Best Selling Books by de Villiers

L''�ve future by comte de Auguste Villiers de L''Isle-Adam

A high-tension, sexy, political thriller in which freelance CIA agent Malko Linge brings a project to his bosses that could blow open a ring of Russian spies operating in the United States. First English-language publication. At a benefit dinner, Austrian playboy and CIA freelancer Malko Linge meets an intriguing woman, Zhanna Khrenkov, who has an unusual proposal. She will disclose everything she knows about her husband Alexei''s business if Malko will get rid of Alexei''s younger, British mistress. Appalled, Malko refuses--until Zhanna reveals her husband''s real job: head of a ring of Russian spies operating undercover inside the U.S. For Malko''s CIA contacts, this is a highly necessary job; for Malko, it is a highly sensitive one. He will move cautiously from Vienna to London to Moscow, trying to find the right balance of winning Zhanna''s trust without compromising his moral integrity.

A delightful, captivating story about the adventures of a garden chameleon, told in rhyming verse. Comes with a full page of stickers to encourage further engagement with the story. The drawings are by Claire Norden who has a proven track record in illustrating children''s books. Her bright, evocative, playful images stimulate the imagination and draw readers in. The text offers insight into the real-life traits and habits of the common dwarf chameleon. An engaging adventure tale, it includes elements of unseen danger, narrow escapes, impending disaster and ultimate triumph. This second title in Struik Nature''s ''Original African Tale'' series – set to become local classics – will have wide popular appeal with children and parents alike.

The approximation of a continuous function by either an algebraic polynomial, a trigonometric polynomial, or a spline, is an important issue in application areas like computer-aided geometric design and signal analysis. This book is an introduction to the mathematical analysis of such approximation, and, with the prerequisites of only calculus and linear algebra, the material is targeted at senior undergraduate level, with a treatment that is both rigorous and self-contained. The topics include polynomial interpolation; Bernstein polynomials and the Weierstrass theorem; best approximations in the general setting of normed linear spaces and inner product spaces; best uniform polynomial approximation; orthogonal polynomials; Newton-Cotes , Gauss and Clenshaw-Curtis quadrature; the Euler-Maclaurin formula ; approximation of periodic functions; the uniform convergence of Fourier series; spline approximation,with an extensive treatment of local spline interpolation,and its application in quadrature. Exercises are provided at the end of each chapter

The study of language acquisition has become a center of scientific inquiry into the nature of the human mind. The result is a windfall of new information about language, about learning, and about children themselves. In Language Acquisition Jill and Peter de Villiers provide a lively introduction to this fast-growing field. Their book deals centrally with the way the child acquires the sounds, meanings, and syntax of his language, and the way he learns to use his language to communicate with others. In discussing these issues, the de Villiers provide a clear and insightful treatment of the classic questions about language acquisition: Does the child show a genetic predisposition for speech, or grammar, or semantics which makes him uniquely able to learn human language? What kinds of learning are involved in acquiring language and what kinds of experience with a language are necessary to support such learning? Is there a critical period during the child''s development which is optimal for language acquisition? And what kind of psychological disabilities underlie the failure to acquire language?

"Take one inventive genius indebted to the friend who saved his life; add an English aristocrat hopelessly consumed with a selfish and spiritually bankrupt woman; stir together with a Faustian pact to create the perfect woman--and voilà! Tomorrow''s Eve is served. Robert Martin Adams''s graceful translation is the first to bring to English readers this captivating fable of a Thomas Edison-like inventor and his creation, the radiant and tragic android Hadaly. Adams''s introduction sketches the uncompromising idealism of the proud but penurious aristocrat Jean Marie Mathias Philippe Auguste, Count Villiers de l''Isle-Adam, a friend and admired colleague of Charles Baudelaire, Stèphane Mallarmé, and Richard Wagner. Villiers dazzles us with a gallery of electronic wonders while unsettling us with the implications of his (and our) increasingly mechanized and mechanical society. A witty and acerbic tale in which human nature, spiritual values, and scientific possibilities collide, Tomorrow''s Eve retains an enduring freshness and edge." --Descripción del editor.

Pierre de Villiers (ca. 1657-1720) and brothers Abraham (ca. 1659-1720) and Jacques (1661-1735) were either sons or grandsons of Pierre de Villiers of La Rochelle, France. The three brothers emigrated from France (via Holland) to Cape Town, South Africa in 1689, and settled on farm land nearby, receiving land grants in 1694. Pierre married Marie Elizabeth Taillefer in 1694, and his brothers married two sisters, Suzanne and Marguerite Gardiol. Descendants and relatives lived in various parts of South Africa.

In this, her third collection of poetry, Phillippa Yaa de Villiers invokes images of past and present with hypnotic clarity, summoning the heart and heat of memory – painful and happy alike – with the distinct musicality and visceral punch she is known for. Some poems invite contemplation. Question and provoke. Others are elegiac, moments for reverence in a rich, diverse collection that both spans decades and pauses to revel in the intensity and beauty of a single moment. In liquid form that incorporates prose and poetry, de Villiers fearlessly confronts and disrupts, dipping into a wellspring of images that are euphoric and horrifying. At once prophetic and playful, ice cream headache in my bone is an exploration and celebration of language, a definitive collection that yields and responds, burns and soothes, all the while, calling to a longing for truth, and a tongue not tempered by oppression or pain.

Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte puis marquis de Villiers de L''Isle-Adam (1838-1889), ne a Saint- Brieuc, est un ecrivain francais. Appele Mathias par sa famille, simplement Villiers par ses amis, il utilisait le prenom d''Auguste sur la couverture de certains de ses livres. Parmi ses ancetres collateraux, on releve le marechal Jean de Villiers, grand-Maitre de l''ordre de Saint-Jean-de-Jerusalem, installe alors a Rhodes, et devenu depuis ordre de Malte, de 1288 a 1294 et viceroi de Chypre pendant le regne des Lusignan: a ce titre, Villiers pretendait avoir des droits sur le trone de Grece. Cet auteur essentiel du symbolisme francais fut un grand admirateur de Poe et de Baudelaire, un passionne de Wagner et un grand ami de Mallarme: cet aristocrate qui defendit la monarchie est en fait resolument moderne en esthetique. Familier de l''irreel, il part de postulats etranges, hors de toute realite. Idealiste impenitent, le reve seul l''enchante et l''exalte, non sans s''accompagner d''une ironie sombre qui reste sa marque. Ses oeuvres comprennent: L''Eve Future (1886), Tribulat Bonhomet (1887) et L''Evasion (1890).

Lorsque le FBI américain décide de piéger un apprenti terroriste qui veut abattre « Air Force One », l’avion du président des Etats-Unis, avec un missile sol-air russe Igla 3, il ne se doute pas qu’il va déclencher une crise internationale, provoquer beaucoup de morts et perdre la face ! Le FSB russe est prêt à mettre à sa disposition un IGLA S, mais le FBI ignore que le nouveau KGB traîne encore beaucoup d’arrière-pensées pas vraiment favorables aux Américains. Et ni le FBI, ni le FSB ne soupçonnent qu’une troisième partie s’est greffée sur l’affaire : des gens qui veulent simplement gagner beaucoup d’argent... Tout va droit à la catastrophe, quand la CIA décide d’envoyer Malko Linge à Moscou pour tenter de démêler les fils de cet imbroglio qui devient très vite sanglant. Du New Jersey à Moscou, l’affaire se déplace dans le Caucase, dans le petit Etat du Daguestan, au Sud de la Russie, où on assassine comme on respire... D’ailleurs, l’affaire des IGLA S se terminera par un feu d’artifice provoqué par Malko, qui ajoutera quelques cadavres à cette affaire qui en compte déjà pas mal...

Letters: Set Them On Fire! is the definitive guide to writing employee letters that spark TOP PERFORMANCE - FAST! With today''s constant information bombardment depleting society''s trust - we are left immune to true communication. To overcome these barriers, Letters: Set Them On Fire! will show you how to move away from the darkness of rigid structures and templates, and into the light of original letter writing that TRULY MOTIVATES! Letters: Set Them On Fire! will be your guide on this bold adventure of releasing your motivational letter writing voice and using it to produce dramatic results - FAST! So bring on the EXCITEMENT! The process of setting people on fire and sparking passionate, sustainable Top Performances - FAST - is about to start!

Tsunami, earthquake, hurricane, pandemic—are these and other natural calamities more probable, and more frequent, than they were? Are things getting worse? De Villiers examines these questions in a time when we truly need to understand the dangers ahead and how to act in such a way that we''re preparing for the inevitable and not making things worse.

A rich and fascinating biography of the world''s largest desert - its history, peoples, traditions, climate, creatures; its tastes, sights and sounds.

The inspiring story of Graça Machel, and her dream to instill a love for reading and learning in the children of Mozambique and the rest of Africa.

Unique in its approach, this introduction to the physics of creep concentrates on the physical principles underlying observed phenomena. As such it provides a resource for graduate students in materials science, metallurgy, mechanical engineering, physics and chemistry as well as researchers in other fields. Following a brief mathematical treatment, the authors introduce creep phenomena together with some empirical laws and observations. The mechanisms of creep and diffusion under varying experimental conditions are subsequently analysed and developed. The second half of the text considers alloying in greater detail as well as exploring the structure and properties of superalloys and stress effects in these materials.

To what extent could Max Weber''s ethic of responsibility serve as a model for us today? An adequate answer to this question could only be given on the basis of a satisfactory interpretation and thorough assessment of his ethic of responsibility. In this monograph Etienne de Villiers sets himself the task of doing just that. He establishes that, in spite of serious shortcomings, Weber''s ethic points to the contemporary need for an ethic of responsibility as a second-level normative ethical approach that would address the undermining effect of modernisation on ethical living. Such a contemporary ethic of responsibility would provide guidelines on how ethical living could be responsibly enhanced in our time. The author also presents a brief proposal on how a contemporary ethic of responsibility might be designed.

Eleven years ago the circular DNA of a novel single-stranded virus has been cloned and partially characterized by Nishizawa and Okamoto and their colleagues. According to the initials of the patient from whom the isolate originated, the virus was named TT virus. This name has been subsequently changed by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) into Torque teno virus, permitting the further use of the abbreviation TTV. Although initially suspected to play a role in non A –E hepatitis, subsequent studies failed to support this notion. Within a remarkably short period of time it became clear that TT viruses are widely spread globally, infect a large proportion of all human populations studied thus far and represent an extremely heterogeneous group of viruses, now labelled as Anelloviruses. TT virus-like infections have also been noted in various animal species. The classification of this virus group turns out to be difficult, their DNA contains between 2200 and 3800 nucleotides, related so-called TT-mini-viruses and a substantial proportion of intragenomic recombinants further complicate attempts to combine these viruses into a unifying phylogenetic concept.

EBOOK: Microeconomics and Behaviour: Second South African edition

Le "bûcheron" se planta en face de Malko et, avec une lenteur théâtrale, sortit de sa botte un long poignard, une sorte de couteau de boucher dont il fit tourner la lame devant le visage de Malko. - Je vais te couper les couilles moi-même, sale Tcheknik ! lança-t-il d''une voix avinée... pendant que l''assistance hurlait son approbation.

Malko Linge is assigned to tail a novice terrorist who has a plot to blow up Air Force One—and the weapons to make it happen. In New Jersey, Parviz Amritzar is mourning for his family—killed by a U.S. airstrike back in Pakistan—and vowing revenge against his adoptive country. He devises a plan to shoot down Air Force One and gets a lucky break when he reaches a terrorist contact who knows how he can obtain a surface-to-air missile from the Russians. When the CIA picks up on the rumors of this plot, they call on Malko Linge to carefully observe the would-be terrorist. But as soon as Malko thinks he has a handle on the situation, things become more unpredictable and much more dangerous.

Malko sentit son sang se figer dans ses veines. Il ne voyait plus que l''énorme fleur accrochée au revers du tailleur de la blonde. Elle se trouvait encore à trois mètres de lui. Si elle arrivait à un mètre et déclenchait son spray, il aspirerait le Polonium 210 et mourrait dans des souffrances atroces, quelques semaines plus tard. Il se leva brusquement, arrachant le Glock de sa ceinture et le braqua sur Valentina Starichnaya, et lança en russe : - Valentina ! Nié Dvigatrés ! Malko calcula qu''il avait encore vingt centimètres de marge. La Russe marqua un court temps d''arrêt, comme si elle obéissait à Malko, puis recommença à avancer.

Le "bûcheron" se planta en face de Malko et, avec une lenteur théâtrale, sortit de sa botte un long poignard, une sorte de couteau de boucher dont il fit tourner la lame devant le visage de Malko. - Je vais te couper les couilles moi-même, sale Tcheknik ! lança-t-il d''une voix avinée... pendant que l''assistance hurlait son approbation.

Malko comprit en une fraction de seconde. - Courez ! hurla-t-il à Richard Green pétrifié d''étonnement. Lâchant la Kalachnikov, il démarra comme un missile, raflant au passage la main d''Eléonor Ricord. Une seconde plus tard, une explosion terrifiante secoua le désert. Le camion citerne se transforma en une gigantesque boule de feu qui monta verticalement vers le ciel, entourée de fumée noire...