I didn’t believe in the Rule of Three. Not at first.

It was just one of those urban myths you hear about all the time. A story my boyfriend told me about a girl cursed by the number three. A girl whose parents had killed themselves after her sibling had died in an accident. Which meant that she was doomed to die too because that’s the Rule of Three.

Bad things always happen in threes, they say, and they are right. Because it’s happening again. But this time the curse is coming for me.

And worst of all? It’s coming for you, too.

Ripley's Believe It or Not! will amaze and astound children and adults alike with thousands of strange stories, unusual feats and hair-raising oddities from around the world.

Bursting with thousands of extraordinary facts and accompanied by lists, stunning photography, infographics, and the science behind some of the weirdest stories, Ripley's Believe It or Not! will entertain, inform and flabbergast you with stories of people who are pushing the boundaries.

This year's annual takes the reading experience to the next level with mini games, interactive video content, quizzes, secrets to be unlocked and many more innovative features.

No Christmas is complete without it.

All eight episodes from the sixth series of the ITV comedy drama. Taking place 13 years on from the end of the last series, Adam (James Nesbitt) returns to Manchester having travelled the world and settled in Singapore after his wife's death. He returns with his young girlfriend to fix his relationship with his rebellious, teenage son Matthew (Ceallach Spellman), much to the delight of his best friend Pete (John Thomson) who is struggling with depression and financial troubles with his wife Jenny (Fay Ripley) and their two children. Elsewhere, Karen and David (Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst) are building new lives following their divorce whilst trying to raise their 16-year-old twins.

When we are baffled by the insanity of the “other side�—in our politics, at work, or at home—it’s because we aren’t seeing how the conflict itself has taken over. That’s what “high conflict� does. It’s the invisible hand of our time. And it’s different from the useful friction of healthy conflict. That’s good conflict, and it’s a necessary force that pushes us to be better people. High conflict is what happens when discord distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud, the kind with an us and a them. In this state, the brain behaves differently. We feel increasingly certain of our own superiority, and everything we do to try to end the conflict, usually makes it worse. Eventually, we can start to mimic the behavior of our adversaries, harming what we hold most dear. In this “compulsively readable� (Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author) book, New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley investigates how good people get captured by high conflict—and how they break free. Our journey begins in California, where a world-renowned conflict expert struggles to extract himself from a political feud. Then we meet a Chicago gang leader who dedicates his life to a vendetta—only to realize, years later, that the story he’d told himself about the conflict was not quite true. Next, we travel to Colombia, to find out whether thousands of people can be nudged out of high conflict at scale. Finally, we return to America to see what happens when a group of liberal Manhattan Jews and conservative Michigan corrections officers choose to stay in each other’s homes in order to understand one another better, even as they continue to disagree. All these people, in dramatically different situations, were drawn into high conflict by similar forces, including conflict entrepreneurs, humiliation, and false binaries. But ultimately, all of them found ways to transform high conflict into good conflict, the kind that made them better people. They rehumanized and recatego­rized their opponents, and they revived curiosity and wonder, even as they continued to fight for what they knew was right. People do escape high conflict. Individuals—even entire communities—can short-circuit the feedback loops of outrage and blame, if they want to. This is an “insightful and enthralling� (The New York Times Book Review) book—and a mind-opening new way to think about conflict that will transform how we move through the world.

A new translation of the 6th-century Taoist text Bai Yao Lu (Statutes of the Hundred Remedies), with practical commentary • Explains how the Hundred Remedies of the Bai Yao Lu offer a practical guide to what enlightened or sagely behavior looks like • Shows how each short verse of the Hundred Remedies presents a spiritual precept as a solution to the problems encountered in daily life and on the spiritual path • Provides insightful commentary for each of the Hundred Remedies, showing how they relate to meditation practice and can help us navigate emotional and social challenges In modern Taoist practice, the emphasis is often on “going with the flow� (wu-wei) and not following any fixed rules of any kind. This may work well for an already enlightened Taoist Sage, but for the rest of us, following a spiritual path involves ethical, moral, and practical guidelines. As author and translator Gregory Ripley (Li Guan, �觀) explains, the little-known 6th-century Taoist text called the Bai Yao Lu (Statutes of the Hundred Remedies) was created as a practical guide to what enlightened or sagely behavior looks like—and each of the 100 spiritual remedies are just as relevant today as they were when written over 1500 years ago. Presenting a new translation of the Bai Yao Lu for the contemporary world, Ripley provides insightful commentary for each of the Hundred Remedies, showing how they relate to Taoist meditation practice and how they can help us navigate the emotional and social challenges we all experience. He explains how each short verse of the Hundred Remedies presents a spiritual precept in a positive way, not as a restriction or commandment that must not be broken but as a solution to the problems encountered in daily life as well as on the spiritual path. He shows how these deceptively simple statutes, known as abstentions in Taoism, teach us how to emulate the behavior of the Sages until the behavior becomes our own. Both scholarly and inspirational, this guidebook to Taoist spiritual living will help you learn to effortlessly go with the flow, deepen your meditation practice, and find the natural balance in all things.

‘The Rule of Three absolutely blew me away. An incredibly intense and original creepy page-turner that made me keep turning the pages in a desperate need to finish it and find out the answers! Utterly paranoia-inducing and brilliant. I loved it. It came for me and now it will come for you!' SARAH PINBOROUGH 'Ingenious, creepy and compelling. Sam Ripley is an exciting new voice in the field of chilling thrillers' ALEX NORTH  The Whisper Man meets The Chalk Man with the paranoia of The Blair Witch Project in this chilling suspense thriller.  That’s the one. That’s the girl who’s going to die.   I didn’t believe in the Rule of Three. Not at first. It was just one of those urban myths you hear about all the time. A story my boyfriend told me about a girl cursed by the number three. A girl whose parents had killed themselves after her sibling had died in an accident. Which meant that she was doomed to die too because that’s the Rule of Three.   Bad things always happen in threes, they say, and they are right. Because it’s happening again. But this time the curse is coming for me. And worst of all? It’s coming for you, too. ‘The Rule of Three is a completely original, nuanced, one-sitting read that blew me away. Whip-smart dialogue, characters that haunt your dreams and a plot you might just die for. I loved it’ CHRIS WHITAKER 'With The Rule of Three, Sam Ripley has delivered a perfectly crafted nightmare. Taut, deliciously sinister, witty and original. I couldn’t get enough of all the creepy twists and turns' CAZ FREAR  

At its inception, the ‘Little Black Dress’, designed by Coco Chanel, was radically modern: a masculine-inspired, anti-traditionalist female attire – yet it has remained a wardrobe staple for almost a century. Bringing together international scholars, curators and fashion writers, this volume explores how black’s paradoxical meanings have made the LBD simultaneously expressive of respect and rebellion, sophistication and dissident sexualities, piety and perversion. The book also looks at the smart technologies which are responding to the demand for the fashion industry to be more aware of sustainability.

The director of the acclaimed 'Moon' (2009), Duncan Jones, helms this sci-fi action thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Soldier Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) wakes up in the body of an unknown man and discovers that he is part of a government mission to identify the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. The experiment, known as the 'Source Code', enables its subjects to take on a person's identity for the last eight minutes of their lives. Colter has been programmed to relive the incident over and over again, piecing together clues until he can figure out who the suspect is and prevent another large-scale terrorist attack. Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright co-star.

The Human Right to Water and Its Application in the Occupied Palestinian Territories provides an overview and examination of the human right to water as determined under international human rights law. This is a highly topical issue, with the UN General Assembly having passed a resolution which declares access to clean water and sanitation a human right (New York, Jul 28 2010), the recent appointment of the UN Independent Expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation, and movement within the NGO community for an international water treaty. Amanda Cahill Ripley analyses the current legal status, substantive content, and obligations correlative to the right, and examines the relationship between other economic, social and cultural rights related to the right to water. The book goes on to look more specifically at the application of the human right to water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Using innovative methodology, Cahill Ripley combines legal analysis with a qualitative social science empirical case study to explore the enjoyment of the right 'on the ground'. The wider implications of the case study findings are then considered, looking at what can be done to strengthen the right legally in terms of its status and codification, and what remedy can be found for violations of the right, both specifically in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and in a more general context. The book will be of interest to students, academics and practitioners within the fields of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as well as those concerned with international relations and conflict resolution within Israel/Palestine and the wider Middle East region.

Surprise! You are invited to a mermaid sleepover party at the palace! A magical series about saving our oceans for readers aged 6+. The Sea Keepers are invited by Queen Adrianna to stay overnight at the palace for Princess Marina's surprise birthday party. Emily, Grace and Layla have never been to a mermaid sleepover, and are worried about what gift to bring. But when Effluvia crashes the party and threatens to spoil the surprise, Emily, Grace and Layla know that they need to give their mermaid friend the only birthday gift that really matters - a magic pearl that can save Atlantis from evil Effluvia! They won't sleep a wink until they find it!

America has long compared its students to top-performing kids of other nations. But how do the world's education superpowers look through the eyes of an American high school student? Author Amanda Ripley follows three teenagers who chose to spend one school year living and learning in Finland, South Korea, and Poland. Through their adventures, Ripley discovers startling truths about how attitudes, parenting, and rigorous teaching have revolutionized these countries' education results. In The Smartest Kids in the World, Ripley's astonishing new insights reveal that top-performing countries have achieved greatness only in the past several decades; that the kids who live there are learning to think for themselves, partly through failing early and often; and that persistence, hard work, and resilience matter more to our children's life chances than self-esteem or sports. Ripley's investigative work seamlessly weaves narrative and research, providing in-depth analysis and gripping details that will keep you turning the pages. Written in a clear and engaging style, The Smartest Kids in the World will enliven public as well as dinner table debates over what makes for brighter and better students.

Nick Miller is Central Division's maverick Detective Sergeant. Disliked and distrusted by friends and foes, he works alone. He crosses the line. And he gets results. The Graveyard Shift... Nick Miller is new to the graveyard shift - the midnight hours when the driven and the desperate come out to play. Tonight Ben Garvald is out of prison. After nine years inside, he's back in the old neighbourhood. Back to his remarried ex-wife. Back for revenge. Brought in Dead... Then after a fatal night out, a girl's body is pulled from an isolated stretch of river. The last person to see her alive had enemies on both sides of the fence. Miller wants justice. But so does her father - with or without the law on his side. Hell Is Always Today... And the Rainlover. Whose victims are always women. Always at night when the streets are wet. He could be any one of a thousand men. Hounded by the public and the press, Miller needs to find him before he strikes again. It's time to throw out the rule book in the line of duty. GRAVEYARD TO HELL Jack Higgins' gritty police saga set in the 1960s, first released as three short volumes and long out of print, is now reimagined as one gripping novel, packing a punch as only 'The Legend' of thriller fiction knows how.

The Human Right to Water and Its Application in the Occupied Palestinian Territories provides an overview and examination of the human right to water as determined under international human rights law. This is a highly topical issue, with the UN General Assembly having passed a resolution which declares access to clean water and sanitation a human right (New York, Jul 28 2010), the recent appointment of the UN Independent Expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation, and movement within the NGO community for an international water treaty. Amanda Cahill Ripley analyses the current legal status, substantive content, and obligations correlative to the right, and examines the relationship between other economic, social and cultural rights related to the right to water. The book goes on to look more specifically at the application of the human right to water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Using innovative methodology, Cahill Ripley combines legal analysis with a qualitative social science empirical case study to explore the enjoyment of the right 'on the ground'. The wider implications of the case study findings are then considered, looking at what can be done to strengthen the right legally in terms of its status and codification, and what remedy can be found for violations of the right, both specifically in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and in a more general context. The book will be of interest to students, academics and practitioners within the fields of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as well as those concerned with international relations and conflict resolution within Israel/Palestine and the wider Middle East region.

In this compilation of projects and plans from "Furniture & Cabinetmaking" magazine, veteran craftsman Mark Ripley puts 20 years' worth of practical tips, refreshing ideas, and innovative approaches on the page. The 24 fully-diagrammed and illustrated designs here offer something to furniture-makers of all abilities, from a simple dining-room table to the more complex breakfront bookcase. And these projects don't require a lavishly-equipped shop: each design requires little more than a bench, a small bandsaw, two or three portable power tools, and a basic kit of hand tools. Before diving into building plans, Ripley helps readers understand the basics of properly choosing materials and harmonizing the elements of furniture design.

The Wehrmacht analyses in detail the tactics of the armies, corps, and divisions of the German Army, such as the Blitzkrieg and the concept of mobile defence used so successfully during the latter stages of the war. The text also examines the reasons why the army was able to fight so long and so effectively under adverse strategic conditions: its adaptability for fighting, the superiority of much of its later equipment, and a basic capacity to improvise. The Wehrmacht provides new perspectives on why the German soldier of World War II was so good at fighting. All the different combat units of the army, such as panzer, panzergrenadier, infantry and cavalry divisions, and their battlefield role in all theatres of war are analysed in full.

This text is about children with dyspraxia - developmental co-ordination disorders (DCD) - and what teachers and other professionals can do to promote their learning and their social inclusion in a mainstream setting. The author addresses issues which affect access to the curriculum in Key Stages 1 to 4 and offers strategies to support children which have proved effective to experienced practitioners and can be managed in a group or class context. A key component of the book is an understanding of the emotional and social needs of children with dyspraxia.

This book is about children with speech and language impairments and what teachers and other professionals can do to promote their learning and their social inclusion in a mainstream setting. A brief introduction to SLI is followed by a chapter on the main issues for the classroom; how teachers can support the preferred learning style of the children and literacy and numeracy strategies are each given a separate section.
Inclusion involves more than the learning experience and so the social, emotional and behavioral agenda, including successful transition and working with parents, is given equal emphasis.

The aim of this text is to promote an understanding of dyspraxia and movement development among professionals who work with children, and also to offer a text which is accessible to parents. It presents a cognitive processing model of dyspraxia from a developmental perspective, and addresses issues of social development in addition to the more easily observable motor planning difficulties which are associated with dyspraxia. The difficulties which may face the dyspraxic child at home and at school are described with strategies for managing their difficulties. Details are provided of the support services available and how they may be accessed.

Kate Ripley's work in the topical area of Emotional Literacy has shown that children must first learn to discriminate and label their own emotions before they can focus on understanding other people's. This comprehensive programme is designed to assist early years practitioners help children to achieve these first important steps, the pack consists of: theoretical rationale - long and short version how the programme fits within the current legislative framework baseline assessment details pratical strategies to support the programme evaluation from pilot study bibliography and recommended materials. In addition to the book there are downloadable resources containing a twenty minute video film showing behaviour to be addressed and intervention in action, a demonstration in powerpoint to show to colleagues and stories to use for baseline assessment.