A valuable tool for stargazers at all skill and experience levels. A planisphere and sky charts are essential tools for night-sky viewing. Having a... reliable planisphere on hand is the best way for stargazers to be sure they do not miss any celestial phenomena, especially the rare ones. On any day of the year, the Firefly Planisphere is the best tool to help a stargazer locate night-sky events quickly. This edition was completely updated and includes planetary tables through 2015. Charted by the month, day, hour and minute, the Firefly Planisphere gives quick help on locating celestial wonders such as: Planets Stars Constellations Globular clusters Nebulas Galaxies Some of the easy-to-use features are: Icons that describe star magnitudes -- the larger the symbol, the brighter the star, which makes it easy to locate specific stars Planetary tables with at-a-glance coordinates for locating the brightest objects in the sky until 2015 Timess of sunrise and sunset for each day With its easy-to-read pamphlet, the Firefly Planisphere is simply the handiest guide to the night sky for the amateur astronomer.

Before the smash hit movie "Serenity" came "Firefly", the cult TV series which started it all and became a DVD phenomenon, selling almost half a million... copies. Set 500 years in the future, "Firefly" centres around Mal Reynolds, captain of the ship-for-hire Serenity and its eclectic crew of galactic misfits. When he takes on two passengers, a young doctor and his mysterious, telepathic sister, he gets much more than he bargained for...This official companion is just what the show's fervent fans, the 'Browncoats', have been waiting for, with unseen photos, scripts, behind the scenes secrets, and exclusive input from the cast and crew, including of course creator Joss Whedon.

Before the smash hit movie Serenity came Firefly, the cult TV series which started it all and became a DVD phenomenon, selling almost half a million... copies.Set 500 years in the future, Firefly centres around Mal Reynolds, captain of the ship-for-hire Serenity and its eclectic crew of galactic misfits. When he takes on two passengers, a young doctor and his mysterious, telepathic sister, he gets much more than he bargained for…This official companion is just what the show’s fervent fans, the ‘Browncoats’, have been waiting for, with unseen photos, scripts, behind the scenes secrets, and exclusive input from the cast and crew, including of course creator Joss Whedon.Contains the second part of an extended interview with Joss Whedon, as well as exclusive new interviews with the cast, executive producer Tim Minear and many other writers and crewmembers; the full, uncut shooting scripts for ‘Jaynestown’, ‘Out of Gas’, ‘Ariel’, ‘War Stories’ ‘Trash’, ‘The Message’, ‘Heart of Gold’ and ‘Objects in Space’, annotated with memories from the cast and crew; extended behind-the-scenes interviews with the crew behind Firefly, including sections on the production design and visual effects, illustrated with unseen imagery; in addition a section on the Firefly fans and of course Vera...

A brilliantly translated bilingual edition of poems by one of Mexico's foremost woman poets.Born in 1951 in Mexico City, Coral Bracho has published half... a dozen books of poems including the groundbreaking El ser que va a morir (1982) which changed the course of Mexican poetry. Her exquisite long-lined poems evoke the sensual realm where logic is disbanded, wonder evoked. In the words of her translator Forrest Gander, "Her diction spills out along ceaselessly shifting beds of sound....Bracho's poems make sense first as music, and music propels them." From her early collections—Bajo el destello liguido and El ser—to her most recent books La voluntad del ámbar and Ese espacio, ese jardìn (which won the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize), Firefly under the Tongue offers the first book of English translations by this most important and influential living poet.

Oliver Cromwell is one of the most puzzling and controversial figures in English history. In this excellent introduction, Barry Coward uses Cromwell's... own words and actions to analyse the life of Oliver Cromwell as a political figure and look at the historical problems associated with his exercise of power. *Invaluable exploration of one of the most overpowering yet elusive characters in British history *Offers an essential introduction to Cromwell's political career and provides a convincing analysis of his rise from obscurity to power *Reveals Cromwell's contradictory character and examines his political aims and ambitions.

It was born a scant ninety-five years ago in a rundown warehouse on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. For days the religious-revival service there went on... and on-and within a week the Los Angeles Times was reporting on a "weird babble" coming from the building. Believers were "speaking in tongues," the way they did at the first Pentecost recorded in the Bible?and a pentecostal movement was created that would, by the start of the twenty-first century, attract over 400 million followers worldwide. Harvey Cox has traveled the globe to visit and worship with pentecostal congregations on four continents, and he has written a dynamic, provocative history of this explosion of spirituality?a movement that represents no less than a tidal change in what religion is and what it means to people.

“If you have tears, prepare to shed them.” --Frank McCourt "In the firehouse, the men not only live and eat with each other, they play sports... together, go off to drink together, help repair one another's houses, and, most important, share terrifying risks; their loyalties to each other must, by the demands of the dangers they face, be instinctive and absolute." So writes David Halberstam, one of America’s most distinguished reporters and historians, in this stunning New York Times bestselling book about Engine 40, Ladder 35, located on the West Side of Manhattan near Lincoln Center. On the morning of September 11, 2001, two rigs carrying thirteen men set out from this firehouse: twelve of them would never return. Firehouse takes us to the epicenter of the tragedy. Through the kind of intimate portraits that are Halberstam’s trademark, we watch the day unfold--the men called to duty while their families wait anxiously for news of them. In addition, we come to understand the culture of the firehouse itself: why gifted men do this; why, in so many instances, they are eager to follow in their fathers’ footsteps and serve in so dangerous a profession; and why, more than anything else, it is not just a job, but a calling. This is journalism-as-history at its best, the story of what happens when one small institution gets caught in an apocalyptic day. Firehouse is a book that will move readers as few others have in our time.

July 25, 1946. In Walton County, Georgia, a mob of white men commit one of the most heinous racial crimes in America's history: the shotgun murder of... four black sharecroppers -- two men and two women -- at Moore's Ford Bridge. Fire in a Canebrake, the term locals used to describe the sound of the fatal gunshots, is the story of our nation's last mass lynching on record. More than a half century later, the lynchers' identities still remain unknown. Drawing from interviews, archival sources, and uncensored FBI reports, acclaimed journalist and author Laura Wexler takes readers deep into the heart of Walton County, bringing to life the characters who inhabited that infamous landscape -- from sheriffs to white supremacists to the victims themselves -- including a white man who claims to have been a secret witness to the crime. By turns a powerful historical document, a murder mystery, and a cautionary tale, Fire in a Canebrake ignites a powerful contemplation on race, humanity, history, and the epic struggle for truth.

From prehistory to the present-day conservation movement, Pyne explores the efforts of successive American cultures to master wildfire and to use it to... shape the landscape."On rare occasions, the historical literature is enriched by the introduction of a broad new field for study, by a book that dramatically expands the boundaries of scholarly investigation. Stephen Pyne's Fire in America is such a book. It achieves the Promethean goal of bringing fire to history." --Science"This unusual and imaginative work takes a phenomenon that seems at first glance to be so elemental as to have no history and no evolution, and gives it a dynamic role in the drama of American advance from frontier through agricultural to industrial society. By integrating the history of fire with ecology, agriculture, logging, and resource management, Pyne has made a unique contribution to the history of science and technology, as well as to cultural history in general." --Isis"Stephen J. Pyne compels our admiration for his gargantuan ambition and richly informed intelligence. He tells us more than anyone else to date has about the role of fire in the landscape, tells us we have been wrong in assuming a pristine state of nature before the white man's invasion, tells us what fire has meant to the rise of civilization and this nation. No one interested in environmental history can afford to ignore this massive achievement." --Journal of American History

Set during the tense days of the Oklahoma oil rush, Rilla Askew's Fire in Beulah is a mesmerizing story that centers on the complex relationship between... Althea Whiteside, an oil wildcatter's high-strung wife, and Graceful, her enigmatic black maid. Their juxtaposing stories—and those of others close to them—unfold against a volatile backdrop of oil-boom opulence, fear, hatred, lynchings that climax in the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, when whites burned the city's properous black community. Askew's award-winning first novel, The Mercy Seat, was praised for its astute diepiction of family bonds and the beauty of American landscape. Now she explores the American race story with the same perception.

Fire is both an integral natural process in the California landscape and growing threat to its urban and suburban developments as they encroach on... wildlands. Written by many of the foremost authorities on the subject, this comprehensive volume, an ideal text and authoritative reference tool, is the first to synthesize our knowledge of the science, ecology, and management of fire in California. Part I introduces the basics of fire ecology. It includes an historical overview of fire, vegetation, and climate in California; overviews of fire as a physical and ecological process; and reviews the interactions between fire and the physical, plant, and animal components of the environment. Part II explores the history and ecology of fire in each of California's nine bioregions. Part III examines fire management in California, including both Native American and post-European settlement; discusses current issues related to fire policy and management, including air quality, watershed management, invasive plant species, native species, and fuel management; and considers the future of fire management.

A reference manual for both uniformed and civilian inspectors, Fire Inspection and Code Enforcement (7th edition) is a comprehensive source of... information. This manual educates inspectors about the principles and techniques of fire prevention and life-safety inspection and code compliance. It addresses NFPA® 1031, Standard for Professional Qualifications for Fire Inspector and Plan Examiner, Levels I and II of the 2009 edition. In addition, this manual has also been written to meet the learning objectives of the Fire and Emergency Services Higher Education (FESHE) Principles of Code Enforcement course. This is a reference manual for both uniformed and civilian inspectors.

   In this powerful and culminating work about a group of inner-city children he has known for many years, Jonathan Kozol returns to the scene of his... prize-winning books Rachel and Her Children and Amazing Grace, and to the children he has vividly portrayed, to share with us their fascinating journeys and unexpected victories as they grow into adulthood.   For nearly fifty years Jonathan has pricked the conscience of his readers by laying bare the savage inequalities inflicted upon children for no reason but the accident of being born to poverty within a wealthy nation. A winner of the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and countless other honors, he has persistently crossed the lines of class and race, first as a teacher, then as the author of tender and heart-breaking books about the children he has called “the outcasts of our nation’s ingenuity.” But Jonathan is not a distant and detached reporter. His own life has been radically transformed by the children who have trusted and befriended him.   Never has this intimate acquaintance with his subjects been more apparent, or more stirring, than in Fire in the Ashes, as Jonathan tells the stories of young men and women who have come of age in one of the most destitute communities of the United States. Some of them never do recover from the battering they undergo in their early years, but many more battle back with fierce and, often, jubilant determination to overcome the formidable obstacles they face. As we watch these glorious children grow into the fullness of a healthy and contributive maturity, they ignite a flame of hope, not only for themselves, but for our society.    The urgent issues that confront our urban schools – a devastating race-gap, a pathological regime of obsessive testing and drilling students for exams instead of giving them the rich curriculum that excites a love of learning – are interwoven through these stories. Why certain children rise above it all, graduate from high school and do well in college, while others are defeated by the time they enter adolescence, lies at the essence of this work.   Jonathan Kozol is the author of Death at an Early Age, Savage Inequalities, and other books on children and their education. He has been called “today’s most eloquent spokesman for America’s disenfranchised.” But he believes young people speak most eloquently for themselves; and in this book, so full of the vitality and spontaneity of youth, we hear their testimony.

In December 2010, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington made headlines when it responded to protests from the Catholic League by voluntarily... censoring an excerpt of David Wojnarowicz's A Fire in My Belly from its show on American portraiture.  Why a work of art could stir such emotions is at the heart of Cynthia Carr's Fire in the Belly, the first biography of a beleaguered art-world figure who became one of the most important voices of his generation. Wojnarowicz emerged from a Dickensian childhood that included orphanages, abusive and absent parents, and a life of hustling on the street. He first found acclaim in New York's East Village, a neighborhood noted in the 1970s and '80s for its abandoned buildings, junkies, and burgeoning art scene. Along with Keith Haring, Nan Goldin, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Wojnarowicz helped redefine art for the times. As uptown art collectors looked downtown for the next big thing, this community of cultural outsiders was suddenly thrust into the national spotlight. The ensuing culture war, the neighborhood's gentrification, and the AIDS crisis then devastated the East Village scene. Wojnarowicz died of AIDS in 1992 at the age of thirty-seven. Carr's brilliant biography traces the untold story of a controversial and seminal figure at a pivotal moment in American culture.