Sex, drugs, gambling, ghosts, drinking, rugby, overseas adventures – and even some police work. Hong Kong on the edge of empire was a place teeming with triads, smugglers, Chinese immigrants and Vietnamese refugees. Simon's memoir of his time in the Hong Kong police force – from the 1970s until after the 1997 handover – is a fast-paced tale of his exploits. From the murky back streets of Kowloon to the open seas in the Marine division, his shocking and hilarious tales offer an alternative look back at what life was really like on the Hong Kong beat.
A thrilling, unputdownable debut, with extraordinary twists and incredible
action, from an incredible new voice in children's fiction. I can steal time.
The most I can take at the moment is fifteen seconds, which is not a lot.
A darkly comic suburban Gothic about a malevolent force that targets a group of Ohio misfits, harnessing their angst for its sinister designs. "A work of evil genius that put me in a literal trance and didn't relinquish me until the final page. I loved every insidious second.” —Mona Awad, author of Bunny Something strange is happening to the teens in Adena, Ohio. A mysterious force is seeking inroads: vulnerabilities to exploit, friendships to hijack, untapped rage to harness toward its own ends. Who will serve it best? Claire is abrasive and aimless, embarrassed by her privilege. Weak-willed David entertains fantasies of cultish orgies, while Tyler covertly takes up residence in his basement. Greg wages war on the voices in his head, while his sister Beth quietly, furiously unravels. And at the center is the empathetic, naive Sarah. The force wants her most of all. But will she be the key to its success or its destruction? Eerie, hypnotic, and shot through with dark comedy, String Follow is a razor-sharp suburban gothic that exposes the sweating, bleeding truth of how kids become adults in twenty-first-century America. Simon Jacobs blends the startlingly original and the uncannily familiar, revealing the dark chaos that lurks beneath the surface of Midwestern suburbia.
Perfect for fans of Alex Rider and Artemis Fowl, Simon Fox's latest action-
packed thriller is ideal for readers too young for Jack Reacher or Line of
Duty. Archie Blake thought his policeman father teaching him how to pick locks
and open safes was just a bit of fun.
Language extinction on an enormous scale has been occurring for over a century and has sped up dramatically in the last two decades. This book revolves around travels through the world's most linguistically diverse regions, taking a comparative approach to the contemporary status of minority languages in the post-web world. Despite multiple threats, it finds grounds for optimism, suggesting that a natural evolution sees all countries at some point on a trajectory from conflict to from seeing minority languages as a threat to the power of the centre, through to acceptance, and finally celebrating them as an indicator of internal diversity and cultural vibrancy. The author discusses ways in which fragile languages can be protected without resorting to exclusivity, hostility, or the othering of those seen as threatening to that culture. The work is underpinned by Wales, with reflections on its place in the modern world and the status and significance of the Welsh language. This is partly as an exemplar of the previously cited evolution, but also a case study of how a language can thrive in relation to the global dominance of English.
Kniha pojednává o vývoji drobné šlechty na přelomu pozdního středověku a
počátku raného novověku v Čechách. Jednalo se o složitý proces ovlivněný řadou
faktorů. Celou situaci navíc komplikoval fakt, že se v 15. století nepanská
šlechta dělila do dvou skupin, na nižší panoše a vyšší rytíře. Studie pracuje
s tezí, že se jednalo o reálné rozdělení šlechty, tedy že pro toto období
musíme počítat s jejím dělením do tří stavů (byť pojem stav je v této době
ještě poměrně problematický): na pány, rytíře a panoše. Na jedné straně je
drobná šlechta studována optikou právních dokladů s celozemskou platností a
sond z různých koutů země. Na straně druhé jsou různé oblasti života této
skupiny nahlíženy optikou pramenů z regionu historického Chrudimska, což
umožňuje sledovat projevy širších změn na území kraje.
