Finalist of the 2022 PROSE Awards How fast can you calculate? Would you like to be faster? This book presents the time honored tricks and tips of calculation, from a fresh perspective, to boost the speed at which you can add - whether a couple of numbers, or columns so long an accountant may faint. Find out how to subtract, multiply, divide, and find square roots more quickly. What's more, this book gives suggestions for how to find answers that are "good enough" for tricky tasks like dividing by 17. It includes brand new ways to multiply and divide irrational numbers such as pi, e, the square root of 2, and the golden ratio. It has sections devoted to ancient mathematics, and the techniques we can borrow from previous and other cultures, in order to calculate more quickly. Examples, some serious, some fun, come from everyday life or from history - like hot dog eating competitions, the Vatican's cricket team, the molecular weight of the molecule with the world's longest name, and the amount of people taken by Henry VIII to arguably history's biggest party, the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In an age of timed multiple-choice questions, the swifter you can sum, or rule out wrong answers, the better you will do. If you love to play with numbers, this book will be recreational reading. And if you ever wonder whether simple arithmetic problems can crop up in everyday life, this book provides a fresh perspective.

A polish bear in World War II rose to the rank of colonel. Penguins can't taste fish. The ashes of the man who invented the pringles container are buried in one. Houseflies buzz in the key of F. 'hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia' is the fear of long words. These are just 0.1% of all the facts in this incredible tome! Written by seven authors and covering subjects as diverse as The Universe, Art and Literature, The Natural World and Movies, The Colossal Book of Incredible Facts for Curious Minds is the ultimate trivia book! Why not amaze family and friends with the reasons pandas do handstands, the sinister source of the term 'rule of thumb', or that the patent for the fire hydrant was destroyed... in a fire. Every entry is weird, wonderful, inspiring and quite brilliantly, true!

Brackley is a market town with a long history and strong set of traditions expressed through culture, sport and festivals. Set within the beautiful rolling countryside of south Northamptonshire, it consists of a market place with an attractive Georgian town hall built in 1706 and a broad, tree-lined uphill high street to the north. Up until 1987, this carried volumes of traffic on what was the A43 - the main link between the north and south - essentially dividing the town into two sides. An unintended consequence of the construction of the town bypass was to lessen passing trade and put pressure on town traders, but with excellent road communications easy access is gained to all points of the compass. Today, Brackley's identity is in part shaped by its association with Silverstone and the motor sport industry, and the current masterplan for the town is intended to herald a new era of prosperity for the town.

Charley McChooChoo is a little switch engine with big dreams. Charley longs for his own train and his own adventure, but Mr. Big doesn't think he is ready. One day, Charley gets the chance to prove himself, but he runs into some unexpected dilemmas along the way.

A new steam engine has arrived on the Chugga Valley Railroad. His name is Willy Whistler, and he has a disability. This means he has a minor problem. He cannot speak; he can only whistle. All of the engines are friendly to him, except Danny Diesely, who calls him "useless" because of his disability. But when Danny gets into trouble, Willy saves the day and helps him get his passengers delivered on time. In the end, Danny realizes that Willy's disability is really an ability, and the two become friends. Indeed, even though Willy has a disability, he is a very helpful engine