Phraseology: Thousands of Bizarre Origins, Unexpected Connections, and Fascinating Facts about English's Best Expressions
The Amazing Secrets of the Phrases We Use Everyday Phraseology is the ultimate collection of everything you never knew about the wonderful phrases found in the English language. It contains information about phrase history and etymology; unusual, lost, or uncommon phrases; how phrases are formed; and more than 7,000 facts about common English phrases.
Katarina Bishop has worn a lot of labels in her short life: Friend. Niece. Daughter. Thief. But for the last two months she’s simply been known as the girl who ran the crew that robbed the greatest museum in the world. That’s why Kat isn’t surprised when she’s asked to steal the infamous Cleopatra Emerald so it can be returned to its rightful owners. There are only three problems. First, the gem hasn’t been seen in public in thirty years. Second, since the fall of the Egyptian empire and the suicide of Cleopatra, no one who holds the emerald keeps it for long — and in Kat’s world, history almost always repeats itself.
Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World
Uncommon Grounds tells the story of coffee from its discovery on a hill in ancient Abyssinia to the advent of Starbucks. In this updated edition of the classic work, Mark Pendergrast reviews the dramatic changes in coffee culture over the past decade, from the disastrous Coffee Crisis” that caused global prices to plummet to the rise of the Fair Trade movement and the third-wave” of quality-obsessed coffee connoisseurs. As the scope of coffee culture continues to expand, Uncommon Grounds remains more than ever a brilliantly entertaining guide to the currents of one of the world’s favorite beverages.
Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe
The sweeping diversity of complex life on Earth, Ward and Brownlee argue, evolved out of an extraordinary set of physical conditions and chance events that would be extremely hard to duplicate- though not impossible. Many planets throughout the vastness of the Universe may be teeming with microbial life, but advancement beyond this stage is very rare. Everyone with an interest in the possible extent of life in the Universe and the nature of life's evolution on our own planet will be fascinated by Rare Earth.
Buried Treasures: Finding and Growing the World's Choicest Bulbs
Latvian nurseryman Ruksans illuminates the realm of uncommon, alluring flowering bulbs, while chronicling his uncommon plant-hunting forays throughout what he calls the Soviet Empire. Renowned for these intrepid plant explorations, as well as for his expansive knowledge of breeding and growing bulbous plants, Ruksans offers an entertaining narrative that remains instructive. To begin, Ruksans puts forth a thorough and engaging presentation of cultivating bulbous plants, from the merits of growing bulbs from seeds to the use of tweezers for pollination.
