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An old joke goes like this: What’s the difference between a good girl and a nice girl? Answer: The good girl goes to a party, goes home then goes to bed, whereas the nice girl goes to the party, goes to bed, then goes home. The distinction made between the two types of young ladies would probably have been appreciated by Shakespeare. While we think of “nice” nowadays as being a synonym for pleasant it wasn’t always so; originally the word’s meaning conveyed the naughtiness implied in the joke.

In his fifth book about language, Howard Richler moves from A to Z with a specifically chosen word for every letter of the alphabet. What especially intrigues him is how words come to mean what they mean, how they lose some meanings and gain others. Always humorous, Richler invites readers into the intimacy of language and allows us to delight in the ever-shifting glories of English. Not since Lynn Truss Eats, Shoots & Leaves has a book about language been so hilarious and informative.

Bernard Williams was one of the most important philosophers of the past fifty years, but he was also a distinguished critic and essayist with an elegant style and a rare ability to communicate complex ideas to a wide public. This is the first collection of Williams's popular essays and reviews. Williams writes about a broad range of subjects, from philosophy to science, the humanities, economics, feminism, and pornography. Included are reviews of major books such as John Rawls's Theory of Justice, Richard Rorty's Consequences of Pragmatism, and Martha Nussbaum's Therapy of Desire.

For a generation or more there have been few books that brought together in accessible form the raw materials of Canadian history. In many minds the impression has taken root that those materials are uninteresting. Broadview's two-volume anthology of documents in Canadian history, A Few Acres of Snow and A Country Nourished on Self-Doubt, demonstrates the contrary: that these raw materials provide extraordinarily engaging and informative insights into the richness of Canadian history.

At only 80 pages, "English Simplified " is a concise, inexpensive grammar handbook that has long been the choice of instructors due to its reliablity. This easy-to-use pocketbook will answer any questions a writer has about grammar, the writing process, or research, and keeps you at the top of your class by including the latest updates on documentation style, material on note-taking, source evaluation, and avoiding plagiarism. Additional information is included for ESL writers, and easy-to-read charts that clarify verb tenses and forms.