Games 2 Buy

Kurzbeschreibung

Kurzbeschreibung

Kurzbeschreibung

Kurzbeschreibung

Produktbeschreibung

Erscheinungsjahr: 2012
Ages 12 and up
Von Smith, Lisa J.

Stefans Tagebücher enthüllen erstmals, was wirklich zwischen Stefan, Damon und Katherine geschah und wie die unsterbliche Hassliebe zwischen den Dreien ihren Anfang nahm. Der vorletzte Band der ''Stefan''s Diaries'' Reihe.

Amazon.com

Is Froggy nervous about the first day of school? Well, just a little. First he has a terrible nightmare, dreaming that he almost misses the bus and shows up at school in his underwear. Then when he does wake up, he drops the milk just as he's about to pour some on his bowl of flies! Finally Froggy makes it out the door, leapfrogging the whole way, eager for all the challenges that await him in this comical, brightly illustrated tale of a daunting-but-rewarding first day at school.

Terrific for reading aloud, this is another winner in the Froggy series--including Froggy Gets Dressed, Froggy Learns to Swim, and Froggy Plays Soccer. Zip, zoop, zup are the sounds of Froggy getting dressed, and when he has to go somewhere, it's flop, flop, flop all the way. Our 5-year-old assistant reviewer had fun imitating Froggy and friends, shouting out "Frrrooggyy!" and "Wha-a-a-a-t?" at all the appropriate times. Kids will relate to the trials of the good-natured amphibian who makes lots of mistakes--he yells too loud, interrupts, and has trouble paying attention. With the support of his gentle teacher, however, he soon gets the hang of things. Before long, funny Froggy has the class, and the principal, laughing and singing along with him. All in all, he has a successful day--until he comes home to discover he's left his lunch box and cap at school! "Oh, Froggy. Will you ever learn?" said his mother. "That's why I'm going to school, Mom!" Froggy replies, with a big hop and a grin. (Ages 3 to 6) --Marianne Painter

Produktbeschreibung

Erscheinungsjahr: 1991
Pr.
Gewicht: 104 gr / Abmessung: 17,5 cm
Von Bradbury, Ray

Amazon.co.uk

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family", imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbour Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.

Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems--including The Martian Chroniclesand The Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers aged 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense of Fahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide. --Neil Roseman

Amazon.com

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.

Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays, and poems, including The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers ages 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense of Fahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide. --Neil Roseman

Produktbeschreibung

Produktbeschreibung

Aus der Amazon.de-Redaktion

Selten ist ein Roman mit so viel Vorschusslorbeeren an den Start gegangen: American Gods wird als Meisterwerk eines neuen Stephen King gefeiert, als Schaffenszenit eines Autors, der mit seiner Sandman-Comicserie ein ganzes Genre neu definiert hat. Dabei hat sich Neil Gaiman mit seinen beiden ersten Romanen nicht eben mit Ruhm bekleckert. Niemalsland ist eine nur mäßig inspirierte Umsetzung einer BBC-Fernsehserie und Sternwanderer eine fantasievolle Hommage an Hope Mirrlees' Klassiker Flucht ins Feenland.

American Gods spielt da schon in einer anderen Liga. Hauptfigur ist Shadow, eine eher zwiespältige Gestalt, die nach einer dreijährigen Gefängnisstrafe in die Freiheit entlassen wird, nur um sich mit dem Tod seiner Frau und seines besten Freundes konfrontiert zu sehen, die ein Verhältnis miteinander hatten. Notgedrungen nimmt er einen Job bei einem merkwürdigen alten Mann an, der sich "Wednesday" nennt. Wednesday entpuppt sich als Inkarnation des nordischen Gottes Odin und ist nur einer von zahlreichen übermächtigen Wesen, denen Shadow auf seiner Reise durch das Herz von Amerika begegnet.

Im Laufe des Romans stellt sich heraus, dass der nordamerikanische Kontinent nicht nur die Heimat von Menschen aus der ganzen Welt geworden ist, sondern auch von Güttern aus den unterschiedlichsten Mythologien und Religionen. Wie schon bei Sandman zaubert Neil Gaiman mit großer Virtuosität Figuren und Geschichten aus allen Kontinenten aufs Tableau und lässt seine Leser eine ihnen bekannte Welt mit völlig neuen Augen sehen.

American Godsüberzeugt von der ersten bis zur letzten Seite -- liebevoll gezeichnete Protagonisten, eine spannende und vielschichtige Handlung, unaufdringliche Kritik am Selbstbild der USA und ihrer Bewohner. Allerdings ist der Roman auch eindeutig das Werk eines Briten, der einen Blick auf die ehemalige Kolonie wirft, die sich längst zur Weltmacht aufgeschwungen hat. Entsprechend sind die Vergleiche mit Stephen King und anderen US-Bestsellerautoren zwar schmeichelhaft, aber unangemessen.

An der deutschen Ausgabe wiederum stört nicht nur die reißerische Aufmachung, sondern vor allem die Entscheidung von Verlag und Übersetzer, Titel und Namen im Original stehen zu lassen, eine Unsitte, die aus Filmsynchronisierungen nur allzu bekannt ist. Nichtsdestotrotz: American Gods erfüllt die hohen Erwartungen und dürfte bald zu jener kleinen Zahl fantastischer Romane gehören, die als Messlatte für das ganze Genre gelten. --Felix Darwin

Amazon.co.uk

Within just a few pages of Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods, he commandingly reveals that he is at his considerable best with this disturbing and dark journey into the hidden soul of America. Gaiman, one of the most talented and imaginative writers at work today, achieved nigh-legendary status with his comic Sandman, which took the genre to heights that even the equally talented Alan Moore had not attained; Gaiman's subsequent career as a novelist has displayed the same glittering inventiveness and exquisite use of language.

Gaiman's protagonist Shadow has patiently done his time in prison. But as the moment of his release approaches, he begins to sense that some unnamed disaster is lying in wait for him. As he makes his way home, he encounters the mysterious Mr Wednesday, who appears to be both a refugee from a distant country at war and the King of America. And perhaps even a god. As Shadow and Mr Wednesday begin a bizarre odyssey across the United States, solving murders is only one of their accomplishments. With an epic storm of supernatural origin brewing, one questions whether they will be destroyed before Shadow pays the price for grim mistakes in his past.

The use of language here is impeccable, and it is wedded to a surreal narrative that brings out the most quirky and unsettling aspects of Gaiman's imagination. Forget Gaiman the Guru: just enjoy Gaiman the consummate writer:

He opened his mouth to catch the rain as it fell, moistening his cracked lips and his dry tongue, wetting the ropes that bound him to the trunk of the tree. There was a flash of lightning so bright it fell like a blow to his eyes, transforming the world into an intense panorama of image and after-image. The wind tugged at Shadow, trying to pull him from the tree, flaying him, cutting to the bone. Shadow knew in his soul that the real storm had truly begun...

--Barry Forshaw

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sandman days.

Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.

Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow.

More than a tourist in America, but not a native, Neil Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of the country--our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not. --Therese Littleton