Every episode, plus the two Christmas specials, from the BBC's award-winning, faux documentary comedy series starring Ricky Gervais as David Brent, the manager of paper merchant Wernham Hogg's Slough office, who, in his own mind, is not so much the boss but 'more of a friend'.

In the first season, David is informed that company downsizing means that the Slough office might have to close. In a moment of gauche managerial bravado he promises his staff that there will be no redundacies - a promise he might not be able to keep...

In season 2, the office has been merged and new staff from the Swindon office arrive to feel the benefit of David's managerial skills.

In this must-read for anyone seeking to succeed, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth takes us on an eye-opening journey to discover the true qualities that lead to outstanding achievement.

Winningly personal, insightful and powerful, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that - not talent or luck - makes all the difference.

Two sisters, separated by oceans and global conflict, are bonded through music and love in this gripping novel based on true events from World War II.

The year is 1941, and in the Philippines, Caramina Grassi dreams of training in Italy to become an opera singer like her older sister, Rosa. But as war erupts, her world is shattered, forcing her to cling to the music that has always been her refuge. When her family’s lives are threatened and they are forced to flee to the jungle, she comes to understand that music is more than comfort. It becomes a muse that fuels her courage, sacrifice, and unwavering focus on the light.

Meanwhile, in Florence, just as Rosa Grassi’s long-awaited opera debut arrives, Mussolini tightens his grip on Italy. Drawn into la Resistenza, the underground resistance, Rosa feels lost in a fog of deception that clouds everything she thought to be true. In a time when family or friend could be foe, Rosa will learn that performing isn’t just for the stage. Facing a devastating betrayal, she must decide how far she’s willing to go to protect the one she loves.

Inspired by true events, In the Light of the Sun is an unforgettable story of sisterhood, hope, and the enduring power of music to uplift the human spirit—even in the darkest of times.

Journalist and public relations maven Lucy Khambule is flying high in her life and career. Her book on convicted serial killer Napoleon Dingiswayo is a bestseller, Lucy is in demand for talks and interviews, and her company is involved in early stage organising for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Then comes the terrifying news that Dingiswayo has escaped from C-Max – or has he, as shortly thereafter Detective Morapedi confirms to Lucy that the charred remains found in a prison pipe shaft, along with a suicide note, are those of Dingiswayo. An official statement from Correctional Services further confirms this.

But who is the person stalking her on Facebook? What should Lucy and Detective Morapedi make of the violent and disturbing ‘copycat’ killings happening in eSwatini and the hushed rumours that are swirling around the annual Reed Dance? As Lucy and her events management team work on the historical FIFA World Cup Preliminary Draw at the Durban International Convention Centre, events unfold at breakneck speed.

Is this the work of an exconvict on a deadly mission or are there other dangers lurking on Lucy’s path?

Who can she trust and how can she stay safe?

When an ambitious tyrant threatens genocide against the Jews, an inexperienced young queen must take a stand for her people.

When Xerxes, king of Persia, issues a call for beautiful young women, Hadassah, a Jewish orphan living in Susa, is forcibly taken to the palace of the pagan ruler. After months of preparation, the girl known to the Persians as Esther wins the king's heart and a queen's crown. But because her situation is uncertain, she keeps her ethnic identity a secret until she learns that an evil and ambitious man has won the king's permission to exterminate all Jews--young and old, powerful and helpless.

Purposely violating an ancient Persian law, she risks her life in order to save her people... and bind her husband's heart.

They answered a distress call. They awakened a nightmare. Beyond comprehension, beyond imagination, and beyond the deepest regions of this galaxy . . . life as we know it is about to end!

In the farthest reaches of deep space, the medical vessel Nightingale 229 stands watch for anyone in need. When a desperate distress signal cuts through the void, the crew makes a dangerous hyperspace jump—straight into the gravity well of a dying star.

Stranded and damaged, they recover a lone survivor and a mysterious alien artifact from a crippled shuttle. As the star begins to implode and a supernova builds, the crew races to uncover the truth behind their mysterious passenger and the object he carries—before the explosion consumes them and everything in its path.

Focus Second Edition is an even richer version of the best-selling English language learning series for upper secondary students. Through its proven 3Ms methodology (Motivation, Memory, and Meaning), cutting-edge digital solutions and high-quality educational videos from the BBC, the course offers everything students and teachers have requested. Find out more at english.com/focus

Vonkel is die kleinste eenhorinkie in die Wonder-Woud. Almal se sy’s te klein om te help bessies soek, en te klein om speletjies te speel. Maar Vonkel is moeg daarvan om altyd eenkant toe geskuif te word. Op ’n dag besluit Vonkel om te wys hoe dapper sy is. Op haar eie gaan verken sy die diepste deel van die woud...

This volume addresses, in a broad comparative perspective, the constitutional development of the countries of Central-Eastern, Baltic and Balkan Europe. Through an in-depth historical and political analysis, the co-authors examine the most recent constitutional dynamics of these countries, focusing in particular on the path followed after the collapse of their respective socialist regimes. A large number of countries is examined which demonstrates the complexity of this area in terms of state-building. The authors analyse in detail the various constitutions, with a focus on the debate that took place in the constituent assemblies and the influence of European democratic conditionality. The authors also examine the respective bills of rights especially with regard to their enforcement and protection. Finally, it should be noted that systems of government, territorial decentralization and constitutional justice are also the object of attention.

The Handbook of Culture and Creativity is a collaborative effort to provide readers with an in-depth and systematic inquiry into the cultural processes of creativity and innovation, as well as the creative processes of cultural transformation. As the editors acknowledge, creativity emerges from dialogical interaction with cultural imperatives, norms, and artifacts, but culture also evolves and transforms through a generative process fueled by creativity. In order to illuminate nuanced insights on the complex culture-creativity nexus, this volume is organized into four broad sections: reciprocal relationships, socio-cultural contexts, diversifying experiences and creativity, and policy and applied perspectives. Edited by Angela K.-y. Leung, Letty Kwan, and Shyhnan Liou, this cogent volume features cutting-edge evidence and research, and lays the groundwork for pursuing a new science for integrating the study of culture and creativity.

This book tackles online social networks by navigating these systems from the birth to the death of their digital presence. Navigating the social within the digital can be a contentious undertaking, as social networks confuse the boundary between offline and online relationships. These systems work to bring people together in an online environment, yet participation can dislocate users from other relationships and deviant online behaviour can create offline issues. The author begins by examining the creation of a digital presence in online networks popularized by websites such as Facebook and MySpace. The book explores how the digital presence influences how social, cultural and professional relationships are discovered, forged, maintained and broken, and journeys through the popular criticisms of social networking such as employee time-wasting, bullying, stalking, the alleged links between social networks and suicide and the decline of a user s public image. Social networks are often treated as morally ambiguous spaces, which highlights a dissonance between digital and social literacies. This discord is approached through an exploration of the everyday undercurrents present in social networks. The discussion of the digital presence ends by addressing the intricacies of becoming digitally dead, which explores how a user removes their identity, with finality, from social networks and the entire web.
Identifies the undercurrents present in social networks and explores how these influence everyday lifeProvides insight into how the digital presence insidiously encroaches on offline aspects of a user s lifeExamines the idea of becoming digitally dead by discussing the often taboo subject of virtual and non-virtual suicide in the context of social networks"

Should marijuana be legalized? The latest Gallup poll reports that exactly half of Americans say "yes"; opinion couldn't be more evenly divided.
Marijuana is forbidden by international treaties and by national and local laws across the globe. But those laws are under challenge in several countries. In the U.S., there is no short-term prospect for changes in federal law, but sixteen states allow medical use and recent initiatives to legalize production and non-medical use garnered more than 40% support in four states. California's Proposition 19 nearly passed in 2010, and multiple states are expected to consider similar measures in the years to come.
The debate and media coverage surrounding Proposition 19 reflected profound confusion, both about the current state of the world and about the likely effects of changes in the law. In addition, not all supporters of "legalization" agree on what it is they want to legalize: Just using marijuana? Growing it? Selling it? Advertising it? If sales are to be legal, what regulations and taxes should apply? Different forms of legalization might have very different results.
Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know(r) will provide readers with a non-partisan primer about the topic, covering everything from the risks and benefits of using marijuana, to describing the current laws around the drug in the U.S. and abroad. The authors discuss the likely costs and benefits of legalization at the state and national levels and walk readers through the "middle ground" of policy options between prohibition and commercialized production. The authors also consider how marijuana legalization could personally impact parents, heavy users, medical users, drug traffickers, and employers.
What Everyone Needs to Know(r) is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

This introductory textbook of pharmacoeconomics is ideal for all those working in, aspiring to work in or interested in the pharmaceutical industry. It assumes no prior knowledge of this subject but is written at a level appropriate, for example, for those studying for a postgraduate degree or diploma in pharmaceutical medicine and who already have a first degree in science or medicine. Emphasizes how pharmacoeconomics can be of assistance in "real world" decision making. Covers the development of insuring, financing and delivery of health care in the developed world and the increasing role of governments. Explains the trend towards the critical scrutiny of health service activity. All topics explained assuming no specialist knowledge.

Research on the influence of culture on consumer decision-making and consumption behavior has witnessed tremendous growth in the last decade. With increasing globalization, managers are becoming increasingly aware that operating in multiple markets is crucial for firms' survival and growth. As the world's growth engine shifts from Europe and North America to Asia and Latin America, it has become apparent that an inward-looking and domestic focus strategy will not be sustainable in the long run. And success in foreign markets requires marketers to understand not just what consumers in these markets need but also how they think, behave, consume, and purchase. Numerous studies have documented cultural differences in values and beliefs, motivational orientations, emotions, self-regulation, and information-processing styles, and the effects of these cultural variations on consumer behavior such as brand evaluation, materialism, and impulsive consumption. In this volume, experts from a variety of disciplines and perspectives trace the historical development of culture research in consumer psychology and examine the theoretical underpinnings that account for these findings and the current state of the field. Collectively, the chapters provide a forum for researchers to engage in thoughtful debates and stimulating conversations and offer directions for future research.

This book addresses one of the most challenging problems that plagues the environmental field today-subsurface contamination. The past three decades have ushered in various methods for removal of organic and inorganic contaminants from the subsurface to varying degrees of effectiveness. Because of the site-to-site variability in the nature of contamination characteristics, the pattern of waste disposal and accidental releases, the site characteristics and thus contaminant behavior, and hydrologic conditions, predicting the effectiveness of one treatment method over another is a daunting task. Field demonstration of innovative technologies is a key step in their development, however, only after successful scale-up from laboratory testing. This book features chapters written by researchers who have linked laboratory- and field-scales in efforts to find creative, cost-effective methods for prediction of successful remediation of contaminated soil and ground water. State-of-the-art technologies using physicochemical removal methods and biological methods are discussed in the context of not only their effectiveness in remediating organic and inorganic wastes from various subsurface environments but also in terms of useful flask-scale methods for measuring and predicting their field-scale effectiveness. Chapters address sorption and hydrolysis of pesticides by organoclays, use of Fentons agents to destroy chlorinated solvents removed from the subsurface by granulated activated carbon, methanol flushing as a means of removing toxaphene from soils, natural attenuation as a method for effectiveness of remediation metals and biodegrading acid-mine drainage constituents, and biodegradation ofradiologically contaminated soils. Also addressed in this book are current and future methods of assessing microbiological activity potential and diversity and of modeling biodegradation, contaminant flux, and gaseous transport in the subsurface.

The year 2006 marked the centenary of the birth of Nobel-Prize winning playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett. To commemorate the occasion, this collection brings together twenty-three leading international Beckett scholars from ten countries, who take on the centenary challenge of "revolving it all": that is, going "back to Beckett"-the title of an earlier study by critic Ruby Cohn, to whom the book is dedicated-in order to rethink traditional readings and theories; provide new contexts and associations; and reassess his impact on the modern imagination and legacy to future generations. These original essays, most first presented by the Samuel Beckett Working Group at the Dublin centenary celebration, are divided into three sections: (1) Thinking through Beckett, (2) Shifting Perspectives, and (3) Echoing Beckett. As repeatedly in his canon, images precede words. The book opens with stills from films of experimental filmmaker Peter Gidal and unpublished excerpts from Beckett's 1936-37 German Travel Diaries, presented by Beckett biographer James Knowlson, with permission from the Beckett estate.
Renowned director and theatre theoretician Herbert Blau follows with his personal Beckett "thinking through." Others in Part I explore Beckett and philosophy (Abbott), the influences of Bergson (Gontarski) and Leibniz (Mori), Beckett and autobiography (Locatelli), and Agamben on post-Holocaust testimony (Jones). Essays in Part II recontextualize Beckett's works in relation to iconography (Moorjani), film theoretician Rudolf Arnheim (Engelberts), Marshall McLuhan (Ben-Zvi), exilic writing (McMullan), Pierre Bourdieu's literary field (Siess), romanticism (Brater), social theorists Adorno andHorkheimer (Degani-Raz), and performance issues (Rodriguez-Gago). Part III relates Beckett's writing to that of Yeats (Okamuro), Paul Auster (Campbell), Caryl Churchill (Diamond), William Saroyan (Bryden), Minoru Betsuyaku and Harold Pinter (Tanaka) and Morton Feldman and Jasper Johns (Laws). Finally, Beckett himself becomes a character in other playwrights' works (Zeifman). Taken together these essays make a clear case for the challenges and rewards of thinking through Beckett in his second century.

From hungry ghosts, vampiric babies, and shapeshifting fox spirits to the avenging White Lady of urban legend, for generations, Asian women’s roles have been shaped and defined through myth and story. In Unquiet Spirits, Asian writers of horror reflect on the impact of superstition, spirits, and the supernatural in this unique collection of 21 personal essays exploring themes of otherness, identity, expectation, duty, and loss, and leading, ultimately, to understanding and empowerment.

Beyond Yellow English is the first edited volume to examine issues of language, identity, and culture among the rapidly growing Asian Pacific American (APA) population. The distinguished contributors-who represent a broad range of perspectives from anthropology, sociolinguistics, English, and education-focus on the analysis of spoken interaction and explore multiple facets of the APA experience. Authors cover topics such as media representations of APAs; codeswitching and language crossing; and narratives of ethnic identity. The collection examines the experiences of Asian Pacific Americans of different ethnicities, generations, ages, and geographic locations across home, school, community, and performance sites.

A straight-to-video parallel storyline to the Disney smash hit 'Beauty and the Beast'. Returning to the time when Belle was imprisoned in the Beast's castle, the film tells of the young woman's attempts to bring some Christmas cheer to her surroundings, even though the Beast doesn't like the festive season. To this end, Belle invites all the enchanted objects from the castle to help, encouraging them to sing and dance so that the spirit of Yuletide might thaw the Beast's heart.

Six more animated episodes following the adventures of Postman Pat, who's now Head of the Special Delivery Service - which means he can be called upon to deliver anything, anytime, anywhere. Together with his boss, Ben, a fleet of vehicles and of course his faithful companion Jess the Cat, Pat proves that he can always be relied upon to come to the rescue and save the day. The episodes are: 'Postman Pat and the Karaoke Night', 'Postman Pat and the Didgeridoo', 'Postman Pat and the Amazing Weather Machine', 'Postman Pat and the Super Skateboard Sizzle', 'Postman Pat and the Rubber Duck Race' and 'Postman Pat and the Sticky Situation'.

Triple bill of horror movies. 'Hiding' (2012) stars Ana Villafañe as a young woman attempting to begin a new life following the brutal murder of her parents. Taken into the care of a witness protection programme, a new identity is established for Jo (Villafañe) in Montana and she leaves her home in New York and her past life behind. Unfortunately, when a man known as Mr Ostrog (Dean Armstrong) appears and begins to take an interest in her, Jo could be forgiven for thinking that the protection programme has failed to keep her identity safe from the man she is due to testify against. In 'The Victim' (2011) Annie (Jennifer Blanc)'s camping trip with her friend, Mary (Danielle Harris), goes disastrously wrong when Mary is savagely attacked and Annie witnesses her murder. As she flees through the woods from pursuers Harrison (Ryan Honey) and Cooger (Denny Kirkwood), Annie comes across a small cabin inhabited by the loner Kyle (Michael Biehn), but will he help her or hinder her? 'Beneath the Dark' (2010) is a psychological thriller from first-time director Chad Feehan. Driving through the Mojave Desert on their way to the wedding of an old college friend, Paul and Adrienne (Josh Stewart and Jamie-Lynn Sigler) stop for the night at Roy's Motel. Confronted by a surreal atmosphere and their equally strange hosts, Frank and Sandy (Chris Browning and Angela Featherstone), Paul begins to feel uneasy about his new surroundings and wonders what lies in store for them.

Create a pathway to equity by detracking mathematics  The tracked mathematics system has been operating in US schools for decades. However, research demonstrates negative effects on subgroups of students by keeping them in a single math track, thereby denying them access to rigorous coursework needed for college and career readiness. The journey to change this involves confronting some long-standing beliefs and structures in education. When supported with the right structures, instructional shifts, coalition building, and educator training and support, the detracking of mathematics courses can be a primary pathway to equity. The ultimate goal is to increase more students’ access to and achievement in higher levels of mathematics learning–especially for students who are historically marginalized. Based on the stories and lessons learned from the San Francisco Unified School District educators who have talked the talk and walked the walk, this book provides a model for all those involved in taking on detracking efforts from policymakers and school administrators, to math coaches and teachers. By sharing stories of real-world examples, lessons learned, and prompts to provoke discussion about your own context, the book walks you through:  Designing and gaining support for a policy of detracked math courses Implementing the policy through practical shifts in scheduling, curriculum, professional development, and coaching Supporting and improving the policy through continuous research, monitoring, and maintenance.  This book offers the big ideas that help you in your own unique journey to advance equity in your school or district’s mathematics education and also provides practical information to help students in a detracked system thrive.