In Max Barry's twisted, hilarious and terrifying vision of the near future, the world is run by giant corporations and employees take the last names of the companies they work for. It's a globalised, ultra-capitalist free market paradise! Hack Nike is a lowly merchandising officer who's not very good at negotiating his salary. So when John Nike and John Nike, executives from the promised land of Marketing, offer him a contract, he signs without reading it. Unfortunately, Hack's new contract involves shooting teenagers to build up street cred for Nike's new line of $2,500 trainers. Hack goes to the police - but they assume that he's asking for a subcontracting deal and lease the assassination to the more experienced NRA. Enter Jennifer Government, a tough-talking agent with a barcode tattoo under her eye and a personal problem with John Nike (the boss of the other John Nike). And a gun. Hack is about to find out what it really means to mess with market forces.

Known as the "crafty cook" because of his desire to produce good food without fuss or elaborate preparation, Michael Barry's approach to food should prove of interest to today's busy cook. This book is a collection of over 200 exotic recipes from spicy, quick-cook Thai to simple Jamaican dishes, from easy-Chinese to sensational Indonesian. Reflecting the increasing interest in ethnic foods, Michael Barry's recipes reproduce the key tastes and flavours without needing extensive preparation. The author has written articles for "Woman's Own" and "Good Food" magazines, is the author of "Crafty Cooking", "The Complete Crafty Cook" and "Food Processor Cookery" and is a co-presenter of BBC television's "Food and Drink" programme.

Over two million registered Flickr users and counting have discovered the ease and fun of organizing their photo libraries, showing off their favorite pictures to the world, and securely sharing their private pictures with friends, family, or ad hoc groups. But Flickr's own plethora of intuitive menus, options, and features just scratches the surface. Flickr Hacks goes beyond the basics of storing, sorting, and sharing your photos to the much bigger playground of what's possible. Whether you're a beginner looking to manage your metadata and play with tags, or a programmer in need of a detailed reference of Flickr API methods, you'll find what you're looking for here. In addition to getting under the hood of some of the most popular third-party Flickr toys already in the wild, you'll learn how to: Post photos to your blog directly from your cameraphone Mash up your own photos or others' public pictures into custom mosaics, collages, sliding puzzles, slideshows, or ransom notes Back up your Flickr library to your desktop, and save the comments too Set random desktop backgrounds and build your own Flickr screensaver Geotag your photos and map your contacts Download a list of photos and make a contact sheet Make your own Flickr-style tag cloud to visualize the frequency of common tags Build a color picker with a dynamic color wheel of Flickr photos Feed photos to your web site and subscribe to custom Flickr feeds using RSS Talk to the Flickr API using your web browser, Perl, or PHP; authenticate yourself and other users; and build custom API applications

The Teleportation Accident From the award-winning Ned Beauman, an 'unquestionably brilliant' (TLS) novel that establishes him as one of the exciting and influential voices in modern British fiction. Full description

Castle: Richard Castle's Deadly Storm Derrick Storm comes to life in the pages of this all-new graphic novel. This adaptation of Derrick Storm's first novel adventure takes the hero from the gritty world of the private eye all the way to the globe-hopping intrigue of the CIA. Full description

Former StormWatch Weatherman Henry Bendix has returned from the dead and is busy remolding the Earth to his unique vision. But what ever happened to "Earth’s Last of Defense," the Authority? After the debacle in the nation’s capital that led to the destruction of Washington, DC, they relinquished control of the United States and all but vanished. How long can tyranny stand before heroes will rise up? Can a teenage Jenny Quantum reunite the fractured team and make them heroes again – or has Bendix finally won the battle?

How did English, 'treated for centuries as the inadequate and second-rate tongue of peasants' become the undisputed global language? How did words like shampoo, sofa and rowdy (and others drawn from over fifty languages) find their way into our dictionary? In this revealing and often hilarious book, Bill Bryson examines the mother tongue and explores the countless varieties of English and the perils of marketing brands with names like Pschitt and Super Piss. With entertaining sections on the oddities of swearing and spelling, spoonerisms and Scrabble, and a consideration of what we mean by 'good English', "Mother Tongue" is one of the most stimulating books yet written on this endlessly engrossing subject.

Bill Bryson drove 14,000 miles in search of the mythical small town of his youth. Instead he found a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger joints; a continent lost to itself through greed, pollution and television, and lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country. A funny and serious view of smalltown America.

Book by Bill Bryson

Notes From a Small Island

Bill Bryson shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet and heads for Europe. He retraces his travels as a student twenty years earlier with caustic hilarity and his own unique brand of humour. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Bill Bryson lived in North Yorkshire for many years. First published in 1991 by Secker & Warburg.