Language: Reference and general Books

It's never a good idea to be overly relient on technology while travelling! Look up words quickly and easily with this great travel-sized Japanese dictionary. Intended for use by tourists, students, and businesspeople travelling to Japan, Pocket Japanese...

This handy Japanese phrasebook and pocket dictionary is designed for people who want to learn Japanese quickly and don't have a lot of time to study. It is designed by an experienced language teacher to be useful and easy to use. Even if you...

Learn to speak Japanese as it is actually spoken on the streets of Tokyo with More Making Out in Japanese! This latest edition of the best-selling phrase book is totally revised and up-to-date and contains all the latest slang...

"I was a writer before I knew what a writer was." -Joseph DoughertyJoseph Dougherty has been a successful playwright and television writer, producer, and director for more than thirty years. He's written for breakthrough series that have changed the way...

Brit Speak for Yanks!Back in 1887, Oscar Wilde wrote, "We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language." One would think, in a world homogenized by technology and social media, that differences between British...

Winner of the 30th Annual Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry"From these rituals come notes; from those notes come poems; and from those poems comes not just a view into his process, but an entrance into another present." -Boston GlobeAfter his...

Richard III: The 30-Minute Shakespeare This edition of Richard III features seven scenes, opening with the Duke of Gloucester's villainous "Winter of our discontent" speech and followed by his audacious wooing of Lady Anne. Queen Margaret's...

Age range 12+Julius Caesar: The 30-Minute Shakespeare presents eight spellbinding scenes from this timeless masterpiece. The action begins as the soothsayer warns Caesar of the Ides of March and continues as Brutus conspires against Caesar...

Age range 12+The Two Gentlemen of Verona: The 30-Minute Shakespeare presents six captivating scenes from this high-spirited play. Proteus pledges his love to Julia, but then falls in love with Silvia, who had planned to elope with Proteus's...

Age range 12+Hamlet: The 30-Minute Shakespeare offers five scenes from this enduring tragedy. The Ghost of Hamlet's father calls for vengeance, and Hamlet uses the players to prove Claudius guilty. The cutting includes the murder of Polonius,...

Age range 12+King Henry IV, Part I: The 30-Minute Shakespeare combines comedy, tragedy, and history into a rollicking six-scene drama performable in a half hour.This adaptation includes tavern revelry, highway robbery, and the telling...

Age range 12+Othello: The 30-Minute Shakespeare is a gripping seven-scene interpretation of this Shakespearean masterpiece.There is a dramatic build as each successive event draws Othello closer to jealous rage. Iago convinces Othello that...

Age range 12+King Lear: The 30-Minute Shakespeare renders six powerful scenes from this enduring tragedy. Starting with Lear's banishment of Cordelia, the plot advances irresistibly, featuring scenes of brother Edmund's villainous plotting and...

Age range 12+The Comedy of Errors: The 30-Minute Shakespeare offers five raucous scenes from this extravaganza of mistaken identity.The abridgement begins with a dramatic physical enactment of the twins' separation at sea. The play continues...

Age range 12+Love's Labor's Lost: The 30-Minute Shakespeare plays three action-packed scenes from this tale of King Navarre and his three lords, who have vowed to retire from women for three years. Naturally, the Princess of France and her three...

Age range 12+Planning a school or amateur Shakespeare production? The best way to experience the plays is to perform them, but getting started can be a challenge: The complete plays are too long and complex, while scene selections or simplified language...

Age range 12+Planning a school or amateur Shakespeare production? The best way to experience the plays is to perform them, but getting started can be a challenge: The complete plays are too long and complex, while scene selections or simplified language...

Widely studied, frequently staged-verbatim theatre is everywhere. In this new book, Mark Wheeller, the author of verbatim hitsToo Much Punch for Judy,Hard to Swallow,Missing Dan NolanandGame Over, and the most performed living playwrights in the UK,...

Pronunciation governs our regional and social identity more powerfully than any other aspect of spoken language. No wonder, then, that it has attracted most attention from satirists. In this intriguing book, David Crystal shows how our feelings about...

Featuring pets, farmyard animals, big cats and wild beasts, this beautifully presented book is the perfect gift for animal lovers and all those with an interest in this quirky linguistic tradition.We're all familiar with 'a flock of sheep' but what are...

The first work dedicated solely to the subject of slang words and their meanings, this book is a lost gem originally intended to educate the polite London classes in the parlance of thieves and ruffians, should they be so unlucky as to wander into the...

Writing and Selling Romantic Comedy Screenplays offers a fresh approach to creating narratives for this ever-changing genre. Moving away from rigid and limited definitions that have evolved out of mainstream genre films, the book embraces a...

'Starting from the Bronze Age and ending with modern emails and a possible future of e-books, Steven Fischer's A History of Reading takes in a wonderful diversity of things.' - Nature'It's an exciting story, which the author tells clearly and...

The Craft of Professional Writing is the most complete book ever written about the real-life work of being a writer. It covers topics ranging from business writing (advertising, PR) to commercial work (news reporting, feature writing, blogging,...

This handy Japanese dictionary allows you to look up words quickly and easily-and be understood while speaking. Intended for use by tourists, students, and business people traveling to Japan, the Pocket Japanese Dictionary is an essential tool for...

Mini Japanese Dictionary is the most up-to-date Japanese pocket dictionary available. This dictionary is completely up-to-date with the latest vocabulary for IT, smartphones and social media. It is the perfect dictionary to take with you when...

A handy Japanese phrasebook and guide to the Japanese language, Survival Japanese contains basic vocabulary necessary for getting around. This book contains all the necessary words and phrases for speaking Japanese in any kind of...

This is an introductory guide and workbook to writing Japanese Katakana. Anybody who is able to master English, with its irregular spellings and idiosyncratic pronunciations, is more than equipped to master written Japanese. The hiragana and katakana...

 Put simply, practice is the most effective method of mastering written Japanese. The large, open format of Writing Japanese Hiragana invites the student to pick up a pencil and get started! Two phonetic syllabaries,...

George Orwell's essay examines the power of language to shape political ideas. It is about the importance of writing concisely, clearly and precisely and the dangers to our ability to think when language, especially political language, is...

A practical and compact guide to writing for professionalsWriting is an essential skill in today's workplace. From messaging platforms and social media to traditional forms of communication like memos and reports, we rely on words more than ever. Given...

Age range 12+Planning a school or amateur Shakespeare production? The best way to experience the plays is to perform them, but getting started can be a challenge: The complete plays are too long and complex, while scene selections or simplified language...

Age range 12+Planning a school or amateur Shakespeare production? The best way to experience the plays is to perform them, but getting started can be a challenge: The complete plays are too long and complex, while scene selections or simplified language...

More than 30 million Americans rely on their voices for their jobs-from teachers, religious leaders, and entertainers to lawyers, executives, salespeople, and doctors. A controlled voice increases self-confidence and enhances charisma,...

Writing is, and always will be, an act defined by failure. The best plan is to just get used to it.Failure is a topic discussed in every creative writing department in the world, but this is the book every beginning writer should have on their shelf to...

**Winner, Screen Research Network Outstanding Monograph Award, 2022**Telling a story is simple, right? You take a 'hero' and send them on a 'journey'. There's a beginning, middle and an end.But what if your story doesn't fit into that basic...

This is a practical-and encouraging-how-to book from a long-time teacher of personal and family history writing. Katie Funk Wiebe helps beginning memoir writers get started collecting the stories of their lives. She gives hints for recalling distant...

"High-Value Writing: Real Strategies for Real-World Writing" helps readers manage the writing challenges they face at work and elsewhere in life. Many of us haven't talked about writing since school, but workplace writing has different requirements. How...

Create your liberated literary utopia When your dream and creative passion is to write, how do you succeed without selling out or selling yourself short? Ariel Gore has spent her life solving this puzzle, writing and organising her way towards a creative...

Structure a writing process by learning about brainstorming and drafting Want to write a book? Half the battle is finding a practice that works for you. Successful author and creativity expert Jessie Kwak is here to help you do just that-and have fun...

Your brand is unique. Your website content should be, too.Many businesses believe they know what sets their brand apart from the competition, only to discover they aren't connecting with their audience. With Content is King as your guide, you'll uncover...

Nora Ephron was one of the most popular, accomplished, and beloved writers in American journalism and film.Nora Ephron: A Biographyis the first comprehensive portrait of the Manhattan-born girlwho forged a path of her own, earning accolades and adoration...

Communicating virtually is cool, useful, and becoming more universal every day. But the actual communication is often quite bad. Indeed, everyone agrees that the quality of human connection we feel in virtual meetings, email, and other forms of virtual...

Efficiently and effectively assess employees performance.Are your employees meeting their goals? Is their work improving over time? Understanding where your employees are succeeding-and falling short-is a pivotal part of ensuring you have the right...

Now that you have your big idea, how will you find and convince your first investor? You need a pitch deck, of course-the perfect set of slides to convince investors to back you and your venture. But a pitch deck isn't merely a business plan put into...

From academic writing to personal and public discourse, the need for good arguments and better ways of arguing is greater than ever before.This timely fifth edition of A Rulebook for Arguments sharpens an already-classic text, adding updated examples and...

A Sense of Dread features three main sections. 1) A detailed examination of the biological, psychological, and cultural bases of fear. What fears do we share with animals? What fears are uniquely human? What fears have we learned from our culture? From...

Through a "Crazy" approach in writing the feature screenplay, the first half of the book guides the reader in how to create and develop: Story Idea, Characters, One Page Step Outline, and the solid script. In the second half, the book covers professional...