Dame Petunia Bladderwort and her remarkable friends, Cyril the modelling gnome, Trent Ranchandler, her trusty chauffeur handyman, are all summoned by the Keeper to help him find the Great Book of Han-Fei.A book that contains all the knowledge and realities of both the seen and unseen universes. The Great Book has been stolen and in the wrong hands could unleash horrors that you only experience in your worst nightmares. With the help of One Beer a wizard 2nd class who hates magic, and the General of the unseen army. The group of adventures set off on their latest adventure and are drawn into the Pyramid of Power, the home of a supernatural apparition, Death. They battle monsters and experience the shock and awe of One Beers attempts at Magic.
Gullible's Travels: From Diaper Rash to Kissing Frogs is a compilation of 30 life stories. A young girl, born to parents who were products of the Depression, Deanna grew up and experienced life during a simpler time and in a simpler place, Horton, Kansas, in the late 1930's, 1940's and 1950's. The title, Gullible's Travels, comes from the author's recognized gullibility as illustrated numerous times through her stories. Gullible's stories are amusing and sentimental in her journey through life. Some may even bring a tear to your eye. Like Stories of Old, each life story includes a moral, message, or lesson learned by Deanna as a result of her Travels. The subtitle for Book One, From Diaper Rash to Kissing Frogs, reflects Deanna's early life experiences from birth through her teen years. Book One is followed chronologically by three companion books-each reflecting approximately 20 years of the author's life.
"This is science writing as wonder and as inspiration." —The Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal From one of the most influential scientists of our time, a dazzling exploration of the hidden laws that govern the life cycle of everything from plants and animals to the cities we live in. Visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term “complexity” can be misleading, however, because what makes West’s discoveries so beautiful is that he has found an underlying simplicity that unites the seemingly complex and diverse phenomena of living systems, including our bodies, our cities and our businesses. Fascinated by aging and mortality, West applied the rigor of a physicist to the biological question of why we live as long as we do and no longer. The result was astonishing, and changed science: West found that despite the riotous diversity in mammals, they are all, to a large degree, scaled versions of each other. If you know the size of a mammal, you can use scaling laws to learn everything from how much food it eats per day, what its heart-rate is, how long it will take to mature, its lifespan, and so on. Furthermore, the efficiency of the mammal’s circulatory systems scales up precisely based on weight: if you compare a mouse, a human and an elephant on a logarithmic graph, you find with every doubling of average weight, a species gets 25% more efficient—and lives 25% longer. Fundamentally, he has proven, the issue has to do with the fractal geometry of the networks that supply energy and remove waste from the organism’s body. West’s work has been game-changing for biologists, but then he made the even bolder move of exploring his work’s applicability. Cities, too, are constellations of networks and laws of scalability relate with eerie precision to them. Recently, West has applied his revolutionary work to the business world. This investigation has led to powerful insights into why some companies thrive while others fail. The implications of these discoveries are far-reaching, and are just beginning to be explored. Scale is a thrilling scientific adventure story about the elemental natural laws that bind us together in simple but profound ways. Through the brilliant mind of Geoffrey West, we can envision how cities, companies and biological life alike are dancing to the same simple, powerful tune.
Using a shoreline for the book’s landscape, The Painting is about re-emergence from a crisis of confidence. It uses the metaphor of a young water-skiing artist painting his life with his beliefs, inspired by a muse. All ages will enjoy identifying with the insight into peer connections and society, reflecting on the wrecked confidence that is pieced back together in reinventing ourselves. Younger readers will appreciate the colourful symbols littered throughout the story for the simple pleasure of reading unpredictable sentences assembled to meet needs not satisfied by daily conversation. This is entertainment sympathetic to the journey of self-healing. Every word has been carefully chosen for its sound, shape (and colour!) which can be interpreted in ways that are as individual as those reading it.
Danny Jones & William’s Ghost by Donna E. Leaseburg Danny Jones is a child of divorce, struggling to find his place in the world. William is a ghost, struggling to understand his death and the impact it continues to have on his family. Their unique bond allows them to comfort and help one another and begin to heal as they strive to solve a mystery and deal with real-life issues. Donna E. Leaseburg examines the family unit as it breaks down and struggles to rebuild. Through the exploration of damaged relationships between a father and son, husband and wife, and friend to friend, Leaseburg reveals the value of preserving relationships—even spiritual ones—and coming to terms with the things we can’t change.
This brand new Little Book focuses on introducing beat and rhythm through a fun mix of games and activities for teachers to use in the classroom, in assemblies, and in whole-school performances. Activities include beat games and inventing rhythms, while the performance raps are based on traditional tales and nursery rhymes as well as original topics.
At his death in 1994, Ralph Ellison left behind several thousand pages of his unfinished second novel, which he had spent nearly four decades writing. Five years later, Random House published Juneteenth, drawn from the central narrative of Ellison’s epic work in progress. Three Days Before the Shooting . . . gathers in one volume all the parts of that planned opus, including three major sequences never before published. Set in the frame of a deathbed vigil, the story is a gripping multigenerational saga centered on the assassination of a controversial, race-baiting U.S. senator who’s being tended to by an elderly black jazz musician turned preacher. Presented in their unexpurgated, provisional state, the narrative sequences brim with humor and tension, composed in Ellison’s magical jazz-inspired prose style. Beyond its compelling narratives, Three Days Before the Shooting . . . is perhaps most notable for its extraordinary insight into the creative process of one of this country’s greatest writers, and an essential, fascinating piece of Ralph Ellison’s legacy.
Welcome to the pure happiness you never knew you needed until now! Filled with observational humor and offensive savagery, it's no wonder it's one of a kind. Don't be shy to give it a try, you might just glue your peepers to this comedic collection. With fancy little lines and crude eye opening analogies, you'll be sure to fall over laughing with this gut buster of a face smelter. With a unique style that comes only with a hard working dedication to the craft, you'll be filled with bountiful joy. So step on up and give it a shot, for all you know it just might be the ride of a lifetime.
