In this book the reader will be transported to the 15th century in the Northern Chinese plain close to the Yan Mountains. It’s story unfolds with the love story of Kuan Yin and Shen Nong. Two strong and beautiful people in a forbidden marriage. Shen Nong a tired warrior, with a past that has to stay hidden, comes into Kuan Yin,s life on a spring day to eventually fill her lonely days. Out of this three remarkable sons are born with unique abilities that are sharpened with training. Being by themselves most of their young lives living apart believing that they are orphans, they eventually come together because of a common goal. First the oldest at 18 is Sun Liam who is raised in a school for fighting. Next is Yoshi at 17 who is raised in the Tendai Buddist Temple on Mount Hiel to become a marathon monk, running 52 miles for a hundred days. Then the third son is Aki Motto who is taken to Japan to live with Shen Nong,s aunt in an okiya with geisha girls. At 15 he is trained in the art of Bushido to become samurai. All of their backgrounds comes into play when the very village of their parents comes under attack by a twisted and powerful warlord Zhouli Hunhe and his son Naihe, a demented psychopath. The three brothers each experience life changing situations to become the Crimson Cricket, Golden Scorpion, and the Emerald Beetle.

In this book the reader will be transported to the 15th century in the Northern Chinese plain close to the Yan Mountains. It's story unfolds with the love story of Kuan Yin and Shen Nong. Two strong and beautiful people in a forbidden marriage. Shen Nong a tired warrior, with a past that has to stay hidden, comes into Kuan Yin,s life on a spring day to eventually fill her lonely days. Out of this three remarkable sons are born with unique abilities that are sharpened with training. Being by themselves most of their young lives living apart believing that they are orphans, they eventually come together because of a common goal. First the oldest at 18 is Sun Liam who is raised in a school for fighting. Next is Yoshi at 17 who is raised in the Tendai Buddist Temple on Mount Hiel to become a marathon monk, running 52 miles for a hundred days. Then the third son is Aki Motto who is taken to Japan to live with Shen Nong,s aunt in an okiya with geisha girls. At 15 he is trained in the art of Bushido to become samurai. All of their backgrounds comes into play when the very village of their parents comes under attack by a twisted and powerful warlord Zhouli Hunhe and his son Naihe, a demented psychopath. The three brothers each experience life changing situations to become the Crimson Cricket, Golden Scorpion, and the Emerald Beetle.

The bestselling Journey to the West comic book by artist Chang Boon Kiat is now back in a brand new fully coloured edition. Journey to the West is one of the greatest classics in Chinese literature. It tells the epic tale of the monk Xuanzang who journeys to the West in search of the Buddhist sutras with his disciples, Sun Wukong, Sandy and Pigsy. Along the way, Xuanzang's life was threatened by the diabolical White Bone Spirit, the menacing Red Child and his fearsome parents and, a host of evil spirits who sought to devour Xuanzang's flesh to attain immortality. Bear witness to the formidable Sun Wukong's (Monkey God) prowess as he takes them on, using his Fiery Eyes, Golden Cudgel, Somersault Cloud, and quick wits! Be prepared for a galloping read that will leave you breathless!

Reproduction of the original: The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles by J. Henri Fabre

This book will tell all you need to know about British English spelling. It's a reference work intended for anyone interested in the English language, especially those who teach it, whatever the age or mother tongue of their students. It will be particularly useful to those wishing to produce well-designed materials for teaching initial literacy via phonics, for teaching English as a foreign or second language, and for teacher training. English spelling is notoriously complicated and difficult to learn; it is correctly described as much less regular and predictable than any other alphabetic orthography. However, there is more regularity in the English spelling system than is generally appreciated. This book provides, for the first time, a thorough account of the whole complex system. It does so by describing how phonemes relate to graphemes and vice versa. It enables searches for particular words, so that one can easily find, not the meanings or pronunciations of words, but the other words with which those with unusual phoneme-grapheme/grapheme-phoneme correspondences keep company. Other unique features of this book include teacher-friendly lists of correspondences and various regularities not described by previous authorities, for example the strong tendency for the letter-name vowel phonemes (the names of the letters ) to be spelt with those single letters in non-final syllables.

The salt of proverbs is of great service if discreetly used in sermons and addresses; and I have hope that these SALT-CELLARS of mine may be resorted to by teachers and speakers, and that they may find them helpful. There are many proverb books, but none exactly like these. I have not followed any one of the other collections, although, of necessity, the most of the quaint sayings are the same as will be found in them. Some of my sentences are quite new, and more are put into a fresh form. The careful omission of all that are questionable as to purity has been my aim; but should any one of them, unknown to me, have another meaning than I have seen in it, I cannot help it, and must trust the reader to accept the best and purest sense which it bears; for that is what it meant to me. It is a pity that the sale of a proverb should ever be unsavory; but, beyond doubt, in several of the best collections, there are very questionable ones, which ought to be forgotten. It is better to select than indiscriminately to collect. An old saying which is not clean ought not to be preserved because of its age; but it should, for that reason, be the more readily dropped, since it must have done harm enough already, and the sooner the old, rottenness is buried the better. My homely notes are made up, as a rule, of other proverbial expressions. They are intended to give hints as to how the proverbs may be used by those who are willing to flavor their speech with them. I may not, in every case, have hit upon the first meaning of the maxims: possibly, in some instances, the sense which I have put upon them may not be the general one; but the meanings given are such as they may bear without a twist, and such as commended themselves to me for general usefulness. The antiquary has not been the guide in this case; but the moralist and the Christian. From what sources I have gleaned these proverbs it is impossible for me to tell. They have been jotted down as they were met with. Having become common property, it is not easy to find out their original proprietors. If I knew where I found a pithy sentence, I would acknowledge the source most freely; but the gleanings of years, in innumerable fields, cannot now be traced to this literary estate or to that. In the mass, I confess that almost everything in these books is borrowed — from cyclopedia’s of proverbs, “garlands,” almanacs, books, newspapers, magazines — from anywhere and everywhere. A few proverbs I may myself have made, though even this is difficult; but, from the necessity of the case, sentences which have become proverbs are things to be quoted, and not to be invented.

Martin Gardner, author of numerous books on science, mathematics, and pseudo-science, has assembled thirty-four extraordinary essays by eminent philosophers, scientists, and writers on the fundamental aspects of modern science. As Gardner makes clear in his preface to the formerly titled Sacred Beetle and Other Great Essays in Science, his intent is not to teach the reader science or to report on the latest trends and discoveries. "Rather, the purpose of this book is to spread before the reader, whether his or her interest in science be passionate or mild, a sumptuous feast of great writing - absorbing, thought-disturbing pieces that have something to say about science and say it forcibly and well." Gardner's entertaining biographical commentaries make Great Essays in Science a rich store of good reading and an informal history of the people and ideas that have shaped our culture and transformed our everyday lives. This collection includes works by Isaac Asimov, Rachel Carson, Charles Darwin, John Dewey, Albert Einstein, Jean Henri Fabre, Sigmund Freud, Stephen Jay Gould, Aldous Huxley, Julian Huxley, William James, Ernest Nagel, Bertrand Russell, Carl Sagan, Lewis Thomas, H.G. Wells, and others.

Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, has come to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. His debilitating malaise is drinking, an activity that has overshadowed his life. On the most fateful day of the consul's life--the Day of the Dead, 1938--his wife, Yvonne, arrives in Quauhnahuac, inspired by a vision of life together away from Mexico and the circumstances that have driven their relationship to the brink of collapse. She is determined to rescue Firmin and their failing marriage, but her mission is further complicated by the presence of Hugh, the consul's half brother, and Jacques, a childhood friend. The events of this one significant day unfold against an unforgettable backdrop of a Mexico at once magical and diabolical. Under the Volcano remains one of literature's most powerful and lyrical statements on the human condition, and a brilliant portrayal of one man's constant struggle against the elemental forces that threaten to destroy him.