Titles in Barron's brand-new series of Art Portfolios each present 24 stunning reproductions of memorable works from the collection of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Enlightening descriptive texts supplement these large reproductions, each of which is true to its original artwork. Pictures are printed on heavy matte-coated paper and are easily removable from its portfolio, which makes them suitable for framing. The skyscrapers of New York's financial district, the Flatiron Building, the bridges of Manhattan, and many other New York City landmarks are captured in 24 memorable black-and-white photographs from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art's vast photography collection.

Join Jeanne Willis in the funniest talent show ever. In a fabulous rhyming text, meet bears with baggy bottoms, pigs with perky pinky ones and peacocks who love to put theirs on display. Perfect for reading aloud and guaranteed to cause fits of giggles, one thing's for sure — whoever is the winner, bottoms are top! This title is from the dynamic duo behind Bottoms Up!

The interactive cats are back, but not for long! They're eager to go off to see the world. So will someone please help them get out of the book? Our lovable feline friends Tiny, Moonpie, and Andre have returned, and this time they're filled with the spirit of adventure: they want to go off to explore the world! They have their suitcases packed and are ready to set out, but can't get out of the book. They try pushing their way out and jumping their way out, but nothing seems to work. Finally, they get a brilliant idea: they decide to wish themselves out! But they're going to need help. Will it work? Are you missing them yet?

Ted Hughes was one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. Now, over ten years after his death, Thames & Hudson is publishing a children's poem by him that had been lost for over fifty years. Written in the mid-1950s to accompany his friend Jim Downer's story about Timmy the Tug, the poem recounts Timmy's escape from his moorings and subsequent adventures on the high seas. Downer's illustrations are a charming focus to this enchanting tale that, besides appealing to children everywhere, is set to be one of the biggest literary events of the year.

It's Halloween. The trees are ablaze in fiery reds. Excited children don colorful costumes. And there's mystery and fun around every corner! When Addy, Michael, and Karl finish trick-or-treating, their bags are brimming with treats. But the fun isn't over yet. Their good friend Stillwater the panda has one more special surprise in store for them. A mysterious visitor is about to tell them a spine-tingling story — one that will fill each and every reader with wonder.

Illustrated in full color. Little Critter appears as Jack in this simple retelling of the story of the boy who swaps his cow for a bag of magic beans.

The best-selling Anatomica, now completely revised and updated, is a complete medical reference for the home. Organised thematically, the main part of the book covers major body locations, systems, health issues, and diagnostic techniques, from the head, neck, and skin, to infectious diseases and behavioural disorders. Detailed explanations written by a team of medical experts cover the role and function of each body part, while more than 1,000 full-colour illustrations reveal their structure and complex inter relationships. An extensive reference section provides important first-aid advice for the home, and a fully cross-referenced index makes it easy to locate specific information. You can discover the most complex biological mechanism in the world — you. It is an authoritative illustrated guide to the body. All bodily workings are clearly explained by an international team of medical experts, illustrators, researchers, and editors. It features intricate and highly accurate illustrations.

Life America tells the story of the country's extraordinary history in pictures, often contrasting the past and present — the then and now. Before there were the buildings, there was the land — and in the first section Life's editors travel the country exploring what was there before the coming of man. From the heights of Denali to the depths of the Grand Canyon, from the Virginia coast when it was the exclusive domain of Native Americans to the cave dwellings of the mysteriously lost Anasazi civilization in the western deserts, the land as it once was is re-imagined. And then the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, the rise of the great cities, the issues — women's rights, urban unrest, civil rights, child labor, the Great Depression — all are chronicled in the iconic photography of Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange, and Life's own Margaret Bourke White, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gordon Parks, and others. The magazine was there to chronicle much of America's visual history — this book will highlight its storied archives, one of the world's richest resources of great photography.

The unrivaled master of spy fiction returns with a taut and suspenseful of dirty money and dirtier politics. For nearly half a century, John le CarrA(c)'s limitless imagination has enthralled millions of readers and moviegoers around the globe. From the cold war to the bitter fruits of colonialism to unrest in the Middle East, he has reinvented the spy novel again and again. Now, le CarrA(c) makes his Viking debut with a stunning tour-de-force that only a craftsman of his caliber could pen. As menacing and flawlessly paced as The Little Drummer Girl and as morally complex as The Constant Gardener, Our Kind of Traitor is signature le CarrA(c). Perry and Gail are idealistic and very much in love when they splurge on a tennis vacation at a posh beach resort in Antigua. But the charm begins to pall when a big-time Russian money launderer enlists their help to defect. In exchange for amnesty, Dima is ready to rat out his vory (Russian criminal brotherhood) compatriots and expose corruption throughout the so-called legitimate financial and political worlds. Soon, the guileless couple find themselves pawns in a deadly endgame whose outcome will be determined by the victor of the British Secret Service's ruthless internecine battles.

«Although the Cold War conventionally ended in the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, there is renewed interest and concern in the West about our relations with a resurgent Russia. Arguably the Cold War was just one manifestation of an ages-old geopolitical conflict between Russia and other world powers. Russian-speaking Kremlin-watcher Douglas Boyd starts by tracing Russia's growth through centuries of hot wars of conquest that expanded the tiny principality of Muscovy to an empire straddling Europe and Asia. Its expansionism was evident throughout the last century, often conducted by proxy during the Cold War. With enormous reserves of energy and natural resources on which other nations are increasingly reliant, Putin's Russia is once again flexing its muscles. This powerful book begins with an account of the author's imprisonment in a Stasi interrogation centre in East Germany. Told in a strong narrative style intermingling historical events with first-person quotes of the principal participants, «The Kremlin Conspiracy» puts it all into perspective, showing that the energy war launched by Medvedev/Putin is just the latest phase in 1,000 years of Russian expansionism. Events are often recounted in the actual words of participants — a technique the author has used before — spies and spy-catchers, generals, National Servicemen intelligence-gathering in Berlin and slipping across the Baltic by night on ex-Kriegsmarine MTBs, the US and British nuclear submarine commanders who played chicken with Soviet 'boomers,' the pilots like Gary Powers who flew into Soviet airspace to test radar and on photographic over-flights — they all have a say. But so too do politicians, journalists, history teachers and schoolchildren, not forgetting the women of Greenham Common. The implosion of the USSR in 1989-1991 was not a victory for the West, but due to the impossibility for Soviet central planning and one-party government to adapt to the economic realities of the approaching 21st century. With Putin's new-style economy having leap-frogged all that, the Hot and Cold War is on again, with Russia more powerful than ever. That is Boyd's alarming message.»

One spider descends on its thread. Nine bees fly up from their hive. Twenty snakes slither. In a pop-up counting book certain to engage young readers, each kinetic collection of creatures illustrates a number from one to twenty — then by tens, all the way up to one hundred.

Hardcover book with dust jacket by Thomas J. Craughwell. This edition published by Tess Press and imprint of Black Dog &Leventhal Publishers Inc., it has 512 pages very well illustrated.

Slam is a hilarious coming-of-age novel by bestselling author Nick Hornby 'There was this time when everything seemed to have come together. And so obviously it was time to go and screw it all up.' Sam is sixteen and a skater. Just so there are no terrible misunderstandings: skating = skateboarding. There's no ice. Life is ticking along nicely for Sam; his Mum's got rid of her rubbish boyfriend, he's thinking about college and he's met someone. Alicia. Then a little accident happens. One with big consequences for someone just finding his way in life. Sam can't run (let alone skate) away from this one. He's a boy facing a man's problems and the question is — has he got what it takes to confront them? Slam, from the acclaimed author of About a Boy and High Fidelity is a teenage novel about a boy who has to grow up in big, big hurry. It is The Catcher in the Rye for the 21st century. 'Very funny...very real' Daily Telegraph 'Hornby gets his point across with the subtlety and skill of a born novelist who always deserves to be read' Independent 'A moving read for anyone' Elle Nick Hornby has captivated readers and achieved widespread critical acclaim for his comic, well-observed adult novels About a Boy, A Long Way Down, Juliet, Naked, How to be Good and High Fidelity. His three works of non-fiction, 31 Songs (shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award), Fever Pitch (winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award) and The Complete Polysyllabic Spree are also available from Penguin.

The jagged peaks of the Caucasus Mountains have hosted a rich history of diverse nations, valuable trade, and incessant warfare. But today the region is best known for atrocities in Chechnya and the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia. In Let Our Fame Be Great, journalist and Russian expert Oliver Bullough explores the fascinating cultural crossroads of the Caucasus, where Europe, Asia, and the Middle East intersect. Traveling through its history, Bullough tracks down the nations dispersed by the region's last two hundred years of brutal warfare. Filled with a compelling mix of archival research and oral history, Let Our Fame Be Great recounts the tenacious survival of peoples who have been relentlessly invaded and persecuted and yet woefully overlooked.

It was the night before Christmas, and Olivia discovers that her favorite stuffed monkey, Mathilda, is missing. Not only is Mathilda missing, but other favorites keep disappearing around the house too. In the true spirit of Christmas, Olivia figures out how to not only give but to give back what has been missing.

When Herr Drosselmeir gives Marie a nutcracker for Christmas, the Nutcracker comes alive, and Marie enters a magical kingdom of fairies, dolls and royalty! Based on the beloved story by E.T.A. Hoffman, which inspired the famous ballet, this beautifully illustrated gift set containing a 24-page book plus two dioramas is sure to become a holiday favorite.

From the anteater to the zorro... The rain forest is teeming with life — hundreds of mammals, birds, amphibians, and fish, and millions of species of insects. Readers of all ages can discover this mysterious and beautiful habitat — and why it is worth saving — in this exquisitely illustrated alphabet book. Newly redesigned and reformatted.

This title offers a beautifully produced tribute to the 2000s, featuring images straight from the archives of the Press Association. This illuminating collection offers fascinating images that depict both major historical events and smaller, but no less significant, occurrences. It presents a beautiful gift idea, either as a stand-alone title or part of this invaluable series. It is part of a series giving an insight into major historical events in Britain from 2000 to 2009, plus smaller occurrences that had equal, if not greater, significance for the people of Britain. Amid a climate of flooding, heat wave, gales and global warming, cannabis is downgraded, cigarettes are banned from public places, and knife crime escalates. An Internet and telecommunications boom spawns social media microblogging and reality TV gives 'fifteen minutes of fame' to ordinary people. From the onset of foot and mouth in the first year of the new millennium to concerns over swine flu towards the end of the decade; from the anti-capitalist riots of 2000 to the collapse of major banks and the credit crunch in 2008. This book contains around 300 photographs, hand-picked by PA Photos' own archivists. Many of these images have lain unseen since they were used as news pictures when first taken.

The White Castle, Orhan Pamuk's celebrated first novel, is the tale of a young Italian scholar captured by pirates and put up for auction at the Istanbul slave market. Acquired by a brilliant Turkish inventor, he is set to work on projects to entertain the jaded Sultan.

Based on a riveting historical episode, The Stalin Epigram is a fictional rendering of the life of Osip Mandelstam, perhaps the greatest Russian poet of the twentieth century — and one of the few artists in Soviet Russia who daringly refused to pay creative homage to Joseph Stalin. The poet's defiance of the Kremlin dictator and the Bolshevik regime — particularly his outspoken criticism of Stalin's collectivization rampage that drove millions of Russian peasants to starvation — reached its climax in 1934 when Mandelstam, putting his life on the line, composed a searing indictment of Stalin in a sixteen-line epigram and secretly recited it to a handful of friends and fellow artists. Would Stalin and his merciless state security apparatus get wind of this brazenly insulting poem? Would the poet's body and spirit be crushed under the weight of the state if they did? Narrated in turn by Mandelstam himself, his devoted wife, his great friends the poets Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova, along with vivid fictional characters, The Stalin Epigram is the page-turning tale of courage and the human spirit told in deftly poetic prose by a perceptive, talented writer. With the benefit of extraordinary research and an almost mystical empathy, bestselling author Robert Littell has drawn a fictional portrait of the beleaguered poet struggling to survive the running riot of Stalinist Russia in the 1930s. This memorable novel culminates in a wholly unexpected encounter that illuminates the agonizing choices Russian intellectuals faced during the Stalinist terror and explains what drew Robert Littell to the poignant subject in the first place.