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It is hard to imagine the modern world without information technology. At home, at work, and at play, mobile phones, e-mails and computers have become part of daily life. The story of information technology is a story of machines - from the ancient abacus to the small powerful computer chips of today. But it is also a story of people. Meet a woman who wrote computer programs two hundred years ago, a teenage millionaire, a man who began with a paperclip and ended with a house - and the criminals who want your name and your money. Come and discover the world of information technology.

Factfiles

What do you find in these two countries at the end of the world? One is an enormous island, where only twenty million people live - and the other is two long, narrow islands, with ten sheep for every person. One country has the biggest rock in all the world, and a town where everybody lives under the ground; the other has a beach where you can sit beside the sea in a pool of hot water, and lakes that are bright yellow, green, and blue. Open this book and start your journey - to two countries where something strange, beautiful or surprising waits around every corner.

Factfiles

William Shakespeare. Born April 1564, at Stratford-upon-Avon. Died April 1616. Married Anne Hathaway: two daughters, one son. Actor, poet, famous playwright. Wrote nearly forty plays. But what was he like as a man? What did he think about when he rode into London for the first time ...or when he was writing his plays Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet ...or when his only son died? We know the facts of his life, but we can only guess at his hopes, his fears, his dreams.

True Stories

Greg is a teenager with a problem - his father. After the death of Greg's mother in an accident, his father takes no interest in life at all. Greg tries hard to help him. His father is too old to rock and roll, of course . . . or is he? These short stories by Jan Mark look at life, love, and friendship through teenagers' eyes. Human Interest

Tony Kytes is a favourite with the girls but he's not terribly clever. If you meet an old girlfriend and she asks for a ride home in your wagon, do you say yes? And then if you meet the girl you are planning to marry, what do you do? Very soon, Tony is in a great muddle, and does not know how to escape from it. These stories are set in an English country village of the nineteenth century, but Hardy's tales of mistakes and muddles and marriages belong in any place, at any time. Classics