Some guides to a subject could more or less be written by any expert in that field, but a small minority are unique creations of a rare individual who has their own view. Unfortunately most of the latter types of guides fail to be good general guides. Verity's genius makes him the exception. This book is arranged in chronological chapters that trace the evolution of poetry as an art form. At the same time, each chapter gives a most practical explanation of how that aspect of poetry that it covers works and why. The book is immensely readable, hugely informative, and adds to the ability of the reader to enjoy and to create poetry. It is a classic.' "Epictetus" (Amazon review) 'The great merit of Verity's approach is that he quotes lavishly throughout, not only from the poems themselves, but also from a variety of critics' LIBRARY REVIEWS 'Of his first book of sonnets Kingsley Amis wrote ‘They belong within the corpus of English poetry’ Excerpts of Interview with Kenneth Verity on The Vanessa Phelps BBC Radio programme on June 2009 on the News Page (off the Home page) 'The amount of reading which underpins this book is breathtaking. The great merit of Verity's approach is that he quotes lavishly throughout, not only from the poems themselves, but also from a variety of critics ... The chapter on poetry's figurative element is a model of lucid definition and telling illustration, showing how many layers of meaning may lie behind a single word' LIBRARY REVIEWS The author writes:'The intention of this book is to examine and analyse the essential nature of the phenomenon we call poetry; to seek an understanding of the power this art form exerts over mind and heart; to comprehend its potency; and to explain its perennial ability to command the respect of mankind'. Almost a library in one volume, this unusual book, written by an accomplished poet, examines the 4000 years old phenomenon of poetry. Combining history, literature and philosophy, it explains the underlying power of this art form and how its effect is exerted over human hearts and understanding. Since the Greeks at least, poetry has been accorded pre-eminence in the arts. Poetry’s aesthetic supremacy and inhering mystery has made it the foremost form of expression when human beings need to say something important in a special way. Poetry has been defined as the best words in the best order. In poetry, the author suggests, the eternal intersects the everyday – it has been said that poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement. He shows how poetry has provided a vehicle for inspiration and fresh ways of thinking and interpreting the perennial questions of the human race. The author makes clear that poetry ‘works’ because it acknowledges the universality of human psychology, and because it unites emotion with reason and tempers imagination with understanding. Over 200 poets from both East and West are quoted, and the work of 10 master poets is critically analysed and assessed. The major factors involved in translating poetry are discussed, particularly the difficulty of conveying the meaning without losing the spirit. The central features of inspiration and creativity are elucidated. The unbroken stream of poetry carries resonances of the growth and decay of civilisations, the vicissitudes of wars, the effects of migrations and trading, the influences of religious belief. The author considers, from his own experience, that poetry remains peerless in evaluating and articulating the riches of the human spirit.

The fast-paced new novel from the internationally bestselling author of The Best Laid Plans, Morning, Noon & Night and Bloodline. Someone was following her. She had read about stalkers, but they belonged in a different, faraway world. She had no idea who it could be, who would want to harm her. She was trying desperately hard not to panic, but lately her sleep had been filled with nightmares, and she had awakened each morning with a feeling of impending doom. Thus begins Sidney Sheldon’s chilling novel, Tell Me Your Dreams. Three beautiful young women are suspected of committing a series of brutal murders. The police make an arrest that leads to one of the most bizarre murder trials of the century. Based on actual events, Sheldon’s novel races from London to Rome to Quebec City to San Francisco, with a climax that will leave the reader stunned.

Agatha Christie’s world-famous serial killer mystery, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. There’s a serial killer on the loose, bent on working his way through the alphabet. And as a macabre calling card he leaves beside each victim’s corpe the ABC Railway Guide open at the name of the town where the murder has taken place. Having begun with Andover, Bexhill and then Churston, there seems little chance of the murderer being caught – until he makes the crucial and vain mistake of challenging Hercule Poirot to frustrate his plans…

A repugnant Amercian widow is killed during a trip to Petra… Among the towering red cliffs of Petra, like some monstrous swollen Buddha, sat the corpse of Mrs Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist was the only sign of the fatal injection that had killed her. With only 24 hours available to solve the mystery, Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he’d overheard back in Jerusalem: ‘You see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?’ Mrs Boynton was, indeed, the most detestable woman he’d ever met…

The very first collection of superb short stories featuring Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings… First there was the mystery of the film star and the diamond… then came the ‘suicide’ that was murder… the mystery of the absurdly chaep flat… a suspicious death in a locked gun-room… a million dollar bond robbery… the curse of a pharoah’s tomb… a jewel robbery by the sea… the abduction of a Prime Minister… the disappearance of a banker… a phone call from a dying man… and, finally, the mystery of the missing willl. What links these fascinating cases? Only the brilliant deductive powers of Hercule Poirot!

An elderly stroke victim dies without having arranged a will… Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was damning: only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity and the means to administer the fatal poison. Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven guilty: Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows…

The Tuesday Night Club is a venue where locals challenge Miss Marple to solve recent crimes… One Tuesday evening a group gathers at Miss Marple’s house and the conversation turns to unsolved crimes… The case of the disappearing bloodstains; the thief who committed his crime twice over; the message on the death-bed of a poisoned man which read ‘heap of fish’; the strange case of the invisible will; a spiritualist who warned that ‘Blue Geranium’ meant death… Now pit your wits against the powers of deduction of the ‘Tuesday Night Club’.

A flamboyant party host is murdered in full view of a roomful of bridge players… Mr Shaitana was famous as a flamboyant party host. Nevertheless, he was a man of whom everybody was a little afraid. So, when he boasted to Poirot that he considered murder an art form, the detective had some reservations about accepting a party invitation to view Shaitana’s private collection. Indeed, what began as an absorbing evening of bridge was to turn into a more dangerous game altogether…

A charity murder game at a Devon house turns into the real thing… Sir George and Lady Stubbs, the hosts of a village fête, hit upon the novel idea of staging a mock murder mystery. In good faith, Ariadne Oliver, the well known crime writer, agrees to organise their murder hunt. Despite weeks of meticulous planning, at the last minute Ariadne calls her friend Hercule Poirot for his expert assistance. Instinctively, she senses that something sinister is about to happen… Beware – nobody is quite what they seem!

Agatha Christie’s disturbing 1960s mystery thriller, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. Gipsy’s Acre was a truly beautiful upland site with views out to sea – and in Michael Rogers it stirred a child-like fantasy. There, amongst the dark fir trees, he planned to build a house, find a girl and live happily ever after. Yet, as he left the village, a shadow of menace hung over the land. For this was the place where accidents happened. Perhaps Michael should have heeded the locals’ warnings: ‘There’s no luck for them as meddles with Gipsy’s Acre.’ Michael Rogers is a man who is about to learn the true meaning of the old saying ‘In my end is my beginning…’

Building on the story begun in The Hobbit, this is the second part of Tolkien’s epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, featuring a striking black cover based on Tolkien’s own design, the definitive text, and a detailed map of Middle-earth. Frodo and the Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in the battle with an evil spirit in the Mines of Moria; and at the Falls of Rauros, Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape the rest of the company were attacked by Orcs. Now they continue their journey alone down the great River Anduin – alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.

Break through the hype and learn how to extract actionable intelligence from the flood of IoT data About This Book ? Make better business decisions and acquire greater control of your IoT infrastructure ? Learn techniques to solve unique problems associated with IoT and examine and analyze data from your IoT devices ? Uncover the business potential generated by data from IoT devices and bring down business costs Who This Book Is For This book targets developers, IoT professionals, and those in the field of data science who are trying to solve business problems through IoT devices and would like to analyze IoT data. IoT enthusiasts, managers, and entrepreneurs who would like to make the most of IoT will find this equally useful. A prior knowledge of IoT would be helpful but is not necessary. Some prior programming experience would be useful What You Will Learn ? Overcome the challenges IoT data brings to analytics ? Understand the variety of transmission protocols for IoT along with their strengths and weaknesses ? Learn how data flows from the IoT device to the final data set ? Develop techniques to wring value from IoT data ? Apply geospatial analytics to IoT data ? Use machine learning as a predictive method on IoT data ? Implement best strategies to get the most from IoT analytics ? Master the economics of IoT analytics in order to optimize business value In Detail We start with the perplexing task of extracting value from huge amounts of barely intelligible data. The data takes a convoluted route just to be on the servers for analysis, but insights can emerge through visualization and statistical modeling techniques. You will learn to extract value from IoT big data using multiple analytic techniques. Next we review how IoT devices generate data and how the information travels over networks. You’ll get to know strategies to collect and store the data to optimize the potential for analytics, and strategies to handle data quality concerns. Cloud resources are a great match for IoT analytics, so Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and PTC ThingWorx are reviewed in detail next. Geospatial analytics is then introduced as a way to leverage location information. Combining IoT data with environmental data is also discussed as a way to enhance predictive capability. We’ll also review the economics of IoT analytics and you’ll discover ways to optimize business value. By the end of the book, you’ll know how to handle scale for both data storage and analytics, how Apache Spark can be leveraged to handle scalability, and how R and Python can be used for analytic modeling. Style and approach This book follows a step-by-step, practical approach to combine the power of analytics and IoT and help you get results quickly

Dani Bennett isn't looking for a man, but her new job requires her to sign up to blinddatebrides.com. The last thing Dani expects is to be paired with a devastatingly attractive millionaire! Her poor background and blonde-bombshell looks mean she expects Bryce Delaney to take one look and judge her--like all other men.But Bryce isn't just any man....

The third book in the hugely acclaimed Martin Beck series: the novels that shaped the future of Scandinavian crime fiction and influenced writers from Stieg Larrson to Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell and Lars Kepplar. Someone is assaulting and killing young girls in the once-peaceful parks of Stockholm. Detective Inspector Marin Beck has two witnesses: a cold-blooded mugger who won’t say much, and a three-year-old boy who can’t say much. The killer will strike again, and the police are getting nowhere. Can Beck crack the case before time runs out?

A mouthwatering collection of 20 easy, speedy, nutritional and delicious recipes taken from TV chef Ching’s beautiful new book, Eat Clean. Includes fresh and healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner recipes, as well as sides, pickles and salsas, and teas. Forget your saucepan and roasting tin, Ching-He Huang’s beautiful new recipe book shows you how you can Eat Clean and wok yourself to health. Eat Clean is the perfect cookery book for the time starved and health conscious who don’t want to compromise on taste. Drawing on her belief of the age-old principle of Yin and Yang, Ching-He Huang creates delicious fare for each mealtime which is specifically balanced in all these ways: food which is hassle-free, good for you and which you’ll enjoy!

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook. When a game with a Ouija board spells out the name QUIN and the name of a place, Mr Satterthwaite’s instincts tell him that a murder is about to take place and that he should drop everything to investigate…

Understand the ServiceNow *ing and build an efficient customized ServiceNow instance About This Book ? Customize your ServiceNow instance according to your organization’s needs ? Learn to work with inbuilt JavaScript APIs in ServiceNow ? Take your ServiceNow experience to the next level by learning to * Who This Book Is For This book is targeted toward ServiceNow administrators or anyone willing to learn inbuilt JavaScript APIs used to * and customize ServiceNow instances. Prior experience with ServiceNow is required. What You Will Learn ? Customize your ServiceNow instance according to your organization's needs ? Explore the ServiceNow-exposed JavaScript APIs and libraries ? Discover the method for using ServiceNow *ing functions ? Take your ServiceNow experience to the next level by understanding advanced *ing ? Learn to build, test, and debug custom applications ? Use your customized instance efficiently with the help of best practices In Detail Industry giants like RedHat and NetApp have adopted ServiceNow for their operational needs, and it is evolving as the number one platform choice for IT Service management. ServiceNow provides their clients with an add-on when it comes to baseline instances, where *ing can be used to customize and improve the performance of instances. It also provides inbuilt JavaScript API for *ing and improving your JavaScript instance. This book will initially cover the basics of ServiceNow *ing and the appropriate time to * in a ServiceNow environment. Then, we dig deeper into client-side and server-side *ing using JavaScipt API. We will also cover advance concepts like on-demand functions, * actions, and best practices. Mastering ServiceNow Scripting acts as an end-to-end guide for writing, testing, and debugging *s of ServiceNow. We cover update sets for moving customizations between ServiceNow instances, jelly *s for making custom pages, and best practices for all types of * in ServiceNow. By the end of this book, you will have hands-on experience in *ing ServiceNow using inbuilt JavaScript API. Style and approach The book will take a practical approach delving into different aspects of ServiceNow *ing to help you become a *ing master.

Get to grips with Kibana and its advanced functions to create interactive visualizations and dashboards Key Features *Explore visualizations and perform histograms, stats, and map analytics *Unleash X-Pack and Timelion, and learn alerting, monitoring, and reporting features *Manage dashboards with Beats and create machine learning jobs for faster analytics Book Description Kibana is one of the popular tools among data enthusiasts for slicing and dicing large datasets and uncovering Business Intelligence (BI) with the help of its rich and powerful visualizations. To begin with, Mastering Kibana 6.x quickly introduces you to the features of Kibana 6.x, before teaching you how to create smart dashboards in no time. You will explore metric analytics and graph exploration, followed by understanding how to quickly customize Kibana dashboards. In addition to this, you will learn advanced analytics such as maps, hits, and list analytics. All this will help you enhance your skills in running and comparing multiple queries and filters, influencing your data visualization skills at scale. With Kibana’s Timelion feature, you can analyze time series data with histograms and stats analytics. By the end of this book, you will have created a speedy machine learning job using X-Pack capabilities. What you will learn *Create unique dashboards with various intuitive data visualizations *Visualize Timelion expressions with added histograms and stats analytics *Integrate X-Pack with your Elastic Stack in simple steps *Extract data from Elasticsearch for advanced analysis and anomaly detection using dashboards *Build dashboards from web applications for application logs *Create monitoring and alerting dashboards using Beats Who this book is for Mastering Kibana 6.x is for you if you are a big data engineer, DevOps engineer, or data scientist aspiring to go beyond data visualization at scale and gain maximum insights from their large datasets. Basic knowledge of Elasticstack will be an added advantage, although not mandatory.

Become a master at penetration testing using machine learning with Python About This Book ? Identify ambiguities and breach intelligent security systems ? Perform unique cyber attacks to breach robust systems ? Learn to leverage machine learning algorithms Who This Book Is For This book is for pen testers and security professionals who are interested in learning techniques to break an intelligent security system. Basic knowledge of Python is needed, but no prior knowledge of machine learning is necessary. What You Will Learn ? Take an in-depth look at machine learning ? Get to know natural language processing (NLP) ? Understand malware feature engineering ? Build generative adversarial networks using Python libraries ? Work on threat hunting with machine learning and the ELK stack ? Explore the best practices for machine learning In Detail Cyber security is crucial for both businesses and individuals. As systems are getting smarter, we now see machine learning interrupting computer security. With the adoption of machine learning in upcoming security products, it’s important for pentesters and security researchers to understand how these systems work, and to breach them for testing purposes. This book begins with the basics of machine learning and the algorithms used to build robust systems. Once you’ve gained a fair understanding of how security products leverage machine learning, you'll dive into the core concepts of breaching such systems. Through practical use cases, you’ll see how to find loopholes and surpass a self-learning security system. As you make your way through the chapters, you’ll focus on topics such as network intrusion detection and AV and IDS evasion. We’ll also cover the best practices when identifying ambiguities, and extensive techniques to breach an intelligent system. By the end of this book, you will be well-versed with identifying loopholes in a self-learning security system and will be able to efficiently breach a machine learning system. Style and approach This book takes a step-by-step approach to identify the loop holes in a self-learning security system. You will be able to efficiently breach a machine learning system with the help of best practices towards the end of the book.

Create interactive cross-platform games with the Godot Engine 3.0 About This Book ? Learn the art of developing cross-platform games ? Leverage Godot’s node and scene system to design robust, reusable game objects ? Integrate Blender easily and efficiently with Godot to create powerful 3D games Who This Book Is For Godot Engine Game Development Projects is for both new users and experienced developers, who want to learn to make games using a modern game engine. Some prior programming experience is recommended. What You Will Learn ? Get started with the Godot game engine and editor ? Organize a game project ? Import graphical and audio assets ? Use Godot’s node and scene system to design robust, reusable game objects ? Write code in GDScript to capture input and build complex behaviors ? Implement user interfaces to display information ? Create visual effects to spice up your game ? Learn techniques that you can apply to your own game projects In Detail Godot Engine Game Development Projects is an introduction to the Godot game engine and its new 3.0 version. Godot 3.0 brings a large number of new features and capabilities that make it a strong alternative to expensive commercial game engines. For beginners, Godot offers a friendly way to learn game development techniques, while for experienced developers it is a powerful, customizable tool that can bring your visions to life. This book consists of five projects that will help developers achieve a sound understanding of the engine when it comes to building games. Game development is complex and involves a wide spectrum of knowledge and skills. This book can help you build on your foundation level skills by showing you how to create a number of small-scale game projects. Along the way, you will learn how Godot works and discover important game development techniques that you can apply to your projects. Using a straightforward, step-by-step approach and practical examples, the book will take you from the absolute basics through to sophisticated game physics, animations, and other techniques. Upon completing the final project, you will have a strong foundation for future success with Godot 3.0. Style and approach The book is divided into five parts; each covering a different small-game project using a straightforward, step-by-step approach and practical examples. The book will take readers from the absolute basics through sophisticated game physics, animation, and other techniques.

‘Minerva was the Roman goddess of warriors and wisdom. William McGonagall is celebrated as the worst poet in British history. There was something irresistible to me about his name, and the idea that such a brilliant woman might be a distant relative of the buffoonish McGonagall.’ – J.K. Rowling Pottermore Presents is a collection of J.K. Rowling’s writing: short reads originally featured on pottermore.com with some exclusive new additions. These eBooks, with writing curated by Pottermore, will take you beyond the Harry Potter stories as J.K. Rowling reveals her inspiration, intricate details of characters’ lives and surprises from the wizarding world. These stories of heroism, hardship and dangerous hobbies profile two of the Harry Potter stories’ most courageous and iconic characters: Minerva McGonagall and Remus Lupin. J.K. Rowling also gives us a peek behind the closed curtains of Sybill Trelawney’s life, and you’ll encounter the reckless, magical-beast-loving Silvanus Kettleburn along the way.