New York Times Bestseller: This epic novel of the conquest of the Ming dynasty " does for 17th-century China what James Clavell's Shogun did for 16th-century Japan" ( The Christian Science Monitor).Francis Arrowsmith is a man without a country, a soldier-of-fortune in search of a war. An English orphan raised in France by exiled Jesuits, he hopes to make a quick pile out of his rare skills in bu...

The complete New York Times–bestselling trilogy of historical fiction set in China, from an award-winning novelist and Pulitzer Prize finalist in journalism.Spanning over three centuries of Chinese history, New York Times–bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author Robert Elegant takes readers from the opulent courts and complex intrigue of the emperors to the bloody battlefields, and vividly recreates a richly detailed world where the qu...

New York Times Bestseller: An epic of love and adultery, money and power, set amid the revolutionary turbulence of twentieth-century China, from the author of Manchu and Mandarin.Founder of the Sekloong dynasty of Hong Kong, Sir Jonathan, the illegitimate offspring of an Irish adventurer and his Chinese mistress, overcame colonial prejudice to build a vast and influential trading empire spanning half a century. The marria...

A grand tale of intrigue in nineteenth-century China, where imperial rule is crumbling as the Opium Wars and Taiping Rebellion rage, from the author of Manchu.Loyalty is put to cruel test in Shanghai, where Jewish merchant Saul Haleevie and his longtime Chinese partner, Aisek Lee, have weathered hardship and distrust to build a thriving business. When Aisek is falsely accused of "abomination" for causing his mother's suicide, their world is shattered. Now, ...

Bianca: A Novel of Venice by Robert ElegantAt the height of the Renaissance, one vibrant city triumphs over the rest of Europe in nearly every aspect of human life: painting, music, architecture, banking, publishing, medicine and manufacturing. Her empire reaches the Black Sea and her trade, Asia. This is the illustrious and famed Venice, fierce in war and passionate in love.Dotting this flourishing city-state, the nobility glitters with sumptuous finery, lush parties and s...

The 1950s brought radio listeners a host of great vocal groups. Some, like Dion and the Belmonts, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, The Crests, The Cleftones, The Flamingoes and others churned out a remarkable number of hits and to this day are highly recognized. The popularity of many other fine groups was short-lived. Three E's of Doo-wop: The Echoes; The Elegants; and The Excellents tells of a trio of superb groups that made a splash and quickly disappeared from record charts.

Learning to draw animals can become a fascinating adventure. This book guides you step by step, helping you bring animals to life on the page with confidence and ease. From familiar domestic companions to exotic wildlife from distant continents, you will discover how to draw a wide variety of animals using a clear and accessible method based on simple geometric shapes. Ovals, rectangles and triangles gradually evolve into lively, expressive figures. As you progress through the chapters, yo...

Transcending Agile with Ruthlessness and Grace is the first book in the Innovation Elegance series. Although software is not what makes innovation difficult, innovators rely on software-centric methodologies. What makes innovation difficult is people: how we interact, govern, collaborate, or fail to collaborate. A people-centric methodology isn't shocking or revolutionary. It's just overdue.This book explains how to adopt the metaphors of an expectation-setting fa...

Apprendre à dessiner les animaux peut devenir une véritable aventure créative. Ce livre vous guide pas à pas pour apprendre à les représenter avec aisance et confiance. Des animaux familiers aux espèces exotiques venues des quatre coins du monde, vous découvrez comment les dessiner grâce à une méthode claire et accessible fondée sur des formes géométriques simples : ovales, rectangles et triangles qui se transforment peu à peu en figures pleines de vie. Au fil des chapitres, vous apprendre...

Dandys gelten weithin als elegante, eitle „Salonlöwen“, die in der Welt der Reichen und Schönen zu Hause sind und nichts anderes im Sinn haben, als es dort zu Ansehen und Prominenz zu bringen. Bei genauerer Analyse erweist sich diese Beschreibung als viel zu eingeschränkt und teilweise sogar als irreführend. Robert Hettlage vertritt die Auffassung, dass der spielerisch-provozierende Dandy sich nicht auf den eleganten Effekthascher reduzieren lässt, sondern auf sehr spezifische Weise immer ...

In 1962, computer hardware was incredibly primitive. If a programmer wanted to draw a simple diagonal line on a digital screen, the processor had to calculate complex decimal numbers (floating-point arithmetic). This process was so mathematically exhausting that the computer would slow to an agonizing crawl just to render a single triangle. Enter Jack Bresenham, a programmer at IBM. He invented a legendary, elegant mathematical shortcut that completely revolutionized computer graphics. The...

Three E's of Doo Wop briefly tells how vocal groups the Echoes (Baby Blue), the Elegants (Little Star) and the Excellence (Coney Island Baby), came to be. It relates how these superb vocal groups came together, how they honed their talents and how they came to choose the hit song they'd most be remembered by. All three groups came from NYC's Brooklyn area in the late 50s, where it seemed you could find a fledgling group harmonizing under every street lamp, bridge or tenement hallway. A lis...