Colloquial Slovak: The Complete Course for Beginners. Author: James Naughton; hardcover: 288 pages + 2 CDs. Publisher: Routledge, 2003.
Colloquial Slovak is easy to use and is written by experienced teachers for self-study or class use. The course offers a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Slovak, reads the editorial review on the back cover of this book. Without any prior knowledge of the language, one should be able to handle everyday situations in Slovak confidently, as the content focuses on useful vocabulary and practical topics.
“It aims to take learners up to a level at which they can communicate usefully on a range of everyday topics and begin to tackle books and newspapers,” the author writes in his introduction to Colloquial Slovak.
“It combines everyday dialogues and simple narrative texts with explanation of individual language points and essential structures.”
The book is a part of the Routledge Colloquials series offering easy-to-follow self-study courses for more than 70 languages.
Twentieth-Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction. Author: Kenneth O. Morgan; paperback: 128 pages. Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2000.
This short introduction to the modern history of Britain examines the forces of consensus and conflict in the 20th century. The book covers the trauma of the first world war, the social divisions of the twenties, fierce domestic and foreign policy debates in the thirties, the impact of the second world war on domestic transformation, popular culture and the loss of empire, the transition from the turmoil of the seventies to the aftermath of Thatcherism and the advent of New Labour.
The author is a research professor at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and honorary fellow of The Queen’s College, Oxford.
Oxford Learner’s Thesaurus: A dictionary of synonyms. Editor: Diana Lea; paperback: 1,008 pages. Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Essential or indispensable? Choose or select? Important or significant? When looking for a suitable word, this thesaurus can be of great help. It explains over 17,000 synonyms and antonyms and includes hundreds of practice exercises. A thesaurus trainer, part of the publication, teaches the user how to make the thesaurus more helpful.
The Oxford Learner’s Thesaurus is the result of many years of research, experiment and concentrated work by a large number of people, notes the preface.
The Picture Box: Very Short Introductions. Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2006.
The books from the Very Short Introduction (VSI) series offer concise, up-to-date and opinionated views on a wide range of topics. Six of the subject areas are now presented in stylish boxes, containing five essential bestsellers plus a copy of the Very Short Introduction to Everything.
The Picture Box collection includes the VSI to Art History (by Dana Arnold), to Renaissance Art (by Geraldine A. Johnson), to Modern Art (by David Cottington), to Architecture (by Andrew Ballantyne) and to Design (by John Heskett).
Also available
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Author: Barack Obama; paperback: 464 pages. Publisher: Canongate Books, 2008.
Oxford Practice Grammar: With Key Practice-boost CD-ROM Pack Advanced level. Author: George Yule; paperback: 280 pages. Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Ireland (Oxford Bookworms Library). Author: John Escott; paperback: 56 pages. Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2008.
This column is a selection by The Slovak Spectator of books recently released in Slovakia; it does not represent an endorsement of the books selected. The column is prepared in cooperation with the Oxford Bookshop Bratislava.
