“A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.” – Neil Gaiman
Our Subject Leader for Reading is Mrs Murray.
Approaches to Reading at Fishburn Primary:
At Fishburn, we recognise that the skill of reading is fundamental to every day life. We give Reading the highest priority throughout our curriculum and our school day. To reflect out commitment to our children learning to read, we have based our whole school curriculum on a comprehensive reading spine upon which all of our wider curriculum topics are built. Our Reading Spine contains high quality progressive texts that children will encounter during their time with us.
A copy of our reading spine for each phase in school can be found below:
READING SPINE 2022 – 2023
Whole School Poetry Spine: Poetry Spine – updated 03.08.22
Pre-school Reading Spine: Pre-school_Reading Spine_2022_2023.docx
EYFS Reading Spine: EYFS_Reading Spine_2022_2023.docx
KS1 & KS2 Reading Spine: KS1 & KS2 Reading Spine_2022_2023.docx
In addition to our comprehensive reading spine, we have also put together a programme of reading across our school. This programme clearly outlines exactly what is on offer at Fishburn Primary and how we ensure that reading is given a high platform.
The teaching of reading skills develop as children move through school. Please take a look at the additional key stage information below to further explain what reading looks like in our school.
Early Years Foundation Stage (Pre-school, Nursery and Reception)
Reading begins in EYFS where children are introduced to Essential Letters and Sounds which is a daily systematic phonics programme. Children begin to read books which are based on their phonics knowledge and high frequency words that they have been taught. Books are taken home regularly. Children are encouraged to share books at home with their family members. When children are ready, they begin to take home reading book based on their phonics knowledge and ability.
Reading has an integral part of the Early Years Curriculum and children have opportunities to look at books in the book corner, hear adults read to them regularly and develop their individual interests through the reading curriculum.
Key Stage One (Year 1 and 2)
In Key Stage One, children continue to work on Essential Letters and Sounds. This takes place across every morning and on occasion an afternoon too where children are taught as a whole class by teacher. Immediate intervention can then take place in order to support children who may be struggling with their phonic knowledge.
At the end of year one, children complete the National phonics screening check to assess their phonics knowledge. Children who do not reach the required standard complete a screening check in year two. All children continue their phonics journey until the end of the Essential Letters and Sounds programme.
Reading is overtly taught in both English lessons and across the curriculum, with teaching staff modelling how to read a wide variety of texts which children will work with.
In KS1 children will have a daily phonics session, a daily VIPERS session and a daily guided reading session. Each opportunity gives teachers the chance to hear reading, discuss new words, spelling patterns and check children’s understanding of the text.
The ‘VIPERS’ approach to further enhance children’s reading skills so that they are able to:
- Infer and deduce.
In KS1, children also have access to reading books which are taken home accompanied by a Reading Record book, which gives children and parents/carers a chance to write about the book and add any extra comments which they think are necessary.
We predominantly use the Oxford Reading Tree as a scheme but this is supplemented by many other books which have been levelled by staff. Children also have access to many online E books which they can also share at home with their parents. All of our children are aware of what reading level they are on and also which is the next level they aspire to.
Reading progress is assessed regularly both through hearing children read and through a termly assessment from NTS to inform teachers if extra support may be needed or if children need additional challenge in their reading journey.
In addition to our reading spine, Key Stage one pupils develop their phonic and early reading skills using Essential Letters and Sounds, to find out more about this scheme please visit our ‘Phonics’ page.
Key stage Two – Year 3, 4, 5 & 6.
Our older children are expected to read at home at least four times a week and to write two reading comments and a reading challenge comment in their reading record. A signature or comment from a parent or carer is also encouraged.
Phonics programmes remain in place for children who did not reach the standard in the phonics screening check in Year 2. Each class also has a list of priority readers. Priority readers are children who are not reading confidently or fluently. These children read daily with an adult. Some children are placed in small reading groups to develop their decoding skills, fluency and confidence.’
VIPERS sessions are taught each day in Key Stage 2 – allowing children to practice their reading skills each day.
Children carry out reading tasks through other lessons, including reading a range of different genres of fiction and non-fiction texts. Children answer reading comprehensions about these, annotate and highlight texts and read individually, in pairs and as a whole class.
Teachers have a class book and this is shared and discussed together during story time. Each class also has a reading corner, where reading is promoted. Within this corner, there is a recommended read section, where children can recommend their book to other children in the class.
Each class completes a reading assessment at the end of each term and this is recorded as a comprehension age and whether the child is at the expected level. The ages are also tracked against the pupil’s chronological age and compared against the pupil’s age. This is to ensure progress is continuing to be made. If the pupil needs more support, immediate intervention is given, often in small group support.
Key Stage two pupils study whole class novels as well as having access to banded books to build on their accuracy and fluency in reading.
Pupils have opportunities to undertake guided, shared and independent reading throughout the school day and in extra-curricular time. Children read in breakfast and after school club, take part in book clubs and have strong links with authors who we write to and have Skype conversations with.
Reading skills will be taught early in the Autumn term and revisited often throughout the remainder of the year, according to the ability of the child. Shared class novels are also used in each class and children are able to develop stamina for reading as well as the full range of reading skills.
If you would like to know more about our approaches to the teaching of reading in school please speak with your child’s class teacher.


Third Episcopal District of the A.M.E. Church
Bishop McKinley Young
The African Methodist Episcopal Church was born Sunday, November 4, 1787. Richard Allen,
Absalom Jones and other persons of color walked out of St. George Methodist Church because
of racism and organized Bethel Church at 6th and Lombard Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In 1816, the African Methodist Episcopal Church was incorporated and Richard Allen was the
first elected and consecrated bishop during the first General Conference.
As early as 1822 a debate arose in the Baltimore Annual Conference relative to the Western
Territories, and the Annual Conference under whose jurisdiction they should be placed. The
record refers to it as “the country west of the Allegheny Mountains.” The record is silent as
to whether at this time there were African Methodist Societies in any part of this vast territory.
In 1824 the Philadelphia Annual Conference included five churches in Western Pennsylvania
and six in Ohio, one of which was in Cincinnati.
By the meeting of the third General Conference of 1824 the missionaries had made their way across the mountains into the valley of the Monongahela. The mighty leaders were none other
than the same Boggs, William Paul Quinn, and John Charleston. Quinn’s labors carried him through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. He is to African Methodism what Peter Cartwright was to Methodism in the frontier period of the Church. John Boggs left his footprints in Ohio, and nearly five hundred miles beyond the western spur of the Alleghenies. In 1823 only seven years after the Philadelphia Convention, the advancing missionaries had founded the church at Steubenville, Ohio. By February 1824, Moses Freeman had established what is now Allen Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church in Cincinnati.
John Charleston, another Virginian, by his evangelistic and pioneering endeavors, entered the Ohio country and left a record of heroic Christian service that will stand out more gloriously with the flight of time. He was the first convert of an American Sunday School, organized by Francis Asbury in Hanover County, Virginia. This was in 1786. As a boy, Charleston came to Ohio and lived in Chillicothe, where he was a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. When the missionaries entered the territory to establish the African Methodist Episcopal Church, he was one of the first to join, and was commissioned to work. He co-labored with John Boggs, Noah Cannon, and William Miller. [...]
Continue Reading about the Third Episcopal District


Unfortunately, there's no easy way to get out of iPhoto, be it for Lightroom, Picasa, or whatever... There's no simple way to export all of your events into nice subfolders! So I built my own way out!
I created a python script that reads the data from iPhoto, and uses it to create a tree structure with year/name_of_event and all the photos inside. Here's a screenshot of the script running:
To use the script, download it from here, and execute it via the terminal using:
python iphoto-to-folders.py [AlbumData.xml] [destinationDir]
[AlbumData.xml] is a file inside your iPhoto library, and can usually be located at ~/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library/AlbumData.xml
[destinationDir] is the folder where you want your photos to be copied to.
A couple of notes about the script:
- It only copies the original versions of the photos. Changes you made in iPhoto are not copied.
- It copies all the files from your iPhoto library, so it needs quite a bit of disk space.
- It may take some time to run. To copy my 25.000 photos it took 1.5 hours
- It's not supposed to mess with your iPhoto library, but do make backups!
- It has no warranty whatsoever!
- It's supposed to be tweaked! If you're comfortable with python, adapt the script to your needs.
If you have any questions or spot some problems, please submit them here. And be sure to leave a comment telling me how the script worked for you!


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Whenever somebody does something well, I tend to get excited. Shawn Hesketh and the videos of WP101 are an example, and for anyone new to WordPress, these videos will help you learn. WPTuts+ has helped bring them to anyone for no cost to the viewer.
WPTuts+ Basix Training
Although the WP101 Video Library is reserved for monthly subscribers, WPTuts+ has purchased the same set from WP101 and is sharing it in their WP101 Basix Training. You can watch and learn from all 17 videos for free. Check it out.


Приложения с тегом "truecrypt"
|EncFS||EncFS provides an encrypted filesystem in user-space. It runs without any special permissions and uses the FUSE library and Linux kernel module to provide the filesystem interface.…|
|Cryptonite||Cryptonite brings EncFS and TrueCrypt to Android. You can browse, export and open EncFS-encrypted directories and files on your Dropbox and on your phone. On rooted phones that support FUSE (e.g.…|
|TCHunt||TCHunt - Finding TrueCrypt volumes since 2007. …|


The media center is the hub of South Dade Senior High School. Its purpose is to provide an inviting environment for the discovery, exchange, and advancement of idea. The goal of the staff is to provide direct assistance and learning opportunities that encourage educational and personal growth. The media center provides convenient access to information resources as well as recreational enrichment that will stimulate interest and appreciation for reading and learning. The Media Center is open before, during, and after school. It offers books, periodicals, Miami Herald Digital, Professional Collections, Internet Access, DVDs, E-Books, Multimedia Equipment and Online Public Catalogs.
M-DCPS’ online “card” catalog. Use it to search for books in Miami-Dade County Public Schools libraries.
E-Books / Mackin VIA
User Id: Southdade
Build Networked CurationBagTheWeb helps users curate Web content. For any topic, you can create a “bag” to collect, publish, and share any content from the Web.Beyond most curation tools’ capability, BagTheWeb enables users to build networks of bags. This way bags can be linked together to provide rich and complete information about any topic.
Bibliography Maker – Build a bibliography or works cited page the easy way.
My Saved Bibliographies
BibMe is a free automatic citation creator that supports MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian formatting. BibMe leverages external databases to quickly fill citation information for you. BibMe will then format the citation information and compile a bibliography according to the guidelines of the style manuals. If you prefer, you can enter your citation information manually. BibMe also features a citation guide that provides students with the style manuals’ guidelines for citing references. The fully automatic bibliography maker that auto-fills. It’s the easiest way to build a works cited page. And it’s free.
The Free Automatic Bibliography and Citation Maker
About us – EasyBib is an intuitive information literacy platform that provides citation, note taking, and research tools that are easy-to-use and educational. EasyBib is not only accurate, fast, and comprehensive, but helps educators teach and students learn how to become effective and organized researchers.EasyBib is a service of ImagineEasy Solutions, a tiny company that makes big products. Learn more about us here.
Express yourself with the ultimate Glog(TM) – graphic blog. Mix Web, Images, Text, Music and Video. Create your Glogster account today and publish in a new way.
What is Glogster EDUGlogster EDU is the leading global education platform for the creative expression of knowledge and skills in the classroom and beyond. We empower educators and students with the technology to create GLOGS – online multimedia posters – with text, photos, videos, graphics, sounds, drawings, data attachments and more.
The Khan Academy is a non-profit organization with the vision of educating the global community by providing free videos encompassing various topics in K-12 Mathematics, Science, Financial & Economics, and Humanities. Mr. Sal Khan created the company to share his mission to deliver “world-class education” to students of all ages. His website hosts over 3,200 lessons he refers to as digestible chucks that last no more than 10 minutes. Students can have access to a library of topics with interactive challenges and assessments. Khan Academy staff invites you to join the millions of other students all over the world that use Khan Academy to learn every single day at their own pace.
|Kobo (One million FREE e-books)|
Read On with Kobo
With Kobo, eReading couldn’t be easier – our goal is to bring you the eBooks you are looking for, help you purchase them quickly and get you reading right away – anytime, anyplace, on any device.
For instance, did you know that with Kobo, you can browse, search, buy and read your favorite eBooks on just about any device you choose – from select Smartphones, tablets, computers, eReaders and more.
A BETTER WAY TO START LIBRARY RESEARCHAre your patrons using Google and Wikipedia when doing library research? Introduce them to LibGuides – the librarian created portals to high quality research information. You, the librarian, are the key to successful research. Nobody knows research better! With LibGuides you help patrons find the stuff they need and show them information they didn’t even know existed. LibGuides’ flexibility and ease of use empowers librarians of any technical skill level to quickly and effortlessly create content-rich, web 2.0 multimedia guides.
Online Binders for Organizing and Presenting your ResourcesIf you’re like us, you’ve used ‘creative’ tactics to keep track of all your web links, either through email, word documents or endless lists in your browser bookmarks folder. It’s hard to put a group of URLs together in any meaningful format – where’s the context? And sharing is cumbersome for everyone – the sender and the receiver. Have you ever looked through your bookmarks list and forgotten what they are all for?Making Them Useful, One LiveBinder at a Time!We created LiveBinders so that you could do with digital information what you do with the piles of papers on your desk – organize them into nice presentable containers – like 3-ring binders on your shelf.
Paper.li is a content curation service. It enables people to publish newspapers based on topics they like and treat their readers to fresh news, daily.We believe that people (and not machines) are the ones qualified to curate the content that matters most. We also think that these same people can greatly help their own communities to find their way through this “massive content world” we live in. We’re here to help!Every day, around the world, millions of articles are featured on Paper.lis, benefiting millions of readers. We are just at the beginning of an exciting new adventure and we think we’re on to something good.
What is Pearltrees? Pearltrees is your visual and collaborative library. It lets you collect, organize and share everything you like.
It is a library of your digital life where you can collect web pages, photos and notes about the things you like. Then you can organize them as you please and keep them at your finger tips. For example, if you like movies you could organize a pearltree about “cinema” to make it easy to relocate your favorite finds in your library with just a few clicks.
In addition, it’s social: you can discover millions of pearls organized by other people that share your interests. It’s ideal for enriching your library on any topic you care about.
Rescoop content from your followed topics. When you find a relevant article on one of the topics you follow that you’d also like to publish on yours, just click on the Rescoop button located at the top right of each article.
ShowMe is a global learning community – a place where anyone can learn or teach anything. Our mission is to connect great teachers and experts to students across the world.
Beautiful web-based timeline software TikiToki is a web app that makes it dead easy for people to create interactive multimedia timelines in their browsers. Images, text and even videos (YouTube, Vimeo and AVIs) can be embedded in TikiToki timelines. The timelines created by TikiToki can be shared with families, friends and business contacts, and if you haved signed up with one of our paid-for accounts, you can also embed your timelines on your own blog or website. To get an idea of what people are doing with TikiToki, we recommend that you take a look at these timelines that have been created by our users: The Live of Mary Kearns, The Fight for Democracy in the Middle East and Category Band Timeline.


I tell 3 quick tales in this video. The first involves the revision of an existing open textbook for Research Methods in Psychology (CC-BY-NC-SA), initially done quickly for my own students and then later revised again, this time much more thoroughly with a collaborator and for the BC Open Textbook project so that what was originally an older American textbook (that referred to US ethics laws, for example) is currently in its second Canadian edition.
The second tale is similar and involved a revision of an open textbook for Social Psychology, once again with a collaborator and for the BC Open Textbook Project. In this case we opted to create an “international edition” in order to maximize the reuse potential of the book across the world.
Both of these books have been adopted (and even adapted further) by faculty across the world, which is just fabulous to learn about.
The final story concerns a couple of course development projects for the OERu in which a colleague and I worked to build (really) open online courses for Research Methods and then Introductory Psychology, by drawing heavily on two open textbooks, the latter one from OpenStax.
- Review, Revise, Adopt. Rinse and Repeat. (Rajiv’s blog)
- https://opentextbc.ca/researchmethods/ (BC Open Textbook project)
- https://opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/ (BC Open Textbook project)
- Introduction to Research Methods In Psychology (OERu)
- Introduction to Psychology (OERu)
- Exactly What We Hoped Would Happen With Open Textbooks (Clint Lalonde)


Because I have never been one to travel around the country specifically to list birds, I hesitated more than a bit before purchasing a copy of Chasing Warblers by Bob and Vera Thorntona (1999; University of Texas Press; 156 pp; 1 site location map; 90 color photographs; $40.00 hardcover, $19.99 paperback). Even when a rarity shows up at Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge near my home, I usually hold no great hopes of actually finding the bird. So why would I be interested in reading a book about chasing warblers? I considered that if the book also contained detailed descriptions of the travel and adventure of tracking down each warbler species plus thoughtful commentary about being on the road in strange places, I would be satisfied. The book’s jacket promises as much and more, and the color photographs are irresistible and are, by themselves, probably worth the purchase price.
The first chapter, entitled “Wood Warblers,” presents a few unavoidable details on the methods and strategies used to photograph warblers, including equipment information. At the outset, I wondered about the Thorntons’ motivation for setting up the challenge for themselves of photographing all 52 warblers that regularly nest within the United States. It is not as if all of the species have not already been photographed. And there is nothing biologically meaningful about political boundaries. So the contribution to ornithology of realizing such a goal would seem small. Further into the book, though, the Thorntons explain that one day, after experiencing a warbler fallout at High Island, Texas, they simply thought it would be “fun” to see how many species of warblers they could photograph. Because I am not altogether against doing some things purely for fun (with certain behavioral constraints) I am willing to accept, without deeper explanation, the Thorntons’ motivation for embarking upon their project. The fun, in any case, would become a nine-year “quest” during the short breeding seasons when males would be in prime breeding plumage (and, hence, more attractive for photography, with females and fall birds not being of interest). Simply stated, then, Chasing Warblers tells the Thorntons’ story of how they photographed 52 species of warblers in the wild. And looking at their photographs was, I hate to admit, fun.
The warblers are presented in 13 chapters according to the order in which they were photographed, which works well for their overall story, but results in a general feeling of randomness and disorganization. Most birders and ornithologists probably feel more comfortable with species presented in phylogenetic order. Chapters are organized around general locations or nearby habitats where several species were photographed. In fact, presenting the birds by habitat type would have been a great way to emphasize the importance of habitat and the growing problem of habitat loss. For each species, a minimum amount of ecological information, such as habitat requirements and foraging habitats, is discussed.
Conservation issues are quickly mentioned in only a few instances, without a great deal of emphasis and usually without much passion. For example, when discussing the cerulean warbler, the authors mention the “decline of our river bottomlands as well as the accelerating deforestation of the Cerulean’s winter home” without really delving into the cause for the habitat losses. At Matagorda Island, off the Gulf Coast of Texas, the Thorntons look for tired, slowly moving warblers (easily photographed) that have just flown 600 miles across the Gulf of Mexico. They then digress briefly from warblers to mention the whooping cranes that overwinter in the area and the fact that the cranes “came within a flash of extinction,” but they never even hint at the cause for the crane’s decline. It also seems curious that after traveling all over the United States over a nine-year period, and surely encountering shocking examples of urban sprawl and highway development, the Thorntons fail to relate what they saw in terms of impact on bird habitats. The authors certainly are aware of such issues, because the book is dedicated to “the core principles of conservation and to those who are committed to preserving critical habitats….” And at the end of the final chapter, the Thorntons finally provide a strong word for conservation and environmental issues when they state that “…the more we observed, and the more we listened to others, the more firmly rooted has become our conviction that there is a real illness in the forests of the world and that our songbirds are clearly under siege.” This book could have been used to send a poignant, although rather depressing, environmental message; instead, it seems to be somewhat of a missed opportunity.
In general, the Thorntons seem reluctant to focus on negative issues. So it is all the more surprising that in the same chapter as the whooping crane reference, they state that Matagorda Island was once “…Karankawa Indian territory until their ultimate demise in the 1850s in an extinction just as complete as that of the Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, and Ivory-billed Woodpecker not that many years thereafter.” The sentence seems out of place; there was no other information provided; and Native American issues were never mentioned again. Several other longer digressions throughout the book (for example, the one-page discussion of Panamanian antbirds) apparently attempt to add depth to the narrative or local color to the story, but instead seem mostly out of place. At the same time, the Thorntons miss many opportunities to include detailed word-pictures of scenes encountered while tracking down warblers or traveling en route to new locations. Few curious encounters or humorous mishaps are mentioned, though some surely must have occurred—as any seasoned birder knows. A notable exception, however, is the circumstance in Virginia where a colorful local asks the authors if they are carrying a gun and then warns them about “snakes, wild boar, black bear, and escaped convicts.”
At any rate, while the book is somewhat lacking as a travel narrative, gives only rudimentary ecological information for each species, and fails, for the most part, to emphasize the important connection between a species and its habitat (discussions of the Kirtland’s and golden-cheeked warblers are two of the better exceptions), the color photographs are absolutely breathtaking and of the highest quality. I first picked up this book during the height of the spring migration, when I was seeing a variety of warblers every day, and experiencing the usual frustrations of attempting to see the small, quick birds high in leafed-out tree canopies. To even think about photographing such an ephemeral puff of energy seemed impossible. So in total amazement, before reading a word of the book, I immediately paged through every photograph. Later as I actually read the book, I even found myself getting caught up in the anticipation of the author finally photographing their last warbler (number 52, the Colima warbler of the southwest), much like observing the 100th species on a spring bird count.
So I grudgingly admit that birding is fun after all, and I had fun reading this book. Birders, especially the listing type, will enjoy this book. Beginning birders should find this book an inspiration. Those expecting a travel-birding story written in the tradition of Edwin Way Teale may be disappointed, although certain passages are somewhat reminiscent of Teale’s writings. Serious scientific types may be better off grabbing an issue of the Wilson Bulletin from their stack of unread scientific journals, unless, of course, they wish to be reminded of why they became interested in birds (not computers) in the first place. And that may not be such a bad thing…as I found out.
Review by Thomas V. Lerczak
a Text by Bob Thornton, photography by Bob and Vera Thornton.
[This review was originally published in Illinois Audubon magazine, Fall 2001 issue, Number298, pages 20-21.]


This card set features 45 Australian Animal cards and a 132-page comprehensive guidebook with corresponding messages for each card. The messages draw on ancient shamanic animal wisdom. The cards provide the modern seeker of wisdom with access to a wealth of traditional spiritual knowledge and understanding, in times past, accessible only to those who sought the advice of tribal elders or shamanic healers. In times past, it was not uncommon for a seeker of knowledge to request the advice of an Elder; someone skilled in the ability to commune with the energies of nature. Elders were seen as direct links between the people and Spirit, with their words held in high esteem. When questions were raised, the Elder would take up a small pouch, perhaps containing claws, teeth, whiskers, and bones of sacred animals which, after a quick shake, would be upended, the contents permitted to spill haphazardly onto the ground. Depending on where and how they fell, and the patterns they formed, the Elder would glean information relevant to the seeker by interpreting the messages offered by the animals represented by the claws and teeth.


This lecture describes how the building developed from a modest Georgian house to the present palace: from King George III’s purchase of a family home in 1762 to the creation of a remarkable palace by King George IV and John Nash in the 1820s to the royal residence used by Queen Victoria and monarchs ever since as the center of British court life and the glittering setting for thousands of official functions and state visits. The palace also contains hundreds of art treasures from the Royal Collection, including world famous paintings, furniture, sculpture, porcelain, clocks and other objects.
Oliver Everett is Librarian Emeritus of the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, where he was Librarian and Assistant Keeper of the Royal Archives from 1985 to 2002. He has written articles on the Royal Library, helped with several books on the Royal Collection, wrote the official guidebook on Windsor Castle and was advisor for a television series on it.
Kimbell Art Museum
3333 Camp Bowie Blvd. ,


Visual C++ and MFC for C++ Programmers
Course Code - GN-109 Duration - 5 Days
This course is suitable for developers who wish to create applications that exploit the benefits of object-oriented techniques using Visual C++ and the Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC). The course is highly practical and is intended to provide useful application code at the end of the course.
This course is for programmers who are already familiar with C++.
Introduction to Windows
The history of Windows and the architecture of the different Windows versions.
- The Microsoft Foundation Classes
- The Visual C++ Development
Environment and its wizardry
- What is provided by the MFC Class Library and its Document/View Architecture
Messages & Message Maps
- How Messages are handled in MFC
- Applications, including Menus, Dialogs and Toolbars
- The use of Class Wizard, and the MFC
- Class Hierarchy in more detail
Other MFC Features
This chapter explores MFC features not directly related to Windows such as collection classes and serialisation.
Scrolling & Splitting
A closer look at the Document/ View architecture including multiple document types and views and the use of scrolling and splitter windows.
- The dialog classes and architecture together with the data exchange and validation techniques provided by MFC and the Class Wizard
- Using Standard and Custom Controls
Graphics, Text & Printing
- Covers the Graphical Device Interface (GDI and the Class Wrappers and Member Functions provided, including Text Manipulation and Device Independent Printing.
Extending the Document/ View Architecture
- Creating Additional Child, Popup and Overlapped Windows
- Adding Additional Views and Documents
- Window Management
- Application Defined Messages
- Registering Unique Messages
- Sending and Posting Messages
- Extending the Message Map
The use of threads and processes in applications, including the use of a thread as an MFC object. Priorities, priority classes and the scheduler.
- Cut, Copy, Paste and the Clipboard
- ActiveX Automation, COM and DCOM
- Using and Writing Dynamic Link Libraries
- Initialization and Termination
- Thread Local Storage
- Open DataBase Connectivity (ODBC), Data
- Access Objects (DAO) and OLE DB
- The MFC Database Classes and Wizard support, and how these can be used to produce simple Form-Based Applications with no programmer effort as well as more sophisticated applications.
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Gail Omvedt, an anti-caste crusader, scholar and prolific writer who championed the reason for India’s marginalized communities and was a frontrunner within the nation’s feminist motion, died on Aug. 25 at her residence within the western state of Maharashtra. She was 80.
Her dying was confirmed by her daughter, Prachi Patankar, who didn’t specify a trigger.
Ms. Omvedt, whose dying was extensively reported within the Indian information media, was a sociologist who helped pioneer the research of caste techniques in South Asia, drawing wider consideration to the lives of the Dalits, the oppressed caste as soon as extra generally referred to as the untouchables.
She moved to India within the Seventies, taught at universities there and wrote greater than a dozen books, together with “Understanding Caste: From Buddha to Ambedkar And Past” and a biography of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the first writer of the Indian structure.
She was additionally a lifelong activist who selected to dwell amongst these she labored with and wrote about in Maharashtra, the second most populated state in India. She spoke flawless Marathi, the native language, and spent appreciable time doing work in poor communities preventing caste oppression in rural areas.
“She took me to areas unknown and launched me to Dalit actions new for me,” stated Ruth Manorama, the pinnacle of the nonprofit group Nationwide Federation of Dalit Ladies, referring to her fellow Dalits in India’s caste-based hierarchy. “She was the motivator, influencer, a terrific organizer and a scholar with no preconceived notions of her topic.”
Gail Marie Omvedt was born on Aug. 2, 1941, right into a Scandinavian immigrant household in Minneapolis. Her father, Jack, labored for years as a lawyer for Native People in Minnesota. Her mom, Dorothy, was a homemaker.
After graduating from Carleton Faculty in Minnesota, Ms. Omvedt obtained a Fulbright scholarship in 1963 to check rural communities in India. She went on to the College of California, Berkeley, the place she was energetic in political protests and earned a grasp’s diploma after which a Ph.D. in sociology. She returned to India in 1970 to proceed her analysis for her dissertation on the caste system.
Whereas there, she turned concerned in actions to mobilize hundreds of poorly paid textile mill employees and displaced farmers devastated by drought. Throughout one protest march she met Bharat Patankar, a longtime activist. They married in 1976.
Over time the couple performed an necessary function in bringing consideration to the Maharashtra area’s working class struggles, together with over ladies’s points and agricultural and environmental challenges in addition to caste system constraints.
Ms. Omvedt gave up her American citizenship and have become an Indian citizen in 1983. She started working together with her husband to ascertain Shramik Mukti Dal (Toilers’ Liberation League), a company credited with launching a few of the largest organized mass actions towards injustices skilled by employees in rural India.
By means of that group she launched quite a few feminist campaigns, serving to ladies who had been victims of home violence, for example, and people who had been deserted by their husbands and wanted to seek out sustainable work.
For many years, whereas primarily based at her residence in Kasegaon, a village in rural Maharashtra, Ms. Omvedt collected and translated the texts and work of figures within the anti-caste motion and documented the lives of these round her.
For these learning the caste system and identification politics in India, Ms. Omvedt was a key archivist, chronicler and interpreter, stated Ms. Manorama, the pinnacle of Dalit Ladies.
Along with her daughter, Ms. Omvedt is survived by her husband and a granddaughter.


Jack Johnson, the legendary boxer, was not just a man of fists but a man of history. His life was a dance between punches, race, and controversial fame. Often, the final blow of any celebrity’s tale is their exit from this world, and Johnson’s curtain call had an element of drama too. Let’s take you on a journey to understand the concluding chapter of Johnson’s life.
A Man of Firsts
Jack Johnson, born John Arthur Johnson in 1878, was the very first African American world heavyweight boxing champion. Holding this title from 1908 to 1915, Johnson’s life was a consistent punch against racial barriers. He wasn’t just fighting opponents in the ring; he was tackling societal expectations, bigotry, and prejudice.
Beyond The Ring: An Entangled Life
Though boxing was his mainstay, Johnson was a man of many interests and controversies. He lived flamboyantly, often rubbing society the wrong way, especially with his penchant for high-speed car races. But perhaps the biggest cloud that hung over his life was his relationships with white women during a time when interracial relationships were taboo. This led to a racially motivated conviction in 1913 under the Mann Act, which in turn caused him to flee the country for a period.
A Fast Life: The Climactic End
For a man who lived life in the fast lane, perhaps it’s no surprise that speed played a part in his demise. On June 10, 1946, Johnson, at the age of 68, met his untimely end. He was driving on U.S. Highway 1 near Franklinton, North Carolina, when he lost control of his speeding car. The vehicle hit a light pole, and the impact was severe. Jack Johnson, the boxer who withstood many a blow in the ring, couldn’t escape the knockout punch delivered by fate.
Some believe that Johnson’s love for speed and adrenaline played a role in the crash, but one can never really pinpoint the ‘why’ behind such accidents. All we know is that a legend met his end, leaving behind a legacy that’s hard to overshadow.
Legacy Beyond Death
Jack Johnson’s story didn’t end with that car crash. The repercussions of his Mann Act conviction, which many believe was unjust, continued to reverberate through time. In May 2018, after many advocates campaigned for his posthumous pardon, U.S. President Donald Trump granted it, marking a symbolic end to one of the many injustices faced by Johnson.
In the world of boxing and beyond, Johnson remains an icon. His life story, replete with moments of triumph, resilience, and controversy, serves as a reminder of the challenges faced by African Americans during his era. It also shines a light on the indomitable spirit of a man who refused to be cowed down by societal norms and prejudices.
Read More: The Greatest 5 Facts About Muhammad Ali


There were bestsellers before The Joy of Cooking and The DaVinci Code. In fact, America’s first bestseller was published in 1682 and was written by a woman.
The bestseller in question was not a romance novel or a how-to get married after 40 kind of affair. It was an honest-to-goodness account of being taken captive by the Narragansett Indians and being sold to the Wampanoag Indians in order to fund the Native side of King Philip’s War.
The captivity narrative tells of Mrs. Rowlandson eating tree bark broth (delicious!), traveling all over western Massachusetts, and naming her ransom price. Pretty ballsy if you ask me.


Hartalika Teej Vrat Katha/हरतालिका तीज व्रत कथा
- PujaBag brings Hartalika Teej Vrat Katha/हरतालिका तीज व्रत कथा
- Teej is a Hindu festival that is celebrated by women in many states of India.
- Haryali Teej and Hartalika Teej welcomes the monsoon season.
- Teej is celebrated primarily by girls and women, with songs, dancing and prayer rituals.
- Married and unmarried women, for the long life of their husband and to get a desire husband/Groom of their choice keep fasting for the day.
- For the First time this fast was kept by Goddess Parvati for Lord Shiva. The story of marriage of Lord Shiva and Parvati is heard in this fast.
- This Book contains the Procedure, Katha Or Story and Aarti of Teej.
- Hartalika Teej Vrat Katha/हरतालिका तीज व्रत कथा Book.


The guide is the result of joint efforts by pasture specialists from both governmental and non-governmental organizations, aimed at developing a methodology for monitoring and evaluating pastures.
Over a year ago, the Department of Pastures and Livestock Breeding of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Kyrgyz Republic (DPPLBR KR) initiated the provision of unified rules for managing and monitoring the condition of resources to all participants in the pasture process. The governmental body received support from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, while organizational and technical assistance was provided by the SAMR Alatoo Foundation.
To develop a unified methodology, an interdepartmental working group (IWG) was formed, consisting of representatives from DPPLBR KR, the SAMR Alatoo Foundation, the Forestry Service of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Scientific Research Institute of Livestock and Pastures (SRI LP KR), the State Project Institute for Land Management ("Kyrgyzgiprozem"), ARIS, and the Central Asian Institute for Land Management (CAILM).
During the work process, IWG members studied existing mechanisms for monitoring and assessing the condition of pastures and decided to base their approach on the transect method, adapted by the SAMR Alatoo Foundation.
Through discussion, an integrated approach emerged, which the authors, IWG members, characterized in the guide as a "simple method, requiring some measurements and calculations, and allowing to determine the percentage of pasture coverage by vegetation." They also recommended other methods for tracking and evaluating changes in vegetation cover, calculating pasture productivity, feed volumes, etc. Indicators for collecting, analyzing, and comparing these data are described. The information obtained must be documented in an "assessment sheet of pasture condition," included in the guide as an appendix, to facilitate record-keeping directly in the pasture. The authors do not exclude that, in practice, resource users may use several approaches for a more accurate and detailed result.
The content of the guide is presented sequentially, starting with an explanation of the purpose and objectives of monitoring and evaluating pastures, followed by the presentation of the plan and methods of their implementation, as well as the step-by-step process of monitoring and filling out the assessment sheet. Photographs and images complement the visual perception of information, and the language, devoid of specific terms, facilitates understanding.
The guide is intended for a wide range of resource users, including representatives of local self-government bodies, members of zhaiyt committees, farmers, and shepherds. Distribution of the guide is planned at various events involving local communities. The electronic version is available on the SAMR Alatoo Foundation's website in Russian and Kyrgyz languages under the "Publications" section.
Итоги пастбищного сезона 2018 года были подведены на очередном заседании районной пастбищной комиссии (РПК).More
The development of the unified method, "Monitoring Pastures at the Local Level," is nearing completion.More


Singing The Dots is partly a course in sightsinging, and partly a collection of songs for choirs.
Please help yourself to the PDFs. Thanks to the generous support of the Australian Kodály Scholarship, these books are available for free. They are free cost-wise and the copyright licence means the songs and resources are free for you to download, copy electronically or on paper, share, perform and record.
Many singers would like to be able to read music but it can be hard to find time, enthusiasm and suitable material to work on sightsinging. I created Singing The Dots, so choirs can develop musicianship skills together while singing songs.
There are sixteen songs for choirs, each containing a sightreadable melody, and harmony parts. The songs are composed for adults. The ranges are comfortable and I chose text of beautiful, well known poetry. The songs slowly introduce musical elements and tools for sightreading, with simple explanations and short, lighthearted exercises.
Singing The Dots is based on the highly successful Kodály approach, adapted to the needs of adult choristers.
Live Recordings Of The Songs
To record the songs for you, Soprano Bethany Hill, Tenor Hew Wagner, Baritone Emlyn O'Regan and I travelled to Kangaroo Island off the coast of South Australia for a camping weekend. We recorded in an unpowered tin shed, standing around a single battery powered H2N.


“He had no time for fiction that sought to be nauseating, but story after story demonstrates his willingness to be as frightening as possible Nor was his definition of the ghostly confined to revenants. His tales swarm with spiders either giant or multitudinous, immense, half-glimpsed insects, tentacled demons and even worse familiars to be found down wells, or most nightmarish of all, under your pillow”
(Ramsey Campbell in Fortean Times #292, September 2012)
Children are being invited to complete a previously unknown unfinished work by ghost story writer MR James to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth.
James, who was brought up in Suffolk and worked as a medieval scholar at Cambridge University, often featured East Anglian locations in his stories.
The competition, which is being organised by Suffolk Coast, will be judged by novelist Susan Hill. She is best known for her ghost novel The Woman in Black.
Titled The Game Of Bear, the unfinished story was discovered in the archives of King’s College, Cambridge.
The handwritten manuscript concerns the curious case of Henry Purdue, a man preyed upon by a sinister cousin who considers herself somehow wronged by the family.
More information on the BBC site.
Full story and details of how to enter at
“The peculiar genius of M. R. James, and his greatest power, lies in the convincing evocation of weird, malignant and preternatural phenomena such as I have instanced. It is safe to say that few writers, dead or living, have equaled him in this formidable necromancy and perhaps no one has excelled him.”
(Clark Ashton Smith – The Weird Works of M. R. James, 1934)
“M.R. James joins the brisk, the light, & the commonplace to the weird about as well as anyone could do it — but if another tried the same method, the chances would be ten to one against him. The most valuable element in him — as a model — is his way of weaving a horror into the every-day fabric of life & history — having it grow naturally out of the myriad conditions of an ordinary environment…”
(H. P. Lovecraft to Emil Petaja, 6 March 1935)


Story: Tribal organisation
Generations ago, canoes sailed by Māori ancestors set out from East Polynesia and landed in New Zealand. From these founding peoples came the iwi (tribes) that form the structure of Māori society. Within each iwi are many hapū (clans or descent groups), each of which is made up of one or more whānau (extended families). The bond that holds them together is one of kinship, both with a founding ancestor and with the many members of their iwi, hapū and whānau today.
Full story by Rāwiri Taonui
Main image: Early 20th century painting of a family preparing food together
The Short Story
A quick, easy summaryRead the Full Story
What are iwi and hapū?
The iwi (tribe) is the largest of the groups that form Māori society. Each iwi is made up of various hapū (clans or descent groups), which might have up to several hundred members. Traditionally, the main purposes of a hapū were to defend land, and to provide support for its members.
How iwi and hapū formed
Some tribal groups formed from links to the waka (canoe) on which their founding ancestor arrived in New Zealand from Hawaiki. For example, the Waikato tribes trace their descent from the Tainui waka. Others developed when the pressure on resources such as land and food became so great that some members had to move away and establish themselves elsewhere. War, migration and family infighting also caused new iwi or hapū to emerge.
Iwi and hapū are often named after an ancestor. For example, Ngāpuhi means ‘the people of Puhi’ and Te Uri-o-Rātā means ‘the descendants of Rātā’. Sometimes tribal names came from an important event that involved their ancestor, such as a battle.
Whānau – family
Each hapū is made up of whānau (extended families). Whānau included much-respected elders, adults, children and grandchildren. Everyone helped each other, working for the group and caring for each other’s children and the elderly.
Each hapū was made up of different-ranking members, headed by chiefs called ariki and rangatira. First-born females also had high status. Experts in areas such as history and tradition, carving and healing were called tohunga. There were commoners and sometimes captives or slaves in each hapū.
Changes after European contact
After New Zealand became a British colony, the way that iwi and hapū functioned began to change. When the government bought or confiscated Māori land in the 19th century, tribes were dispersed. From the mid-20th century, when many younger people moved to the cities for greater work opportunities, tribal power was diminished. From the late 20th century, however, tribal organisations have worked to reconnect people with their tribal origins.


Voting in the Ion Bank Foundation $60,000 Community Awards Program allows Ion Bank customers to vote for their favorite charity. Vote for Friends of the Library in Oxford as your favorite nonprofit at Ion Bank https://cap.ionbank.com/CAP/Vote.aspx?ID=112 today and help us get $25 for each voter before March 31st!
February and March Program Calendars!
The FOLIO-sponsored Adult Book Discussion program series “Murder They Wrote” will continue on Saturday, March 14 at 2pm with nonfiction title Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann.
The book investigates a series of murders of wealthy Osage people that took place in Osage County, Oklahoma in the early 1920s—after big oil deposits were discovered beneath their land. It presents detailed evidence of how the newly formed FBI started to track the mastermind behind it down.
Adult Book Discussion Group-Original
Join us Thursday February 20 6pm:
Flight of the Sparrow by Amy Belding Brown
Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1676. Even before Mary Rowlandson was captured by Indians on a winter day of violence and terror, she sometimes found herself in conflict with her rigid Puritan community. Based on a true narrative.
Coming Next Month: Educated by Tara Westover March 19.
Classics Book Club- Tuesday February 25 at 6pm: “Main Street” by Sinclair Lewis. Carol Milford is convinced by her new husband, Dr. Will Kennicott, to leave the city life to which she is accustomed. They relocate to his hometown of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, where she is taken aback by the little town’s backward ways and ugly appearance. She soon sets about to “improve” it.
Coming Next Month: This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald on March 24.
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Library of Congress has added this month the full-text archives of the Frederick Douglass Newspapers, from 1847 to 1874
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HEALTH: China – Coronavirus Outbreak
TOPIC: China is experiencing an outbreak of a new coronavirus, which began in Wuhan in Hubei Province. It has since spread to all regions of the country and to many other countries as well. The World Health Organization has declared a global health emergency due to its spread. What are the symptoms of this coronavirus and how is it spread? What public health measures has China taken and what do public health experts think about them? What other countries has it spread to and what measures have they taken? What is a global health emergency and what does it require countries to do?
SEARCH TERMS: China AND coronavirus
Governor Ned Lamont and Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz today announced they have launched an official State of Connecticut website for the 2020 U.S. Census. Accessible at ct.gov/census, the website provides the state’s residents with trustworthy and reliable resources about this year’s census and its impact on Connecticut, including information for completing the census, ways to get involved, events that are being held around the state, and opportunities for job openings with the census.
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Six books in January! Of the first six of the year, I only really recommend the last one, Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. But here are all of my recaplets:
1. The Lark and the Wren - Mercedes Lackey ***
Fiction/Fantasy, ©1991, 491p
Whenever I am at my parent's house for Christmas, I raid the shelves of books I purchased but never read. When I was in high school, I was very into fantasy novels. I still like them, but my tastes are much broader than they were then. Also, it takes a lot for me to see something really new, interesting, and grabbing. I read all of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books when I was in middle school and high school, so I guess I must have gotten the Bardic Voices quartet because of that. The first Bardic Voices novel is about Rune, a fiddler girl who works in the kitchens of an inn until she run away to become a proper bard. In order to do this, she fiddles all night for the Skull Hill Ghost to get enough money to run away. This first book seems more like a set up for the next three, as it lays the groundwork for the politics of this particular world. The writing was okay, but it seemed more like a book of short stories than a cohesive plot.
2. The Robin and the Kestrel - Mercedes Lackey ***
Fiction/Fantasy, ©1994, 384p
Book 2 of the Bardic Voices Quartet is about two of the characters introduced in the end of the first Bardic Voices novel. The political situation in the world disintegrated even more with the Church trying to ban non-Guild Bards from singing anywhere. They also are preaching against non-humans - that they have no souls and shouldn't be allowed in the various villages. Robin and Kestrel go up against one such Church man and uncover a long standing plot to cheat the poor the underprivileged. This book was extremely formulaic, though better really than the first one as it read like one cohesive story.
3. A Cast of Corbies - Mercedes Lackey and Joseph Sherman ***
Fiction/Fantasy, ©1994, 320p
Book 3 features Robin, yet a different free Bard. In this case, he and some of the other bards take up a position as the orchestra for a theater group. Once again, the church preaches against the theater as being immoral and violence ensues. Amdist the violence, two of the Free Bards find love. By the time I finished this book, I had the forumla down and was unsurprised by anything that happened.
4. Vanishing Acts - Jodi Picoult ***
Fiction/Contemporary, ©2005, 448p
I generally enjoy Jodi Picoult's books, but this one the worst of the ones I have read (My Sister's Keeper, Nineteen Minutes, The Pact). Vanishing Acts is about a woman who finds out that her father kidnapped her when she was only 4 years old. The kidnapping is discovered and it throws the entire family into turmoil. The book is largely about her father's trial and meeting her mother for the first time. Picoult simply tries to tackle too many Issues in this book - there are bits about the treatment of prisoners, drug use and trafficking, alcoholism, kidnapping, and even a little native american's rights and Hopi mysticism for good measure. As a result, the book is a little adrift in Issues and it's hard to really focus on one.
5. How to Be Good - Nick Hornby ****
Fiction/Contemporary, ©2002, 320p
I go back and forth on Nick Hornby. This is the fourth book of his that I have read (About A Boy, Slam, A Long Way Down are the others) and I mostly like it. Nick Hornby's strength is his ability to completely inhabit the thoughts, feelings and motivations of the character that he is voice. How To Be Good is about a woman in an unhappy marriage. Her husband, a formerly angry man, meets a faith healer and has a spiritual conversion. Most of the book is about the main character trying to find a way to deal with that and trying to decide whether or not she should stay in her family or get a divorce. I thought that How To Be Good was very funny and touching and the main character is very believable. I thought the ending was a bit of a downer and perhaps sends a slightly bad message to people, but overall I would recommend this one.
6. Infidel - Ayaan Hirsi Ali *****
Non-Fiction/Autobiography, ©2007, 353p
Seriously, you must read this book. This is the first selection for my new quasi-feminist women's book club and it was fantastic. It is the autobiography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an feminist who has written stories and even drafted legislation to empower women who have grown up in the Islamic religion. This book is fascinating on two levels. The first is the story of her life. She was born in Somalia and then moved to Saudi Arabia and Kenya due to the disintegration of the government in Somalia. She gives an unflinching account of her own circumcision. Eventually he father betroths her to a man she doesn't know and doesn't like, so she runs away to Holland where she is given status as a political refugee. From there, she learns Dutch and works her way through university and is even elected to Parliament. The second level of this book is her own personal struggle with Islam. She understands the Islamic religion and speaks about it frankly and candidly. She talks about the way that the Islamic relgion holds women back and breeds violent behavior. It is really, really fascinating. You must read it. Go out and buy it today. Read it. Love it. I predict that it will be one of my favorite books all year.


Vendredi 28 juin 2013 de 11h à 13h
Andreas Stokke (Umea University)
Lying, Misleading, and Questions under Discussion
This paper presents a way of understanding lying and misleading as discourse strategies and the difference between them as a difference in such strategies. In particular, I argue that the distinction between lying and merely misleading marks different strategies for addressing so-called questions under discussion. As opposed to accounts that attempt to capture the distinction by appealing to notions like 'what is said', this proposal sees the lying-misleaing distinction as discourse-sensitive. I argue that it thereby handles a number of counterexamples to saying-based approaches. This includes cases where 'what is said' is believed to be true and yet the utterance is seen as a lie due to the way it relates to a salient question. Other cases involve utterances in need of completion that succeed in being merely misleading by addressing a relevant question in particular ways.


The Best Travel Books of Summer 2017
Introducing the best travel books of summer 2017!
With summer well underway and the amount of beach days slowly dwindling, there’s no better time to crack open this season’s best literary newcomers. Even if you can’t squeeze a vacation in with the few remaining days, this reading list will do the job of whisking you away and make you feel as if you’ve traveled long and far. From conquering fears of the ocean deep to unmasking with the inner lives of India’s nouveau-riche, there’s a story for every type of traveler. For my 2016 list, click here.
DON’T FORGET TO ENTER MY ANNUAL BOOK GIVEAWAY!!!
IF YOU ARE INTO THE IDEA OF “MAKING IT”, TRY… THE WINDFALL BY DIKSHA BASU
It’s true what they say: “more money, more problems.” From new kid on the block Diksha Basu comes the heartwarming comedy of a lower middle-class Delhi couple who are bestowed with an unexpected fortune. They quickly trade in their shabby lifestyles for the luxuries of the upper crust, but soon realize that their newfound luck might not be so lucky after all. While dealing with the unforeseen consequences of their new economonic status on their marriage and friendships, the couple’s only son studying in New York is also having a difficult time navigating his place as an Indian in the globalized world with a forbidden love affair.
IF YOU’RE A FAN OF GASTROTOURISM, TRY… GRAPE, OLIVE, PIG: DEEP TRAVELS THROUGH SPAIN’S FOOD CULTURE BY MATT GOULDING
This summer, I discovered I’ll be headed on my first all-expenses paid trip to Barcelona with my new job. To do some research, I’m resorting to Grape, Olive, and Pig, the second title in an immersive new genre of food and travel writing cooked up Roads & Kingdoms co-founder Matt Goulding. This 368-page book is chockful of arresting photographs and meticulous writing that bring to life the tastes and aromas of Spain: from the sparkling wines of Basque country to the honeyed pastries of Salamanca. For anyone who has reduced Spanish cuisine to the mere trappings of paella and tapas, you’ll have a fresh new appreciation of this much overlooked Western European fare.
IF YOU’RE AFRAID OF WHAT’S LURKING UNDERNEATH, TRY… THE SHARK CLUB BY ANN KIDD TAYLOR
One fateful Florida day, young Maeve Donnelly experiences two things that will change the course of her life forever. First, she gets kissed by her crush Daniel, and then… gets bitten by a shark. The unexpected happens: instead of being completely traumatized, the incident fuels a lifelong obsession with the sea. Years later, now a world-renowned marine biologist, she returns home to the sandy shores of Florida where she encounters Daniel, her first love… but with her new romance, Nicholas, in tow. Forget the romance. Ann Kidd Taylor’s decadent descriptions of what lies beneath the water’s surface is what you’ll fall in love with.
IF YOU’RE INTO LEARNING ABOUT YOUR FAMILY HISTORY, TRY… THE BEST WE COULD DO: AN ILLUSTRATED MEMOIR BY THI BUI
Thi Bui’s searing debut captures the fears and the wistfulness of the immigrant experience so poignantly, you will feel your heart ache and swell throughout the sojourn. Across the pages, Bui recounts a life marred by loss as boat people having escaped the Fall of Saigon. In muted black and red inkwash, she expresses the pain of being reared by a hardened father and a loving, but distant, mother, tracing back through a series of unfortunate events that shaped her parents’ present day realities.
IF YOU’RE PRONE TO IMAGINING THE WORST CASE SCENARIO, TRY… DO NOT BECOME ALARMED BY MAILE MELOY
This is every vacationing parents’ worst nightmare come true. Thirtysomething cousins Liv and Nora plan a Central American family fun holiday for their spouses and young children. But their hopes for a dream vacation are soon destroyed when the kids disappear. While the adults succumb to despair and turn on one another, their children rely on newly discovered facilities in a desperate fight to stay alive. Suspenseful and fastpaced, the story hones in on how fragile and misplaced the American sense of security truly is.
IF YOU’RE A FAN OF PLOT TWISTS, TRY… BEAUTIFUL ANIMALS BY LAWRENCE OSBORNE
Bangkok-based travel writer Lawrence Osborne is back with another conversation on morality set against the backdrop of a Christmas faraway destination. His previous books have been set in Morocco, Cambodia, and France. The newest psychological thriller takes place on a sultry Greek island where two vacationing girls, Naomi and Samantha, discover a handsome stranger on the brink of death during their hike through the hills of Hydra. Faoud, a migrant from Syria and a casualty of the war ravaging his homeland, are taken in by the two innocent girls, but the well-meaning friends set into motion a cataclysmic chain of events.
IF BACKPACKING AROUND INDIA IS ON YOUR BUCKET LIST, TRY… THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS BY ARUNDHATI ROY
Twenty years after her bestselling debut The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy has returned with a sophomore triumph. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is a tender portrait of India, evinced by endearing characters across time and space. Not restricted to one location, Roy’s words will carry you across the Indian subcontinent where you will encounter army intelligence officers and hijras (India’s “third-sex”), children loved, and children lost. It’s a rich tapestry of the human experience woven together in one achingly hopeful love story.
IF YOU ARE FASCINATED BY THE SECRETS OF “CLOSED OFF” COUNTRIES, TRY… THE ACCUSATION: STORIES FROM INSIDE NORTH KOREA BY BANDI
Under the pseduonym “Bandi”, meaning Firefly, the author bravely pens fictional tales inspired by real world accounts under the North Korean dictatorship. Set during the Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il regimes, each of the seven short stories expose the brutality of the Communist nation upon the liberties of its people. From former war heroes to the citizens of the elite, at the heart of the every story is the terrible truth that no one is free from oppression, no matter their station. It is said that these manuscripts were smuggled on 750 sheets of paper for over eight years into South Korea. The author is believed to be still living in North Korea.
IF YOU LOVE A GOOD MYSTERY, TRY… SEANCE INFERNALE BY JONATHAN SKARITON
This might not be the typical “beach read” but if you’re a thrill seeker, the gritty, graphic writing of newcomer Skariton should keep you occupied. The historical fiction revolves around inventor Augustin Sekuler, who en route to Paris in 1890 to unveil his invention of the world’s first motion picture camera, vanished into thin air. The protagonist Alex Whitman, a movie memorabilia dealer, falls into a rabbit hole of madness and mayhem on his hunt for the mythical “Séance Infernale,” believed to be the first film ever made.
IF YOU HAVE AN AFFINITY FOR GETTING LOST, TRY… WATCH ME DISAPPEAR BY JANELLE BROWN
Putting a fresh spin on the overplayed-yet-irresistible Gone Girl plot, Watch Me Disappear centers around the tragic loss of Billie Flanagan, a beloved mother of two gone astray on a solo hike. The family she leaves behind struggles to cope: her daughter Olive retreats into herself, while her son Jonathan drowns his sorrows in cheap booze. But a year after their mother’s mysterious disappearance, Olive has a vision of her mother still very much alive, launching a search into her tumultuous past for answers of her present-day whereabouts.
IF YOU’RE FEELING A BIT LONELY, TRY… MEN WITHOUT WOMEN: STORIES BY HARUKI MURAKAMI
Surreal storyteller Haruki Murakami deconstructs the abstraction that is loneliness through seven short fictional tales centered around the inner worlds of men. Even though each piece is meant to stand alone, he is able to thread together his collection through the subtle repetiton, demonstrating that even in loneliness, there exists interconnectedness. For existentialists, this book will surely do you in as you contemplate the dichotomies of the universe: man versus woman, inner self versus outer self, and even the tug and pull of our personal microcosms against the external macrocosm.
IF YOU’RE BLUE ABOUT THE QUESTIONABLE STATE OF CUBAN TRAVEL, TRY… HAVANA: A SUBTROPICAL DELIRIUM BY MARK KURLANSKY
For the majority of my lifetime, Cuba has been off-limits to Americans thanks to decades’ worth of geopolitical tensions. President Barack Obama finally lifted the travel ban back in 2015, but it was recently overturned by the current Trump Administration. I’m finding solace from the tragic news through this gorgeous history of Havana, which chronicles 500 years of Caribbean capital’s history and unique identity influenced by different facets of its culture (musical, culinary, political) and external players like the Spanish, Russians, Africans, and Americans.
TWO LUCKY READERS WILL RECEIVE ANY BOOK OF THEIR CHOICE OFF THIS READING LIST. CONTEST ENDS FRIDAY, AUGUST 12TH AT midnight EST. WINNER TO BE ANNOUNCED THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY. ENTER NOW!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Open to all residents worldwide. Winner receives either a hard copy or an electronic edition of book, subject to availability and postal conditions. Multiple entries encouraged. Must be willing to offer valid mailing address to received hard copy. Prize is transferable. Cannot be exchanged for cash money. For any questions, please contact me here.
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Gary Smailes provides an excellent article on what it takes to bring a novel to the big screen.
It is my extreme pleasure and honor to host famed award-winning science fiction author John B. Rosenman on my blog.
If you like novels that are compelling where the implausible becomes believable, John will not disappoint. Though I’m not a reader of sci-fi, his books are so engrossing that I am now a fan of his work. If Rod Serling were alive today, I have no doubt that he would be clamoring to sign the rights to his books for a series or a feature film. John paints the page with vivid prose and puts the reader into another world of his creation—a world of living characters who pull the reader into their struggles and triumphs. I am pleased and fortunate to know such a talented author.
And now a few words from John:
John B. Rosenman – Sci-Fi and Speculative Fiction Writer
In 1953, when I was twelve, I sat in a theater watching “The War of the Worlds”. When the scene came in which three men were left alone with a smoldering meteor that started to unscrew, I got scared to death. What was in that meteor? What would it look like and do? It took all my courage to stay in my seat and not run.
Originally I wanted (implausibly) to be an opera star, but I think that movie, plus others like “Them!” and “The Thing,” influenced me to follow a more gruesome, otherworldly path. Also, I became addicted to horror comics such as “Tales From The Crypt.” Around this time, a friend introduced me to Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson, and I quickly devoured “The Martian Chronicles,” “The Illustrated Man,” “I Am Legend,” and “The Shrinking Man”. These books lived inside me, fired my imagination. I’ll never forget the episode in “Chronicles” in which Earthmen discover a town on Mars with all their dead loved ones WAITING FOR THEM. Besides enjoying such movies, comics, and books, I received Poe’s collected works from a family friend. Even better, was a birthday gift–a year’s subscription to the magazine “Amazing”!
All of these influences shaped my thinking and approach to writing. Two of my major themes are the endless, mind-stretching wonders of the universe and the limitless possibilities of transformation—sexual, cosmic, and otherwise. Thanks to the books and movies of my youth, these two themes continue to fascinate me and lead me to explore them again and again in various ways.
As for my writing method, here’s a question for my readers. Do I carefully plot my stories, taking care that every step and facet is meticulously planned in advance? Nope, I’m a pantser. I make it up on the fly, often not knowing what comes next until it arrives. Like Arthur Miller’s salesman, I wing it on “a smile and a shoeshine.” As for being a pantser, check out my attached blog: https://johnrosenman.com/?p=1312
What inspires me to write? Many things, far too many to mention. Let me give you just one. In the past, a local Barnes & Noble store fired my muse and provided inspiration for my stories. I’d stroll through it, see a book title here, a poster there and…bingo! A short story would sometimes leap full-grown into my head, sometimes out of nothing. I recall one time I saw a book titled The Calm Technique. At once another title burst into my brain. The Death Technique. I went home and wrote a gruesome story which I later published in Dark Arts, a horror anthology.
Today, I’m a retired English professor from Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Va. Altogether, I’ve published three hundred stories in The Speed of Dark, Weird Tales, Whitley Strieber’s Aliens, Galaxy, The Age of Wonders, and elsewhere. In addition, I’ve published thirty books, including SF novels such as Speaker of the Shakk and Beyond Those Distant Stars, winner of AllBooks Review Editor’s Choice Award (Mundania Press), and Alien Dreams, A Senseless Act of Beauty, and (YA) The Merry-Go-Round Man (Crossroad Press). MuseItUp Publishing has published several novels, including the first four in the Inspector of the Cross series. Musa Publishing gave my sci-fi time-travel story “Killers” their 2013 Editor’s Top Pick award. Some of my books are also available as audio books from Audible.com. In addition, I’m the former Chairman of the Board of the Horror Writers Association and the previous editor of The Rhetorician and Horror Magazine.
* * * FREE * * *
My major focus for the past few years has been on my Inspector of the Cross series, which features a hero who struggles for four thousand years to save humanity from seemingly invincible aliens. INSPECTOR OF THE CROSS is Book 1 and it is currently available for free on Amazon at http://amzn.to/2jqq1Xt .
If you like the novel, please check out the rest of the series and consider writing a review. THE TURTAN TRILOGY is at https://www.amazon.com/The-Turtan-Trilogy-Full-length-Romance-ebook/dp/B015S48FFE?tag=linkredirector-20 Turtan-Trilogy & Book 4 CONQUEROR OF THE STARS at http://amzn.to/2mfKz7w –
If you’re interested in a Rosenman sampler, my 4-Book Bundle. 600 Pages, is only $2.99. THE AMAZING WORLDS OF JOHN B. ROSENMAN – #Scifi #Paranormal. It features Preditor’s and Editor’s award-winning SF/F story, “The Blue of Her Hair, the Gold of Her Eyes.”
John, Thank you for being my guest and sharing details about your writing with my friends.
Kindle or paperback? Lynne Fisher poses thought-provoking ideas.
I received my first Kindle as a gift. I sighed, groaned, and moaned when I examined it, making the gift bearer, my poor enterprising partner, frown. ‘What am I going to make of you?’ I mentally said to the Kindle. ‘You’ll no doubt be difficult to use and I’d rather read a real book! All this technical progress just doesn’t know where to stop!’ I wailed, looking dubiously at its clinical non-reflective grey screen. How on earth was I possibly able to enjoy reading a novel on this gadget?
But then I looked at my bookshelves, full of novels I’ve read once, then kept for sentimental reasons, or kept because I might get around to re-reading them one day, or books I just must keep because I studied from them and they’re marked in the margins with my thoughts and my learning. Or books I’ve kept which are…
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Wonderful thoughts on a typewriter!
The story of murderously vengeful Felicity is finished. The next blog will report what methods worked, what was a waste of time, and what has been learnt about short story writing.
Meanwhile, a good part of the story was produced on the typewriter below. I looked up reviews about it and thought it had got a lot of stick. Unjustifiably so.
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John Briggs brings his wonderful insight into writing tension in a story.
by John Briggs
One simple idea can give your story much-needed tension.
One phrase — one sentence, really — can help most authors make their stories more tense, more dramatic, more gripping.
“If your characters ever meet you, they should punch you in the face.”
I don’t know who said it, but that may be the best piece of writing advice I’ve ever read. Unfortunately, most authors don’t seem to follow it.
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This is an excellent and informative article by Hope Ann.
by Hope Ann
The writer’s life is surrounded by myths, both inside and out. ‘Oh, you are a writer? You must be rich?’ ‘A writer? Are you a starving artist? I didn’t think you could make any money that way.’ ‘Just write a book and put it out there, it will take off.’
So…yes. Lots of myths. So I decided to collect a few; some from Facebook, some from articles I’ve read, some from things I’ve heard or heard of so much that they are now stuck in my head.
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by Jillian Casey Although it is a bit cliché, on my bookshelf, I have a well-worn copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and the novel has been read so many times that it practically fal…
Page Count vs Word Count in Fiction Books
During several book signings, one question frequently asked of me has been, “How many pages is the book?” I always explain that the novel is over 90,000 words. The person’s expression, tells me that I might as well have been speaking a foreign language.
I have no idea why the publishing industry has not educated the reading public that word count determines the length of a novel and not the number of pages, and that a 70,000-word book can have more printed pages than a 90,000-word novel.
There are several reasons for this that are useful to the publisher:
- Font style and size: A font style and size will either increase or decrease the number of characters per page. Times New Roman font delivers fewer characters per page than Garamond. The industry standard for size is from 10 point to 13 point, with 11 point being the average.
- Margins: The size of the margins and space allowed for the gutter (margin at spine) can manipulate the page count.
- Space between lines affects the number of characters on a page.
- Depth of drop on chapter title page: This is another tool to increase the page count, or in the case of a fatter book, to decrease the number of pages.
- Trim size: That is the finished size of the book. Obviously, the larger the book, the more words that will fit into it. Often, publishers will use a larger trim size to accommodate the large print editions for those readers seeking a more comfortable font size.
Publishers have various reasons to manipulate the final page count. If the work is a bit lean in a traditional mass market size of 5 x 8 inches, then a larger font size, larger margins, etc will give the appearance of length and therefore value for the price.
If the book is meaty in length, that would necessitate the use of a smaller font size, more narrow margins, shallow drop on each chapter title page, slightly larger trim size, etc. Publishers want to make a profit on each book sold. Manipulating formats for a particularly long book allows for fewer pages, and thus lower production costs.
I’m not suggesting that word count determines the worth of a book in literary terms. The worth of a book lies with the reader, whether it is a novella or a tome. I just wanted to shine some insight onto why page count is not a valid ruler to novel length.
Larry held her tighly on the stage as they danced. His heart pounded while he kissed Taylor for what seemed a long moment.She pulled back. A devilish glint colored her expression.
She kissed his neck and whispered, “You can’t have me. I’m married.”
Her words burned his ears and brought him back to cold reality. His throat tightened. Larry wanted her now more than ever. Crossing that line could ruin his career. Still…
Interview with Author Cynthia Ainsworthe. I was honored by Raani York as her guest. Since this interview, my cookbook, Front Row Center’s Passion in the Kitchen, made its debut Oct 19, 2014. http://www.amazon.com/Front-Row-Centers-Passion-Kitchen/dp/0980245958/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8


Learning During Lockdown
May 06, 2020
In this post, we list learning recommendations from XR Scotland activists. If we are able, we can use this increased spare time to further educate ourselves on climate change and other related issues so that we are all better informed and can argue more strongly for climate action in the future.
System Change Not Climate Change: A Revolutionary Response to Environmental Concerns by Martin Empson, Ian Angus, Carolyn Egan, Sarah Ensor, Suzanne Jeffrey, Amy Leather, Ian Rappel, Michelle Robidoux, Camilla Royle and Kohei Saito. This book argues that the political response to climate change must be anti-capitalist, and incudes contributions from leading environmentalists and socialists.
Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding by George Monbiot. Feral popularised the Rewilding movement in the UK, documenting the once wild landscape of the British Isles and how we might reintroduce species such as Wolves, Lynx and Beavers to our lands once again. Arguing for a more equitable distribution of land which benefits society and the environment, Feral is a must read.
Time to Act by Christian Climate Action. This is an upbeat account on the rebellions that have taken place so far. The book places Non-Violent Direct Action (NVDA) in a faith context, and sets out the religious and moral argument, from a Christian perspective, for joining the climate movement.
Vegan Vanguard – this is a podcast ran by two revolutionary vegan women, exploring issues including environmentalism, animal rights, human rights, social justice and a host of other political issues, all from an intersectional perspective. They have numerous podcasts focusing on climate change, including; Climate Despair: What Is It and Ways To Deal (Sorta?), and; Should We Tax Meat for the Climate?, but also cover a wide array of different topics. Well worth checking out.
Novara Media – The Coronavirus Climate. Novara Media, an independent news organisation, recently did a podcast with George Monbiot looking at how coronavirus is impacting the response to climate change, and what we should be arguing for environmentally when this pandemic is over.
The True Cost – an eye-opening documentary about fast fashion. The film documents the woeful conditions garment workers are forced to endure to create fast fashion for western markets, and their precarious nature of their work under globalisation and capitalism. Additionally, the film explores the environmental destruction caused by the fast fashion industry, including the river and soil pollution and pesticide contamination.


The Song of Roland (French: La Chanson de Roland) is the oldest surviving major work of French literature. It exists in various different manuscript versions, which testify to its enormous and enduring popularity in the 12th to 14th centuries-Wiki In this poem the angel Gabriel comes to Charlemagne in a dream.
The main focal for this necklace is a picture button based upon this literary work.Picture buttons where at the height of fashion during the 1870's. They continued to be a main fashion statement until around 1915. Picture buttons portrayed images of the culture; birds,flowers,commemorative events,plays,operas,and in general the culture.This necklace features a vintage picture button from the late 1800's. I have mounted the button on a very nice brass filigree with complementary flowers. The button is brass in color with a picture of Charlemagne and the Warning Angel. Along the chain I have added Czech glass beads nestled in filigree caps.


Legal and tax aspects of functioning of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in Poland
The following publication covers tax and legal aspects of the functioning of the Special Economic Zones in Poland.
This publication has been prepared by TAAC Solutions for the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH).
1. Permission for conducting business activity in the Special Economic Zone:
A. submission of the application
C. tender documentation
D. choice of offer
E. issuance of permission
F. revocation of expiration of the permission
2. Exemption from taxation:
A. income tax exemption
B. property tax exemption
Publication is available on PAIH’s website: https://www.paih.gov.pl/publications/industrial_and_technology_parks_and_special_economic_zones


After years of planning, Thygesen’s Book Club was officially formed as “PICKABOOK”, which aims to help Thygeseners get more opportunities to experience and comprehend valuable knowledge from interesting books.
With the support and sponsorship of Thygesen, Pickabook currently owns a bookcase with more than 60 valuable titles and will continue to be added more with an extensive collection from club members, advisors, and other sponsors.
Pickabook with the slogan “Where your journey begins”, conveys the message: when you choose to read a book, the journey of discovering and following knowledge will be opened.
By joining Pickabook, Thygeseners will have a chance to know more interesting books, build reading habits, get useful pieces of advice from the guests, take part in exciting activities of the club, connect with several people and find others who have similar interests.
Each member will be a “seed” with the mission to inspire and encourage the habit of reading in the company. Pickabook creates a space where members can read books and share their personal feelings and opinions, from that promoting self-improvement and spreading positive energy to the community.


This little story started with drawings of two cats with wings. The words didn't come until I'd drawn six pictures and realised there may be a story in them. I have a lot of imagination and just drew whatever was in my head! After the story was written I carried on with the drawings - see my Kosmic and Raven Gallery.
I'm currently working on the sequel - "Viper's Revenge" I plan to have many in the series!
I've had really positive feedback from those who have read it (children and adults) from my Kosmic and Raven Facebook page.
Also be sure to join my Facebook group for exclusive offers, giveaways and updates! Click here for my group!
Beautiful book and incredible, extraordinary artwork. I bought this book for my 7 year old niece and she loved it. Actually everybody in the house loved it. The story of Kosmic and Raven and the incredible art that Mel creates is simply amazing. The images leave you smiling, they are vibrant, colourful and worth a hundred stars. Looking forward to seeing what Mel does next.
Fabulous artwork and a beautiful story for a young audience! Thrilled to bits with my copy of Mel's first published book! Congratulations to her -:I'd highly recommend it, especially with Christmas approaching!
I bought this book for my 5 year old little boy. It arrived quicker than I expected and was signed by Melanie herself. I read this to my little boy last night and he absolutely loved it and said he wants more stories about Kosmic and Raven. He also loved talking about what was going on in each picture. He has speech and language delay so we encourage anything that he wants to talk about! He even went into school today and has been telling his teacher all about the story to the point where when I picked him up she asked me about what this story was as he was very vocal and excited about it all day and kept telling his friends about it too. This book is amazing and we will be ordering more from the series if and when they are written.
I absolutely love your art and to have a story too EKKK. Thrilled to follow Raven's adventures. Keep up the good work. I love the love you put into your images. Thank you for cheering up my newsfeed. xx
I think this is a great children's story, very bright lively pictures which beautifully illustrate the text, the characters really come alive and Kosmic and Raven are so adorable, would highly recommend this book.
Me and my kids love the Kosmic and Raven story! It's exciting and definitely makes you want to read more to find out what happens next. The pictures are gorgeous too.
Mel has poured her heart and soul into these beautiful and colourful illustrations that complement the charming story so well. A must for adults and children alike.
Really great story and I love the cute drawings, they are so beautiful.
I bought this book which she has written "Kosmic and Raven" for my 8 year old son who is a total bookworm... must tell you that it's a lovely book, both the story and the illustrations. Both of us enjoyed reading the book... and my son's message to you Mel is "I loved the book so much... I read it over and over again and can't wait to have another book of yours to my collection". Keep up the good work darling Mel.
Click the link below to see the facebook page!


The Boston Public Library is the first library in the United States that was built with public funding and the first library to lend books for free.
5 Side view of the Boston Public Library
The current building in Copley Square was designed by the famed architectural firm McKim, Mead and White who also designed Penn Station, Madison Square Garden and the Morgan Library in New York.
There are two statues on the platform by Bela Pratt. One is Science and the other is Art. The facade is flanked by gothic looking sconces that are at once sinister and majestic.
5 The Grand Staircase
The central staircase is flanked by two lions created by Louis St. Gaudens and murals of the muses by Pierre Puvis De Chavannes.
The reading room has amazing vaulted ceilings and large windows. One can't help but think that this is what a library should look like.
This library has a ballroom (actually called the Abbey Room but I'd like to have a party there someday so let's call it the ballroom). The murals of "The Quest For The Holy Grail" by American artist Edwin Austin Abbey surrounds the room.
There is a wonderful Italianate courtyard with galleries that are perfect for sitting and reading a book or having a snack. It's very quiet and peaceful.
They have several choices for eating including a formal dining room called Novel. It seems empty as people seem to prefer the more casual snack bar right next to it.
The Boston Public Library has a whole gallery that has murals by John Singer Sargent. It depicts scenes from Judeo-Christian history and Sargent worked on a lot of it in a studio in London. These murals were recently restored and is something to see. For more about the Sargent murals, click here.
If you are a devout Catholic, you may even want to walk on your knees from one end of the hall to the other to fulfill your "panata".
5 Sargent mural lunette.
5 Mural with highly articulated crucifix
5 Bela Pratt's sculpture of Art overlooking Copley Square and Trinity Church
From what I understand, the Boston Public Library is severely underfunded, compared to the New York Public LIbrary. A lot of the rare books are deteriorating. The BPL has 2 curators versus New York Library's 35, so you can imagine how overworked the curators must be.


In a modern age, children are quiet, technology obsessed and medicated to perfection. Jack, however, likes Nerf guns, building forts, and not taking his medication. But, when he seeks a friend, even his child's heart can't bear perfection at its finest.
Fourteen Seeds is a story about childhood, wonder, nature, the synthetic, growth and heart all rolled into one. Jack, having moved into a new neighborhood, is prescribed pills, like the other children. Yet he chooses not to take the pills, and instead acts out his classic, boyhood antics in the woods. It's when he discovers that there might be someone else out there, like him, not taking their medication--that's when Jack's world changes.


Vivek Kaul is an author of several books. In the past, he has worked at senior positions with the Daily News and Analysis (DNA) and The Economic Times, in the past. Currently, he writes for the Mint, Dainik Jagran, Newslaundry, Deccan Herald and the BBC. He also co-hosts the Econ Central podcast with Amit Varma. Kaul has been quoted by The Economist, BBC and CNN. His writing has also appeared in The Times of India, The Hindu, The Hindu Business Line, Business World, Business Today, India Today, Mid-Day, Business Standard, Forbes India, Deccan Chronicle, Deccan Herald, Mumbai Mirror, The Asian Age, Mutual Fund Insight, Outlook Hindi and so on. When it comes to the digital space his writing has appeared on Rediff, Firstpost, Huffington Post, Quartz, Business-Standard and Scroll. He is the author of five books. His fifth book Bad Money—Inside the NPA Mess and How It Threatens the Indian Banking System, was published in June 2020. India’s Big Government—The Intrusive State and How It Is Hurting Us, his fourth book, was published in January 2017. He is also the author of the Easy Money trilogy, a series of three books on the history of money and banking, and how that caused the financial crisis that started in 2008 and is still on. Al Ries, globally respected author and marketing consultant had this to say about Easy Money: “Forget what you think you know about money and read the true, absorbing tale. Kaul in his thorough, but fascinating book, Easy Money. A great read.” Other than this, he has appeared as an expert on the BBC, Mirror Now, CNBC Awaaz and NDTV India. He speaks regularly on economics and finance and has lectured at several IIMs
Reading crime fiction is my one and only obsession.


The Vitruvian Man, the Golden Section, and the Modular Man were once seen as idealized, iconic representations of the relationship of the human body to architecture. But the widespread practice of psychoanalysis, the development of genetic engineering, and the raised consciousness of the female body have altered not only the traditional idea of body but also how we inhabit the body, and how we make and inhabit space. How does the new understanding of the body relate to space? How does architecture adjust to this new idea of body? When does the body become the body politic? In Anybody, these and other questions are argued by thirty essayists, including architects Peter Eisenman, Arata Isozaki, Ben van Berkel, Enrique Norten, and Alejandro Zaero-Polo, and critics Fredric Jameson, Sylviane Agacinski, Elizabeth Grosz, Beatriz Colomina, and Brian Massumi.