Daedalus Books

Everyone who's in business, works for a business, or even just gives others the business is amazed: Scott Adams never lacks for yet another way to lampoon the corporate world. It's not that Adams is anti-business. He's more anti-bad boss than anything. But poor management practices, the effects of bad decisions, and what it all means for the average worker add up to more comedic material than even the man who created Dilbert can tame. Since Dilbert was first syndicated in 1989, Adams has built a following that would be the envy of any corporate sales and marketing team. His work not only generates howls from readers as they rush to plaster it on lunch-room refrigerators and scan it into interoffice e-mails, it has those same fans reading about «their» workplaces every Sunday in a multiple-panel, color format. And that's what this treasury, The Collected Dilbert Sundays, provides. This collection offers yet another glimpse into the zany life of Dilbert, Dogbert, Ratbert, and the rest of the crazy cube crew through the masterpiece Sunday comics. Here's even more of the great Adams's irony, sarcasm, and satire that so many have come to depend upon to cope with the corporate workplace. The Collected Dilbert Sundays humorously continues the tradition of poking fun at the world of business from which we all seek to temporarily escape.

In this book, based on a series of talks that he gave at a Tibetan Buddhist center in Delhi during the 1990s, the Dalai Lama examines the nature of the human mind and emphasizes the need for each of us to transform ourselves if we wish to lead more fulfilling lives. In his disarmingly personal style, he discusses suffering, happiness, love, and truth, and offers practical wisdom on issues ranging from religious tolerance to the world economy. Stressing the need for compassion and non-violence, the Dalai Lama reiterates the essential goodness of the human heart and teaches us how to live and die well, reminding us constantly of the responsibility of our actions and thoughts.

This study of Pre-Raphaelite painters and poets reveals a style-derived from the idealized view of nature in the early Italian Renaissance-steeped in mythology and literary allusion and very popular today with lovers of romantic art and poetry. 125 illustrations, 95 in full color, 5 x 7»

In this charming sequel to the classic «Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,» Kate and Henry eagerly await Grandpa's return from a vacation that his postcard says has been one of the best and most unusual ever. Thinking about that postcard Kate drifts off to sleep that night and... «With Henry as my co-pilot...» she visits the strange land of Chewandswallow — a land characterized by massive amounts of food, immense carrots, leafy jungles of lettuce, and tuna fish sandwiches so gigantic they have to be moved by helicopter. What the people of Chewandswallow are doing with all that food is most intriguing of all. Fans of «Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs» will applaud this return trip with its underlying message of generosity and a world community.

Few tales bespeak the holidays as vividly as Dickens' classic story of Jacob Marley, Tiny Tim, and the ghosts of Christmases past, present, and future. Here it is presented in a gorgeous keepsake Running Press Miniature Edition (TM), sumptuously illustrated by award-winning British artist Christian Birmingham.

This lively account of Soviet foreign intelligence activity in Great Britain during the Cold War is based on documents newly released from the KGB archives, their crown jewels, as the KGB unofficially called its most valuable assets. Written by Nigel West, called by the Sunday Times the unofficial historian of the secret services and Oleg Tsarev, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, The Crown Jewels provides much new information on the activities of all the well-known British pro-Soviet spies, including Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and Anthony Blunt, as well as many lesser-known spymasters and recruiters, reproducing many of their reports for the first time. The book adds unsuspected dimensions to the famous Cambridge ring (including details of Burgess's offer to murder his fellow conspirator Goronwy Rees). It also reveals a completely unknown Soviet network based in London and headed by a named Daily Herald journalist; describes the huge scale of Soviet penetration of the British Foreign Office from 1927 to 1951; explores a previously unknown spy ring in Oxford; and tells about the key role played by Blunt in supervising post-war Soviet espionage activities in London.

»The Kitchen Planner» takes the confusion out of kitchen redesign and puts the fun back in. Filled with advice and suggestions for everything from the quick touch-up to a complete makeover, this innovative guide covers it all. The uniquely designed section of tri-split pages allows for effortless mixing and matching of wall colors, cabinetry, and floors. The reusable stickers and layout grid make it simple to experiment with a variety of floor plans. And the informational charts written specifically for singles, couples, families, and people with special needs can help anyone design the perfect kitchen for their particular lifestyle. Packed with color photographs, resourceful text, and countless expert suggestions, «The Kitchen Planner» is a practical, convenient, and necessary tool for any kitchen remodeling project.

This book highlights works from one of the US' most respected museum collection of American art. In his engaging essay, Graham W.J. Beale -places the 96 works in historical context, relating them to contemporary social and artistic trends both at home and abroad. Beginning with the first truly home-grown talent — John Singleton Copley -in the 18th century to the social realism of John Sloan in the earl 20th, the volume presents an encyclopedic view of American painting.

The Sword and the Shield is based on one of the most extraordinary intelligence coups of recent times: a secret archive of top-level KGB documents smuggled out of the Soviet Union which the FBI has described, after close examination, as the «most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source». Its presence in the West represents a catastrophic hemorrhage of the KGB’s secrets and reveals for the first time the full extent of its worldwide network.Vasili Mitrokhin, a secret dissident who worked in the KGB archive, smuggled out copies of its most highly classified files every day for twelve years. In 1992, a U.S. ally succeeded in exfiltrating the KGB officer and his entire archive out of Moscow. The archive covers the entire period from the Bolshevik Revolution to the 1980s and includes revelations concerning almost every country in the world. But the KGB's main target, of course, was the United States.Though there is top-secret material on almost every country in the world, the United States is at the top of the list. As well as containing many fascinating revelations, this is a major contribution to the secret history of the twentieth century. Among the topics and revelations explored are: The KGB’s covert operations in the United States and throughout the West, some of which remain dangerous today. KGB files on Oswald and the JFK assassination that Boris Yeltsin almost certainly has no intention of showing President Clinton. The KGB’s attempts to discredit civil rights leader in the 1960s, including its infiltration of the inner circle of a key leader. The KGB’s use of radio intercept posts in New York and Washington, D.C., in the 1970s to intercept high-level U.S. government communications. The KGB’s attempts to steal technological secrets from major U.S. aerospace and technology corporations. KGB covert operations against former President Ronald Reagan, which began five years before he became president. KGB spies who successfully posed as U.S. citizens under a series of ingenious disguises, including several who attained access to the upper echelons of New York society.

A retelling of classic children's tales by The Brothers Grimm, including Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, Ashputtel (Cinderella) and Little Red-cap. This interpretation by Carol Ann Duffy seeks to remove the sugariness of contemporary versions and return to the orginal, darker mould.

The ever increasing art historical attention being paid to the School of Leonardo lies at the root of this volume published almost sixty years after Suida's classic treatment of the subject. This is the first time since then that Lombard art of Leonardesque inspiration has been the object of a systematic analysis embracing a period of around half a century starting from 1490. The essays opening the volume provide an overview dealing with the environment, the organisation and the working practices of Leonardo's atelier and the problems faced by historians, whilst each artist is discussed in a critical profile that, taking into account the most recent academic research, acts a brief but up-to-date monograph.

Substance D — otherwise known as Death — is the most dangerous drug ever to find its way on to the black market. It destroys the links between the brain's two hemispheres, leading first to disorentation and then to complete and irreversible brain damage. Bob Arctor, undercover narcotics agent, is trying to find a lead to the source of supply, but to pass as an addict he must become a user, and soon, without knowing what is happening to him, he is as dependent as any of the addicts he is monitoring.

A matched four-volume boxed set containing J.R.R. Tolkien's «The Hobbit» and the three volumes of «The Lord of the Rings», complete with maps and cover illustrations by Alan Lee.

In the eight years since this blockbuster anthology of 44 classic picture books of the 20th century was compiled, important new picture books have been published that Janet Schulman believes are too good to miss. She has selected 15-some by brand-new voices of the 21st century, some by young authors and illustrators who were just getting started during the last decade of the past century, and a few by familiar names, such as Kevin Henkes with his 2005 Caldecott Medal Winner. This recommended list with descriptive annotations is intended to guide parents to these new books and new voices of the 21st century. Unparalleled in scope and quality and designed for reading aloud and sharing, this splendid anthology brings together some of the most memorable and beloved children's books of our time. Here are classics such as Madelin e and Curious George; contemporary bestsellers such as Guess How Much I Love You and The Stinky Cheese Man; Caldecott Medal winners such as Make Way for Ducklings and Where the Wild Things Are; and family favorites such as Goodnight Moon, The Sneetches, and Winnie-the-Pooh. The selections range from concept books and wordless books to picture books and short read-aloud stories, and represent the complete array of childhood themes and reading needs: ABCs, number and color books, stories about going to bed and going to school; tales about growing up, siblings, parents, and grandparents; animal stories, fantasies; fables; magical stories; stories about everyday life and more. Also included are an introduction, capsule biographies of the 62 writers and artists represented in the collection, color-coded running heads indicating age levels, andindexes. As a gift, a keepsake, and a companion in a child's first steps toward a lifelong love of reading, The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury belongs in every family's bookcase.

We are in Paris on the Left Bank. The time is now. David meets Pandora in a crowded café, where she recounts her vampire tale — Pandora, two thousand years old, a Child of the Millennia, the first vampire ever made by the great Marius. David persuades her to write for him the story of her life. We see Pandora from her mortal girlhood as the daughter of aristocrats in the peaceful Rome of Caesar Augustus through her perilous journey towards the vampire Marius, who will bestow on her the Dark Gift, and the tale of their two centuries together before they are tragically lost to each other.

This uniquely personal book, the fruit of a thirty-year friendship, offers an intimate portrait of Lewis the tutor, scholar, and friend, along with new insights into his towering literary and scholarly achievement.

F. E. Halliday presents in vivid detail what we know about Shakespeare's life after three centuries of discovery, and illuminates and animates the story with illustrations of Elizabethan personalities, pages from the early folios, maps, and photographs of Stratford-upon-Avon. Much of the great playwright's biography is mysterious, but Halliday (an authority on Elizabethan and Jacobean literature, and especially on Shakespeare) documents the Bard's life and work — reassuring us, incidentally, that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon really was the author of the plays attributed to him.

An intellectual thriller set in the Oxford of the 1660s, a time of great ferment — intellectual, religious and political. The action takes place around the suspicious death of Robert Grove, a Fellow of New College.

Brilliant in conception, rich in scope, this splendid book confronts the mystery of the human attraction to violence: What draws our species to war and even makes us see it as a kind of sacred undertaking? «A fascinating perspective on our staunch devotion to mass, mutual slaughter».

In her latest installment of The Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice brings readers the story of Armand — eternally young, with the face of a Botticelli angel — who first appeared in his dark glory in «Interview with the Vampire». Moving through scenes of luxury, of ambush, fire, and devil worship to 19th-century Paris and toady's New Orleans, this romantic hero is forced to choose between his twilight immortality and the salvation of his immortal soul.

In a sweeping and vivid survey, renowned historian Bernard Lewis charts the history of the Middle East over the last 2,000 years, from the birth of Christianity through the modern era, focusing on the successive transformations that have shaped it. Elegantly written, scholarly yet accessible, The Middle East is the most comprehensive single volume history of the region ever written from the world's foremost authority on the Middle East.

In the grand manner of Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice's new novel moves across time and the continents, from nineteenth-century Vienna to a St. Charles Greek Revival mansion in present-day New Orleans to the dazzling capitals of the modern-day world, telling a story of two charismatic figures bound to each other by a passionate commitment to music as a means of rapture, seduction, and liberation. At the novel's center: a uniquely fascinating woman, Triana — who once dreamed of becoming a great musician — and the demonic fiddler Stefan, tormented ghost of a Russian aristocrat, who begins to prey upon her, using his magic violin first to enchant, then to dominate and draw her into a state of madness through the music she loves. But Triana understands the power of the music perhaps even more than does Stefan — and she sets out to resist Stefan and to fight not only for her sanity but for her life. The struggle draws them both into a terrifying supernatural realm where they find themselves surrounded by memories, by horrors, and by overwhelming truths. Battling desperately, they are at last propelled towards the novel's astonishing and unforgettable climax. Violin is crowded with the history, the drama, the invention, and the romantic intensity that have become synonymous with Anne Rice at her incomparable best.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's extraordinary career as a novelist ended abruptly and unhappily, but it began with one of the most brilliant first novels in the history of American literature. Published when its author was just twenty-three, This Side of Paradise is about the education of a youth, and to this universal story Fitzgerald brought the promise of everything that was new in the vigorous, restless America during the years following World War I. Amory Blaine-egoistic, versatile, callow, and imaginative-inhabits a book that is interwoven with songs, poems, playscripts, and questions and answers. His growth from self-absorption to sexual awareness and personhood is described by means of a continuous improvisatory energy and delight. Far from being distracting, Fitzgerald's formal inventiveness and verve only heighten our sense that the world being described is our own modern world. A profound coherence informs This Side of Paradise — a coherence born of its author's uncanny ability to revel in the fragmented surfaces of human life while exploring and comprehending its serene depths.

Africa belongs to the Africans; the sooner they take it back the better. But — a country also belongs to those who feel at home in it. Perhaps it may be that love of Africa the country will be strong enough to link people who hate each other now. Perhaps... Going Home is Doris Lessing's account of her first journey back to Africa, the land in which she grew up and in which so much of her emotion and her concern are still invested. Returning to Southern Rhodesia in 1956, she found that her love of Africa had remained as strong as her hatred of the idea of white supremacy espoused by its ruling class. Going Home evokes brilliantly the experience of thepeople, black and white, who have shaped and will shape a beloved country.