ozzy Osbourne at home in Atrocity Cottage, this is Sabbath as you've never known them before. A real-life Spinal Tap, this is a warm, funny tribute to four mates from Birmingham who became the biggest heavy rock band in the world.

    The 2009 edition contains critical essays on each of the thirty teams and player comments for some sixty players for each of those teams. Each player’s statistics are projected for the coming season using the groundbreaking PECOTA projection system, called “perhaps the game’s most accurate projection model” (Sports Illustrated). Baseball Prospectus 2009 also contains cutting-edge essays on performance analysis, the likes of which have inspired twenty-nine of the thirty major league teams to hire current and formerBaseball Prospectus writers and analysts as consultants. The baseball bible for fantasy players and devoted fans, Baseball Prospectus can be relied upon to once again hit it out of the park.

    Now Karen Elizabeth Gordon has revised and enlarged her classic handbook with fuller explanations of the rules of punctuation, additional whimsical graphics, and further character development and drama -- all the while redeeming punctuation from the perils of boredom. For anyone who has despaired of opening a punctuation handbook (but whose sentences despair without one), THE NEW WELL TEMPERED SENTENCE will teach you clearly and simply where to place a comma and how to use an apostrophe. And as you master the elusive slashes, dots, and dashes that give expression to our most perplexing thoughts, you will find yourself in the grip of a bizarre and beguiling comedy of manners. Long-time fans will delight in the further intrigues of cover girl Loona, the duke and duchess, and the mysterious Rosie and Nimrod. The New Well-Tempered Sentence is sure to entertain while teaching you everything you want to know about punctuation. Never before has punctuation been so much fun!

    A small six inches by nine inches, but over two hundred pages long, with odd illustrations of plants, astrological diagrams, and naked women, it is written in so indecipherable a language and contains so complicated a code that mathematicians, book collectors, linguists, and historians alike have yet to solve the mysteries contained within.However, in The Friar and the Cipher, the acclaimed bibliophiles and historians Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone describe, in fascinating detail, the theory that Roger Bacon, the noted thirteenth-century, pre-Copernican astronomer, was its author and that the perplexing alphabet was written in his hand. Along the way, they explain the many proposed solutions that scholars have put forth and the myriad attempts at labeling the manuscript’s content, from Latin or Greek shorthand to Arabic numerals to ancient Ukrainian to a recipe for the elixir of life to good old-fashioned gibberish.As we journey across centuries, languages, and countries, we meet a cast of impassioned characters and case-crackers, including, of course, Bacon, whose own personal scientific contributions, Voynich author or not, were literally and figuratively astronomical.

    Puchner introduces us to numerous visionaries as he explores sixteen foundational texts selected from more than four thousand years of world literature and reveals how writing has inspired the rise and fall of empires and nations, the spark of philosophical and political ideas, and the birth of religious beliefs. Indeed, literature has touched the lives of generations and changed the course of history.At the heart of this book are works, some long-lost and rediscovered, that have shaped civilization: the first written masterpiece, the Epic of Gilgamesh; Ezra’s Hebrew Bible, created as scripture; the teachings of Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus; and the first great novel in world literature, The Tale of Genji, written by a Japanese woman known as Murasaki. Visiting Baghdad, Puchner tells of Scheherazade and the stories of One Thousand and One Nights, and in the Americas we watch the astonishing survival of the Maya epic Popol Vuh. Cervantes, who invented the modern novel, battles pirates both real (when he is taken prisoner) and literary (when a fake sequel to Don Quixote is published). We learn of Benjamin Franklin’s pioneering work as a media entrepreneur, watch Goethe discover world literature in Sicily, and follow the rise in influence of The Communist Manifesto. We visit Troy, Pergamum, and China, and we speak with Nobel laureates Derek Walcott in the Caribbean and Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul, as well as the wordsmiths of the oral epic Sunjata in West Africa.Throughout The Written World, Puchner’s delightful narrative also chronicles the inventions—writing technologies, the printing press, the book itself—that have shaped religion, politics, commerce, people, and history. In a book that Elaine Scarry has praised as “unique and spellbinding,” Puchner shows how literature turned our planet into a written world.

    There's no need to guess the rules. You'll learn spells, monsters, travel, magic lists and combat rules.

    With this book, you can prepare dishes delicate enough to dine like elves and their drow cousins or hearty enough to feast like a dwarven clan or an orcish horde. All eighty dishes—developed by a professional chef—are delicious, easy to prepare, and composed of wholesome ingredients readily found in our world.Heroes’ Feast includes recipes for snacking, such as Elven Bread, Iron Rations, savory Hand Pies, and Orc Bacon, as well as hearty vegetarian, meaty, and fish mains, such as Amphail Braised Beef, Hommlet Golden Brown Roasted Turkey, Drow Mushroom Steaks, and Pan-Fried Knucklehead Trout—all which pair perfectly with a side of Otik’s famous fried spiced potatoes. There are also featured desserts and cocktails—such as Heartlands Rose Apple and Blackberry Pie, Trolltide Candied Apples, Evermead, Potion of Restoration, and Goodberry Blend—and everything in between, to satisfy a craving for any adventure.

    Ott --Ideas / Patricio Pron --Vanish / Evan Ratliff --Seven months, ten days in captivity / David Rohde --Tent City, U.S.A. / George Saunders --The nice little people / Kurt Vonnegut --Freedom / Amy Waldman

    From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internet commerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy.Throughout the text are clear technical and mathematical explanations, and portraits of the remarkable personalities who wrote and broke the world’s most difficult codes. Accessible, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this book will forever alter your view of history and what drives it. It will also make you wonder how private that e-mail you just sent really is.

    Half the 'rules' they use to humiliate others are really just judgement calls and the rest they don't even understand themselves. Learn the truth of basic grammar and punctuation from June Casagrande in chapters like:I'm Writing This While Naked--The Oh-So Steamy Predicate NominativeI'll Take "I Feel Like a Moron" for $200, Alex--When to Put Punctuation Inside Quotation MarksSnobbery Up with Which You Should Not Put--PrepositionsHyphens--Life-Sucking, Mom-and-Apple-Pie-Hating, Mime-Loving, Nerd-Fight-Inciting Daggers of the DamnedIn this collection of hilarious anecdotes and essays Casagrande delivers practical lessons not found anywhere else, demystifying the subject and taking it back from the snobs.

    That the books are entertainment seems a given, and for that I'm grateful. That they can be seen as a religious journey is also clear. I am immersed in the questions, and praying for the answers. Lestat, c'est moi. I want you to love all of my characters. I am, in the writing of these and other novels, as ambitious as Dickens. I want everybody to cry when Claudia dies, just like they did for Little Nell."-- Anne RiceFebruary 8, 1995Interview with the Vampire. The Vampire Lestat. The Queen of the Damned. The Talc of the Body Thief Memnoch the Devil. With her bestselling, epic saga, Anne Rice has reinvented the legend and literature of one of fiction's most popular and captivating archetypes. Now, Katherine Ramsland, Anne Rice's biographer, has completely revised and updated the ultimate reference guide to the world, history, and adventures of these haunting characters, from the unforgettable Lestat to Rice's newest chilling creation, Memnoch the Devil.Written with the full cooperation of Anne Rice -- and now with more than 1,200 entries -- The Vampire Companion offers an insightful exploration, appreciation, and interpretation of all the characters and events, names and places, symbols and themes in the five volumes of The Vampire Chronicles, including more than one hundred pages of new entries on Rice's latest vampire novel, Memnoch the Devil. Everything that readers might want to explore further is annotated and analyzed in this entertaining and enlightening work: the unforgettable characters of Louis, Lestat, Claudia, Akasha, Armand, and Memnoch; the important points of interest on Lestat's fascinating tour through Heaven and Hell; ancient lore; Rice's unique contributions to the mythos of vampires; the literary inspirations that echo through the novels; Rice's own reflections and revelations about her work and about the movie Interview with the Vampire; and much more.Richly illustrated with new photos, drawings, maps, and a complete time line of events in The Chronicles, The Vampire Companion is as captivating as the phenomenal saga it explores. It is a guidebook that no visitor to the world of Anne Rice should be without.

    But, like wine, a fine cigar requires dedicated study and tasting. Here’s the only comprehensive book on the subject, featuring all the information that novice and veteran cigar aficionados need. --New handy 6 X 9 format --Completely updated with the latest brands, product lines, and accessories --Features web-related cost-cutting tips --Step-by-step instructions for getting the most out of a cigar

    A predator-for-hire in the savage urban world of Shadowrun. You've devoted your life to honing your combat and martial skills. The tools of your trade are airfoil grenades, form-fitting body armor, and an Ares Crusader machine-pistol. An expansion for Shadowrun, the Street Samurai Catalog will let you outfit yourself with the latest equipment available on the black market: retractable hand razors, ultrasonic sights, enhanced reflexes, and maybe a rangefinder for your cybereyes. Whatever you need to get the job done, you can find it here, but it won't be cheap. And remember to watch your back before someone decides to make you yesterday's news.