20 Master Plots: And How to Build Them


Ronald B. Tobias - 1993
    These tales gain their power through plots that connect with the audience on both an emotional and intellectual level.Inside, Ronald B. Tobias details these 20 time-tested plots. Each is discussed and analyzed, illustrating how a successful plot integrates all the elements of a story. Tobias then shows you how to use these plots effectively in your own work.Tobias then goes to the next level, showing you how to choose and develop plot in fiction. He shows you how to craft plot for any subject matter, so that you develop your work evenly and effectively. As a result, your fiction will be more cohesive and convincing, making your story unforgettable for readers everywhere.

Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts and Funny Sayings


Bob Phillips - 1993
    From Bible quotes and Christian teachings to the words of renowned historical figures, this collection of over 3,800 entries offers wit, wisdom, and an emphasis on practical living.

100 Ideas for Secondary Teachers: Outstanding Lessons


Ross Morrison McGill - 2013
    However, the integrity of an outstanding lesson will always be the same and this book attempts to bottle that formula so that you can recreate it time and time again.In his first book, Twitter phenomenon and outstanding teacher, Ross Morrison McGill provides a bank of inspirational ideas that can be picked up five minutes before your lesson starts and put into practice just as they are, or embedded into your day-to-day teaching to make every lesson an outstanding lesson! In his light-hearted and enthusiastic manner Ross guides you through the ideas he uses on a daily basis for managing behaviour, lesson planning, homework, assessment and all round outstanding teaching. Whether you are an experienced teacher or someone who has little practical teaching experience, there are ideas in this book that will change the way you think about your lessons.Ideas include: Snappy starters, Open classroom, Smiley faces, Student-led homework, Monday morning mantra and the popular five minute lesson plan.The 100 ideas series offers busy secondary teachers easy to implement, practical strategies and activities to improve and inspire their classroom practice. The bestselling series has been relaunched with a brand new look, including a new accessible dip in and out layout. Features include: Teachers tips, Taking it further tips, Quotes from the Ofsted framework and teachers, Bonus ideas, Hashtags and online resouces.

Graffiti Alphabets: Street Fonts from Around the World


Claudia Walde - 2011
    Each artist received the same brief: to design all 26 letters of the Latin alphabet within the limits of a single page of the book. The result is a unique typographical sourcebook featuring over 150 specially designed, original alphabets exclusive to this book.

Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors


Bill Bryson - 2008
    Covering spelling, capitalization, plurals, hyphens, abbreviations, and foreign names and phrases, Bryson’s Dictionary for Writers and Editors will be an indispensable companion for all who care enough about our language not to maul, misuse, or contort it.As Bill Bryson notes, “English is a dazzlingly idiosyncratic tongue, full of quirks and irregularities that often seem willfully at odds with logic and common sense.” This dictionary is an essential guide to the wonderfully disordered thing that is the English language.

Faster: Demystifying the Science of Triathlon Speed


Jim Gourley - 2013
    The gear you select and how you use it can mean big results—or bigger disappointment.FASTER takes a scientific look at triathlon to see what truly makes you faster—and busts the myths and doublespeak that waste your money and race times. In this fascinating exploration of the forces at play in the swim-bike-run sport, astronautical engineer and triathlete Jim Gourley shows where to find free speed, speed on a budget, and the gear upgrades that are worth it.FASTER offers specific, science-based guidance on the fastest techniques and the most effective gear, answering questions like: •    Which wetsuit is best for me? •    What’s the best way to draft a swimmer? •    Should I buy a lighter bike? •    Deep dish or disc wheels? •    Are lighter shoes faster? •    Who’s right about running technique? Gourley reviews published studies in peer-reviewed journals to show what scientists have learned about swim drafting, pacing the bike leg, race strategy for short and long-course racing, and the fastest ways to handle transitions.FASTER will change how you think about your body, your gear, and the world around you. With science on your side, you'll make the smart calls that will make you a better, faster triathlete.

Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer


Tom Shone - 2004
    Throngs of fans jam into air-conditioned multiplexes to escape for two hours in the dark, blissfully lost in Hollywood's latest glittery confection complete with megawatt celebrities, awesome special effects, and enormous marketing budgets. The world is in love with the blockbuster movie, and these cinematic behemoths have risen to dominate the film industry, breaking box office records every weekend. With the passion and wit of a true movie buff and the insight of an internationally renowned critic, Tom Shone is the first to make sense of this phenomenon by taking readers through the decades that have shaped the modern blockbuster and forever transformed the face of Hollywood. The moment the shark fin broke the water in 1975, a new monster was born. Fast, visceral, and devouring all in its path, the blockbuster had arrived. In just a few weeks Jaws earned more than $100 million in ticket sales, an unprecedented feat that heralded a new era in film. Soon, blockbuster auteurs such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and James Cameron would revive the flagging fortunes of the studios and lure audiences back into theaters with the promise of thrills, plenty of action, and an escape from art house pretension. But somewhere along the line, the beast they awakened took on a life of its own, and by the 1990s production budgets had escalated as quickly as profits. Hollywood entered a topsy-turvy world ruled by marketing and merchandising mavens, in which flops like Godzilla made money and hits had to break records just to break even. The blockbuster changed from a major event that took place a few times a year into something that audiences have come to expect weekly, piling into the backs of one another in an annual demolition derby that has left even Hollywood aghast. Tom Shone has interviewed all the key participants -- from cinematic visionaries like Spielberg and Lucas and the executives who greenlight these spectacles down to the effects wizards who detonated the Death Star and blew up the White House -- in order to reveal the ways in which blockbusters have transformed how Hollywood makes movies and how we watch them. As entertaining as the films it chronicles, Blockbuster is a must-read for any fan who delights in the magic of the movies.

Robert Altman: The Oral Biography


Mitchell Zuckoff - 2009
    After an all-American boyhood in Kansas City, a stint flying bombers in World War II, and jobs ranging from dog tattoo entrepreneur to television director, Robert Altman burst onto the scene in 1970 with M*A*S*H. He reinvented American filmmaking, and went on to produce such masterpieces as McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts, and Gosford Park. In Robert Altman, Mitchell Zuckoff has woven together Altman's final interviews; an incredible cast of voices including Meryl Streep, Warren Beatty, Paul Newman, among scores of others; and contemporary reviews and news accounts into a riveting tale of an extraordinary life.

In the Company of a Poet: Gulzar in Conversation with Nasreen Munni Kabir


Nasreen Munni Kabir - 2012
    Ever since he wrote his first song the unforgettable Mora gora ang lai le for Bimal Roys Bandini (1963) he has won countless admirers with his nuanced, sensitive and quietly innovative work. From the endearing Lakdi ki kaathi, that a generation grew up singing, to the Oscar-winning Jai ho his songs have enthralled millions. His unique and much acclaimed contribution to the world of poetry continues to reflect our changing times, with fresh idiom and delicate turn of phrase.In this book of conversations with Nasreen Munni Kabir, Gulzar speaks with insight, candour and gentle humour about his life and work: his school days in Old Delhi, where he wrote his early poems; working in a garage in Mumbai before entering films; his association with legends such as Bimal Roy, Balraj Sahni, Sahir Ludhianvi, Meena Kumari, Shailendra, S. D. Burman, Hemant Kumar, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Lata Mangeshkar and R. D. Burman among others; his love of tennis; and his deep connection with his wife, the legendary Raakhee, his daughter Meghna and his grandson Samay.

Soups, Sandwiches & Wraps


Bonnie Scott - 2013
    The great thing about soups and sandwiches is that they can be used for almost any occasion. Whether it’s a quick lunch on the go, a buffet for casual entertaining or a relaxing meal at the end of a busy day, put a soothing soup and tasty wrap on the menu, sit back, and enjoy the compliments.Spicy soup, potato soup, chowder, chicken soup, cheesy soup, vegetable soup, tomato soup are just a few of the soup categories in this book. Sandwiches and wraps include tuna, ham, cheese, chicken, turkey, veggie and even dessert wraps.Show more Show less

The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English


Henry Hitchings - 2008
    An average person spends his or her day enveloped in conversations, e-mails, phone calls, text messages, directions, headlines, and more. But how often do we stop to think about the origins of the words we use? Have you ever thought about which words in English have been borrowed from Arabic, Dutch, or Portuguese? Try admiral, landscape, and marmalade, just for starters. The Secret Life of Words is a wide-ranging account not only of the history of English language and vocabulary, but also of how words witness history, reflect social change, and remind us of our past. Henry Hitchings delves into the insatiable, ever-changing English language and reveals how and why it has absorbed words from more than 350 other languages—many originating from the most unlikely of places, such as shampoo from Hindi and kioskfrom Turkish. From the Norman Conquest to the present day, Hitchings narrates the story of English as a living archive of our human experience. He uncovers the secrets behind everyday words and explores the surprising origins of our most commonplace expressions. The Secret Life of Words is a rich, lively celebration of the language and vocabulary that we too often take for granted.

The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa - Revised and Expanded Edition


Stephen Prince - 1990
    Rashomon, which won both the Venice Film Festival's grand prize and an Academy Award for best foreign-language film, helped ignite Western interest in the Japanese cinema. Seven Samurai and Yojimbo remain enormously popular both in Japan and abroad. In this newly revised and expanded edition of his study of Kurosawa's films, Stephen Prince provides two new chapters that examine Kurosawa's remaining films, placing him in the context of cinema history. Prince also discusses how Kurosawa furnished a template for some well-known Hollywood directors, including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas.Providing a new and comprehensive look at this master filmmaker, The Warrior's Camera probes the complex visual structure of Kurosawa's work. The book shows how Kurosawa attempted to symbolize on film a course of national development for post-war Japan, and it traces the ways that he tied his social visions to a dynamic system of visual and narrative forms. The author analyzes Kurosawa's entire career and places the films in context by drawing on the director's autobiography--a fascinating work that presents Kurosawa as a Kurosawa character and the story of his life as the kind of spiritual odyssey witnessed so often in his films. After examining the development of Kurosawa's visual style in his early work, The Warrior's Camera explains how he used this style in subsequent films to forge a politically committed model of filmmaking. It then demonstrates how the collapse of Kurosawa's efforts to participate as a filmmaker in the tasks of social reconstruction led to the very different cinematic style evident in his most recent films, works of pessimism that view the world as resistant to change.

Inside the Real Area 51: The Secret History of Wright Patterson


Thomas J. Carey - 2013
    Only a select few have ever had access to the truth about what became known as Area 51.But what happened to the remnants of that crash is shrouded in even greater mystery. What began in the high desert of New Mexico ended at Wright-Patterson, an ultra top-secret Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio. The physical evidence of extraterrestrial visitation was buried deep within this nuclear stronghold.How tragic that such seismic news should be kept from the people of the world...pieces of history, now quickly dwindling into oblivion as the last of the secret-keepers passes on.In spite of its rich history of military service to our nation, Wright-Patterson also stands as the secret tomb of one of the greatest occurrences in recorded history. But be prepared...the real Area 51--Wright-Patterson's vault--is about to be opened.

The Bro Code


Matt Kuhn - 2008
    Some call it morality. Others call it religion. But Bros in the know call this holy grail the Bro Code.Historically a spoken tradition passed from one generation to the next, the official code of conduct for Bros appears here in its published form for the first time ever. By upholding the tenets of this sacred and legendary document, any dude can learn to achieve Bro-dom.

English Grammar Workbook for Dummies


Geraldine Woods - 2006
    Practice is the key to improving your grammar skills, and that's what this workbook is all about. Open it and you'll find hundreds of fun problems to help build your grammar muscles. Just turn to a topic you need help with -- from punctuation and pronouns to possessives and parallel structure -- and get out your pencil. With just a little practice every day, you'll be speaking correctly, writing confidently, and getting the recognition you deserve at work or at school. 100s of Problems! * Review grammar rules and exceptions * Build grammar skills, from sentence mechanics to stylistic fine points * Convey your ideas clearly and persuasively * Speak and write with flair and confidence