The shocking first-hand account of one man's remarkable fight for freedom; now an award-winning motion picture. 'Why had I not died in my young years — before God had given me children to love and live for? What unhappiness and suffering and sorrow it would have prevented. I sighed for liberty; but the bondsman's chain was round me, and could not be shaken off.' 1841: Solomon Northup is a successful violinist when he is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Taken from his family in New York State — with no hope of ever seeing them again — and forced to work on the cotton plantations in the Deep South, he spends the next twelve years in captivity until his eventual escape in 1853. First published in 1853, this extraordinary true story proved to be a powerful voice in the debate over slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War. It is a true-life testament of one man's courage and conviction in the face of unfathomable injustice and brutality: its influence on the course of American history cannot be overstated.

his dictionary introduces children to their first 500 Spanish words, with colorful illustrations and example sentences to help children remember words and translations from English to Spanish. Listed in English-to-Spanish alphabetical order, and with themed pages, the Collins Very First Spanish Dictionary provides curriculum-matched support for young learners of Spanish. Audio files for each headword and phrase can be found at www.collins.co.uk/homeworkhelp.

The 8th edition of the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's Dictionary offers up-to-date coverage of today's English in a clear, attractive format. This dictionary is ideal for upper-intermediate and advanced learners of English. It covers all the words, phrases, and idioms that students need to master in order to speak and write effective English. With full-sentence definitions written in simple, natural English, this dictionary is easy to use and understand. The examples, taken from the 4.5-billion-word Collins Corpus, show learners how the words are used in authentic contexts. The dictionary also provides extensive help with grammar, including grammar patterns for many of the examples, and a grammar reference in the supplement. A wide range of vocabulary-building features, many of them with full-colour illustrations, encourage students to expand and improve their accuracy and fluency. The dictionary also includes a Visual Thesaurus, which provides alternatives to the 50 most over-used words in English; an Activity Guide, which helps students learn how to get the most out of the dictionary; a Writer's Handbook, which gives guidance on spelling, punctuation, letter-writing and CVs, and a Speaker's Handbook, which gives advice on the best set phrases to use in specific situations. The Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's Dictionary provides invaluable and detailed guidance on the English language, and is the complete reference tool for learners of English.

The inspiring stories of 6 people who changed history. Contents: Henry J Heinz, the man who invented tomato ketchup William Lever who made millions from soap Michael Marks, founder of the Marks and Spencer stores Henry Ford, who mass-produced cars and made them affordable Coco Chanel, the businesswoman who changed fashion for women Ray Kroc, the man who created the McDonald's chain of restaurants BRITISH ENGLISH Word count: 18,209 Headword count: 1,624 Each book includes a free CD with a full recording of each story. PLUS: visit www.collinselt.com/readers for videos, teacher resources and self-study materials. This book is Level 4 in the Collins ELT Readers series. Level 4 is equivalent to CEF level B2. About the Amazing People series: A unique opportunity for learners of English to read about the exceptional lives and incredible abilities of some of the most insightful people the world has seen. Each book contains six short stories, told by the characters themselves, as if in their own words. The stories explain the most significant parts of each character's life, giving an insight into how they came to be such an important historic figure. After each story, a timeline presents the most major events in their life in a clear and succinct fashion. The timeline is ideal for checking comprehension or as a basis for project work or further research. Created in association with The Amazing People Club. About Collins ELT Readers: Collins ELT Readers are divided into four levels: Level 1 — elementary (A2) Level 2 — pre-intermediate (A2-B1) Level 3 — intermediate (B1) Level 4 — upper intermediate (B2) Each level is carefully graded to ensure that the learner both enjoys and benefits from their reading experience.

A colourful revision guide in 4 separate sections for the KS2 literacy skills test for Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling including a Dictionary section with the most difficult words to spell with hints and tips on how to remember the key points.

The eighth instalment in the biggest, funniest, most thrilling comedy-horror-adventure series in the universe — and the follow-up to 2012's number-one bestseller, Kingdom of the Wicked... War has finally come. But it's not a war between good and evil, or light and dark — it's a war between Sanctuaries. For too long, the Irish Sanctuary has teetered on the brink of world-ending disaster, and the other Sanctuaries around the world have had enough. Allies turn to enemies, friends turn to foes, and Skulduggery and Valkyrie must team up with the rest of the Dead Men if they're going to have any chance at all of maintaining the balance of power and getting to the root of a vast conspiracy that has been years in the making. But while this war is only beginning, another war rages within Valkyrie herself. Her own dark side, the insanely powerful being known as Darquesse, is on the verge of rising to the surface. And if Valkyrie slips, even for a moment, then Darquesse will burn the world and everyone in it.

Laugh until it hurts with Big Nate Laugh-O-Rama, the awesome fourth Big Nate activity book! Chock-full of mazes, crossword puzzles, comics, quizzes, and sudoku, the newest installment in the New York Times bestselling series gives kids the chance to have even more fun with Big Nate! Hang out with Dee Dee, Teddy, Gina, and the whole gang while solving the latest Big Nate mysteries and cracking codes right alongside your favorite characters. With more than 150 new games, this will provide hours of entertainment! Big Nate Laugh-O-Rama is a fantastic addition to the growing collection of Big Nate novels, comic compilations, and activity books from creator Lincoln Peirce. Diary of a Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney says, Big Nate is funny, big time!

Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Charlie the Ranch Dog, is back with a new I Can Read story featuring our favorite bacon-loving basset hound. In Charlie's New Friend, Charlie the Ranch Dog meets his match in Mr. Rabbit, a sneaky ranch animal that steals from Mama's garden. Charlie tries to think up ways to stop the rabbit from eating up all the yummy carrots, but Mr. Rabbit always seems to be one step ahead!Charlie's New Friend is a Level One I Can Read book, which means it's perfect for children learning to sound out words and sentences. With expressive illustrations by acclaimed artist Diane deGroat and Charlie's hilarious antics, this I Can Read story will become a favorite of parents and beginning readers.

In this sequel to the bestselling book The Visual Miscellaneum, author David McCandless uses stunning and unique visuals to reveal unexpected insights into how the world really works. Every day, every hour, every minute we are bombarded with information, from television, from newspapers, from the Internet, we're steeped in it. We need a way to relate to it. Enter David McCandless and his stunning infographics, simple, elegant ways to interact with information too complex or abstract to grasp any way but visually. McCandless creates visually stunning displays that blend the facts with their connections, contexts, and relationships, making information meaningful, entertaining, and beautiful. And his genius is as much in finding fresh ways to provocatively combine datasets as it is in finding new ways to show the results. Knowledge is Beautiful is a fascinating spin through the world of visualized data, all of it bearing the hallmark of David McCandless's boundary-breaking, signature style. The captivating follow-up to the bestseller The Visual Miscellaneum, Knowledge is Beautiful offers a deeper, more ranging look at the world and its history, with more connectivity between the pages, a greater exploration of causes and consequences, and a more inclusive global outlook. With a portion of its content crowd-sourced from McCandless's international following, Knowledge is Beautiful achieves a revolutionary and democratic look at the key issues from questions on history and politics, the facts of science, streams of literature, and much more. This is a project that will truly push the boundaries of books everywhere, providing insights into our world in a way never seen before.

«Glamour and grotesquerie; disco and punk; high fashion and low-life passion: the most conflicted and controversial decade in pop culture history blazes back to life in a gloriously decadent collection of images from the runway and the silver screen, the concert stage and the nightclub dance floor. The 1970s was an era when the glitter of old Hollywood was eclipsed by a gritty new sensibility-a time when legends like Elizabeth Taylor and Liza Minnelli mixed with rising stars from the worlds of punk rock, underground film, fashion, and art. Cutting the deck of glamour with a heady dose of hedonism, sex and violence, the stars of the Seventies-including David Bowie, Debbie Harry, Candy Darling and Sid Vicious-rejected stage-managed images in favor of experiment and self-determination. In Seventies Glamour, the acclaimed Hollywood photo historian David Wills (Marilyn Monroe: Metamorphosis; Audrey: The 60s) showcases the freewheeling, explosive parade that was the 1970s, highlighting its aesthetic of liberation, sexual freedom and defiant indulgence. Gorgeously reproduced, wittily curated, the photos in Seventies Glamour are as diverse as the decade they celebrate. From Halston posing with his «Halstonettes» and Divine making the scene at Xenon, to Elton John in his plumed excess, and Diane von Furstenberg wrapped around the Empire State Building, all the exuberance is captured by the superstar photographers of the decade, including Francesco Scavullo, Helmut Newton, Chris von Wangenheim, Michael Childers, Antonio Lopez, Norman Parkinson, Rebecca Blake, Gian Paolo Barbieri, Terence Donovan, Jack Mitchell, Ara Gallant, Anton Perich, Lynn Goldsmith, Brian Aris, Harry Langdon and many more. A full-length gallery as exotic and dazzling as the decade itself, Seventies Glamour illuminates a time when defying expectations became the quintessence of style.»

Now a major motion pictureFrom 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. His fellow American warriors, whom he protected with deadly accuracy from rooftops and stealth positions during the Iraqi War, called him The Legend; meanwhile the enemy feared him so much they placed a bounty on his head. Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle's masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the great war memoirs of all time.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Heart-Shaped Box and NOS4A2, a relentless supernatural thriller that runs like Hell on wheels... Merrin Williams is dead, slaughtered under inexplicable circumstances, leaving her beloved boyfriend Ignatius Perrish as the only suspect. On the first anniversary of Merrin's murder, Ig spends the night drunk and doing awful things. When he wakes the next morning he has a thunderous hangover... and horns growing from his temples. Ig possesses a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look — a macabre gift he intends to use to find the monster who killed his one true love. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. Now it's time for revenge... It's time the devil had his due...

I bought the milk, said my father. I walked out of the corner shop, and heard a noise like this: t h u m m t h u m m. I looked up and saw a huge silver disc hovering in the air above Marshall Road. Hullo, I said to myself. That's not something you see every day. And then something odd happened. Find out just how odd things get in this hilarious New York Times bestselling story of time travel and breakfast cereal, expertly told by Newbery Medalist and bestselling author Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Skottie Young.

E-only exclusive. Drama, heartbreak, redemption — condensed into an unputdownable novella from the master storyteller. On the surface, Claire Saunders has it all. She has a rewarding career in fashion and a talented concert pianist daughter. Her loving husband is one of the country's most trusted diplomats. But every now and again, she has to plaster her face in heavy make-up and wears sunglasses. She thinks she's hidden her secret from her best friends, but they know her too well. Can her friends get her out of harm's way and protect her from a man who is as ruthless as he is charming and powerful? And along the way, can Claire learn to stop protecting the wrong people?

Winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2007, this is a heartbreaking, exquisitely written literary masterpiece. Now a major film starring Thandie Newton, Dominic Cooper and Chiwetel Ejiofor, due for release in 2013. Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university professor. Olanna, a young woman, has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic new lover, the professor. And Richard, a shy English writer, is in thrall to Olanna's enigmatic twin sister. As the horrific Biafran War engulfs them, they are thrown together and pulled apart in ways they had never imagined. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's masterpiece, winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction and now a major film, is a novel about Africa in a wider sense: about the end of colonialism, ethnic allegiances, class and race — and about the ways in which love can complicate all of these things.

Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Charlie the Ranch Dog, is back with a new I Can Read story featuring our favorite bacon-loving basset hound. In Charlie's New Friend, Charlie the Ranch Dog meets his match in Mr. Rabbit, a sneaky ranch animal that steals from Mama's garden. Charlie tries to think up ways to stop the rabbit from eating up all the yummy carrots, but Mr. Rabbit always seems to be one step ahead! Charlie's New Friend is a Level One I Can Read book, which means it's perfect for children learning to sound out words and sentences. With expressive illustrations by acclaimed artist Diane deGroat and Charlie's hilarious antics, this I Can Read story will become a favorite of parents and beginning readers.

The Frankenstein story is updated to the 21st century by the great American storyteller Dean Koontz. Now someone new is playing god. They are stronger, heal better and think faster than any humans ever created — and they must be destroyed. But not even Victor Helios can stop the engineered killers he has set loose on a reign of terror through modern-day New Orleans. The mad genius had not imagined that his creations would develop minds — and purposes — of their own. And as Deucalion and Detectives O'Connor and Maddison race to uncover an age-old conspiracy, they will discover that Victor's new, improved models have infiltrated every level of New Orleans society... and far beyond. Dean Koontz, the master storyteller, creates a bold new legend.

The Frankenstein story is updated to the 21st century by the great American storyteller Dean Koontz. Now someone new is playing god. Frankenstein lives! And so too does his monstrous creation... but this creature of legend is a monster no more and his scarred face bears witness to his maker's wrath. His name is Deucalion. As a devastating hurricane approaches New Orleans, Victor Helios, once know as Frankenstein, has unleashed his benighted creatures onto the streets. As New Orleans descends into chaos, his engineered killers spin out of control, and the only hope rests with Victor's first and failed attempt to build the perfect human, whose damned path has led him to the ultimate confrontation with his pitiless creator. But first, Deucalion must destroy a monstrosity not even Victor's malignant mind could have imagined — an indestructible entity that steps out of humankind's collective nightmare with one purpose: to replace us. This is a powerful reworking of one of the classic stories of all time.

Published in advance of the amazing third movie in the trilogy by Peter Jackson, this is the OFFICIAL Hobbit Annual, packed with stills, characters and information from the movie sensation. Join Bilbo Baggins for the resolution of his journey across the wilds of Middle-Earth This book is the perfect gift for all Hobbit and movie fans. Packed with character profiles, Hobbit activities and information, this is the perfect companion to the blockbuster movie trilogy.

From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a powerful new novel-her first in seven years: a story of love and race centred around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home. As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are fleeing the country if they can. Ifemelu-beautiful, self-assured-departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze-the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor-had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion-for their homeland and for each other-they will face the toughest decisions of their lives. Fearless, gripping, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story of love and expectation set in today's globalized world.