When a towering, blue-eyed Scandinavian sailor finds himself stranded in a foreign port, he leaps aboard a leaky merchant bark as a last-minute hand. Unschooled in the language and customs of the sea, he endures the brutal pecking order of the forecastle with a serene, uncomplaining strength. His only constant companion is a scheming, rat-like shipmate who shirks work, hoards scraps, and nurses a simmering hatred for everyone aboard.As the ship drives south through fair weather and...

The national epic of Poland and touchstone of modern European literature, now in a fresh translation by award-winning translator Bill Johnston.A towering achievement in European literature, Pan Tadeusz is the central work of the Polish literary canon, heralded for its lovingly detailed recreation of a bygone world. The traditions of the Polish gentry and the social and natural landscape of the Lithuanian countryside are captured in verse of astounding beau...

November 2009. An emaciated young lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, is led to a freezing isolation cell in a Moscow prison, handcuffed to a bed rail, and beaten to death by eight police officers. His crime? To testify against the Russian Interior Ministry officials who were involved in a conspiracy to steal $230 million of taxes paid to the state by one of the world's most successful hedge funds. Magnitsky's brutal killing has remained uninvestigated and unpunished to this day. His farcical posthu...

Could you benefit from expert guidance on how to stay competitive and streamlined in a legal marketplace that is increasingly competitive? Law firms are finding it harder to adapt quickly to a legal landscape that is constantly evolving. That's why it's imperative for law firm leaders to recognise and respond to this change in order to stay competitive. While the economy has improved, key challenges from the recession remain. Clients are more demanding, reducing cost is as important as it ...

Charlie Bumpers wants to play the bad guy in the class play, but his teacher Mrs. Burke has other ideas.Charlie Bumpers has his heart set on playing the role of the evil Sorcerer in the fourth-grade play. But his dreams of villainous stardom go up in smoke when he finds out that Mrs. Burke has cast him as the Nice Gnome! Determined to rectify this terrible injustice, Charlie concocts one plan after another, but nothing seems to work.To make matters worse, h...

Courage yields unexpected surprises when Justin visits his school's dreaded lost and found. A witty, award-winning story about childhood fears from Bill Harley and Adam Gustavson.When Justin loses the special hat his grandmother made for him, he looks everywhere for it. Everywhere, that is, except the lost and found. Mr. Rumkowsky, the old school custodian, is the keeper of all the lost and found items, and everyone is afraid of him—including Justin.When he...

When you’re four inches high in a world full of giant people, things never go very well for long.After running into trouble at the quarry, the nomes want to go home. The problem is, ‘home’ is somewhere up in the stars, in some sort of Ship.Masklin must find a way to get to the ‘launch’ of a ‘communications satellite’ (whatever that is).And so begins an incredible journey, filled with peril, planes, honking geese . . . and a walking sandwich.The fantastically...

Imagine that all around you, hidden from sight, there are thousands of tiny people.They are four inches tall, brave, stubborn and resourceful.They are the nomes.The nomes in this story live under the floorboards of a large Department Store and have never been Outside. In fact, they don’t even believe in Outside. But new nomes arrive, from – where else? – and they bring with them terrifying news: the Store is closing down and Everything Must Go . . .Th...

Saving seeds to plant for the next year's crop has been key to human survival for millennia. However, the twentieth century witnessed a grand takeover of seed production by multinational companies aiming to select varieties ideal for mechanical harvest, long-distance transportation, and long shelf life. With the rise of the Slow Food and farm-to-table movements in recent years, the farmers and home gardeners who have quietly persisted in the age-old habit of conserving heirloom plants are ...

Today more than ever, series finales have become cultural touchstones that feed watercooler fodder and Twitter storms among a committed community of viewers. While the final episodes of The Fugitive and M*A*S*H continue to rank among the highest rated broadcasts, more recent shows draw legions of binge-watching fans. Given the importance of finales to viewers and critics alike, Howard and Bianculli along with the other contributors explore these endings and what they mean to the audience, ...

A LIFE OF COURAGE, LOYALTY AND SERVICE. GO TO WORK HAPPY AND COME HOME TIRED:This mantra was Bill Adams' sustaining principle through 32 years of service with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.From his start as a uniformed constable in small Manitoba communities and culminating as the Superintendent in charge of the Serious and Organized Crime Intelligence Branch in Headquarters Ottawa, his years were marked by personal and professional challenges that were...

The concept of sustainability lies at the core of the challenge of environment and development, and the way governments, business and environmental groups respond to it. Green Development provides a clear and coherent analysis of sustainable development in both theory and practice.Green Development explores the origins and evolution of mainstream thinking about sustainable development and offers a critique of the ideas behind them. It draws a link between theory and practi...