Reference

The New York Times received countless letters over the years from readers moved to tears or laughter by a McG. Eschewing traditionally famous subjects, Thomas favored unsung heroes, eccentrics, and underachievers including: Edward Lowe, the inventor of Kitty Litter ("Cat Owners Best Friend"); Angelo Zuccotti, the bouncer at El Morocco ("Artist of the Velvet Rope"); and Kay Halle, a glamorous Cleveland department store heiress who received sixty-four marriage proposals ("An Intimate of Century's Giants"). In one of his classic obituaries, Thomas described Anton Rosenberg as a "storied sometime artist and occasional musician who embodied the Greenwich Village hipster ideal of 1950s cool to such a laid-back degree and with such determined detachment that he never amounted to much of anything." Thomas also eulogizes a variety of colorful local heroes, from pool hustler Minnesota Fats, to Mason Rankin, founder of an AIDS group in Utah, to Sidney Korshak, "a famous fixer for the Chicago mob."

Thomas captured life's ironies and defining moments with elegance and a gift for making a sentence sing He had an uncanny sense of the passion and personality that made each life unique.

The Student Study Guide to A Basic Course in American Sign Language, designed to supplement the text, provides a wide array of practice materials for student and teacher. Exercises and practice sentences allow students to practice receptive and expressive skills.

The A Basic Course in American Sign Language Videotape Package contains four one-hour videotapes, a copy of the A Basic Course in American Sign Language, Second Edition and a copy of the Student Study Guide. The first three videotapes demonstrate the exercises and dialogues presented in the 22 lessons of the text. The fourth tape presents spontaneous, unrehearsed conversations among four Deaf adults which provides excellent practice in reading signs in conversation.

The A Basic Course in American Sign Language Vocabulary Videotape features four Deaf models signing each vocabulary word contained in all 22 lessons of the text plus the alphabet and numbers. The tape has captions and voice which can be turned off to sharpen visual acuity. It is ideal for classroom reinforcement and independent home study.

Un Curso Basico de Lenguaje Americano de Senas features English and Spanish translations side by side. It is designed for teachers, parents and learning English and American Sign Language.

"A provocative and jaunty romp through the dos and don'ts of writing for the internet" (NYT)--the practical, the playful, and the politically correct--from BuzzFeed copy chief Emmy Favilla.

A World Without "Whom" is Eats, Shoots & Leaves for the internet age, and BuzzFeed global copy chief Emmy Favilla is the witty go-to style guru of webspeak.

As language evolves faster than ever before, what is the future of "correct" writing? When Favilla was tasked with creating a style guide for BuzzFeed, she opted for spelling, grammar, and punctuation guidelines that would reflect not only the site's lighthearted tone, but also how readers actually use language IRL.

With wry cleverness and an uncanny intuition for the possibilities of internet-age expression, Favilla makes a case for breaking the rules laid out by Strunk and White: A world without "whom," she argues, is a world with more room for writing that's clear, timely, pleasurable, and politically aware. Featuring priceless emoji strings, sidebars, quizzes, and style debates among the most lovable word nerds in the digital media world--of which Favilla is queen--A World Without "Whom" is essential for readers and writers of virtually everything: news articles, blog posts, tweets, texts, emails, and whatever comes next . . . so basically everyone.

More than 250 new entries and senses have been added to this brand-new edition, including cloud computing, genetically modified organism, and the recently named elements flerovium and livermorium.

Over the course of sixty years, Alfred Kazin's writings confronted virtually all of our major imaginative writers, from Emerson to Emily Dickinson to James Wright and Joyce Carol Oates -- including such unexpected figures as Lincoln, William James, and Thorstein Veblen. This son of Russian Jews wrote out of the tensions of the outsider and the astute, outspoken leftist -- or, as he put it, the bitter patriotism of loving what one knows. Editor Ted Solotaroff hasselected material from Kazin's three classic memoirs to accompany his critical writings. Alfred Kazin's America provides an ongoing example of the spiritual freedom, individualism, and democratic contentiousness that he regarded as his heritage and endeavored to pass on.

Ideal for college students and advanced high school students, the American Heritage High School Dictionary is a brand-new paperbound reference book from the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. It is aimed at users who need a dictionary that is more advanced than the Student Dictionary but more conveniently sized and priced than the 2084-page hardcover American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. The American Heritage High School Dictionary will be especially useful for customers who do not have ready access to our electronic products. Each entry is clearly defined, and thousands of example sentences show how entry words are used in context. There are no biographical or geographical entries, thus allowing more room for basic vocabulary. A gazetteer at the back of the book lists countries, states, and capitals. Hundreds of word history notes describe the development of words in clear, straightforward language. A style guide, detailed definitions of grammatical terms, and dozens of usage notes provide guidance on grammar and style points. This reference book is designed to be a workhorse for writers - great for high school students who are studying for standardized tests or who are allowed to use print dictionaries during tests, for college students whose schools lack the resources to provide online content, and for individuals who prefer a conveniently sized print dictionary for their home or office.

Carol Ann Tomlinson and Tonya R. Moon take an in-depth look at assessment and show how differentiation can improve the process in all grade levels and subject areas. After discussing differentiation in general, the authors focus on how differentiation applies to various forms of assessment--pre-assessment, formative assessment, and summative assessment--and to grading and report cards. Readers learn how differentiation can

Throughout, Tomlinson and Moon emphasize the importance of maintaining a consistent focus on the essential knowledge, understandings, and skills that all students must acquire, no matter what their starting point.

Detailed scenarios illustrate how assessment differentiation can occur in three realms (student readiness, interest, and learning style or preference) and how it can improve assessment validity and reliability and decrease errors and teacher bias.

Grounded in research and the authors' teaching experience, Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom outlines a common-sense approach that is both thoughtful and practical, and that empowers teachers and students to discover, strive for, and achieve their true potential.

Factoid Attack: Galaxy at risk! Intelligent life in short supply!
In 1961, Astronomer Frank Drake estimated the number of probable intelligent civilizations inhabiting our galaxy. Using conservative numbers, that estimate came to 10,000. Unfortunately, we are not included in that total.
Factoid Attack: Colorblind bulls hate all matadors equally!
The color of a matador's cape, or muleta, is traditionally red, which is widely believed to irritate the bull. In reality, bulls are colorblind, so it is irrelevant what color cape a matador uses to antagonize them. Shot in the dark, but maybe it's the being stabbed with swords bit that pisses them off.
Forget Fringe, Warehouse 13, and The X-Files. In this book, you'll find more weird and wacko truths than in all those combined. From golden poison dart frogs with enough venom to kill ten grown humans to cockroaches that can survive radiation 15 times stronger than what kills people, scary and strange just got scarier--and stranger!

Auto Repair For Dummies is indispensable for anyone who is tired of nodding and smiling at the incomprehensible mutterings of your mechanic, only to end up shelling out money for repairs that you neither fully understand nor always need. This easy-to-understand guide is also for you if you

This book shows you how your car works; what it needs in the way of tender loving care; and how to keep from being overcharged if you need to entrust repairs to someone else. Auto Repair For Dummies also gives you the scoop on these topics and more:

By handling the simple maintenance and tune-ups and being able to diagnose trouble and perform the less complex repairs yourself, you'll save some serious money. Once you break the ice (or crack open the hood), the heady sense of power will carry you through basic car repair and maintenance with confidence and ease.

Not long ago, same-sex couples had to jump through endless hoops to make their relationships even close to legal. Happily, those days are over. But here's the rub: many gay and lesbian couples, accustomed to living off-grid, are so thrilled to have the benefits of marriage that they jump into it without fully considering the consequences.

In Before I Do, leading gay rights attorney Elizabeth F. Schwartz spells out the range of practical considerations any couple should address before tying the knot. She explains the rights married couples have--and those they do not. With cameos from some of the most prominent LGBTQ+ professionals, Schwartz explores all of the implications of marriage from name changes and getting a license to taxes, insurance, Social Security, and much more.

Chapters on estate planning, pre- and post-nuptial agreements, and organizing finances make Before I Do a crucial handbook for anyone considering marriage--because, as Schwartz explains, just because you can get married does not mean you should.

"During my thirty years of covering the gay beat for the Miami Herald, never did I imagine the need for a marriage guide for LGBT couples. Yet today nothing is more urgent. Before I Do guides all couples, gay and otherwise, about the responsibilities of marriage. Ignore it at your peril." --Steve Rothaus, The Miami Herald

"Essays are restless literature, trying to find out how things fit together, how we can think about two things at once, how the personal and the public can inform each other, how two overtly dissimilar things share a secret kinship," contends Rebecca Solnit in her introduction. From lost languages and extinct species to life-affirming cosmologies and literary myths that offer cold comfort, the personal and the public collide in The Best American Essays 2019. This searching, necessary collection grapples with what has preoccupied us in the past year--sexual politics, race, violence, invasive technologies--and yet, in reading for the book, Solnit also found "how discovery can be a deep pleasure."
The Best American Essays 2019 includes Michelle Alexander, Jabari Asim, Alexander Chee, Masha Gessen, Jean Guerrero, Elizabeth Kolbert, Terese Marie Mailhot, Jia Tolentino, and others.

Braving the Fire is the first book to provide a road map for the journey of writing honestly about grief and loss. Created specifically by and for the writer who has experienced illness, loss, or the death of a loved one, Braving the Fire takes the writers' perspective in exploring the challenges and rewards for the writer who has chosen, with courage and candor, to be the memory keeper. It will be useful to the memoirist just starting out, as well as those already in the throes of coming to terms with complicated emotions and the challenges of shaping a compelling, coherent true story.

Loosely organized around the familiar Kübler-Ross model of Five Stages of Grief, Braving the Fire uses these stages to help the reader and writer though the emotional and writing tasks before them, incorporating interviews and excerpts from other treasured writers who've done the same. Insightful contributions from Nick Flynn, Darin Strauss, Kathryn Rhett, Natasha Trethewey, and Neil White, among others, are skillfully blended with Handler's own approaches to facing grief a second time to be able to write about it. Each section also includes advice and wisdom from leading doctors and therapists about the physical experience of grieving. Each chapter ends with a selection of writing exercises that focus on the chapter content.

Handler is a compassionate guide who has braved the fire herself, and delivers practical and inspirational direction throughout.

Collins Webster's Pocket Thesaurus is completely up-to-date and easy-to-use. It contains all the words you need for everyday use--the perfect thesaurus for school, work, or home.