Whether you're all about the latest first-person shooter, an app aficionado, an MMO master, or a die-hard retro gamer, you'll find show-stopping records, top 10 roundups, quick-fire facts and stats, and hundreds of amazing new images from all your favorite games. What's more, brand new for this year's book is a dedicated section just for Minecraft fans, with a mega-showcase of the greatest construction records, in-game tips and lots more blocky goodness.Plus, discover which tech milestones have been smashed in the last year - in both software and hardware, get all the insider secrets from industry experts, and marvel at the players who have leveled up to the very top of the leaderboards. Think you can challenge the current champions? Look inside to see how to break your very own record!Guinness World Records: Gamer's Editions have sold a whopping 3+ million copies. Find out for yourself why it's a game-changer!

    G. Wells's 1898 novel The War of the Worlds to Looney Tunes's hapless Marvin the Martian to David Bowie's extraterrestrial spiders. Ancient mythologies defined the planet as a violent harbinger of war, stargazers puzzled over its peculiar motion, and astrologers defined human personalities by its position.Science fact is now surpassing science fiction. Robot vehicles have trundled across the planet's surface, beaming back views of its rust-orange surface, and have tested soil and atmosphere to get clues about how the planet has evolved and whether it supported (or supports) life. There are many more Mars missions planned over the next decade. And while little green Martians are now firmly the preserve of literature and film, there is growing evidence that the now-arid, frozen planet once had been warm, wet, and possibly thronging with microbial life. One day in the foreseeable future, humans are likely to set foot on the Red Planet. What are the challenges involved, and how are we preparing for them? Is there a long-term future for humans on Mars?4th Rock from the Sun examines Mars in its entirety--its nature, attributes, and impact on the 3rd Rock's culture; its environmental science and geology; and its potential for human colonization. Writing in an engaging manner, Nicky Jenner provides a comprehensive and spellbinding guide to the Red Planet.

    The lessons and techniques used in this series have been taught successfully for over ten years in classrooms throughout the world.Using up-to-date and easy-to-grasp grammar, Japanese From Zero is the perfect course for current students of Japanese as well as absolute beginners.In Book 1 of the Japanese From Zero series, readers are taught new grammar concepts, over 800 new words and expressions, and also learn the hiragana writing system.Features of Book 1: * Integrated Workbook with Answer Key* Over 800 New Words and Expressions* Learn to Read and Write Hiragana* Easy-to-Understand Example Dialogues* Culture Points about Japan* Bilingual Glossaries with Kana and Romaji...and much more

    And The Lively Art of Writing is the perfect guide to the mastery of this essential skill. It will answer all of your questions, provide you with the best techniques, and offer important information about:- Choosing a subject- Working with words- The sound of sentences- The power of paragraphs- Essentials of style- Essays, theses, and term papers- And much, much more...

    Cabinet of Curiosities is a lavishly illustrated introduction to the wonders of natural history and the joys of being an amateur scientist and collector. Nature writer Gordon Grice, who started his first cabinet of curiosities at age six when he found a skunk’s skull, explains how scientists classify all living things through the Linnaeus system; how to tell real gold from fool’s gold; how to preserve butterflies, crab shells, feathers, a robin’s egg, spider specimens, and honeycombs; how to identify seashells; the difference between antlers and horns; how to read animal tracks. And then, what to do with your specimens, including how to build a cabinet of curiosities out of common household objects, like a desk organizer or a box for fishing tackle.

    Dreaming no farther than Czechoslovakia, the young reporter found himself sent to India. Wide-eyed and captivated, he would discover in those days his life’s work—to understand and describe the world in its remotest reaches, in all its multiplicity. From the rituals of sunrise at Persepolis to the incongruity of Louis Armstrong performing before a stone-faced crowd in Khartoum, Kapuscinski gives us the non-Western world as he first saw it, through still-virginal Western eyes.The companion on his travels: a volume of Herodotus, a gift from his first boss. Whether in China, Poland, Iran, or the Congo, it was the “father of history”—and, as Kapuscinski would realize, of globalism—who helped the young correspondent to make sense of events, to find the story where it did not obviously exist. It is this great forerunner’s spirit—both supremely worldly and innately Occidental—that would continue to whet Kapuscinski’s ravenous appetite for discovering the broader world and that has made him our own indispensable companion on any leg of that perpetual journey.

        Everything You Need to Ace English Language Arts . . .takes students from grammar to reading comprehension to writing with ease, including parts of speech, active and passive verbs, Greek and Latin roots and affixes; nuances in word meanings; textual analysis, authorship, structure, and other skills for reading fiction and nonfiction; and writing arguments, informative texts, and narratives. The BIG FAT NOTEBOOK™ series is built on a simple and irresistible conceit—borrowing the notes from the smartest kid in class. There are five books in all, and each is the only book you need for each main subject taught in middle school: Math, Science, American History, English Language Arts, and World History. Inside the reader will find every subject’s key concepts, easily digested and summarized: Critical ideas highlighted in neon colors. Definitions explained. Doodles that illuminate tricky concepts in marker. Mnemonics for memorable shortcuts. And quizzes to recap it all. The BIG FAT NOTEBOOKS meet Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and state history standards, and are vetted by National and State Teacher of the Year Award–winning teachers. They make learning fun, and are the perfect next step for every kid who grew up on Brain Quest.

    Presents an introduction to Shakespeare's greatest plays including Hamlet Othello, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest and Pericles.

    The fully articulated skeleton of a female saint, dressed in an intricate costume of silk brocade and gold lace, withered fingers glittering with colorful rubies, emeralds, and pearls this is only one of the specially photographed relics featured in Heavenly Bodies. In 1578 news came of the discovery in Rome of a labyrinth of underground tombs, which were thought to hold the remains of thousands of early Christian martyrs. Skeletons of these supposed saints were subsequently sent to Catholic churches and religious houses in German-speaking Europe to replace holy relics that had been destroyed in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. The skeletons, known as the catacomb saints, were carefully reassembled, richly dressed in fantastic costumes, wigs, crowns, jewels, and armor, and posed in elaborate displays inside churches and shrines as reminders to the faithful of the heavenly treasures that awaited them after death. Paul Koudounaris gained unprecedented access to religious institutions to reveal these fascinating historical artifacts. Hidden for over a century as Western attitudes toward both the worship of holy relics and death itself changed, some of these ornamented skeletons appear in publication here for the first time."

    Ballroom dancing, flying fighter planes, detonating bombs, skinning and eating snakes in times of dire need, and everything else in between—there’s nothing our officers can’t do!Read twenty-one nail-biting stories of daring. Hear from some amazing men and women about what the forces have taught them—and decide if the olivegreen uniform is what you want to wear too.

    The animals can’t count, use the phone, or even find out what time it is. Rulers, money, and computers have all become completely useless. . . . Can the town’s detective solve this numerical mystery? Will he ever bring the numbers back home again? Loreen Leedy’s clever rhyming text PLUS her amusing digitally painted illustrations EQUALS proof that we need math each and every day.

    Levin brings his distinctive artistic style to twenty-nine life lessons that have been passed down from generation to generation. Filled with wit and wisdom, these life lessons have stood the test of time. From “A Stitch in Time Saves Nine” and “Early to Bed and Early to Rise” to “Practice Makes Perfect” and “Look Before You Leap,” these well-known proverbs are universal, evergreen truths that every parent and grandparent will want to share with their children.

    . . full of intellectual treats and tricks, of whimsy and deep scientific philosophy. It is highbrow entertainment at its best, a teasing challenge to all who aspire to think about the universe." — New York Herald TribuneOne of the world's foremost nuclear physicists (celebrated for his theory of radioactive decay, among other accomplishments), George Gamow possessed the unique ability of making the world of science accessible to the general reader.He brings that ability to bear in this delightful expedition through the problems, pleasures, and puzzles of modern science. Among the topics scrutinized with the author's celebrated good humor and pedagogical prowess are the macrocosm and the microcosm, theory of numbers, relativity of space and time, entropy, genes, atomic structure, nuclear fission, and the origin of the solar system.In the pages of this book readers grapple with such crucial matters as whether it is possible to bend space, why a rocket shrinks, the "end of the world problem," excursions into the fourth dimension, and a host of other tantalizing topics for the scientifically curious. Brimming with amusing anecdotes and provocative problems, One Two Three . . . Infinity also includes over 120 delightful pen-and-ink illustrations by the author, adding another dimension of good-natured charm to these wide-ranging explorations.Whatever your level of scientific expertise, chances are you'll derive a great deal of pleasure, stimulation, and information from this unusual and imaginative book. It belongs in the library of anyone curious about the wonders of the scientific universe. "In One Two Three . . . Infinity, as in his other books, George Gamow succeeds where others fail because of his remarkable ability to combine technical accuracy, choice of material, dignity of expression, and readability." — Saturday Review of Literature

    A guide to volcanoes with the gritty bits left in! Read the diaries of volcano survivors; get clued-up with the spotter's guide to eruptions; plan an explosive holiday with the volcano vacation guide; marvel at red-hot volcanic rocks the size of cars; and tremble before boiling hot geysers.

    [The book] will teach you to communicate with clarity and precision. As you learn the logic behind the rules of grammar, you'll find it easy to obey them. You'll become the master of: perfect progressives; gender concealers; word substitutes; working words and helping words; joiners and gluers; phrases and clauses; points of punctuation; avoiding common mistakes; how to put all your words together in the clearest, most powerful way.Originally published as A Grammar Book for You and I (Oops! Me).