Merrett's Gift


Book Description

When six "criminally gifted" teens are caught misapplying their talents, each is given an offer they can't refuse: to train at a secret school and put their skills to work for their country, or face the most severe consequences for their crimes. The kids arrive at the Brockmann School of Excellence full of resentment and suspicion, and their first impressions of the place only confirm their fears. Then they meet Mr. Merrett-the teacher who changes everything. Suddenly life is a lot more interesting! Challenged in ways they never imagined, the teens slowly begin to meld into a team capable of more than even their trainers realize. A fun, suspenseful roller-coaster ride of a story, Merrett's Gift follows the adventures of a group of teens hell-bent on living life on their own terms, and the mysterious teacher who makes it possible. But who is he, really? And why is he so secretive about his past? Class is in session! Enjoy-but keep an eye on your valuables. And your passcodes. And your car . . .




Make Your Own Soft Toys


Book Description

This wonderful collection of handmade toys will delight children both young and old. The 25 projects, designed by expert craftsman Rob Merrett, take their inspiration from traditional playthings, including dolls, animals, and more. Begin with Baby’s First Soft Toy—delightful gifts for newborns designed in soft colors and gentle prints. Nursery Novelties is next, with easy patchwork and appliqué embellishments, followed by Activity Toys, where clever designs will stimulate young children’s minds. Creature Comforts has adorable animals that are perfect for little ones in a range of pretty fabrics. Finally, Divine Dollies is packed with trendy, vintage-looking rag dolls that you will love to make. Rob also develops the concept of “Kids Forever,” where designs should appeal not just to children, but also to adults who will appreciate his stylish, retro approach. Each toy comes with clear, step-by-step text and beautiful photography and artworks that will guide even a novice stitcher, helping them to produce gorgeous gifts with a charming, handcrafted feel.




Economy Gastronomy


Book Description

Learn how to eat better and spend less with deliciously easy recipes 'Delicious, thrifty, inspiring' GUARDIAN Featuring over 100 mouth-watering recipes and practical tips, Economy Gastronomy will help you to cook simple, better food, and along the way save you a lot of money _______ With this essential cookery companion, you will learn how to . . . - Get two, or even three, meals out of one basic ingredient - Turn leftovers into new and exciting dishes - Stock your cupboards so there's always a meal in the house - Shop seasonally, freeze and store food - Plan your meals and shrink your food bills With breakfasts, lunch, dinner, snack and treat ideas, you'll be making luxurious meals without spending a fortune or discarding surplus food in no time. Recipes include: - Caramelised onion and Cheshire cheese tart - Onion bhajis, tarka dahl and almond rice - Spinach, ham and ricotta gnocchi - Chinese-style crispy duck Filled with money-saving hacks and no-nonsense recipes, Economy Gastronomy will teach you how to use and spend less, without scrimping on flavour.




A Gift of Time


Book Description

When Micajah Fenton discovers a crater in his front yard with a broken time glider in the bottom and a naked, virtual woman on his lawn, he delays his plans to kill himself. While helping repair the marooned time traveler's glider, Cager realizes it can return him to his past to correct a mistake that had haunted him his whole life. In gratitude for his help, the virtual creature living in the circuitry of the marooned glider, sends Cager back in time as his ten-year-old self, knowing everything he'd known at eighty. As a bonus, it also gives him access to advanced equations of space and time.But living life over knowing the future isn't as easy as Cager anticipated, and he bungles his chance at correcting the most serious mistake of his life. Now he must use his new knowledge of advanced math to build his own time machine to go back and try again. Meanwhile Cager's repairs to the creature's glider fail, keeping it stranded near earth. In desperation, the whale-like creature sends, Ell, a near-human, female copy containing it's consciousness to help Cager. While perfecting time travel, Cager and Ell overcome enormous problems, even being hunted by dinosaurs in the Cretaceous, and Cager falls in love with this indomitable anthropomorphic copy of a creature from across the galaxy.







Spice Odyssey


Book Description

Michelin-award winning chef Paul Merrett's collection of recipes is united by a bold and inventive use of spice. Including such dishes as Zanzibar Fish Curry, 25-Minute Veggie Tagine and Coconut and Lemongrass Panna Cotta, this beautiful book is also interspersed with amusing stories of Paul's travels to African spice markets and Asian spice gardens. Including a wealth of tips on storage, buying, grinding, dry-frying, rubs and marinades, as well as fascinating facts on the history of spices, the subtle aromas and fiery flavors in this gorgeous cookbook will inspire you to cook something new.







Daniel Defoe


Book Description

A highly conscious wordsmith, Daniel Defoe used expository styles in his fiction and non-fiction that reflected his ability to perceive material and intellectual phenomena from opposing, but not contradictory perspectives. Moreover, the boundaries of genre within his wide-ranging oeuvre can prove highly fluid. In this study, Robert James Merrett approaches Defoe's body of work using interdisciplinary methods that recognize dialectic in his verbal creativity and cognitive awareness. Examining more than ninety of Defoe's works, Merrett contends that this author's literariness exploits a conscious dialogue that fosters the reciprocity of traditional and progressive authorial procedures. Along the way, he discusses Defoe's lexical and semantic sensibility, his rhetorical and aesthetic theories, his contrarian theology, and more. Merrett proposes that Defoe's contrarian outlook celebrates a view of consciousness that acknowledges the brain's bipartite structure, and in so doing illustrates how cognitive science may be applied to further explorations of narrative art.