Tom likes fooling around and is rather good at it, much to the annoyance of his Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong. So one day this fearsome lady decides to teach Tom a lesson and summons Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen to play womble, muck and sneedball. Can it possibly end well for all concerned?

‘Walker is my name and I am the same. Riddley Walker. Walking my riddels where ever theyve took me and walking them now on this paper the same. There aint that many sir prizes in life if you take noatis of every thing. Every time will have its happenings out and every place the same. Thats why I finely come to writing all this down. Thinking on what the idear of us myt be. Thinking on that thing whats in us lorn and loan and oansome.’ Composed in an English which has never been spoken and laced with a storytelling tradition that predates the written word, RIDDLEY WALKER is the world waiting for us at the bitter end of the nuclear road. It is desolate, dangerous and harrowing, and a modern masterpiece.

A story that could only have come from the imagination of Russell Hoban! Brought vividly to life by picture book great, Quentin Blake.This story begins with an ice-lolly stick. Its sweetness gone, it lies discarded and lonely ... until a little girl called Rosie comes along. She places it carefully in her cigar box, full of other sticks. "Without our ice-lollies we are nothing," says an old stick. But new stick wants to BE something and into the minds of all the old sticks, he plants dreams ... maybe they can be something, too. What about Rosie and her dreams that night? She dreams of helping her parents pay the bills. And so, at the stroke of midnight, magic and dreams collide and a HORSE gallops out of the cigar box! His name is Stickerino. "Where to?" he asks Rosie. "Anywhere with treasure!" she answers and hops on its back. Then begins an adventure like no other ... ice-lolly mountains by the sea, caskets of gold, and pirates foiled by a stickling ice-cream van...

Who but Russell Hoban could weave a tale of life’s pleasures and pain around a candy pig? And who but Quentin Blake could make the most poignant of stories so lighthearted and delightful? In this episodic picture book by an inimitable author-illustrator duo, a fantastic chain of events is triggered by the unacknowledged fall of a marzipan pig behind the sofa. We meet in quick succession a heartsick mouse, a lonely grandfather clock, an owl in love with a taxi meter, a worker bee, a fading hibiscus flower, a mouse who greets the dawn dancing, and finally a boy who guesses at the true relations between things. Appealing to the unsentimental yet sensitive nature of children, The Marzipan Pig is exquisitely attuned to the bittersweet wonder of life and to the sentience of all beings.

Captain Najork has never quite got over the time that Tom beat him and his hired sportsmen at womble, muck and sneedball, so when he sees Tom hurtle past his window in a two-seater jam powered frog, he sets off in hot pursuit.

Class-tested and coherent, this textbook teaches classical and web information retrieval, including web search and the related areas of text classification and text clustering from basic concepts. It gives an up-to-date treatment of all aspects of the design and implementation of systems for gathering, indexing, and searching documents; methods for evaluating systems; and an introduction to the use of machine learning methods on text collections. All the important ideas are explained using examples and figures, making it perfect for introductory courses in information retrieval for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in computer science. Based on feedback from extensive classroom experience, the book has been carefully structured in order to make teaching more natural and effective. Slides and additional exercises (with solutions for lecturers) are also available through the book's supporting website to help course instructors prepare their lectures.

When the car her uncle gave her loses parts all over the road, Mrs. Armitage takes it in stride, but a gang of friendly motorcyclists is impressed with the results.

'This table,' said the man. 'What about the table?' said the woman. 'It's wearing me out,' said the man. What to do? The man makes a decision. He finds a tablewood tree, cuts it down, saws it up and makes a new table. There's nothing like a new table. This one is strong enough for elephants to dance on! But. 'Where would we get the elephants?' said the woman. 'Advertise in the Classified Section,' said the man. 'Elephants wanted for table work. Must be agile.' It looks as if the man and the woman might need some more tables! 'We could open a restaurant,' said the man. A restaurant with dancing elephants - where will it all lead?

Frances doesn't think her little sister, Gloria, can be her friend. But when Frances's friend Albert has a no-girls baseball game, Frances shows him a thing or two about friendship—and a thing or two about what girls can do. Along the way, Frances discovers that sisters can indeed be friends . . . maybe even best friends.