New Releases by Ian MacDonald

''The masterpiece The Beatles deserved'' Vox ''The finest piece of Fabs scholarship ever published'' MOJO

"For as long as history has been with us, religion has been a feature of human life. There is no known culture for which we have an ethnographic or an archaeological record that does not have some form of religion. Even in the secular societies that have become more common in the past few centuries, there are people who consider themselves religious and aspire to practise the rituals of their religion. These religions vary in form, style and size from small cults numbering a few hundred people centred around a charismatic leader to worldwide organizations numbering tens, or even hundreds, of millions of adherents with representations in every country. Some, like Buddhism, take an individualistic stance (your salvation is entirely in your own hands), some like the older Abrahamic religions view salvation as more of a collective activity through the performance of appropriate rituals, and a few (Judaism is one) have no formal concept of an afterlife. Some like Christianity and Islam believe in a single all- powerful God,

Grandpa accompanies his grandson, Sunny, on a school trip to the museum. They see lots of interesting things, including the skeleton of a T-Rex. When a bone goes missing from the T-Rex, everyone wonders who took it! (Letter-sounds featured: /oa/ ow o-e -oe o /ee/ -ey -y) The Old Bone Thief is part of the Rocket Phonics teaching and learning programme from Reading Planet. Rocket Phonics ensures that every child achieves phonics success. This fully-decodable Target Practice reading book provides focused practice of a small group of letter-sounds. The book also includes useful notes and activities to support reading in school and at home as well as comprehension questions to check understanding. Reading age: 5-6.

A famous author is coming to open the school''s Book Barn. The children are going to put on a play for him. But are they ready? Are they about to put on the worst show in the world? Find out in this fun comic-strip story! (Letter-sounds featured: /or/ au aw long /oo/ /oa/ ou short /oo/ oul /ur/ ear (w)or /eer/ eer). The Worst Show in the World is part of the Rocket Phonics teaching and learning programme from Reading Planet. Rocket Phonics ensures that every child achieves phonics success. This fully-decodable Target Practice reading book provides focused practice of a small group of letter-sounds. The book also includes useful notes and activities to support reading in school and at home as well as comprehension questions to check understanding. Reading age: 5-6.

The king has an enormous garden with huge towers around it to keep the children out. But nothing will grow in the garden, so the king becomes very sad. Then one day, he sees a ladder and footprints in the frost, and everything begins to change! The Lemon Tree is part of the Rocket Phonics range from Rising Stars Reading Planet. Rocket Phonics builds a firm foundation in word reading through fresh and fully decodable phonics books for Pink A to Orange band. Reading Planet books have been carefully levelled to support children in becoming fluent and confident readers. Each book features useful notes and activities to support reading at home as well as comprehension questions to check understanding. Reading age: 5-6 years

After Bert complains that his jobs are hard, he and his wife Darla decide to swap roles for the day. Darla picks turnips in the fields while Bert looks after the house and the baby. But Bert quickly learns that there is more to do at home than he thought and Darla''s jobs are hard work too! Cow on the Roof is part of the Rocket Phonics range from Rising Stars Reading Planet. Rocket Phonics builds a firm foundation in word reading through fresh and fully decodable phonics books for Pink A to Orange band.Reading Planet books have been carefully levelled to support children in becoming fluent and confident readers. Each book features useful notes and activities to support reading at home as well as comprehension questions to check understanding. Reading age: 5-6 years

"e;I hate having no breakfast!"e; cried Baby Bear. "e;I hate making the beds every day!"e; added Mama Bear. "e;And I hate mending broken chairs!"e; said Papa Bear. "e;ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!"e; This series is based around famous fairy tales, but not in the form the reader might expect. These tales have been tweaked to enchant and amuse a modern audience, including a princess who prefers frogs to princes, an intergalactic Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks the vandal, a ragtag band of characters forming a superhero league and more. The balanced combination of low word count with imaginative plots ensures that reluctant readers are stimulated and drawn in to stories that they can realistically comprehend, providing much needed confidence going forwards.

A pediatrician takes a novel approach to parenting by stressing the setting of certain goals and the creation of a mission statement over trying to tackle each individual issue as it crops up. Original.

Gems is a series of books written specifically for struggling girl readers. In this title Shareen is the star of the school''s football team. She''s also the only girl on it! Despite her strong friendship with the boys, a popular girl, Georgia, labels her ''out'' and uncool. When Shareen''s football boots go missing, she has a prime suspect in mind. Angry about the stolen shoes, Shareen stumbles upon Georgia being teased by some older pupils. Will she step in and stop the bullies? How can she use her football skills to help? Challenging expectations and finding friends in unlikely places, Pink Football Boots scores all the right goals for girls who are more than the ordinary.

This book grew from small beginnings as I began to find unexpected patterns emerging from the data in the literature. The more I thought about the way in which primate social systems worked, the more interesting things turned out to be. I am conscious that, at times, this has introduced a certain amount of complexity into the text. I make no apologies for that: what we are dealing with is a complex subject, the product of evolutionary forces interacting with very sophisticated minds. None the less, I have done my best to explain every thing as clearly as I can in order to make the book accessible to as wide an audience as possible. I have laid a heavy emphasis in this book on the use of simple graphical and mathematical models. Their sophistication, however, is not great and does not assume more than a knowledge of elementary probability theory. Since their role will inevitably be misunderstood, I take this opportunity to stress that their function is essentially heuristic rather than explanatory: they are designed to focus our attention on the key issues so as to point out the directions for further research. A model is only as good as the questions it prompts us to ask. For those whose natural inclination is to dismiss modelling out of hand, I can only point to the precision that their use can offer us in terms of hypothesis-testing.

Is this the right book for me? With over 24,000 translations, including everyday idioms and expressions, Essential Gaelic Dictionary is the perfect tool to support your Gaelic learning. This new edition is fully updated to reflect the recently published spelling conventions, and includes a guide to usage and insights from the author to help you learn and remember new words and phrases. Learn effortlessly with a new easy-to-read page design and interactive features: Not got much time? One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started. Author insights Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author''s many years of experience. Test yourself Tests online to keep track of your progress. Extend your knowledge Extra online articles to give you a richer understanding of the culture and history of speakers of Gaelic.

Scottish nursemaid Janet Smith was the victim of a 1924 tragedy that ignited racial tension in a very young Vancouver. At the core of the issue were the mysterious circumstances surrounding Smith''s death, particularly the fact that the only other adult in the house at the time was the Chinese houseboy. When Smith''s death was followed by the assassination of Davie Lew, a well-known Chinese man, it only strengthened the European view that Vancouver''s Asian community was a hotbed of violence and corruption. Newspaper editors and most of Vancouver''s white community raised an outcry, charging the police with incompetence and demanding arrests, while Presbyterian indignation called for law and order as well as an end to Chinese immigration. Before the summer was over, the tongs of Chinatown and the clans of Canada''s West Coast were set to defend their own, and one Scottish minister went so far as to declare it a time of "holy war."

This lively biography of Bishop Edward Cridge and his wife Mary paints a vivid picture of early Victoria as it developed from an isolated Hudson''s Bay Company post into the bustling capital of British Columbia. Recruited from England by Governor James Douglas in 1854 to be the Church of England chaplain of Fort Victoria, Edward Cridge became an important figure in the spiritual life of the city as the rector of Christ Church.The Cridges also became two of Victoria''s foremost social reformers, leaving an indelible mark on British Columbia''s social institutions. Living through the terrible smallpox and black measles epidemics, the latter taking four of their own children, the inseparable pair worked to create the first hospital, beginning with a few beds in a rented cottage and living to see it transformed into the Royal Jubilee. As the first superintendent of education, Cridge played an essential role in B.C.''s early school system. When abandoned children were left at the parsonage door, Mary created Victoria''s first orphanage.The biography also tells of Cridge''s very public argument with Bishop Hills, a dispute that caused him to break with the Church of England to found and build the Church of Our Lord, a Reformed Episcopal church, which is today an historic Victoria landmark. Included also are cameos by many of the notable people of the day, such as Emily Carr, who as a young girl lived opposite the Cridge family.

The ideas in Robin Dunbar''s previous book, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, have since become scientific orthodoxy, and this looks set to make an even bigger splash Incredibly influential and popular; all of Dunbar''s events for the hardback were sell-outs, and there''s much more publicity to come Attractive new cover treatment to appeal to the broad popular science/psychology readership of Robert Winston and Desmond Morris

Wild mercury: a tale of two Dylans - Marvellous Marvin reconsidered - John and Paul: the start of a partnership - The Stones in the sixties - Chic: elegance and alienation - Cream: Those Were the Days - Retire the fences: The Beach Boys from gimmick to gospel - Jimi Hendrix: transcending the blues - The Band''s Music from the Big Pink - The psychedelic Beatles: love and drugs - Bob Marley and the message of Rastafarianism - Lenny Bruce: timebound topicality - America''s John: the radical Lennon - Love''s Forever Changes - Decadent diversions: Steally Dan''s Gaucho - The artistry of Laura Nyro - Tropic of Gemini: Miles Davis''s Filles de Kilimanjaro - White lines, black magic: Bowie''s dark doings - Pulse of the Machine - Simon and Garfunkel: polite rebellion - Not a revolution: Jefferson Airplane from play-power to power-play - The elusive Spirit - John Fahey: minstrel of the mysterious - Randy Newman''s debut album - Minimalism and the corporate age - Homage to the Supremes - Pink Floyd''s Echoes - The people''s music - Exiled from heaven: the unheard message of Nick Drake.

"We taught our children to be delinquents." So wrote lifelong criminal Joe Gordon before he was hanged at British Columbia''s Oakalla Prison Farm in 1957 for shooting a policeman during a failed robbery. In a letter he scrawled in his jail cell, Gordon described his downfall and made a plea to parents to love and care for their children so they wouldn''t end up like him. "Born to Die" is the story of Gordon''s sensational trial, set against the backdrop of Vancouver''s seedy underworld amid a time of widespread police corruption. His final words are as relevant today as they were then, for although he lived and died in 1950s Vancouver, his tragic life and path to oblivion can be walked at any time and in any community in North America.

Free Trade provides a historical framework for ongoing discussion of economic and environmental issues. While there is empirical evidence on trade flows - they increased dramatically in both directions - the debate on related issues continues. The impact of free trade on jobs and manufacturing productivity, the effectiveness of dispute settlement, the growth of foreign direct investment, the absence of adjustment programs, and the consequences for social programs are all issues for spirited discussion. Many of the leading actors in shaping both the FTA and NAFTA participated in the conference, including former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, former President George Bush, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Secretary of State James Baker, former Canadian Trade Ministers John Crosbie and Michael Wilson, former U.S. Trade Ambassadors Clayton Yeutter and Carla Hills, as well as former Mexican Trade Minister Jaime Serra Puche. Other senior officials included Canada''s Derek Burney and Simon Reisman. Donald S. Macdonald, chairman of the landmark Royal Commission that recommended the "leap of faith" of free trade, gave the keynote address. A Royal Bank of Canada impact study, "Two Cheers for the FTA," provided a baseline for discussion by a panel of eminent economists from all three NAFTA countries, and strong defences of positions against free trade included presentations by Andrew Jackson of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), Jim Stanford of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), and Gerald Larose of Quebec''s Conseil des syndicats nationaux (CSN). Participants from the provinces included former Ontario Premier Bob Rae, while NAFTA and the environment were considered by a panel led by former Quebec Premier Pierre Marc Johnson and joined by Quebec Liberal Leader Jean Charest. Other participants included Jean Anderson, Laurent Beaudoin, Fernando Clavijo, Thomas d''Aquino, William Dymond, Francis Fox, Jonathan Fried, Michael Hart, Stanley Hartt, Richard Lipsey, Victor Lichtinger, John McCallum, Peter McPherson, Jacques Ménard, William Merkin, Simon Potter, Charles E. Roh, David Schorr, Charles Sirois, Guy Stanley, Yvonne Stinson, Peter Watson, William Watson, L.R. Wilson, and Paul Wonnacott. Free Trade: Risks and Rewards is an important reminder of why the issue was so passionately debated at the time and why it remains important.

An up-close look at primates takes readers into the world of humankind''s closest living relatives, offering insight into their behavior, sociable nature, and mentality.

In 1953, Forests Minister Robert E. Sommers was one of the most powerful men in BC, able to influence the province''s major industry, forestry, with a stroke of his pen. Five years later he plummeted from the heights when he was sent to jail for conspiracy and accepting bribes. The Sommers scandal was the first and biggest stain on the record of Premier W.A.C. Bennett''s Socreds. Betty O''Keefe and Ian Macdonald have recreated those stormy days of the mid-1950s, when Sommers, Bennett, Attorney General Robert Sommers, Phil Gaglardi and Gordon Gibson rocked the rafters of the Legislature with bellowed accusations and denials. Weaving interviews with major players and the media reports of the day, they show the relentless process by which Sommers was finally brought to trial, and reveal the confusing array of verdicts for Sommers and his co-accused. The Sommers story is also the story of BC''s forest industry. The forest-management system was under attack and investigation as the Sommers scandal unfolded, and the decisions made in the 1950s set the course for the death of logging towns, the corporate concentration and the crisis of overcutting some 30 years later.

Starting in July 1955 and carrying through to the spring of 1956, the Tupper Inquiry, which was investigating the activities of Chief Constable Walter Mulligan and the Vancouver Police Department, was front-page news. Every evening at 6:10 p.m. precisely, virtually every radio that could pick up the signal turned the dial to Jack Webster on CJOR. Could Mulligan really be in cahoots with local bookies? Could Vancouver''s chief constable be a ''top cop on the take?" The Mulligan affair had everything it takes to make headlines: death, graft, bootleggers, bookies, corruption, hookers, gambling, cops and politicians with memory loss and a veiled mystery lady.

Here, the author examines gossip as a form of ''verbal grooming'', and as a means of strengthening relationships. He challenges the idea that language developed during male activities such as hunting, and that it was actually amongst women that it evolved.

Robin Dunbar asks whether science really is unique to Western culture, even to humankind. He suggests that our "trouble with science" may lie in the fact that evolution has left our minds better able to cope with day-to-day social interaction than with the complexities of the external world.

Leven en werk van de Russische componist (1906-1975).

A practical manual to rear cattle, donkeys, goats, pigs, poultry, ducks, rabbits, sheep, and waterbuffaloes in the tropics