Added by: Maria | Karma: 3098.81 | Non-Fiction » tourism | 28 November 2008
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11 Great Walking Tours Through the Most Historic Neighborhoods in London
Follow Frommer’s for an up-close and personal look at Europe’s hottest city. Discover the ancient streets of The City, Chelsea’s hippest hangouts, and the Whitechapel alleys where Jack the Ripper once lurked.
With easy-to-use directions and maps–and the best places to take a break along the way.
As usual Bill Bryson says it best: “English is a dazzlingly idiosyncratic tongue, full of quirks and irregularities that often seem willfully at odds with logic and common sense. This is a language where ‘cleave’ can mean to cut in half or to hold two halves together; where the simple word ‘set’ has 126 different meanings as a verb, 58 as a noun, and 10 as a participial adjective; where if you can run fast you are moving swiftly, but if you are stuck fast you are not moving at all; [and] where ‘colonel,’ ‘freight,’ ‘once,’ and ‘ache’ are strikingly at odds with their spellings.” As a copy editor for the London Times in the early 1980s, Bill Bryson felt keenly the lack of an easy-to-consult, authoritative guide to avoiding the traps and snares in English, and so he brashly suggested to a publisher that he should write one. Surprisingly, the proposition was accepted, and for “a sum of money carefully gauged not to cause embarrassment or feelings of overworth,” he proceeded to write that book–his first, inaugurating his stellar career.
Now, a decade and a half later, revised, updated, and thoroughly (but not overly) Americanized, it has become Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words, more than ever an essential guide to the wonderfully disordered thing that is the English language. With some one thousand entries, from “a, an” to “zoom,” that feature real-world examples of questionable usage from an international array of publications, and with a helpful glossary and guide to pronunciation, this precise, prescriptive, and–because it is written by Bill Bryson–often witty book belongs on the desk of every person who cares enough about the language not to maul or misuse or distort it. PDF VERSION by Pumukl
An odd book in that it mixes elements of science fiction with psychological analysis, Slaughterhouse-Five tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, a GI prisoner of war. He time-travels and wanders through a mysterious ether where spatial-temporal relationships are at odds with what we accept as reality.
The original CliffsNotes study guides offer expert commentary on major themes, plots, characters, literary devices, and historical background. The latest generation of titles in this series also features glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format. CliffsNotes on 1984 introduces you to the modern world as imagined by George Orwell, a place where humans have no control over their own lives, where nearly every positive feeling is squelched, and where people live in misery, fear, and repression. Orwell’s vision of the future may be grim, but your understanding of his novel can be bright thanks to detailed summaries and commentaries for every chapter.
From creating the pyramids to exploring infinity, this pocket size book traces humankind's greatest achievements through the towering mathematical intellects of the past 4,000 years to where we stand today.
