From Publishers Weekly

The Bradshaw family of suburban London is discontent. Thomas Bradshaw has taken a sabbatical from his job to learn to play the piano; his wife, Tonie, has become head of a university English department; their eight-year-old daughter, Alexa, watches as father and mother begin to suffocate under the failure of their expectations. The Bradshaws' brothers, sisters, parents, and in-laws, though sometimes faintly amusing, are no better off. Sister-in-law Claudia, a painter, never paints, blaming her nonproductivity on husband Howard, Thomas's older brother. Little brother Leo and his uneducated wife, Susie, drink too much—public knowledge because their children tattle on them—and the older generation of parents disapproves of them all. Cusk (Arlington Park) dissects her characters with a surgical precision, and all can be diagnosed with the same bourgeois malady: acute but indeterminate angst about the nature of existence. Cusk is a gifted writer who has a knack for razor-sharp characterizations, but the lack of plot—everyone is sad, little is done—is a serious detriment. (Apr.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Cusk's searing, incisive novels have earned comparisons to Virginia Woolf's for their astute recreations of women's inner lives as they collide with society's expectations. Unfortunately, most critics concluded that Cusk's seventh novel does not live up to the sum of its parts. Despite vivid characters, crisp prose, and sharp psychological insights, the plot lacks tension, while subplots and minor characters drop from the narrative without explanation, and the Bradshaws seem strangely unconvincing. "Really," argues the Boston Globe, "how deeply can we care about a family whose defining characteristic is a lack of warmth toward one another?" Despite these shortcomings, Cusk's fans may pick up The Bradshaw Variations for her eloquence and wry humor. Others may wish to steer clear of her latest.

At first glance, it may seem like I’m reinventing the wheel; Windows already comes with a very complex, very functional GUI. Unfortunately, while the Windows GUI is great for office apps, quite frequently, it’s not suited for many games. Games tend to want a more precise control over the GUI than Windows can provide (for example, games may want to use alpha-blending to implement partially transparent windows - easy if you’ve written your own GUI, but next to impossible using the Windows GUI).

This article will walk you though how to create a GUI using C++ and DirectX. The series is divided into several parts, each dealing with a specific aspect of GUI programming:

Part I: The Basics, and the Mouse

Part II: Windows

Part III: Controls

Part IV: Resource Editors and Other Madness

NOTE: This document was originally four separate articles on www.gamedev.net. I’ve concatenated all four into one for the XGDC, but they remain otherwise unchanged. - Mason

In 1666 stierf bijna elke inwoner van het Engelse plaatsje Eyam aan een vreselijke ziekte. Eeuwen later keert de ziekte terug, in gemuteerde vorm, en gevaarlijker dan ooit. Elke dag komen er meer besmettingen, meer doden bij. De levens van miljoenen mensen liggen in de handen van de Time Scene Investigators, die de geschiedenis onderzoeken om hedendaagse ziekten te behandelen.
McCusker en Larimore voeren de lezers mee in de wereld van het medisch onderzoek en de farmaceutische industrie, in de actuele setting van een wereldbedreigende pandemie. Parallel daaraan loopt de17e-eeuwse huiveringwekkende geschiedenis van de blauwe monnik.

Casting off a northern winter and an orderly life, a family decides to sell everything and go to Italy to search for art and its meanings, for freedom from routine, for a different path into the future. The award-winning writer Rachel Cusk describes a three-month journey around the Italy of Raphael and rented villas, of the Piero della Francesca trail and the tourist furnace of Amalfi, of soccer and the simple glories of pasta and gelato.

With her husband and two children, Cusk uncovers the mystery of a foreign language, the perils and pleasures of unbelonging, and the startling thrill of discovery — at once historic and intimate. Both sharp and humane in its exploration of the desire to travel and to escape, of art and its inspirations, of beauty and ugliness, and of the challenge of balancing domestic life with creativity, is an astonishing memoir.

Stella Benson answers a classified ad for an , arriving in a tiny Sussex village that's home to a family that is slightly larger than life. Her hopes for the Maddens may be high, but her station among them is low and remote. It soon becomes clear that Stella falls short of even the meager specifications her new role requires, most visibly in the area of "aptitude for the country life." But what drove her to leave her home, job, and life in London in the first place? Why has she severed all ties with her parents? Why is she so reluctant to discuss her past? And who, exactly, is Edward?

Since quitting work to look after his eight-year-old daughter, Alexa, Thomas Bradshaw has found solace and grace in his daily piano study. His pursuit of a more artistic way of life shocks and irritates his parents and in-laws. Why has he swapped roles with Tonie Swann, his intense, intellectual wife, who has accepted a demanding full-time job? How can this be good for Alexa?

Tonie is increasingly seduced away from domestic life by the harder, headier world of work, where long-forgotten memories of ambition are awakened. She soon finds herself outside their tight family circle, alive to previously unimaginable possibilities. Over the course of a year full of crisis and revelation, we follow the fortunes of Tonie, Thomas, and his brothers and their families: Howard, the successful, indulgent brother, and his gregarious wife, Claudia; and Leo, lacking in confidence and propped up by Susie, his sharp-tongued, heavy-drinking wife. At the head of the family, the aging Bradshaw parents descend on their children to question and undermine them.

Agnes Day is mildly discontent. As a child, she never wanted to be an Agnes — she wanted to be a pleasing Grace. Alas, she remained the terminally middle class, hopelessly romantic Agnes. Now she's living with her two best friends in London and working at a trade magazine. Life and love seem to go on without her. Not only does she not know how to get back into the game, she isn't even sure what the game is. But she gives a good performance — until she learns that her roommates and her boyfriend are keeping secrets from her, and that her boss is quitting and leaving her in charge. In great despair, she decides to make it her business to set things straight. is a perceptive, fresh, and honest novel that has delighted readers and critics on both sides of the Atlantic.

A man and a woman are seated next to each other on a plane. They get to talking — about their destination, their careers, their families. Grievances are aired, family tragedies discussed, marriages and divorces analyzed. An intimacy is established as two strangers contrast their own fictions about their lives.

Rachel Cusk’s is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and stark, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing during one oppressively hot summer in Athens. She leads her students in storytelling exercises. She meets other visiting writers for dinner and discourse. She goes swimming in the Ionian Sea with her neighbor from the plane. The people she encounters speak volubly about themselves: their fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, and longings. And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman learning to face a great loss.