Bingo Grabbins is a soddit who enjoys a comfortable life (apart from his feet, of course). But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandef, and a company of bizarrely Welsh dwarves drag him away on an adventure. They have a plot to raid the treasure hoard (or so they say) guarded by Smug, a large and very tedious dragon. Bingo is reluctant to take part in this insane venture, but a dwarven dagger held to his throat soon surprises even himself and off the companions go on a quest that seems truly epic (well, until you read about what later happened to Bingo's cousin, at any rate). Oh, and Bingo finds this ring thing. . .

The hilarious autobiography of the legendary hero of The Soddit. Adam Roberts' The Soddit was a bestseller and sold 150,000 copies. But what happened to the Soddit after his adventures, and after his account of them was published. . .

Annotation Presenting the proceedings of a symposium of the same name as the volume, held in December 2001 as part of the E-5 Fire Standards Committee meeting in Dallas, Texas, this volume contains 11 contributions representing recent work in a variety of thermal measurement topics. These include temperature uncertainties for bare- bead and aspirated thermocouple measurements in fire environments; Sandia heat flux gauge thermal response and uncertainty models; and thermal measurements for fire fighters' protective clothing. Lacks a subject index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Bingo Sac Grabbins is asked by the coughing wizard Gandef and some (oddly Welsh) dwarves to help them relieve the great dragon Smug of his gold. SF author and Tolkien scholar Adam Roberts has written a parody that is both hilarious and intelligent. With knowing digs at the fantasy genre in general and the mystique that has built around Middle Earth in particular this will make Tolkien's 21st century readers laugh in a way that BORED OF THE RINGS made his fans of 1969 laugh.

THE SELLAMILLION is NOT a parody of Tolkien's THE SILMARILLION. That would be pointless because although all Tolkien fans have a copy, only three of them have read past page 40. It is, however, a parody of all that Tolkien created as he worked on LORD OF THE RINGS. The history of the elderly days. Early missing drafts of LORD OF THE RINGS. A correspondence between the author and publisher on whether it should be a Bellybutton Stud of Doom rather than a Ring of Power. An experimental version of LOTR as if written by Dr Seuss. That sort of thing. It'll be funny. Possibly hilarious. The author's told us it will be. Promised even. And he did write THE SODDIT. And that was quite funny.

All you need to know about losing weight - and NOT finding it again! Did you know that desperate dieters once swallowed tape worms to ensure they lost weight? Did you know that the first diet book came out in 1558, or that Victorian diet pills and potions often contained deadly arsenic and strychnine as they were supposed to speed up the metabolism and burn fat faster? Nowadays we are just as whacky when it comes to dieting, as some people believe that eating baby food or even stapling your ears will help you lose weight. As well as all sorts of statistics and fascinating facts about how we try to lose weight and keep it off, The Naked Truth about Dieting also lists, explains, compares and 'road tests' dozens of famous and little-known diets from around the world. At the end of an absorbing voyage, the book comes to a conclusion about dieting which may shock many readers who have tried everything to get slimmer... Now he's been and gone and done it! After half a century or so, George East has finally got to grips with an issue which has bemused, infuriated and fascinated men since Adam and Eve had their first falling-out. Why do women think and act as they do? In the latest in the Naked Truth series, THE NAKED TRUTH ABOUT WOMEN treads in dangerous territory as the author tries to answer eternal questions like:

Since the mid 1990s, when the general public began using the Internet, governments and commerce have made vast investments in digital communications technology. There has been confusion and sometimes controversy over these, for example the proposed UK identity card system. The far-reaching commercial and social implications of decisions made in invisible or opaque specialist fields should concern every citizen. This book argues that decisions should be based on an understanding of the systems, technology and environment within which they operate; that experts and ordinary people should work together; and that technology and law are evolving in restrictive rather than enabling ways.