The Sopranos are back: out of school and out in the world, gathered in Gatwick to plan a super-cheap last-minute holiday reunion. Pitch perfect, darkly comic and brimming with life - in all its squalor, rage, tears and laughter - this is an unforgettable story of female friendship. Longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize.
'An extraordinary book which takes the reader into a world of obsession and mystery...The Folding Star is lit by insight and humour' Evening StandardEdward Manners - thirty three and disaffected - escapes to a Flemish city in search of a new life.
A funny story of a boy growing into a man who then realizes he has only begun to grow. This book presents the story of turning points in his life, events that would make him what he is - if only he could survive them. It is filled with curiosity about nature, good humour and honesty.
(And what does that even mean?) Here, Alda listens in on things he's heard himself saying at critical points in his life - from the turbulence of the 60s, to his first Broadway show, to the birth of his children, and to the ache of September 11.
'What is remarkable about Alan Ayckbourn's comedy is that it contrives to be simultaneously hilarious and harrowing. The settings are simple - a kitchen, a bedroom, a party - but the relationships between the husbands and wives are more complicated.
In the midst of this he carved out twenty minutesâ?? practice a day â?? even if that meant practising in a Libyan hotel in the middle of a revolution as well as gaining insights and advice from an array of legendary pianists, theorists, historians and neuroscientists, and even occasionally from secretaries of state.
In this extraordinary memoir we look at Africa's wonders through the eyes of a visionary, live through hair-raising adventure and personal sorrow, and also bear witness to a natural world now largely lost from view.
An aircrash investigator haunts the hinterlands of an island. A woman makes landfall on the island, and DJ Cormorant is trying to organise a rave on the adjacent airstrip. This work features twisted characters - The Arganout, the Knife Sharpener, The Devil's Advocate and others - converging for one final Saturday night at the Drome Hotel.
The Hekes are a family in turmoil. A tyrannical, alcoholic, violent patriarch, an alcoholic, ever-trying-to-reform mother, and three degenerate children. Can the draw Maori ritual and tradition pull them back from the brink?
It is 1974 and Nicolas Kraven, lecturer in English Literature at Mosholu College in the Bronx, is adrift upon a sea of troubles: his affair with his neighbour's wife threatens to progress from Thursday night to permanence;
A classic work of love and hope, courage, and endurance, born of the dignity of man. Now a Vintage Classic. Over 50 years after its creation, this is the classic narrative on racial tension in South Africa. In the city of Johannesburg a father seeks his delinquent son; his search takes him through a labyrinth of murder, prostitution, racial hatred and, ultimately, reconciliation.
The author, one of the world's foremost cosmologists, sets out to answer the vexed question surrounding the Big Bang Theory: if matter can neither be created nor destroyed, how could so much matter arise from nothing? This is the story of Guth's quest to understand the origins of the universe.
The extensive additions, and the inclusion of a new chapter, has made this classic work by Jeffrey, now joined by co-author Dr. H.H. Dai, an even more essential reference for researchers and students in applied mathematics, engineering, and physics. It provides quick access to important formulas, relationships between functions, and mathematical techniques that range from matrix theory and integrals of commonly occurring functions to vector calculus, ordinary and partial differential equations, special functions, Fourier series, orthogonal polynomials, and Laplace and Fourier transforms. During the preparation of this edition full advantage was taken of the recently updated seventh edition of Gradshteyn and Ryzhik’s Table of Integrals, Series, and Products and other important reference works. Suggestions from users of the third edition of the Handbook have resulted in the expansion of many sections, and because of the relevance to boundary value problems for the Laplace equation in the plane, a new chapter on conformal mapping, has been added, complete with an atlas of useful mappings.
This comprehensive and state-of-the art approach to video processing gives engineers and students a comprehensive introduction and includes full coverage of key applications: wireless video, video networks, video indexing and retrieval and use of video in speech processing. Containing all the essential methods in video processing alongside the latest standards, it is a complete resource for the professional engineer, researcher and graduate student. Numerous conceptual and numerical examples All the latest standards are thoroughly covered: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264 and AVC Coverage of the latest techniques in video security "Like its sister volume "The Essential Guide to Image Processing," Professor Bovik’s Essential Guide to Video Processing provides a timely and comprehensive survey, with contributions from leading researchers in the area. Highly recommended for everyone with an interest in this fascinating and fast-moving field." —Prof. Bernd Girod, Stanford University, USA
Virtual Reality systems enable organizations to cut costs and time, maintain financial and organizational control over the development process, digitally evaluate products before having them created, and allow for greater creative exploration. In this book, VR developers Alan Craig, William Sherman, and Jeffrey Will examine a comprehensive collection of current,unique, and foundational VR applications in a multitude of fields, such as business, science, medicine, art, entertainment, and public safety among others. An insider’s view of what works, what doesn’t work, and why, Developing Virtual Reality Applications explores core technical information and background theory as well as the evolution of key applications from their genesis to their most current form. Developmental techniques are cross-referenced between different applications linking information to describe overall VR trends and fundamental best practices. This synergy, coupled with the most up to date research being conducted, provides a hands-on guide for building applications, and an enhanced, panoramic view of VR development. Developing Virtual Reality Applications is an indispensable one-stop reference for anyone working in this burgeoning field.
This book is written to meet the needs of undergraduates in applied mathematics, physics and engineering studying partial differential equations. It is a more modern, comprehensive treatment intended for students who need more than the purely numerical solutions provided by programs like the MATLAB PDE Toolbox, and those obtained by the method of separation of variables, which is usually the only theoretical approach found in the majority of elementary textbooks. This will fill a need in the market for a more modern text for future working engineers, and one that students can read and understand much more easily than those currently on the market.
Human Population Genetics and Genomics provides researchers/students with knowledge on population genetics and relevant statistical approaches to help them become more effective users of modern genetic, genomic and statistical tools. In-depth chapters offer thorough discussions of systems of mating, genetic drift, gene flow and subdivided populations, human population history, genotype and phenotype, detecting selection, units and targets of natural selection, adaptation to temporally and spatially variable environments, selection in age-structured populations, and genomics and society. As human genetics and genomics research often employs tools and approaches derived from population genetics, this book helps users understand the basic principles of these tools. In addition, studies often employ statistical approaches and analysis, so an understanding of basic statistical theory is also needed.
This book presents an in-depth discussion of the biological and ecological geography of the oceans. It synthesizes locally restricted studies of the ocean to generate a global geography of the vast marine world.Based on patterns of algal ecology, the book divides the ocean into four primary compartments, which are then subdivided into secondary compartments.
Graphics Gems V is the newest volume in The Graphics Gems Series. It is intended to provide the graphics community with a set of practical tools for implementing new ideas and techniques, and to offer working solutions to real programming problems. These tools are written by a wide variety of graphics programmers from industry, academia, and research. The books in the series have become essential, time-saving tools for many programmers.
The Third Edition of Chromatin: Structure and Function brings the reader up-to-date with the remarkable progress in chromatin research over the past three years. It has been extensively rewritten to cover new material on chromatin remodeling, histone modification, nuclear compartmentalization, DNA methylation, and transcriptional co-activators and co-repressors. The book is written in a clear and concise fashion, with 60 new illustrations. Chromatin: Structure and Function provides the reader with a concise and coherent account of the nature, structure, and assembly of chromatin and its active involvement in the processes of DNA transcription, replication and repair. This book consistently interrelates the structure of eukaryotic DNA with the nuclear processes it undergoes, and will be essential reading for students and molecular biologists who want to really understand how DNA works.
