EDINBURGH in the 1950s was a very different place. After the ravages of war, the International Festival and Military Tattoo was introduced as an antidote to post-war austerity, the new Civic Survey and Plan put forward grandiose recommendations for change, and a new young Queen visited the city. This was a time when slum housing was a blight on many people's lives, but there was a real sense of community that was ultimately lost in the move to sparkling, modern homes in the new housing est...

Despite significant progress due to public health campaigns and other policy efforts, smoking continues to be a serious health threat throughout the world. In addition, sedentary lifestyles, poor diet, and obesity continue to be major causes of chronic diseases. The Health Impact of Smoking and Obesity and What to Do about It synthesizes a vast quantity of recent data on the benefits and cost-effectiveness of both clinical and public health interventions in addressing the risk fac...

'Praise be to Our Lady of Eternal Sorrows, and blessed be the Ascended Martyr.' Those were the words on lips of the faithful: Blessed be the Ascended Martyr, and woe betide you if you thought otherwise. The word Unbeliever had become a death sentence on the streets in those days.Gangster, soldier, priest. Governor, knight, and above all, Queen's Man.Once, Tomas Piety looked after his men, body and soul, as best he could. Then those who ran his coun...

Join Bertie as he has a brush with some angry bees, deals with his warring grannies on a trip to the park and tries to smuggle Whiffer into a very smart hotel.

Join Bertie in Trouble!, Poop! and Splash! as he concocts a magic potion for Miss Boot to make her forget the dreaded maths test, finds himself at Know-All Nick’s house for the worst sleepover ever, unexpectedly wins out over the school bully, tries to prove Whiffer isn’t the mystery pooper, scuppers Miss Boot’s chances of winning Teacher of the Year, steals the spotlight on the set of a blockbuster movie, takes Know-All Nick for a ride at the waterpark, goes on the trail of Angela’s missi...

Pants!: Bertie's third audiobook finds him facing the shame of losing a dare with Know-All Nick and having to wear his pants to school, playing the part of the dog in the local amateur dramatic society's production of Oliver! and taking Whiffer to Royston Rich's birthday party, where Whiffer leaves a very unwelcome present ... Burp!: Join Bertie as he stages a school dinner revolt, takes Whiffer to dog training and sabotages his sister's sleepover. It can only end in chaos! Yuck!: Bertie d...

Worms! Join Bertie as he tries to get out of a pink party, fails to be polite for a whole day and makes a really rubbish entry into the summer fair's flower arranging competition. Fleas! Join Bertie as he takes a flea-ridden Whiffer to the vet, does a naughty dare at school and gets a ride in shiny red fire engine! Mud! Join Bertie in three hilarious stories as he faces a barrage of footballs as the school's new goalie, battles to stay clean for the school photographer and has a spookily t...

The Russian novel has a reputation that is immense, both in narrative and in length. Unquestionably though the ideas, themes and characters make many novels rightly revered as world class, as icons of literature.Perhaps an easier way to enjoy a wider selection of the Russian heritage, with its varied and glorious literary talents, is with the short story. These gems sparkle and beguile the mind with their characters and narrative, exploring facets of society and the human condition...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

This collection of essays explores the role played by imaginative writing in the Scottish Enlightenment and its interaction with the values and activities of that movement. Across a broad range of areas via specially commissioned essays by experts in each field, the volume examines the reciprocal traffic between the groundbreaking intellectual project of eighteenth-century Scotland and the imaginative literature of the period, demonstrating that the innovations made by the Scottish literat...

Cancer and chronic disease are a rapidly increasing global health burden: according to the Milken Institute, the annual cost to the national US economy of the seven most common chronic conditions will rise to $4.2 trillion by 2023. The data are just as dramatic in Canada, Europe, Australia, and increasingly, in countries in the developing world. As communities, governments, and health organizations worldwide struggle to avoid being swamped by health care costs – not to mention the impact o...

Nineteen years ago, David McLean was appointed by the prime minister of Canada to the board of directors of CN, after which he was elected chairman. McLean has been reelected each year and will retire in April 2014. In A Road Taken, the longest-serving chairman of the board in CN history explains complex business issues in very human terms. McLean's stories include his leadership role in the privatization of the company and the intrigue and egos in the behind-the-scenes race to launch the ...