Despite long odds and low funds, the Czech Republic’s national baseball team of amateur players managed to shock the world at the 2023 World Baseball Classic—the sport’s World Cup—when they took an upset win against Spain in the WBC qualifiers and then defeated China in the actual tournament, securing their place in the upcoming 2026 tournament. While the rest of the teams in the WBC rely on experienced professionals, and some like Italy and Great Britain bring in American “passport” playe...

"The Gerontological Prism" promotes disciplinary cooperation in aging research and practice. To some extent, each chapter explores a unified objective, that of generating a disciplinary-blind gerontology. The fundamental assumption throughout this book is that the aging individual and society can be enhanced by an understanding of the correlates of basic social, behavioral, demographic, economic, political, ethical, and biomedical processes involving aging. Each author touches on issues th...

Welcome to The Garden!This is a place for flowers and light, bud and bloom. Just beware of what's beneath the dirt, or scurrying in the dark. Here, 15 writers unpick the tapestry of life, death and regrowth in fantastical tales. This is a place where fruit may carry the rot of broken bonds, where flowers carry the burden of life and loss, hands reach out from the roots and teeth gnash their own way out… And ancient visitors might borrow the familiar shape of wolf & rabbit,...

Drawing on the self-help success, 10 Simple Solutions to Stress, this on-the-go pocket guide offers simple, evidence based strategies for coping with stress and overwhelm. Think of it as your portable peace finder!Stress—it can happen anytime and anywhere, from your morning commute to the moment you settle in for bed at night. We all struggle with it. And many of us don’t even realize we’re stressed out until we experience more serious symptoms like insomn...

This book tells the story of how and why millions of Chinese works of art got exported to collectors and institutions in the West, in particular to the United States. As China’s last dynasty was weakening and collapsing from 1860 into the early years of the twentieth century, China’s internal chaos allowed imperial and private Chinese collections to be scattered, looted and sold. A remarkable and varied group of Westerners entered the country, had their eyes opened to centuries of Chinese ...

In one volume here is everything you need to conduct fieldwork in archaeology. The Archaeologist's Field Handbook is designed for every kind of archaeological practice, from simple site recordings to professional consultancies and anyone who wants to record heritage sites responsibly.This hands-on manual provides step-by-step instructions on how to undertake and successfully complete fieldwork in all fields of archaeology, from Indigenous to historical to landscape work. C...

Teaching for Learning is a comprehensive, practical resource for instructors that highlights and synthesizes proven teaching methods and active learning strategies. Each of the 101 entries describes an approach and lists its essential features and elements, demonstrates how the approach may be used in various educational contexts, reviews findings from the research literature, and describes techniques to improve effectiveness. Fully revised and updated to reflect the latest resear...

Many communities and regions are being left behind in the new economic order. The book starts with the premise that, in today’s knowledge-based economy, innovation is key, but that only seems to happen in larger urban centres. It seems that smaller centres and peripheral regions can only look forward to decline and eventual irrelevance, but this need not be the case.Wherever there are people, there is the potential to innovate. This book demonstrates that innovators are not limited...

Discover "Forbidden Desires" by B.D Anderson, a captivating audiobook narrated by Michael Hajiantonis & Claire Glover. Enter a world of forbidden passion and societal barriers as Marquess Stephen Harding finds himself irresistibly drawn to Allegra Seymour, a talented cellist with a forbidden allure. As Stephen and Allegra navigate their intense attraction, they must confront the societal norms that prohibit their love. Stephen, aware of th...

Be afraid, be very afraid of Terrifying Tales, the sixth volume in the Guys Read Library of Great Reading.Eleven masters of suspense—Kelly Barnhill, Michael Buckley, Adam Gidwitz, Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown, Claire Legrand, Nikki Loftin, Daniel José Older, Dav Pilkey, R.L. Stine, and Rita Williams-Garcia—have come together to bring you a bone-chilling collection of original ghost stories with illustrations by Gris Grimly, perfect for sharing around the campfire, reading under the...

Imagine paintings that hold the secrets to the meaning of life and death or scribbled words that can alter the past and reshape the present.We know art imitates life, but in Michael B. Koep’s thriller fiction trilogy, the author brings the arts to life in an action-packed tale spanning seven centuries.In the spring of 1338, young William of Leaves knows only of remedies, herbs, and his mother’s kindness. When he is forced to watch as she is dragged to a witch’s pyre by a mo...

Michael B. Koep’s final installment in the Newirth Mythology trilogy brings a psychologist face to face with his greatest fear: madness. On the other side of the world, a professor of mythology struggles to interpret a sudden shift in the historical timeline, the mysterious discovery of the ruins of an ancient city and the anomalous nature of Loche’s writing.Discredited mythology professor Astrid Finnley believes gods and immortals once battled for a place in Creation—for a place o...