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Daedalus Books
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The newly updated American Heritage High School Dictionary, Fourth Edition, offers the distinctive qualities that characterize the American Heritage line without including obscene words or offensive slurs. The dictionary features a modern, readable defining style, helpful guidance on English usage, and more than 2,500 photographs and drawings that enhance definitions and invite browsing. New to this updated release are recently prominent terms such as edamame, ringtone, sandboard, spyware, and Texas hold’em, and biographical entries for figures such as newly appointed Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. Additionally, the Periodic Table of the Elements now includes the newest element, roentgenium, and the geographical entries reflect up-to-date geopolitical changes, such as the recent dissolution of Serbia and Montenegro. Usage notes based on the opinions of the renowned American Heritage Usage Panel help the reader discern the difference between the conventional and the quirky in language use. Special features on synonyms, regionalisms, and word histories enrich vocabulary and show how language changes over time. The American Heritage High School Dictionary, Fourth Edition, is the most comprehensive high school dictionary available today. |
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This is an essential guide for new students coming to the Bard for the first time as well as a valuable resource for a dedicated fan. It is an ideal introduction to the life and times of Shakespeare, uncovering the few fragments of his life and placing him within the Elizabethan world. The book also looks at each of his plays and sonnets, giving full explanations and descriptions, putting them in context, and revealing the many great quotes and key scenes. |
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King Henry VIII remains one of the most controversial figures in our history. Wilson draws together all the most recent discoveries and looks afresh at the fascinating life and times of the Tudor monarch, particularly, looking at the King's childhood which is too often dismissed, and the influences of his father and grandfather. Interwoven with an insightful account of how England became a Protestant nation and Henry VIII's life within the court and, of course, all his wives, this Brief History will bring this enigmatic monarch and the dramatic changes that occurred in Britain during his reign to life. |
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The story of Robin Hood contains compelling narratives of crusades and outlaws and has become a symbol for justice in an unjust world. Robin Hood became a hero over the centuries and has been immortalized in books, art, and movies, as well as a figure of admiration, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. This Brief History explores the truth behind the myths and the realities behind the images, and reveals an unexpected story that hits close to home. |
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What happens when a washed-up musician looks for anther chance? And a childless woman looks for a change? Juliet, Naked is a powerfully engrossing, humorous novel about music, love, loneliness, and the struggle to live up to one's promise. |
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As civil war rages across England, the weak prove their courage and the privileged become traitors In this sweeping, bittersweet saga, spellbinding author Daphne du Maurier recreates a most memorable and true love story. Honor Harris was glorious and vivacious. Sir Richard Grenville was a dashing colonel and a knight. They meet on the evening of her eighteenth birthday at the Duke of Buckingham's great ball and fall deeply in love. Soon afterward tragedy strikes and they are separated by betrayal and war. Decades later, an undaunted Sir Richard, now a general serving King Charles I, finds her. Finally they can share their passion in the ruins of a great estate on the storm-tossed Cornish coastone last time before being torn apart, never to embrace again. |
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From the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, Isabel Allende's latest novel tells the story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible. Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarite — known as Tete — is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tete finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and the voodoo loas she discovers through her fellow slaves. When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it's with powdered wigs in his trunks and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father's plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. Against the merciless backdrop of sugar cane fields, the lives of Tete and Valmorain grow ever more intertwined. When the bloody revolution of Toussaint Louverture arrives at the gates of Saint Lazare, they flee the island that will become Haiti for the decadence and opportunity of New Orleans. There, Tete finally forges a new life — but her connection to Valmorain is deeper than anyone knows and not so easily severed. Spanning four decades, Island Beneath the Sea is the moving story of one woman's determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been so battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances. |
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In a drama of love, revolution and war that rivals Pasternak's Dr Zhivago, author and journalist, Pringle, tells the true story of a young Russian scientist, who travelled the world to collect seeds and plants unavailable in Russia in order to transform Soviet, and even world, agriculture and ensure the survival of humanity through adequate food supply. To the leaders of the Soviet state, including Lenin, Vavilov's dream fitted perfectly into their larger scheme for a socialist utopia. But when Lenin died in 1924 and Stalin took over, the handsome and seductive young professor's dream turned into a nightmare. Stalin chose collectivization of farmland, causing chaos and famine, and it soon became impossible for Vavilov to implement his plan. Worse, Stalin's secret police began to build up a file against him, as they systematically suppressed geneticists, which would eventually include false charges of sabotage and espionage, leading to imprisonment, torture and death. This is the intensely human story of a brilliant life cut short by anti-science demagogues, ideology, censorship and political expedience. Pringle's sources include newly opened Soviet archive material, family letters and diaries, official correspondence and eyewitness statements, as this book follows the life, loves and trials of one of the leading geneticists, during the birth of modern genetics. Peter Pringle has been foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times and the Observer and was former Moscow bureau chief for the Independent. He has written The New York Times and The Washington Post amongst others and is the author or co-author of nine previous books. |
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Time has done a number on the English language. Not so long ago, a slur was just mud and being nice meant that you didn't actually know what was going on. But over the years, even some of the most common words we use have done complete 360s. With The Encyclopedia of Modern Meanings, word-lovers can rediscover definitions long-forgotten, including: Thrift, n. personal wealth; Loose, v. to release an arrow; Manufacture, v. to make by hand; Doom, n. a law, judgment, or decree; and, Bimbo, n. tough guy, man's man. |
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One of the most popular songs in music history becomes one of the most delightful children's books ever — complete with a CD featuring two completely new tunes by NEIL SEDAKA! Rise and shine! It's morning time. The alarm clock's ringing, the birds are singing. Everything's saying: get up, get going! Breakfast is warming, school is calling. The streets are bustling, all the world is stirring. It's sure to be a happy day with this bright and sunny picture book and CD, with new lyrics based on the hit song by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield. Daniel Miyares's delightful art opens your eyes with its vivid colors, playful details, and adorable collection of animal characters. And to make waking up just a little easier, there's a CD with Neil Sedaka singing this happy song, plus two brand new songs written by Neil for this book and CD set: Lightnin' Jim and Sing. Warm and friendly and full of fun, this is a musical and visual celebration of the everyday joys of home, family, and neighborhood. The song Breaking Up is Hard to Do was first released in 1962 and quickly went to Number One on Billboard's Top 100. Sedaka re-released the song in 1975, changing it from an up-tempo tune to a ballad, and made music history when it reached #1 on the charts, becoming the first song recorded in two different versions by the same artist to reach Number One. |
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Grammy award-winning singer Judy Collins and illustrator Eric Puybaret, who together created the New York Times best-selling version of Over the Rainbow, are collaborating once again to bring a classic song to life. Written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington in 1940, the Academy Award-winning When You Wish Upon a Star is beloved by listeners from 2 to 92 for its sweet hopefulness, poignant melody, and simple yet profound lyrics. No singer can capture the haunting beauty of this classic like Judy Collins, with her clear, pure, and emotionally resonant voice. Eric Puybaret's captivating art, with its graceful lines, stunning use of color, and strong sense of fantasy, is the perfect complement to Collins' lovely interpretation. Like Over the Rainbow, this deluxe picture book features the highest-quality production values, making it a volume to treasure forever. |
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Clichs have taken over the world. They didn't start out that way. There was a time when they were new and vibrant, clever and pithy. Now they're just predictable. This book is a collection of the most overused phrases of all time. Hopefully, it'll make everyone laugh. |
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In Titanic Notebook, spectacular paper engineering brings to life the glory and the folly of one of the most iconic ships in maritime history. From flaps and fold outs to intricate 3D cutaway models, readers can touch a lost world and explore for themselves the innermost workings of this great ship. Mingle with the 3,500 passengers and crew. Share the luxury of life aboard the Titanic. Re-live the horror as disaster strikes. Witness the extraordinary re-discovery. Complete with a 700mm long Titanic model to assemble, Titanic Notebook's fact-packed pages and imaginative paper engineering are a unique record of her story from the fanfare of her launch to her final resting place. |
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10-Piece Puzzle. |
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This, the second and final volume of Stephen Walsh's magisterial biography of Igor Stravinsky, begins in 1934, when Stravinsky is fifty-two and living in France. Already regarded by many as the most important composer of his generation, Stravinsky is nevertheless at this point a fairly unhappy expatriate, all too aware of the war clouds beginning to gather. Though he still maintains a family life with his wife and children, much of his time is spent with his mistress, Vera Sudeykina, while traveling around Europe giving concerts in order to earn the money to support his dependents-which include a number of relatives. Composing, of course, remains the center of his existence. But changes are imminent: within only a few years his wife, Katya, will be dead, his family scattered, and Stravinsky himself, together with Vera, starting over again in America. Stravinsky: The Second Exile follows the composer through the remainder of his long life, years during which he produces such masterworks as The Rake's Progress and Symphony in C, and achieves a new level of fame as a conductor and raconteur in his own right. With a dazzling command of sources in several languages and a keen feeling for accuracy in situations where truth and falsehood have become blurred, Walsh traces and illuminates Stravinsky's increasingly complex and often agonized family relationships along with his crucially important connection with his associate Robert Craft. Walsh is also, as a musicologist and critic, able to speak with knowledge and wit about Stravinsky's work, expertly describing and assessing the composer's musical journey from the neoclassicism of his late French and early American periods, through hisearly essays in serial technique, and on finally to the astonishing intricacies of his final compositions. The first volume of this biography, Stravinsky: A Creative Spring, was received with glowing praise for its insight, narrative skills, and readability. The period covered here, beset as it is with myths and misconceptions, is handled with even greater authority. Carefully weighed, eloquent, packed with rich and fascinating detail, it casts a brilliant new light on one of the greatest artists of our time. |
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Glen Runciter is dead. Or is he? Someone died in the explosion orchestrated by his business rivals, but even as his funeral is scheduled, his mourning employees are receiving bewildering messages from their boss. And the world around them is warping and regressing in ways which suggest that their own time is running out. If it hasn't already. |
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The mind-bending novels of Philip K. Dick transcend genre to explore the nature of consciousness and reality, placing ordinary men and women in congress with the unknowable and the awe-full. Valis, the first in Dick's final trio of novels, is a theological detective story in which God is both a missing person and the perpetrator of the ultimate crime. The schizophrenic hero, a Dick alter-ego named Horselover Fat, begins receiving revelatory visions through a burst of pink laser light. As a coterie of religious seekers forms to explore these messages, they are led to a rock musician's estate, where a two-year old Messianic figure named Sophia confirms that an ancient, mechanical intelligence orbiting the earth has been guiding their discoveries. Mixing Gnostic Christianity with Dick's own strange philosophy, Valis is as funny and surprising as it is eye-opening. |
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Peonies bloom against a deep blue background in the vivid airbrush painting on the cover of this composition book. It features standard school-ruled pages, with a class schedule and conversion tables inside the cover. |
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Covered in vibrant velvet stripes woven in canvas, this journal is inspired by the traditional stripes & checks from around Southern India. Home to the most beautiful beaches in the world, the vividly colorful southern coasts of India have inspired artists and craftspeople for generations. |
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