12 Drummers Drumming

Introducing a series utterly perfect for cozy fans of Alan Bradley, Alexander McCall Smith, and Louise Penny. The Reverend Tom "Father" Christmas, the newest vicar of Thornford Regis, an idyllic rural town in England, turns detective when one of his parishioners turns up dead in a drum, and everyone in town seems to have something to confess. Tom Christmas came to picturesque Thornford Regis with his young daughter to escape the terrible experience of losing his wife in the city. Her murder sent him packing to the bucolic and charming town, where violent crime isn't supposed to happen and the greatest sin is supposed to be nothing a member of the clergy can't handle. Then, at the town fair, a woman is found murdered. Tom soon learnsthat everyone in Thornford Regis has a secret to hide--infidelity, theft, even past murders. Twelve Drummers Drumming showcases a lovely place to live and/or die, and marks the debut of a planned twelve-book mystery series featuring the brilliant Father Christmas.

Casey Collins, a U.S. Foreign Service officer, is agonized when she learns that a bomb on a New York-bound flight from England has exploded after take-off--a flight on which she strongly suspects her lover, Stefan, was a passenger. Desperate to learn the truth, she flies to Europe to find out if Stefan, a Polish operative for Danish Defense Intelligence, has indeed been killed. Her investigation embroils her in unforeseen complications which paint her as a terrorist conspirator and a suspect in the bombing. Pursued by the agencies she had planned to rely on--the State Department, FBI, and Interpol--she becomes a fugitive. Her only allies are a motley assortment of renegade agents. Sent on a mission by these people whom she neither knows nor trusts, Casey hopes to unravel the web of deception she's wandered into--before she's completely ensnared.

Naturalist Stephen Moss digs beneath the surface of some of our most popular Christmas carols in an ornithological celebration of the Festive Season. Using the structure of the carol as a jumping off point, he explores the place of twelve fascinating British birds in our history, culture and landscape. Some of the birds are obvious, there's the swan and of course the partridge. Other chapters are loose interpretations of a verse: for drummers drumming he delves into the woodpecker's distinctive drumming tap. Woodpeckers, he explains, have special padded skulls to mitigate against using its head like hammer drills. They carefully select dead trees for the most hollow, sonorous sound. With brilliant anecdotes and insights, Stephen Moss weaves history, culture, bird behaviour and folklore into a compelling narrative for each species, tracing its fortunes over the past two centuries. 'A superb naturalist and writer' Chris Packham 'Moss has carved out an enviable niche as a chronicler of the natural world' Daily Mail

If you want to have more fun on the drums, improve your skills faster, and play along to real music, then you need to build a solid foundation. The Best Beginner Drum Book gives you a clear path for getting started on the drums and skipping the frustrating obstacles that most new drummers face: setting up your kit, holding the drumsticks, learning notation, creating catchy beats and fills, learning musical styles, and playing your favorite songs.

Now as well as singing the song, you can knit the characters. The Twelve Knits of Christmas brings together 12 charming knitting patterns for making all of the objects, birds, and people mentioned in the song and a beautifully illustrated book containing the words for each verse.

Celebrate Christmas with the classic holiday song everyone loves to sing, now in a beautifully illustrated gift-ready picture book! On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . . Alison Jay's signature crackle-glaze technique makes this illustrated version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" luminous and magical: animals dart across the pages, ladies dance, lords leap, and wintery landscapes sparkle against warm, cozy scenes.With hidden surprises on every page, this is a book for the whole family to treasure-and sing along to!-year after year.

George Lawrence Stone's Stick Control is the original classic, often called the bible of drumming. In 1993, Modern Drummer magazine named it one of the top 25 drumming books of all-time. In the words of the author, this is the ideal book for improving "control, speed, flexibility, touch, rhythm, lightness, delicacy, power, endurance, preciseness of execution, and muscular coordination," with extra attention given to the development of the weak hand. This indispensable book for drummers of all types includes hundreds of basic to advanced rhythms and moves through categories of single-beat combinations, triplets, short roll combinations, flam beats, flam triplets and dotted notes, and short roll progressions.

Delight your little one this Christmas with this beautifully illustrated version of the holiday classic, 12 Days of Christmas. Open up the cover, and inside is one long, concertina-style page which unfolds to reveal all of the 12 Days of Christmas gifts, from the single partridge in a pear tree right through to the twelve drummers drumming. Children will be captivated by the lyrics of this classic song, which are reproduced in full, and will love looking at the bright images as more and more gifts are added. A book for all the family to enjoy.