Re-reading 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' provides an insightful commentary which takes readers through the novel. It looks at such areas as literary quality, character analysis and plot analysis, while showing that the novel is contextualised within the British culture which informs it. There's plenty for Harry Potter fans in its attention to detail and examination of theories, plot holes and more. J K Rowling's excellence as a writer is explored alongside her occasional shortcomings. Structured in a fun and lighthearted manner, the book gives each chapter a start rating, and assessment includes a look at the heroes and villains in each. Yet it is also a step towards serious literary criticism of the novel, based on the view that the Harry Potter stories should be treated as quality literature.

This book is presented to those re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as a prompt for serious consideration of the novel as a work of literature. Inevitably you will agree with much and disagree with much that is written here - that is the nature of literary criticism - but the process of agreeing and disagreeing develops a more considered critical response. Certainly literary criticism is needed. For a book which has received the massive sales of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (15,000,000 copies in the first twenty-four hours alone) there has so far been amazingly little proper criticism published. This book may be regarded as an early contribution to the literary criticism of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Demonstrating that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a polished work by a highly skilled writer, this book suggests that it can stand alongside established works of literature. It offers to adult readers as much as it does to the young adults and children that were its first audience, and as such it has the potential to become a true literary classic. The novel's position in global culture is set out and the moral values of the novel are explored, including Harry's role as a Christian hero. Re-reading 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' aims to develop your appreciation of a remarkable novel.

If language and the brain are co-evolved and language as a latecomer can avail itself of pre-existing means to solve its own problems, then it should be possible to describe it in terms of processing strategies and constraints arising from brain systems. This is precisely what this study attempts to do with respect to the emergence of three types of higher-level meanings; direct speech acts, built-in conditions for their success and non-defective performance and constraints on sequencing of an argumentational kind. In so doing there are three main issues it needs to address. What types of problem arise at the text level that could have led to the emergence in question? Is there a clear parallel between these problems and those faced by brain systems? What solutions have been evolved to cater for the latter, which could have been co-opted by language? Finally there is the question of the extent to which such an account is compatible with a global theory of brain function such as Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection.

It is well known that, in their professional lives, most academics and researchers will - like cats - seek to exercise as much independence as possible and may display resistance to anything resembling authority. Nevertheless, leaders of academic/research institutions must still lead and, by common agreement, need all the help and advice they can get! In the ten years since they wrote their hugely popular first book on the subject, the world has changed almost beyond recognition. Geoff Garrett and Graeme Davies have also accumulated even more experience of leading international academic/research institutions, and have talked to even more colleagues around the world. In Herding Cats Revisited they have extended, rewritten and updated their advice to reflect the technology, equality and financial realities of the 2020s. Once again, the authors address common leadership and management themes, like making tough strategic choices, leading change effectively, crisis management, dealing with bureaucracy, managing social media, allocating resources, managing budgets and ensuring effective implementation. 'Herding Cats Revisited' guides academic/research leaders and aspiring leaders through the process of learning to accept and embrace the qualities of their 'cats' so they can tempt them into successfully achieving exciting and demanding goals with agility.

The Ancient Ones are coming to consume our world, and only the bold investigators of Arkham Horror stand in their way, in this chilling collection of eldritch novellas. Hour of the Huntress by Dave Gross - the mysterious disappearance of dilettante Jenny Barnes' beloved sister triggers a frantic search through Arkham's darkest shadows. The Dirge of Reason by Graeme Davis - for federal agent Roland Banks, investigating a bizarre incident exposes him to the supernatural horrors of Arkham. Ire of the Void by Richard Lee Byers - the astronomer and professor Norman Withers finds himself the subject of a strange creature's gaze when he agrees to assist in a fellow scientist's weird experiment. The Deep Gate by Chris A Jackson - sailor Silas Marsh must return to Innsmouth and confront his harrowing nightmares when he stumbles on a tome foretelling the end of the world.

This is a step-by-step guide to using the wealth of online records to trace your family tree from your own computer, without the need to travel to national and regional record offices. Whether you are a novice or an experienced genealogist, and whether you plan to devote just a few hours of your time or embark on a life-time hobby, this book will guide you through the mass of records available - birth, marriage and death, the census, and much, much more - so that you can trace your line back hundreds of years. You will also learn how to upload your results to the internet, both to preserve your family's heritage and to connect with relatives, so that you can exchange photos and reminiscences. Contents: Welcome!; 1. What the internet offers the genealogist; 2. How to start; 3. Finding records of birth, marriage and death; 4. Using census records; 5. Other major sources; 6. Military; 7. Wills and where to find them online; 8. Migration; 9. Newspapers; 10. Occupations; 11. The poor and workhouse records; 12. Noble ancestors; 13. Directories; 14. School and university records; 15. Working with the wider context; 16. Family medical history; 17. DNA; 18. Working with names; 19. Recording your family tree; 20. Online recording options; 21. Problems of online trees; 22. Finding living relatives; 23. Genealogical miscellany; 24. Accent and dialect; 25. Final; Key websites; Index

Today, the figure of Sherlock Holmes towers over detective fiction like a colossus-but it was not always so. Edgar Allan Poe's French detective Dupin, the hero of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", anticipated Holmes' deductive reasoning by more than forty years with his "tales of ratiocination". In A Study in Scarlet, the first of Holmes' adventures, Doyle acknowledged his debt to Poe-and to Emile Gaboriau, whose thief-turned-detective Monsieur Lecoq debuted in France twenty years earlier. If "Rue Morgue" was the first true detective story in English, the title of the first full-length detective novel is more hotly contested. Two books by Wilkie Collins-The Woman in White (1859) and The Moonstone (1868)-are often given that honour, with the latter showing many of the features that came to identify the genre: a locked-room murder in an English country house; bungling local detectives outmatched by a brilliant amateur detective; a large cast of suspects and a plethora of red herrings; and a final twist before the truth is revealed. Others point to Mary Elizabeth Braddon's The Trail of the Serpent (1861) or Aurora Floyd (1862), and others still to The Notting Hill Mystery (1862-3) by the pseudonymous "Charles Felix". As the early years of detective fiction gave way to two separate golden ages-of hard-boiled tales in America and intricately-plotted, so-called "cosy" murders in Britain-the legacy of Sherlock Holmes, with his fierce devotion to science and logic, gave way to street smarts on the one hand and social insight on the other-but even though these new sub-genres went their own ways, their detectives still required the intelligence and clear-sightedness that characterised the earliest works of detective fiction: the trademarks of Sherlock Holmes, and of all the detectives featured in these pages.

Four Towns, Many Secrets Plymouth, Massachusetts; Elizabethtown, Maryland; Savannah, Georgia; Charlotte Haven, Florida. Four towns that appear to have nothing in common. Four towns with secrets. Award-winning author Jennifer Brozek takes you beneath the surface of four communities across Colonial America: the people, the societies, the secrets, and the things that were better left undiscovered. Described in loving detail, each location is provided with a wealth of adventure seeds and campaign starts. Whether your Heroes are just visiting or decide to make a town their base of operations, you will find plenty here to provoke, challenge, and threaten them. There are wrongs to right, conspiracies to thwart, and monsters to slay. There are friends to help and foes to defeat. There are mystery, intrigue, and danger in plenty. Just look beneath the surface. This book contains revised and re-edited versions of Rogue Games' acclaimed Plymouth and Elizabethtown e-books -- in print for the first time -- plus two all-new locations: Savannah, the bustling capital of the young Georgia Colony, and Charlotte Haven, a small Florida town where a long Spanish heritage sits uneasily beneath the veneer of British rule. Praise for Plymouth and Elizabethtown: 4 1/2 stars - DriveThruRPG "A definite must-have -- 9/10" -- Roleplayers' Chronicle

From the Introduction:

The Lost Symbol contains a big surprise. Not only is the lost symbol found within the context of the novel, but according to Dan Brown this lost symbol is out there for every one of us to find for ourselves. This is a book which he wants to have real impact on our lives. For some readers it may even be life-changing-and that's not what we expect of a thriller.

Readers haven't known quite what to make of The Lost Symbol. Early reports-for example reader reviews on Amazon-have shown in roughly equal numbers reviews which are very positive and those which reveal the reader's disappointment or confusion. There seems to be a consensus of sorts that as a thriller this book is better than the average page-turner, but that it nonetheless has plot holes and shortcomings. For many it does not live up to expectations, though in view of the plot weaknesses of all previous Dan Brown books it is perhaps surprising that the expectations were so high.

Yet there is something about The Lost Symbol which lifts it from the status of just another fast-paced thriller to something which warrants consideration as a serious work of literature. For in this book the characters go in search of what is in effect a Holy Grail-the lost symbol-and in a break with the tradition of the genre they really do find the lost symbol. By the end of this book this symbol is not only found but is made available to every reader. It is a quest both for the characters and for the readers, and a quest where for both the goal is really reached. If you read The Lost Symbol you too can find the Lost Symbol-and perhaps it can change your life.

My view is that The Lost Symbol is no ordinary thriller, and those who seek to evaluate it solely as a thriller miss the point. Rather this is a book where we are invited to follow the hero Robert Langdon on a journey of personal development, a voyage into the mysteries of faith.

In this book l I offer some additional information and reflection aimed at following up on the quest set by Dan Brown, and perhaps helping a few more people find what Dan Brown is showing us. Taking The Lost Symbol section by section this book offers an exploration of Dan Brown's themes, his plot and characters, and explores some of the references in this work which Dan Brown calls "fact-based fiction". It looks also at his presentation of the Masons and how Dan Brown's own life influences his book. Most of all it looks towards finding the lost symbol, helping to unlock the potential of the novel and bring to the fore its message of hope for humanity.

Insightful, provocative analysis of J.K. Rowling's BEEDLE THE BARD by Potter expert Graeme Davis, author of THE UNAUTHORIZED HARRY POTTER QUIZ BOOK. Davis evaluates each tale from moral, easthetic, and fan perspectives. A must companion for anyone who buys BEEDLE THE BARD and enjoys Potter discussions.

Lingua et Linguistica is part of the JLL Project: Language Linguistics Literature Learning published in association with Shakespeare Centre Press, and linked to the on-line journals of the Project: Journal of Language and Linguistics, Journal of Language and Learning, Journal of Language and Literature. Further information about the JLL Project and the refereeing committee for this journal is available at the project web-site: http: //www.jllonline.org Lingua et Linguistica seeks to publish work which makes an original contribution to linguistics and language study, including language teaching methodology and the language of literature. Submission information is available through the project web site.

Now's the time to re-read HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS with the aid of this funny, insightful guide to the book by Potter expert Dr. Graeme Davis. Includes reviews of each and every chapter with star ratings from one to seven -- find out which ones the author gives sevens and which ones he gives ones! (There are a couple.) See whether you agree with him about the best "Rowling Moments" in each other chapter and who should be classified "Hero" or "Fool." Terrific fun for any Potter fan and an ideal companion when you are in the mood to re-read the series.

Now's the time to go back to the very beginning and re-read HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE with the aid of this funny, insightful guide to the book by Potter expert Dr. Graeme Davis. Includes reviews of each and every chapter with star ratings from one to seven -- find out which ones the author gives sevens and which ones he gives ones! (There are a couple.) See whether you agree with him about the best "Rowling Moments" in each other chapter and who should be classified "Hero" or "Fool." Terrific fun for any Potter fan and an ideal companion when you are in the mood to re-read the series.

Born in the dark days of the great crusades, the warrior monks of the Knights Templar vowed to defend pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Yet strangely, there are few historical records of the Templars ever fulfilling this task. Instead, their history is one of bloodshed and conquest, wealth and power, dark secrets and conspiracies. Today, the story of the Knights Templar is intimately linked with the story of the Holy Grail. But what exactly is this ancient artifact, and how has it been used to manipulate history for the last one thousand years? This book, based on the notes of the recently deceased historian, Dr. Emile Fouchet, attempts to unlock the secrets of the Knights Templar. It begins with an examination of their historical origins, their growth in the early middle-ages, and their supposed destruction under the charges of heresy. From there, it uses the clues left by the Templars themselves to reconstruct their secret journeys as they moved the Holy Grail from Europe to the New World and back. It also charts the secret, three-way war that is still being fought between the Templars, the Freemasons, and the Catholic Church. Finally, the book reveals the greatest of all Templar conspiracies, the attempt to found a new world order under the auspices of the European Union.

'Brick walls' occur everywhere and all the time in genealogy research, but with this book you can take your British Isles family tree back further. Solving Genealogy Problems will: - Help you find new records, including unusual ones genealogists often don't know about; and make the best use of them when you do find them. - Suggest new ideas for looking at old problems. - Give additional ideas on using the census - then more ideas on using census substitutes when the census doesn't have the answers. - Suggest ways of finding elusive births, marriages and deaths - and then of making progress anyway, even when you absolutely cannot find them. This book covers all periods of British Isles genealogy. The new frontiers of genealogy are considered for the hope they give on even the most intractable research block, and the possibility they allow of building even the most difficult of family trees. Contents: 1. RECOGNISING BRICK WALLS; 2. UNDERSTANDING BIRTHS, MARRIAGES AND DEATHS; 3. FINDING BMD BIRTHS; 4. FINDING BMD MARRIAGES; 5. FINDING BMD DEATHS; 6. CENSUS SOLUTIONS; 7. UNDERSTANDING PARISH REGISTERS; 8. FINDING PARISH REGISTER CHRISTENINGS; 9. FINDING PARISH REGISTERS MARRIAGES; 10. FINDING PARISH REGISTER BURIALS AND MEMORIAL INSCRIPTIONS; 11. USING NEWSPAPERS AS AN ALTERNATIVE SOURCE; 12. GETTING MORE FROM WILLS AND ADMINISTRATIONS; 13. DIRECTORIES AS A CENSUS SUBSTITUTE; 14. ELECTORAL ROLL AS AN ALTERNATIVE SOURCE; 15. OTHER ALTERNATIVE SOURCES; 16. YET MORE SOURCES: THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTS AND THE GENEALOGIST; 17. PUBLISHING YOUR FAMILY TREE; 18. ORAL HISTORY; 19. LOCAL HISTORY; 20. DESCRIPTIONS OF AN ANCESTOR'S HOME; 21. CLUSTER GENEALOGY AND COMMUNITIES; 22. MILITARY RECORDS; 23. OCCUPATIONAL RECORDS; 24. IRELAND: PROBLEMS AND INSPIRATION; 25. INTERNATIONAL GENEALOGY; 26. PHOTOGRAPHS; 27. EARLY GENEALOGY; 28. GENETICS AND GENEALOGY; 29. HERITAGE; 30. COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS FOR RESEARCH; 31. THE GENEALOGY INDUSTRY; APPENDIX: THE TOP 10 BRICK WALL TIPS; INDEX.

Study of the syntax of Old English and Old Icelandic has for long been dominated by the impressions of early philologists. Their assertions that these languages were � free in their word-order were for many years unchallenged. Only within the last two decades has it been demonstrated that the word-order of each shows regular patterns which approach the status of rules, and which may be precisely described. This book takes the subject one step further by offering a comparison of the syntax of Old English and Old Icelandic, the two best-preserved Old Germanic languages. Over-whelmingly the two languages show the same word-order patterns - as do the other Old Germanic languages, at least as far as can be determined from the fragments which have survived. It has long been recognised that Old English and Old Icelandic have a high proportion of common lexis and very similar morphology, yet the convention has been to emphasise the differences between the two as representatives respectively of the West and North sub-families of Germanic. The argument of this book is that the similar word-order of the two should instead lead us to stress the similarities between the two languages. Old English and Old Icelandic were sufficiently close to be mutually comprehensible. This thesis receives copious support from historical and literary texts. Our understanding of the Old Germanic world should be modified by the concept of a common � Northern Speech which provided a common Germanic ethnic identity and a platform for the free flow of cultural ideas.

If language and the brain are co-evolved and language as a latecomer can avail itself of pre-existing means to solve its own problems, then it should be possible to describe it in terms of processing strategies and constraints arising from brain systems. This is precisely what this study attempts to do with respect to the emergence of three types of higher-level meanings; direct speech acts, built-in conditions for their success and non-defective performance and constraints on sequencing of an argumentational kind. In so doing there are three main issues it needs to address. What types of problem arise at the text level that could have led to the emergence in question? Is there a clear parallel between these problems and those faced by brain systems? What solutions have been evolved to cater for the latter, which could have been co-opted by language? Finally there is the question of the extent to which such an account is compatible with a global theory of brain function such as Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection.