10th Edition Collegiate Dictionary - 7-1/4"x9-7/8" - Red -^:^- New Eleventh Edition of America's best selling dictionary merges print, CD-ROM, and online formats to deliver unprecedented accessibility and flexibility at one affordable price. Fully revised with more than 225,000 clear and precise definitions and more than 10,000 words and meanings. Includes and easy-to-install Win/Mac CD-ROM and free one-year subscription to the new Collegiate Web site. Contains 1,664 pages. -^:^- Product #: MER9 -^:^- Manufactured By :. Merriam-Webster Hardback

A comprehensive survey of the National Gallery's masterpieces, revised and expanded to include key acquisitions from the past fifteen years.

The permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington features works by the greatest masters of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, including Leonardo da Vinci, Vermeer, Titian, el Greco, Rembrandt, Rubens, Manet, van Gogh, Cézanne, and Picasso, not to mention a wealth of American paintings and an expanding array of photography and contemporary art. The museum's collection also reflects centuries of achievement in sculpture and the decorative and graphic arts.

The National Gallery of Art ranks among the finest museums in the world, and its treasures are viewed each year by millions of visitors. 315 illustrations, 312 in color.

An anthology of 20 short mysteries set in classical times, some of them using famous figures of the times (Brutus, Socrates, etc.) to crack cases. Lots of fun & informational!

Unless you're a mathematician, the chances of you reading any novels about geometry are probably slender. But if you read only two in your life, these are the ones. Taken together, they form a couple of accessible and charming explanations of geometry and physics for the curious non-mathematician. Flatland, which is also available under separate cover, was published in 1880 and imagines a two-dimensional world inhabited by sentient geometric shapes who think their planar world is all there is. But one Flatlander, a Square, discovers the existence of a third dimension and the limits of his world's assumptions about reality and comes to understand the confusing problem of higher dimensions. The book is also quite a funny satire on society and class distinctions of Victorian England. The further mathematical fantasy, Sphereland, published 60 years later, revisits the world of Flatland in time to explore the mind-bending theories created by Albert Einstein, whose work so completely altered the scientific understanding of space, time, and matter. Among Einstein's many challenges to common sense were the ideas of curved space, an expanding universe and the fact that light does not travel in a straight line. Without use of the mathematical formulae that bar most non-scientists from an understanding of Einstein's theories, Sphereland gives lay readers ways to start comprehending these confusing but fundamental questions of our reality.

Here are two thousand years of London’s history and folklore, its chroniclers and criminals and plain citizens, its food and drink and countless pleasures. Blackfriar’s and Charing Cross, Paddington and Bedlam. Westminster Abbey and St. Martin in the Fields. Cockneys and vagrants. Immigrants, peasants, and punks. The Plague, the Great Fire, the Blitz. London at all times of day and night, and in all kinds of weather. In well-chosen anecdotes, keen observations, and the words of hundreds of its citizens and visitors, Ackroyd reveals the ingenuity and grit and vitality of London. Through a unique thematic tour of the physical city and its inimitable soul, the city comes alive.

At last in paperback in one complete volume, here are the five classic novels from Douglas Adams’s beloved Hitchiker series.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Facing annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat.

Life, the Universe and Everything
The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky– so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription conspires to thrust him back to reality. So to speak.

Mostly Harmless
Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself?

“Pelagia’s family likeness to Father Brown and Miss Marple is marked, and reading about her supplies a similarly decorous pleasure.”
–The Literary Review

In a remote Russian province in the late nineteenth century, Bishop Mitrofanii must deal with a family crisis. After learning that one of his great aunt’s beloved and rare white bulldogs has been poisoned, the Orthodox bishop knows there is only one detective clever enough to investigate the murder: Sister Pelagia.

The bespectacled, freckled Pelagia is lively, curious, extraordinarily clumsy, and persistent. At the estate in question, she finds a whole host of suspects, any one of whom might have benefited if the old lady (who changes her will at whim) had expired of grief at the pooch’s demise. There’s Pyotr, the matron’s grandson, a nihilist with a grudge who has fallen for the maid; Stepan, the penniless caretaker, who has sacrificed his youth to the care of the estate; Miss Wrigley, a mysterious Englishwoman who has recently been named sole heiress to the fortune; Poggio, an opportunistic and freeloading “artistic” photographer; and, most intriguingly, Naina, the old lady’s granddaughter, a girl so beautiful she could drive any man to do almost anything.

As Pelagia bumbles and intuits her way to the heart of a mystery among people with faith only in greed and desire, she must bear in mind the words of Saint Paul: “Beware of dogs–and beware of evil-doers.”

“Critics on both sides of the Atlantic have praised [Akunin’s] clever plots, vivid characters and wit.”
–Baltimore Sun

“Akunin’s wonderful novels are always intricately webbed and plotted.”
–The Providence Journal

In Special Assignments, Erast Fandorin, nineteenth-century Russia’s suavest sleuth, faces two formidable new foes: One steals outrageous sums of money, the other takes lives. “The Jack of Spades” is a civilized swindler who has conned thousands of rubles from Moscow’s residents–including Fandorin’s own boss, Prince Dolgorukoi. To catch him, Fandorin and his new assistant, timid young policeman Anisii Tulipov, must don almost as many disguises as the grifter does himself. “The Decorator” is a different case altogether: A savage serial killer who believes he “cleans” the women he mutilates and takes his orders from on high, he must be given Fandorin’s most serious attentions.
Peopled by a rich cast of eccentric characters, and with plots that are as surprising as they are inventive, Special Assignments will delight Akunin’s many fans, while challenging the gentleman sleuth’s brilliant powers of detection.

Praise from England:

“Boris Akunin’s wit and invention are a source of constant wonder.”
–Evening Standard

“[Fandorin is] a debonair combo of Sherlock Holmes, D’Artagnan and most of the soulful heroes of Russian literature. . . . This pair of perfectly balanced stories permit the character of Fandorin to grow.”
–The Sunday Telegraph

“Agatha Christie meets James Bond: [Akunin’s] plots are intricate and tantalizing. . . . [These stories] are unputdownable and great fun.”
–Sunday Express

“The beguiling, super-brainy, sexy, unpredictable Fandorin is a creation like no other in crime fiction.”
–The Times

Russian author Boris Akunin clearly delights in literary experimentation. The Winter Queen, his first novel to win U.S. release, was a police procedural, introducing a young but brilliant detective named Erast Petrovich Fandorin, serving in 1876 Moscow. However, Murder on the Leviathan (actually the third entry in the Fandorin series, but published second in the States) was quite different—an homage to formulaic Golden Age whodunits, taking place on a luxurious steamship. Now comes The Turkish Gambit, which is more a combination of war novel and romance, rather than crime fiction, with the majority of its mysteries so transparent as to barely merit the label.

The action here takes place in 1877 and 1878, on the Balkan front of a military conflict pitting tsarist Russia against the Ottoman Empire. Into this realm of posturing commanders and the foreign journalists whose florid prose makes those officers look better (or worse) than they really are ride Fandorin, now with the diplomatic corps, and Varya Suvorova, a strong-willed 22-year-old telegraphist hoping to reunite on the battlefield with her "future fiancé," an army volunteer. But Varya's efforts are frustrated when her intended is accused of espionage. His release can only be won by identifying the real informant-cum-saboteur, in which task Varya is willing to cooperate with Fandorin, despite her dislike of the stuttering and apparently "cold, disagreeable" former policeman. Amid profuse digressions concerning Turkish politics, female suffrage, and the harem system ("without it many women would quite simply starve to death"), Varya—trailed by lustful correspondents—investigates a suspicious colonel in Bucharest, only to become party to a deadly duel. A pair of officers are subsequently murdered, a guilt-ridden soldier hangs himself, and a British plot against Russia is alleged.

Akunin (the pseudonym of Grigory Chkhartishvili) nimbly portrays the tumultuous atmosphere of 19th-century combat, complete with ear-splitting cannon blasts and hard-charging cossacks. His dialogue is frequently clever, and in Varya he has created a woman fully capable of steering yarns and stopping hearts. Yet The Turkish Gambit is so laden with expendable exchanges, trivial players, and hieings off to hither and yon, that the reader's interest may wane well short of this story's dramatic climax. —J. Kingston Pierce

This well-respected text is designed for the first course in probability and statistics taken by students majoring in Engineering and the Computing Sciences. The prerequisite is one year of calculus. The text offers a balanced presentation of applications and theory. The authors take care to develop the theoretical foundations for the statistical methods presented at a level that is accessible to students with only a calculus background. They explore the practical implications of the formal results to problem-solving so students gain an understanding of the logic behind the techniques as well as practice in using them. The examples, exercises, and applications were chosen specifically for students in engineering and computer science and include opportunities for real data analysis.

Eighteenth-century London judge Sir John Fielding returns in the sixth of Alexander's highly praised mysteries.

Consistently hailed as "wonderful" (The New York Times Book Review), "first-rate" (The Boston Globe), and "altogether much fun" (The Washington Post), the Fielding mysteries are a magical combination of period ambiance, vivid characterization, and intriguing plotlines. Now the blind magistrate embarks upon the most puzzling of all his cases.

A nobleman, the last of his line, is executed, and his possessions set to go to the Crown, when his younger brother, missing for seven years, suddenly reappears to stake his claim. But where has he been? Why does his mother react to him so oddly? And what connection does this case have to the suicide by hanging of an American in London? To find the answers, Sir John and his ward, Jeremy, must travel from London to Bath to Oxford—and finally to a much darker place.

The Newbery-winning fantasy series now available in gorgeous new paperback editions!

Since The Book of Three was first published in 1964, young readers have been enthralled by the adventures of Taran the Assistant Pig-Keeper and his quest to become a hero. Taran is joined by an engaging cast of characters that includes Eilonwy, the strong-willed and sharp-tongued princess; Fflewddur Fflam, the hyperbole-prone bard; the ever-faithful Gurgi; and the curmudgeonly Doli—all of whom have become involved in an epic struggle between good and evil that shapes the fate of the legendary land of Prydain. Released over a period of five years, Lloyd Alexander’s beautifully written tales not only captured children’s imaginations but also garnered the highest critical praise.

The Black Cauldron was a Newbery Honor Book, and the final volume in the chronicles, The High King, crowned the series by winning the Newbery Medal for “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.”

Henry Holt is proud to present this classic series in a new, redesigned paperback format. The jackets feature stunning art by acclaimed fantasy artist David Wyatt, giving the books a fresh look for today’s generation of young fantasy lovers. The companion book of short stories, The Foundling is also available in paperback at this time.

In their more than thirty years in print, the Chronicles of Prydain have become the standard of excellence in fantasy literature for children.

The tale of Taran, assistant pig keeper, has been entertaining young readers for generations. Set in the mythical land of Prydain (which bears a more than passing resemblance to Wales), Lloyd Alexander's book draws together the elements of the hero's journey from unformed boy to courageous young man. Taran grumbles with frustration at home in the hamlet Caer Dallben; he yearns to go into battle like his hero, Prince Gwydion. Before the story is over, he has met his hero and fought the evil leader who threatens the peace of Prydain: the Horned King.

What brings the tale of Taran to life is Alexander's skillful use of humor, and the way he personalizes the mythology he has so clearly studied. Taran isn't a stick figure; in fact, the author makes a point of mocking him just at the moments when he's acting the most highhanded and heroic. When he and the young girl Eilonwy flee the castle of the wicked queen Achren, Taran emotes, "'Spiral Castle has brought me only grief; I have no wish to see it again.' 'What has it brought the rest of us?' Eilonway asked. 'You make it sound as though we were just sitting around having a splendid time while you moan and take on.'" By the end, Alexander has spun a rousing hero's tale and created a compelling coming-of-age story. Readers will sigh with relief when they realize The Book of Three is only the first of the chronicles of Prydain. —Claire Dederer