Symptoms include:*Acute embarrassment at the mere notion of making a fuss;*Extreme awkwardness when faced with any social greeting beyond a brisk handshake;*An unhealthy preoccupation with meteorology.Doctors have also reported several cases of unnecessary apologising, an obsessive interest in correct queuing etiquette and dramatic sighing in the presence of loud teenagers on public transport. If you have experienced any of these symptoms, you may be suffering from VERY BRITISH PROBLEMS. VERY BRITISH PROBLEMS are highly contagious. There is no known cure.Rob Temple's hilarious new book reveals all the ways in which we are a nation of socially awkward but well-meaning oddballs, struggling to make it through every day without apologising to an inanimate object. Take comfort in misfortunes of others. You are not alone.

    Released early and reconciled with Barat, The Libertines confounded the critics by rounding off 2003 with three triumphant sold-out shows at London's Forum and kicking off 2004 with the prestigious Best UK band gong at the NME awards. For the first time, the full, extraordinary story of the most gifted yet nihilistic London band since The Sex Pistols is told. With the complete co-operation of the major players in their gloriously destructive ascent. A documentation of the break-ins, break-ups, punch-ups and make-ups of the first two phenomenal years of The Libertines. Illustrated with many unseen photographs from the authors archive.

    Presented in handy A-Z format; includes 20 all-time best household healers.

    On any given Saturday, in dozens of stadiums across America, you will find crowds in excess of 75,000 gathered to root on their teams. This book is their Bible???a rich and comprehensive reference guide to the game??'s history, tradition and lore. Based on three years of research by the nation??'s foremost football experts, the book features: ???? ???? ??Capsule histories for each of the 119 Division 1-A programs, the Ivy League schools and teams from the SWAC, MEAC and historically black colleges ??????????????Year-by-year schedules and records ??????????????Statistical leaders from every school ??????????????Fightsong lyrics ??????????????Box scores for every bowl game ever played ??????????????4-color insert illustrating the evolution of each school??'s helmet design ??????????????Weekly polls dating back to 1936 ??????????????Essays by the game??'s top wordsmiths (Dan Jenkins, Beano Cook, Chris Fowler, Gene Wojciechowski) ??????????????Plus a lively round table discussion with ESPN??'s popular Game Day Team (Fowler, LeeCorso and Kirk Herbstreit) Packed with tables and charts and designed in an easy-to-read style, the updated ESPN College Football Encyclopedia will continue to dazzle even the most knowledgeable fan.

    This book is not a revision of the previous People's Almanac but a brand new book containing over one million new words. Its contents equal ten-normal sized books. It searches behind the facts to offer inside information as well as constant entertainment.

    The Anglo-Saxon powers, great and small, withdraw into fantasies of lost greatness. Populists all over Europe cry out that immigration and globalisation are the work of a nefarious System, run by unseen masters with no national loyalties. From the Kremlin, Tsar Vladimir watches his Great Game line up, while the Baltic and Vizegrad states shiver -- and everyone looks to Berlin. But are the Germans really us, or them? This question has haunted Europe ever since Julius Caesar invented the Germani in 58 BC.How Roman did Germania ever become? Did the Germans destroy the culture of Rome, or inherit it? When did they first drive east, and did they ever truly rule there? How did Germany become, for centuries, a power-vacuum at the heart of Europe? How was Prussia born? Did Bismarck unify Germany or conquer it? Where are the roots of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich? Why did it lose? By what miracle did a better Germany arise from the rubble? Is Germany now the last Western bastion of industrial prosperity and rational politics? Or are the EU and the Euro merely window-dressing for a new German hegemony?This fresh, illuminating and concise new history makes sense of Europe's most admired and feared country. It's time for the real story of Germany.

    It contains accounts by Richard 'The Iceman' Kuklinski, the contract killer who claimed to have murdered over 200 people in a career lasting 43 years.

    This book is built around the idea that students must study the discipline of psychology as a whole, that the sub-disciplines are intricately connected, and that human behavior is best understood by exploring its functioning state in addition to its potential dysfunctions.

    The posthumous influence of the Roman Republic and Empire have no equal in all of history. Their varied culture, stunning art, brilliant philosophy, and towering architecture is embedded in our modern world. Roman innovation has left behind a legacy that has remained admired and emulated for over a thousand years. They built massive networks of roads before the birth of Christ. They constructed elaborate public sewer systems over 1,500 years before the United States became a Nation, and had networks of aqueducts bringing running water. Their tactics in battle are still studied by historians and military leaders of today. Their history is filled with great conflicts, compelling love stories, and the most treacherous of leaders. Hollywood has explored their culture time and again on the silver screen. Larger than life commanders like Julius Caesar would help shape their ultimate destiny. In his book entitled The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire: Life, Liberty, and the Death of the Republic author Barry Linton highlights and explains the significant struggles and contributions that have made Rome so well known. Join us as we explore the meteoric rise, monumental life, inevitable death, and eventual rebirth of Rome.

    A reference book that reads like a magazine, the Almanac contains “everything under the Sun, including the Moon”—facts, feature articles, and advice that are “useful, with a pleasant degree of humor.”   The 2013 edition, which marks the publication’s 221st anniversary, will feature     • weather predictions for every day and climatic trends for each season, plus hints of how a low sunspot cycle could influence conditions in the coming years     • the most accurate astronomical data in the solar system, with best-viewing recommendations for every month     • safe and easy home remedies for each season’s most common—and uncomfortable—aches and ailments     • fail-safe gardening tips to ensure a hefty harvest, ideas for using vegetable plants as ornamentals, plus gardening by the Moon     • delicious recipes for homebaked cakes, cookies, and pies; plus readers’ best bacon dishes     • amusing and enlightening articles on raising children, kisses, and why pets bite (and how to stop them)and much, much more!   Added value this year:     • 80 full-color pages     • full-color national weather maps of winter and summer forecasts

    Whether you want to know how to beat an alligator in a fight, ways to speak in secret code, which insects are edible, or what the heck scolionophobia means, this is the book for readers both young and old.

    Together, the cookbooks contain over 550 of Paula’s classic, down home, Southern recipes and this boxed set makes a tempting addition to any cookbook collection, and a great gift for friends!

    This original and most British of television series chronicled the travels and tribulations of the famous Doctor Who and his merry band of followers. Tom Baker, though not the first but probably the most unforgettable of the actors who took on this role, has published an autobiography that not only lets us explore the man made famous but also the man himself. Tom inhabited the world of television production agencies, the BBC with its cast of thousands, and the drinking haunts of Soho with the likes of Jeffery Bernard, Anthony Hopkins and actors for whom feast and famine were a daily way of life. Tom, with his expressive face and kind eyes was born in Liverpool to a raucous and lively Irish family where love and a good respect for the teachings of the Catholic Church were able to prepare him for an interesting and fulfilling life. In fact, Tom's early experiences with the church involved a trial at a monastery for an unsuccessful preparation as a priest and an insight into the daily workings of these institutions. A slow starting but rapidly improving acting career was followed by time spent pulling pints and on London construction sites before the big break. Then came with the casting agent and the meeting that allowed for instant world-wide recognition for the famous Doctor Who that still exists today. The style of the story is very much that of a black comedy with a marriage, children and a certain fixation with a lawnmower and the mowing of the grass around his own gravestone, making for an enjoyable read. He is now happily married and living in a rural utopia outside of London, millions of miles and light years away from the hectic and all- consuming career of both straight acting and in the television role that has made him famous in more that 70 countries. --Brian Reinker

    They were pure ballplayers, sluggers and sweet fielders who played with unbridled joy and breathtaking skill. The national press converged on Crenshaw. So many scouts gravitated to their games that they took up most of the seats in the bleachers. Even the Crenshaw ballfield was a sight to behold -- groomed by the players themselves, picked clean of every pebble, it was the finest diamond in all of inner-city Los Angeles. On the outfield fences, the gates to the outside stayed locked against the danger and distraction of the streets. Baseball, for these boys, was hope itself. They had grown up with the notion that it could somehow set things right -- a vague, unexpressed, but persistent hope that even if life was rigged, baseball might be fair. And for a while it seemed they were right. Incredibly, most of of this team -- even several of the boys who sat on the bench -- were drafted into professional baseball. Two of them, Darryl Strawberry and Chris Brown, would reunite as teammates on a National League All-Star roster. But Michael Sokolove's The Ticket Out is more a story of promise denied than of dreams fulfilled. Because in Sokolove's brilliantly reported poignant and powerful tale, the lives of these gifted athletes intersect with the realities of being poor, urban, and black in America. What happened to these young men is a harsh reminder of the ways inspiration turns to frustration when the bats and balls are stowed and the crowd's applause dies down.

    Life was tough at times, living in a cramped one-roomed trailer, but, unbound by strict routines, Violet spent her days learning to keep home, playing and roaming the fields with a sense of freedom long lost to the rest of modern society. Immersed in the Gypsy way of life, her childhood set her apart from other children. Bullied by classmates, and segregated from 'gorgia' kids (all non-Gypsies), Violet eventually left school at the age of nine to live a life of travel, play and learning under generations-old Gypsy rules on the fringes of society. With traditional values at the heart of her childhood, the pressure of conforming and marrying young was intense. Violet was duty-bound to find a husband, but would her marriage lead to the 'happy ever after' she grew up believing in as a Gypsy girl? Gypsy Princess is a searingly honest account of what life is really like for travelling communities, for girls in particular, and captures a way of life that is slowly fading away.