Non-Fiction

Early school-age English children acquire over 3000 words a year. The main factors which account for such rapid vocabulary growth are context and word-formation knowledge. Such vocabulary growth is also of great interest in the L2 acquisition. Using empirical tests, the book puts side by side L1 and L2 acquisition of word-formation devices. The first chapter explores the early acquisition of word-formation devices by English children and presents the principles through which cross-linguistic influence diverts L2 learners from the natural way of acquiring word-formation devices ...

Fifty Scams and Hoaxes is a light-hearted investigation into some of the worst examples of financial skulduggery, medical quackery and ingenious hoaxing from history. Along the way we will come across a Pope advocating a drink based on cocaine, a pill to avoid hangovers, a woman who gave birth to rabbits, the man who broke the bank twice, the first examples of insurance fraud and scam emails and much more. Author Martin Fone explores the psychology and methodology deployed by the scammers and shows what ...

An exploration of the age-old complicity between skywatchers and warfighters, from the best-selling author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. In this fascinating foray into the centuries-old relationship between science and military power, acclaimed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and writer-researcher Avis Lang examine how the methods and tools of astrophysics have been enlisted in the service of war. “The overlap is strong, and the knowledge flows in both directions,” say the authors, because astrophysicists and military planners care about many of the same things: multi-spectral ...

From Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times-bestselling author Deborah Blum, the dramatic true story of how food was made safe in the United States and the heroes, led by the inimitable Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, who fought for change By the end of nineteenth century, food was dangerous. Lethal, even. “Milk” might contain formaldehyde, most often used to embalm corpses. Decaying meat was preserved with both salicylic acid, a pharmaceutical chemical, and borax, a compound first identified as a cleaning product. This was not by ...

A leading psychologist examines how our popularity affects our success, our relationships, and our happiness—and why we don’t always want to be the most popular No matter how old you are, there’s a good chance that the word “popular” immediately transports you back to your teenage years. Most of us can easily recall the adolescent social cliques, the high school pecking order, and which of our peers stood out as the most or the least popular teens we knew. Even as adults we all still ...

Soon to be a major motion picture, this is the first—and only—definitive authorized account of Neil Armstrong, the man whose “one small step” changed history. When Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon’s surface in 1969, the first man on the Moon became a legend. In First Man, author James R. Hansen explores the life of Neil Armstrong. Based on over fifty hours of interviews with the intensely private Armstrong, who also gave Hansen exclusive access to private documents and family sources, this “magnificent panorama of ...

“A classic of war reporting…The author’s stories give heart-rending meaning to the lives and deaths of these men and women, even if policymakers generally have not.”—The New York Times Pulitzer Prize winner C.J. Chivers’ unvarnished account of modern combat, told through the eyes of the fighters who have waged America’s longest wars. More than 2.7 million Americans have served in Afghanistan or Iraq since September 11, 2001. C.J. Chivers reported from both wars from their beginnings. The Fighters vividly conveys the physical and emotional experience of war ...

Alba Castillo has always been gutsy. A proclaimed rebel, she flees her small village in Spain for adventure and new life in the States. But what she meets instead is the devil himself. After several failed relationships, the charming and charismatic Peter seems like a gift from Heaven. Until he isn’t. Cruel, controlling, and malicious, Peter will stop at nothing to win, even if it means destroying Alba, and her children, in the process. Left with nothing but her spirit, Alba faces the fight of ...