Meet Poppy – if you can find her! Poppy loves bugs, and can usually be found carrying on conversations with ladybirds or sitting outside among the brightly coloured wildflowers ... but good luck spotting her indoors and around people! She's a master of camouflage, always finding a way to blend into her surroundings. But when a very special bug lands on her grandma's birthday cake, Poppy can't resist popping out to see it. Soon the rest of the guests notice the beautiful dragonfly, and Poppy too. Maybe it's OK to stand out sometimes, just like the vibrant wildflowers and shimmering insects Poppy loves. This poetic and evocative story celebrates the shy and introverted kids among us, as well as the other small creatures to be found if we look closely enough.

What do things mean? What does the life of everyday objects reveal about people and their material worlds? Has the quest for 'the real thing' become so important because the high-tech world of total virtuality threatens to engulf us? This pioneering book bridges design theory and anthropology to offer a new and challenging way of understanding the changing meanings of contemporary human-object relations. The act of consumption is only the starting point of object's “lives”. Thereafter they are transformed and invested with new meanings and associations that reflect and assert who we are. Defining designed things as “things with attitude” differentiates the highly visible fashionable object from ordinary aretefacts that are too easily taken for granted. Through case studies ranging from reproduction furniture to fashion and textiles to 'clutter', the author traces the connection between objects and authenticity, ephemerality and self-identity. Beyond this, she shows the materiality of the everyday in terms of space, time and the body and suggests a transition with the passing of time from embodiment to disembodiment.

From award-winning and bestselling author Douglas Clegg comes a special quartet of stories dealing with creatures of the wild— wolf, bird, and the most terrifying of beasts: the human variety. “Clegg shows how the bestial aspects of horror and humanity are interchangeable in this quartet of psychological suspense stories….riveting reading.” — Publishers Weekly. In “The Wolf” a hunter guides a younger man up a mountain to track down the creature that has been slaughtering in the valley below. “The American” takes place at a late-night cafe in Rome where foreigners gather. On this particular night a stranger steps out of the shadowy park to sit at the sidewalk tables and speak of love and murder. In “A Madness of Starlings,” a father, teaching his children about protection from the predators of life, takes in a fledgling bird. But when it’s time for the bird to fly away, the forces of nature come undone and a secret wisdom and terror enter the mind of the one who understands the language of birds. In the novelette, “The Dark Game,” a war hero and his men are captured and taken into a prison camp. There, tortures and torments await them, but the man named Gordon Raglan begins to use a childhood game of escape to help him discover a way to hunt the wolves surrounding him. Four dark tales from a master of dark fiction.

Merit goes toe to toe with a powerful and dangerous evil in this novel in the Chicagoland Vampires series. Since Merit was turned into a vampire, and the protector of Chicago’s Cadogan House, it’s been a wild ride. She and Master vampire Ethan Sullivan have helped make Cadogan’s vampires the strongest in North America, and forged ties with paranormal folk of all breeds and creeds, living or dead…or both. But now those alliances are about to be tested. A strange and twisted magic has ripped through the North American Central Pack, and Merit’s closest friends are caught in the cross-hairs. Gabriel Keene, the Pack Apex, looks to Merit and Ethan for help. But who—or what—could possibly be powerful enough to out-magic a shifter?

It was supposed to be a challenging but otherwise enjoyable trek through Taman Negara. And then people started to die… Nine foreign trekkers wind their way through the treacherous forest. Led by the increasingly secretive guide, Rahim, the group members find themselves embroiled in some serious personal conflicts. Jasper’s long-planned holiday with his girlfriend Danielle started to go wrong once she invited her family along. A visit to the site of a mysterious plane crash also reveals that some in the group have an agenda that has nothing to do with tourism. But these secrets pale in comparison to what the jungle itself conceals. (Buku Fixi) (Fixi Novo)

An irresistible, nostalgic, insightful—and “consistently intelligent and funny” (The New York Times Book Review)—ramble through classic children’s literature from Vanity Fair contributing editor (and father of two) Bruce Handy. The dour New England Primer, thought to be the first American children’s book, was first published in Boston in 1690. Offering children gems of advice such as “Strive to learn” and “Be not a dunce,” it was no fun at all. So how did we get from there to “Let the wild rumpus start”? And now that we’re living in a golden age of children’s literature, what can adults get out of reading Where the Wild Things Are and Goodnight Moon, or Charlotte’s Web and Little House on the Prairie? A “delightful excursion” (The Wall Street Journal), Wild Things revisits the classics of every American childhood, from fairy tales to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and explores the back stories of their creators, using context and biography to understand how some of the most insightful, creative, and witty authors and illustrators of their times created their often deeply personal masterpieces. Along the way, Handy learns what The Cat in the Hat says about anarchy and absentee parenting, which themes are shared by The Runaway Bunny and Portnoy’s Complaint, and why Ramona Quimby is as true an American icon as Tom Sawyer or Jay Gatsby. It’s a profound, eye-opening experience to re-encounter books that you once treasured decades ago. A clear-eyed love letter to the greatest children’s books and authors from Louisa May Alcott and L. Frank Baum to Eric Carle, Dr. Seuss, Mildred D. Taylor, and E.B. White, Wild Things is “a spirited, perceptive, and just outright funny account that will surely leave its readers with a new appreciation for childhood favorites” (Publishers Weekly).

Europeans in the nineteenth century were fascinated with the wild and the primitive. So compelling was the craving for a first-hand experience of wilderness that it provided a lasting foundation for tourism as a consumer industry. In this book, Patricia Jasen shows how the region now known as Ontario held special appeal for tourists seeking to indulge a passion for wild country or act out their fantasies of primitive life. Niagara Falls, the Thousand Islands, Muskoka, and the far reaches of Lake Superior all offered the experiences tourists valued most: the tranquil pleasures of the picturesque, the excitement of the sublime, and the sensations of nostalgia associated with Canada's disappearing wilderness. Jasen situates her work within the context of recent writings about tourism history and the semiotics of tourism, about landscape perception and images of `wildness' and `wilderness, ' and about the travel narrative as a literary genre. She explores a number of major themes, including the imperialistic appropriation and commercialization of landscape into tourist images, services, and souvenirs. In a study of class, gender, and race, Jasen finds that by the end of the century, most workers still had little opportunity for travel, while the middle classes had come to regard holidays as a right and a duty in light of Social Darwinist concerns about preserving the health of the `race.' Women travellers have been disregarded or marginalized in many studies of the history of tourism, but this book makes their presence known and analyses their experience. It also examines, against the backdrop of nineteenth-century racism and expansionism, the major role played by Native people in the tourist industry. The first book to explore the cultural foundations of tourism in Ontario, Wild Things also makes a major contribution to the literature on the wilderness ideal in North America.

NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S PICK • Two best friends. One huge crush. A year that could change everything... A warmhearted, hilarious queer rom-com about what happens when a group of friends are actually brave enough to live the dream and give up their dreary city apartments to buy a house in the country together. • “Real Emily Henry vibes but gay. Joyous, funny, sexy, and romantic—a triumph!”—Kate Sawyer, award-winning author of The Stranding “Buoyant, charming, delectably wistful, and quietly earnest—not to mention, British enough to beguile even the subset of Americans who cuddle up to The Great British Bake Off on a Sunday afternoon.” —Casey McQuiston, The New York Times "A delightful romance, complete with DIY home repair, a beautiful queer found family, and backyard hen.” —Ashley Herring Blake, bestselling author of Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail El is in a rut. She’s been hiding in the photocopier room at the same dead-end job for longer than she cares to remember, she’s sharing a flat with a girl who leaves passive-aggressive smiley face notes on the fridge about milk consumption and, worst of all, she’s been in unrequited love with her best friend, effortlessly cool lesbian Ray, for years. So when a plan is hatched for El, Ray, and their two other closest friends—newly heartbroken Will and karaoke-and-Twilight-superfan Jamie—to ditch the big city and move out to a ramshackle house on the edge of an English country village, it feels like just the escape she needs. Despite being the DIY challenge of a lifetime, the newly named Lavender House has all the makings of becoming the queer commune of the friends' dreams. (Will has been given a pass as the gang's Token Straight.) But as they start plotting their bright new future and making preparations for a grand housewarming party to thank the surprisingly but wonderfully welcoming community, El is forced to confront her feelings for Ray—the feelings that she’s been desperately trying to keep buried. Is it worth ruining a perfectly good friendship for a chance at love? A VINTAGE ORIGINAL.

Scholar and award-winning author Faith Fiztgerald has every reason to be happy: a wealthy, charming man who adores her and a family cheering her marriage prospects. But from the moment she meets Eric's sister, Sydney Van Allen, she knows her safe, predictable feelings for him are a shadow of what could be. Openly lesbian and running for Senator, Sydney can only succeed if she can live down her wild past. That means no liaisons, especially with the achingly alluring woman on her brother's arm who looks at her with confusion—and desire.

Domestication has often seemed a matter of the distant past, a series of distinct events involving humans and other species that took place long ago. Today, as genetic manipulation continues to break new barriers in scientific and medical research, we appear to be entering an age of biological control. Are we also writing a new chapter in the history of domestication? Where the Wild Things Are Now explores the relevance of domestication for anthropologists and scholars in related fields who are concerned with understanding ongoing change in processes affecting humans as well as other species. From the pet food industry and its critics to salmon farming in Tasmania, the protection of endangered species in Vietnam and the pigeon fanciers who influenced Darwin, Where the Wild Things Are Now provides an urgently needed re-examination of the concept of domestication against the shifting background of relationships between humans, animals and plants.