About this product: Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he thought he was destined to live.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Alexie's YA debut, released in hardcover to instant success, recieving seven starred reviews, hitting numerous bestseller lists, and winning the 2007 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.
Most programming languages contain good and bad parts, but JavaScript has more than its share of the bad, having been developed and released in a hurry before it could be refined. This authoritative book scrapes away these bad features to reveal a subset of JavaScript that's more reliable, readable, and maintainable than the language as a whole-a subset you can use to create truly extensible and efficient code.
Considered the JavaScript expert by many people in the development community, author Douglas Crockford identifies the abundance of good ideas that make JavaScript an outstanding object-oriented programming language-ideas such as functions, loose typing, dynamic objects, and an expressive object literal notation. Unfortunately, these good ideas are mixed in with bad and downright awful ideas, like a programming model based on global variables.
When Java applets failed, JavaScript became the language of the Web by default, making its popularity almost completely independent of its qualities as a programming language. In JavaScript: The Good Parts, Crockford finally digs through the steaming pile of good intentions and blunders to give you a detailed look at all the genuinely elegant parts of JavaScript, including:
Syntax
Objects
Functions
Inheritance
Arrays
Regular expressions
Methods
Style
Beautiful features
The real beauty? As you move ahead with the subset of JavaScript that this book presents, you'll also sidestep the need to unlearn all the bad parts. Of course, if you want to find out more about the bad parts and how to use them badly, simply consult any other JavaScript book.
With JavaScript: The Good Parts, you'll discover a beautiful, elegant, lightweight and highly expressive language that lets you create effective code, whether you're managing object libraries or just trying to get Ajax to run fast. If you develop sites or applications for the Web, this book is an absolute must.
About this product: Amazon Exclusive: Simon Winchester Reviews The Fourth Part of the World
Simon Winchester studied geology at Oxford and later became an award-winning journalist, and author of more than a dozen books. He has written for The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic, and has reviewed books for The New York Times. His bestselling titles include: The Man Who Loved China, The Professor and the Madman, and Krakatoa. The author divides his time between his home in Massachusetts and in the Western Isles of Scotland. Read Simon Winchester’s exclusive Amazon guest review of The Fourth Part of the World:
Books about obscure and unobvious commercial subjects, written with passion by stylish enthusiasts, have come in recent years to provide us a canon of the most valuable and lasting literature. Toby Lester, who appears to be a master of the language and a man evidently as inquisitive as a ferret, has written a quite wonderful book about something that is, yes, obscure and unobvious commercial--but which is a tale quite vital to anyone interested in knowing the story of this country. It is about the naming of America, and the creation of a document that has been lately and justly called this country's birth-certificate.
The document is a map--and so Mr. Lester's book is in essence about cartography, and sixteenth century cartography at that, a specialist's dream. But the tale of the making and then the hiding and the losing and the finding of this extraordinary and very large document--it called the Waldseemüller Map, and it now belongs to the Library of Congress--is sufficiently exciting to be almost unbearably thrilling. And anyone who can make cartography thrill deserves a medal, at the very least.
The mapmakers in question were German: Martin Waldseemüller and his poetically-inclined colleague, Mathias Ringmann. Come the beginning of the sixteenth century, and working in southern France these two, like many in the European intellectual world, were beginning to hear rumors that a new continent had lately been found, halfway between Spain and Japan. (This was fifteen years after Columbus, who still had no clue what he had found in 1492--to his dying day he insisted that he had merely found a hitherto unknown piece of Asia.)
The rumors swiftly became accepted fact: in the early 1500s the pair came across two printed accounts of the alleged new continent--accounts that were prolix, flamboyant, unreliable and in parts very saucy (there was material relating to the cosmetic self-mutilation, anal cleanliness and sexual practices of the locals) written by a colourful Italian explorer and sorcerer named Amerigo Vespucci. Crucially Vespucci claimed in one of these papers that “on this last voyage of mine…I have discovered a continent in those southern regions that is inhabited by more numerous peoples than in our Europe, Asia or Africa, and in addition I found a more pleasant and temperate climate than in any other region known to us…”
As it happened, the mapmakers had already been commissioned to create a new world map--and so on it, they both agreed after reading Vespucci's accounts, they would now draw this new body of land, and they would give it a name. After some head-scratching they agreed the name should be the feminine form of the Latinised version of Amerigo Vespucci's Christian name: the properly feminine place-nouns of Africa, Asia and Europe would now be joined, quite simply, by a brand-new entity that they would name America.
And so, in 1507, their map was duly published; and in large letters across the southern half of the southern continental discovery, just where Brazil is situated today, was the single word: America. It was written in majuscule script, was a tiny bit crooked, curiously out of scale and looking a little last-minute and just a little tentative--but nevertheless and incontrovertibly, it was there.
It caught on: a globe published in Paris in 1515 placed the word on both segments of the continent, north and south. The word was published in many books in central Europe--Strasbourg in 1509, Poland in 1512, Vienna in 1520; it was found in a Spanish book in 1520. In Strasbourg, five years later, another book lists 'America' as one of the world's regions and finally, in 1538, Mercator, the new arbiter of the planet's geography, placed the names North America and South America squarely on the two halves of the fourth continent. And with that, the name was secure; and it would never be changed again.
Toby Lester has done American history the greatest service by writing this elegant and thoughtful account of the one morsel of cartographic history that would shake the world's foundations. We are told that this is his first book: may we hope that he writes many more, for his is a rare and masterly talent. --SW
Discover the Waldseemüller World Map from The Fourth Part of the World Click on image to enlarge
Click to discover the Waldseemüller map legend
This legend highlights an idea that's almost completely forgotten today: that the New World was remarkable to Europeans in 1507 because it lay not just to the west but also to the south. Read more
The portrait shown here is an idealized depiction of the ancient Greek sage Claudius Ptolemy. Read more
The portrait shown here, an obvious companion to the portrait of Ptolemy to its left, is an idealized portrait of Amerigo Vespucci...Read more
Here, printed in block letters on what we know today as Brazil, is the first use of the name America on a map. Read more
About this product: First, his hair started falling out. Then skin started peeling from his toes. Some stuffing came out of his belly button, and a piece of something gray and wet-his brain?-fell out of his nose. Is this normal? Or is this boy coming unglued? With a perfect combination of humor and grossness, this look at one boy's farfetched fears will have readers laughing their heads off!
"A zany, ultimately reassuring take on something that may indeed be a child's bugaboo." -Booklist
Awards: ( 1999 Colorado Children's Book Award ( Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award Masterlist
This little thing with the perfect face and hands doing nothing but counting on me. And me wanting nothing else but to run crying into my own mom's room and have her do the whole thing.
It's not going to happen....
Bobby is your classic urban teenaged boy -- impulsive, eager, restless. On his sixteenth birthday he gets some news from his girlfriend, Nia, that changes his life forever. She's pregnant. Bobby's going to be a father. Suddenly things like school and house parties and hanging with friends no longer seem important as they're replaced by visits to Nia's obstetrician and a social worker who says that the only way for Nia and Bobby to lead a normal life is to put their baby up for adoption.
With powerful language and keen insight, Johnson looks at the male side of teen pregnancy as she delves into one young man's struggle to figure out what "the right thing" is and then to do it. No matter what the cost.
About this product: Geraldine Brooks spent two years as a Middle East news correspondent, covering the death of Khomeini and the like. She also learned a lot about what it's like for Islamic women today. Brooks' book is exceedingly well-done--she knows her Islamic lore and traces the origins of today's practices back to Mohammed's time. Personable and very readable, Brooks takes us through the women's back door entrance of the Middle East for an unusual and provocative view.
About this product: Give me a hand . . . hold your tongue . . . scream your lungs out . . . what's a kid to do if he wants to keep all his body parts in place? Well, one thing is for sure, he'll have to be creative. Like, if you want to keep your heart from breaking, just make sure it's well padded and protected by tying a pillow around your chest. Want to keep your hands attached? Simple-stick them on with gloves and lots of glue. Just be careful not to laugh your head off!
About this product: Mosby's Review for the NBDE, Part II is the perfect study companion for dental students who have passed Part I of the National Dental Board Exam and are preparing for Part II. This complete exam review provides crucial, current information on each of the major disciplines covered in Part II of the NBDE, including Endodontics, Operative Dentistry, Oral/Maxillofacial Surgery & Pain Control, Oral Diagnosis, Orthodontics & Pediatric Dentistry, Patient Management, Periodontics, Pharmacology, and Prosthodontics. Material is presented in a concise, convenient outline format and arranged according to the specifications of the NBDE, utilizing detailed content points and supported by informative examples and illustrations.
The point-by-point outline format conveys essential data and key points in a clean, streamlined fashion, eliminating the need to sift through thick, heavy paragraphs to find important facts.
The exam-based progression of topics allows users to familiarize themselves with content in the same order in which they will encounter it on the exam, and to build conclusions based on previously presented material.
Each section features 100 review questions that highlight important points of each topic and prepare students for both the exam content and testing procedures.
An answer key with rationales illustrates logical approaches students should use in answering exam questions and reinforces principles addressed in each section.
Tables and text boxes provide supplementary information and emphasize important data from the core text at a glance.
Included Case Study CD-ROM presents detailed case scenarios that challenge students to apply the knowledge to real-world scenarios, just as they will be required to do on Part II of the exam.
About this product: “Mom, where do babies come from?” Many parents live in fear of the day their child asks this question—which inevitably happens, often as early as the preschool years. Here is a picture book designed especially for young children who are becoming aware of their bodies, but aren’t ready to learn about sexual intercourse. Written with warmth and honesty, Amazing You! presents clear and age-appropriate information about reproduction, birth, and the difference between girls’ and boys’ bodies. Lynne Cravath’s lighthearted illustrations enliven the text, making this a book that parents will gladly share with their young ones.
About this product: The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer by Fr. John Bartunek, LC This book should be declared a national treasure! We lead tremendously busy lives, with 1,001 things to do. Even so, every saint and renowned spiritual director through the ages has said the same thing: If we desire to become saints, we must spend time daily in meditation. With this book (which sold out of its first printing), Fr. Bartunek has created an extensive, Christ-centered resource to serve as a daily meditation companion. It is a Bible study on the four Gospels, a survey of saints' writings, a guide to prayer, and a fresh introduction to Jesus rolled into one. The Better Part enables us to read, meditate, absorb and apply the Gospels to our lives, and it serves as a catalyst to personalize times of prayer, enabling us to follow the Holy Spirit's lead into holiness. Sections for each Gospel on Christ as Lord, Christ as Teacher, Christ as Friend, and Christ in my Life.
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