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United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
2.
Nancy Drew
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Nancy Drew is a fictional American character in a mystery fiction series created by publisher Edward Stratemeyer. The character first appeared in 1930, the books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Over the decades, the character evolved in response to changes in US culture, the books were extensively revised and shortened, beginning in 1959, in part to lower printing costs with arguable success. In the revision process, the original character was changed to be less assertive. In the 1980s, an older and more professional Nancy emerged in a new series, The Nancy Drew Files, the original Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series started in 1930, and ended in 2004. Launched that same year, the Girl Detective series features Nancy driving an electric vehicle. In 2013, the Girl Detective series ended, and a new current series called Nancy Drew Diaries was launched, illustrations of the character evolved over time to reflect contemporary styles. The character proves continuously popular worldwide, at least 80 million copies of the books have sold. Nancy Drew is featured in five films, two shows, and a number of popular computer games, she also appears in a variety of merchandise sold around the world. Nancy Drew is an amateur sleuth. In the original versions of the series, she is a 16-year-old high school graduate, in the series, she lives in the fictional town of River Heights with her father, attorney Carson Drew, and their housekeeper, Hannah Gruen. As a child, she loses her mother and her loss is reflected in her early independence—running a household since the age of ten with a clear-cut servant in early series and deferring to the servant as a surrogate parent in later ones. As a teenager, she spends her time solving mysteries, some of which she stumbles upon, Nancy is often assisted in solving mysteries by her two closest friends, cousins Bess Marvin and George Fayne. Bess is delicate and feminine, while George is a tomboy, Nancy is also occasionally joined by her boyfriend Ned Nickerson, a student at Emerson College. Nancy is often described as a super girl, in the words of Bobbie Ann Mason, she is as immaculate and self-possessed as a Miss America on tour. She is as cool as Mata Hari and as sweet as Betty Crocker, Nancy is well-off, attractive, and amazingly talented, At sixteen she had studied psychology in school, and was familiar with the power of suggestion and association. Nancy was a painter, spoke French, and had frequently run motor boats. She was a driver who at sixteen flashed into the garage with a skill born of long practice
3.
Children's literature
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Childrens literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are enjoyed by children. Modern childrens literature is classified in two different ways, genre or the age of the reader. Childrens literature can be traced to stories and songs, part of an oral tradition. The development of childrens literature, before printing was invented, is difficult to trace. Even after printing became widespread, many childrens tales were originally created for adults. Since the 15th century, a quantity of literature, often with a moral or religious message, has been aimed specifically at children. The late nineteenth and early centuries became known as the Golden Age of Childrens Literature as this period included the publication of many books acknowledged today as classics. There is no single or widely used definition of childrens literature and it can be broadly defined as anything that children read or more specifically defined as fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or drama intended for and used by children and young people. The International Companion Encyclopedia of Childrens Literature notes that the boundaries of genre. are not fixed but blurred, sometimes, no agreement can be reached about whether a given work is best categorized as literature for adults or children. Rowlings Harry Potter series was written and marketed for young adults, the series extreme popularity led The New York Times to create a separate best-seller list for childrens books. Despite the widespread association of childrens literature with picture books, spoken narratives existed before printing, seth Lerer, in the opening of Childrens Literature, A Readers History from Aesop to Harry Potter, says, This book presents a history of what children have heard and read. The history I write of is a history of reception, early childrens literature consisted of spoken stories, songs, and poems that were used to educate, instruct, and entertain children. It was only in the 18th century, with the development of the concept of childhood, that a genre of childrens literature began to emerge, with its own divisions, expectations. French historian Philippe Ariès argues in his 1962 book Centuries of Childhood that the concept of childhood only emerged in recent times. He explains that children were in the past not considered as different from adults and were not given significantly different treatment. Pre-modern childrens literature, therefore, tended to be of a didactic and moralistic nature, with the purpose of conveying conduct-related, educational, during the 17th century, the concept of childhood began to emerge in Europe. Adults saw children as separate beings, innocent and in need of protection, the English philosopher John Locke developed his theory of the tabula rasa in his 1690 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. A corollary of this doctrine was that the mind of the child was born blank, and he also suggested that picture books be created for children
4.
Hardcover
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A hardcover or hardback book is one bound with rigid protective covers. It has a flexible, sewn spine which allows the book to lie flat on a surface when opened, following the ISBN sequence numbers, books of this type may be identified by the abbreviation Hbk. Hardcover books are printed on acid-free paper, and are much more durable than paperbacks. Hardcover books are more costly to manufacture. If brisk sales are anticipated, an edition of a book is typically released first. Some publishers publish paperback originals if slow hardback sales are anticipated, for very popular books these sales cycles may be extended, and followed by a mass market paperback edition typeset in a more compact size and printed on shallower, less hardy paper. In the past the release of an edition was one year after the hardback. It is very unusual for a book that was first published in paperback to be followed by a hardback, an example is the novel The Judgment of Paris by Gore Vidal, which had its revised edition of 1961 first published in paperback, and later in hardcover. Hardcover books are sold at higher prices than comparable paperbacks. Hardcovers typically consist of a block, two boards, and a cloth or heavy paper covering. The pages are sewn together and glued onto a flexible spine between the boards, and it too is covered by the cloth, a paper wrapper, or dust jacket, is usually put over the binding, folding over each horizontal end of the boards. On the folded part, or flap, over the front cover is generally a blurb, the back flap is where the biography of the author can be found. Reviews are often placed on the back of the jacket, bookbinding Paperback How to make a simple Hardcover book
5.
Paperback
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A paperback is a type of book characterized by a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover or hardback books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, inexpensive books bound in paper have existed since at least the 19th century in such forms as pamphlets, yellowbacks, dime novels, and airport novels. Modern paperbacks can be differentiated by size, in the US there are mass-market paperbacks and larger, more durable trade paperbacks. In the UK, there are A-format, B-format, and the largest C-format sizes, Paperback editions of books are issued when a publisher decides to release a book in a low-cost format. Cheaper, lower quality paper, glued bindings, and the lack of a cover may contribute to the lower cost of paperbacks. Paperbacks can be the medium when a book is not expected to be a major seller or where the publisher wishes to release a book without putting forth a large investment. Examples include many novels, and newer editions or reprintings of older books, first editions of many modern books, especially genre fiction, are issued in paperback. Best-selling books, on the hand, may maintain sales in hardcover for an extended period in order to reap the greater profits that the hardcovers provide. These paper bound volumes were offered for sale at a fraction of the historic cost of a book, the Routledges Railway Library series of paperbacks remained in print until 1898, and offered the traveling public 1,277 unique titles. The German-language market also supported examples of cheap books, Bernhard Tauchnitz started the Collection of British. These inexpensive, paperbound editions, a precursor to mass-market paperbacks. Reclam published Shakespeare in this format from October 1857 and went on to pioneer the mass-market paper-bound Universal-Bibliothek series from 10 November 1867, the German publisher Albatross Books revised the 20th-century mass-market paperback format in 1931, but the approach of World War II cut the experiment short. The first released book on Penguins 1935 list was André Maurois Ariel, Lane intended to produce inexpensive books. He purchased paperback rights from publishers, ordered large print runs to keep prices low. Booksellers were initially reluctant to buy his books, but when Woolworths placed a large order, after that initial success, booksellers showed more willingness to stock paperbacks, and the name Penguin became closely associated with the word paperback. In 1939, Robert de Graaf issued a similar line in the United States, the term pocket book became synonymous with paperback in English-speaking North America. In French, the term livre de poche was used and is still in use today, de Graaf, like Lane, negotiated paperback rights from other publishers, and produced many runs. His practices contrasted with those of Lane by his adoption of illustrated covers aimed at the North American market, in order to reach an even broader market than Lane, he used distribution networks of newspapers and magazines, which had a lengthy history of being aimed at mass audiences
6.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
