Thirteen-year-old Alex Watts lives in the small Scottish mining village of Newbattle. It is early evening in the winter of 1984, and the bitter national coal miner's strike is in its ninth month. Now, a few days before Christmas, a power outage has plunged the community into darkness. Deprived of television and with dinner indefinitely delayed, Alex and his best friend, Jim Hood, decide to pass the time sledding on the snow-covered slopes of Jake's Law, a six hundred-foot cone-shaped hill that dominates the surrounding landscape. They arrive on the summit under brilliant, star-studded heavens, undimmed by the artificial lights of civilization. Then suddenly, in the darkness below, streetlamps flicker into life. The power outage is over, they are hungry, and it is time to sled home. However, fate is about to interrupt their plans and forever change their lives. A spacecraft is orbiting Earth. It has traveled from the outer rim of the Galaxy with an important message for the leaders of Earth. Information about the spread of a distant civil war and warning of an imminent alien invasion of Earth. Its sole passenger brings technology to help defend against the invasion. However instead of landing in the vicinity of London, the messenger lands on Jake's Law, and instead of meeting the leaders of the country, the messenger meets with Alex and Jim.

Over the centuries, much has been written about Wolfgang von Kempelen, the inventor of the "speaking machine," and author of "Mechanism Of Human Speech" (1791) on philology, linguistic technology and phonetics.

This book illuminates the life of this very eccentric thinker, his achievements, and even his legendary reputation. Very little was known about his other achievements and the rest of his life. The subject addressed by most was and is what is commonly referred to as the "the Turk" (a chess-playing automaton) which for years has stimulated and still stimulates the fantasy of anyone who sees it.

Where studies on von Kempelen have in the past been based on speculation and tall tales, for the first time a complete and exact survey on the facts and dates of Kempelen's life are given. The research for this book concentrated on the facts which were found mainly in the archives in Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava among other institutions.

The first English translation of the earliest poetry of brilliant and disruptive Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, widely considered one of the most innovative and original authors of the twentieth century and often associated with fellow mavericks Beckett, Kafka and Dostoevsky. A master of language, whose body of work was described in a New York Times book review as "the most significant literary achievement since World War II," Bernhard's On Earth and in Hell offers a distilled perspective on the essence of his artistry and his theme of death as the only reality. A remarkable achievement by highly-respected translator Peter Waugh.

Thirteen-year-old Alex Watts lives in the small Scottish mining village of Newbattle. It is early evening in the winter of 1984, and the bitter national coal miner's strike is in its ninth month. Now, a few days before Christmas, a power outage has plunged the community into darkness. Deprived of television and with dinner indefinitely delayed, Alex and his best friend, Jim Hood, decide to pass the time sledding on the snow-covered slopes of Jake's Law, a six hundred-foot cone-shaped hill that dominates the surrounding landscape. They arrive on the summit under brilliant, star-studded heavens, undimmed by the artificial lights of civilization. Then suddenly, in the darkness below, streetlamps flicker into life. The power outage is over, they are hungry, and it is time to sled home. However, fate is about to interrupt their plans and forever change their lives. A spacecraft is orbiting Earth. It has traveled from the outer rim of the Galaxy with an important message for the leaders of Earth. Information about the spread of a distant civil war and warning of an imminent alien invasion of Earth. Its sole passenger brings technology to help defend against the invasion. However instead of landing in the vicinity of London, the messenger lands on Jake's Law, and instead of meeting the leaders of the country, the messenger meets with Alex and Jim.