Product Description: With recipes so deliciously awesome, parties so incredibly mind-blowing, pictures so breathtakingly beautiful, menus so expertly crafted, and stories so heartbreakingly poignant that you will cry as you cook from it, and it will change your life forever...read more

It's often been said, with some validity, that we teach what we need to know. So, too, we write what we want to read: in this case, the book that I wish someone had written for me when I was a young teacher just starting out. I began teaching in a British-style boys' boarding school: all boys, all boarding-a trial by fire if ever there was one. I was fresh out of university, with a good MA but virtually no teaching experience and only the dimmest idea of why I was joining the profession. I had been told by someone I trusted that I had a natural talent for teaching, felt faint stirrings of vocation, and wanted to give something back after a long and self-indulgent education. Beyond that, I had no idea of what I was getting into or why. It was a strange Darwinian world of bad food, cold showers, harsh discipline, and cross-country runs, with other vestiges of British public school tradition, including bread pudding, corporal punishment, and daily chapel. Paradoxically, despite the strict discipline and institutional formality-the masters were universally referred to as Sir, and the boys addressed by surname-a great fondness grew between staff and students. We were, at the very least, honorable enemies reminiscent of Tom Brown's School Days-at best, a boisterous family marooned together, more like Swiss Family Robinson. Something hilarious happened every day. The boys were irrepressible, despite our best efforts, and the charged, insular atmosphere of the school somehow produced the most extravagantly colorful personalities. I was always amazed at how the boys bounced back after a frozen route march or an exhausting exam week; it was the masters who showed the strain. Partly, we lacked the resiliency of youth. We were older in our bones, and our sinews had lost their elasticity. Partly, we followed an unrelenting schedule since, in addition to our teaching duties (including a half day on Saturday), we were required t

Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing 2E is a practical step-by-step guide to improving skills in analysis, critical thinking, and the effective communication of arguments and explanations. The book combines an accessible and straightforward style, with a strong foundation of knowledge. The text treats reasoning as an aspect of communication, not an abstract exercise in logic. The book not only provides detailed advice on how to practise analytical skills, but also demonstrates how these skills can be used in research and writing. In particular, it emphasises how to develop arguments that are coherent and that take account of their audience and context.

Product Description: This book is about the underside of Japan's economic miracle. It is an account of people who have been forgotten in Japan's push to industrialize in the postwar era: the coalminers of Chikuho on Japan's southernmost island. The dirty and neglected character of Chikuho is in stark contrast with Japan's prevailing image as an international leader in technology and an affluent, socially cohesive country...read more

Product Description: This book is about the underside of Japan's economic miracle. It is an account of people who have been forgotten in Japan's push to industrialize in the postwar era: the coalminers of Chikuho on Japan's southernmost island. The dirty and neglected character of Chikuho is in stark contrast with Japan's prevailing image as an international leader in technology and an affluent, socially cohesive country...read more

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