Discover the secret hints, tips and winning ways of the BANANAGRAMS? bunch! This little book contains the insider secrets to help you become Top Banana … Packed with curious words and fascinating facts, the Collins Little Book of Bananagrams? is a treasure in itself. It's the perfect gift for word lovers and BANANAGRAMS? players of all ages the world over, and includes: Dozens of proper nouns that you CAN play – in any word game! Three ways to turn tiles that save VITAL seconds How to use UK & US spellings to IMPROVE your game The one thing you MUST do in your first move 19 games you can play with BANANAGRAMS? tiles The ESSENTIAL tip that buys time whenever you call "PEEL!" A dictionary of WEORDS?: Weird Words That Win Word Games … And DOZENS of other top tips to boost your BANANAGRAMS? playing power! Over 6 million copies of the game sold.

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.

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

This edition does not include illustrations. A fascinating exploration into the history of science and crime. In the tradition of ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem’, FINGERPRINTS is the story of the race to discover the secrets trapped in the whorls and arches found on the palm of one’s hand. In 1905 an elderly couple were found murdered in their shop in Deptford, London. The only evidence at the scene of the crime was a sweaty fingerprint on a cashbox. Was it possible that a single fingerprint could be enough to lead to a conviction? Could the pattern of these tracks hold the secrets of the science of identification? Through the story of three brilliant men：William Herschel, a colonial administrator in Indian, Henry Faulds, a missionary in Japan and Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, the extraordinary story of the history of fingerprinting is revealed. It is a story of intellectual skulduggery and scientific brilliance. Packed with an extraordinary cast of individuals whose scientific breakthroughs helped solve one of the most brutal murders in English history and shape our understanding of identity forever.

Welcome to Dr Moreau’s other island. Place of untold horros. Home of the Beast Men… Available for the first time in eBook. He stands very tall, long prosthetic limbs glistening in the harsh sun, withered body swaying, carbine and whip clasped in artificial hands. Man-beasts cower on the sand as he brandishes his gun in the air. He is Dr Moreau, ruler of the fabulous, grotesque island, where humans are as brutes and brutes as humans, where the future of the entire human race is being reprogrammed. The place of untold horrors. The place of the New Man.

Top ten Sunday Times Bestseller ‘Engaging, ambitious and creative’ Guardian Where are we? Are we alone? Who are we? Why are we here? What is our future? Human Universe tackles some of the greatest questions that humans have asked to try and understand the very nature of ourselves and the Universe in which we live. Through the endless leaps of human minds, it explores the extraordinary depth of our knowledge today and where our curiosity may lead us in the future. With groundbreaking insight it reveals how time, physics and chemistry came together to create a creature that can wonder at its own existence, blessed with an unquenchable thirst to discover not just where it came from, but how it can think, where it is going and if it is alone. Accompanies the acclaimed BBC TV series.

This ebook edition does not include illustrations. ‘The Earth is a true delight: full of awe-inspiring details… it blends travel, history, reportage and science to creat an unforgettable picture of our ancient earth.’ Sunday Times The face of the Earth, criss-crossed by chains of mountains like the scars of old wounds has changed constantly over billions of years, and the testament of the remote past is all around us. In this book, Richard Fortey teaches us how to read its character, laying out the dominions of the world before us. He shows how everything – human culture, natural history, even the shape of cities – roots back to a deeper geological truth. Far from being the driest of sciences, he proves that geology informs all our lives in the most intimate way. Nothing in this book seems to be at rest. The surface of the Earth dilates and collapses; seas and mountains rise and fall; continents move. We climb the Alps, wallow in Icelandic hot springs, dive down to the ocean floor; we explore the barren rocks of Newfoundland, walk through the lush ecosystems of Hawaii, cross the salt flats of Oman and saunter along the San Andreas Fault. And Fortey is the ideal guide, his de*ions of natural beauty as memorable as the best travel-writers, his prose as gripping as the best novelist, his crystal-clear scientific explanations fascinating and often surprising. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.

This ebook edition does not include illustrations. ‘In Richard Fortey’s capable hands the humble grey trilobite has been transformed into the E.T. of the Lower Palaeozoic – a remarkable and fascinating book.’ SIMON WINCHESTER Richard Fortey is one of Britain’s leading popular scientists. Life: An Unauthorised Biography, was short-listed for the Rhone Poulenc prize and has been reprinted five times. In all he writes, Fortey displays extraordinary range, delight and de*ive gifts which make complicated scientific facts and concepts not only easy to understand but a delight to absorb. Trilobite! is an unashamedly trilobito-centric view of the world unravelling the history of the exotic, crustacean-like animals which dominated the seas for three hundred million years. These arthropods witnessed continents move, mountain chains elevated and eroded; they survived ice ages and volcanic eruptions, evolving and adapting exquisitely to their environment. They watched through their crystal eyes whilst life evolved. Their own evolution calibrated geological time itself. Structured like a detective story, this is a light, but highly informative account of the wonders of scientific discovery and an engaging, quirky and fascinating introduction to evolution. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.

After the huge national and international success of ‘Longitude’ and ‘Gallileo’s Daughter’, Dava Sobel tells the human story of the nine planets of our solar system. This groundbreaking work traces the ‘lives’ of each member of our solar family, from myth and history, astrology and science fiction, to the latest data from the modern era's robotic space probes. Whether revealing what hides behind Venus's cocoon of acid clouds, describing Neptune's complex beauty, or capturing first-hand the excitement at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory when the first pictures from Cassini at Saturn were recently beamed to earth, Dava Sobel's unique tour of the solar system is filled with fascination and beauty. In lyrical prose interspersed with poems by Tennyson, Blake and others, ‘The Planets’ gives a breathtaking, intimate view of those heavenly bodies that have captured the imagination since humanity’s first glimpse of the glittering night skies. Timely and timeless, ‘The Planets’ will engage and delight as it unravels the mysteries of the cosmos. It is of infinite relevance to this age in which new planets are being discovered elsewhere in our galaxy. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.

In this practical guide TV farmer Jimmy Doherty imparts his experience and ideas to show you how to achieve the self-sufficient lifestyle and add to your life whether growing for your own pleasure – or profit! Farmer, entrepreneur and TV presenter Jimmy Doherty is living proof that you can successfully grow and rear your own food. Whatever your circumstances and whether you have a window box or a couple of acres, this book is full of ideas and suggestions to help you get started. Using Jimmy's knowledge and experience, this book will take you through all the realties to consider on the road to self-sufficiency, but above all it shows just how achievable it can be to grow and even sell your own produce. Focusing on the two main areas, what you can grow and what you can rear, this book will answer all of your questions, offer you the most useful and practical advice and show you how you can apply these ideas to suit your situation. So, if you want to make your own juices, bread or honey to sell at a local farmers market, save yourself the big grocery bills with your own vegetable garden, sell your own pork sausages or lamb burgers to local restaurants or rear your own turkey for your Christmas dinner this book will give you the practical knowledge and the confidence to actually do it. Jimmy covers everything from the skills to equipment to environmentalism to marketing and even shows that you don't necessarily need any land to live the self-sufficient lifestyle. Practical, realistic but full of good advice and encouragement, and case studies and essays to inspire you, A Farmer's Life for Me is the ultimate guide to the business of self-sufficiency.

A startling new book, his most personal to date, from Philip Hoare, co-curator of ’Moby Dick: Big Read and winner of the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize for ‘Leviathan’. The sea surrounds us. It gives us life, provides us with the air we breathe and the food we eat. It is ceaseless change and constant presence. It covers two-thirds of our planet. Yet caught up in our everyday lives, we barely notice it. In ‘The Sea Inside’, Philip Hoare sets out to rediscover the sea, its islands, birds and beasts. He begins on the south coast where he grew up, a place of almost monastic escape. From there he travels to the other side of the world – the Azores, Sri Lanka, New Zealand – in search of encounters with animals and people. Navigating between human and natural history, he asks what these stories mean for us now. Along the way we meet an amazing cast; from scientists to tattooed warriors; from ravens to whales and bizarre creatures that may, or may not, be extinct. Part memoir, part fantastical travelogue, ‘The Sea Inside’ takes us on an astounding journey of discovery.

Another volume in the widely-read New Naturalist series, this book is an in-depth study of the natural developments and history of Galloway and surrounding areas. Often overlooked due to the reputation of natural habitat in other parts of the country, the author here conveys the diversity and magnificence of nature in the south of Scotland. Galloway and the borders is an extremely varied region, from saltmarshes and shingle beaches to rocky islands and seabird stations. The wide range of hills, displaying a wealth of rich colours, give the area its dominant character. The varied selection of flora and fauna only add to the diversity.

A cutting-edge science book in the style of ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem’ and ‘Chaos’ from an exciting and accessible new voice in popular science writing. Bio-inspiration is a form of engineering but not in the conventional sense. Extending beyond our established and preconceived notions, scientists, architects and engineers are looking at imitating nature by manufacturing 'wet' materials such as spider silk or the surface of the gecko's foot. The amazing power of the gecko's foot has long been known – it can climb a vertical glass wall and even walk upside down on the ceiling – but no ideas could be harnessed from it because its mechanism could not be seen with the power of optical microscopes. Recently however the secret was solved by a team of scientists in Oregon who established that the mechanism really is dry, and that it does not involve suction, capillary action or anything else the lay person might imagine. Each foot has half a million bristles and each bristle ramifies into hundreds of finer spatula-shaped projections. The fine scale of the gecko's foot is beyond the capacity of conventional microengineering, but a team of nanotechnologists have already made a good initial approximation. The gecko's foot is just one of many examples of this new 'smart' science. We also discover, amongst other things, how George de Mestral's brush with the spiny fruits of the cocklebur inspired him to invent Velcro; how the shape of leaves opening from a bud has inspired the design of solar-powered satellites; and the parallels between cantilever bridges and the spines of large mammals such as the bison. The new 'smart' science of Bio-inspiration is going to produce a plethora of products over the next decades that will transform our lives, and force us to look at the world in a completely new way. It is science we will be reading about in our papers very soon; it is the science of tomorrow's world.

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.

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.

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 is the seventh volume of a new series of publications by Delphi Classics, the best-selling publisher of classical works. Many poetry collections are often poorly formatted and difficult to read on eReaders. The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of literature's finest poets, with superior formatting. This volume presents the poetical works and plays of W. B. Yeats, with illustrations and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version: 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Yeats' life and works * Concise introductions to the poetry and other works * Ten poetry collections – the most poems possible due to US copyright restrictions * Images of how the poetry books were first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * Excellent formatting of the poems and plays * Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry * Easily locate the poems you want to read * 19 plays, including rare dramas appearing for the first time in digital print * Features two autobiographies - discover Yeats' literary life * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres Please note: to comply with US copyright restrictions, poetry collections, plays and autobiographical works published after 1922 cannot appear in this volume. Once these later works enter the US public domain, they will be added as a free update to the eBook. Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles CONTENTS The Poetry Collections THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN AND OTHER POEMS THE COUNTESS KATHLEEN AND VARIOUS LEGENDS AND LYRICS THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS Poems from THE SHADOWY WATERS TWO NARRATIVE POEMS IN THE SEVEN WOODS THE GREEN HELMET AND OTHER POEMS RESPONSIBILITIES THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE MICHAEL ROBARTES AND THE DANCER The Poems LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER The Plays THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE DIARMUID AND GRANIA WHERE THERE IS NOTHING CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN THE HOUR-GLASS THE POT OF BROTH THE KING’S THRESHOLD ON BAILE’S STRAND DEIRDRE THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS THE GREEN HELMET THE SHADOWY WATERS THE HOUR-GLASS (VERSE VERSION) AT THE HAWK’S WELL THE DREAMING OF THE BONES THE ONLY JEALOUSY OF EMER CALVARY THE PLAYER QUEEN The Autobiographies REVERIES OVER CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH THE TREMBLING OF THE VEIL

Doctor Dolittle lives in a little town called Puddleby. He is a doctor who shuns human patients in favour of animals, with whom he can speak in their own languages. He later becomes a naturalist, using his abilities to speak with animals to better understand nature and the history of the world.

This unique edition of Abraham Lincoln: A Play from Dead Dodo Vintage includes the full original text as well as exclusive features not available in other editions.

The Travels of Ibn Fudayl is a satirical tale written in the style of an academic who has translated a medieval manuscript. It comes complete with a foreword, introduction, bibliography and copious footnotes that poke fun at the pretentious world of academia, whilst chronicling Ibn Fudayl's experiences in Al-Andalus. In particular, how his search for wisdom leads him to meet the philosopher Al-Homsi, the world's most ignorant man. It is their friendship and love for worthless knowledge that enables Ibn Fudayl to reach the upper echelons of Andalusian society.

Once upon a time there was a very beautiful doll’s-house; it was red brick with white windows, and it had real muslin curtains and a front door and a chimney. One morning Lucinda and Jane had gone out for a drive in the doll’s perambulator. There was no one in the nursery, and it was very quiet. Presently there was a little scuffling, scratching noise in a corner near the fire-place, where there was a hole under the skirting-board.