How do you write truly elegant code with Ruby? Ruby Best Practices is for programmers who want to use Ruby as experienced Rubyists do. Written by the developer of the Ruby project Prawn, this concise book explains how to design beautiful APIs and domain-specific languages with Ruby, as well as how to work with functional programming ideas and techniques that can simplify your code and make you more productive. You'll learn how to write code that's readable, expressive, and much more. Ruby Best Practices will help you:

Understand the secret powers unlocked by Ruby's code blocks Learn how to bend Ruby code without breaking it, such as mixing in modules on the fly Discover the ins and outs of testing and debugging, and how to design for testability Learn to write faster code by keeping things simple Develop strategies for text processing and file management, including regular expressions Understand how and why things can go wrong Reduce cultural barriers by leveraging Ruby's multilingual capabilities

This book also offers you comprehensive chapters on driving code through tests, designing APIs, and project maintenance. Learn how to make the most of this rich, beautiful language with Ruby Best Practices.

Bill Bryson is one of the world’s most beloved and bestselling writers. In A Short History of Nearly Everything, he takes his ultimate journey–into the most intriguing and consequential questions that science seeks to answer. It’s a dazzling quest, the intellectual odyssey of a lifetime, as this insatiably curious writer attempts to understand everything that has transpired from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. Or, as the author puts it, “…how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something turned into us, and also what happened in between and since.” This is, in short, a tall order.

To that end, Bill Bryson apprenticed himself to a host of the world’s most profound scientific minds, living and dead. His challenge is to take subjects like geology, chemisty, paleontology, astronomy, and particle physics and see if there isn’t some way to render them comprehensible to people, like himself, made bored (or scared) stiff of science by school. His interest is not simply to discover what we know but to find out how we know it. How do we know what is in the center of the earth, thousands of miles beneath the surface? How can we know the extent and the composition of the universe, or what a black hole is? How can we know where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out?

On his travels through space and time, Bill Bryson encounters a splendid gallery of the most fascinating, eccentric, competitive, and foolish personalities ever to ask a hard question. In their company, he undertakes a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only this superb writer can render it. Science has never been more involving, and the world we inhabit has never been fuller of wonder and delight.

A glance at the index reveals this to be a book of Greek recipes without moussaka! Real Greek Foodhas a lot going for it already. The name derives from the restaurant The Real Greek opened in the fashionable East End of London (imagine being able to write such a phrase) in 1999 by Theodore Kyriakou to very considerable acclaim. Expert midwifery from food writer and journalist Charles Campion has effected a transfer of his cooking to the domestic realm with mouth-watering effect. This is Greek food of a type and quality very different from the usual dismal offerings of the dreaded moussaka, souvlakia, kleftiko and the rest. For one thing, Kyriakou is from Athens, not Cyprus, and seems to have been brought up with sophisticated culinary expectations: in his preface he pays tribute to his parents' devotion to "Greek gastronomy", not ordinarily a pairing of words easy to compute. Sample menus might include Belly Port with Leeks, Parchment-Wrapped Liver and Potted Chicken with Walnuts. Other unusual but delicious dishes are Pork and Quince Casserole, Crab Claws Stewed with Muscat Wine and Poached Rack of Lamb with Fennel. Desserts include Caramel and Hazelnut Tart and the intriguing, medieval-sounding, though obviously modern, Mustard Ice Creams, which tempers the hot tang of Dijon mustard with Greek honey. It all adds up to a very fine collection, smart and modern, recommended to anyone who feels there must be more to Greek cooking. —Robin Davidson

Comparative Media History is a unique thematic textbook which introduces students to the key ideas underpinning media development. It is an essential first step to a better understanding of both the media industry today and the way in which it evolved over time.

The textbook compares developments and influences from a broad perspective, highlighting and contrasting different countries, industries and periods of history in order to encourage an understanding of cause and effect. In a style which is clear, accessible and provocative, Jane Chapman argues that most of the roots of today's media - even the globalizing impulse - lie in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The book emphasises continuity and certain decisive factors such as the social use of technology, the character of the institutions in which it is applied and the political approach of the specific countries involved.

The comparative element to this book, both across countries and industries, will enable students to reflect on key issues in media studies, including those of diversity, form, method and choice, both past and present. It will become an essential text for any student of the media and its history.

For more information about the book and the author, please see www.janechapman.co.uk

Undoubtedly one of the most useful books ever written.
(The New Republic )