The topics covered in this title include travel, tourism, ticketing, hotels and staff, restaurants, kitchens, table settings, service and cooking, along with general business, accounting and personnel terms. Handy supplements include quick-reference lists of airline and airport codes, currencies, international dialling codes, time zones, balance sheets and international public holidays. This work is ideal for students, employers, or employees who work in any part of the hotel or tourism industry or who need to use specialist English vocabulary for their work or studies.

«One minute John is the cornerstone of Eva's world, rock to his two teenage stepdaughters and his own son Theo; the next he is tossed through the air in a traffic accident, and killed. His sudden death changes everything. Eva struggles with the desolation of loneliness, finding herself drawn back to her untrustworthy ex-husband; Emily, the eldest daughter, grapples with her new-found independence and responsibility. Little Theo can only begin to fathom the permanence of his father's death. But for the middle child Daisy, John's absence opens up a whole world of confusion. Just at the onset of adolescence and blossoming sexuality, Daisy is exposed to the terrifying duplicity of life, the instability that hovers just beyond the safety of parental love, and the powerlessness of that love to protect or even console her. In steps a man only too willing to take advantage of her emotions. «Lost in the Forest» is a powerful and gorgeously layered testament to the fluidity of life and the web of connections that bind us, divide us, and drive us on. A finely observed portrait of marriage and family; an intensely sensual journey through the consuming realms of grief and sex; and an unforgettable evocation of adolescent yearning and vulnerability, this is Sue Miller at her inimitable best.»

Blart is not an average boy. He lives on a pig farm with his grandfather and doesn't care about being heroic or famous or legendary, but he does know that if you want to catch a pig you have to sneak up behind it and take it by surprise. So when a great wizard visits and explains that humankind depends on Blart joining his quest, Blart says no — until the wizard threatens his pigs. Reluctantly, Blart embarks on a very epic quest stuffed with brilliant characters: a feisty princess who likes dragons, a warrior who's a big softie at heart, a disaffected dwarf, and evil Zorab, trapped in a mountain, waiting for his mignons to dig him out...

Patty lives with her Aunt Bat on a banana plantation in Jamaica. Unfortunately, as it's such a small plantation, they're having trouble keeping up with the competition, and Aunt Bat is worried they'll have to sell up. Patty needs to think of an idea to turn things around, and fast! Inspiration comes to her as she's digging into a chocolate banana special at her local ice-cream parlour. All she needs to do is invent a machine — a banana machine. Will Patty's mechanical wizardry help the plantation out of its crisis? Or, like the bananas, are her ideas round the bend?

Max and Maddy are on the trail of a criminal who'll stop at nothing to sabotage Mr Helium's trans-American hot-air balloon race. The prize is a gold balloon worth one million and one dollars, and all the money raised by the race is to go towards the Home for Children Whose Parents Have Disappeared in Balloons — so there's a lot at stake! They take to the skies on board Mr Helium's very own balloon in order to catch the cheat. But will the detectives become victim to the dastardly villain's dangerous schemes and dirty tricks, or will they blow his plot sky-high?

When the young Ian Wharton first meets Mr Broadhurst, he is completely unaware of the influence he will come to exert over his life as 'The Fat Controller' — a constant companion and confidant and also the obese, erudite manifestation of Ian' s mental illness. As Ian's idea of fun becomes increasingly extreme, the reader is taken to a place where morality is eroded by the dull grind of modernity and everything becomes admissable.

Max and Maddy Twist's parents were once famous, international detectives — before the evil Professor Sardine ruined their careers, that is. Now they run an ice-cream parlour, and it is the services of their crime-busting Cluedo-champion children that are called upon. Mr Huffendort, a rich Swiss banker is very worried about a series of raids upon banks, carried out by a team of highly-trained St Bernard dogs! Who can be the criminal mastermind behind this evil and cunning plot? It's time for Max and Maddy to pack their hats, scarves and various disguises, and fly to Switzerland to find out.

No matter how hard Annie tries, she just cannot do even the simplest sums. It's so embarrassing! When she goes to the shops, she can't work out how much money to hand the shopkeeper, and she always gets 0 for her maths homework. That is, until Annie goes to sleep with a calculator under her pillow, and something very strange happens. Overnight, Annie becomes a maths maestro capable of solving problems so fast it takes people's breath away. It impresses one world-renowned maths genius so much that he decides to put Annie's powers to the ultimate test. Will Annie be up to the mathematical challenge, or will she be at sixes and sevens and end up back at square one? Prepare yourself for this brain-teasing adventure.

«The fictional world of Will Self is unlike any other. In «The Quantity Theory of Insanity» we learn, amongst other things, the dark and terrible secret of Ward 9, why you are right to think that London is full of dead people and that each and every human being is caught up in a colossal balancing act between the sane and the insane. «The Quantity Theory of Insanity» is acerbic, satirical, hilarious and, most of all, utterly unique in imaginative vision.»

Harriet is invited to help her detective aunts, Thessalonika and Japonica, investigate serious cheating in the world of horse racing. Initially excited by this prospect, Harriet quickly begins to regret getting involved. Will Harriet overcome her fears and find out who is causing Mr Fetlock's horses to lose all their races? Hold on tight for this bumpy ride!

Richard and Lelia's child is conceived in a moment of giggling chaos as they dress for a Christmas party. They arrive rudely late and still glowing, and barely register a slight, drab woman in the hall. Sylvie. As their baby grows, so does the presence of Sylvie — she seems to be nowhere, yet everywhere, harmless yet sinister. Richard is seduced by her subtle, inexplicable charm, while Lelia, struggling with Richard's sudden ambivalence towards their baby, finds that she is haunted by painful memories. And Sylvie remains as invisible as she wants to be — that is the source of her power. Beware of mice.

One day, out of the blue, Harriet Bean's dad says to her, 'Your aunts would like to hear about that!' Harriet is shocked — this is the first time she's heard anything about any aunts, and suddenly, she has five of them! Naturally, she's very curious to meet them, especially as her dad has told her that they each have a rather special ability (apart from Aunt Majolica who's just extremely bossy). The trouble is, the family was split up years ago and they all lost touch with one another. Will Harriet be able to reunite her dad with his sisters and enable the family portrait that was started many years ago to finally be completed? She is determined, and starts her quest for the five missing aunts with a trip to the circus.

Marvin is not a happy sheep. All the other sheep are bigger than him, and can run faster and jump higher than he can. So Marvin decides to do something about it. He eats. And eats, and eats, until he is so big that there is nothing left for him to eat in the world — at which point Marvin eats the world itself! But that is a step too far, and what went in is going to have to come out. This is a rumbustious story that shows how it is possible to take some self-improvement just a little bit too far.

This new collection of short stories from T. C. Boyle finds him at his mercurial best. Inventive, wickedly funny, sometimes disturbing, these are stories about drop-outs, deadbeats and kooks. Take the man who shares his apartment with a wildcat won in a drunken bet; the drive-time shock jock hallucinating from sleep deprivation for a publicity stunt; the suburban woman who joins a pack of dogs, eating rabbits and baying at the moon. With a unique deftness of touch and a keen eye for the telling detail, Boyle has mapped the strange underworld of America.

Ram has no memory of who he is, his background or where he has come from. He awakes in a darkened corridor of a block of flats with no idea of how he has got there. And then, the lift doors nearby open and inside is a dying man. Ram is now the murder suspect and on the run. But, there is something that draws him back — the dying man's last words. And, as he discovers more about the murdered man, Ram becomes aware that somebody is following him, somebody with sinister intent. Could it be something to do with his past? This is a tense thriller that is part of a 4-part series, that will have Ram discovering more and more about his background and identity with each book.

«A one-stop reference, with over 220,000 definitions, the new fully-updated Bloomsbury Concise English Dictionary is designed to meet the everyday requirements of all global English users and is aimed at everyone who wants to use English with precision and accuracy. With the needs of families and students in mind, particular coverage has been given to the latest terms from science, technology, the Internet, the arts, media, business and finance. In the Bloomsbury Concise English Dictionary readers will find innovative features like Quick Definitions, Quick Facts and Literary Links, plus Spellchecks and Usage Notes to cover common confusions in spelling, grammar and punctuation. «Authoritative, comprehensive and contemporary.» — TES Teacher, November 2005»

This fully revised edition of the bestselling Dictionary of Medical Terms now includes over 12,500 terms from British and international medical practice, explained in clear, simple English. It covers fields such as surgery, general practice, hospitals, clinics, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and other specialisms, and includes example sentences for each entry, together with grammar notes and parts of speech. As well as technical language it also includes informal terms of the kind used between professionals or professionals and patients. It is an indispensable practical reference for interns, nurses or trainees in any medical field and its clear explanations make it ideal for professionals learning English for Medicine, for A-Level and undergraduate students, and for home reference.

It is the final days of the Chinese Empire. Trade in opium with Europe is slowly corroding the power of the Ch’ing Dynasty. Orchid, a beautiful seventeen-year-old from an aristocratic but impoverished family, is pushed into the maelstrom when she finds herself unexpectedly chosen to become a lower-ranking concubine of the Emperor. The world inside the Forbidden City is erotically charged and highly ritualised, but beneath its immaculate face lie whispers of murders and ghosts. The thousands of concubines will go to any lengths to bear the Emperor a son and become his Empress. Determined not to be a victim of the jealousies and foul play, Orchid trains herself in the art of pleasuring a man, bribes her way into the royal bed and seduces the monarch. Little does she know that China will collapse around her, and she will be its last Empress.

Read on to catch up with more gossip-licious pleasure from the anonymous narrator who made her catty debut with Gossip Girl and has enthralled readers in the juicy sequels, You Know You Love Me and All I Want is Everything. In Because I'm Worth It, Gossip Girl dishes up more doses of hefty dirt on all her friends — New York's wealthiest private school teens. In fact, wintertime has never been hotter in NYC as things steam up all over Fifth Avenue. Sharp wit, intriguing characters, and high-stakes melodrama drive the action of this wildly popular series.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince takes up the story of Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at this point as Voldemort's power and followers are increasing day by day, in the midst of this battle of good and evil.