The story follows Jack, who endures a challenging childhood marked by bullying and introversion. His close bond with his Grandma provides solace, as they share a unique secret: the ability to perceive thin spots in the fabric of reality, granting them access to other realms. This special connection not only shapes Jack's identity but also sets the stage for adventures that explore the boundaries of their world and the mysteries beyond.
Essential Evidence-Based Medicine teaches the principles of research study methodology and design so that the reader can become better at critically analysing scientific and clinical studies. It describes the basic elements needed to understand biostatistics and epidemiology as applied to health care studies, and how to become a more discriminating reader of the medical literature by adopting the skills of critical appraisal. This new edition is extensively edited and updated, and includes two entirely new chapters on critical appraisal of qualitative research and communicating risks and evidence to patients. The text is geared towards the new learner, and assumes little clinical experience, starting with the basic principles of critical appraisal. This is an ideal introductory text for medical students, health sciences students and a wide range of other healthcare professionals.
The remarkable debut novel from Marek Šindelka, already the recipient of his country's major literary awards for poetry (Jiří Orten Prize) and prose (Magnesia Litera), Aberrant is a multifaceted work that mixes and mashes together a variety of genres and styles to create a heady concoction of crime story, horror story (inspired by the Japanese tradition of kaidan), ecological revenge fantasy, and Siberian shamanism. Nothing is what it seems. What appears to be human is actually a shell occupied by an alien spirit, or demon, and what appears to be an unassuming plant is an aggressive parasite that harbors a poisonous substance within, or manifests itself as an assassin, a phantom with no real substance who pursues his victims across Europe and through a post-apocalyptic Prague ravaged by floods. The blind see, and the seeing are blind. Plants behave like animals, and animals are symbionts with plants. Through these devices, Šindelka weaves a tale of three childhood friends, the errant paths their lives take, and the world of rare plant smuggling — and the consequences of taking the wrong plant — to show the rickety foundation of illusions on which our relationship to the environment, and to one another, rests. It is a world of aberrations, anomalies, and mistakes. 1st English edition. Artwork by Petr Nikl.