Ben Fogle is the quintessential Englishman. An explorer, he loves Marmite and dogs. He owns far too many wax jackets and Wellington boots and he loves to grumble about the weather. He often apologises and can be found at the back of most queues. He had wonky teeth until the dentist sorted them out. He drives an old Land Rover and eats fish and chips. He never travels without some English tea. He lives in London with his wife Marina, his two children Ludo and Iona and his beloved black Labrador, Storm (of course).

Robert Newman has written six books including the novels The Trade Secret and The Fountain at the Centre of the World. His previous book The Entirely Accurate Encyclopaedia of Evolution was made into a radio series which won a BBC Audio Drama Award in 2017 for Best Scripted Comedy. He has been a stand-up comedian for thirty years and has performed to sell-out crowds from London to Paris to Texas. His most recent stand-up show is The Brain Show.

Philip Webster was Political Editor of The Times from 1993 to 2010 having previously been Chief Political Correspondent. Later, As Assistant Editor (Politics), he was in charge of The Times Red Box political website and was the first editor of the ground-breaking Red Box daily briefing email. He became a Lobby correspondent in 1981 after working as a reporter and subeditor on the paper for the previous eight years. He began his career on the Eastern Daily Press in Norwich. He is a lifelong and passionate supporter of Norwich City FC.

According to Wikipedia: "William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American civil rights activist, public intellectual, Pan-Africanist, professor of sociology, historian, writer, and editor. At the age of 95, in 1963, he became a naturalized citizen of Ghana. David Levering Lewis, a biographer, wrote, 'In the course of his long, turbulent career, W. E. B. Du Bois attempted virtually every possible solution to the problem of twentieth-century racism— scholarship, propaganda, integration, national self-determination, human rights, cultural and economic separatism, politics, international communism, expatriation, third world solidarity.'"

102 black-and-white illustrations. According to Wikipedia: "The Voyage of the Beagle is a title commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin and published in 1839 as his Journal and Remarks, bringing him considerable fame and respect. The title refers to the second survey expedition of the ship HMS Beagle, which set sail from Plymouth Sound on 27 December 1831 under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy, R.N.

According to Wikipedia: "Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Tosten Bunde Veblen (July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was a Norwegian-American sociologist and economist and a primary mentor, along with John R. Commons, of the institutional economics movement. He was an impassioned critic of the performance of the American economy, and is most famous for his book The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)."

De unde vine universul? Ce a fost ?naintea lui? Ce ne va aduce viitorul? ?ntr-un story cosmologic care captiveaz? ?n aceea?i m?sur? ?n care l?mure?te, autorul explic? cele mai recente progrese revolu?ionare ale ?tiin?ei, ce r?stoarn? din temelii probleme filosofice esen?iale. Observa?iile experimentale uluitoare ?i noile teorii fascinante sunt descrise ?ntr-o manier? accesibil? ?i sugereaz? nu doar c? din nimic poate s? ia na?tere ceva, dar ?i c? ?ntotdeauna din nimic va lua na?tere ceva. Un fascinant antidot la g?ndirea filosofic? ?i religioas? perimat?, Universul din nimic este o contribu?ie provocatoare la controversa privind existen?a lui Dumnezeu ?i a tuturor lucrurilor care ne ?nconjoar?. ?Uita?i-l pe Iisus“, argumenteaz? Krauss, ?stelele au murit pentru ca voi s? v? pute?i na?te“. ?Suntem martorii unei revolu?ii cosmologice la fel de important? precum revolu?ia copernican?. Avem acum la dispozi?ie acest ghid substan?ial ?i captivant, o lucrare memorabil?.“ – Ian McEwan

According to Wikipedia: "Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli (May 23, 1810 – July 19, 1850) was a journalist, critic and women's rights activist associated with the American transcendental movement. She was the first full-time female book reviewer in journalism. Her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century is considered the first major feminist work in the United States."

Master a series of performance-enhancing coding techniques and methods that help them improve the performance of their Unity3D applications About This Book Discover features and techniques to optimize Unity Engine's CPU cycles, memory usage, and the GPU throughput of any application Explore multiple techniques to solve performance issues with your VR projects Learn the best practices for project organization to save time through an improved workflow Who This Book Is For This book is intended for intermediate and advanced Unity developers who have experience with most of Unity's feature-set, and who want to maximize the performance of their game. Familiarity with the C# language will be needed. What You Will Learn Use the Unity Profiler to find bottlenecks anywhere in your application, and discover how to resolve them Implement best practices for C# scripting to avoid common pitfalls Develop a solid understanding of the rendering pipeline, and maximize its performance by reducing draw calls and avoiding fill rate bottlenecks Enhance shaders in a way that is accessible to most developers, optimizing them through subtle yet effective performance tweaks Keep your scenes as dynamic as possible by making the most of the Physics engine Organize, filter, and compress your art assets to maximize performance while maintaining high quality Discover different kinds of performance problems that are critical for VR projects and how to tackle them Use the Mono Framework and C# to implement low-level enhancements that maximize memory usage and avoid garbage collection Get to know the best practices for project organization to save time through an improved workflow In Detail Unity is an awesome game development engine. Through its massive feature-set and ease-of-use, Unity helps put some of the best processing and rendering technology in the hands of hobbyists and professionals alike. This book shows you how to make your games fly with the recent version of Unity 2017, and demonstrates that high performance does not need to be limited to games with the biggest teams and budgets. Since nothing turns gamers away from a game faster than a poor user-experience, the book starts by explaining how to use the Unity Profiler to detect problems. You will learn how to use stopwatches, timers and logging methods to diagnose the problem. You will then explore techniques to improve performance through better programming practices. Moving on, you will then learn about Unity's built-in batching processes; when they can be used to improve performance, and their limitations. Next, you will import your art assets using minimal space, CPU and memory at runtime, and discover some underused features and approaches for managing asset data. You will also improve graphics, particle system and shader performance with a series of tips and tricks to make the most of GPU parallel processing. You will then delve into the fundamental layers of the Unity3D engine to discuss some issues that may be difficult to understand without a strong knowledge of its inner-workings. The book also introduces you to the critical performance problems for VR projects and how to tackle them. By the end of the book, you will have learned to improve the development workflow by properly organizing assets and ways to instantiate assets as quickly and waste-free as possible via object pooling. Style and approach This practical book will help readers understand the essentials of the Unity3D engine and how to build games while improving the performance of their applications.

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘The Glimpse by Arnold Bennett - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Arnold Bennett’. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Bennett includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily. eBook features: * The complete unabridged text of ‘The Glimpse by Arnold Bennett - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ * Beautifully illustrated with images related to Bennett’s works * Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook * Excellent formatting of the text Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

Vasilisa had not seen her daughter for four years. Her daughter Yefimya had gone after her wedding to Petersburg, had sent them two letters, and since then seemed to vanish out of their lives; there had been no sight nor sound of her. And whether the old woman were milking her cow at dawn, or heating her stove, or dozing at night, she was always thinking of one and the same thing—what was happening to Yefimya, whether she were alive... Read in English, unabridged.

Russia's Father of Literature deserves a place in all digital libraries. This comprehensive eBook presents the major works of Alexander Pushkin, with beautiful illustrations, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Pushkin's life and works * Concise introductions to the poetry and other works * Images of how the books were first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * A selection of many of Pushkin's greatest poems, first time in digital print. * Excellent formatting of the texts * Almost the complete short fiction, including rare short stories appearing for the first time in digital print * Rare plays, with contents tables * Special criticism section, with three essays evaluating Pushkin's contribution to literature * Features a bonus biography - discover Pushkin's literary life * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse our range of exciting titles CONTENTS: The Poetry SHORT POEMS THE FOUNTAIN OF BAKHCHISARAY THE GIPSIES POLTAVA THE BRONZE HORSEMAN RUSLAN AND LYUDMILA LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER The Verse Novel EUGENE ONEGIN The Short Stories and Unfinished Novels PETER THE GREATS NEGRO MARIE THE SHOT THE SNOWSTORM THE UNDERTAKER THE POSTMASTER MISTRESS INTO MAID THE QUEEN OF SPADES KIRDJALI THE CAPTAINS DAUGHTER EGYPTIAN NIGHTS DUBROVSKY The Plays BORIS GODUNOV THE STONE GUEST MOZART AND SALIERI The Criticism THE ROMANTIC POETS: POUSHKIN by Rosa Newmarch POUSHKIN: HIS WORKS by Rosa Newmarch LECTURES ON RUSSIAN LITERATURE: PUSHKIN by Ivan Panin The Biography A SHORT BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF ALEXANDER PUSHKIN by Henry Spalding

Master the art of creating impressive and reactive UIs for mobile applications on the latest version of Android Oreo. About This Book A comprehensive guide to designing and developing highly interactive user interfaces for your app. Design responsive and agile applications targeting multiple Android devices (up to Android Oreo) using Android Studio 3.0 Write reactive user interfaces with minimal effort by leveraging the latest Android technologies, such as Architecture components and the Lifecycle API Avoid common design problems and pitfalls with the help of shared UI design patterns and best practices. Who This Book Is For This book is for novice Android and Java developers who have a basic knowledge of Android development and want to start developing stunning user interfaces. What You Will Learn Create effective and efficient user interfaces that allow users to carry out tasks smoothly Understand the fundamentals of Android UI design, and take a look at the basic layouts, Inputs, and controls Learn about various UI components provided by Android, which include structured layout objects and UI controls that allow you to build the graphical user interface for your app Explore various styles and themes that allow you to customize the look and feel of your app Leverage the animation and graphics APIs to improve user experience and draw custom 2D graphics In Detail A great user interface (UI) can spell the difference between success and failure for any new application. This book will show you not just how to code great UIs, but how to design them as well. It will take novice Android developers on a journey, showing them how to leverage the Android platform to produce stunning Android applications. Begin with the basics of creating Android applications and then move on to topics such as screen and layout design. Next, learn about techniques that will help improve performance for your application. Also, explore how to create reactive applications that are fast, animated, and guide the user toward their goals with minimal distraction. Understand Android architecture components and learn how to build your application to automatically respond to changes made by the user. Great platforms are not always enough, so this book also focuses on creating custom components, layout managers, and 2D graphics. Also, explore many tips and best practices to ease your UI development process. By the end, you'll be able to design and build not only amazing UIs, but also systems that provide the best possible user experience. Style and approach This book takes an easy tutorial approach to help you learn how to create consistent and efficient user interfaces for your apps. The book first takes you through the basics of user interfaces such as basic layouts, inputs, and controls, and also covers animations and graphics. By the end of the book, you will have learned best practices and will be able to develop inspired interfaces that look good and also work subtly in the background.

Based on The Times Bridge column, an extensive bridge guide aimed at the less experienced or social player who longs to improve their game, with instructive deals and tips, as well as a helpful Index. Andrew Robson, The Times Bridge Correspondent, is both a champion Bridge player and an inspired teacher. He teaches and tutors at his Bridge Club and has acquired great practical knowledge about how people learn to play Bridge. Based on Andrew Robson’s Friday column in The Times, common scenarios are presented with an outline of what actually happened, as well as what should have happened. Along with every deal is the very popular handy tip ‘If you remember just one thing…’, which features throughout the book. The first section of the book, ‘The Game’, is a basic outline providing the key to playing a sensible game of Bridge, subdivided into ‘Bidding’, ‘Declarer Play’ and ‘Defence’. The reader can either read ‘The Game’ first, paying particular attention to the tips, or they can dip in and out of the book, picking a common mistake at random, with the option to cross-reference to the same tip in ‘The Game’ section. Bridge is now reaching a new audience, and is being played by people of all ages. Let Andrew Robson help you to improve your game! Previously published as The Times Bridge: Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

The quirky offspring of ‘QI’ and ‘Freakonomics’, ‘Geekspeak’ melds ingenious statistical analysis with edifying trivia to explain away some curious facts of life. Curiosity is our human birthright, and destiny. As a species we are to prone to think, ruminate, reflect, cogitate, deliberate and philosophise. We do all these things, and why? To explain away the world around us, to find solace in knowledge, to answer all those seeming unanswerables: why are we here? Is there a God? Is there life after death? How many slaves on treadmills does it take to power my kettle? Yes, forget the Bible, ‘Geekspeak’ is the new oracle for 21st century living. Graham Tattersall, a confirmed and superior geek, has rescued maths from the prison of the classroom, imbued it with fresh new life, and put it to use in novel and unexpected ways. His ingenious, deceptively simple formula melds statistical analysis with personal experience and enlightening trivia to explain away some curious and oft-pondered mysteries of the world: how big is your vocabulary, how heavy is your house, do the dead outnumber the living, how powerful is a fly, how fast is a fart. With its recipe of sophisticated mathematical techniques, witty anecdotes and startling amount of learning, ‘Geekspeak’ is an essential tool for impressing friends, sounding intelligent and better understanding the fascinating world in which we live. Maths has a new champion, and the Geeks a new King.

He comes, he sees, he plays with the gadgets… Boris Johnson has been behind the wheel of some of the world’s fastest, most luxurious cars. He’s taken the Jaguar XKR-R for a spin around a posh public school; roared through Islington in the AC Cobra V8; and spent a weekend tearing through the lanes of Sussex in the splendour of the Mercedes S55 AMG. Now he’s going to reveal exactly what it was like. Pondering the fundamental questions – What does it feel like to be overtaken by a female driver when you’re behind the wheel of an Alfa Romeo? Can a car really precipitate a mid-life crisis? – Boris Johnson’s hilarious dispatches from life in the fast lane will appeal to anyone who’s found themselves behind the wheel of one of modern motoring’s finer specimens. But it’s not all glamour and gadgets. Because when he’s not baiting his Holloway neighbours with the Rolls Royce Corniche, we see Boris trying, and failing, to get to grips with the Smart car, and attempting to flee Kosovo in a Fiat Uno. Published together for the first time as a Paperback Original, these hilarious vignettes are vintage Boris: witty, candid and unique.

From one of our greatest science writers, this biography of a beech-and-bluebell wood through diverse moods and changing seasons combines stunning natural history with the ancient history of the countryside to tell the full story of the British landscape. ‘The woods are the great beauty of this country… A fine forest-like beech wood far more beautiful than anything else which we have seen in its vicinity’ is how John Stuart Mill described a small patch of beech-and bluebell woodland, buried deeply in the Chiltern Hills and now owned by Richard Fortey. Drawing upon a lifetime of scientific expertise and abiding love of nature, Fortey uses his small wood to tell a wider story of the ever-changing British landscape, human influence on the countryside over many centuries and the vital interactions between flora, fauna and fungi. The trees provide a majestic stage for woodland animals and plants to reveal their own stories. Fortey presents his wood as an interwoven collection of different habitats rich in species. His attention ranges from the beech and cherry trees that dominate the wood to the flints underfoot; the red kites and woodpeckers that soar overhead; the lichens, mosses and liverworts decorating the branches as well as the myriad species of spiders, moths, beetles and crane-flies. The 300 species of fungi identified in the wood capture his attention as much as familiar deer, shrews and dormice. Fortey is a naturalist who believes that all organisms are as interesting as human beings – and certainly more important than the observer. So this book is a close examination of nature and human history. He proves that poetic writing is compatible with scientific precision. The book is filled with details of living animals and plants, charting the passage of the seasons, visits by fellow enthusiasts; the play of light between branches; the influence of geology; and how woodland influences history, architecture and industry. On every page he shows how an intimate study of one small wood can reveal so much about the natural world and demonstrates his relish for the incomparable pleasures of discovery.

Collins Gem Card Games provides an introduction to the most played family card games, with clear instructions and guidance on how to master each game. With a stylish new cover design, this best-selling Collins Gem title has been updated to provide even more accessible and helpful advice on learning today’s most popular card games. This new, colour edition will offer help and guidance in a more visually appealing style, making it a joy to learn how to play. Illustrated throughout with colour photographs, this edition includes detailed instructions on how to play over 60 different card games.

Inside this little book one of Britain’s top Scrabble players reveals his top tips for all day, everyday Scrabble success.

The Peak District, with its gentle limestone White Peak and the wilder more dramatic gritstone Dark Peak, is a superb walking area. Explore the district with these 20 walks, all of which are 5 miles or under in length and can easily be completed in less than 3 hours. This guide, produced in co-operation with the Ramblers and featuring Ordnance Survey mapping, is the perfect way to really appreciate the stunning scenery of the Peak District. INCLUDES: ? 20 easy to follow walks which can be completed in 3 hours and under. ? Each walk has a detailed 1:25 000 Ordnance Survey map with the route clearly marked plus a detailed de*ion of the route. ? The walks have been chosen with issues like parking and refreshments in mind to make life easy for families. ? Packed with colour photographs of scenes you will see along the walk. The perfect guide for afternoon walks near to Chesterfield, Sheffield, Matlock, Buxton and Macclesfield.

Marisa Merico, the daughter of one of Italy's most notorious Mafia Godfathers, was dazzled by her father, Emilio DiGiovine. To her he was all powerful, sophisticated and loving; to the rest of the world he was staggeringly ruthless. Marisa knew her father would do anything for her, but she hadn't expected just how much he would ask in return. Born to an English mother, Marisa turned her back on her quiet life in Blackpool to join her charming father, Emilio DiGiovine, who had spent years trying to tempt her back to Italy. Arriving in Milan, Marisa had no idea she was returning to the heart of one of the most notorious drugs, arms and money laundering empires in the world. At first her father shielded her from the family operations and Marisa was overwhelmed by the attention and gifts he lavished on her. But soon the temptation of a new recruit was too great and Marisa was drawn ever deeper into the family's sinister and brutal regime, witnessing things she was too scared to believe. The day she eloped with her father's chief henchman was the day her father decided she was ready to be initiated into the true nature of the family business. Suddenly Marisa saw there was no limit to what he would expect her to do for him. She knew it was wrong, she knew she had to get out, but she had no idea how she could break the sacred Coda Nostra – and survive. Marisa's extraordinarily story is the most powerful portrayal of a Mafia family to emerge in recent years. It's the perfect balance of shocking violence, dangerous betrayals and enduring love.