Improve the speed of your code and optimize the performance of your apps About This Book ? Understand the common performance pitfalls and improve your application’s performance ? Get to grips with multi-threaded and asynchronous programming in C# ? Develop highly performant applications on .NET Core using microservice architecture Who This Book Is For This book is for .NET developers looking at improving the speed of their code or simply wanting to take their skills to the next level. Basic C# knowledge is assumed. What You Will Learn ? Measure application performance using BenchmarkDotNet ? Explore the techniques to write multithreaded applications ? Leverage TPL and PLinq libraries to perform asynchronous operations ? Get familiar with data structures to write optimized code ? Understand design techniques to increase your application’s performance ? Learn about memory management techniques in .NET Core ? Develop a containerized application based on microservices architecture ? Learn tools and techniques to monitor application performance In Detail While writing an application, performance is paramount. Performance tuning for realworld applications often involves activities geared toward fnding bottlenecks; however, this cannot solve the dreaded problem of slower code. If you want to improve the speed of your code and optimize an application's performance, then this book is for you. C# 7 and .NET Core 2.0 High Performance begins with an introduction to the new features of what?explaining how they help in improving an application's performance. Learn to identify the bottlenecks in writing programs and highlight common performance pitfalls, and learn strategies to detect and resolve these issues early. You will explore multithreading and asynchronous programming with .NET Core and learn the importance and effcient use of data structures. This is followed with memory management techniques and design guidelines to increase an application’s performance. Gradually, the book will show you the importance of microservices architecture for building highly performant applications and implementing resiliency and security in .NET Core. After reading this book, you will learn how to structure and build scalable, optimized, and robust applications in C#7 and .NET. Style and approach This book will be a step by step easy to follow guide with focused examples to increase performance of applications and provide optimization techniques.

Leverage the power of Python and its de facto GUI framework to build highly interactive interfaces About This Book ? The fundamentals of Python and GUI programming with Tkinter. ? Create multiple cross-platform projects by integrating a host of third-party libraries and tools. ? Build beautiful and highly-interactive user interfaces that target multiple devices. Who This Book Is For This book is for beginners to GUI programming who haven’t used Tkinter yet and are eager to start building great-looking and user-friendly GUIs. Prior knowledge of Python programming is expected. What You Will Learn ? Create a scrollable frame via theCanvas widget ? Use the pack geometry manager andFrame widget to control layout ? Learn to choose a data structurefor a game ? Group Tkinter widgets, such asbuttons, canvases, and labels ? Create a highly customizablePython editor ? Design and lay out a chat window In Detail Tkinter is a modular, cross-platform application development toolkit for Python. When developing GUI-rich applications, the most important choices are which programming language(s) and which GUI framework to use. Python and Tkinter prove to be a great combination. This book will get you familiar with Tkinter by having you create fun and interactive projects. These projects have varying degrees of complexity. We'll start with a simple project, where you'll learn the fundamentals of GUI programming and the basics of working with a Tkinter application. After getting the basics right, we'll move on to creating a project of slightly increased complexity, such as a highly customizable Python editor. In the next project, we'll crank up the complexity level to create an instant messaging app. Toward the end, we'll discuss various ways of packaging our applications so that they can be shared and installed on other machines without the user having to learn how to install and run Python programs. Style and approach Step by Step guide with real world examples

Practical, hands-on solutions in Python to overcome any problem in Machine Learning About This Book ? Master the advanced concepts, methodologies, and use cases of machine learning ? Build ML applications for analytics, NLP and computer vision domains ? Solve the most common problems in building machine learning models Who This Book Is For This book is for the intermediate users such as machine learning engineers, data engineers, data scientists, and more, who want to solve simple to complex machine learning problems in their day-to-day work and build powerful and efficient machine learning models. A basic understanding of the machine learning concepts and some experience with Python programming is all you need to get started with this book. What You Will Learn ? Select the right algorithm to derive the best solution in ML domains ? Perform predictive analysis effciently using ML algorithms ? Predict stock prices using the stock index value ? Perform customer analytics for an e-commerce platform ? Build recommendation engines for various domains ? Build NLP applications for the health domain ? Build language generation applications using different NLP techniques ? Build computer vision applications such as facial emotion recognition In Detail Machine learning (ML) helps you find hidden insights from your data without the need for explicit programming. This book is your key to solving any kind of ML problem you might come across in your job. You’ll encounter a set of simple to complex problems while building ML models, and you'll not only resolve these problems, but you’ll also learn how to build projects based on each problem, with a practical approach and easy-to-follow examples. The book includes a wide range of applications: from analytics and NLP, to computer vision domains. Some of the applications you will be working on include stock price prediction, a recommendation engine, building a chat-bot, a facial expression recognition system, and many more. The problem examples we cover include identifying the right algorithm for your dataset and use cases, creating and labeling datasets, getting enough clean data to carry out processing, identifying outliers, overftting datasets, hyperparameter tuning, and more. Here, you'll also learn to make more timely and accurate predictions. In addition, you'll deal with more advanced use cases, such as building a gaming bot, building an extractive summarization tool for medical documents, and you'll also tackle the problems faced while building an ML model. By the end of this book, you'll be able to fine-tune your models as per your needs to deliver maximum productivity. Style and approach This book is a step-by-step guide on how to develop machine learning applications for various domains. Each chapter of this book contains the practical guide on how to build specific machine learning applications from its base-line approach to the best possible approach. Basic necessary concepts, conman mistakes for every approach and optimization techniques are discussed for each application.

Build and program smart robots with the EV3. About This Book ? Efficiently build smart robots with the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 ? Discover building techniques and programming concepts that are used by engineers to prototype robots in the real world ? This project-based guide will teach you how to build exciting projects such as the objecta-tracking tank, ultimate all-terrain vehicle, remote control race car, or even a GPS-navigating autonomous vehicle Who This Book Is For This book is for hobbyists, robotic engineers, and programmers who understand the basics of the EV3 programming language and are familiar with building with LEGO Technic and want to try some advanced projects. If you want to learn some new engineering techniques and take your experience with the EV3 to the next level, then this book is for you. What You Will Learn ? Understand the characteristics that make a robot smart ? Grasp proportional beacon following and use proximity sensors to track an object ? Discover how mechanisms such as rack-and-pinion and the worm gear work ? Program a custom GUI to make a robot more user friendly ? Make a fun and quirky interactive robot that has its own personality ? Get to know the principles of remote control and programming car-style steering ? Understand some of the mechanisms that enable a car to drive ? Navigate to a destination with a GPS receiver In Detail Smart robots are an ever-increasing part of our daily lives. With LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, you can now prototype your very own small-scale smart robot that uses specialized programming and hardware to complete a mission. EV3 is a robotics platform for enthusiasts of all ages and experience levels that makes prototyping robots accessible to all. This book will walk you through six different projects that range from intermediate to advanced level. The projects will show you building and programming techniques that are used by engineers in the real world, which will help you build your own smart robot. You'll see how to make the most of the EV3 robotics platform and build some awesome smart robots. The book starts by introducing some real-world examples of smart robots. Then, we'll walk you through six different projects and explain the features that allow these robots to make intelligent decisions. The book will guide you as you build your own object-tracking tank, a box-climbing robot, an interactive robotic shark, a quirky bipedal robot, a speedy remote control race car, and a GPS-navigating robot. By the end of this book, you'll have the skills necessary to build and program your own smart robots with EV3. Style and approach This book will introduce you to the world of smart robots, then guide you through six different projects that can be completed with the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3. The projects range from intermediate to advanced difficulty. The book will enable you to learn by example, walking you through the building and programming for each project and teaching you about the engineering concepts that allow each smart robot to complete its mission.

Learn how to write efficient, clean, and reusable code with Scala About This Book ? Unleash the power of Scala and apply it in the real world to build scalable and robust applications. ? Learn about using and implementing Creational, Structural, Behavioral, and Functional design patterns in Scala ? Learn how to build scalable and extendable applications efficiently Who This Book Is For If you want to increase your understanding of Scala and apply design patterns to real-life application development, then this book is for you.Prior knowledge of Scala language is assumed/ expected. What You Will Learn ? Immerse yourself in industry-standard design patterns—structural, creational, and behavioral—to create extraordinary applications ? See the power of traits and their application in Scala ? Implement abstract and self types and build clean design patterns ? Build complex entity relationships using structural design patterns ? Create applications faster by applying functional design patterns In Detail Design patterns make developers’ lives easier by helping them write great software that is easy to maintain, runs efficiently, and is valuable to the company or people concerned. You’ll learn about the various features of Scala and will be able to apply well-known, industry-proven design patterns in your work. The book starts off by focusing on some of the most interesting and latest features of Scala while using practical real-world examples. We will be learning about IDE’s and Aspect Oriented Programming. We will be looking into different components in Scala. We will also cover the popular "Gang of Four" design patterns and show you how to incorporate functional patterns effectively. The book ends with a practical example that demonstrates how the presented material can be combined in real-life applications. You’ll learn the necessary concepts to build enterprise-grade applications. By the end of this book, you’ll have enough knowledge and understanding to quickly assess problems and come up with elegant solutions. Style and approach The design patterns in the book are explained using real-world, step-by-step examples. For each design pattern, there are tips on when to use it and when to look for something more suitable. This book can also be used as a practical guide, showing you how to leverage design patterns effectively. We've designed the book to be used as a quick reference guide while creating applications.

Combine the power of analytics and cloud computing for faster and efficient insights About This Book ? Master the concept of analytics on the cloud: and how organizations are using it ? Learn the design considerations and while applying a cloud analytics solution ? Design an end-to-end analytics pipeline on the cloud Who This Book Is For This book is targeted at CIOs, CTOs, and even analytics professionals looking for various alternatives to implement their analytics pipeline on the cloud. Data professionals looking to get started with cloud-based analytics will also find this book useful. Some basic exposure to cloud platforms such as GCP will be helpful, but not mandatory. What You Will Learn ? Explore the basics of cloud analytics and the major cloud solutions ? Learn how organizations are using cloud analytics to improve the ROI ? Explore the design considerations while adopting cloud services ? Work with the ingestion and storage tools of GCP such as Cloud Pub/Sub ? Process your data with tools such as Cloud Dataproc, BigQuery, etc ? Over 70 GCP tools to build an analytics engine for cloud analytics ? Implement machine learning and other AI techniques on GCP In Detail With the ongoing data explosion, more and more organizations all over the world are slowly migrating their infrastructure to the cloud. These cloud platforms also provide their distinct analytics services to help you get faster insights from your data. This book will give you an introduction to the concept of analytics on the cloud, and the different cloud services popularly used for processing and analyzing data. If you’re planning to adopt the cloud analytics model for your business, this book will help you understand the design and business considerations to be kept in mind, and choose the best tools and alternatives for analytics, based on your requirements. The chapters in this book will take you through the 70+ services available in Google Cloud Platform and their implementation for practical purposes. From ingestion to processing your data, this book contains best practices on building an end-to-end analytics pipeline on the cloud by leveraging popular concepts such as machine learning and deep learning. By the end of this book, you will have a better understanding of cloud analytics as a concept as well as a practical know-how of its implementation Style and approach Comprehensive guide with a perfect blend of theory, examples, and implementation of real-world use-cases

Design accessible and creative games across genres, platforms, and development realities About This Book ? Implement the skills and techniques required to work in a professional studio ? Ace the core principles and processes of level design, world building, and storytelling ? Design interactive characters that animate the gaming world Who This Book Is For Whether you are a student eager to design a game or a junior game designer looking for your first role as a professional, this book will help you with the fundamentals of game design. By focusing on best practices and a pragmatic approach, Practical Game Design provides insights into the arts and crafts from two senior game designers that will interest more seasoned professionals in the game industry. What You Will Learn ? Define the scope and structure of a game project ? Conceptualize a game idea and present it to others ? Design gameplay systems and communicate them clearly and thoroughly ? Build and validate engaging game mechanics ? Design successful business models and prepare your games for live operations ? Master the principles behind level design, worldbuilding and storytelling ? Improve the quality of a game by playtesting and polishing it In Detail If you are looking for an up-to-date and highly applicable guide to game design, then you have come to the right place! Immerse yourself in the fundamentals of game design with this book, written by two highly experienced industry professionals to share their profound insights as well as give valuable advice on creating games across genres and development platforms. Practical Game Design covers the basics of game design one piece at a time. Starting with learning how to conceptualize a game idea and present it to the development team, you will gradually move on to devising a design plan for the whole project and adapting solutions from other games. You will also discover how to produce original game mechanics without relying on existing reference material, and test and eliminate anticipated design risks. You will then design elements that compose the playtime of a game, followed by making game mechanics, content, and interface accessible to all players. You will also find out how to simultaneously ensure that the gameplay mechanics and content are working as intended. As the book reaches its final chapters, you will learn to wrap up a game ahead of its release date, work through the different challenges of designing free-to-play games, and understand how to significantly improve their quality through iteration, polishing and playtesting. Style and approach A practical step by step guide to get you up and running with Game Design from scratch

Gain comprehensive insight into WPF mechanics and capabilities. About This Book ? Gain a strong foundation in WPF features and patterns ? Leverage the MVVM pattern to build decoupled, maintainable apps ? Increase efficiency through Performance tuning and UI automation Who This Book Is For The book is intended for developers who are relatively new to WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), or those who have been working with WPF for some time, but want to get a deeper understanding of its foundation and concepts to gain practical knowledge. Basic knowledge of C# and Visual Studio is assumed. What You Will Learn ? Understand the fundamentals of WPF ? Explore the major controls and manage element layout ? Implement data binding ? Create custom elements that lead to a particular implementation path ? Customize controls, styles, and templates in XAML ? Leverage the MVVM pattern to maintain a clean and reusable structure in your code ? Master practical animations ? Integrate WCF services in a WPF application ? Implement WPFs support for debugging and asynchronous operations In Detail Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is Microsoft's development tool for building rich Windows client user experiences that incorporate UIs, media, and documents. With the updates in .NET 4.7, Visual Studio 2017, C# 7, and .NET Standard 2.0, WPF has taken giant strides and is now easier than ever for developers to use. If you want to get an in-depth view of WPF mechanics and capabilities, then this book is for you. The book begins by teaching you about the fundamentals of WPF and then quickly shows you the standard controls and the layout options. It teaches you about data bindings and how to utilize resources and the MVVM pattern to maintain a clean and reusable structure in your code. After this, you will explore the animation capabilities of WPF and see how they integrate with other mechanisms. Towards the end of the book, you will learn about WCF services and explore WPF's support for debugging and asynchronous operations. By the end of the book, you will have a deep understanding of WPF and will know how to build resilient applications. Style and approach This book takes a recipe-based approach to teaching you how to create fault-tolerant WPF applications.

Build your own hybrid cloud strategy with this comprehensive learning guide. About This Book ? Build a hybrid cloud strategy for your organization with AWS and OpenStack ? Leverage Hybrid Cloud to design a complex deployment pipeline ? Learn to implement security and monitoring best practices with real-world examples Who This Book Is For This book is targeted at cloud architects, cloud solution providers, DevOps engineers, or any working stakeholder who wants to learn about the hybrid cloud architecture. A basic understanding of public and private cloud is desirable. What You Will Learn ? Learn the demographics and definitions of Hybrid Cloud ? Understand the different architecture and design of Hybrid Cloud ? Explore multi-cloud strategy and use it with your hybrid cloud ? Implement a Hybrid Cloud using CMP / Common API’s ? Implement a Hybrid Cloud using Containers ? Overcome various challenges and issues while working with your Hybrid Cloud ? Understand how to monitor your Hybrid Cloud ? Discover the security implications in the Hybrid Cloud In Detail Hybrid cloud is currently the buzz word in the cloud world. Organizations are planning to adopt hybrid cloud strategy due to its advantages such as untested workloads, cloud-bursting, cloud service brokering and so on. This book will help you understand the dynamics, design principles, and deployment strategies of a Hybrid Cloud. You will start by understanding the concepts of hybrid cloud and the problems it solves as compared to a stand-alone public and private cloud. You will be delving into the different architecture and design of hybrid cloud. The book will then cover advanced concepts such as building a deployment pipeline, containerization strategy, and data storage mechanism. Next up, you will be able to deploy an external CMP to run a Hybrid cloud and integrate it with your OpenStack and AWS environments. You will also understand the strategy for designing a Hybrid Cloud using containerization and work with pre-built solutions like vCloud Air, VMware for AWS, and Azure Stack. Finally, the book will cover security and monitoring related best practices that will help you secure your cloud infrastructure. By the end of the book, you will be in a position to build a hybrid cloud strategy for your organization. Style and approach This book follows a step-by-step, practical approach to deploying and implementing hybrid cloud architectures using AWS and OpenStack.

Build fast, scalable, and high performing applications with Delphi About This Book ? Build efficient and concurrent applications in Delphi with focused examples ? Identify performance bottlenecks and apply the correct algorithm to increase the performance of applications. ? Delve into parallel programming and memory management to optimize your code Who This Book Is For This book is for Delphi developers who would like to build high performance applications with Delphi. Prior knowledge of Delphi is assumed. What You Will Learn ? Find performance bottlenecks and easily mitigate them ? Discover different approaches to fix algorithms ? Understand parallel programming and work with various tools included with Delphi ? Master the RTL for code optimization ? Explore memory managers and their implementation ? Leverage external libraries to write better performing programs In Detail Delphi is a cross-platform Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that supports rapid application development for Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, Google Android, iOS, and now Linux with RAD Studio 10.2. This book will be your guide to build efficient high performance applications with Delphi. The book begins by explaining how to find performance bottlenecks and apply the correct algorithm to fix them. It will teach you how to improve your algorithms before taking you through parallel programming. You’ll then explore various tools to build highly concurrent applications. After that, you’ll delve into improving the performance of your code and master cross-platform RTL improvements. Finally, we’ll go through memory management with Delphi and you’ll see how to leverage several external libraries to write better performing programs. By the end of the book, you’ll have the knowledge to create high performance applications with Delphi. Style and approach This book will take a step-by-step approach with focused examples to teach you how to increase the performance of applications.

Take your application development skills to the next level by implementing Spring Boot features effectively About This Book ? This collection of effective recipes serves as guidelines for Spring Boot application development ? Get up to date with features of the latest version of Spring Boot 2.0 ? Tips and tricks to improve your efficiency through the stages of software development Who This Book Is For This book is for Java Developers who have good knowledge and understanding of Spring and Java application development. What You Will Learn ? Get to know Spring Boot Starters and create custom auto-configurations ? Work with custom annotations that enable bean activation ? Use DevTools to easily develop and debug applications ? Learn the effective testing techniques by integrating Cucumber and Spock ? Observe an eternal application configuration using Consul ? Move your existing Spring Boot applications to the cloud ? Use Hashicorp Consul and Netflix Eureka for dynamic Service Discovery ? Understand the various mechanisms that Spring Boot provides to examine an application’s health In Detail The Spring framework provides great flexibility for Java development, which also results in tedious configuration work. Spring Boot addresses the configuration difficulties of Spring and makes it easy to create standalone, production-grade Spring-based applications. This practical guide makes the existing development process more efficient. Spring Boot Cookbook 2.0 Second Edition smartly combines all the skills and expertise to efficiently develop, test, deploy, and monitor applications using Spring Boot on premise and in the cloud. We start with an overview of the important Spring Boot features you will learn to create a web application for a RESTful service. Learn to fine-tune the behavior of a web application by learning about custom routes and asset paths and how to modify routing patterns. Address the requirements of a complex enterprise application and cover the creation of custom Spring Boot starters. This book also includes examples of the new and improved facilities available to create various kinds of tests introduced in Spring Boot 1.4 and 2.0, and gain insights into Spring Boot DevTools. Explore the basics of Spring Boot Cloud modules and various Cloud starters to make applications in “Cloud Native” and take advantage of Service Discovery and Circuit Breakers. Style and approach This practical guide follows a recipe-based approach and provides extremely helpful guidelines to build, configure, and customize your Spring Boot applications.

Discover best practices and troubleshooting solutions when working on ROS About This Book ? Develop complex robotic applications using ROS to interface robot manipulators and mobile robots ? Gain insight into autonomous navigation in mobile robots and motion planning in robot manipulators ? Discover best practices and troubleshooting solutions Who This Book Is For If you are a robotics enthusiast or researcher who want to learn more about building robot applications using ROS, this book is for you. In order to learn from this book, you should have a basic knowledge of ROS, GNU/Linux, and C++ programming concepts. The book is also excellent for programmers who want to explore the advanced features of ROS. What You Will Learn ? Create a robot model with a seven-DOF robotic arm and a differential wheeled mobile robot ? Work with Gazebo and V-REP robotic simulator ? Implement autonomous navigation in differential drive robots using SLAM and AMCL packages ? Explore the ROS Pluginlib, ROS nodelets, and Gazebo plugins ? Interface I/O boards such as Arduino, robot sensors, and high-end actuators ? Simulate and motion plan an ABB and universal arm using ROS Industrial ? Explore the latest version of the ROS framework ? Work with the motion planning of a seven-DOF arm using MoveIt! In Detail In this day and age, robotics has been gaining a lot of traction in various industries where consistency and perfection matter. Automation is achieved via robotic applications and various platforms that support robotics. The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a modular software platform to develop generic robotic applications. This book focuses on the most stable release of ROS (Kinetic Kame), discusses advanced concepts, and effectively teaches you programming using ROS. We begin with aninformative overview of the ROS framework, which will give you a clear idea of how ROS works. During the course of this book, you’ll learn to build models of complex robots, and simulate and interface the robot using the ROS MoveIt! motion planning library and ROS navigation stacks. Learn to leverage several ROS packages to embrace your robot models. After covering robot manipulation and navigation, you’ll get to grips with the interfacing I/O boards, sensors, and actuators of ROS. Vision sensors are a key component of robots, and an entire chapter is dedicated to the vision sensor and image elaboration, its interface in ROS and programming. You’ll also understand the hardware interface and simulation of complex robots to ROS and ROS Industrial. At the end of this book, you’ll discover the best practices to follow when programming using ROS. Style and approach This is a simplified guide to help you learn and master advanced topics in ROS using hands-on examples.

The #1 New York Times bestsellerThe phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner. Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens. Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country’s future.?

Rudyard Kipling’s classic collection of fables gets reimagined in this deluxe four-color collectible volume, featuring stunning new artwork and nine interactive elements crafted by MinaLima Design, the award-winning design studio behind the graphics for the Harry Potter film franchise and the illustrated classic Peter Pan.Since its publication in 1894, Rudyard Kipling’s beloved masterpiece The Jungle Book has been celebrated by generations of readers. Composed of seven tales, each one accompanied by a poem, The Jungle Book introduces a lush, colorful world full of adventure and danger. The first three tales include some of the most charming and unforgettable characters in literature—the man-cub Mowgli, the black panther Bagheera, the wise brown bear Baloo, and the ruthless tiger Shere Khan. The other four tales each tell the story of a different animal, such as the travels of the white seal Kotick; the battle between the courageous mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and the deadly cobra Nag; Toomai and the elephant dance; and the camp animals of the queen’s guard.The second volume in Harper Design’s newest series of deluxe reimagined children’s classics, this beautiful unabridged edition takes readers deep into the heart of the Indian jungle with specially commissioned four-color illustrations and nine exclusive interactive features that will delight readers, including a map of the lost Indian city where Mowgli is taken by the monkeys; a trifold detailing the Laws of the Jungle; a spinning dial of the elephant dance; and a map of Kotick’s route to find a new home.Beautifully designed, this keepsake illustrated edition will be treasured by readers of all ages.

A deluxe Harper Perennial Legacy Edition, with an introduction from John Swansburg, Deputy Editor at SlateOne of the best-selling books of all time, Lew Wallace’s enduring epic is a tale of revenge, betrayal, honor, compassion and the power of forgiveness, set during the life of Christ.At the beginning of the first century, Judah Ben-Hur lived as a prince, descended from the royal line of Judea and one of Jerusalem’s most prosperous merchant families. But his world falls apart when he is betrayed by his best friend, Messala, who falsely accuses him of an attempt to assassinate the Roman governor.Convicted without trial, Judah is sentenced to slavery on a Roman galley, while his mother and sister are imprisoned and his family’s assets are seized. All seems lost, but just before boarding the ship, Ben-Hur has his first interaction with the Christ, who offers him water and hope. Their lives continue to intersect as Ben-Hur miraculously survives his time as a slave to become a charioteer, confront his betrayer, Messala, in an epic race, fall in love with the beautiful Esther, avenge his family, and become a follower of the Christ.A true epic, Ben-Hur weaves biblical history and a rich adventure plot into a timeless tale certain to entertain a new generation of readers.

In her acclaimed 1993 book Denying the Holocaust, Deborah Lipstadt called David Irving, a prolific writer of books on World War II, “one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial.” The following year, after Lipstadt’s book was published in the United Kingdom, Irving led a libel suit against Lipstadt and her publisher. She prepared her defense with the help of a first-rate team of solicitors, historians, and experts, and a dramatic trial unfolded.Denial, previously published as History on Trial, is Lipstadt’s riveting, blow- by-blow account of this singular legal battle, which resulted in a formal denunciation of a Holocaust denier that crippled the movement for years to come. Lipstadt’s victory was proclaimed on the front page of major news- papers around the world, such as The Times (UK), which declared that “history has had its day in court and scored a crushing victory.”

Step inside the world of the talented art departments who, led by Academy Award?-winning production designer Stuart Craig, were responsible for the creation of the unforgettable characters, locations and beasts from the eagerly anticipated new adventure in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World.The Art of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, edited by Dermot Power, concept artist on the film, takes you on a magical journey through a design process every bit as wonderful as that encountered by Newt Scamander in the wizarding world: from the earliest gatherings of the artists, designers and filmmakers to the magical time of the film’s production itself at Leavesden Studios.Bursting with hundreds of production paintings, concept sketches, storyboards, blueprints and matte paintings, and filled with unique insights about the filmmaking journey from Stuart Craig and the artists themselves, this superb book – officially licensed by Warner Bros. Consumer Products – presents a visual feast for readers, and will welcome fans of Harry Potter films into the world of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Frozen mammals of the Ice Age, preserved for millennia in the tundra, have been a source of fascination and mystery since their first discovery over two centuries ago. These mummies, their ecology, and their preservation are the subject of this compelling book by paleontologist Dale Guthrie. The 1979 find of a frozen, extinct steppe bison in an Alaskan gold mine allowed him to undertake the first scientific excavation of an Ice Age mummy in North America and to test theories about these enigmatic frozen fauna.The 36,000-year-old bison mummy, coated with blue mineral crystals, was dubbed "e;Blue Babe."e; Guthrie conveys the excitement of its excavation and shows how he made use of evidence from living animals, other Pleistocene mummies, Paleolithic art, and geological data. With photographs and scores?of detailed drawings, he takes the reader through the excavation and subsequent detective work, analyzing the animal's carcass and its surroundings, the circumstances of its death, its appearance in life, the landscape it inhabited, and the processes of preservation by freezing. His examination shows that Blue Babe died in early winter, falling prey to lions that inhabited the Arctic during the Pleistocene era.Guthrie uses information gleaned from his study of Blue Babe to provide a broad picture of bison evolutionary history and ecology, including speculations on the interactions of bison and Ice Age peoples. His de*ion of the Mammoth Steppe as a cold, dry, grassy plain is based on an entirely new way of reading the fossil record.

Filled with drama and action, here is the story of the ninth-century life and times of Alfred-warrior, conqueror, lawmaker, scholar, and the only king whom England has ever called "e;The Great."e; Based on up-to-date information on ninth-century history, geography, philosophy, literature, and social life, it vividly presents exciting views of Alfred in every stage of his long career and leaves the reader with a sharply-etched picture of the world of the Middle Ages.

When a new baby arrives among the Beng people of West Africa, they see it not as being born, but as being reincarnated after a rich life in a previous world. Far from being a tabula rasa, a Beng infant is thought to begin its life filled with spiritual knowledge. How do these beliefs affect the way the Beng rear their children?In this unique and engaging ethnography of babies, Alma Gottlieb explores how religious ideology affects every aspect of Beng childrearing practices-from bathing infants to protecting them from disease to teaching them how to crawl and walk-and how widespread poverty limits these practices. A mother of two, Gottlieb includes moving discussions of how her experiences among the Beng changed the way she saw her own parenting. Throughout the book she also draws telling comparisons between Beng and Euro-American parenting, bringing home just how deeply culture matters to the way we all rear our children.All parents and anyone interested in the place of culture in the lives of infants, and vice versa, will enjoy The Afterlife Is Where We Come From."e;This wonderfully reflective text should provide the impetus for formulating research possibilities about infancy and toddlerhood for this century."e; - Caren J. Frost, Medical Anthropology Quarterly?"e;Alma Gottlieb's careful and thought-provoking account of infancy sheds spectacular light upon a much neglected topic. . . . [It] makes a strong case for the central place of babies in anthropological accounts of religion. ?Gottlieb's remarkably rich account, delivered after a long and reflective period of gestation, deserves a wide audience across a range of disciplines."e;-Anthony Simpson, Critique of Anthropology?

In the years following the Civil War, a veritable army of homeless men swept across America's "e;wageworkers' frontier"e; and forged a beguiling and bedeviling counterculture known as "e;hobohemia."e; Celebrating unfettered masculinity and jealously guarding the American road as the preserve of white manhood, hoboes took command of downtown districts and swaggered onto center stage of the new urban culture. Less obviously, perhaps, they also staked their own claims on the American polity, claims that would in fact transform the very entitlements of American citizenship.In this eye-opening work of American history, Todd DePastino tells the epic story of hobohemia's rise and fall, and crafts a stunning new interpretation of the "e;American century"e; in the process. Drawing on sources ranging from diaries, letters, and police reports to movies and memoirs, Citizen Hobo breathes life into the largely forgotten world of the road, but it also, crucially, shows how the hobo army so haunted the American body politic that it prompted the creation of an entirely new social order and political economy. DePastino shows how hoboes-with their reputation as dangers to civilization, sexual savages, and professional idlers-became a cultural and political force, influencing the creation of welfare state measures, the promotion of mass consumption, and the suburbanization of America. Citizen Hobo's sweeping retelling of American nationhood in light of enduring struggles over "e;home"e; does more than chart the change from "e;homelessness"e; to "e;houselessness."e; In its breadth and scope, the book offers nothing less than an essential new context for thinking about Americans' struggles against inequality and alienation.