The audio edition contains word-for-word recordings of all articles published in The Economist, read by professional broadcasters and actors. It is ideal for anyone who wants to listen to articles while travelling, exercising or just relaxing.
text added Thanks to bitemate!

A follow up to DAY OF THE DRAGON, the second book in THE WAR OF THE ANCIENTS trilogy, the maverick mage Rhonin and his dragon ally Krasus are propelled through time into their world's dangerous and mysterious past. While back in the present, the Dark Lord Sargeras sets in motion a plan to overrun the free peoples of the world.

More than 1000 lessons from www.voaspecialenglish.com are collected from 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 in this sofware.

You choose a lesson of different topics such agriculture, medicine, technology, making of the nation, enviroment on your left hand panel

Then click it and enjoy because while you listen you can see the text, native Americans read with slow speed

I strongly recommend this free sofware for practising listening

The audio edition contains word-for-word recordings of all articles published in The Economist, read by professional broadcasters and actors. It is ideal for anyone who wants to listen to articles while travelling, exercising or just relaxing.

From Thomas Hobbes' fear of the power of laughter to the compulsory, packaged "fun" of the contemporary mass media, Billig takes the reader on a stimulating tour of the strange world of humour. Both a significant work of scholarship and a novel contribution to the understanding of the humourous, this is a seriously engaging book' - David Inglis, University of Aberdeen

This delightful book tackles the prevailing assumption that laughter and humour are inherently good. In developing a critique of humour the author proposes a social theory that places humour - in the form of ridicule - as central to social life. Billig argues that all cultures use ridicule as a disciplinary means to uphold norms of conduct and conventions of meaning.

Historically, theories of humour reflect wider visions of politics, morality and aesthetics. For example, Bergson argued that humour contains an element of cruelty while Freud suggested that we deceive ourselves about the true nature of our laughter. Billig discusses these and other theories, while using the topic of humour to throw light on the perennial social problems of regulation, control and emancipation.