Unique, daring, and unforgettable, it tells the story of an ordinary family who accidentally threaten the security of a hidden civilization as intelligent as our own--a colony of ants determined to survive at any cost....Jonathan Wells and his young family have come to the Paris flat at 3, rue des Sybarites through the bequest of his eccentric late uncle Edmond. Inheriting the dusty apartment, the Wells family are left with only one warning: Never go down into the cellar.But when the family dog disappears down the basement steps, Jonathan follows--and soon his wife, his son, and various would-be rescuers vanish into its mysterious depths.Meanwhile, in a pine stump in a nearby park, a vast civilization is in turmoil. Here a young female from the russet ant nation of Bel-o-kan learns that a strange new weapon has been killing off her comrades. To find out why, she enlists the help of a warrior ant, and the two set off on separate journeys into a harsh and violent world. It is a world where death takes many forms--savage birds and voracious lizards, warlike dwarf ants and rapacious termites, poisonous beetles and, most bizarre of all, the swift, murderous, giant guardians of the edge of the world: cars.Yet the end of the female's desperate quest will be the eerie secret in the cellar at 3, rue des Sybarites--a mystery she must solve in order to fulfill her special destiny as the new queen of her own great empire. But to do so she must first make unthinkable communion with the most barbaric creatures of all. Empire of the Ants is a brilliant evocation of a hidden civilization as complex as our own and far more ancient. It is a fascinating realm where boats are built of leaves and greenflies are domesticated and milked like cows, where citizens lock antennae in "absolute communication" and fight wars with precisely coordinated armies using sprays of glue and acids that can dissolve a snail. Not since Watership Down has a novel so vividly captured the lives and struggles of a fellow species and the valuable lessons they have to teach us.From the Hardcover edition.

    Taking examples from sources as diverse as Plato and Steven Spielberg, author Julian Baggini presents abstract philosophical issues in concrete terms, suggesting possible solutions while encouraging readers to draw their own conclusions: Lively, clever, and thought-provoking, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten is a portable feast for the mind that is sure to satisfy any intellectual appetite.

    Pure Drivel is a collection of pieces, most of them written for the New Yorker, that demonstrate Martin's playful way with words and his unerring ability to create a feeling of serendipitous improvisation even on the printed page. Here's a passage from a piece that announces a shortage of periods in the Times Roman font: "Most vulnerable are writers who work in short, choppy sentences," said a spokesperson for Times Roman, who continued, "We are trying to remedy the situation and have suggested alternatives, like umlauts, since we have plenty of umlauts--and, in fact, have more umlauts than we could possibly use in a lifetime! Don't forget, umlauts can really spice up a page with their delicate symmetry--resting often midway in a word, letters spilling on either side--and not only indicate the pronunciation of a word but also contribute to a writer's greater glory because they're fancy, not to mention that they even look like periods, indeed, are indistinguishable from periods, and will lead casual readers to believe that the article actually contains periods!" Although some of these pieces flirted with topicality when they first appeared, Martin is most successful when he leaves the real world behind and gives his wit free rein. This collection preserves the best (so far) of his glorious improvisations. --Simon Leake

    Victor Benucci and Madeline Falco have a story to tell.It begins with the death of Vic’s father.It ends with the murder of Mad’s uncle.The Hackensack Police Department would very much like to hear it.But in order to tell their story, Vic and Mad must focus on all the chapters in between. This is a story about: 1. A coded mission to scatter ashes across New Jersey.2. The momentous nature of the Palisades in winter.3. One dormant submarine.4. Two songs about flowers.5. Being cool in the traditional sense.6. Sunsets & ice cream & orchards & graveyards.7. Simultaneous extreme opposites.8. A narrow escape from a war-torn country.9. A story collector.10. How to listen to someone who does not talk.11. Falling in love with a painting.12. Falling in love with a song.13. Falling in love.

    French is the official language of a number of international organisations (including the UN and the International Olympic Committee). French films are internationally renowned, and France has won the Nobel Prize in Literature more times than any other country!Get More From Your Trip with Easy-to-Find Phrases for Every Travel Situation! Lonely Planet Phrasebooks have been connecting travellers and locals for over a quarter of a century - our phrasebooks and mobile apps cover more than any other publisher!Order the right meal with our menu decoderNever get stuck for words with our 3500-word two-way dictionaryWe make language easy with shortcuts, key phrases & common Q&AsFeel at ease, with essential tips on culture & mannersCoverage includes: Basics, Practical, Social, Safe Travel, Food!Lonely Planet gets you to the heart of a place. Our job is to make amazing travel experiences happen. We visit the places we write about each and every edition. We never take freebies for positive coverage, so you can always rely on us to tell it like it is.Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet, Michael Janes, Jean-Bernard Carillet, and Jean-Pierre Masclef.About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in.TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards 2012 and 2013 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia)

    A novel mingling mysticism, madness, sadistic cruelty and nascent sexuality, it gives a scathing insight into the effects of forced vocations and the unnatural life of the convent. A succès de scandale at the end of the eighteenth century, it has attracted and unsettled readers ever since. For Diderot's novel is not simply a story of a young girl with a bad habit; it is also a powerfully emblematic fable about oppression and intolerance.This new translation includes Diderot's all-important prefatory material, which he placed, disconcertingly, at the end of the novel, and which turns what otherwise seems like an exercise in realism into what is now regarded as a masterpiece of proto-modernist fiction.

    Do cats do things they don’t want to do? Definitely not. Do cats rush around at all hours of the day when they’d rather be licking their paws and looking out a window? Please. Calm, free, charismatic, wise, elegant, self-assured—our beloved feline pets strut those traits that we humans spend a lifetime aspiring to. No wonder everybody wants to be more like a cat.After observing his own cat, Ziggy, for years, bestselling French author Stéphane Garnier decided that he would be much happier if he could just live more like Ziggy. Closer study only confirmed his suspicion that cats have that je ne sais quoi, and he set out to share Ziggy’s innate wisdom with the world.Whether at work, at home, or in your social life, your cat can teach you how to manage stress, cultivate independence, and live life on your terms. Peppered with humorous yet inspiring tips for living a day in the life of a cat, cat secrets from Ziggy, and a quiz to assess your “cat quotient,” How to Think Like a Cat is an inspiring, humorous, and remarkably insightful guide to the subtle art of living like a feline.

    Maybe you learned Spanish verb conjugations and lists of vocabulary, but you still can't speak the language.The Accelerated Spanish system is completely different: You can learn fluent Spanish with a step-by-step system that begins with the fundamentals of the Spanish language, moving from there into actual conversational fluency.This first volume will teach you to think like a Spanish speaker and give you the vocabulary that makes up 50% of the Spanish language.

    The most important and most commonly used French verbs are presented alphabetically in chart form, one verb per page, and conjugated in all persons and tenses, both active and passive. This thorough guide to the use of verbs features many additional references and tips, including a bilingual list of more than 1,250 additional French verbs, helpful expressions and idioms for travelers, and verb drills and tests with questions answered and explained. French language students will also find an index of English-French verbs, a section on verbs used in French idiomatic expressions, and more than 1,000 additional French regular verbs conjugated like the book's model verbs.

    For ages Love has remained one of the most cherished experiences that everyone wishes to live through at least once. Humanity, time and again, has coined many definitions to describe this beautiful emotion, but this small word is a feeling that cant simply be defined. It has to be narrated . . . in the form of stories love stories. Love Stories That Touched My Heart is a collection of such stories from readers who have a tale to tell, shortlisted from over 2000 entries that were submitted in a competition conducted by Penguin India. Selected and edited by Ravinder Singh, this anthology made up of the stories that touched Ravins heart the most will make you believe that someone, somewhere, is made for you.

    In the winter of 1859, Anna Palmer becomes its newest patient. To Anna’s dismay, her new husband has declared her in need of treatment and brought her to this shabby asylum. Confused and angry, Anna is determined to prove her sanity, but with her husband and doctors unwilling to listen, her freedom will notbe easily won. As the weeks pass, she finds other allies: a visiting physician who believes the new medium of photography may reveal the state of a patient’s mind; a longtime patient named Talitha Batt, who seems, to Anna’s surprise, to be as sane as she is; and the proprietor’s bookish daughter, who also yearns to escape. Yet the longer Anna remains at Lake House, the more she realizes that—like the ethereal bridge over the asylum’s lake—nothing and no one is quite as it appears. Not her fellow patients, her husband, her family—not even herself. Locked alone in her room, driven by the treatments of the time into the recesses of her own mind, she may discover the answers and the freedom she seeks . . . or how thin the line between madness and sanity truly is. Wendy Wallace’s taut, elegantly crafted first novel, The Painted Bridge is a story of family betrayals and illicit power; it is also a compelling portrait of the startling history of the psychiatric field and the treatment of women— in society and in these institutions. Wallace sets these ideas and her characters on the page beautifully, telling a riveting story that is surprising and deeply moving.

    But her "problems" have landed her in shopping rehab--that's what happens when you spend $246,893.50 in one afternoon at Barneys. Now she's decided to write her memoir, revealing the gut-wrenching hurdles she's had to overcome in order to be perfect in every way, every day. Hurdles such as: - I hate my horse. - Every job I've ever had is the worst job I've ever had. - He's not a doctor, a lawyer, or a prince. - I'll eat anything, as long as it's gluten-free, dairy-free, low-carb, low-fat, low-calorie, sugar-free, and organic. In an Adderall-induced flash of inspiration, Babe Walker has managed to create one of the most enjoyable, unforgettable memoirs in years.

    When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a peculiar dream of the color blue propels her on a quest to uncover her family’s French ancestry. As the novel unfolds—alternating between Ella’s story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier—a common thread emerges that unexpectedly links the two women. Part detective story, part historical fiction, The Virgin Blue is a novel of passion and intrigue that compels readers to the very last page.

    It took only twenty-two minutes for Kirby Matheson to exit his car, march onto the school grounds, enter the gymnasium, and open fire, killing six and injuring five others. But this isn’t a story about the shooting itself. This isn’t about recounting that one unforgettable day. This is about one boy—who had friends, enjoyed reading, playing saxophone in the band, and had never been in trouble before—became a monster capable of entering his school with a loaded gun and firing bullets at his classmates. Each chapter is told from a different victim’s viewpoint, giving insight into who Kirby was and who he’d become. Some are sweet, some are dark; some are seemingly unrelated, about fights or first kisses or late-night parties. This is a book told from multiple perspectives—with one character and one event drawing them all together—by some of YA’s most recognizable names.

    Yet he is no ordinary murderer: his targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent. But not everything monstrous-looking is evil and not everything fair is good... and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth.Librarian's Note: Alternate cover edition of ASIN B0010SIPT4