The World Book Encyclopedia


Book Description

An encyclopedia designed especially to meet the needs of elementary, junior high, and senior high school students.







The Tale of Despereaux


Book Description

A brave mouse, a covetous rat, a wishful serving girl, and a princess named Pea come together in Kate DiCamillo's Newbery Medal–winning tale. Welcome to the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish. These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and, ultimately, into each other's lives. What happens then? As Kate DiCamillo would say: Reader, it is your destiny to find out. With black-and-white illustrations and a refreshed cover by Timothy Basil Ering.




To Shake the Sleeping Self


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “With winning candor, Jedidiah Jenkins takes us with him as he bicycles across two continents and delves deeply into his own beautiful heart.”—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things On the eve of turning thirty, terrified of being funneled into a life he didn’t choose, Jedidiah Jenkins quit his dream job and spent sixteen months cycling from Oregon to Patagonia. He chronicled the trip on Instagram, where his photos and reflections drew hundreds of thousands of followers, all gathered around the question: What makes a life worth living? In this unflinchingly honest memoir, Jed narrates his adventure—the people and places he encountered on his way to the bottom of the world—as well as the internal journey that started it all. As he traverses cities, mountains, and inner boundaries, Jenkins grapples with the question of what it means to be an adult, his struggle to reconcile his sexual identity with his conservative Christian upbringing, and his belief in travel as a way to wake us up to life back home. A soul-stirring read for the wanderer in each of us, To Shake the Sleeping Self is an unforgettable reflection on adventure, identity, and a life lived without regret. Praise for To Shake the Sleeping Self “[Jenkins is] a guy deeply connected to his personal truth and just so refreshingly present.”—Rich Roll, author of Finding Ultra “This is much more than a book about a bike ride. This is a deep soul deepening us. Jedidiah Jenkins is a mystic disguised as a millennial.”—Tom Shadyac, author of Life’s Operating Manual “Thought-provoking and inspirational . . . This uplifting memoir and travelogue will remind readers of the power of movement for the body and the soul.”—Publishers Weekly




Introduction to Applied Linear Algebra


Book Description

A groundbreaking introduction to vectors, matrices, and least squares for engineering applications, offering a wealth of practical examples.




Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms


Book Description

Information theory and inference, taught together in this exciting textbook, lie at the heart of many important areas of modern technology - communication, signal processing, data mining, machine learning, pattern recognition, computational neuroscience, bioinformatics and cryptography. The book introduces theory in tandem with applications. Information theory is taught alongside practical communication systems such as arithmetic coding for data compression and sparse-graph codes for error-correction. Inference techniques, including message-passing algorithms, Monte Carlo methods and variational approximations, are developed alongside applications to clustering, convolutional codes, independent component analysis, and neural networks. Uniquely, the book covers state-of-the-art error-correcting codes, including low-density-parity-check codes, turbo codes, and digital fountain codes - the twenty-first-century standards for satellite communications, disk drives, and data broadcast. Richly illustrated, filled with worked examples and over 400 exercises, some with detailed solutions, the book is ideal for self-learning, and for undergraduate or graduate courses. It also provides an unparalleled entry point for professionals in areas as diverse as computational biology, financial engineering and machine learning.




Reading Group Choices


Book Description




True North


Book Description

One of American literature’s most significant authors delivers “a coming-of-age story, a familial saga of estrangement . . . A slow-burning revenge tragedy” (The New York Times Book Review). An epic tale that pits a son against the legacy of his family’s desecration of the earth, and his own father’s more personal violations, Jim Harrison’s True North is a beautiful and moving novel that speaks to the territory in our hearts that calls us back to our roots. The scion of a family of wealthy timber barons, David Burkett has grown up with a father who is a malevolent force and a mother made vague and numb by alcohol and pills. He and his sister Cynthia, a firecracker who scandalizes the family at fourteen by taking up with the son of their Finnish-Native American gardener, are mostly left to make their own way. As David comes to adulthood—often guided and enlightened by the unforgettable, intractable, courageous women he loves—he realizes he must come to terms with his forefathers’ rapacious destruction of the woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, as well as the working people who made their wealth possible. Jim Harrison has given us a family tragedy of betrayal, amends, and justice for the worst sins. True North is a bravura performance from one of our finest writers, accomplished with deep humanity, humor, and redemptive soul. “A provocative tale that explores the roots of wealth and privilege in America . . . Harrison’s writing is superb, as always, rippling with thematic leaps and poetic insights.” —The Oregonian




Cheat Play Live


Book Description

Beaches are places where the universe speaks loudest, where earth, air, fire and water meet in their purest form. They broadcast a message we can only hear if we let ourselves walk quietly in the light and listen. On a beach in California in 2008, Lisa finds a shell on a rock, its two halves open to the sky. On the outside it is sea-worn and unremarkable, but on the inside it gleams like a jewel. It is as though it is lying there, waiting to be found and cherished - like her. She uses the picture she takes of that shell to set up an online profile that will end her marriage. It leads her to more beaches around the world - to Kenya, Thailand, Turkey, Egypt and India - in search of freedom from the fear of a life alone, from society's expectations of a fortysomething woman, and the freedom to choose how she wants to live. For fans of Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Wild by Cheryl Strayed, Lisa Edwards' story is about the search for a life beyond the one prescribed for women: marriage, babies and a high-flying career. Childfree-by-choice, she is determined to fly solo, going on holidays on her own, as well as to restaurants, bars and even clubs. But grieving for her parents, she begins to depend on the anaesthetic that alcohol gives her and it steers her life in unexpected ways. During the course of her journey she dates married men, younger men, men her own age and Muslim men, but none of them are prepared to give her her freedom. In India, she discovers yoga and a tribe of women who show her a new path, breaking the lock on the secret she's been keeping inside her since she was a little girl.




How to Detect Casino Cheating at Blackjack


Book Description

Protect Yourself from Casino Cheats! Bill Zender, a highly paid consultant to the gambling industry, is widely respected as an expert on game protection. Although cheating is rare in today's modern, highly-regulated casinos, the proliferation of casinos throughout the U.S. and around the world has created new opportunities for crooked dealers, and new dangers for honest players. Never before has any casino insider revealed the hidden tricks of the trade of the scam artists. Zender describes in vivid detail how slick blackjack dealers can rob you. None of this information has ever been made available to the general public in the past. The cheats aren't talking, and the casinos rarely disclose this sensitive information because they don't want to scare players away from their games. With blackjack now being dealt on riverboats, Indian reservations, and vacation resorts, as well as in high stakes private games all over the country, the time has come for players to know how to recognize cheaters and how to protect themselves.