Books about Threads from Amazon.com

Kate DiCamillo, author of the Newbery Honor book Because of Winn-Dixie, spins a tidy tale of mice and men where she explores the "powerful, wonderful, and ridiculous" nature of love, hope, and forgiveness Her old-fashioned, somewhat dark story, narrated "Dear Reader"-style, begins "within the walls of a castle, with the birth of a mouse." Despereaux Tilling, the new baby mouse, is different from all other mice. Sadly, the romantic, unmouselike spirit that leads the unusually tiny, large-eared mouse to the foot of the human king and the beautiful Princess Pea ultimately causes him to be banished by his own father to the foul, rat-filled dungeon.

The first book of four tells Despereaux's sad story, where he falls deeply in love with Princess Pea and meets his cruel fate. The second book introduces another creature who differs from his peers--Chiaroscuro, a rat who instead of loving the darkness of his home in the dungeon, loves the light so much he ends up in the castle& in the queen's soup. The third book describes young Miggery Sow, a girl who has been "clouted" so many times that she has cauliflower ears. Still, all the slow-witted, hard-of-hearing Mig dreams of is wearing the crown of Princess Pea. The fourth book returns to the dungeon-bound Despereaux and connects the lives of mouse, rat, girl, and princess in a dramatic denouement.

Children whose hopes and dreams burn secretly within their hearts will relate to this cast of outsiders who desire what is said to be out of their reach and dare to break "never-to-be-broken rules of conduct." Timothy Basil Ering's pencil illustrations are stunning, reflecting DiCamillo's extensive light and darkness imagery as well as the sweet, fragile nature of the tiny mouse hero who lives happily ever after. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson.
Price: $4.13 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Do you want to learn C#? Programmers around the world have learned that C# lets them design great-looking programs and build them fast. With C#, you ve got a powerful programming language and a valuable tool at your fingertips. And with the Visual Studio IDE, you ll never have to spend hours writing obscure code just to get a button working. C#, Visual Studio and .NET take care of the grunt-work, and let you focus on the interesting parts of getting your programs written. Sound appealing?

Unlike other C# books, which just show you examples and expect you to just memorize them and move on, Head First C# gets you writing code from the beginning. You're given the tools you need, and then you're guided through fun and engaging programming projects. You'll build programs to play a card game, explore a house, and help lazy programmers manage their sick day excuses. But it's not all fun and games: you'll build business applications too, like a contact database and a program to help a party planner estimate her dinner parties. You'll build a dungeon role-playing game and a fully animated, colorful simulation of a beehive. And by the end of the book, you'll build a fast-paced, full-featured retro Invaders arcade game.

Make no mistake: by the time you're done with Head First C#, you'll be able to build full-scale, complex, and highly visual programs. And you'll have all of the C# tools you need to tackle almost any programming problem that comes your way.

Head First C# is built for your brain, using the revolutionary approach that was pioneered by the highly acclaimed and popular Head First series. You'll never get that bored, "eyes glazed over" feeling from Head First C#, because it guides you through one challenging project after another until, by the end of the book, you're a C# rock star!

Here's what you'll learn:

• Core C# programming concepts
• How to use the Visual Studio 2008 IDE to build, debug and run your programs
• Important .NET 3.5 features, including generic collections, Windows forms, GDI+ graphics, streams, serialization and more
• Using object oriented programming concepts to help you build well-designed programs
• How to build robust applications with good error handling
• The latest C# 3.0 features, including LINQ, object and collection initializers, automatic properties, extension methods and more

Throughout the book, you'll confront and conquer advanced C# concepts. Some of the most mysterious ideas are demystified and explained with clear examples: how Unicode works, events and delegates, references versus value types, the stack versus the heap, what's really going on with garbage collection, and more.

Thousands of readers have learned C# using this innovative book, including:

• Beginning programmers who want to learn programming from the ground up
• More advanced programmers who are proficient in another language (like Visual Basic, Java, SQL, FoxPro) and want to add C# to their toolbox
• Programmers who understand basic C# syntax, but are still looking to get a handle on how objects work
• Anyone who's tried to learn C#, but had to deal with books full of dull examples and nothing but boring console applications
• Lots of people who just want to learn how to build cool games!

Head First C# is built to work with any version of Visual Studio 2008, including the free express edition. (It can also can be used with any version of Visual Studio 2005.).
Price: $25.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $14.34 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Mary Doria Russell's extraordinary and complex historical novel, A Thread of Grace, is the kind of book that you will find yourself haunted by long after finishing the last page. It opens with a group of Jewish refugees being escorted to safe-keeping by Italian soldiers. After making the arduous journey over a steep mountain pass, they are welcomed into a small village with warm food and clean beds. They have barely laid their heads to rest when news is received that Mussolini has just surrendered Italy to Hitler, putting them in danger yet again. This opening sequence is a grim foreshadowing of the heart-breaking journey these characters will experience in their struggle for survival.

The rich fictional narrative is woven through the factual military maneuvers and political games at the end of WW II, sharing a little-known story of a group of Italian citizens that sheltered more than 40,000 Jews from grueling work camp executions. Rather than the bleak and hopeless feeling that might be expected, the novel has the opposite effect; it reminds us that just as there will always be war, crime, and death, so too will there be good people who selflessly sacrifice themselves to ease the suffering of others. Perhaps best of all, Russell succinctly opens and closes her writing with short pieces that bookend the story with the force of a freight train. Her moving finale wraps up her narrative in the present day, with a death bed scene that's sure to rip the heart out of readers of every faith and ancestry.

On the surface, Russell's third novel may seem quite different from her earlier works. Both The Sparrow and its sequel, Children of God , were futuristic stories about Earth's first contact with alien life forms, but a closer look reveals several similarities. Fans of her earlier books will be pleased to find that Emilio Sandoz, the charismatic Jesuit priest from the first two books, finds new life in Renzo Leoni--A Thread of Grace's charming and haunted chameleon. The two have different circumstances and histories, but both characters are made of the same cloth--tormented by their consciences and plagued by unrequited love. Also similar to her earlier books, the characters in A Thread of Grace don't all enjoy a happy ending. A note in the reader's guide tells us that Russell flipped a coin to determine the fate of some of the characters. This may be upsetting for many readers, particularly those used to Hollywood endings, but it does serve as a frank reminder of the arbitrary nature of war and death. --Victoria Griffith.
Price: $5.01 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This best-selling novel by popular author Francine Rivers is now available in mass paper. When Sierra discovers her young ancestor's handcrafted quilt and reads her journal, she finds that their lives are very similar. By following her ancestor's example, she learns to surrender to God's sovereignty and unconditional love..
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The classic, in-depth developer's guide to the Windows kernel now covers Windows .NET Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000. Written by noted Windows internals experts David Solomon and Mark Russinovich in collaboration with the Microsoft Windows .NET Server product development team, this book packs the latest concepts and terms, kernel and source code specifics, undocumented interfaces, component and tool descriptions, and architectural perspectives that reveal the inner workings of the operating system. Special callouts highlight information that is specific to a particular version of Windows, and an advanced troubleshooting section helps you more easily decipher-and exploit-system operations and performance..
Price: $24.88 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Once upon a Time" Is Timeless

The year is 1880, and Bertie, having just arrived in New York with her family, is grateful to be given work as a seamstress in the home of textile tycoon J. P. Wellington When the Wellington family fortune is threatened, Bertie's father boasts that Bertie will save the business, that she is so skillful she can "practically spin straw into gold."

Amazingly, in the course of one night, Bertie creates exquisite evening gowns -- with the help of Ray Stalls, a man from her tenement who uses an old spinning wheel to create dresses that are woven with crimson thread and look as though they are spun with real gold. Indebted to Ray, Bertie asks how she can repay him. When Ray asks for her firstborn child, Bertie agrees, never dreaming that he is serious.....
Price: $3.13 [Notify me when price goes down.]

There is an ancient Chinese belief that an invisible, unbreakable red thread connects all those who are destined to be together

A king and queen rule a beautiful and peaceful land. They should be full of joy and contentment, but they both feel a strange pain that worsens every day.

Then a peddler's magic spectacles reveal a red thread pulling at each of their hearts. The king and queen know they must follow the thread-wherever it may lead.

Grace Lin's lovely adoption fairy tale is for all children-and the parents who would search the world to find them.

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Price: $10.18 [Notify me when price goes down.]