Signing Illustrated (Revised Edition): The Complete Learning Guide


Mickey Flodin - 2004
    This easy-to-use guide is updated and expanded to include new computer and technology signs and offers a fast and simple approach to learning. Includes:- Vocabulary reviews- Fingerspelling exercises- Sign matching and memory aids- A complete glossary and a comprehensive index- Clear instructive drawings

Conversations with Walker Percy


Walker Percy - 1985
    These collected interviews, like a visit with Percy at his home on the Bogue Falaya River, provide refreshing close-up encounters with one of America's most celebrated writers.These twenty-seven interviews cover a period of twenty-two years, from the time of the publication of Percy's first novel, The Moviegoer, in 1961, until 1983, when he was interviewed about his friendship with Thomas Merton.These unabridged interviews, collected from a variety of sources, will give reading pleasure to general readers who wish to know Percy and his works more closely, and they will be of great use to Percy scholars.

Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction


Jonathan D. Culler - 1997
    Jonathan Culler, an extremely lucid commentator and much admired in the field of literary theory, offers discerning insights into such theories as the nature of language and meaning, and whether literature is a form of self-expression or a method of appeal to an audience. Concise yet thorough, Literary Theory also outlines the ideas behind a number of different schools: deconstruction, semiotics, postcolonial theory, and structuralism, among others. From topics such as literature and social identity to poetry, poetics, and rhetoric, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction is a welcome guide for anyone interested in the importance of literature and the debates surrounding it.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory


Peter Barry - 1995
    This new and expanded third edition continues to offer students and readers the best one-volume introduction to the field.The bewildering variety of approaches, theorists and technical language is lucidly and expertly unraveled. Unlike many books which assume certain positions about the critics and the theories they represent, Peter Barry allows readers to develop their own ideas once first principles and concepts have been grasped.

Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life


Douglas Wilson - 2011
    Through a series of out-of-the-ordinary lessons, each with its own takeaway points and recommended readings, Douglas Wilson provides indispensable guidance, showing how to develop the writer s craft and the kind of life from which good writing comes.

William Blake


G.K. Chesterton - 1909
    His ‘natural supernaturalism’, personal mythology and vision can leave readers dazzled by the intensity and passion of his verse. In this outstanding work, Chesterton goes right to the heart of the matter and addresses the question of whether Blake’s genius was tainted by madness or whether his peculiar outlook on the world was the key to his success. With a detailed exposition of Blake’s life, and by weaving lucid explanations of his philosophy and religion into a discourse on his poetry, Chesterton has produced a remarkable and sensitive biography.

London by Tube: A History of Underground Station Names


David Revill - 2011
    The book takes the reader on a fascinating journey around the Tube network to reveal the history behind the names of all 268 stations. Packed full of lively stories about the colourful characters and remarkable events connected to the places that bear these names, the book delves deep into London’s rich history to recall tales of terrible fires, profligate playboys, ancient relics, devious criminals, squalid slums, lost rivers, grisly executions and unsolved mysteries. This is a book for anyone who has ever taken a trip on the Tube – the perfect gift for visitors, commuters and Londoners alike. It is a Tube guide to the city’s past. So sit back and enjoy the ride and discover something new about London and its historic Underground.

Wolf: The Lives of Jack London


James L. Haley - 2010
    In his youth he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast—by turns playing the role of hobo, sailor, prospector, and oyster pirate. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed, best-selling books: The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea Wolf. London was plagued by contradictions. He chronicled nature at its most savage, but wept helplessly at the deaths of his favorite animals. At his peak the highest-paid writer in America, he was nevertheless constantly broke. An irrepressibly optimistic crusader for social justice, he burned himself out at forty: sick, angry, and disillusioned, but leaving behind a voluminous literary legacy, much of it ripe for rediscovery.In Wolf, award-winning author James L. Haley explores the forgotten Jack London—at once a hard-living globetrotter and a man alive with ideas, whose passion for social justice roared until the day he died. Returning London to his proper place in the American pantheon, Wolf resurrects a major American novelist in his full fire and glory.

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language


Amanda Montell - 2019
    Even before its usage to mean a female canine, bitch didn’t refer to gender at all—it originated as a gender-neutral word meaning genitalia. A perfectly innocuous word devolving into a female insult is the case for tons more terms, including hussy, which simply meant “housewife,” or slut, which meant “untidy” and was also used to describe men. These words are just a few among history’s many English slurs hurled at women. Amanda Montell, feminist linguist and staff features editor at online beauty and health magazine Byrdie.com, deconstructs language—from insults and cursing to grammar and pronunciation patterns—to reveal the ways it has been used for centuries to keep women form gaining equality. Ever wonder why so many people are annoyed when women use the word “like” as a filler? Or why certain gender neutral terms stick and others don’t? Or even how linguists have historically discussed women’s speech patterns? Wordslut is no stuffy academic study; Montell’s irresistible humor shines through, making linguistics not only approachable but both downright hilarious and profound.

Alexander Hamilton: First Architect Of The American Government


Michael W. Simmons - 2016
    Orphaned as a teenager, he came to America in search of an education, a home, and the war that would at last bring him fame and honor. As George Washington’s most trusted aide, Hamilton helped to win the American Revolution—but after the war, his enemies lost no time accusing him of trying to sell his country back to the British. He was the most powerful member of Washington’s presidential cabinet—so why did Adams and Jefferson hate him so much?In this book, you will learn how the author of the Federalist Papers and the first Secretary of the Treasury nearly ruined his career by fighting duels, seducing women, and getting involved in America’s first sex scandal. The duel that killed Alexander Hamilton is the most famous duel in American history, but you’ll have to come up with your own answer to its greatest mystery: who shot first, Hamilton or Burr?

Tiny Blunders/Big Disasters: Thirty-Nine Tiny Mistakes That Changed the World Forever (Revised Edition)


Jared Knott - 2020
    World History

The Uses of Literature


Italo Calvino - 1980
    His fascination with myth is evident in pieces on Ovid's Metamorphoses and the separate odysseys that make up Homer's Odyssey. Three intertwined essays on French utopian socialist Fourier present him as a precursor of Women's Lib, a satirist and visionary thinker whose scheme for a society in which each person's desires could be satisfied deserves to be taken seriously. In other pieces, Calvino brings a fresh, unpredictable approach to why we should reread the classics, how cinema and comic strips influence writers, and the cartoon universe of Saul Steinberg. His message is that writers need to establish erotic communion with the humdrum objects of everyday reality.

Oxford Handbook of Emergency Medicine


Jonathan P. Wyatt - 1999
    Whether you work in emergency medicine, or just want to be prepared, this book will be your essential guide.Following the latest clinical guidelines and evidence, written and reviewed by experts, this handbook will ensure you are up-to-date and have the confidence to deal with all emergency presentations, practices, and procedures. Following the latest developments in the field, such as infection control, DNR orders, advanced directives and learning disability. The book also includes new sections specifically outlining patient advice and information, as well as new and revised vital information on paediatrics and psychiatry. For all junior doctors, specialist nurses, paramedics, clinical students, GPs and other allied health professionals, this rapid-reference handbook will become a vital companion for both study and practice.

The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten


Jeffrey Kacirk - 2000
    But as hundreds of new words are added annually, older ones are sacrificed. Now from the author of Forgotten English comes a collection of fascinating archaic words and phrases, providing an enticing glimpse into the past. With beguiling period illustrations, The Word Museum offers up the marvelous oddities and peculiar enchantments of old and unusual words.

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English


John McWhorter - 2008
    Covering such turning points as the little-known Celtic and Welsh influences on English, the impact of the Viking raids and the Norman Conquest, and the Germanic invasions that started it all during the fifth century ad, John McWhorter narrates this colorful evolution with vigor. Drawing on revolutionary genetic and linguistic research as well as a cache of remarkable trivia about the origins of English words and syntax patterns, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue ultimately demonstrates the arbitrary, maddening nature of English--and its ironic simplicity due to its role as a streamlined lingua franca during the early formation of Britain. This is the book that language aficionados worldwide have been waiting for (and no, it's not a sin to end a sentence with a preposition).