This new volume of eight short stories offers students of German at all levels the opportunity to enjoy a wide range of contemporary literature in the original, with the aid of parallel translations.

The majority of these stories have been written in the past decade, and reflect a rich diversity of styles and themes.  Complete with notes, the stories make excellent reading in either language.

Optische Instrumente des 17. Jahrhunderts aus Augsburg sind kaum erhalten. Auch die fruhen Optiker sind nahezu volligem Vergessen anheimgefallen. Mit ihrer Arbeit uber Johann Wiesel und seine Nachfolger schliesst die Verfasserin daher nicht nur eine Lucke in der Handwerksgeschichte Augsburgs, sondern erbringt auch einen Beitrag zur Fruhgeschichte der optischen Instrumente. Die Autorin, die als Expertin ihres Forschungsgebietes internationale Anerkennung geniesst, hat eine aussergewohnliche Rekonstruktionsleistung vollbracht. Was Inge Keil in ihrer Monographie erstmals und akribisch untersucht, ist eine bislang kaum bekannte Verknupfung von Augsburger Leistungen mit der europaischen Entwicklung. Obwohl die Hauptperson, um die es in der Darstellung geht, mit der Signatur "Augustanus Opticus" ihre Stadtzugehorigkeit betonte, handelte es sich um einen zeitgenossisch europaweit bekannten und vernetzten Erfinder und Hersteller fortgeschrittener optischer Technologie. Fur eine bestimmte Phase stellten Gerate aus Augsburger Fertigung weltweit fuhrende Spitzenprodukte dar, stand also die oberdeutsche Reichsstadt und Zentrale sudmitteleuropaischen Austausches auch in dieser Hinsicht im Mittelpunkt der einschlagigen Welt."

Suitable for students with three or more years of modern Chinese language instruction, "Anything Goes" uses advanced materials to reinforce language skills and increase understanding of contemporary China in one semester. This fully revised edition provides learners with a deeper fluency in high-level Chinese vocabulary and grammar, and includes newspaper articles and critiques as well as other primary source documents, such as political speeches and legal documents. The textbook covers topics that are essential to understanding contemporary Chinese society, including changing attitudes toward women and marriage, the one-child policy, economic development, China's ethnic minorities, and debates surrounding Taiwan and Hong Kong. The lessons intentionally investigate thought-provoking and sometimes controversial issues in order to spark lively classroom discussions.

This new edition incorporates suggestions and improvements from years of student and teacher feedback. With an improved, more user-friendly format, "Anything Goes" juxtaposes text and vocabulary on adjacent pages. Grammar explanations and exercises have also been thoroughly updated.Advanced-level Chinese language textbook Includes newspaper articles and primary source documents Thought-provoking topics on contemporary Chinese society Updated grammar explanations and exercises New user-friendly format

"From the classic novel by Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist barely survives childhood in the workhouse. When he runs away to London, he is taken in by a gang of thieves. Wealthy Mr. Brownlow rescues him, but the thieves snatch Oliver back, and it seems that he has no hope of escaping a life of crime. The Usborne English Readers series is a new range of graded readers in simplified English for younger learners. They include activities, glossaries and a full audio recording of the text in both British English and American English."

Look, Jane.  Look, Dick.  See Funny Sally.  Funny, funny Sally.

Germinal by Emile Zola - Translated and Introduced by Havelock Ellis 'GERMINAL' was published in 1885, after occupying Zola during the previous year. In accordance with his usual custom--but to a greater extent than with any other of his books except La Debacle--he accumulated material beforehand. For six months he travelled about the coal-mining district in northern France and Belgium, especially the Borinage around Mons, note-book in hand. 'He was inquisitive, was that gentleman', miner told Sherard who visited the neighbourhood at a later period and found that the miners in every village knew Germinal. That was a tribute of admiration the book deserved, but it was never one of Zola's most popular novels; it was neither amusing enough nor outrageous enough to attract the multitude. Yet Germinal occupies a place among Zola's works which is constantly becoming more assured, so that to some critics it even begins to seem the only book of his that in the end may survive. In his own time, as we know, the accredited critics of the day could find no condemnation severe enough for Zola. Brunetiere attacked him perpetually with a fury that seemed inexhaustible; Scherer could not even bear to hear his name mentioned; Anatole France, though he lived to relent, thought it would have been better if he had never been born. Even at that time, however, there were critics who inclined to view Germinal more favourably. Thus Faguet, who was the recognized academic critic of the end of the last century, while he held that posterity would be unable to understand how Zola could ever have been popular, yet recognized him as in Germinal the heroic representative of democracy, incomparable in his power of describing crowds, and he realized how marvellous is the conclusion of this book. To-day, when critics view Zola In the main with indifference rather than with horror, although he still retains his popular favour, the distinction of Germinal is yet more clearly recognized. Seilliere, while regarding the capitalistic conditions presented as now of an ancient and almost extinct type, yet sees Germinal standing out as 'the poem of social mysticism', while Andre Gide, a completely modern critic who has left a deep mark on the present generation, observes somewhere that it may nowadays cause surprise that he should refer with admiraton to Germinal, but it is a masterly book that fills him with astonishment; he can hardly believe that it was written in French and still less that it should have been written in any other language; it seems that it should have been created in some international tongue. The high place thus claimed for Germinal will hardly seem exaggerated. The book was produced when Zola had at length achieved the full mastery of his art and before his hand had, as in his latest novels, begun to lose its firm grasp. The subject lent itself, moreover, to his special aptitude for presenting in vivid outline great human groups, and to his special sympathy with the collective emotions and social aspirations of such groups. We do not, as so often in Zola's work, become painfully conscious that he is seeking to reproduce aspects of life with which he is imperfectly acquainted, or fitting them into scientific formulas which he has imperfectly understood. He shows a masterly grip of each separate group, and each represents some essential element of the whole; they are harmoniously balanced, and their mutual action and reaction leads on inevitably to the splendid tragic dose, with yet its great promise for the future. I will not here discuss Zola's literary art (I have done so in my book of Affirmations); it is enough to say that, though he was not a great master of style, Zola never again wrote so finely as here. The title refers to the name of a month of the French Republican Calendar, a spring month. Germen is a Latin word which means "seed"; the novel describes the hope for a better future that seeds amongst th"