# books

timestamp: 2022-11-16 18:03:48.737229+00:00
pubdate: 2011-10-01 04:00:00+00:00
author_sort: McRaney, David
path: David McRaney/You Are Not So Smart_ Why You Have T (76)
uuid: a405f73a-2fdf-4fb7-987c-d14b72d2f710
last_modified: 2022-11-17 18:04:48.208348+00:00
title:
You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself

sort:
You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself


timestamp: 2022-12-16 21:15:19.894247+00:00
pubdate: 2010-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
author_sort: Achor, Shawn
path: Shawn Achor/The Happiness Advantage_ The Seven (393)
uuid: d321f214-7b7f-4423-9ed0-a3fa157b5331
last_modified: 2022-12-16 21:16:34.204938+00:00
title:
The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work

sort:
Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, The


timestamp: 2023-12-20 15:09:54.087042+00:00
pubdate: 2002-09-23 05:00:00+00:00
author_sort: Agans, David J.
path: David J. Agans/Debugging_ The 9 Indispensable Rule (546)
uuid: 1f82d775-b59c-4052-aa01-52243f50df5e
last_modified: 2023-12-20 15:21:11.754427+00:00
title:
Debugging: The 9 Indispensable Rules for Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems

sort:
Debugging: The 9 Indispensable Rules for Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems


timestamp: 2025-02-04 22:13:56.001387+00:00
pubdate: 2016-08-02 23:16:47+00:00
author_sort: Rohmer, Sax
path: Sax Rohmer/The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu_ Being (756)
uuid: 20baa8a7-c4d2-4486-ab5b-59a086305c65
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu: Being a Somewhat Detailed Account of the Amazing Adventures of Nayland Smith in His Trailing of the Sinister Chinaman

sort:
Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu: Being a Somewhat Detailed Account of the Amazing Adventures of Nayland Smith in His Trailing of the Sinister Chinaman, The


timestamp: 2025-02-04 22:21:51.518249+00:00
pubdate: 2022-01-25 21:51:44+00:00
author_sort: Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de
path: Pierre Choderlos de Laclos/Dangerous Liaisons_ A Series of Let (822)
uuid: 4c2ecdaa-992f-4ead-a780-a28a31309565
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
Dangerous Liaisons: A Series of Letters, Selected from the Correspondence of a Private Circle; and Published for the Instruction of Society

sort:
Dangerous Liaisons: A Series of Letters, Selected from the Correspondence of a Private Circle; and Published for the Instruction of Society


timestamp: 2025-02-04 22:22:51.450482+00:00
pubdate: 2021-06-04 23:27:04+00:00
author_sort: Barnum, P. T.
path: P. T. Barnum/The Humbugs of the World_ An Accoun (835)
uuid: 0fade5bf-971c-41bc-9833-e8a4b3fa6a46
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
The Humbugs of the World: An Account of the Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages

sort:
Humbugs of the World: An Account of the Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages, The


timestamp: 2025-02-04 22:30:16.857793+00:00
pubdate: 2023-08-28 18:08:16+00:00
author_sort: Edgeworth, Maria
path: Maria Edgeworth/Castle Rackrent_ An Hibernian Tale. (931)
uuid: 05133000-b505-4ad3-bdce-329f52ef93f3
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
Castle Rackrent: An Hibernian Tale. Taken from Facts, and from the Manners of the Irish Squires Before the Year 1782

sort:
Castle Rackrent: An Hibernian Tale. Taken from Facts, and from the Manners of the Irish Squires Before the Year 1782


timestamp: 2025-02-04 22:33:42.709163+00:00
pubdate: 2016-12-02 22:34:11+00:00
author_sort: Tolstoy, Leo
path: Leo Tolstoy/The Kingdom of God Is Within You_ C (977)
uuid: 995f7be0-f156-4b2b-82c2-2241b440c0d3
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
The Kingdom of God Is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mystical Teaching but as a New Concept of Life

sort:
Kingdom of God Is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mystical Teaching but as a New Concept of Life, The


timestamp: 2025-02-04 22:49:05.027864+00:00
pubdate: 2022-09-09 16:55:52+00:00
author_sort: Dymond, Jonathan
path: Jonathan Dymond/An Inquiry Into the Accordancy of W (1040)
uuid: 03b6fc3a-443a-4845-bcf4-bc25cab18be9
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
An Inquiry Into the Accordancy of War with the Principles of Christianity: And an Examination of the Philosophical Reasoning by Which It Is Defended, with Observations on Some of the Causes of War and on Some of Its Effects

sort:
Inquiry Into the Accordancy of War with the Principles of Christianity: And an Examination of the Philosophical Reasoning by Which It Is Defended, with Observations on Some of the Causes of War and on Some of Its Effects, An


timestamp: 2025-02-04 23:25:30.406435+00:00
pubdate: 2025-01-02 16:48:33+00:00
author_sort: Locke, John
path: John Locke/Two Treatises of Government_ In the (1058)
uuid: 2c4d0beb-05ac-46f5-a93f-c03e26b82b1a
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
Two Treatises of Government: In the Former the False Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer and His Followers Are Detected and Overthrown. The Latter Is an Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government.

sort:
Two Treatises of Government: In the Former the False Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer and His Followers Are Detected and Overthrown. The Latter Is an Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government.


timestamp: 2025-02-05 00:52:14.403361+00:00
pubdate: 2017-03-12 20:37:34+00:00
author_sort: Walpole, Horace
path: Horace Walpole/The Castle of Otranto_ A Story, Tra (1144)
uuid: 97002aff-0d83-43f7-b7a7-68b088be9740
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
The Castle of Otranto: A Story, Translated by William Marshal, Gentleman, from the Original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto

sort:
Castle of Otranto: A Story, Translated by William Marshal, Gentleman, from the Original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto, The


timestamp: 2025-02-05 01:19:30.645420+00:00
pubdate: 2020-11-30 00:38:58+00:00
author_sort: George, Henry
path: Henry George/Progress and Poverty_ An Inquiry In (1180)
uuid: 1de28aff-5c06-4255-90b9-6d7a4914e849
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry Into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy

sort:
Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry Into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy


timestamp: 2025-02-05 01:21:57.169501+00:00
pubdate: 2020-09-10 17:43:32+00:00
author_sort: Wilson, Harriet E.
path: Harriet E. Wilson/Our Nig_ Or, Sketches from the Life (1191)
uuid: e04821ee-6256-47b4-ad24-088124787255
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
Our Nig: Or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-Story White House, North. Showing That Slavery’s Shadows Fall Even There

sort:
Our Nig: Or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-Story White House, North. Showing That Slavery’s Shadows Fall Even There


timestamp: 2025-02-05 01:23:09.069112+00:00
pubdate: 2023-07-06 00:33:13+00:00
author_sort: Haggard, H. Rider
path: H. Rider Haggard/Cleopatra_ Being an Account of the (1198)
uuid: 39b73da0-1f93-4d5d-9b03-f0ab80445eb0
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
Cleopatra: Being an Account of the Fall and Vengeance of Harmachis, the Royal Egyptian, as Set Forth by His Own Hand

sort:
Cleopatra: Being an Account of the Fall and Vengeance of Harmachis, the Royal Egyptian, as Set Forth by His Own Hand


timestamp: 2025-02-05 01:59:41.792892+00:00
pubdate: 2023-01-25 06:12:21+00:00
author_sort: Nesbit, E.
path: E. Nesbit/The Story of the Treasure Seekers_ (1433)
uuid: b2fb1bf6-3f58-4bf4-a3c1-7c7dd571cf13
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
The Story of the Treasure Seekers: Being the Adventures of the Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune

sort:
Story of the Treasure Seekers: Being the Adventures of the Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune, The


timestamp: 2025-02-05 02:02:57.937272+00:00
pubdate: 2021-03-21 01:15:44+00:00
author_sort: Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
path: Charlotte Perkins Gilman/Women and Economics_ A Study of the (1486)
uuid: c452019f-7471-46d0-8a41-dff4ef15d7b3
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution

sort:
Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution


timestamp: 2025-02-05 02:04:12.808846+00:00
pubdate: 2023-03-30 20:17:28+00:00
author_sort: Johnson, Captain Charles
path: Captain Charles Johnson/A General History of the Pirates_ F (1513)
uuid: fe17666e-df4d-4ffd-a87c-79a6ffeeac4a
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
A General History of the Pirates: From Their First Rise and Settlement in the Islands of Providence to the Present Time

sort:
General History of the Pirates: From Their First Rise and Settlement in the Islands of Providence to the Present Time, A


timestamp: 2025-02-05 02:06:05.631572+00:00
pubdate: 2024-09-18 17:23:53+00:00
author_sort: Quiller-Couch, Arthur
path: Arthur Quiller-Couch/The Splendid Spur_ Being Memoirs of (1551)
uuid: 883a30a1-212e-4180-8655-53402b6ff12d
last_modified: 2025-02-05 04:15:12.391128+00:00
title:
The Splendid Spur: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of Mr. John Marvel, a Servant of His Late Majesty King Charles I, in the Years 1642–3

sort:
Splendid Spur: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of Mr. John Marvel, a Servant of His Late Majesty King Charles I, in the Years 1642–3, The


timestamp: 2025-04-16 01:08:06.060879+00:00
pubdate: 2025-03-05 03:32:46+00:00
author_sort: Hudson, W. H.
path: W. H. Hudson/The Purple Land_ Being the Narrativ (1760)
uuid: 7c792b9f-ac93-4437-99dd-ebf914b3ee8a
last_modified: 2025-04-16 02:07:02.966677+00:00
title:
The Purple Land: Being the Narrative of One Richard Lamb’s Adventures in The Banda Orientál, in South America, as Told By Himself

sort:
Purple Land: Being the Narrative of One Richard Lamb’s Adventures in The Banda Orientál, in South America, as Told By Himself, The


timestamp: 2025-04-16 01:08:15.875519+00:00
pubdate: 2025-03-16 20:24:43+00:00
author_sort: Wood, Robert Williams
path: Robert Williams Wood/How to Tell the Birds from the Flow (1766)
uuid: 92645749-2ef2-4ac8-ad2a-79780a0234fa
last_modified: 2025-04-16 02:07:02.966677+00:00
title:
How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts: A Revised Manual of Flornithology for Beginners

sort:
How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts: A Revised Manual of Flornithology for Beginners


timestamp: 2025-04-16 01:45:43.811882+00:00
pubdate: 2020-05-01 04:00:00+00:00
author_sort: Klein, Matthew C. & Pettis, Michael
path: Matthew C. Klein/Trade Wars Are Class Wars_ How Risi (1778)
uuid: 5354c96c-1ad5-4221-b443-51e0d387bf43
last_modified: 2025-04-16 02:31:22.904493+00:00
title:
Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace

sort:
Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace


# comments

text:
SUMMARY: A Young Dwarf's Dream Corporal Carrot has been promoted!He's now in charge of the new recruits guarding Ankh-Morpork, Discworld's greatest city, from Barbarian Tribes, Miscellaneous Marauders, unlicensed Thieves, and such. It's a big job, particularly for an adopted dwarf. But an even bigger job awaits. An ancient document has just revealed that Ankh-Morpork, ruled for decades by Disorganized crime, has a secret sovereign! And his name is Carrott... And so begins the most awesome epic encounter of all time, or at least all afternoon, in which the fate of a city--indeed of the universe itself!--depends on a young man's courage, an ancient sword's magic, and a three-legged poodle's bladder.


text:
<div>
<p><strong>Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary of</strong> The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, <strong>soon to be a Hulu original series!</strong> ** </p>
<p>“Hitchhiker fans rejoice! . . . [Here’s] more of the same zany nonsensical mayhem.”—**The New York Times Book Review </p>
<p>It’s easy to get disheartened when your planet has been blown up and the woman you love has vanished due to a misunderstanding about space/time. However, instead of being disheartened, Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life a bit—and immediately all hell breaks loose. </p>
<p>Hell takes a number of forms: there’s the standard Ford Prefect version, in the shape of an all-new edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and a totally unexpected manifestation in the form of a teenage girl who startles Arthur Dent by being his daughter when he didn’t even know he had one. </p>
<p>Can Arthur save the Earth from total multidimensional obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter, Random, from herself? Of course not. He never works out exactly what is going on. Will you? </p>
<p><strong>“Douglas Adams is a terrific satirist. . . . He is anything but harmless.”—</strong> The Washington Post Book World</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>“Hitchhiker fans rejoice! . . . [Here’s] more of the same zany nonsensical mayhem.”— *New York Times Book Review </p>
<ul><li>“It is Mr. Adams’s genius to hurl readers into a plot that seems to go everywhere and nowhere, then suddenly drop the pieces into place, click, click, click, like tumblers in a lock. . . . Delightful.”— <em>Baltimore Sun<br></em></li></ul>
<h3>From the Inside Flap</h3>
<p>Douglas Adams is back with the amazing, logic-defying, but-why-stop-now fifth novel in the Hitchhiker Trilogy. Here is the epic story of Random, who sets out on a transgalactic quest to find the planet of her ancestors. Line drawings. </p>
<p>"From the Hardcover edition.</p>
<h3>From the Back Cover</h3>
<p>s is back with the amazing, logic-defying, but-why-stop-now <strong>fifth</strong> novel in the Hitchhiker Trilogy. Here is the epic story of Random, who sets out on a transgalactic quest to find the planet of her ancestors. <strong>Line drawings.</strong> </p>
<p style="font-style: italic">From the Hardcover edition.</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p><strong>Douglas Adams</strong> was born in 1952 and created all the various and contradictory manifestations of <em>The Hitchhiker’s</em> <em>Guide to the Galaxy</em> : radio, novels, TV, computer games, stage adaptations, comic book, and bath towel. He was born in Cambridge and lived with his wife and daughter in Islington, London, before moving to Santa Barbara, California, where he died suddenly in 2001.</p>
<h3>Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.</h3>
<p>Chapter 1 </p>
<p>The history of the Galaxy has got a little muddled, for a number of reasons: partly because those who are trying to keep track of it have got a little muddled, but also because some very muddling things have been happening anyway. </p>
<p>One of the problems has to do with the speed of light and the difficulties involved in trying to exceed it. You can’t. Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. The Hingefreel people of Arkintoofle Minor did try to build spaceships that were powered by bad news but they didn’t work particularly well and were so extremely unwelcome whenever they arrived anywhere that there wasn’t really any point in being there. </p>
<p>So, by and large, the peoples of the Galaxy tended to languish in their own local muddles and the history of the Galaxy itself was, for a long time, largely cosmological. </p>
<p>Which is not to say that people weren’t trying. They tried sending off fleets of spaceships to do battle or business in distant parts, but these usually took thousands of years to get anywhere. By the time they eventually arrived, other forms of travel had been discovered which made use of hyperspace to circumvent the speed of light, so that whatever battles it was that the slower-than-light fleets had been sent to fight had already been taken care of centuries earlier by the time they actually got there. </p>
<p>This didn’t, of course, deter their crews from wanting to fight the battles anyway. They were trained, they were ready, they’d had a couple of thousand years’ sleep, they’d come a long way to do a tough job and, by Zarquon, they were going to do it. </p>
<p>This was when the first major Muddles of Galactic history set in, with battles continually reerupting centuries after the issues they had been fought over had supposedly been settled. However, these muddles were as nothing to the ones which historians had to try and unravel once time-travel was discovered and battles started preempting hundreds of years before the issues even arose. When the Infinite Improbability Drive arrived and whole planets started unexpectedly turning into banana fruitcake, the great history faculty of the University of MaxiMegalon finally gave up, closed itself down and surrendered its buildings to the rapidly growing joint faculty of Divinity and Water Polo, which had been after them for years. </p>
<p>Which is all very well, of course, but it almost certainly means that no one will ever know for sure where, for instance, the Grebulons came from, or exactly what it was they wanted. And this is a pity because, if anybody had known anything about them, it is just possible that a most terrible catastrophe would have been averted — or, at least, would have had to find a different way to happen. </p>
<p>“Click, hum.<br>The huge gray Grebulon reconnaissance ship moved silently through the black void. It was traveling at fabulous, breathtaking speed, yet appeared, against the glimmering background of a billion distant stars to be moving not at all. It was just one dark speck frozen against an infinite granularity of brilliant night. </p>
<p>On board the ship, everything was as it had been for millennia, deeply dark and silent. </p>
<p>Click, hum. </p>
<p>At least, almost everything. </p>
<p>Click, click, hum. </p>
<p>Click, hum, click, hum, click, hum. </p>
<p>Click, click, click, click, click, hum. </p>
<p>Hmmm. </p>
<p>A low-level supervising program woke up a slightly higher-level supervising program deep in the ship’s semisomnolent cyberbrain and reported to it that whenever it went click all it got was a hum. </p>
<p>The higher-level supervising program asked it what it was supposed to get, and the low-level supervising program said that it couldn’t remember what it was meant to get, exactly, but thought it was probably more of a sort of distant satisfied sigh, wasn’t it? It didn’t know what this hum was. Click, hum, click, hum. That was all it was getting. </p>
<p>The higher-level supervising program considered this and didn’t like it. It asked the low-level supervising program what exactly it was supervising and the low-level supervising program said it couldn’t remember that either, just that it was something that was meant to go click, sigh every ten years or so, which usually happened without fail. It had tried to consult its error look-up table but couldn’t find it, which was why it had alerted the higher-level supervising program of the problem. </p>
<p>The higher-level supervising program went to consult one of its own look-up tables to find out what the low-level supervising program was meant to be supervising. </p>
<p>It couldn’t find the look-up table. </p>
<p>Odd. </p>
<p>It looked again. All it got was an error message. It tried to look up the error message in its error message look-up table and couldn’t find that either. It allowed a couple of nanoseconds to go by while it went through all this again. Then it woke up its sector function supervisor. </p>
<p>The sector function supervisor hit immediate problems. It called its supervising agent, which hit problems too. Within a few millionths of a second virtual circuits that had lain dormant, some for years, some for centuries, were flaring into life throughout the ship. Something, somewhere, had gone terribly wrong, but none of the supervising programs could tell what it was. At every level, vital instructions were missing, and the instructions about what to do in the event of discovering that vital instructions were missing, were also missing. </p>
<p>Small modules of software — agents — surged through the logical pathways, grouping, consulting, regrouping. They quickly established that the ship’s memory, all the way back to its central mission module, was in tatters. No amount of interrogation could determine what it was that had happened. Even the central mission module itself seemed to be damaged. </p>
<p>This made the whole problem very simple to deal with, in fact. Replace the central mission module. There was another one, a backup, an exact duplicate of the original. It had to be physically replaced because, for safety reasons, there was no link whatsoever between the original and its backup. Once the central mission module was replaced it could itself supervise the reconstruction of the rest of the system in every detail, and all would be well. </p>
<p>Robots were instructed to bring the backup central mission module from the shielded strong room, where they guarded it, to the ship’s logic chamber for installation. </p>
<p>This involved the lengthy exchange of emergency codes and protocols as the robots interrogated the agents as to the authenticity of the instructions. At last the robots were satisfied that all procedures were correct. They unpacked the backup central mission module from its storage housing, carried it out of the storage chamber, fell out of the ship and went spinning off into the void. </p>
<p>This provided the first major clue as to what it was that was wrong. </p>
<p>Further investigation quickly established what it was that had happened. A meteorite had knocked a large hole in the ship. The ship had not previously detected this because the meteorite had neatly knocked out that part of the ship’s processing equipment which was supposed to detect if the ship had been hit by a meteorite. </p>
<p>The first thing to do was to try to seal up the hole. This turned out to be impossible, because the ship’s sensors couldn’t see that there was a hole, and the supervisors, which should have said that the sensors weren’t working properly, weren’t working properly and kept saying that the sensors were fine. The ship could only deduce the existence of the hole from the fact that the robots had clearly fallen out of it, taking its spare brain — which would have enabled it to see the hole — with them. </p>
<p>The ship tried to think intelligently about this, failed and then blanked out completely for a bit. It didn’t realize it had blanked out, of course, because it had blanked out. It was merely surprised to see the stars jump. After the third time the stars jumped, the ship finally realized that it must be blanking out, and that it was time to take some serious decisions. </p>
<p>It relaxed. </p>
<p>Then it realized it hadn’t actually taken the serious decisions yet and panicked. It blanked out again for a bit. When it awoke again it sealed all the bulkheads around where it knew the unseen hole must be. </p>
<p>It clearly hadn’t got to its destination yet, it thought, fitfully, but since it no longer had the faintest idea where its destination was or how to reach it, there seemed to be little point in continuing. It consulted what tiny scraps of instructions it could reconstruct from the tatters of its central mission module. </p>
<p>“Your !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! year mission is to !!!!! !!!!! !!!!!, !!!!!, !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! !!!!!, land !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! a safe distance !!!!! !!!!! monitor it. !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! …” </p>
<p>All the rest was complete garbage. </p>
<p>Before it blanked out for good, the ship would have to pass on those instructions, such as they were, to its more primitive subsidiary systems. </p>
<p>It must also revive all of its crew. </p>
<p>There was another problem. While the crew was in hibernation, the minds of all its members, their memories, their identities and their understanding of what they had come to, had all been transferred into the ship’s central mission module for safe keeping. The crew would not have the faintest idea of who they were or what they were doing there. Oh well. </p>
<p>Just before it blanked out for the final time, the ship realized that its engines were beginning to give out too. </p>
<p>The ship and its revived and confused crew coasted on under the control of its subsidiary automatic systems, which simply looked to land wherever they could find to land and monitor whatever they could find to monitor. </p>
<p>As far as finding something to land on was concerned, they didn’t do very well. The planet they found was desolately cold and lonely, so achingly far from the sun that should warm it, that it took all of the Envir-O-Form machinery and Life-Support-O-Systems they carried with them to render it — or at least parts of it — habitable. There were better planets nearer in, but the ship’s Strateej-O-Mat was obviously locked into Lurk mode and chose the most distant and unobtrusive planet and, furthermore, would not be gainsaid by anybody other than the ship’s Chief Strategic Officer. Since everybody on the ship had lost their minds, no one knew who the Chief Strategic Officer was or, even if he could have been identified, how he was supposed to go about gainsaying the ship’s Strateej-O-Mat. </p>
<p>As far as finding something to monitor was concerned, though, they hit solid gold.</p></div>


text:
<div>
<p>NEW YORK TIMES <strong>BESTSELLER • “Extremely funny . . . inspired lunacy . . . [and] over much too soon.”—</strong> The Washington Post Book World </p>
<p><strong>SOON TO BE A HULU SERIES • Now celebrating the pivotal 42nd anniversary of</strong> The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy <strong>!</strong> </p>
<p><strong>Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s</strong> The Great American Read </p>
<p>It’s an ordinary Thursday morning for Arthur Dent . . . until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly after to make way for a new hyperspace express route, and Arthur’s best friend has just announced that he’s an alien. </p>
<p>After that, things get much, much worse. </p>
<p>With just a towel, a small yellow fish, and a book, Arthur has to navigate through a very hostile universe in the company of a gang of unreliable aliens. Luckily the fish is quite good at languages. And the book is <em>The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</em> . . . which helpfully has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large, friendly letters on its cover. </p>
<p>Douglas Adams’s mega-selling pop-culture classic sends logic into orbit, plays havoc with both time and physics, offers up pithy commentary on such things as ballpoint pens, potted plants, and digital watches . . . and, most important, reveals the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything. </p>
<p>Now, if you could only figure out the question. . . .</p>
<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3>
<p>Join Douglas Adams's hapless hero Arthur Dent as he travels the galaxy with his intrepid pal Ford Prefect, getting into horrible messes and generally wreaking hilarious havoc. Dent is grabbed from Earth moments before a cosmic construction team obliterates the planet to build a freeway. You'll never read funnier science fiction; Adams is a master of intelligent satire, barbed wit, and comedic dialogue. <em>The Hitchhiker's Guide</em> is rich in comedic detail and thought-provoking situations and stands up to multiple reads. Required reading for science fiction fans, this book (and its follow-ups) is also sure to please fans of Monty Python, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and British sitcoms.</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>“Lively, sharply satirical, brilliantly written . . . ranks with the best set pieces in Mark Twain.” <strong>—</strong> The Atlantic </p>
<p>“Irresistible!” <strong>—</strong> The Boston Globe<br><strong><br></strong>“With droll wit, a keen eye for detail and heavy doses of insight . . . Adams makes us laugh until we cry.” <strong>—</strong> The San Diego Union-Tribune<br><strong><br></strong>“One of the greatest achievements in comedy. A work of staggering genius.” <strong>—David Walliams<br></strong><br>“Really entertaining and fun.” <strong>—Michael Palin<br></strong><br>“Fizzing with ideas . . . brilliant.” <strong>—Charlie Brooker<br></strong><br>“Weird and wonderful.” <strong>—Eoin Colfer<br></strong><br>“It changed my whole life. It’s literally out of this world.” <strong>—Tom Baker</strong></p>
<h3>From the Inside Flap</h3>
<p>"IRRESISTIBLE!"<br>--The Boston Globe<br>Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.<br>Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. <br>Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!<br>"[A] WHIMSICAL ODYSSEY...Characters frolic through the galaxy with infectious joy."<br>--Publishers Weekly</p>
<h3>From the Back Cover</h3>
<p>"IRRESISTIBLE!"<br>--The Boston Globe<br>Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.<br>Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. <br>Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!<br>"[A] WHIMSICAL ODYSSEY...Characters frolic through the galaxy with infectious joy."<br>--Publishers Weekly</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p><strong>Douglas Adams</strong> was born in 1952 and created all the various and contradictory manifestations of <em>The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</em> : radio, novels, TV, computer games, stage adaptations, comic book, and bath towel. He was born in Cambridge and lived with his wife and daughter in Islington, London, before moving to Santa Barbara, California, where he died suddenly in 2001.</p>
<h3>Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.</h3>
<p>Chapter One <em><br></em><br>The house stood on a slight rise just on the edge of the village. It stood on its own and looked out over a broad spread of West Country farmland. Not a remarkable house by any means—it was about thirty years old, squattish, squarish, made of brick, and had four windows set in the front of a size and proportion which more or less exactly failed to please the eye. </p>
<p>The only person for whom the house was in any way special was Arthur Dent, and that was only because it happened to be the one he lived in. He had lived in it for about three years, ever since he had moved out of London because it made him nervous and irritable. He was about thirty as well, tall, dark-haired and never quite at ease with himself. The thing that used to worry him most was the fact that people always used to ask him what he was looking so worried about. He worked in local radio which he always used to tell his friends was a lot more interesting than they probably thought. It was, too—most of his friends worked in advertising. </p>
<p>On Wednesday night it had rained very heavily, the lane was wet and muddy, but the Thursday morning sun was bright and clear as it shone on Arthur Dent’s house for what was to be the last time. </p>
<p>It hadn’t properly registered yet with Arthur that the council wanted to knock it down and build a bypass instead. </p>
<p>At eight o’clock on Thursday morning Arthur didn’t feel very good. He woke up blearily, got up, wandered blearily round his room, opened a window, saw a bulldozer, found his slippers, and stomped off to the bathroom to wash. </p>
<p>Toothpaste on the brush—so. Scrub. </p>
<p>Shaving mirror—pointing at the ceiling. He adjusted it. For a moment it reflected a second bulldozer through the bathroom window. Properly adjusted, it reflected Arthur Dent’s bristles. He shaved them off, washed, dried and stomped off to the kitchen to find something pleasant to put in his mouth. </p>
<p>Kettle, plug, fridge, milk, coffee. Yawn. </p>
<p>The word <em>bulldozer</em> wandered through his mind for a moment in search of something to connect with. </p>
<p>The bulldozer outside the kitchen window was quite a big one. </p>
<p>He stared at it. </p>
<p>'Yellow,' he thought, and stomped off back to his bedroom to get dressed. </p>
<p>Passing the bathroom he stopped to drink a large glass of water, and another. He began to suspect that he was hung over. Why was he hung over? Had he been drinking the night before? He supposed that he must have been. He caught a glint in the shaving mirror. “Yellow,” he thought, and stomped on to the bedroom. </p>
<p>He stood and thought. The pub, he thought. Oh dear, the pub. He vaguely remembered being angry, angry about something that seemed important. He’d been telling people about it, telling people about it at great length, he rather suspected: his clearest visual recollection was of glazed looks on other people’s faces. Something about a new bypass he’d just found out about. It had been in the pipeline for months only no one seemed to have known about it. Ridiculous. He took a swig of water. It would sort itself out, he’ d decided, no one wanted a bypass, the council didn’t have a leg to stand on. It would sort itself out. </p>
<p>God, what a terrible hangover it had earned him though. He looked at himself in the wardrobe mirror. He stuck out his tongue. 'Yellow,' he thought. The word <em>yellow</em> wandered through his mind in search of something to connect with. </p>
<p>Fifteen seconds later he was out of the house and lying in front of a big yellow bulldozer that was advancing up his garden path. </p>
<p>Mr. L. Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words he was a carbon-based bipedal life form descended from an ape. More specifically he was forty, fat and shabby and worked for the local council. Curiously enough, though he didn’t know it, he was also a direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan, though intervening generations and racial mixing had so juggled his genes that he had no discernible Mongoloid characteristics, and the only vestiges left in Mr. L. Prosser of his mighty ancestry were a pronounced stoutness about the tum and a predilection for little fur hats. </p>
<p>He was by no means a great warrior; in fact he was a nervous, worried man. Today he was particularly nervous and worried because something had gone seriously wrong with his job, which was to see that Arthur Dent’s house got cleared out of the way before the day was out. </p>
<p>“Come off it, Mr. Dent,” he said, “you can’t win, you know. You can’t lie in front of the bulldozer indefinitely.” He tried to make his eyes blaze fiercely but they just wouldn’t do it. </p>
<p>Arthur lay in the mud and squelched at him. </p>
<p>“I’m game,” he said, “we’ll see who rusts first.” </p>
<p>“I’m afraid you’re going to have to accept it,” said Mr. Prosser, gripping his fur hat and rolling it round the top of his head; “this bypass has got to be built and it’s going to be built!” </p>
<p>“First I’ve heard of it,” said Arthur, “why’s it got to be built?” </p>
<p>Mr. Prosser shook his finger at him for a bit, then stopped and put it away again. </p>
<p>“What do you mean, why’s it got to be built?” he said. “It’s a bypass. You’ve got to build bypasses.” </p>
<p>Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what’s so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there, and what’s so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be. </p>
<p>Mr. Prosser wanted to be at point D. Point D wasn’t anywhere in particular, it was just any convenient point a very long way from points A, B and C. He would have a nice little cottage at point D, with axes over the door, and spend a pleasant amount of time at point E, which would be the nearest pub to point D. His wife of course wanted climbing roses, but he wanted axes. He didn’t know why—he just liked axes. He flushed hotly under the derisive grins of the bulldozer drivers. </p>
<p>He shifted his weight from foot to foot, but it was equally uncomfortable on each. Obviously somebody had been appallingly incompetent and he hoped to God it wasn’t him. </p>
<p>Mr. Prosser said, “You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time, you know.” </p>
<p>“Appropriate time?” hooted Arthur. “Appropriate time? The first I knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday. I asked him if he’d come to clean the windows and he said no, he’d come to demolish the house. He didn’t tell me straight away of course. Oh no. First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me a fiver. Then he told me.” </p>
<p>“But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.” </p>
<p>“Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.” </p>
<p>“But the plans were on display . . .” </p>
<p>“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” </p>
<p>“That’s the display department.” </p>
<p>“With a flashlight.” </p>
<p>“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” </p>
<p>“So had the stairs.” </p>
<p>“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” </p>
<p>“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘ <em>Beware of the Leopard.</em> ’” </p>
<p>A cloud passed overhead. It cast a shadow over Arthur Dent as he lay propped up on his elbow in the cold mud. It cast a shadow over Arthur Dent’s house. Mr. Prosser frowned at it. </p>
<p>“It’s not as if it’ s a particularly nice house,” he said. </p>
<p>“I’m sorry, but I happen to like it.” </p>
<p>“You’ ll like the bypass.” </p>
<p>“Oh, shut up,” said Arthur Dent. “Shut up and go away, and take your bloody bypass with you. You haven’t got a leg to stand on and you know it.” </p>
<p>Mr. Prosser’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times while his mind was for a moment filled with inexplicable but terribly attractive visions of Arthur Dent’ s house being consumed with fire and Arthur himself running screaming from the blazing ruin with at least three hefty spears protruding from his back. Mr. Prosser was often bothered with visions like these and they made him feel very nervous. He stuttered for a moment and then pulled himself together. </p>
<p>“Mr. Dent,” he said. </p>
<p>“Hello? Yes?” said Arthur. </p>
<p>“Some factual information for you. Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?”</p></div>


text:
<div>
<p><strong>Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary of</strong> The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, <strong>soon to be a Hulu original series!</strong> ** </p>
<p>“Douglas Adams is a terrific satirist.”—**The Washington Post Book World </p>
<p>Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons? Time for a cup of tea! Join the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his uncommon comrades in arms in their desperate search for a place to eat, as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability. </p>
<p>Among Arthur’s motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a longtime friend and expert contributor to <em>The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy;</em> Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMillan, a fellow Earth refugee who’s gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, the moody android. Their destination? The ultimate hot spot for an evening of apocalyptic entertainment and fine dining, where the food speaks for itself (literally). </p>
<p>Will they make it? The answer: hard to say. But bear in mind that <em>The Hitchhiker’s Guide</em> deleted the term “Future Perfect” from its pages, since it was discovered not to be! </p>
<p><strong>“What’s such fun is how amusing the galaxy looks through Adams’s sardonically silly eyes.”—</strong> Detroit Free Press</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>“Douglas Adams is a terrific satirist.”— *Washington Post Book World </p>
<ul><li>“What’s such fun is how amusing the galaxy looks through Adams’s sardonically silly eyes.”— <em>Detroit Free Press<br></em></li></ul>
<h3>From the Inside Flap</h3>
<p>"DOUGLAS ADAMS IS A TERRIFIC SATIRIST."<br>--The Washington Post Book World<br>Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons is a curious time to have a craving for tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his curious comrades in arms as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability--and desperately in search of a place to eat.<br>Among Arthur's motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a longtime friend and expert contributor to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMillan, a fellow Earth refugee who's gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, the moody android who suffers nothing and no one very gladly. Their destination? The ultimate hot spot for an evening of apocalyptic entertainment and fine dining, where the food (literally) speaks for itself.<br>Will they make it? The answer: hard to say. But bear in mind that the Hitchhiker's Guide deleted the term "Future Perfect" from its pages, since it was discovered not to be!<br>"What's such fun is how amusing the galaxy looks through Adams' sardonically silly eyes."<br>--Detroit Free Press</p>
<h3>From the Back Cover</h3>
<p>"DOUGLAS ADAMS IS A TERRIFIC SATIRIST."<br>--The Washington Post Book World<br>Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons is a curious time to have a craving for tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his curious comrades in arms as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability--and desperately in search of a place to eat.<br>Among Arthur's motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a longtime friend and expert contributor to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMillan, a fellow Earth refugee who's gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, the moody android who suffers nothing and no one very gladly. Their destination? The ultimate hot spot for an evening of apocalyptic entertainment and fine dining, where the food (literally) speaks for itself.<br>Will they make it? The answer: hard to say. But bear in mind that the Hitchhiker's Guide deleted the term "Future Perfect" from its pages, since it was discovered not to be!<br>"What's such fun is how amusing the galaxy looks through Adams' sardonically silly eyes."<br>--Detroit Free Press</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p><strong>Douglas Adams</strong> was born in 1952 and created all the various and contradictory manifestations of <em>The Hitchhiker’s</em> <em>Guide to the Galaxy</em> : radio, novels, TV, computer games, stage adaptations, comic book, and bath towel. He was born in Cambridge and lived with his wife and daughter in Islington, London, before moving to Santa Barbara, California, where he died suddenly in 2001.</p>
<h3>Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.</h3>
<p>Chapter 1 </p>
<p>The story so far: </p>
<p>In the beginning the Universe was created. </p>
<p>This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. </p>
<p>Many races believe that it was created by some sort of god, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. </p>
<p>The Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of the time they call the Coming of the Great White Handkerchief, are small blue creatures with more than fifty arms each, who are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel. </p>
<p>However, the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI and so, the Universe being the puzzling place it is, other explanations are constantly being sought. </p>
<p>For instance, a race of hyperintelligent pandimensional beings once built themselves a gigantic supercomputer called Deep Thought to calculate once and for all the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. </p>
<p>For seven and a half million years, Deep Thought computed and calculated, and in the end announced that the answer was in fact Forty-two—and so another, even bigger, computer had to be built to find out what the actual question was. </p>
<p>And this computer, which was called the Earth, was so large that it was frequently mistaken for a planet—especially by the strange apelike beings who roamed its surface, totally unaware that they were simply part of a gigantic computer program. </p>
<p>And this is very odd, because without that fairly simple and obvious piece of knowledge, nothing that ever happened on the Earth could possibly make the slightest bit of sense. </p>
<p>Sadly, however, just before the critical moment of read-out, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished by the Vogons to make way—so they claimed—for a new hyperspace bypass, and so all hope of discovering a meaning for life was lost for ever. </p>
<p>Or so it would seem. </p>
<p>Two of these strange, apelike creatures survived. </p>
<p>Arthur Dent escaped at the very last moment because an old friend of his, Ford Prefect, suddenly turned out to be from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and not from Guildford as he had hitherto claimed; and, more to the point, he knew how to hitch rides on flying saucers. </p>
<p>Tricia McMillan—or Trillian—had skipped the planet six months earlier with Zaphod Beeblebrox, the then President of the Galaxy. </p>
<p>Two survivors. </p>
<p>They are all that remains of the greatest experiment ever conducted—to find the Ultimate Question and the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe and Everything. </p>
<p>And, less than half a million miles from where their starship is drifting lazily through the inky blackness of space, a Vogon ship is moving slowly toward them. </p>
<p>Chapter 2 </p>
<p>Like all Vogon ships it looked as if it had been not so much designed as congealed. The unpleasant yellow lumps and edifices which protruded from it at unsightly angles would have disfigured the looks of most ships, but in this case that was sadly impossible. Uglier things have been spotted in the skies, but not by reliable witnesses. </p>
<p>In fact to see anything much uglier than a Vogon ship you would have to go inside it and look at a Vogon. If you are wise, however, this is precisely what you will avoid doing because the average Vogon will not think twice before doing something so pointlessly hideous to you that you will wish you had never been born—or (if you are a clearer minded thinker) that the Vogon had never been born. </p>
<p>In fact, the average Vogon probably wouldn’t even think once. They are simple-minded, thick-willed, slug-brained creatures, and thinking is not really something they are cut out for. Anatomical analysis of the Vogon reveals that its brain was originally a badly deformed, misplaced and dyspeptic liver. The fairest thing you can say about them, then, is that they know what they like, and what they like generally involves hurting people and, wherever possible, getting very angry. </p>
<p>One thing they don’t like is leaving a job unfinished—particularly this Vogon, and particularly—for various reasons—this job. </p>
<p>This Vogon was Captain Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council, and he it was who had had the job of demolishing the so-called “planet” Earth. </p>
<p>He heaved his monumentally vile body round in his ill-fitting, slimy seat and stared at the monitor screen on which the starship Heart of Gold was being systematically scanned. </p>
<p>It mattered little to him that the Heart of Gold, with its Infinite Improbability Drive, was the most beautiful and revolutionary ship ever built. Aesthetics and technology were closed books to him and, had he had his way, burned and buried books as well. </p>
<p>It mattered even less to him that Zaphod Beeblebrox was aboard. Zaphod Beeblebrox was now the ex-President of the Galaxy, and though every police force in the Galaxy was currently pursuing both him and this ship he had stolen, the Vogon was not interested. </p>
<p>He had other fish to fry. </p>
<p>It has been said that Vogons are not above a little bribery and corruption in the same way that the sea is not above the clouds, and this was certainly true in his case. When he heard the words integrity or moral rectitude he reached for his dictionary, and when he heard the chink of ready money in large quantities he reached for the rule book and threw it away. </p>
<p>In seeking so implacably the destruction of the Earth and all that therein lay he was moving somewhat above and beyond the call of his professional duty. There was even some doubt as to whether the said bypass was actually going to be built, but the matter had been glossed over. </p>
<p>He grunted a repellent grunt of satisfaction. </p>
<p>“Computer,” he croaked, “get me my brain care specialist on the line.” </p>
<p>Within a few seconds the face of Gag Halfrunt appeared on the screen, smiling the smile of a man who knew he was ten light-years away from the Vogon face he was looking at. Mixed up somewhere in the smile was a glint of irony too. Though the Vogon persistently referred to him as “my private brain care specialist” there was not a lot of brain to take care of, and it was in fact Halfrunt who was employing the Vogon. He was paying him an awful lot of money to do some very dirty work. As one of the Galaxy’s most prominent and successful psychiatrists, he and a consortium of his colleagues were quite prepared to spend an awful lot of money when it seemed that the entire future of psychiatry might be at stake. </p>
<p>“Well,” he said, “hello my Captain of Vogons Prostetnic, and how are we feeling today?” </p>
<p>The Vogon Captain told him that in the last few hours he had wiped out nearly half his crew in a disciplinary exercise. </p>
<p>Halfrunt’s smile did not flicker for an instant. </p>
<p>“Well,” he said, “I think this is perfectly normal behavior for a Vogon, you know? The natural and healthy channeling of the aggressive instincts into acts of senseless violence.” </p>
<p>“That,” rumbled the Vogon, “is what you always say.” </p>
<p>“Well again,” said Halfrunt, “I think that this is perfectly normal behavior for a psychiatrist. Good. We are clearly both very well adjusted in our mental attitudes today. Now tell me, what news of the mission?” </p>
<p>“We have located the ship.” </p>
<p>“Wonderful,” said Halfrunt, “wonderful! And the occupants?” </p>
<p>“The Earthman is there.” </p>
<p>“Excellent! And …?” </p>
<p>“A female from the same planet. They are the last.” </p>
<p>“Good, good,” beamed Halfrunt. “Who else?” </p>
<p>“The man Prefect.” </p>
<p>“Yes?” </p>
<p>“And Zaphod Beeblebrox.” </p>
<p>For an instant Halfrunt’s smile flickered. </p>
<p>“Ah, yes,” he said, “I had been expecting this. It is most regrettable.” </p>
<p>“A personal friend?” inquired the Vogon, who had heard the expression somewhere once and decided to try it out. </p>
<p>“Ah, no,” said Halfrunt, “in my profession you know, we do not make personal friends.” </p>
<p>“Ah,” grunted the Vogon, “professional detachment.” </p>
<p>“No,” said Halfrunt cheerfully, “we just don’t have the knack.” </p>
<p>He paused. His mouth continued to smile, but his eyes frowned slightly. </p>
<p>“But Beeblebrox, you know,” he said, “he is one of my most profitable clients. He has personality problems beyond the dreams of analysts.” </p>
<p>He toyed with this thought a little before reluctantly dismissing it. </p>
<p>“Still,” he said, “you are ready for your task?” </p>
<p>“Yes.” </p>
<p>“Good. Destroy the ship immediately.” </p>
<p>“What about Beeblebrox?” </p>
<p>“Well,” said Halfrunt brightly, “Zaphod’s just this guy, you know?” </p>
<p>He vanished from the screen. </p>
<p>The Vogon Captain pressed a communicator button which connected him with the remains of his crew. </p>
<p>“Attack,” he said. </p></div>


text:
<div>
<p><strong>Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary of</strong> The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, <strong>soon to be a Hulu original series!</strong> ** </p>
<p>“Wild satire . . . The feckless protagonist, Arthur Dent, is reminiscent of Vonnegut heroes.”—**Chicago Tribune </p>
<p>The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky above their heads—so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals stand between the killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of total annihilation. </p>
<p>They are Arthur Dent, a mild-mannered space and time traveler who tries to learn how to fly by throwing himself at the ground and missing; Ford Prefect, his best friend, who decides to go insane to see if he likes it; Slartibartfast, the indomitable vice president of the Campaign for Real Time, who travels in a ship powered by irrational behavior; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-president of the galaxy; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox. </p>
<p>How will it all end? Will it end? Only this stalwart crew knows as they try to avert “universal” Armageddon and save life as we know it—and don’t know it! </p>
<p><strong>“Adams is one of those rare treasures: an author who, one senses, has as much fun writing as one has reading.”—</strong> Arizona Daily Star</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>“Wild satire . . . the feckless protagonist, Arthur Dent, is reminiscent of Vonnegut heroes.”— *Chicago Tribune </p>
<ul><li>“Adams is one of those rare treasures: an author who, one senses, has as much fun writing as one has reading.”— *Arizona Daily Star </li></ul>
<p style="font-style: italic">From the Trade Paperback edition.</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>“Wild satire . . . the feckless protagonist, Arthur Dent, is reminiscent of Vonnegut heroes.”— *Chicago Tribune </p>
<ul><li>“Adams is one of those rare treasures: an author who, one senses, has as much fun writing as one has reading.”— *Arizona Daily Star </li></ul>
<p><em>From the Trade Paperback edition.</em> --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.</p>
<h3>From the Publisher</h3>
<p>Join Arthur Dent, earthling, "jerk", kneebiter and time-traveler; sexy space cadet Trillian; mad alien Ford Prefect; unflappable Slartibartfast; two-headed, three-armed ex-head Honcho of the Universe Zaphod Beeblebrox... and learn to fly. Is it the end? With Douglas Adams it's always up in the air! --This text refers to the audioCD edition.</p>
<h3>From AudioFile</h3>
<p>Martin Freeman has the likable manner, precise diction, and restrained silliness that the comedic Hitchhiker books require, as well as, of course, a British accent. In this third book, reluctant space traveler Arthur Dent and associates must stop the inhabitants of the planet Krikkit from destroying the universe because they're upset at not being alone in it. Freeman provides accents--his American accents are accurate, if exaggerated--and funny voices, and his voice is also electronically altered for special effects. At times it's over-the-top goofy, and some of the voice distortions verge on lacking clarity, but generally he's as clear as the sometimes complex whimsy demands. Any fan of the books should enjoy this presentation. W.M. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- <em>Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine</em> --This text refers to the audioCD edition.</p>
<h3>From the Inside Flap</h3>
<p>"HYSTERICAL!"<br>--The Philadelphia Inquirer<br>The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky above their heads--so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals stand between the white killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of total annihilation.<br>They are Arthur Dent, a mild-mannered space and time traveler, who tries to learn how to fly by throwing himself at the ground and missing; Ford Prefect, his best friend, who decides to go insane to see if he likes it; Slartibartfast, the indomitable vicepresident of the Campaign for Real Time, who travels in a ship powered by irrational behavior; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-head honcho of the Universe; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox.<br>How will it all end? Will it end? Only this stalwart crew knows as they try to avert "universal" Armageddon and save life as we know it--and don't know it!<br>"ADAMS IS ONE OF THOSE RARE TREASURES: an author who, one senses, has as much fun writing as one has reading."<br>--The Arizona Daily Star --This text refers to the mass_market edition.</p>
<h3>From the Back Cover</h3>
<p>"HYSTERICAL!"<br>--The Philadelphia Inquirer<br>The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky above their heads--so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals stand between the white killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of total annihilation.<br>They are Arthur Dent, a mild-mannered space and time traveler, who tries to learn how to fly by throwing himself at the ground and missing; Ford Prefect, his best friend, who decides to go insane to see if he likes it; Slartibartfast, the indomitable vicepresident of the Campaign for Real Time, who travels in a ship powered by irrational behavior; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-head honcho of the Universe; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox.<br>How will it all end? Will it end? Only this stalwart crew knows as they try to avert "universal" Armageddon and save life as we know it--and don't know it!<br>"ADAMS IS ONE OF THOSE RARE TREASURES: an author who, one senses, has as much fun writing as one has reading."<br>--The Arizona Daily Star --This text refers to the mass_market edition.</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p><strong>Douglas Adams</strong> was born in 1952 and created all the various and contradictory manifestations of <em>The Hitchhiker’s</em> <em>Guide to the Galaxy</em> : radio, novels, TV, computer games, stage adaptations, comic book, and bath towel. He was born in Cambridge and lived with his wife and daughter in Islington, London, before moving to Santa Barbara, California, where he died suddenly in 2001. --This text refers to the mass_market edition.</p>
<h3>Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.</h3>
<p>Chapter 1 </p>
<p>The regular early morning yell of horror was the sound of Arthur Dent waking up and suddenly remembering where he was. </p>
<p>It wasn’t just that the cave was cold, it wasn’t just that it was damp and smelly. It was that the cave was in the middle of Islington and there wasn’t a bus due for two million years. </p>
<p>Time is the worst place, so to speak, to get lost in, as Arthur Dent could testify, having been lost in both time and space a good deal. At least being lost in space kept you busy. </p>
<p>He was stranded on prehistoric Earth as the result of a complex sequence of events that had involved his being alternately blown up and insulted in more bizarre regions of the Galaxy than he had ever dreamed existed, and though life had now turned very, very, very quiet, he was still feeling jumpy. </p>
<p>He hadn’t been blown up now for five years. </p>
<p>He had hardly seen anyone since he and Ford Prefect had parted company four years previously, and he hadn’t been insulted in all that time either. </p>
<p>Except just once. </p>
<p>It had happened on a spring evening about two years ago. </p>
<p>He was returning to his cave just a little after dusk when he became aware of lights flashing eerily through the clouds. He turned and stared, with hope suddenly clambering through his heart. Rescue. Escape. The castaway’s impossible dream—a ship. </p>
<p>And as he watched, as he stared in wonder and excitement, a long silver ship descended through the warm evening air, quietly, without fuss, its long legs unlocking in a smooth ballet of technology. </p>
<p>It alighted gently on the ground, and what little hum it had generated died away, as if lulled by the evening calm. </p>
<p>A ramp extended itself. </p>
<p>Light streamed out. </p>
<p>A tall figure appeared silhouetted in the hatchway. It walked down the ramp and stood in front of Arthur. </p>
<p>“You’re a jerk, Dent,” it said simply. </p>
<p>It was alien, very alien. It had a peculiar alien tallness, a peculiar alien flattened head, peculiar slitty little alien eyes, extravagantly draped golden robes with a peculiarly alien collar design, and pale gray green alien skin that had that lustrous sheen about it that most gray green races can acquire only with plenty of exercise and very expensive soap. </p>
<p>Arthur boggled at it. </p>
<p>It gazed levelly at him. </p>
<p>Arthur’s first sensations of hope and trepidation had instantly been overwhelmed by astonishment, and all sorts of thoughts were battling for the use of his vocal cords at this moment. </p>
<p>“Whh …?” he said. </p>
<p>“Bu … hu … uh …” he added. </p>
<p>“Ru … ra … wah … who?” he managed finally to say and lapsed into a frantic kind of silence. He was feeling the effects of not having said anything to anybody for as long as he could remember. </p>
<p>The alien creature frowned briefly and consulted what appeared to be some species of clipboard that it was holding in its thin and spindly alien hand. </p>
<p>“Arthur Dent?” it said. </p>
<p>Arthur nodded helplessly. </p>
<p>“Arthur Philip Dent?” pursued the alien in a kind of efficient yap. </p>
<p>“Er … er … yes … er … er,” confirmed Arthur. </p>
<p>“You’re a jerk,” repeated the alien, “a complete kneebiter.” </p>
<p>“Er …” </p>
<p>The creature nodded to itself, made a peculiar alien check on its clipboard and turned briskly back toward its ship. </p>
<p>“Er …” said Arthur desperately, “er …” </p>
<p>“Don’t give me that,” snapped the alien. It marched up the ramp, through the hatchway and disappeared into its ship. The ship sealed itself. It started to make a low throbbing hum. </p>
<p>“Er, hey!” shouted Arthur, and started to run helplessly toward it. </p>
<p>“Wait a minute!” he called. “What is this? What? Wait a minute!” </p>
<p>The ship rose, as if shedding its weight like a cloak falling to the ground, and hovered briefly. It swept strangely up into the evening sky. It passed up through the clouds, illuminating them briefly, and then was gone, leaving Arthur alone in an immensity of land dancing a helplessly tiny little dance. </p>
<p>“What?” he screamed. “What? What? Hey, what? Come back here and say that!” </p>
<p>He jumped and danced until his legs trembled, and shouted till his lungs rasped. There was no answer from anyone. There was no one to hear him or speak to him. </p>
<p>The alien ship was already thundering toward the upper reaches of the atmosphere, on its way out into the appalling void that separates the very few things there are in the Universe from one another. </p>
<p>Its occupant, the alien with the expensive complexion, leaned back in its single seat. His name was Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. He was a man with a purpose. Not a very good purpose, as he would have been the first to admit, but it was at least a purpose, and it did at least keep him on the move. </p>
<p>Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was—indeed, is—one of the Universe’s very small number of immortal beings. </p>
<p>Most of those who are born immortal instinctively know how to cope with it, but Wowbagger was not one of them. Indeed, he had come to hate them, the load of serene bastards. He had had his immortality inadvertently thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands. The precise details of the accident are not important because no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both, trying. </p>
<p>Wowbagger closed his eyes in a grim and weary expression, put some light jazz on the ship’s stereo, and reflected that he could have made it if it hadn’t been for Sunday afternoons, he really could have done. </p>
<p>To begin with it was fun; he had a ball, living dangerously, taking risks, cleaning up on high-yield long-term investments, and just generally outliving the hell out of everybody. </p>
<p>In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn’t cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in at about 2:55, when you know you’ve taken all the baths you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o’clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul. </p>
<p>So things began to pall for him. The merry smiles he used to wear at other people’s funerals began to fade. He began to despise the Universe in general, and everybody in it in particular. </p>
<p>This was the point at which he conceived his purpose, the thing that would drive him on, and which, as far as he could see, would drive him on forever. It was this. </p>
<p>He would insult the Universe. </p>
<p>That is, he would insult everybody in it. Individually, personally, one by one, and (this was the thing he really decided to grit his teeth over) in alphabetical order. </p>
<p>When people protested to him, as they sometimes had done, that the plan was not merely misguided but actually impossible because of the number of people being born and dying all the time, he would merely fix them with a steely look and say, “A man can dream, can’t he?” </p>
<p>And so he had started out. He equipped a spaceship that was built to last with a computer capable of handling all the data processing involved in keeping track of the entire population of the known Universe and working out the horrifically complicated routes involved. </p>
<p>His ship fled through the inner orbits of the Sol star system, preparing to slingshot around the sun and fling itself out into interstellar space. </p>
<p>“Computer,” he said. </p>
<p>“Here,” yipped the computer. </p>
<p>“Where next?” </p>
<p>“Computing that.” </p>
<p>Wowbagger gazed for a moment at the fantastic jewelry of the night, the billions of tiny diamond worlds that dusted the infinite darkness with light. Every one, every single one was on his itinerary. Most of them he would be going to millions of times over. </p>
<p>He imagined for a moment his itinerary connecting all the dots in the sky like a child’s numbered dots puzzle. He hoped that from some vantage point in the Universe it might be seen to spell a very, very rude word.<br>--This text refers to the mass_market edition.</p></div>


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<p><strong>Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary of</strong> The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, <strong>soon to be a Hulu original series!</strong> ** </p>
<p>“A madcap adventure . . . Adams’s writing teeters on the fringe of inspired lunacy.”—United Press International** </p>
<p>Back on Earth with nothing more to show for his long, strange trip through time and space than a ratty towel and a plastic shopping bag, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription, the mysterious disappearance of Earth’s dolphins, and the discovery of his battered copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy all conspire to give Arthur the sneaking suspicion that something otherworldly is indeed going on. </p>
<p>God only knows what it all means. Fortunately, He left behind a Final Message of explanation. But since it’s light-years away from Earth, on a star surrounded by souvenir booths, finding out what it is will mean hitching a ride to the far reaches of space aboard a UFO with a giant robot. What else is new? </p>
<p><strong>“The most ridiculously exaggerated situation comedy known to created beings . . . Adams is irresistible.”—</strong> The Boston Globe</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>"The looniest of the lot."<br>--Time </p>
<p>"A MADCAP ADVENTURE . . . ADAMS'S WRITING TEETERS ON THE FRINGE OF INSPIRED LUNACY."<br>--United Press International </p>
<p>"The most ridiculously exaggerated situation comedy known to created beings . . . Adams is irresistible."<br>--The Boston Globe</p>
<h3>From the Inside Flap</h3>
<p>Back on Earth with nothing more to show for his long, strange trip through time and space than a ratty towel and a plastic shopping bag, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription, the mysterious disappearance of Earth's dolphins, and the discovery of his battered copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy all conspire to give Arthur the sneaking suspicion that something otherworldly is indeed going on. . . . </p>
<p>God only knows what it all means. And fortunately, He left behind a Final Message of explanation. But since it's light-years away from Earth, on a star surrounded by souvenir booths, finding out what it is will mean hitching a ride to the far reaches of space aboard a UFO with a giant robot. But what else is new?</p>
<h3>From the Back Cover</h3>
<p>Back on Earth with nothing more to show for his long, strange trip through time and space than a ratty towel and a plastic shopping bag, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription, the mysterious disappearance of Earth's dolphins, and the discovery of his battered copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy all conspire to give Arthur the sneaking suspicion that something otherworldly is indeed going on. . . . </p>
<p>God only knows what it all means. And fortunately, He left behind a Final Message of explanation. But since it's light-years away from Earth, on a star surrounded by souvenir booths, finding out what it is will mean hitching a ride to the far reaches of space aboard a UFO with a giant robot. But what else is new?</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p><strong>Douglas Adams</strong> was born in 1952 and created all the various and contradictory manifestations of <em>The Hitchhiker’s</em> <em>Guide to the Galaxy</em> : radio, novels, TV, computer games, stage adaptations, comic book, and bath towel. He was born in Cambridge and lived with his wife and daughter in Islington, London, before moving to Santa Barbara, California, where he died suddenly in 2001.</p>
<h3>Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.</h3>
<p>Chapter 1 </p>
<p>That evening it was dark early, which was normal for the time of year. It was cold and windy, which was normal. </p>
<p>It started to rain, which was particularly normal. </p>
<p>A spacecraft landed, which was not. </p>
<p>There was nobody around to see it except for some spectacularly stupid quadrupeds who hadn’t the faintest idea what to make of it, or whether they were meant to make anything of it, or eat it, or what. So they did what they did to everything, which was to run away from it and try to hide under each other, which never worked. </p>
<p>It slipped down out of the clouds, seeming to be balanced on a single beam of light. </p>
<p>From a distance you would scarcely have noticed it through the lightning and the storm clouds, but seen from close up it was strangely beautiful—a gray craft of elegantly sculpted form; quite small. </p>
<p>Of course, one never has the slightest notion what size or shape different species are going to turn out to be, but if you were to take the findings of the latest Mid-Galactic Census report as any kind of accurate guide to statistical averages you would probably guess that the craft would hold about six people, and you would be right. </p>
<p>You’d probably guessed that anyway. The Census report, like most such surveys, had cost an awful lot of money and told nobody anything they didn’t already know—except that every single person in the Galaxy had 2.4 legs and owned a hyena. Since this was clearly not true the whole thing eventually had to be scrapped. </p>
<p>The craft slid quietly down through the rain, its dim operating lights seeming to wrap it in tasteful rainbows. It hummed very quietly, a hum that became gradually louder and deeper as it approached the ground and which at an altitude of six inches became a heavy throb. </p>
<p>At last it dropped and was quiet. </p>
<p>A hatchway opened. A short flight of steps unfolded itself. </p>
<p>A light appeared in the opening, a bright light streaming out into the wet night, and shadows moved within. </p>
<p>A tall figure appeared in the light, looked around, flinched, and hurried down the steps, carrying a large shopping bag under his arm. </p>
<p>He turned and gave a single abrupt wave back to the ship. Already the rain was streaming through his hair. </p>
<p>“Thank you,” he called out, “thank you very—” </p>
<p>He was interrupted by a sharp crack of thunder. He glanced up apprehensively, and in response to a sudden thought started quickly to rummage through the large plastic shopping bag, which he now discovered had a hole in the bottom. </p>
<p>It had large characters printed on the side which read (to anyone who could decipher the Centaurian alphabet) DUTY FREE MEGA-MARKET, PORT BRASTA, ALPHA CENTAURI. BE LIKE THE TWENTY-SECOND ELEPHANT WITH HEATED VALUE IN SPACE—BARK! </p>
<p>“Hold on!” the figure called, waving at the ship. </p>
<p>The steps, which had started to fold themselves back through the hatchway, stopped, re-unfolded, and allowed him back in. </p>
<p>He emerged again a few seconds later carrying a battered and threadbare towel which he shoved into the bag. </p>
<p>He waved again, hoisted the bag under his arm, and started to run for the shelter of some trees as, behind him, the spacecraft had already begun its ascent. </p>
<p>Lightning flitted through the sky and made the figure pause for a moment, and then hurry onward, revising his path to give the trees a wide berth. He moved swiftly across the ground, slipping here and there, hunching himself against the rain which was falling now with ever-increasing concentration, as if being pulled from the sky. </p>
<p>His feet sloshed through the mud. Thunder grumbled over the hills. He pointlessly wiped the rain off his face and stumbled on. </p>
<p>More lights. </p>
<p>Not lightning this time, but more diffused and dimmer lights which played slowly over the horizon and faded. </p>
<p>The figure paused again on seeing them, and then redoubled his steps, making directly toward the point on the horizon at which they had appeared. </p>
<p>And now the ground was becoming steeper, sloping upward, and after another two or three hundred yards it led at last to an obstacle. The figure paused to examine the barrier and then dropped the bag over it before climbing over it himself. </p>
<p>Hardly had the figure touched the ground on the other side than there came a machine sweeping out of the rain toward him with lights streaming through the wall of water. The figure pressed back as the machine streaked toward him. It was a low, bulbous shape, like a small whale surfing—sleek, gray, and rounded and moving at terrifying speed. </p>
<p>The figure instinctively threw up his hands to protect himself, but was hit only by a sluice of water as the machine swept past and off into the night. </p>
<p>It was illuminated briefly by another flicker of lightning crossing the sky, which allowed the soaked figure by the roadside a split second to read a small sign at the back of the machine before it disappeared. </p>
<p>To the figure’s apparent incredulous astonishment the sign read “My other car is also a Porsche.” </p>
<p>Chapter 2 </p>
<p>Rob McKenna was a miserable bastard and he knew it because he’d had a lot of people point it out to him over the years and he saw no reason to disagree with them except the obvious one which was that he liked disagreeing with people, particularly people he disliked, which included, at the last count, everybody. </p>
<p>He heaved a sigh and shoved down a gear. </p>
<p>The hill was beginning to steepen and his lorry was heavy with Danish thermostatic radiator controls. </p>
<p>It wasn’t that he was naturally predisposed to be so surly, at least he hoped not. It was just the rain that got him down, always the rain. </p>
<p>It was raining now, just for a change. </p>
<p>It was a particular type of rain that he particularly disliked, particularly when he was driving. He had a number for it. It was rain type 17. </p>
<p>He had read somewhere that the Eskimos had over two hundred different words for snow, without which their conversation would probably have got very monotonous. So they would distinguish between thin snow and thick snow, light snow and heavy snow, sludgy snow, brittle snow, snow that came in flurries, snow that came in drifts, snow that came in on the bottom of your neighbor’s boots all over your nice clean igloo floor, the snows of winter, the snows of spring, the snows you remember from your childhood that were so much better than any of your modern snow, fine snow, feathery snow, hill snow, valley snow, snow that falls in the morning, snow that falls at night, snow that falls all of a sudden just when you were going out fishing, and snow that despite all your efforts to train them, the huskies have pissed on. </p>
<p>Rob McKenna had two hundred and thirty-one different types of rain entered in his little book, and he didn’t like any of them. </p>
<p>He shifted down another gear and the lorry heaved its revs up. It grumbled in a comfortable sort of way about all the Danish thermostatic radiator controls it was carrying. </p>
<p>Since he had left Denmark the previous afternoon, he had been through types 33 (light pricking drizzle which made the roads slippery), 39 (heavy spotting), 47 to 51 (vertical light drizzle through to sharply slanting light to moderate drizzle freshening), 87 and 88 (two finely distinguished varieties of vertical torrential downpour), 100 (postdownpour squalling, cold), all the sea-storm types between 192 and 213 at once, 123, 124, 126, 127 (mild and intermediate cold gusting, regular and syncopated cab-drumming), 11 (breezy droplets), and now his least favorite of all, 17. </p>
<p>Rain type 17 was a dirty blatter battering against his windshield so hard that it didn’t make much odds whether he had his wipers on or off. </p>
<p>He tested this theory by turning them off briefly, but as it turned out the visibility did get quite a lot worse. It just failed to get better again when he turned them back on. </p>
<p>In fact one of the wiper blades began to flap off. </p>
<p>Swish swish swish flop swish swish flop swish swish flop swish flop swish flop flop flap scrape. </p>
<p>He pounded his steering wheel, kicked the floor, thumped his cassette player until it suddenly started playing Barry Manilow, thumped it until it stopped again, and swore and swore and swore and swore and swore. </p>
<p>It was at the very moment that his fury was peaking that there loomed swimmingly in his headlights, hardly visible through the blatter, a figure by the roadside. </p>
<p>A poor bedraggled figure, strangely attired, wetter than an otter in a washing machine, and hitching. </p>
<p>“Poor miserable sod,” thought Rob McKenna to himself, realizing that here was somebody with a better right to feel hard done by than himself, “must be chilled to the bone. Stupid to be out hitching on a filthy night like this. All you get is cold, wet, and lorries driving through puddles at you.” </p>
<p>He shook his head grimly, heaved another sigh, gave the wheel a turn, and hit a large sheet of water square on. </p>
<p>“See what I mean?” he thought to himself as he plowed swiftly through it; “you get some right bastards on the road.” </p>
<p>Splattered in his rearview mirror a couple of seconds later was the reflection of the hitchhiker, drenched by the roadside. </p>
<p>For a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and, satisfied, drove on into the night. </p>
<p>At least it made up for finally having been overtaken by that Porsche he had been diligently blocking for the last twenty miles. </p>
<p>And as he drove on, the rain clouds dragged down the sky after him for, though he did not know it, Rob McKenna was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him and to water him. </p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">In today's world of exponentially increased communication and responsibility, yesterday's methods for staying on top just don't work. </p>
<p>Veteran management consultant and trainer David Allen recognizes that "time management" is useless the minute your schedule is interrupted; "setting priorities" isn't relevant when your email is down; "procrastination solutions" won't help if your goals aren't clear. <br>Allen's premise is simple: our ability to be productive is directly proportional to our ability to relax. Only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve stress-free productivity and unleash our creative potential. He teaches us how to: </p>
<ul><li>Apply the "do it, delegate it, defer it, drop it" rule to get your in-box empty </li>
<li>Reassess goals and stay focused in changing situations </li>
<li>Overcome feelings of confusion, anxiety, and being overwhelmed </li>
<li>Feel fine about what you're not doing </li></ul>
<p>From core principles to proven tricks, <em>Getting Things Done</em> has the potential to transform the way you work -- and the way you experience work. At any level of implementation, David Allen's entertaining and thought-provoking advice shows you how to pick up the pace without wearing yourself down. </p></div>


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<p>*I long for the days before the Last Desolation. </p>
<p>The age before the Heralds abandoned us and the Knights Radiant turned against us. A time when there was still magic in the world and honor in the hearts of men. </p>
<p>The world became ours, and yet we lost it. Victory proved to be the greatest test of all. Or was that victory illusory? Did our enemies come to recognize that the harder they fought, the fiercer our resistance? Fire and hammer will forge steel into a weapon, but if you abandon your sword, it eventually rusts away. </p>
<p>There are four whom we watch. The first is the surgeon, forced to forsake healing to fight in the most brutal war of our time. The second is the assassin, a murderer who weeps as he kills. The third is the liar, a young woman who wears a scholar's mantle over the heart of a thief. The last is the prince, a warlord whose eyes have opened to the ancient past as his thirst for battle wanes. </p>
<p>The world can change. Surgebinding and Shardwielding can return; the magics of ancient days become ours again. These four people are key. </p>
<p>One of them may redeem us. And one of them will destroy us.* </p>
<p>From Brandon Sanderson-who completed Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time-comes The Stormlight Archive, an ambitious new fantasy epic in a unique, richly imagined setting. Roshar is a world relentlessly blasted by awesome tempests, where emotions take on physical form, and terrible secrets hide deep beneath the rocky landscape. </p>
<p><em>Speak again the ancient oaths</em><br><strong>Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.</strong><br><em>and return to men the Shards they once bore. The Knights Radiant must stand again!</em></p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">The eagerly awaited sequel to the #1 <em>New York Times</em> bestselling <em>Oathbringer</em> , from epic fantasy author Brandon Sanderson </p>
<p>After forming a coalition of human resistance against the enemy invasion, Dalinar Kholin and his Knights Radiant have spent a year fighting a protracted, brutal war. Neither side has gained an advantage, and the threat of a betrayal by Dalinar's crafty ally Taravangian looms over every strategic move. </p>
<p>Now, as new technological discoveries by Navani Kholin's scholars begin to change the face of the war, the enemy prepares a bold and dangerous operation. The arms race that follows will challenge the very core of the Radiant ideals, and potentially reveal the secrets of the ancient tower that was once the heart of their strength. </p>
<p>At the same time that Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with his changing role within the Knights Radiant, his Windrunners face their own problem: As more and more deadly enemy Fused awaken to wage war, no more honorspren are willing to bond with humans to increase the number of Radiants. Adolin and Shallan must lead the coalition’s envoy to the honorspren stronghold of Lasting Integrity and either convince the spren to join the cause against the evil god Odium, or personally face the storm of failure.</p></div>


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<p>In <em>Oathbringer</em> , the third volume of the <em>New York Times</em> bestselling Stormlight Archive, humanity faces a new Desolation with the return of the Voidbringers, a foe with numbers as great as their thirst for vengeance. </p>
<p>Dalinar Kholin's Alethi armies won a fleeting victory at a terrible cost: The enemy Parshendi summoned the violent Everstorm, which now sweeps the world with destruction, and in its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified. </p>
<p>Nestled in the mountains high above the storms, in the tower city of Urithiru, Shallan Davar investigates the wonders of the ancient stronghold of the Knights Radiant and unearths dark secrets lurking in its depths. And Dalinar realizes that his holy mission to unite his homeland of Alethkar was too narrow in scope. Unless all the nations of Roshar can put aside Dalinar's blood-soaked past and stand together--and unless Dalinar himself can confront that past--even the restoration of the Knights Radiant will not prevent the end of civilization.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">From #1 <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, a special gift edition of <em>Edgedancer</em> , a short novel of the Stormlight Archive.</p>
<p>Three years ago, Lift asked a goddess to stop her from growing older--a wish she believed was granted. Now, in <em>Edgedancer</em> , the barely teenage nascent Knight Radiant finds that time stands still for no one. Although the young Azish emperor granted her safe haven from an executioner she knows only as Darkness, court life is suffocating the free-spirited Lift, who can't help heading to Yeddaw when she hears the relentless Darkness is there hunting people like her with budding powers. The downtrodden in Yeddaw have no champion, and Lift knows she must seize this awesome responsibility.</p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">Other books by Brandon Sanderson</p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">The Cosmere </p>
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<p><strong>The Mistborn Saga</strong> <br><em>Mistborn: The Final Empire</em> <br><em>The Well of Ascension</em> <br><em>The Hero of Ages</em> <br><em>Alloy of Law</em> <br><em>Shadows of Self</em> <br><em>Bands of Mourning</em></p>
<p><strong>The Stormlight Archive</strong><br><em>The Way of Kings</em><br><em>Words of Radiance</em><br><em>Edgedancer</em> (Novella)<br><em>Oathbringer</em> (forthcoming)</p>
<p><strong>Collection</strong> <br><em>Arcanum Unbounded</em></p>
<p><strong>Other Cosmere Titles</strong> <br><em>Elantris</em> <br><em>Warbreaker</em> <br><em>Rithmatist</em></p>
<p><strong>The Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians Series </strong><br><em>Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians</em> <br><em>The Scrivener's Bones</em> <br><em>The Knights of Crystallia</em> <br><em>The Shattered Lens</em> <br><em>The Dark Talent</em></p>
<p><strong>The Reckoners Series </strong><br><em>Steelheart</em> <br><em>Firefight</em> <br><em>Calamity</em></p>
<p>At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold"><em>Words of Radiance</em> , Book Two of the Stormlight Archive, continues the immersive fantasy epic that <em>The Way of Kings</em> began. </p>
<p>Expected by his enemies to die the miserable death of a military slave, Kaladin survived to be given command of the royal bodyguards, a controversial first for a low-status "darkeyes." Now he must protect the king and Dalinar from every common peril as well as the distinctly uncommon threat of the Assassin, all while secretly struggling to master remarkable new powers that are somehow linked to his honorspren, Syl. </p>
<p>The Assassin, Szeth, is active again, murdering rulers all over the world of Roshar, using his baffling powers to thwart every bodyguard and elude all pursuers. Among his prime targets is Highprince Dalinar, widely considered the power behind the Alethi throne. His leading role in the war would seem reason enough, but the Assassin's master has much deeper motives. </p>
<p>Brilliant but troubled Shallan strives along a parallel path. Despite being broken in ways she refuses to acknowledge, she bears a terrible burden: to somehow prevent the return of the legendary Voidbringers and the civilization-ending Desolation that will follow. The secrets she needs can be found at the Shattered Plains, but just arriving there proves more difficult than she could have imagined. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, at the heart of the Shattered Plains, the Parshendi are making an epochal decision. Hard pressed by years of Alethi attacks, their numbers ever shrinking, they are convinced by their war leader, Eshonai, to risk everything on a desperate gamble with the very supernatural forces they once fled. The possible consequences for Parshendi and humans alike, indeed, for Roshar itself, are as dangerous as they are incalculable.</p></div>


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<p>Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, <em>The Denial of Death</em> is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie -- man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D. Author of <em>On Death And Dying</em> It puts together what others have torn to pieces and rendered useless. It is one of those rare masterpieces that will stimulate your thoughts, your intellectual curiosity, and last but not least, your soul... </p>
<p><em>New York Times Book Review</em> ...a brave work of electrifying intelligence and passion, optimistic and revolutionary, destined to endure... </p>
<p><em>Albuquerque Journal Book Review</em> ...to read it is to know the delight inherent in the unfolding of a mind grasping at new possibilities and forming a new synthesis. <em>The Denial of Death</em> is a great book -- one of the few great books of the 20th or any other century. </p>
<p><em>The Chicago Sun-Times</em> It is hard to overestimate the importance of this book; Becker succeeds brilliantly in what he sets out to do, and the effort was necessary.</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p>After receiving a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Syracuse University, <strong>Dr. Ernest Becker</strong> (1924-1974) taught at the University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco State College, and Simon Fraser University, Canada. He is survived by his wife, Marie, and a foundation that bears his name -- The Ernest Becker Foundation.</p>
<h3>Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.</h3>
<p style="font-weight: bold">Chapter One: Introduction: Human Nature and the Heroic </p>
<p>In times such as ours there is a great pressure to come tip with concepts that help men understand their dilemma; there is an urge toward vital ideas, toward a simplification of needless intellectual complexity. Sometimes this makes for big lies that resolve tensions and make it easy for action to move forward with just the rationalizations that people need. But it also makes for the slow disengagement of truths that help men get a grip on what is happening to them, that tell them where the problems really are. </p>
<p>One such vital truth that has long been known is the idea of <em>heroism;</em> but in "normal" scholarly times we never thought of making much out of it, of parading it, or of using it as a central concept. Yet the popular mind always knew how important it was: as William James -- who covered just about everything -- remarked at the turn of the century: "mankind's common instinct for reality...has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism." Not only the popular mind knew, but philosophers of all ages, and in our culture especially Emerson and Nietzsche -- which is why we still thrill to them: we like to be reminded that our central calling, our main task on this planet, is the heroic. </p>
<p>One way of looking at the whole development of social science since Marx and of psychology since Freud is that it represents a massive detailing and clarification of the problem of human heroism. This perspective sets the tone for the seriousness of our discussion: we now have the scientific underpinning for a true understanding of the nature of heroism and its place in human life. If "mankind's common instinct for reality" is right, we have achieved the remarkable feat of exposing that reality in a scientific way. </p>
<p>One of the key concepts for understanding man's urge to heroism is the idea of "narcissism." As Erich Fromm has so well reminded us, this idea is one of Freud's great and lasting contributions. Freud discovered that each of us repeats the tragedy of the mythical Greek Narcissus: we are hopelessly absorbed with ourselves. If we care about anyone it is usually ourselves first of all. As Aristotle somewhere put it: luck is when the guy next to you gets hit with the arrow. Twenty-five hundred years of history have not changed man's basic narcissism; most of the time, for most of us, this is still a workable definition of luck. It is one of the meaner aspects of narcissism that we feel that practically everyone is expendable except ourselves. We should feel prepared, as Emerson once put it, to recreate the whole world out of ourselves even if no one else existed. The thought frightens us; we don't know how we could do it without others -- yet at bottom the basic resource is there: we could suffice alone if need be, if we could trust ourselves as Emerson wanted. And if we don't feel this trust emotionally, still most of us would struggle to survive with all our powers, no matter how many around us died. Our organism is ready to fill the world all alone, even if our mind shrinks at the thought. This narcissism is what keeps men marching into point-blank fire in wars: at heart one doesn't feel that he will die, he only feels sorry for the man next to him. Freud's explanation for this was that the unconscious does not know death or time: in man's physiochemical, inner organic recesses he feels immortal. </p>
<p>None of these observations implies human guile. Man does not seem able to "help" his selfishness; it seems to come from his animal nature. Through countless ages of evolution the organism has had to protect its own integrity; it had its own physiochemical identity and was dedicated to preserving it. This is one of the main problems in organ transplants: the organism protects itself against foreign matter, even if it is a new heart that would keep it alive. The protoplasm itself harbors its own, nurtures itself against the world, against invasions of its integrity. It seems to enjoy its own pulsations, expanding into the world and ingesting pieces of it. If you took a blind and dumb organism and gave it self-consciousness and a name, if you made it stand out of nature and know consciously that it was unique, then you would have narcissism. In man, physiochemical identity and the sense of power and activity have become conscious. </p>
<p>In man a working level of narcissism is inseparable from selfesteem, from a basic sense of self-worth. We have learned, mostly from Alfred Adler, that what man needs most is to feel secure in his self-esteem. But man is not just a blind glob of idling protoplasm, but a creature with a name who lives in a world of symbols and dreams and not merely matter. His sense of self-worth is constituted symbolically, his cherished narcissism feeds on symbols, on an abstract idea of his own worth, an idea composed of sounds, words, and images, in the air, in the mind, on paper. And this means that man's natural yearning for organismic activity, the pleasures of incorporation and expansion, can be fed limitlessly in the domain of symbols and so into immortality. The single organism can expand into dimensions of worlds and times without moving a physical limb; it can take eternity into itself even as it gaspingly dies. </p>
<p>In childhood we see the struggle for self-esteem at its least disguised. The child is unashamed about what he needs and wants most. His whole organism shouts the claims of his natural narcissism. And this claim can make childhood hellish for the adults concerned, especially when there are several children competing at once for the prerogatives of limitless self-extension, what we might call "cosmic significance." The term is not meant to be taken lightly, because this is where our discussion is leading. We like to speak casually about "sibling rivalry," as though it were some kind of byproduct of growing up, a bit of competitiveness and selfishness of children who have been spoiled, who haven't yet grown into a generous social nature. But it is too all-absorbing and relentless to be an aberration, it expresses the heart of the creature: the desire to stand out, to be the one in creation. When you combine natural narcissism with the basic need for self-esteem, you create a creature who has to feel himself an object of primary value: first in the universe, representing in himself all of life. This is the reason for the daily and usually excruciating struggle with siblings: the child cannot allow himself to be second-best or devalued, much less left out. "You gave him the biggest piece of candy!" "You gave him more juice!" "Here's a little more, then." "Now <em>she's</em> got more juice than me!" "You let her light the fire in the fireplace and not me." "Okay, you light a piece of paper." "But this piece of paper is <em>smaller</em> than the one she lit." And so on and on. An animal who gets his feeling of worth symbolically has to minutely compare himself to those around him, to make sure he doesn't come off second-best. Sibling rivalry is a critical problem that reflects the basic human condition: it is not that children are vicious, selfish, or domineering. It is that they so openly express man's tragic destiny: he must desperately justify himself as an object of primary value in the universe; be must stand out, be a hero, make the biggest possible contribution to world life, show that he <em>counts</em> more than anything or anyone else. </p>
<p>When we appreciate how natural it is for man to strive to be a hero, how deeply it goes in his evolutionary and organismic constitution, how openly he shows it as a child, then it is all the more curious how ignorant most of us are, consciously, of what we really want and need. In our culture anyway, especially in modern times, the heroic seems too big for us, or we too small for it. Tell a young man that he is entitled to be a hero and he will blush. We disguise our struggle by piling up figures in a bank book to reflect privately our sense of heroic worth. Or by having only a little better home in the neighborhood, a bigger car, brighter children. But underneath throbs the ache of cosmic specialness, no matter how we mask it in concerns of smaller scope. Occasionally someone admits that he takes his heroism seriously, which gives most of us a chill, as did U.S. Congressman Mendel Rivers, who fed appropriations to the military machine and said he was the most powerful man since Julius Caesar. We may shudder at the crassness of earthly heroism, of both Caesar and his imitators, but the fault is not theirs, it is in the way society sets up its hero system and in the people it allows to fill its roles. The urge to heroism is natural, and to admit it honest. For everyone to admit it would probably release such pent-up force as to be devastating to societies as they now are. </p>
<p>The fact is that this is what society is and always has been: a symbolic action system, a structure of statuses and roles, customs and rules for behavior, designed to serve as a vehicle for earthly heroism. Each script is somewhat unique, each culture has a different hero system. What the anthropologists call "cultural relativity" is thus really the relativity of herosystems the world over. But each cultural system is a dramatization of earthly heroics; each system cuts out roles for performances of various degrees of heroism: from the "high" heroism of a Churchill, a Mao, or a Buddha, to the "low" heroism of the coal miner, the peasant, the simple priest; the plain, everyday, earthy heroism wrought by gnarled working hands guiding a family through hunger and disease. </p>
<p>It doesn't matter whether the cultural hero-system is frankly magical, religious, and primitive or secular, scientific, and civilized. It is still a mythical hero-system in which people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value, of cosmic specialness, of ultimate usefulness to creation, of unshakable meaning. They earn this feeling by carving out a place in nature, by building an edifice that reflects human value: a temple, a cathedral, a totem pole, a skyscraper, a family that spans three generations. The hope and belief is that the things that man creates in society are of lasting worth and meaning, that they outlive or outshine death and decay, that man and his products count. When Norman O. Brown said that Western society since Newton, no matter how scientific or secular it claims to be, is still as "religious" as any other, this is what he meant: "civilized" society is a hopeful belief and protest that science, money and goods <em>make man count</em> for more than any other animal. In this sense everything that man does is religious and heroic, and yet in danger of being fictitious and fallible. </p>
<p>The question that becomes then the most important one that man can put to himself is simply this: how conscious is he of what he is doing to earn his feeling of heroism? I suggested that if everyone honestly admitted his urge to be a hero it would be a devastating release of truth. It would make men demand that culture give them their due -- a primary sense of human value as unique contributors to cosmic life. How would our modern societies contrive to satisfy such an honest demand, without being shaken to their foundations? Only those societies we today call "primitive" provided this feeling for their members. The minority groups in present-day industrial society who shout for freedom and human dignity are really clumsily asking that they be given a sense of primary heroism of which they have been cheated historically. This is why their insistent claims are so troublesome and upsetting: how do we do such an "unreasonable" thing within the ways in which society is now set up? "They are asking for the impossible" is the way we usually put our bafflement. </p>
<p>But the truth about the need for heroism is not easy for anyone to admit, even the very ones who want to have their claims recognized. There's the rub. As we shall see from our subsequent discussion, to become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic problem of life. Everything painful and sobering in what psychoanalytic genius and religious genius have discovered about man revolves around the terror of admitting what one is doing to earn his self-esteem. This is why human heroics is a blind drivenness that burns people up; in passionate people, a screaming for glory as uncritical and reflexive as the howling of a dog. In the more passive masses of mediocre men it is disguised as they humbly and complainingly follow out the roles that society provides for their heroics and try to earn their promotions within the system: wearing the standard uniforms -- but allowing themselves to stick out, but ever so little and so safely, with a little ribbon or a red boutonniere, but not with head and shoulders. </p>
<p>If we were to peel away this massive disguise, the blocks of repression over human techniques for earning glory, we would arrive at the potentially most liberating question of all, the main problem of human life: How <em>empirically</em> true is the cultural hero system that sustains and drives men? We mentioned the meaner side of man's urge to cosmic heroism, but there is obviously the noble side as well. Man will lay down his life for his country, his society, his family. He will choose to throw himself on a grenade to save his comrades; he is capable of the highest generosity and self-sacrifice. But he has to feel and believe that what he is doing is truly heroic, timeless, and supremely meaningful. The crisis of modern society is precisely that the youth no longer feel heroic in the plan for action that their culture has set up. They don't believe it is empirically true to the problems of their lives and times. We are living a crisis of heroism that reaches into every aspect of our social life: the dropouts of university heroism, of business and career heroism, of political-action heroism; the rise of anti-heroes, those who would be heroic each in his own way or like Charles Manson with his special "family", those whose tormented heroics lash out at the system that itself has ceased to represent agreed heroism. The great perplexity of our time, the churning of our age, is that the youth have sensed -- for better or for worse -- a great social-historical truth: that just as there are useless self-sacrifices in unjust wars, so too is there an ignoble heroics of whole societies: it can be the viciously destructive heroics of Hitler's Germany or the plain debasing and silly heroics of the acquisition and display of consumer goods, the piling up of money and privileges that now characterizes whole ways of life, capitalist and Soviet. </p>
<p>And the crisis of society is, of course, the crisis of organized religion too: religion is no longer valid as a hero system, and so the youth scorn it. If traditional culture is discredited as heroics, then the church that supports that culture automatically discredits itself. If the church, on the other hand, chooses to insist on its own special heroics, it might find that in crucial ways it must work against the culture, recruit youth to be antiheroes to the ways of life of the society they live in. This is the dilemma of religion in our time. </p>
<p style="font-style: italic">Conclusion </p>
<p>f0 What I have tried to do in this brief introduction is to suggest that the problem of heroics is the central one of human life, that it goes deeper into human nature than anything else because it is based on organismic narcissism and on the child's need for selfesteem as <em>the</em> condition for his life. Society itself is a codified here system, which means that society everywhere is a living myth of the significance of human life, a defiant creation of meaning. Every society thus is a "religion" whether it thinks so or not: Soviet "religion" and Maoist "religion" are as truly religious as are scientific and consumer "religion," no matter how much they may try to disguise themselves by omitting religious and spiritual ideas from their lives. As we shall see further on, it was Otto Rank who showed psychologically this religious nature of all human cultural creation; and more recently the idea was revived by Norman O. Brown in his <em>Life Against Death</em> and by Robert Jay Lifton in his <em>Revolutionary Immortality.</em> If we accept these suggestions, then we must admit that we are dealing with <em>the</em> universal human problem; and we must be prepared to probe into it as honestly as possible, to be as shocked by the self-revelation of man as the best thought will allow. Let us pick this thought up with Kierkegaard and take it through Freud, to see where this stripping down of the last 150 years will lead us. If the penetrating honesty of a few books could immediately change the world, then the five authors just mentioned would already have shaken the nations to their foundations. But since everyone is carrying on as though the vital truths about man did not yet exist, it is necessary to add still another weight in the scale of human selfexposure. For twenty-five hundred years we have hoped and believed that if mankind could reveal itself to itself, could widely come to know its own cherished motives, then somehow it would tilt the balance of things in its own favor. </p>
<p>Copyright © 1973 by The Free Press</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">A fresh, personal, and entertaining exploration of a topic that concerns all of us: how to be more productive at work and in every facet of our lives. </p>
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<p>Chris Bailey turned down lucrative job offers to pursue a lifelong dream—to spend a year performing a deep dive experiment into the pursuit of productivity, a subject he had been enamored with since he was a teenager. After obtaining his business degree, he created a blog to chronicle a year-long series of productivity experiments he conducted on himself, where he also continued his research and interviews with some of the world’s foremost experts, from Charles Duhigg to David Allen. Among the experiments that he tackled: Bailey went several weeks with getting by on little to no sleep; he cut out caffeine and sugar; he lived in total isolation for 10 days; he used his smartphone for just an hour a day for three months; he gained ten pounds of muscle mass; he stretched his work week to 90 hours; a late riser, he got up at 5:30 every morning for three months—all the while monitoring the impact of his experiments on the quality and quantity of his work. </p>
<p><em>The Productivity Project</em> —and the lessons Chris learned—are the result of that year-long journey. Among the counterintuitive insights Chris Bailey will teach you: <br>· slowing down to work more deliberately;<br>· shrinking or eliminating the unimportant; <br>· the rule of three; <br>· striving for imperfection; <br>· scheduling <em>less</em> time for important tasks; <br>· the 20 second rule to distract yourself from the inevitable distractions; <br>· and the concept of <em>productive</em> procrastination.<br>In an eye-opening and thoroughly engaging read, Bailey offers a treasure trove of insights and over 25 best practices that will help you accomplish more.</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>"Chris Bailey has tackled the daunting task of personally experimenting with any and every technique you can imagine that could positively affect your productivity. His dedication to the project and his intelligent conclusions, combined with his candor and articulateness, make this a fun, interesting, and useful read!" <strong><br>— David Allen, author of</strong> Getting Things Done </p>
<p>"Chris Bailey might be the most productive man you’d ever hope to meet." <br><strong>— TED Blog</strong> </p>
<p>"Here's a book that promises, in the title, to pay for itself. And, the truth is, it will, in just a few days. And you'll even enjoy the journey."<br><strong>—</strong> <strong>Seth Godin, Author of</strong> Linchpin </p>
<p>"Chris has written the ultimate guidebook for setting your life on fire. Read it, and you’ll not only get more done, you’ll feel better about it too."<br><strong>—</strong> <strong>Laura Vanderkam, author of</strong> I Know How She Does It </p>
<p>"So often we get stuck just doing what we have always done, even if it's not really working. This book helps you cut through all the productivity advice out there to find and test what really works for you." <br><strong>—</strong> <strong>Shawn Achor, positive psychology researcher and</strong> New York Times <strong>bestselling author of</strong> The Happiness Advantage </p>
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<p>" <em>The Productivity Project</em> is well-written, fun, practical and useful all at the same time. I loved this book. It's practical Buddhism at its best!" <br><strong>—</strong> <strong>Marshall Goldsmith, bestselling author of</strong> Triggers <strong>,</strong> MOJO <strong>and</strong> What Got You Here Won’t Get You There </p>
<p>"Chris doesn't just want you to be more productive. He wants you to live a better life. This book is a two-hour ticket to not only becoming more productive, but becoming genuinely happier." <br><strong>—Neil Pasricha, author of</strong> The Book of Awesome <strong>and</strong> The Happiness Equation</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p>Chris Bailey, a graduate of Carleton University in Ottawa, wrote over 216,000 words on the subject of productivity on his blog, ayearofproductivity.com, during a year long productivity project where he conducted intensive research, as well as dozens of productivity experiments on himself to discover how to become as productive as possible. To date, he has written hundreds of articles on the subject, and has garnered coverage in media as diverse as <em>The New York Times</em> , <em>The Huffington Post</em> , <em>New York</em> magazine, TED, <em>Fast Company</em> , and <em>Lifehacker</em>.</p>
<h3>Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.</h3>
<p>Where to Start</p>
<p>Takeaway: Everyone likes the idea of becoming more productive and making positive changes to his or her life. But in practice, both are tough, and having a deep, meaningful reason for becoming more productive will help you sustain your motivation in the long run.</p>
<p>Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes, 40 seconds</p>
<p>A Dream Come True</p>
<p>Before each chapter, I’ve included a takeaway of what you’ll get out of it, so you can prime your mind for what’s to come. I’ve also included an estimate of how long it will take you to read each chapter, based on an average reading speed of 250 words per minute.</p>
<p>I have been enchanted with the idea of becoming an early riser since I can remember. Before starting my project, I would frequently daydream about waking up just a few minutes before my alarm clock sounded at 5:30, propelling myself out of bed to ritualistically prepare a coffee, catch up on the news that had taken place overnight, meditate, and go for a morning run before the rest of the world woke up. In my daydream I also woke up beside Mila Kunis, but that’s for another book.</p>
<p>Suffice it to say, when I started A Year of Productivity, I was determined to wake up at 5:30 every morning--even if it took me all year.</p>
<p>Before my project, as obsessed as I was with productivity, my nighttime and morning routines couldn’t have been less conducive to an early morning routine. After I would finish working for the day (as efficiently as possible, naturally), I would often lose track of time reading, hanging out with friends, or soaking in online cosmology lectures until I was either out of time or energy for the evening. As much as I was in love with the idea of rising early, becoming an early riser would have meant completely changing my nighttime rituals and morning routines, which felt like more than I could handle.</p>
<p>Of all the productivity experiments I conducted during my year of productivity, waking up at 5:30 was easily the most challenging. At first, I found that my 9:30 target bedtime snuck up faster and faster, and that I often had to make the choice: pack things in earlier in the day when I still had lots to do, or stay up late to get everything done and sleep in later. I sometimes found myself going to bed right when I had the most energy, focus, and creativity--I’m a natural late-night person--and so I decided to stay up later. I also wanted to hang out with my friends and my girlfriend when I was finished researching and writing for the day, which would have been impossible if I headed to bed early.</p>
<p>After about six months of chipping away at countless habits to integrate an early morning routine into my life, I settled into a new wake‑up ritual, one where I rewarded myself for waking up early (page 132), shut off my devices from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. (page 186), quit drinking caffeine at noon (page 228), and eased into the ritual by gradually moving my bedtime earlier over the course of a couple of months (page 248). I’ll explain these tactics in detail later on, but needless to say, this was one of those experiments where I learned a lot of valuable lessons the hard way.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, six months in, I had done it: I had woken up at 5:30 every weekday morning for several weeks and settled into a new morning ritual. My morning routine was the stuff I imagined productivity dreams are made of:</p>
<p>5:30–6:00: Wake up; prepare and drink a coffee.</p>
<p>6:00–7:15: Walk to the gym; plan out my entire day while working out.</p>
<p>7:15–8:15: Make a big, healthy breakfast; shower; meditate.</p>
<p>8:15: Reconnect to the internet (after my daily shutoff ritual).</p>
<p>8:15–9:00: Read.</p>
<p>9:00–: Begin working.</p>
<p>I continued to follow the ritual for several months afterward, religiously powering down my devices every night at 8 p.m., heading to bed at 9:30, and waking up promptly at 5:30, feeling virtuous and pleased with my efforts until, one Monday morning, I realized something that stopped me cold in my tracks. I absolutely hated going to bed and waking up early.</p>
<p>After my initial excitement over my new routine wore off, I found myself growing tired of saying no to hanging out with my friends, simply because I had to head to bed early. I couldn’t stand quitting work when I was “in the zone” late at night. Every morning I found I felt groggy for the first hour or two I was awake. And I discovered I much preferred to meditate, work out, read, and plan out my day later on in the day, when I had more energy and attention to bring to the tasks.</p>
<p>Worst of all, the ritual didn’t make me more productive. With my new routine, I found I accomplished what I intended to a lot less often, wrote fewer words on average per day, and had less energy and focus throughout the day. And after doing the research, I discovered that there is absolutely no difference in socioeconomic standing between someone who is an early riser and someone who is a night owl--we are all wired differently, and one routine is not inherently better than another. It’s what you do with your waking hours, I discovered, that makes the difference in how productive you are (I talk more about this on page 250).</p>
<p>As much as I adored the idea of waking up early, in practice I liked waking up later much more.</p>
<p>Productivity with a Purpose</p>
<p>I think the same is true of productivity itself. Everyone likes the idea of taking on more and making positive changes to their life. But in practice, becoming more productive is one of the toughest things you can undertake to do. If it were easy, I probably wouldn’t have dedicated a year of my life to exploring the topic, and there would be no reason for this book to exist.</p>
<p>Though I learned a great many productivity lessons from this yearlong experiment, perhaps the biggest lesson I learned was just how important it is to deeply care about why you want to become more productive.</p>
<p>If I were reading this book instead of writing it, that last sentence is one I might have glossed over, so I think it’s worth repeating: perhaps the biggest lesson I learned from this experiment was just how important it is to deeply care about your productivity goals, about why you want to become more productive.</p>
<p>When I committed to turning my morning and nighttime routines inside out to wake up at 5:30 every morning, I didn’t think much about whether I deeply cared about waking up early. I was in love with the sepia-toned fantasy of being the “productivity guy” who rose while everyone else was still sleeping and got more done than everyone else. I didn’t think much about what it would take to make that a reality, or about whether I actually cared about what was involved in making that change on a deeper level.</p>
<p>Working deliberately and purposefully throughout the day can make or break how productive you are. But having a purpose is just as important. The intention behind your actions is like the shaft behind an arrowhead--it’s pretty difficult to become more productive day in and day out when you don’t care about what you want to accomplish on a deeper level. This productivity insight is by far the least sexy tip in this book, but it may be the most important. Investing countless hours becoming more productive, or taking on new habits or routines, is a waste if you don’t actually care about the changes you’re trying to make. And you won’t have the motivation to sustain these changes in the long term.</p>
<p>Sexy Values</p>
<p>The reason I have continued to research and explore productivity over the last decade is that productivity is connected with so many things I value at a deep level: efficiency, meaning, control, discipline, growth, freedom, learning, staying organized. These values are what motivate me to spend so much of my leisure time reading and seeking out online science lectures.</p>
<p>Waking up at 5:30 every morning? Not so much.</p>
<p>A long procession of people before me have written about “acting in accordance with your values,” and to be honest, whenever I’ve read those kinds of statements about values, I have almost always tuned out, or simply read on. Unlike Mila Kunis, values are anything but sexy. But they are most definitely worth thinking about when you’re planning on making major changes to your life. If I had taken just a few minutes to think about how waking up early was connected with what I deeply cared about--not at all--I could have saved myself months of willpower and sacrifice and done something much more productive with that time. Questioning why you want to make a change to your life can save you countless hours or even days of time, when you discover that you don’t really want to make the change in the first place.</p>
<p>The Practical Part</p>
<p>I know right now you’re deep in “reading mode” and aren’t eager to stop reading and perform a quick challenge, despite how much more productive doing so will make you.</p>
<p>But making the jump between knowing and doing is what productivity is all about.</p>
<p>Let’s gently transition from “reading” into “doing” and try the first productivity challenge of the book. Don’t worry, it’s a lot easier than you think: most of the challenges in this book will take you less than ten minutes, and all you need for most of them is a pen and a sheet or two of paper. There isn’t a challenge in every chapter, but I have added them when I think they will be worth your time. I know your time is the most valuable and limited resource you have, and I promise I won’t waste any of it. For every minute you spend on these challenges, I promise you’ll make that time back at least ten times over.</p>
<p>Ready to go?</p>
<p>Go ahead and grab yourself a pen and paper, and then read on.</p>
<p>The Values Challenge</p>
<p>Time required: 7 minutes</p>
<p>Energy/Focus Required: 6/10</p>
<p>Value: 8/10</p>
<p>Fun: 3/10</p>
<p>What you’ll get out of it: Access to your deeper reasons for becoming more productive. If you’re using the tactics in this book to take more on, you could potentially save countless hours by only focusing on the productivity goals you care about. The return on this challenge can be massive.</p>
<p>I know that if I simply suggested you make a list of your deepest-held values and then create a plan how to act in accordance with them, you’d either put down this book to write a negative review on Amazon, or skip ahead to see what other productivity tips I have up my sleeve.</p>
<p>For that reason, I’ve instead selected a few very simple questions for you to ask yourself that I’ve found helpful when examining new routines and habits. I’ve personally done every single one of the challenges in this book and can vouch for their efficacy. They work. I’m not just pulling them out of the ether to waste your time. To start with:</p>
<p>Imagine this: As a result of implementing the tactics in this book, you have two more hours of leisure time every day. How will you use that time? What new things will you take on? What will you spend more time on?</p>
<p>When you picked up this book, what productivity goals, or new habits, routines, or rituals did you have in mind that you wanted to take on?</p>
<p>Here are some important questions regarding your values and goals to think about.</p>
<p>Go deep. Ask yourself: What deep-rooted values are associated with your productivity goals? Why do you want to become more productive? If you find yourself coming up with a lot of values you deeply care about (like meaning, community, relationships, freedom, learning, etc.), chances are you care about the goal on a deep personal level, and the change you have in mind is probably worth making. If you find yourself blustering your way through this exercise, maybe a particular change or goal isn’t in tune with your values and is not really all that important to you. (Google “list of values” for a few great lists to start with.)</p>
<p>If thinking about values is too daunting to you, fill in this blank with each change you want to make: I deeply care about this because _____. Spin off as many reasons as you can to determine whether you care about each change on a deeper level.</p>
<p>Another quick shortcut to determine if a change is meaningful to you: fast-forward to when you’re on your deathbed. Ask yourself: Would I regret doing more or less of this?</p>
<p>I believe the point of greater productivity is to carve out more time for the things that are actually meaningful to you.</p>
<p>But tasks and commitments aren’t valuable only because they are meaningful to you. They can also be valuable because they have a significant impact in your work.</p>
<p>Not All Tasks Are Created Equal</p>
<p>Takeaway: Not all tasks are created equal; there are certain tasks in your work that, for every minute you spend on them, let you accomplish more than your other tasks. Taking a step back from your work to identify your highest-impact tasks will let you invest your time, attention, and energy in the right things.</p>
<p>Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes, 47 seconds</p>
<p>Meditating for Thirty-Five Hours</p>
<p>I learned the hard way how important it was to slow down and work more deliberately when I abandoned my meditation practice. So I decided to conduct an experiment to get to the bottom of just how much meditation and slowing down impacted my productivity--and designed an experiment to meditate for thirty-five hours over six days.</p>
<p>As a seasoned meditator I was no stranger to meditating for long stretches of time. Before the experiment, I had meditated for thirty minutes every day for several years, practiced meditation with my Buddhist meditation group every week, and attended an occasional meditation retreat, where I lived in total silence for days at a time while meditating with other attendees for five or six hours every day.</p>
<p>Thirty-five hours of meditation in a week would be a lot for even our old friend the seasoned monk, who takes an hour to do anything. But I was too curious not to do it. To spice things up, throughout the week I also performed the same simple chores and tasks I would usually undertake, but in a mindful state.</p>
<p>While running the experiment, I tried my best to remain as productive as possible during the time when I wasn’t meditating, so I could observe the day-to-day effects of meditation on my energy levels, focus, and productivity.</p></div>


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<p>Long before danger was a book for boys, there was <em>The American Boy's Handy Book</em> by Daniel Beard--a beloved classic by one of the original founders of the Boy Scouts of America. <em>The American Boy's Handy Book</em> was designed to provide hundreds of activities for restless young boys--adventures and games, indoors and out, in every season of the year. It was originally published in 1882 and became an instant bestseller. </p>
<p>Now, this much-loved classic is back in print for a new generation to enjoy. If you're not too young to fly a kite, or too old to enjoy a day of good fishing, <em>The American Boy's Handy Book</em> is chock full of games and activities just for you! There's something for boys of every age and for every day of the year in this book:<br>Building and flying your own kite<br>Making an aquarium<br>Rigging and sailing small boats<br>Camping without a tent<br>Making a corn stalk fiddle<br>Building a snow fort<br>Daniel Beard, a founding member of the Boy Scouts of America, firmly believed in letting boys make their own playthings with their hands, to encourage them to value their own work and gain skills needed to invent, construct and dream successfully. This is truer today than ever before--in a world of video games and cell phones. Welcome the joys of childhood back into your children's lives with <em>The American Boy's Handy Book</em> , and help them discover hobbies, games and activities that will stimulate their imagination and create a sense of adventure in the real world around us.</p></div>


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<p style="font-style: italic">We think we’re relating to other people–but actually we’re all playing games. </p>
<p>Forty years ago, <em>Games People Play</em> revolutionized our understanding of what really goes on during our most basic social interactions. More than five million copies later, Dr. Eric Berne’s classic is as astonishing–and revealing–as it was on the day it was first published. This anniversary edition features a new introduction by Dr. James R. Allen, president of the International Transactional Analysis Association, and Kurt Vonnegut’s brilliant <em>Life</em> magazine review from 1965.<br>We play games all the time–sexual games, marital games, power games with our bosses, and competitive games with our friends. Detailing status contests like “Martini” (I know a better way), to lethal couples combat like “If It Weren’t For You” and “Uproar,” to flirtation favorites like “The Stocking Game” and “Let’s You and Him Fight,” Dr. Berne exposes the secret ploys and unconscious maneuvers that rule our intimate lives.<br>Explosive when it first appeared, <em>Games People Play</em> is now widely recognized as the most original and influential popular psychology book of our time. It’s as powerful and eye-opening as ever.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">Jenny Blake, author of Life After College and former career development program manager at Google, reveals how to methodically make your next career move by doubling down on what is already working. </p>
<p>Careers are not linear, predictable ladders any longer; they are fluid trajectories. No matter our age, life stage, bank account balance, or seniority, we are all being asked to navigate career changes much more frequently than in years past. The average employee tenure in America is just four to five years, and even those roles change dramatically within that time. Our economy now demands that we create businesses and careers based on creativity, growth, and impact. In this dynamic world of work, the only move that matters is your next one. </p>
<p>Drawing from her own experience and those of other successful pivoters, Jenny Blake has created a four-stage process that teaches anyone how to seamlessly and continually: </p>
<ul><li>Double-down on existing strengths, interests, and experiences </li>
<li>Find new opportunities and identify skills to develop without falling prey to analysis-paralysis and compare-and-despair </li>
<li>Run small experiments to determine next steps </li>
<li>Take smart risks to launch with confidence in a new direction </li></ul>
<p>This book is for anyone searching for an answer to the question, "What's next?" </p>
<p>Whether you have hit a plateau in your perfect-on-paper job, are considering taking on a new role in your current job, are thinking about starting your own business, or you want to move into a new industry altogether, one thing remains clear: your career success depends on your ability to determine your next best move. </p>
<p>If change is the only constant, let's get better at it. </p>
<p style="font-style: italic">From the Hardcover edition.</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>"A sharply reasoned and immensely practical guide to crafting a meaningful working life in an unpredictable world." <br>— <strong>Cal Newport</strong> , author of <em>Deep Work</em> </p>
<p>"If you don't manage your career, who will? Jenny Blake is here to remind us that we live in a different time, and the possibilities are endless—as long as we're willing to pivot." <br>— <strong>Seth Godin</strong> , author of <em>What To Do When It's Your Turn</em> </p>
<p>"If you should trust anyone in the career space about the way to thrive in the new world of work, it is Jenny Blake. <em>Pivot</em> is packed with practical, actionable and repeatable ways to remain relevant and highly employable. Jenny shares her signature killer tools and processes for the benefit of us all."<br>— <strong>Pamela Slim</strong> , author of <em>Body of Work</em> and <em>Escape from Cubicle Nation</em> </p>
<p>"To pivot well is the difference between millions and failure. Former Googler and entrepreneur Jenny Blake (one of my favorite human beings) dissects the pivot, how to do it, and how to do it right.” <br>— <strong>James Altucher</strong> , author of <em>Choose Yourself</em> and <em>Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth</em> </p>
<p>"It's not a matter of <em>if</em> you'll need to pivot your career, it's a matter of <em>when</em>. Let Jenny Blake show you <em>how</em> with this wildly practical guide to the career changes headed your way." <br>— <strong>Jon Acuff</strong> , author of <em>Do Over</em> </p>
<p>"Changing jobs or careers can be daunting. <em>Pivot</em> is an invaluable guide for planning and succeeding in your next professional reinvention."<br>— <strong>Dorie Clark</strong> , author of <em>Reinventing You</em> and <em>Stand Out</em> , and adjunct professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business </p>
<p>“Feeling stuck? It's time to try something new. All that stands between you and your next adventure is a bit of strategy, planning, and preparation. If a change is in your future, <em>Pivot</em> is your guide.”<br>— <strong>Josh Kaufman</strong> , bestselling author of <em>The Personal MBA</em> and <em>The First 20 Hours</em> </p>
<p>" <em>Pivot</em> is a book you will turn to again and again, whether you're seeking a new career direction, a second career after retirement, or just on the lookout for new ways to use your talents. Jenny Blake takes a strength-based approach to managing the risk that comes with making a change and provides tons of helpful examples and exercises.”<br>— <strong>Daniel H. Pink</strong> , author of <em>To Sell is Human</em> and <em>Drive</em> </p>
<p>"Non-traditional career journeys are not only the new normal; they're how innovators throughout history changed their world and ours. With actionable insights and lucid prose, Jenny Blake illuminates the path to building your own destiny."<br>— <strong>Shane Snow</strong> , bestselling author of <em>Smartcuts</em> and co-founder of Contently </p>
<p>"Wondering what your next move is? Read this book! Jenny Blake is one of the wisest and freshest voices on the subject of career development, and this is her best work yet. In <em>Pivot</em> , you will hear the good news: that you can get paid to do what you love. It may not look like what you thought, and it may require some personal growth, but you can find the work you were meant to do. You just have to pivot." <br>— <strong>Jeff Goins</strong> , best-selling author of <em>The Art of Work</em> </p>
<p>"Are the tectonic plates below your sturdy career suddenly splitting into a deep abyss of unknown? Let this book be your rope ladder out." <br>— <strong>Neil Pasricha</strong> , author of <em>The Happiness Equation</em> and <em>1,000 Awesome Things</em> </p>
<p>"If you think life is a highway, then you've got it wrong. It's more like a winding path through an unpredictable forest. Not only do you have to wade the swamp and battle the beasts, but time after time you come to a crossroads. Left? Right? Straight ahead? Jenny Blake's new book will help you find the wisdom and resources to make the best choices, move into the sunlight and end up where you want to be." <br>— <strong>Michael Bungay Stanier</strong> , Author of <em>The Coaching Habit</em> and <em>Do More Great Work</em> </p>
<p>“We live in a time of rapid evolution, and we develop skills quickly now by absorbing many shorter term work experiences, so we can become what Jenny Blake calls <em>impacters</em> in our careers. This book gives you a solid roadmap to making the right call about career changes that will help you discover what you’re truly built for. Courage, consciousness, and competence—that’s what <em>Pivot</em> offers you. It’s excellent!”<br>— <strong>Penney Peirce</strong> , author of <em>The Intuitive Way</em> , <em>Frequency</em> and <em>Leap of Perception</em> </p>
<p>"The book is fantastic. No matter where you are in your career, <em>Pivot</em> is provokingly relevant."<br>— <strong>Dr. Tom Guarriello</strong> , founder of RoboPsych and founding faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts, Masters in Branding </p>
<p>"Today, the average person has eleven jobs and three to six careers, which is why <em>Pivot</em> is essential reading for every professional. Let Jenny be your coach, giving you the confidence and tools required to make your next career transition. Whether you're an employee, freelancer or entrepreneur, this book will help you identify the skills you have or need that will lead to your next opportunity. Jenny has been through career transitions and has successfully navigated them on her own, which makes her the perfect spokesperson for helping you do the same. <em>Pivot</em> is the book that you'll need to read multiple times through your life because change is constant and often times unexpected!"<br>— <strong>Dan Schawbel</strong> , Author of <em>Promote Yourself</em> and <em>Me 2.0</em> </p>
<p>“Whether you’re considering a career change, job change or figuring out what to do next, Jenny Blake’s <em>Pivot</em> is the book you need. It’s a comprehensive, practical, must-have guide to your pivot.”<br>— <strong>Susan RoAne</strong> , keynote speaker and author of *How To Work a Room </p>
<ul><li>"Well-researched, well-written, and well-organized, this book will appeal to those willing to invest time, energy, and effort into the process of "pivoting" their careers for the better."<br>—Library Journal --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.</li></ul>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p><strong>Jenny Blake</strong> is a career and business strategist and international speaker who helps people build sustainable, dynamic careers they love. She pivoted from studying political science and communications at UCLA to become the first employee at a political polling start-up in Silicon Valley. She then moved to Google, where she spent over five years in training and career development while also writing her first book, <em>Life After College</em>. Jenny left Google in 2011 to take her consulting business full time. A San Francisco native, she now lives in New York City. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.</p>
<h3>Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.</h3>
<p>High Net Growth </p>
<p>I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success. </p>
<p>-Steve Martin, Born Standing Up </p>
<p>I was sitting behind a card table in the sticky Texas heat at the South by Southwest Conference in 2011, signing copies of Life After College at a small launch party. The books were not even in stores yet-they were truly "hot off the press." The first person in line walked up to the table and, as I started signing, asked, "So . . . what's next?" </p>
<p>I stuttered and stammered through an awkward reply. Even though he had the best intentions, I could not help but feel a bit deflated. It was so strange. Here was this massive project, this life goal embodied in a bound stack of paper, sitting in my hands after three years of staring down my gremlins to write it, and people were already asking what's next. </p>
<p>The truth was, I had no idea. I had just started three months of unpaid leave from Google, and as regularly as brushing my teeth, I agonized over my own next career move as the clock on my sabbatical ticked down. Every day I struggled with what the right decision would be: return to Mountain View after my book tour, ask to work part time from New York City, or leave the company altogether? Should I make the safe, secure choice? Or should I take the risk of leaving and do the thing that terrified and excited me most by taking my own business full time? </p>
<p>Though I loved my time at Google-it was the best five-year MBA I could ask for-ultimately I felt I could make the biggest contribution if I pursued a new direction. I ran the numbers: I could support up to 35,000 Googlers at the time through internal career development programs, or I could leave and try to expand my reach and global impact to a far greater number, following my personal mission to be as helpful as possible to as many people as possible. </p>
<p>Some people measure their lives in terms of money, orienting their careers around acquiring wealth and material markers of success. Those who have accumulated financial wealth are considered high net worth individuals. But for the vast majority of people I encounter, money is not the number one driver of purpose and fulfillment. It is only a partial means to that end. A study by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton confirms this: once people surpass $75,000 in annual net income ($82,000 in today's dollars), they experience no statistically significant bump in their day-to-day emotional well-being. </p>
<p>For many, money is nice to have, but not at the expense of soul-crushing work, if they have the economic flexibility to choose otherwise. The people I am talking about, and the ones for whom this book will resonate most, are those who are unwilling to settle for a career of phoning it in. They are willing to pay dues, but are not prepared to sit stalled for long, unable to see the value or impact of their work. </p>
<p>These individuals optimize for high net growth and impact, not just high net worth. I call them impacters for short. Impacters love learning, taking action, tackling new projects, and solving problems. They are generous and cooperative, and imbued with a strong desire to make a difference. </p>
<p>Impacters aim first and foremost for a sense of momentum and expansion. They ask, "Am I learning?" When their inward desire for growth is being met, they turn their attention outward, seeking to make a positive impact on their families, companies, communities, and global societies. Often these happen in tandem; by seeking problems they can fix and tackling them, impacters meet their needs for exploration and challenge, uncovering callings along the way. </p>
<p>Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The Psychology of Success, discovered in her research that the most successful people are those with a growth mindset. These are people who believe that their basic qualities are things they can cultivate through their efforts, rather than believing their gifts (or lack of them) are fixed traits. The truth, Dweck says, is that brains and talent are just the starting point. "The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset," Dweck writes. "This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives." </p>
<p>Maintaining a growth mindset is critical to navigating a pivot successfully. By seeing change as an opportunity, rather than a personal shortcoming or obstacle, you will be much more likely to find creative solutions based on what excites you, rather than subpar choices clouded by fear. Making career moves based solely on running from unhappiness and avoiding fear is like trying to fix a gaping wound with a Band-Aid; the solution does not stay in place for long. With a growth mindset, you will be open to new ideas, observant in your experimentation, deliberate in your implementation, and flexible in the face of change. </p>
<p>Fixed anything doesn't work for impacters, who are allergic to stagnation and boredom. Author Tim Ferriss captured this sentiment in The 4-Hour Workweek, saying, "The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is . . . boredom." It turns out that boredom itself can induce stress, causing the same physical discomfort as too much work: increased heart rate and cortisol levels, as well as muscle tension, stomachaches, and headaches. </p>
<p>For impacters, boredom is a symptom of fulfillment deficiency-of not maximizing for growth and impact-rather than a sign of inherent laziness. As University of Waterloo professor of neuroscience James Danckert wrote, "We tend to think of boredom as someone lazy, as a couch potato. It's actually when someone is motivated to engage with their environment and all attempts to do so fail. It's aggressively dissatisfying." </p>
<p>In her 1997 study, Dr. Amy Wrzesniewski, associate professor of organizational behavior at Yale University's School of Management, proposed that people see their work as a job, career, or calling. Those with a job orientation see work as a means to the end of paying the bills; those with a career orientation are more likely to emphasize success, status, and prestige; and those with a calling describe work as integral to their lives, a core part of their identity and a fulfilling reward in itself. Impacters fall clearly into the second category and aspire to the third, if they are not already there. </p>
<p>Impacters are not just asking What did I earn? but What did I learn? What did I create? What did I contribute? They measure their quality of life by how much they are learning, challenged, and contributing. If they are doing all three intelligently and intentionally, they work hard to ensure that the money will follow. </p>
<p>It is not that impacters are not interested in money-they are. They have no desire to live as starving artists. They know it is challenging, if not impossible, to focus on others if one's own basic needs are not met first. But when faced with the prospect of a career plateau, they would make the horizontal move, leave the cushy corporate job, or bootstrap their own business to prioritize growth and impact. A person who aims for learning and contribution may rank intellectual capital over financial capital if pressed to choose, but often ends up wealthy in both. </p>
<p>Take Christian Golofaro and John Scaife, who traded coffee and cotton in the open outcry pits on Wall Street for five years. Tired of the daily pressures of their jobs and looking for meaning beyond buying and selling commodities, they pooled their money in 2014 to start an urban farming business in Red Hook, Brooklyn. They sought to help revolutionize food production by bringing fresh, local, pesticide-free produce to New York City year-round. They were more inspired as impacters in their new business, SpringUps, than they ever were in finance. </p>
<p>Though he spent thousands of hours in high school and college preparing for a career in medicine, Travis Hellstrom decided to join the Peace Corps after graduation instead. He gave up his full ride to medical school and moved to Mongolia, where he served in the Peace Corps for over three years, living on two hundred dollars a month. When Travis reflects on the decision, he says, "It took a lot of soul-searching and being okay with disappointing myself and others, but I left my life and found my calling." After he returned, Travis pivoted again to nonprofit coaching and community management. Several years later, he parlayed that independent consulting work into a role as chair of the Mission-Driven Organizations graduate program at Marlboro University. </p>
<p>Impacters continue learning and contributing throughout their working lives, which often extend far past what is traditionally thought of as retirement age. When I asked Kyle Durand about his impending retirement from the military after twenty-seven years of service, his sentiments reflected those of many people I know who have no plans to retire in the traditional sense. </p>
<p>"I think retirement is an antiquated notion. The whole idea that you work for most of your adult life in order to eventually do the things you want is outmoded," Kyle said. "My retirement from the military is simply closing the chapter on that part of my career, but it is not the end of my working days by any stretch. Now I can shift into building my businesses full time. That is my future, part of my legacy. That is how I want to make an impact with the people I care about." </p>
<p>Christian, John, Travis, and Kyle pivoted in new directions that were more aligned with their values, interests, and goals, even though there was not a guarantee of success. As impacters, they saw these changes as opportunities for growth and recognized that their ability to learn and adapt would help them land on their feet no matter what. This helped them maintain a positive outlook throughout their pivots, knowing they would benefit from following their instincts and aspirations instead of societal expectations, no matter the outcome. </p>
<p>As I was writing this book, many of the people I initially interviewed returned six months or one year later and said things like, "Don't bother putting my story in the book. I am pivoting again." </p>
<p>This manifested in a variety of ways: they got poached by another company for an even better role; their company folded, got acquired, or got sold; they decided not to pursue a new skill or industry after all; they realized entrepreneurship was or was not for them; or they shifted their business into a more promising new direction. </p>
<p>Hearing these updates did not surprise me, nor did it mark their initial pivot as a failure. Instead, they are prime examples of what it means to be high net growth and impact individuals. I expect to hear that impacters are pivoting and adjusting dynamically at every turn. </p>
<p>For a directory of people featured in this book and what they are up to now, visit PivotMethod.com/people; for audio interviews and episodes from the Pivot Podcast, visit JennyBlake.me/podcast. </p>
<p>Career Operating Modes </p>
<p>An essential facet of the Pivot mindset is self-awareness. How are you currently showing up in your day-to-day work? Are you operating at your desired energy levels, creative output, and impact? I have observed four primary Career Operating Modes among pivoters: inactive, reactive, proactive, and innovative. The first two are impacter stressors, the latter two are sweet spots: </p>
<p>Inactive: Does not seek changes; paralyzed by fear, uncertainty, and self-doubt; covers up career or life dissatisfaction with unhealthy habits, such as numbing out with excessive amounts of food, alcohol, TV, video games, and so on; feels and acts like a victim of circumstances. </p>
<p>Reactive: Mimics others' models for success without originality; follows instructions to the letter; waits for inspiration to strike; "phones it in" at work; feels unhappy, but does not inquire into why or what to do about it; lets fear overrule planning for the future and subsequent action steps. </p>
<p>Proactive: Seeks new projects; actively learns new skills; is open to change; improves existing programs; makes connections with others; takes ownership even within existing leadership structures; has a giver mentality, willing and interested in helping others. May not be fully using innate talents, but is exploring what they are and how to amplify them. </p>
<p>Innovative: In addition to proactive mode qualities, fully taps into unique strengths; focuses on purpose-driven work and making meaningful contributions; is energized by a strong vision for new projects with a clear plan for making them happen; does not just improve existing structures, but creates new solutions to benefit others. </p>
<p>Impacters thrive in situations where they are able to be proactive and, even more so, innovative in driving their career forward, implementing new ideas and creatively solving problems, stretching to the edges of what is possible for themselves and the companies they start or work for. When impacters find themselves in inactive or reactive operating mode, they look to pivot again toward a new, more engaging opportunity. </p>
<p>Although it is true that some people may work in inactive or reactive mode for their entire careers, this is not a life that impacters can stomach. The boredom, anxiety, and feeling of standing still becomes increasingly intolerable, often manifesting in physical symptoms such as headaches, getting sick more frequently, or worse. </p>
<p>At these critical pivot points, impacters must recognize this tension and take action. Otherwise the unhappiness from staying still for too long compounds, making the career confusion feel insurmountable, and taking it from conundrum to crisis. </p>
<p>Though they may get restless more easily, impacters do have a distinct advantage: by seeing career boosts and setbacks as learning opportunities, all outcomes become fodder for growth. Nassim Nicholas Taleb captures this concept in the six-word title of his book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. </p>
<p>Antifragile organisms do not simply withstand change and survive it; they become better because of it. A glass is fragile. If you drop it, it breaks. A tree is resilient. In strong winds, it sways but stays standing, more or less remaining the same. Organisms that are antifragile actually benefit from shocks. Taleb invokes Hydra, the creature from Greek mythology: when one of Hydra's many heads is cut off, two grow back in its place. The tough-times clichŽ is true: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. According to Taleb, antifragile organisms "thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors," and "love adventure, risk, and uncertainty." </p>
<p>Love risk and uncertainty? Huh? Aren't these things to be mitigated, if not entirely eliminated? Not if you want to be antifragile in a world that is ruled by them. Impacters find ways to thrive in uncertainty and disorder. Rather than merely reacting to randomness or becoming paralyzed by it, they look for opportunities to alchemize what is already working into what comes next. --This text refers to the paperback edition.</p></div>


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<p>How to find guilt-free time for what you really want to do, and why it matters </p>
<p>Do you feel like you’re always busy, even as your to-do list continues to grow? </p>
<p>Do you think you can’t keep up as it is, let alone add another thing to your plate? </p>
<p>An award-winning journalist, avid reader and new mom, Karma Brown dreamed of writing her first novel. But between diapers and tight deadlines, how could she? Like so many of us, she felt stretched taut and hyper-scheduled, her time a commodity over which she had lost control. For Brown, the answer to this problem was to rise earlier every day and use that time to write. Although she experienced missteps along the way, after committing to her alarm clock and an online community of early risers, she completed a debut novel that became a national bestseller. </p>
<p>In The 4% Fix, Karma Brown reveals the latest research about time management and goal-setting and shares strategies that have worked for her as well as for others. Refreshingly, her jargon-free approach doesn’t include time-tracking spreadsheets, tips on how to squeeze in yoga exercises while cooking dinner, or methods that add bulk to those never-ending lists. </p>
<p>How will you use this one hour—only 4% of your day—to change your life?</p></div>


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<p>In 2019, mobility experts Melissa and Chris Bruntlett began a new adventure in Delft in the Netherlands. They had packed up their family in Vancouver, BC, and moved to Delft to experience the biking city as residents rather than as visitors. A year earlier they had become unofficial ambassadors for Dutch cities with the publication of their first book <em>Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality</em>. </p>
<p>In <em>Curbing Traffic: The Human Case for Fewer Cars in Our Lives,</em> Melissa and Chris Bruntlett chronicle their experience living in the Netherlands and the benefits that result from treating cars as visitors rather than owners of the road. They weave their personal story with research and interviews with experts and Delft locals to help readers share the experience of living in a city designed for people. </p>
<p>In the planning field, little attention is given to the effects that a “low-car” city can have on the human experience at a psychological and sociological level. Studies are beginning to surface that indicate the impact that external factors—such as sound—can have on our stress and anxiety levels. Or how the systematic dismantling of freedom and autonomy for children and the elderly to travel through their cities is causing isolation and dependency. </p>
<p>In <em>Curbing Traffic,</em> the Bruntletts explain why these investments in improving the built environment are about more than just getting from place to place more easily and comfortably. The insights will help decision makers and advocates to better understand and communicate the human impacts of low-car cities: lower anxiety and stress, increased independence, social autonomy, inclusion, and improved mental and physical wellbeing. </p>
<p>The book is organized around the benefits that result from thoughtfully curbing traffic, resulting in a city that is: child-friendly, connected, trusting, feminist, quiet, therapeutic, accessible, prosperous, resilient, and age-friendly. </p>
<p>Planners, public officials, and citizen activists should have a greater understanding of the consequences that building for cars has had on communities (of all sizes). <em>Curbing Traffic</em> provides relatable, emotional, and personal reasons why it matters and inspiration for exporting the low-car city.</p></div>


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<p>The story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior "tempter" named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of a British man, known only as "the Patient". </p>
<p>Screwtape holds an administrative post in the bureaucracy ("Lowerarchy") of Hell, and acts as a mentor to Wormwood, the inexperienced tempter. In the body of the thirty-one letters which make up the book, Screwtape gives Wormwood detailed advice on various methods of undermining faith and promoting sin in the Patient, interspersed with observations on human nature and Christian doctrine. Wormwood and Screwtape live in a peculiarly morally reversed world, where individual benefit and greed are seen as the greatest good, and neither demon is capable of comprehending or acknowledging true human virtue when he sees it.</p></div>


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<p>From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, the Mistborn series is a heist story of political intrigue and magical, martial-arts action. </p>
<p>Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is now on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds. </p>
<p>Kelsier, Vin, Elend, Sazed, Spook, and the rest are now part of history—or religion. Yet even as science and technology are reaching new heights, the old magics of Allomancy and Feruchemy continue to play a role in this reborn world. Out in the frontier lands known as the Roughs, they are crucial tools for the brave men and women attempting to establish order and justice. One such is Waxillium Ladrian, a rare Twinborn, who can Push on metals with his Allomancy and use Feruchemy to become lighter or heavier at will. After twenty years in the Roughs, Wax has been forced by family tragedy to return to the metropolis of Elendel. Now he must reluctantly put away his guns and assume the duties and dignity incumbent upon the head of a noble house. Or so he thinks, until he learns the hard way that the mansions and elegant tree-lined streets of the city can be even more dangerous than the dusty plains of the Roughs. Other Tor books by Brandon Sanderson The Cosmere The Stormlight Archive The Way of Kings Words of Radiance Edgedancer (Novella) Oathbringer The Mistborn trilogy Mistborn: The Final Empire The Well of Ascension The Hero of Ages Mistborn: The Wax and Wayne series Alloy of Law Shadows of Self Bands of Mourning Collection Arcanum Unbounded Other Cosmere novels Elantris Warbreaker The Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians The Scrivener's Bones The Knights of Crystallia The Shattered Lens The Dark Talent The Rithmatist series The Rithmatist Other books by Brandon Sanderson The Reckoners Steelheart Firefight Calamity</p></div>

<p>Fresh from the success of <em>The Way of Kings,</em> Brandon Sanderson, best known for completing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time®, takes a break to return to the world of the bestselling Mistborn series.  </p><p>Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is now on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds.  </p><p>Kelsier, Vin, Elend, Sazed, Spook, and the rest are now part of history—or religion. Yet even as science and technology are reaching new heights, the old magics of Allomancy and Feruchemy continue to play a role in this reborn world. Out in the frontier lands known as the Roughs, they are crucial tools for the brave men and women attempting to establish order and justice.   </p><p>One such is Waxillium Ladrian, a rare Twinborn, who can Push on metals with his Allomancy and use Feruchemy to become lighter or heavier at will.  After twenty years in the Roughs, Wax has been forced by family tragedy to return to the metropolis of Elendel. Now he must reluctantly put away his guns and assume the duties and dignity incumbent upon the head of a noble house. Or so he thinks, until he learns the hard way that the mansions and elegant tree-lined streets of the city can be even more dangerous than the dusty plains of the Roughs. </p><p>**</p>


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<p>Brandon Sanderson creates worlds, and those worlds are linked. His universe spans the Stormlight Archive, the Mistborn series the tales of Elantris, and others, comprising a unique constellation of vividly imagined realms known as the Cosmere. </p>
<p>Now for the first time anywhere, stories representing each of these planets, and their fully realized and distinct magic systems, have been collected in a single spectacular volume. <em>Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection</em> brings together tales spanning the known limits of Sanderson's universe--including the never-before-published <em>Edgedancer</em> , a thrilling new novella of the Stormlight Archive--along with charts, illustrations, notes...and secrets. </p>
<p><em>The Cosmere Collection</em> encompasses six worlds in all, explored across nine astonishing works of short fiction: <strong>Sel</strong> ("The Hope of Elantris" and <em>The Emperor's Soul</em> ); <strong>Scadrial</strong> ("The Eleventh Metal," "Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes Twenty-eight Through Thirty," and <em>Mistborn: Secret History</em> ); <strong>Taldain</strong> ("White Sand"); <strong>Threnody</strong> (“Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell”); <strong>First of the Sun</strong> (“Sixth of the Dusk”); and <strong>Roshar</strong> ( <em>Edgedancer</em> ). </p>
<p>These exciting tales will catapult you onto an unprecedented journey across a cosmos only Brandon Sanderson could have envisioned. <em>Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection</em> is an indispensible volume no Sanderson fan can do without.</p></div>


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<p>From Brandon Sanderson—author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive and its fourth massive installment, Rhythm of War—comes a new hefty novella, Dawnshard. Taking place between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War, this tale (like Edgedancer before it) gives often-overshadowed characters their own chance to shine. </p>
<p>When a ghost ship is discovered, its crew presumed dead after trying to reach the storm-shrouded island Akinah, Navani Kholin must send an expedition to make sure the island hasn't fallen into enemy hands. Knights Radiant who fly too near find their Stormlight suddenly drained, so the voyage must be by sea. </p>
<p>Shipowner Rysn Ftori lost the use of her legs but gained the companionship of Chiri-Chiri, a Stormlight-ingesting winged larkin, a species once thought extinct. Now Rysn's pet is ill, and any hope for Chiri-Chiri’s recovery can be found only at the ancestral home of the larkin: Akinah. With the help of Lopen, the formerly one-armed Windrunner, Rysn must accept Navani's quest and sail into the perilous storm from which no one has returned alive. If the crew cannot uncover the secrets of the hidden island city before the wrath of its ancient guardians falls upon them, the fate of Roshar and the entire Cosmere hangs in the balance.</p></div>


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<p><em>“What does it mean to manage well?”</em><br>From Ed Catmull, co-founder (with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter) of Pixar Animation Studios, comes an incisive book about creativity in business—sure to appeal to readers of Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, and Chip and Dan Heath. <em>Creativity, Inc.</em> is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.” For nearly twenty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the <em>Toy Story</em> trilogy, <em>Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up,</em> and <em>WALL-E,</em> which have gone on to set box-office records and garner thirty Academy Awards. The joyousness of the storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really <em>is</em>. Here, in this book, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. </p>
<p>As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, <em>Toy Story</em> was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the thirteen movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: </p>
<p>• Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better.<br>• If you don’t strive to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead. <br>• It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them.<br>• The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. <br>• A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.<br>• Do not assume that general agreement will lead to change—it takes substantial energy to move a group, even when all are on board.</p></div>


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<p><strong>The #1</strong> New York Times <strong>bestseller</strong>. <strong>Over 4 million copies sold!</strong> </p>
<p>Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results </p>
<p>No matter your goals, <em>Atomic Habits</em> offers a proven framework for improving--every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. </p>
<p>If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights. </p>
<p>Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field. </p>
<p>Learn how to: </p>
<ul><li>make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy);</li>
<li>overcome a lack of motivation and willpower;</li>
<li>design your environment to make success easier;</li>
<li>get back on track when you fall off course;</li></ul>
<p>...and much more. </p>
<p><em>Atomic Habits</em> will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">The fantastic first book in the <em>Sunday Times</em> bestselling Science of Discworld series </p>
<p>When a wizardly experiment goes adrift, the wizards of Unseen University find themselves with a pocket universe on their hands: Roundworld, where neither magic nor common sense seems to stand a chance against logic. </p>
<p>The Universe, of course, is our own. And Roundworld is Earth. As the wizards watch their accidental creation grow, we follow the story of our universe from the primal singularity of the Big Bang to the internet and beyond. </p>
<p>Through this original Terry Pratchett story (with intervening chapters from Cohen and Stewart) we discover how puny and insignificant individual lives are against a cosmic backdrop of creation and disaster. Yet, paradoxically, we see how the richness of a universe based on rules, has led to a complex world and at least one species that tried to get a grip of what was going on. </p>
<p><strong>Terry Pratchett</strong> is the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld series, the first of which, <em>The Colour of Magic</em> , was published in 1983. Raising Steam is his fortieth Discworld novel. His books have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he is the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, as well as being awarded a knighthood for services to literature. After falling out with his keyboard he now talks to his computer. Occasionally, these days, it answers back. </p>
<p>www.terrypratchett.co.uk<br>@terryandrob </p>
<p><strong>Professor Ian Stewart</strong> is the author of many popular science books. He is the mathematics consultant for <em>New Scientist</em> and a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick. He was awarded the Michael Faraday Prize for furthering the public understanding of science, and in 2001 became a Fellow of the Royal Society. </p>
<p><strong>Dr Jack Cohen</strong> is an internationally-known reproductive biologist, and lives in Newent, Gloucestershire. Jack has a laboratory in his kitchen, helps couples get pregnant by referring them to colleagues, invents biologically realistic aliens for science fiction writers and, in his spare time, throws boomerangs. Jack, who has more letters to his name than can be repeated here, writes, lectures, talks and campaigns to promote public awareness of science, particularly biology. He is mostly retired.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">**Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time </p>
<p>Winner of the Booker of Bookers <br>**<br>Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts. </p>
<p>This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Twenty-five years after its publication, Midnight’s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.<br>--randomhousebooks.com</p></div>


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<p><em>Guesstimation</em> is a book that unlocks the power of approximation--it's popular mathematics rounded to the nearest power of ten! The ability to estimate is an important skill in daily life. More and more leading businesses today use estimation questions in interviews to test applicants' abilities to think on their feet. <em>Guesstimation</em> enables anyone with basic math and science skills to estimate virtually anything--quickly--using plausible assumptions and elementary arithmetic.</p>
<p>Lawrence Weinstein and John Adam present an eclectic array of estimation problems that range from devilishly simple to quite sophisticated and from serious real-world concerns to downright silly ones. How long would it take a running faucet to fill the inverted dome of the Capitol? What is the total length of all the pickles consumed in the US in one year? What are the relative merits of internal-combustion and electric cars, of coal and nuclear energy? The problems are marvelously diverse, yet the skills to solve them are the same. The authors show how easy it is to derive useful ballpark estimates by breaking complex problems into simpler, more manageable ones--and how there can be many paths to the right answer. The book is written in a question-and-answer format with lots of hints along the way. It includes a handy appendix summarizing the few formulas and basic science concepts needed, and its small size and French-fold design make it conveniently portable. Illustrated with humorous pen-and-ink sketches, <em>Guesstimation</em> will delight popular-math enthusiasts and is ideal for the classroom.</p>
<p>**</p></div>


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<p><em>And Another Thing ...</em> will be the sixth novel in the now improbably named <em>Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy</em> trilogy. Eight years after the death of its creator, Douglas Adams, the author's widow, Jane Belson, has given her approval for the project to be continued by the international number one bestselling children's writer, Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl novels. Douglas Adams himself once said, 'I suspect at some point in the future I will write a sixth Hitchhiker book. Five seems to be a wrong kind of number, six is a better kind of number.' Belson said of Eoin Colfer, 'I love his books and could not think of a better person to transport Arthur, Zaphod and Marvin to pastures new.' Colfer, a fan of Hitchhiker since his schooldays, said, 'Being given the chance to write this book is like suddenly being offered the superpower of your choice. For years I have been finishing this incredible story in my head and now I have the opportunity to do it in the real world.' Prepare to be amazed...</p></div>


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<p>This “fun, brain-twisting book . . . will make you think” as it explores more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, philosophy, physics, and the social sciences (Sean Carroll, New York Times–bestselling author of Something Deeply Hidden)Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician’s purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn’t require tangibles, like rabbits or hats. Paradox works in the abstract, with words and concepts and symbols, to create the illusion of contradiction. There are no contradictions in reality, but there can appear to be. In Sleight of Mind, Matt Cook and a few collaborators dive deeply into more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, physics, philosophy, and the social sciences. As each paradox is discussed and resolved, Cook helps readers discover the meaning of knowledge and the proper formation of concepts—and how reason can dispel the illusion of contradiction. </p>
<p>The journey begins with “a most ingenious paradox” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance. Readers will then travel from Ancient Greece to cutting-edge laboratories, encounter infinity and its different sizes, and discover mathematical impossibilities inherent in elections. They will tackle conundrums in probability, induction, geometry, and game theory; perform “supertasks”; build apparent perpetual motion machines; meet twins living in different millennia; explore the strange quantum world—and much more.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">Do you crave food all the time? Do you think you might want to eat again in the future? Do you suck at cooking? Inspired by the wildly popular YouTube channel, these 60+ recipes will help you suck slightly less </p>
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<p>You already know the creator of the YouTube show You Suck at Cooking by his well-manicured hands and mysterious voice, and now you’ll know him for this equally well-manicured and mysterious tome. It contains more than sixty recipes for beginner cooks and noobs alike, in addition to hundreds of paragraphs and sentences, as well as photos and drawings. </p>
<p>You’ll learn to cook with unintimidating ingredients in dishes like <strong>Broccoli Cheddar Quiche Cupcake Muffin-Type Things, Eddie’s Roasted Red Pepper Dip</strong> (while also learning all about Eddie’s sad, sad life), <strong>Jalapeño Chicken</strong> , and also other stuff. In addition, there are cooking tips that can be applied not only to the very recipes in this book, but also to recipes outside of this book, and to all other areas of your life (with mixed results). </p>
<p>In the end, you just might suck slightly less at cooking.* </p>
<p>*Results not guaranteed</p></div>


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<p>Written by an L. A. County homicide detective and former atheist, Cold-Case Christianity examines the claims of the New Testament using the skills and strategies of a hard-to-convince criminal investigator. Christianity could be defined as a “cold case”: it makes a claim about an event from the distant past for which there is little forensic evidence. In Cold-Case Christianity, J. Warner Wallace uses his nationally recognized skills as a homicide detective to look at the evidence and eyewitnesses behind Christian beliefs. Including gripping stories from his career and the visual techniques he developed in the courtroom, Wallace uses illustration to examine the powerful evidence that validates the claims of Christianity. A unique apologetic that speaks to readers’ intense interest in detective stories, Cold-Case Christianity inspires readers to have confidence in Christ as it prepares them to articulate the case for Christianity.</p></div>


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<p>Firefall is the omnibus edition of the novels Blindsight and Echopraxia. February 13, 2082, First Contact. Sixty-two thousand objects of unknown origin plunge into Earth's atmosphere – a perfect grid of falling stars screaming across the radio spectrum as they burn. Not even ashes reach the ground. Three hundred and sixty degrees of global surveillance: something just took a snapshot. And then... nothing. But from deep space, whispers. Something out there talks – but not to us. Two ships, Theseus and the Crown of Thorns, are launched to discover the origin of Earth's visitation, one bound for the outer dark of the Kuiper Belt, the other for the heart of the Solar System. Their crews can barely be called human, what they will face certainly can't. 'A tour de force, redefining the First Contact story for good.' Charles Stross. 'If you only read one science fiction novel this year, make it this one!... It puts the whole of the rest of the genre in the shade... It deserves to walk away with the Clarke, the Hugo, the Nebula, the BSFA, and pretty much any other genre award for which it's eligible. It's off the scale... F**king awesome!' Richard Morgan. 'State-of-the-art science fiction: smart, dark and it grabs you by the throat from page one' Neal Ascher.</p></div>


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<p>In <em>The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,</em> author Stephen R. Covey presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity -- principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">A groundbreaking new book from the bestselling author of <em>Shop Class as Soulcraft</em> </p>
<p>In his bestselling book <em>Shop Class as Soulcraft</em> , <strong>Matthew B. Crawford</strong> explored the ethical and practical importance of manual competence, as expressed through mastery of our physical environment. In his brilliant follow-up, <em>The World Beyond Your Head</em> , Crawford investigates the challenge of mastering one's own mind. </p>
<p>We often complain about our fractured mental lives and feel beset by outside forces that destroy our focus and disrupt our peace of mind. Any defense against this, Crawford argues, requires that we reckon with the way attention sculpts the self. </p>
<p>Crawford investigates the intense focus of ice hockey players and short-order chefs, the quasi-autistic behavior of gambling addicts, the familiar hassles of daily life, and the deep, slow craft of building pipe organs. He shows that our current crisis of attention is only superficially the result of digital technology, and becomes more comprehensible when understood as the coming to fruition of certain assumptions at the root of Western culture that are profoundly at odds with human nature. </p>
<p><em>The World Beyond Your Head</em> makes sense of an astonishing array of common experience, from the frustrations of airport security to the rise of the hipster. With implications for the way we raise our children, the design of public spaces, and democracy itself, this is a book of urgent relevance to contemporary life.</p></div>


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<p>Return to #1 New York Times bestseller Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn world of Scadrial as its second era, which began with The Alloy of Law, comes to its earth-shattering conclusion in The Lost Metal. For years, frontier lawman turned big-city senator Waxillium Ladrian has hunted the shadowy organization the Set—with his late uncle and his sister among their leaders—since they started kidnapping people with the power of Allomancy in their bloodlines. When Detective Marasi Colms and her partner Wayne find stockpiled weapons bound for the Outer City of Bilming, this opens a new lead. Conflict between Elendel and the Outer Cities only favors the Set, and their tendrils now reach to the Elendel Senate—whose corruption Wax and Steris have sought to expose—and Bilming is even more entangled. </p>
<p>After Wax discovers a new type of explosive that can unleash unprecedented destruction and realizes that the Set must already have it, an immortal kandra serving Scadrial’s god, Harmony, reveals that Bilming has fallen under the influence of another god: Trell, worshipped by the Set. And Trell isn’t the only factor at play from the larger Cosmere—Marasi is recruited by offworlders with strange abilities who claim their goal is to protect Scadrial...at any cost. </p>
<p>Wax must choose whether to set aside his rocky relationship with God and once again become the Sword that Harmony has groomed him to be. If no one steps forward to be the hero Scadrial needs, the planet and its millions of people will come to a sudden and calamitous ruin. </p>
<p>Other Tor books by Brandon Sanderson The Cosmere The Stormlight Archive The Way of Kings Words of Radiance Edgedancer (Novella) OathbringerDawnshard (Novella)Rhythm of War The Mistborn trilogy Mistborn: The Final Empire The Well of Ascension The Hero of Ages Mistborn: The Wax and Wayne series Alloy of Law Shadows of Self Bands of MourningThe Lost Metal Collection Arcanum Unbounded Other Cosmere novels Elantris Warbreaker The Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians The Scrivener's Bones The Knights of Crystallia The Shattered Lens The Dark Talent The Rithmatist series The Rithmatist Other books by Brandon Sanderson The Reckoners Steelheart Firefight CalamityAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.</p></div>


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<p>Winner of the Pulitzer Prize • New York Times Bestseller • Over Two Million Copies Sold “One of the most significant projects embarked upon by any intellectual of our generation” (Gregg Easterbrook, New York Times), Guns, Germs, and Steel presents a groundbreaking, unified narrative of human history. Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this “artful, informative, and delightful” (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, a classic of our time, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond dismantles racist theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for its broadest patterns. The story begins 13,000 years ago, when Stone Age hunter-gatherers constituted the entire human population. Around that time, the developmental paths of human societies on different continents began to diverge greatly. Early domestication of wild plants and animals in the Fertile Crescent, China, Mesoamerica, the Andes, and other areas gave peoples of those regions a head start at a new way of life. But the localized origins of farming and herding proved to be only part of the explanation for their differing fates. The unequal rates at which food production spread from those initial centers were influenced by other features of climate and geography, including the disparate sizes, locations, and even shapes of the continents. Only societies that moved away from the hunter-gatherer stage went on to develop writing, technology, government, and organized religions as well as deadly germs and potent weapons of war. It was those societies, adventuring on sea and land, that invaded others, decimating native inhabitants through slaughter and the spread of disease. A major landmark in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way in which the modern world, and its inequalities, came to be.</p></div>


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<p>Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden-but what they don't know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves. "Miigwans is a true hero; in him Dimaline creates a character of tremendous emotional depth and tenderness, connecting readers with the complexity and compassion of Indigenous people. A dystopian world that is all too real and that has much to say about our own. </p>
<p>" Kirkus Reviews</p></div>


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<p>With <em>The Alloy of Law</em> , Brandon Sanderson surprised readers with a <em>New York Times</em> bestselling spinoff of his Mistborn books, set after the action of the trilogy, in a period corresponding to late 19th-century America. </p>
<p>The trilogy's heroes are now figures of myth and legend, even objects of religious veneration. They are succeeded by wonderful new characters, chief among them Waxillium Ladrian, known as Wax, hereditary Lord of House Ladrian but also, until recently, a lawman in the ungoverned frontier region known as the Roughs. There he worked with his eccentric but effective buddy, Wayne. They are "twinborn," meaning they are able to use both Allomantic and Feruchemical magic. </p>
<p><em>Shadows of Self</em> shows Mistborn's society evolving as technology and magic mix, the economy grows, democracy contends with corruption, and religion becomes a growing cultural force, with four faiths competing for converts. </p>
<p>This bustling, optimistic, but still shaky society now faces its first instance of terrorism, crimes intended to stir up labor strife and religious conflict. Wax and Wayne, assisted by the lovely, brilliant Marasi, must unravel the conspiracy before civil strife stops Scadrial's progress in its tracks.</p></div>


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<p>After bursting onto the fantasy scene with his acclaimed debut novel, <em>Elantris,</em> and following up with his blockbuster Mistborn trilogy, Brandon Sanderson proves again that he is today's leading master of what Tolkien called "secondary creation," the invention of whole worlds, complete with magics and myths all their own. </p>
<p><em>Warbreaker</em> is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn't like his job, and the immortal who's still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago. </p>
<p>Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren's capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as <em>breath</em> that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people. </p>
<p>By using <em>breath</em> and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker. </p>
<p>At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.</p></div>


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<p>Was there a beginning of time? Could time run backwards? Is the universe infinite or does it have boundaries? These are just some of the questions considered in the internationally acclaimed masterpiece by the world renowned physicist - generally considered to have been one of the world's greatest thinkers. </p>
<p>It begins by reviewing the great theories of the cosmos from Newton to Einstein, before delving into the secrets which still lie at the heart of space and time, from the Big Bang to black holes, via spiral galaxies and strong theory. To this day A Brief History of Time remains a staple of the scientific canon, and its succinct and clear language continues to introduce millions to the universe and its wonders. </p>
<p>This new edition includes updates from Stephen Hawking with his latest thoughts about the No Boundary Proposal and offers new information about dark energy, the information paradox, eternal inflation, the microwave background radiation observations, and the discovery of gravitational waves. </p>
<p>It was published in tandem with the app, Stephen Hawking's Pocket Universe.'This book marries a child's wonder to a genius's intellect. We journey into Hawking's universe while marvelling at his mind.' The Sunday Times</p></div>


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<p><strong>A</strong> New York Times **Bestseller<br>Winner of the James Beard Award for General Cooking and the IACP Cookbook of the Year Award </p>
<p>"The one book you must have, no matter what you’re planning to cook or where your skill level falls."―**New York Times Book Review</p>
<p>Ever wondered how to pan-fry a steak with a charred crust and an interior that's perfectly medium-rare from edge to edge when you cut into it? How to make homemade mac 'n' cheese that is as satisfyingly gooey and velvety-smooth as the blue box stuff, but far tastier? How to roast a succulent, moist turkey (forget about brining!)―and use a foolproof method that works every time?</p>
<p>As Serious Eats's culinary nerd-in-residence, J. Kenji López-Alt has pondered all these questions and more. In <em>The Food Lab</em> , Kenji focuses on the science behind beloved American dishes, delving into the interactions between heat, energy, and molecules that create great food. Kenji shows that often, conventional methods don’t work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results using new―but simple―techniques. In hundreds of easy-to-make recipes with over 1,000 full-color images, you will find out how to make foolproof Hollandaise sauce in just two minutes, how to transform one simple tomato sauce into a half dozen dishes, how to make the crispiest, creamiest potato casserole ever conceived, and much more.</p>
<p>Over 1000 color photographs</p></div>


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<p><strong>The life and career of the legendary developer celebrated as the “godfather of computer gaming” and creator of</strong> Civilization <strong>, featuring his rules of good game design.</strong></p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">"Sid Meier is a foundation of what gaming is for me today." — Phil Spencer, head of Xbox</p>
<p>Over his four-decade career, Sid Meier has produced some of the world’s most popular video games, including <em>Sid Meier’s Civilization</em> , which has sold more than 51 million units worldwide and accumulated more than one billion hours of play. <em>Sid Meier’s Memoir!</em> is the story of an obsessive young computer enthusiast who helped launch a multibillion-dollar industry. Writing with warmth and ironic humor, Meier describes the genesis of his influential studio, MicroProse, founded in 1982 after a trip to a Las Vegas arcade, and recounts the development of landmark games, from vintage classics like <em>Pirates!</em> and <em>Railroad Tycoon</em> , to <em>Civilization</em> and beyond.</p>
<p>Articulating his philosophy that a video game should be “a series of interesting decisions,” Meier also shares his perspective on the history of the industry, the psychology of gamers, and fascinating insights into the creative process, including his rules of good game design.</p></div>


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<p>“An utterly satisfying examination of the business of popular music.” —Nathaniel Rich, <em>The Atlantic</em></p>
<p>Over the last two decades a new type of hit song has emerged, one that is almost inescapably catchy. Pop songs have always had a "hook," but today’s songs bristle with them: a hook every seven seconds is the rule. Painstakingly crafted to tweak the brain's delight in melody, rhythm, and repetition, these songs are highly processed products. Like snack-food engineers, modern songwriters have discovered the musical "bliss point." And just like junk food, the bliss point leaves you wanting more.</p>
<p>In <em>The Song Machine</em> , longtime <em>New Yorker</em> staff writer John Seabrook tells the story of the massive cultural upheaval that produced these new, super-strength hits. Seabrook takes us into a strange and surprising world, full of unexpected and vivid characters, as he traces the growth of this new approach to hit-making from its obscure origins in early 1990s Sweden to its dominance of today's <em>Billboard</em> charts.</p>
<p>Journeying from New York to Los Angeles, Stockholm to Korea, Seabrook visits specialized teams composing songs in digital labs with new "track-and-hook" techniques. The stories of artists like Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and Rihanna, as well as expert songsmiths like Max Martin, Stargate, Ester Dean, and Dr. Luke, <em>The Song Machine</em> shows what life is like in an industry that has been catastrophically disrupted—spurring innovation, competition, intense greed, and seductive new products.</p>
<p>Going beyond music to discuss money, business, marketing, and technology, <em>The Song Machine</em> explores what the new hits may be doing to our brains and listening habits, especially as services like Spotify and Apple Music use streaming data to gather music into new genres invented by algorithms based on listener behavior.</p>
<p>Fascinating, revelatory, and original, <em>The Song Machine</em> will change the way you listen to music.</p></div>


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<p>Praise for How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business </p>
<p>"I love this book. Douglas Hubbard helps us create a path to know the answer to almost any question in business, in science, or in life . . . Hubbard helps us by showing us that when we seek metrics to solve problems, we are really trying to know something better than we know it now. How to Measure Anything provides just the tools most of us need to measure anything better, to gain that insight, to make progress, and to succeed."<br>-Peter Tippett, PhD, M.D.<br>Chief Technology Officer at CyberTrust<br>and inventor of the first antivirus software </p>
<p>"Doug Hubbard has provided an easy-to-read, demystifying explanation of how managers can inform themselves to make less risky, more profitable business decisions. We encourage our clients to try his powerful, practical techniques."<br>-Peter Schay<br>EVP and COO of<br>The Advisory Council </p>
<p>"As a reader you soon realize that actually everything can be measured while learning how to measure only what matters. This book cuts through conventional cliches and business rhetoric and offers practical steps to using measurements as a tool for better decision making. Hubbard bridges the gaps to make college statistics relevant and valuable for business decisions."<br>-Ray Gilbert<br>EVP Lucent </p>
<p>"This book is remarkable in its range of measurement applications and its clarity of style. A must-read for every professional who has ever exclaimed, 'Sure, that concept is important, but can we measure it?'"<br>-Dr. Jack Stenner<br>Cofounder and CEO of MetraMetrics, Inc.</p></div>


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<p>Ramit Sethi is “the new finance guru” ( <em>Fortune</em> ), “a unique voice on money, one singularly attuned to . . . his generation” ( <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em> ). He reaches over 500,000 followers a month on his website, iwillteachyoutoberich.com. And his book, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic">I Will Teach You to Be Rich</span> , is a <em>New York Times</em> bestseller with 383,000 copies in print—and the kind of backlist title that is so robust that its sales increase year after year. Now on the eve of its tenth anniversary comes a significant cover-to-cover revision. </p>
<p>At the core of the book is Ramit’s extraordinarily simple, powerful, and effective six-week program for gaining control over your finances. Written in an irreverent and entertaining style, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic">I Will Teach You to Be Rich</span> shows you step-by-step how to beat banks and credit cards at the fee game, automate your savings and investments, negotiate a raise, manage student loans, and enjoy vacations and other things you love by practicing conscious spending. </p>
<p>In addition to completely updating everything from interest rates to financial instruments, Ramit has added a new dimension to the book: a guide for how to live a “rich life”—a life where money brings meaning, where you can afford to give back, and where experiences, and the time to pursue them, are a priority. </p></div>


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<p>Now available: Nudge: The Final EditionThe original edition of the multimillion-copy New York Times bestseller by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Richard H. Thaler, and Cass R. Sunstein: a revelatory look at how we make decisions—for fans of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, James Clear’s Atomic Habits, and Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and SlowNamed a Best Book of the Year by The Economist and the Financial TimesEvery day we make choices—about what to buy or eat, about financial investments or our children’s health and education, even about the causes we champion or the planet itself. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. Nudge is about how we make these choices and how we can make better ones. Using dozens of eye-opening examples and drawing on decades of behavioral science research, Nobel Prize winner Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein show that no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way, and that we are all susceptible to biases that can lead us to make bad decisions. But by knowing how people think, we can use sensible “choice architecture” to nudge people toward the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society, without restricting our freedom of choice.</p></div>


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<p>Are you tired of being spied on, manipulated and mistreated by technology that was supposed to make your life better? Are you dependent on devices and apps you wish you could live without? </p>
<p>Social media and smartphone surveillance make us sick and unhappy, but what can we do? This book will help you find remedies for digital disorders, reduce dependency and anxiety by making better technology choices. </p>
<p>Just as the food we eat affects our bodily health, technology affects mental health and society. For the sake of yourself, your community and our planet, learn to avoid toxic hardware, software and media in your digital diet.</p></div>


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<p>Becoming a more effective learner and boosting your productivity will help you earn better grades - but it’ll also cut down on your study time. This is a short, meaty book that will guide you through ten steps to achieving those goals:</p>
<ul><li>Pay better attention in class</li>
<li>Take more effective notes</li>
<li>Get more out of your textbooks</li>
<li>Plan like a general</li>
<li>Build a better study environment</li>
<li>Fight entropy and stay organized</li>
<li>Defeat Procrastination</li>
<li>Study smarter</li>
<li>Write better papers</li>
<li>Make group projects suck less</li></ul>
<p>Whether you’re in college or high school, this book will probably help you. But not if you’re a raccoon. I want to be very clear about that; if you’re a raccoon, please buy a different book. This one will do absolutely nothing for you. How did you even learn to read, anyway?</p>
<p>**</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p>Thomas Frank is a student success author, YouTuber, and speaker who has been helping college students achieve their goals since 2010. He is the founder of College Info Geek, a blog, YouTube channel, and podcast that reaches over 600,000 students each month, and has been featured on U.S. News, FOX Business’ The Willis Report, Business Insider, and more. Thomas graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in MIS. He spends his days making videos, skateboarding, and resisting the temptation to buy a trampoline. </p></div>


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<p>Pack your cutlass and blunderbuss — it’s time to go a-pirating! <em>The Invisible Hook</em> takes readers inside the wily world of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century pirates. With swashbuckling irreverence and devilish wit, Peter Leeson uncovers the hidden economics behind pirates’ notorious, entertaining, and sometimes downright shocking behavior. Why did pirates fly flags of Skull &amp; Bones? Why did they create a “pirate code”? Were pirates really ferocious madmen? And what made them so successful? <em>The Invisible Hook</em> uses economics to examine these and other infamous aspects of piracy. Leeson argues that the pirate customs we know and love resulted from pirates responding rationally to prevailing economic conditions in the pursuit of profits. </p>
<p><em>The Invisible Hook</em> looks at legendary pirate captains like Blackbeard, Black Bart Roberts, and Calico Jack Rackam, and shows how pirates’ search for plunder led them to pioneer remarkable and forward-thinking practices. Pirates understood the advantages of constitutional democracy — a model they adopted more than fifty years before the United States did so. Pirates also initiated an early system of workers’ compensation, regulated drinking and smoking, and in some cases practiced racial tolerance and equality. Leeson contends that pirates exemplified the virtues of vice — their self-seeking interests generated socially desirable effects and their greedy criminality secured social order. Pirates proved that anarchy could be organized. </p>
<p>Revealing the democratic and economic forces propelling history’s most colorful criminals, <em>The Invisible Hook</em> establishes pirates’ trailblazing relevance to the contemporary world.</p></div>


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<p>Este libro rinde homenaje al fútbol, música del cuerpo, fiesta de los ojos, y también denuncia las estructuras de poder de uno de los negocios más lucrativos del mundo. <br>"La tecnocracia del deporte profesional –escribe el autor– ha ido imponiendo un fútbol de pura velocidad y mucha fuerza, que renuncia a la alegría, atrofia la fantasía y prohíbe la osadía. Por suerte todavía aparece en las canchas, aunque sea muy de vez en cuando, algún descarado carasucia que se sale del libreto y comete el disparate de gambetear a todo el equipo rival, y al juez, y al público de las tribunas, por el puro goce del cuerpo que se lanza a la prohibida aventura de la libertad." <br>Cuando era niño, Galeano quería ser jugador de fútbol, pero sólo jugaba bien, y hasta muy bien, mientras dormía. Escribiendo este libro, ha querido hacer con las manos lo que nunca pudo hacer con las piernas. <br>Esta nueva edición incluye un capítulo sobre el Mundial 2014.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">Renowned primatologist Robert Sapolsky offers a completely revised and updated edition of his most popular work, with over 225,000 copies in print </p>
<p>Now in a third edition, Robert M. Sapolsky's acclaimed and successful <em>Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers</em> features new chapters on how stress affects sleep and addiction, as well as new insights into anxiety and personality disorder and the impact of spirituality on managing stress. </p>
<p>As Sapolsky explains, most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about whether we have leprosy or malaria. Instead, the diseases we fear-and the ones that plague us now-are illnesses brought on by the slow accumulation of damage, such as heart disease and cancer. When we worry or experience stress, our body turns on the same physiological responses that an animal's does, but we do not resolve conflict in the same way-through fighting or fleeing. Over time, this activation of a stress response makes us literally sick. <br>Combining cutting-edge research with a healthy dose of good humor and practical advice, <em>Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers</em> explains how prolonged stress causes or intensifies a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. It also provides essential guidance to controlling our stress responses. This new edition promises to be the most comprehensive and engaging one yet.</p></div>


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<p>ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS BOOKS AND WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE_______________________________'Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice'Gabriel García Márquez's great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and of Macondo, the town they built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and its miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book, and only Aureliano Buendía can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy and comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century._______________________________'Should be required reading for the entire human race' The New York Times'The book that sort of saved my life' Emma Thompson 'No lover of fiction can fail to respond to the grace of Márquez's writing' Sunday Telegraph</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">A true 20th-century classic: Faulkner’s famed harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. </p>
<p><em>As I Lay Dying</em> is one of the most influential novels in American fiction in structure, style, and drama. Narrated in turn by each of the family members, including Addie herself as well as others, the novel ranges in mood from dark comedy to the deepest pathos. </p>
<p>“I set out deliberately to write a tour-de-force. Before I ever put pen to paper and set down the first word I knew what the last word would be and almost where the last period would fall.” —William Faulkner on <em>As I Lay Dying</em> </p>
<p>This edition reproduces the corrected text of <em>As I Lay Dying</em> as established in 1985 by Noel Polk.</p></div>


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<p><strong>Now a </strong><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic">New York Times</span><strong> Bestseller!</strong> With a new chapter added to the paperback. </p>
<p style="font-style: italic">In high school, I wondered whether the Jamaican Americans who made our track team so successful might carry some special speed gene from their tiny island. In college, I ran against Kenyans, and wondered whether endurance genes might have traveled with them from East Africa. At the same time, I began to notice that a training group on my team could consist of five men who run next to one another, stride for stride, day after day, and nonetheless turn out five entirely different runners. How could this be? </p>
<p>We all knew a star athlete in high school. The one who made it look so easy. He was the starting quarterback and shortstop; she was the all-state point guard and high-jumper. <em>Naturals</em>. Or were they? </p>
<p>The debate is as old as physical competition. Are stars like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, and Serena Williams genetic freaks put on Earth to dominate their respective sports? Or are they simply normal people who overcame their biological limits through sheer force of will and obsessive training?<br>The truth is far messier than a simple dichotomy between nature and nurture. In the decade since the sequencing of the human genome, researchers have slowly begun to uncover how the relationship between biological endowments and a competitor’s training environment affects athleticism. Sports scientists have gradually entered the era of modern genetic research. </p>
<p>In this controversial and engaging exploration of athletic success, <em>Sports Illustrated</em> senior writer David Epstein tackles the great nature vs. nurture debate and traces how far science has come in solving this great riddle. He investigates the so-called 10,000-hour rule to uncover whether rigorous and consistent practice from a young age is the only route to athletic excellence. </p>
<p>Along the way, Epstein dispels many of our perceptions about why top athletes excel. He shows why some skills that we assume are innate, like the bullet-fast reactions of a baseball or cricket batter, are not, and why other characteristics that we assume are entirely voluntary, like an athlete’s will to train, might in fact have important genetic components. </p>
<p>This subject necessarily involves digging deep into sensitive topics like race and gender. Epstein explores controversial questions such as:<br>Are black athletes genetically predetermined to dominate both sprinting and distance running, and are their abilities influenced by Africa’s geography?<br>Are there genetic reasons to separate male and female athletes in competition?<br>Should we test the genes of young children to determine if they are destined for stardom?<br>Can genetic testing determine who is at risk of injury, brain damage, or even death on the field?<br>Through on-the-ground reporting from below the equator and above the Arctic Circle, revealing conversations with leading scientists and Olympic champions, and interviews with athletes who have rare genetic mutations or physical traits, Epstein forces us to rethink the very nature of athleticism. </p></div>


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<p>A NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, USA TODAY, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER “[A] diverse and enlightening book . . . The 99% Invisible City is altogether fresh and imaginative when it comes to thinking about urban spaces.” —The New York Times Book Review“Here is a field guide, a boon, a bible, for the urban curious. Your city’s secret anatomy laid bare—a hundred things you look at but don’t see, see but don’t know. Each entry is a compact, surprising story, a thought piece, an invitation to marvel. Together, they are almost transformative. To know why things are as they are adds a satisfying richness to daily existence. This book is terrific, just terrific.” —Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff, Grunt, and Gulp“The 99% Invisible City brings into view the fascinating but often unnoticed worlds we walk and drive through every day, and to read it is to feel newly alive and aware of your place in the world. This book made me laugh, and it made me cry, and it reminded me to always read the plaque.” —John Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All The Way DownA beautifully designed guidebook to the unnoticed yet essential elements of our cities, from the creators of the wildly popular 99% Invisible podcast Have you ever wondered what those bright, squiggly graffiti marks on the sidewalk mean? Or stopped to consider why you don't see metal fire escapes on new buildings? Or pondered the story behind those dancing inflatable figures in car dealerships?99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we drive, and the sidewalks we traverse. The show celebrates design and architecture in all of its functional glory and accidental absurdity, with intriguing tales of both designers and the people impacted by their designs. Now, in The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to Hidden World of Everyday Design, host Roman Mars and coauthor Kurt Kohlstedt zoom in on the various elements that make our cities work, exploring the origins and other fascinating stories behind everything from power grids and fire escapes to drinking fountains and street signs. With deeply researched entries and beautiful line drawings throughout, The 99% Invisible City will captivate devoted fans of the show and anyone curious about design, urban environments, and the unsung marvels of the world around them.</p></div>


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<p>Randall Munroe left NASA in 2005 to start up his hugely popular site XKCD 'a web comic of romance, sarcasm, math and language' which offers a witty take on the world of science and geeks. It now has 600,000 to a million page hits daily. Every now and then, Munroe would get emails asking him to arbitrate a science debate. 'My friend and I were arguing about what would happen if a bullet got struck by lightning, and we agreed that you should resolve it . . . ' He liked these questions so much that he started up <em>What If</em>. </p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">If your cells suddenly lost the power to divide, how long would you survive? </p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">How dangerous is it, really, to be in a swimming pool in a thunderstorm? </p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">If we hooked turbines to people exercising in gyms, how much power could we produce? </p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">What if everyone only had one soulmate? </p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">When (if ever) did the sun go down on the British empire? </p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? </p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">What would happen if the moon went away? </p>
<p>In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations, and consults with nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, studded with memorable cartoons and infographics. They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion. Far more than a book for geeks, <em>WHAT IF: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions</em> explains the laws of science in operation in a way that every intelligent reader will enjoy and feel much the smarter for having read.</p></div>


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<p>“Why We Sleep is an important and fascinating book…Walker taught me a lot about this basic activity that every person on Earth needs. I suspect his book will do the same for you.” —Bill Gates A New York Times bestseller and international sensation, this “stimulating and important book” (Financial Times) is a fascinating dive into the purpose and power of slumber. </p>
<p>Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, wellness, and longevity. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when we don't sleep. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remained elusive. An explosion of scientific discoveries in the last twenty years has shed new light on this fundamental aspect of our lives. Now, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker gives us a new understanding of the vital importance of sleep and dreaming. Within the brain, sleep enriches our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming mollifies painful memories and creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge to inspire creativity. Walker answers important questions about sleep: how do caffeine and alcohol affect sleep? What really happens during REM sleep? Why do our sleep patterns change across a lifetime? How do common sleep aids affect us and can they do long-term damage? Charting cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and synthesizing decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood, and energy levels; regulate hormones; prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes; slow the effects of aging; increase longevity; enhance the education and lifespan of our children, and boost the efficiency, success, and productivity of our businesses. Clear-eyed, fascinating, and accessible, Why We Sleep is a crucial and illuminating book.</p></div>


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<p>Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize ** A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year Rust has been called “the great destroyer,” the “pervasive menace,” and “the evil.” “This look at corrosion—its causes, its consequences, and especially the people devoted to combating it—is wide-ranging and consistently engrossing” (The New York Times). </p>
<p>It is the hidden enemy, the one that challenges the very basis of civilization. This entropic menace destroys cars, fells bridges, sinks ships, sparks house fires, and nearly brought down the Statue of Liberty’s torch. It is rust—and this book, full of wit and insight, disasters and triumphs—is its story. “Jonathan Waldman’s first book is as obsessive as it is informative…he takes us deep into places and situations that are too often ignored or unknown” (The Washington Post). In Rust, Waldman travels from Key West to Prudhoe Bay, meeting people concerned with corrosion. He sneaks into an abandoned steelworks and nearly gets kicked out of Can School. He follows a high-tech robot through an arctic winter, hunting for rust in the Alaska pipeline. In Texas, he finds a corrosion engineer named Rusty, and in Colorado, he learns of the animosity between the galvanizing industry and the paint army. Along the way, Waldman recounts stories of flying pigs, Trekkies, rust boogers, and unlikely superheroes. The result is a man-versus-nature tale that’s as fascinating as it is grand, illuminating a hidden phenomenon that shapes the modern world. Rust affects everything from the design of our currency to the composition of our tap water, and it will determine the legacy we leave on this planet. This exploration of corrosion, and the incredible lengths we go to fight it, is “engrossing…brilliant…Waldman’s gift for narrative nonfiction shines in every chapter….Watching things rust: who would have thought it could be so exciting” (Natural History).</p></div>


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<p>A former international hostage negotiator for the FBI offers a new, field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations—whether in the boardroom or at home. </p>
<p>After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never Split the Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss’s head, revealing the skills that helped him and his colleagues succeed where it mattered most: saving lives. In this practical guide, he shares the nine effective principles—counterintuitive tactics and strategies—you too can use to become more persuasive in both your professional and personal life. </p>
<p>Life is a series of negotiations you should be prepared for: buying a car, negotiating a salary, buying a home, renegotiating rent, deliberating with your partner. Taking emotional intelligence and intuition to the next level, Never Split the Difference gives you the competitive edge in any discussion.</p></div>


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<p>Bilbo Bessac, comme tous les hobbits, est un petit être bon vivant qui apprécie sa vie sans histoire sous La Colline. Mais un beau jour, Gandalf le magicien et treize nains bourrus toquent à sa porte. Ces derniers ont décidé de récupérer un trésor qu’on leur a dérobé des années auparavant, et sollicitent son aide ! Voici Bilbo entraîné dans un voyage périlleux pour une fabuleuse quête au trésor. Une grande aventure qui mènera cette équipée jusqu’à la Montagne Solitaire gardée par le dangereux dragon Smaug… </p>
<p><em>Le Hobbit</em> est le premier récit publié par J.R.R.Tolkien, en 1937. Cette histoire, inventée par l’auteur pour ses propres enfants, rapporte les aventures de Bilbo, un jeune Hobbit héros malgré lui, lancé en quête d’un trésor gardé par un dragon, en compagnie de nains et du magicien Gandalf. Ce texte a enchanté des générations de lecteurs. C’est une formidable aventure, par son suspense, ses coups de théâtre, son humour, sa poésie, à lire seul dès 8 ans ou à se faire lire pour un beau moment de partage.</p></div>


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<p>Part one of The Lord of the Rings, now featuring film art on the cover. In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in THE HOBBIT. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.</p>
<h3>From Library Journal</h3>
<p>New Line Cinema will be releasing "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy in three separate installments, and Houghton Mifflin Tolkien's U.S. publisher since the release of The Hobbit in 1938 will be re-releasing each volume of the trilogy separately and in a boxed set (ISBN 0-618-15397-7. $22; pap. ISBN 0-618-15396-9. $12). <br>Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>"An extraordinary work--pure excitement..." The New York Times</p></div>


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<p>The second volume in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure <em>THE LORD OF THE RINGS</em> </p>
<p style="font-style: italic">One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them </p>
<p>Frodo and his Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in a battle in the Mines of Moria. And Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape, the rest of the company was attacked by Orcs. Now they continue the journey alone down the great River Anduin—alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go. </p>
<p>“Among the greatest works of imaginative fiction of the twentieth century. The book presents us with the richest profusion of new lands and creatures, from the beauty of Lothlórien to the horror of Mordor.” – <em>Sunday Telegraph</em></p></div>


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<p>THE RETURN OF THE KING, which brings to a close the great epic of war and adventure begun in The Fellowship of the Ring and continued in The Two Towers, is the third and final part of J. R. R. Tolkien’s masterpiece, “The Lord of the Rings.” </p>
<p>In these three books, which form one continuous narrative, Tolkien created the saga of the Hobbits of Middle-earth and the great War of the Rings. Praised by such writers and poets as W. H. Auden, Richard Hughes and C. S. Lewis, “The Lord of the Rings” – that special world of beauty and terror and meaning – holds a secure place among the books that will live.<br>--back cover</p></div>


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<p>**<em>Wall Street Journal</em> bestseller! </p>
<p>Poker champion turned business consultant Annie Duke teaches you how to get comfortable with uncertainty and make better decisions as a result.** </p>
<p>In Super Bowl XLIX, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll made one of the most controversial calls in football history: With 26 seconds remaining, and trailing by four at the Patriots' one-yard line, he called for a pass instead of a hand off to his star running back. The pass was intercepted and the Seahawks lost. Critics called it the dumbest play in history. But was the call really that bad? Or did Carroll actually make a great move that was ruined by bad luck? </p>
<p>Even the best decision doesn't yield the best outcome every time. There's always an element of luck that you can't control, and there is always information that is hidden from view. So the key to long-term success (and avoiding worrying yourself to death) is to think in bets: How sure am I? What are the possible ways things could turn out? What decision has the highest odds of success? Did I land in the unlucky 10% on the strategy that works 90% of the time? Or is my success attributable to dumb luck rather than great decision making? </p>
<p>Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics, and (of course) poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions. For most people, it's difficult to say "I'm not sure" in a world that values and, even, rewards the appearance of certainty. But professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don't always lead to great outcomes and bad decisions don't always lead to bad outcomes. </p>
<p>By shifting your thinking from a need for certainty to a goal of accurately assessing what you know and what you don't, you'll be less vulnerable to reactive emotions, knee-jerk biases, and destructive habits in your decision making. You'll become more confident, calm, compassionate and successful in the long run.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">The creator of the award-winning podcast series The History of Rome and Revolutions brings to life the bloody battles, political machinations, and human drama that set the stage for the fall of the Roman Republic. </p>
<p>The Roman Republic was one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of civilization. Beginning as a small city-state in central Italy, Rome gradually expanded into a wider world filled with petty tyrants, barbarian chieftains, and despotic kings. Through the centuries, Rome's model of cooperative and participatory government remained remarkably durable and unmatched in the history of the ancient world. </p>
<p>In 146 BC, Rome finally emerged as the strongest power in the Mediterranean. But the very success of the Republic proved to be its undoing. The republican system was unable to cope with the vast empire Rome now ruled: rising economic inequality disrupted traditional ways of life, endemic social and ethnic prejudice led to clashes over citizenship and voting rights, and rampant corruption and ruthless ambition sparked violent political clashes that cracked the once indestructible foundations of the Republic. </p>
<p>Chronicling the years 146-78 BC, The Storm Before the Storm dives headlong into the first generation to face this treacherous new political environment. Abandoning the ancient principles of their forbearers, men like Marius, Sulla, and the Gracchi brothers set dangerous new precedents that would start the Republic on the road to destruction and provide a stark warning about what can happen to a civilization that has lost its way.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">The <em>Freakonomics</em> of math—a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hands </p>
<p>The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In <em>How Not to Be Wrong</em> , Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it. </p>
<p>Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer? </p>
<p><em>How Not to Be Wrong</em> presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God. </p>
<p>Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.</p></div>


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<p>INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this modern classic, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront. </p>
<p>“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing.... An important book.” —Katherine Dunn, bestselling author of Geek LoveLook for Bret Easton Ellis’s new novel, The Shards, coming in January.</p></div>


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<p>Harlan Ellison has won more awards for imaginative literature than any other living author, but only aficionados of Ellison's singular work have been aware of another of his passions ... he is a great oral interpreter of his stories. His recordings have been difficult to obtain ... by his choice. In 1999, for the first time, he was lured into the studio to record this stunning retrospective. Contents include: an original introduction; I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream; Laugh Track Grail; "Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman; The Very Last Day of a Good Woman; The Time of the Eye; Paladin of the Lost Hour; The Lingering Scent of Woodsmoke; and A Boy and His Dog (source of the cult motion picture). This recording is the winner of the International Horror Writers Bram Stoker Award for outstanding non-print media.</p></div>


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<p><strong>The</strong> #1 New York Times <strong>bestseller that has all America talking: as seen/heard on Morning Joe, CBS This Morning, The Bill Simmons Podcast, Rich Roll, and more.</strong> </p>
<p><strong>Shortlisted for the</strong> Financial Times <strong>/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award</strong> </p>
<p><strong>“The most important business—and parenting—book of the year.” —</strong> Forbes </p>
<p><strong>“Urgent and important. . . an essential read for bosses, parents, coaches, and anyone who cares about improving performance.” —Daniel H. Pink</strong> <strong><br></strong><br><strong>“So much crucial and revelatory information about performance, success, and education.” —Susan Cain, bestselling author of</strong> Quiet ** </p>
<p><strong>“As David Epstein shows us, cultivating range prepares us for the wickedly unanticipated… a well-supported and smoothly written case on behalf of breadth and late starts.” —</strong> Wall Street Journal </p>
<p>Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you’ll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But a closer look at research on the world’s top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule. </p>
<p>David Epstein examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters and scientists. He discovered that in most fields—especially those that are complex and unpredictable—generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They’re also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see. </p>
<p>Provocative, rigorous, and engrossing, <em>Range</em> makes a compelling case for actively cultivating inefficiency. Failing a test is the best way to learn. Frequent quitters end up with the most fulfilling careers. The most impactful inventors cross domains rather than deepening their knowledge in a single area. As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">Spirited and whip-smart, these laugh-out-loud autobiographical essays are "a masterpiece" from the Emmy Award-winning actress and comedy writer known for 30 Rock, Mean Girls, and SNL" ( <em>Sunday Telegraph</em> ). </p>
<p>Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update," before "Sarah Palin," Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV. </p>
<p>She has seen both these dreams come true. </p>
<p>At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on <em>Saturday Night Live</em> ; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon -- from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence. </p>
<p>Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've always suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy. </p>
<p>Includes Special, Never-Before-Solicited Opinions on Breastfeeding, Princesses, Photoshop, the Electoral Process, and Italian Rum Cake!****</p></div>


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<p>What is the actual connection between disgruntled and gruntled? What links church organs to organised crime, California to the Caliphate, or brackets to codpieces? The Etymologicon springs from Mark Forsyth's Inky Fool blog on the strange connections between words. It's an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and unerringly erudite guided tour of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language, taking in monks and monkeys, film buffs and buffaloes, and explaining precisely what the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening.</p></div>


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<p><strong>A post-apocalyptic thriller of the after effects in the United States after a terrifying terrorist attack using electromagnetic pulse weapons.</strong> * </p>
<p>New York Times* best selling author William R. Forstchen now brings us a story which can be all too terrifyingly real...a story in which one man struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina town after America loses a war, in one second, a war that will send America back to the Dark Ages...A war based upon a weapon, an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP). A weapon that may already be in the hands of our enemies. </p>
<p>Months before publication, <em>One Second After</em> has already been cited on the floor of Congress as a book all Americans should read, a book already being discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a truly realistic look at a weapon and its awesome power to destroy the entire United States, literally within one second. It is a weapon that the Wall Street Journal warns could shatter America. In the tradition of <em>On the Beach</em> , <em>Fail Safe</em> and <em>Testament</em> , this book, set in a typical American town, is a dire warning of what might be our future...and our end. </p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">The John Matherson Series </p>
<h1>1 <em>One Second After</em></h1>
<h1>2 <em>One Year After</em></h1>
<h1>3 <em>The Final Day</em></h1>
<p><strong>Other Books</strong><br><em>Pillar to the Sky<br>48 Hours<br></em></p></div>


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<p>'Football is a pleasure that hurts' </p>
<p>This unashamedly emotional history of football is a homage to the romance and drama, spectacle and passion of a 'great pagan mass'. Through stories of superstition, heartbreak, tragedy, luck, heroes and villains, those who lived for football and those who died for it, Eduardo Galeano celebrates the glory of a game that—however much the rich and powerful try to control it—still retains its magic. </p>
<p>'The Uruguayan whose writing got right to the heart of football ... readers were never in doubt of the warmth of the blood running through his veins' <em>Guardian</em> </p>
<p>'Galeano can run rings round our glamorous football intelligentsia' <em>When Saturday Comes</em> </p>
<p>'Stands out like Pele on a field of second-stringers' <em>New Yorker</em></p></div>


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<p>The New York Times bestselling author of Being Mortal and Complications reveals the surprising power of the ordinary checklist. </p>
<p>We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies—neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third. </p>
<p>In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from disaster response to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds. </p>
<p>An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">Bestselling author and one of the world’s foremost executive coaches, Marshall Goldsmith examines the emotional and psychological triggers that cause us to react and behave in certain preset, often inappropriate ways at work and in life. Triggers shows us how to break that cycle and enact meaningful change.</p>
<p>In Triggers, renown executive coach and psychologist Marshall Goldsmith discusses the emotional triggers that set off a reaction or a behavior in us that often works to our detriment. Do you find that at times you suddenly become defensive or enraged by an idle comment from a colleague? Or that your temper rises when another car cuts you off in traffic? Your reactions don’t occur in a vacuum. They are the result of emotional and psychological triggers that often happen only in specific settings—at meetings, or in competitive situations, or with a specific person who rubs you the wrong way, or when you feel under particular pressure. Being able to recognize those triggers and understand how the environment affects our behavior is key to controlling our responses and managing others at work and in life. Make no mistake—change is hard. And the starting point is the willingness to accept help, and the desire to change. This book will show you how.</p>
<p>Over the course of this book, Marshall explores the power of active questions to get us to take responsibility for our actions—and our failure to act. Questions such as “Did I do my best to make progress toward my goal?” “Did I work hard at being fully engaged?” He discusses the importance of structure in effecting permanent change. Because, he points out, change is hard, and without a structure to keep us on track, we inevitably relapse and fall back.</p>
<p>Filled with illuminating stories from Marshall’s work with some of the most accomplished executives and leaders in America, Triggers shows readers how to achieve meaningful and sustained change that will allow us to open our imaginations and escape the rigidity of binary thinking.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">From David Graeber, the bestselling author of <em>The Dawn of Everything</em> and <em>Debt</em> —“a master of opening up thought and stimulating debate” ( <em>Slate</em> )—a powerful argument against the rise of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs…and their consequences. </p>
<p>Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” It went viral. After one million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer. </p>
<p>There are hordes of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs. </p>
<p>Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. “Clever and charismatic” ( <em>The New Yorker</em> ), <em>Bullshit Jobs</em> gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation and “a thought-provoking examination of our working lives” ( <em>Financial Times</em> ).</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">Official U.S. edition with full color illustrations throughout.</p>
<p>New York Times <strong>Bestseller</strong></p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">A Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg</p>
<p>From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.”</p>
<p>One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us?</p>
<p>Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, <em>Sapiens</em> integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.</p>
<p>Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become?</p>
<p>Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem.</p></div>


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<p>THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER: A radically new way of thinking about depression and anxiety'A book that could actually make us happy' SIMON AMSTELL'This amazing book will change your life' ELTON JOHN'One of the most important texts of recent years' BRITISH JOURNAL OF GENERAL PRACTICE 'Brilliant, stimulating, radical' MATT HAIG'The more people read this book, the better off the world will be' NAOMI KLEIN 'Wonderful' HILLARY CLINTON'Eye-opening' GUARDIAN'Brilliant for anyone wanting a better understanding of mental health' ZOE BALL 'A game-changer' DAVINA MCCALL 'Extraordinary' DR MAX PEMBERTON'Beautiful' RUSSELL BRAND Depression and anxiety are now at epidemic levels. Why? Across the world, scientists have uncovered evidence for nine different causes. Some are in our biology, but most are in the way we are living today. Lost Connections offers a radical new way of thinking about this crisis. It shows that once we understand the real causes, we can begin to turn to pioneering new solutions – ones that offer real hope.</p></div>


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<p>NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Frank Herbert’s epic masterpiece—a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time. </p>
<p>This deluxe hardcover edition of Dune includes:· An iconic new cover· A stamped and foiled case featuring a quote from the Litany Against Fear· Stained edges and fully illustrated endpapers· A beautifully designed poster on the interior of the jacket· A redesigned world map of Dune· An updated Introduction by Brian HerbertSet on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for...When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream. A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction. </p>
<p>DUNE is directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Chang Chen, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem</p></div>


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<p>A top performance expert reveals the secret behind many top athletes and executives: creating a heroic alter ego to activate when the chips are down. </p>
<p>There’s only one person in the way of you untapping your potential: You. There’s also one person who can move you out of the way so you can perform at your peak. </p>
<p>That person is already inside you. You just need to unlock them. This other part of you is your Alter Ego. After twenty-one years of working with elite athletes, performers and leaders, Todd Herman has discovered how you can use your alter ego to achieve the seemingly impossible. It all clicked for Todd when he met Bo Jackson. </p>
<p>When Herman met Bo Jackson, the professional athlete told him, “Bo Jackson never played a down of football in his entire life.” Bo explained that when he was young, he’d get into trouble because chaos caused by his anger issues. Then, he saw Friday the 13th and became fascinated by the cold, calculating nature of Jason Vorhees. In that moment, he resolved to stop being Bo Jackson, and start being Jason the moment he stepped on the field. </p>
<p>In this transformative guide, Herman teaches you how to create and control an Alter Ego like Bo—and the thousands of other athletes, business leaders, entrepreneurs, and entertainers who have used this simple tool to change their lives. Herman also shares his own story: he knew that inside was a confident, self-assured, intelligent person who could help others get better results in their lives. When he started using superman’s classic trick—putting on a pair of glasses—he learned to trigger the specific traits he needed to achieve his goals. </p>
<p><em>The Alter Ego Effect</em> is not about creating a false mask—it’s about finding the hero already inside you. It’s a proven way of overcoming the self-doubt, negativity, and insecurity that hold you back, and empowering you to ultimately become your best self.</p></div>


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<p>From the author of the #1 New York Times giant bestseller Inside of a Dog comes an equally smart, delightful, and startling exploration of how we perceive our surroundings. </p>
<p>From the author of the giant #1 New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog comes an equally smart, delightful, and startling exploration of how we perceive and discover our world. Alexandra Horowitz’s brilliant On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes shows us how to see the spectacle of the ordinary—to practice, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put it, “the observation of trifles.” On Looking is structured around a series of eleven walks the author takes, mostly in her Manhattan neighborhood, with experts on a diverse range of subjects, including an urban sociologist, the well-known artist Maira Kalman, a geologist, a physician, and a sound designer. She also walks with a child and a dog to see the world as they perceive it. What they see, how they see it, and why most of us do not see the same things reveal the startling power of human attention and the cognitive aspects of what it means to be an expert observer. As the million-plus readers of Inside of a Dog have discovered, Alexandra Horowitz is charmingly adept at explaining the mysteries of human perception. Trained as a cognitive scientist, she discovers a feast of fascinating detail, all explained with her generous humor and self-deprecating tone. On Looking presents the same engaging combination, this time in service to understanding how human beings encounter their daily worlds and each other. Page by page, Horowitz shows how much more there is to see—if only we would really look. On Looking is nutrition for the considered life, serving as a provocative response to our relentlessly virtual consciousness. So turn off the phone and other electronic devices and be in the real world—where strangers communicate by geometry as they walk toward one another, where sounds reveal shadows, where posture can display humility, and the underside of a leaf unveils a Lilliputian universe—where, indeed, there are worlds within worlds within worlds. Alexandra Horowitz’s On Looking confirms her place as one of today’s most illuminating observers of our infinitely complex world.</p></div>


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<p><strong>#1</strong> NEW YORK TIMES <strong>BESTSELLER •</strong> <strong>A memoir of leadership and success</strong> <strong>: The executive chairman of Disney,</strong> Time <strong>’s 2019 businessperson of the year, shares the ideas and values he embraced</strong> <strong>during his fifteen years as CEO while reinventing one of the world’s most beloved companies</strong> <strong>and inspiring the people who bring the magic to life.</strong> </p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR </p>
<p>Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 2005, during a difficult time. Competition was more intense than ever and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company’s history. His vision came down to three clear ideas: Recommit to the concept that quality matters, embrace technology instead of fighting it, and think bigger—think global—and turn Disney into a stronger brand in international markets. </p>
<p>Today, Disney is the largest, most admired media company in the world, counting Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox among its properties. Its value is nearly five times what it was when Iger took over, and he is recognized as one of the most innovative and successful CEOs of our era. </p>
<p>In <em>The Ride of a Lifetime</em> , Robert Iger shares the lessons he learned while running Disney and leading its 220,000-plus employees, and he explores the principles that are necessary for true leadership, including: </p>
<p>• <strong>Optimism.</strong> Even in the face of difficulty, an optimistic leader will find the path toward the best possible outcome and focus on that, rather than give in to pessimism and blaming.<br>• <strong>Courage.</strong> Leaders have to be willing to take risks and place big bets. Fear of failure destroys creativity. <br>• <strong>Decisiveness.</strong> All decisions, no matter how difficult, can be made on a timely basis. Indecisiveness is both wasteful and destructive to morale.<br>• <strong>Fairness.</strong> Treat people decently, with empathy, and be accessible to them. </p>
<p>This book is about the relentless curiosity that has driven Iger for forty-five years, since the day he started as the lowliest studio grunt at ABC. It’s also about thoughtfulness and respect, and a decency-over-dollars approach that has become the bedrock of every project and partnership Iger pursues, from a deep friendship with Steve Jobs in his final years to an abiding love of the <em>Star Wars</em> mythology. </p>
<p>“The ideas in this book strike me as universal” Iger writes. “Not just to the aspiring CEOs of the world, but to anyone wanting to feel less fearful, more confidently <em>themselves,</em> as they navigate their professional and even personal lives.”</p></div>


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<p>NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThe guru to the gurus at last shares his knowledge with the rest of us. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's seminal studies in behavioral psychology, behavioral economics, and happiness studies have influenced numerous other authors, including Steven Pinker and Malcolm Gladwell. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman at last offers his own, first book for the general public. It is a lucid and enlightening summary of his life's work. It will change the way you think about thinking. </p>
<p>Two systems drive the way we think and make choices, Kahneman explains: System One is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System Two is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Examining how both systems function within the mind, Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities as well as the biases of fast thinking and the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and our choices. Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, he shows where we can trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking, contrasting the two-system view of the mind with the standard model of the rational economic agent. </p>
<p>Kahneman's singularly influential work has transformed cognitive psychology and launched the new fields of behavioral economics and happiness studies. In this path-breaking book, Kahneman shows how the mind works, and offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and personal lives--and how we can guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble.</p></div>


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<p><strong>An international bestseller and the basis for the hugely successful film, Ken Kesey's</strong> One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest **is one of the defining works of the 1960s. </p>
<p>** In this classic novel, Ken Kesey’s hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the world of a mental hospital and takes over. A lusty, life-affirming fighter, McMurphy rallies the other patients around him by challenging the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched. He promotes gambling in the ward, smuggles in wine and women, and openly defies the rules at every turn. But this defiance, which starts as a sport, soon develops into a grim struggle, an all-out war between two relentless opponents: Nurse Ratched, backed by the full power of authority, and McMurphy, who has only his own indomitable will. What happens when Nurse Ratched uses her ultimate weapon against McMurphy provides the story’s shocking climax. </p>
<p><strong>“BRILLIANT!”—</strong> Time </p>
<p>**“A SMASHING ACHIEVEMENT...A TRULY ORIGINAL NOVEL!”—Mark Schorer </p>
<p>“Mr. Kesey has created a world that is convincing, alive and glowing within its own boundaries...His is a large, robust talent, and he has written a large, robust book.”—**Saturday Review</p></div>


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<p>Charlie embarks on a compelling but dangerous journey from retardation to genius. Oscar-winning film Charly starring Cliff Robertson and Claire Bloom-a mentally challenged man receives an operation that turns him into a genius ... and introduces him to heartache. When we first meet Charlie he is about to embark on a compelling but dangerous journey from retardation to genius. He has only a vague understanding of what will happen, but he is aware that knowledge and the ability to write are of paramount importance. So he doesn't hesitate for a moment to cooperate in a radical experiment designed to increase his intelligence, the key - he hopes - to being valued as a human being and to being loved. Daniel Keyes's powerful and highly original story of a young man whose quest for intelligence and knowledge parallels that of Algernon (the mouse who is an earlier subject of a similar experiment) remains unique in imaginative literature. We follow Charlie Gordon's mental, emotional, and spiritual growth. We watch with excitement as he becomes the focus of attention by the scientific world, his intellectual capacities far surpassing those of the psychologists and neurosurgeons who engineered his metamorphosis. We also follow the progress of his romance with two women, one who knew him before the experiment as well as with another, who knows him only as the attractive, bright, and sympathetic man he has become. And, finally, we hope against hope that what happens suddenly, unexpectedly, to Algernon will not happen to Charlie.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">Twentieth Anniversary Edition with Contributions from Joe Hill and Owen King </p>
<p>ONE OF <em>TIME</em> MAGAZINE’S TOP 100 NONFICTION BOOKS OF ALL TIME </p>
<p>Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this special edition of Stephen King’s critically lauded, million-copy bestseller shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work. </p>
<p>“Long live the King” hailed <em>Entertainment Weekly</em> upon publication of Stephen King’s <em>On Writing</em>. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King’s advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999—and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, <em>On Writing</em> will empower and entertain everyone who reads it—fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.</p></div>


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<p><strong>From the</strong> New York Times <strong>bestselling authors of</strong> Sprint <strong>comes “a unique and engaging read about a proven habit framework [that] readers can apply to each day” (</strong> Insider, **Best Books to Form New Habits). </p>
<p>“If you want to achieve more (without going nuts), read this book.”—Charles Duhigg, author of **The Power of Habit </p>
<p>Nobody ever looked at an empty calendar and said, "The best way to spend this time is by cramming it full of meetings!" or got to work in the morning and thought, <em>Today I'll spend hours on Facebook!</em> Yet that's exactly what we do. Why? </p>
<p>In a world where information refreshes endlessly and the workday feels like a race to react to other people's priorities faster, frazzled and distracted has become our default position. But what if the exhaustion of constant busyness wasn't mandatory? What if you could step off the hamster wheel and start taking control of your time and attention? That's what this book is about. </p>
<p>As creators of Google Ventures' renowned "design sprint," Jake and John have helped hundreds of teams solve important problems by changing how they work. Building on the success of these sprints and their experience designing ubiquitous tech products from Gmail to YouTube, they spent years experimenting with their own habits and routines, looking for ways to help people optimize their energy, focus, and time. Now they've packaged the most effective tactics into a four-step daily framework that anyone can use to systematically design their days. <em>Make Time</em> is not a one-size-fits-all formula. Instead, it offers a customizable menu of bite-size tips and strategies that can be tailored to individual habits and lifestyles. </p>
<p><em>Make Time</em> isn't about productivity, or checking off more to-dos. Nor does it propose unrealistic solutions like throwing out your smartphone or swearing off social media. Making time isn't about radically overhauling your lifestyle; it's about making small shifts in your environment to liberate yourself from constant busyness and distraction. </p>
<p>A must-read for anyone who has ever thought, <em>If only there were more hours in the day</em>..., <em>Make Time</em> will help you stop passively reacting to the demands of the modern world and start intentionally making time for the things that matter.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">The legendary bestseller that made millions look at the world in a radically different way returns in a new edition, now including an exclusive discussion between the authors and bestselling professor of psychology Angela Duckworth. </p>
<p>Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? Which should be feared more: snakes or french fries? Why do sumo wrestlers cheat? In this groundbreaking book, leading economist Steven Levitt—Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and winner of the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark medal for the economist under 40 who has made the greatest contribution to the discipline—reveals that the answers. Joined by acclaimed author and podcast host Stephen J. Dubner, Levitt presents a brilliant—and brilliantly entertaining—account of how incentives of the most hidden sort drive behavior in ways that turn conventional wisdom on its head.</p></div>


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<p>AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!! Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Amazon, and The Washington Post A Wired Must-Read Book of Summer   “Gretchen McCulloch is the internet’s favorite linguist, and this book is essential reading. Reading her work is like suddenly being able to see the matrix.” —Jonny Sun, author of everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too   Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are. Language is humanity's most spectacular open-source project, and the internet is making our language change faster and in more interesting ways than ever before. Internet conversations are structured by the shape of our apps and platforms, from the grammar of status updates to the protocols of comments and @replies. Linguistically inventive online communities spread new slang and jargon with dizzying speed. What's more, social media is a vast laboratory of unedited, unfiltered words where we can watch language evolve in real time. Even the most absurd-looking slang has genuine patterns behind it. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the deep forces that shape human language and influence the way we communicate with one another. She explains how your first social internet experience influences whether you prefer "LOL" or "lol," why ~sparkly tildes~ succeeded where centuries of proposals for irony punctuation had failed, what emoji have in common with physical gestures, and how the artfully disarrayed language of animal memes like lolcats and doggo made them more likely to spread.</p></div>


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<p>#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam &amp; Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life. Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income. In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam &amp; Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants. Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">An entertaining illumination of the stupid beliefs that make us feel wise. </p>
<p>Whether you’re deciding which smart phone to purchase or which politician to believe, you think you are a rational being whose every decision is based on cool, detached logic, but here’s the truth: You are not so smart. You’re just as deluded as the rest of us--but that’s okay, because being deluded is part of being human. </p>
<p>Growing out of David McRaney’s popular blog, <em>You Are Not So Smart</em> reveals that every decision we make, every thought we contemplate, and every emotion we feel comes with a story we tell ourselves to explain them, but often these stories aren’t true. Each short chapter--covering topics such as Learned Helplessness, Selling Out, and the Illusion of Transparency--is like a psychology course with all the boring parts taken out. </p>
<p>Bringing together popular science and psychology with humor and wit, <em>You Are Not So Smart</em> is a celebration of our irrational, thoroughly human behavior.</p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">Just in time for the 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, a rollickingly updated edition of LIVE FROM NEW YORK with more than 100 pages covering the past decade. </p>
<p>When first published to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, LIVE FROM NEW YORK was immediately proclaimed the best book ever produced on the landmark and legendary late-night show. In their own words, unfiltered and uncensored, a dazzling galaxy of trail-blazing talents recalled three turbulent decades of on-camera antics and off-camera escapades. Now a fourth decade has passed---and bestselling authors James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales have returned to Studio 8H. Over more than 100 pages of new material, they raucously and revealingly take the SNL story up to the present, adding a constellation of iconic new stars, surprises, and controversies.</p></div>


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<p>Instant #1 NYT bestseller, How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems by former NASA roboticist, Randall Munroe, shows you the most complicated ways to do things like he did in What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. Munroe combines real science, humor and cartoons and applies them to odd situations like measuring the radioactivity of your teeth to tell if you are a baby boomer or a 90's kid. Korean edition translated by Lee Gang Hwan.</p></div>


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<p>“At the core, Hit Refresh, is about us humans and the unique quality we call empathy, which will become ever more valuable in a world where the torrent of technology will disrupt the status quo like never before.” – Satya Nadella from Hit Refresh“Satya has charted a course for making the most of the opportunities created by technology while also facing up to the hard questions.” – Bill Gates from the Foreword of Hit Refresh The New York Times bestseller Hit Refresh is about individual change, about the transformation happening inside of Microsoft and the technology that will soon impact all of our lives—the arrival of the most exciting and disruptive wave of technology humankind has experienced: artificial intelligence, mixed reality, and quantum computing. It’s about how people, organizations, and societies can and must transform and “hit refresh” in their persistent quest for new energy, new ideas, and continued relevance and renewal.  Microsoft’s CEO tells the inside story of the company’s continuing transformation, tracing his own personal journey from a childhood in India to leading some of the most significant technological changes in the digital era. Satya Nadella explores a fascinating childhood before immigrating to the U.S. and how he learned to lead along the way. He then shares his meditations as a sitting CEO—one who is mostly unknown following the brainy Bill Gates and energetic Steve Ballmer. He tells the inside story of how a company rediscovered its soul—transforming everything from culture to their fiercely competitive landscape and industry partnerships. As much a humanist as engineer and executive, Nadella concludes with his vision for the coming wave of technology and by exploring the potential impact to society and delivering call to action for world leaders. “Ideas excite me,” Nadella explains. “Empathy grounds and centers me.” Hit Refresh is a set of reflections, meditations, and recommendations presented as algorithms from a principled, deliberative leader searching for improvement—for himself, for a storied company, and for society.</p></div>


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<p><strong>A</strong> New York Times **Bestseller </p>
<p>A<strong> Washington Post </strong>Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020 </p>
<p>Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR </p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic">*“A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of</span><strong>* Big Magic </strong>and<strong> Eat Pray Love </strong></p>
<p>No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly.** </p>
<p>There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. </p>
<p>Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe. </p>
<p>Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. </p>
<p>Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, <em>Breath</em> turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.</p></div>


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<p>In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. </p>
<p>Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive. </p>
<p>One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her. </p>
<p>A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.</p></div>


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<p>People are now exposed to more information than ever before, provided both by technology and by increasing access to every level of education. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism. </p>
<p>As Tom Nichols shows in <em>The Death of Expertise</em> , this rejection of experts has occurred for many reasons, including the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer satisfaction model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment machine. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. </p>
<p>Nichols has deeper concerns than the current rejection of expertise and learning, noting that when ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy-or in the worst case, a combination of both. <em>The Death of Expertise</em> is not only an exploration of a dangerous phenomenon but also a warning about the stability and survival of modern democracy in the Information Age.</p></div>


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<p>Now a Netflix series New York Times Bestseller and Winner of the 2018 James Beard Award for Best General Cookbook and multiple IACP Cookbook Awards Named one of the Best Books of 2017 by: NPR, BuzzFeed, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Rachel Ray Every Day, San Francisco Chronicle, Vice Munchies, Elle.com, Glamour, Eater, Newsday, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Seattle Times, Tampa Bay Times, Tasting Table, Modern Farmer, Publishers Weekly, and more. A visionary new master class in cooking that distills decades of professional experience into just four simple elements, from the woman declared "America's next great cooking teacher" by Alice Waters. In the tradition of The Joy of Cooking and How to Cook Everything comes Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, an ambitious new approach to cooking by a major new culinary voice. Chef and writer Samin Nosrat has taught everyone from professional chefs to middle school kids to author Michael Pollan to cook using her revolutionary, yet simple, philosophy. Master the use of just four elements--Salt, which enhances flavor; Fat, which delivers flavor and generates texture; Acid, which balances flavor; and Heat, which ultimately determines the texture of food--and anything you cook will be delicious. By explaining the hows and whys of good cooking, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will teach and inspire a new generation of cooks how to confidently make better decisions in the kitchen and cook delicious meals with any ingredients, anywhere, at any time. Echoing Samin's own journey from culinary novice to award-winning chef, Salt, Fat Acid, Heat immediately bridges the gap between home and professional kitchens. With charming narrative, illustrated walkthroughs, and a lighthearted approach to kitchen science, Samin demystifies the four elements of good cooking for everyone. Refer to the canon of 100 essential recipes--and dozens of variations--to put the lessons into practice and make bright, balanced vinaigrettes, perfectly caramelized roast vegetables, tender braised meats, and light, flaky pastry doughs. Featuring 150 illustrations and infographics that reveal an atlas to the world of flavor by renowned illustrator Wendy MacNaughton, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will be your compass in the kitchen. Destined to be a classic, it just might be the last cookbook you'll ever need. With a foreword by Michael Pollan.</p></div>


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<p>Newspeak, Doublethink, Big Brother, the Thought Police - the language of 1984 has passed into the English language as a symbol of the horrors of totalitarianism. George Orwell's story of Winston Smith's fight against the all-pervading Party has become a classic, not the least because of its intellectual coherence. First published in 1949, it retains as much relevance today as it had then.</p></div>


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<p>"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is considered by many to be the greatest of all American novels. This sequel to Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," is a first person narrative told by its title character. The novel picks up where "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" leaves off. Huck Finn who is now wealthy with the discovery of treasure at the end of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" finds himself in great danger from his abusive drunkard father who wishes to cash in on Huck's fortune. Fearing for his life Huck believes that he must run away from his home with the Widow Douglas and her Sister, Miss Watson. Huck fakes his own death and escapes to Jackson's Island. There he finds Miss Watson's escaped slave, Jim. Together they escape down the Mississippi River on a raft. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is a story told in the time of slavery with language that embodies the regional dialects that are common to Twain's work and the Mississippi River Valley in which Twain grew up. The novel is as much a biting and satirical commentary on slavery, religion, and civilized society as it is a light-hearted comedy and buddy travel story through Midwestern 19th century America. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and includes an introduction by Brander Matthews.</p></div>


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<p>A succinct, engaging, and practical guide for succeeding in any creative sphere, "The War of Art" is nothing less than Sun-Tzu for the soul. <br>What keeps so many of us from doing what we long to do? Why is there a naysayer within? How can we avoid the roadblocks of any creative endeavor-be it starting up a dream business venture, writing a novel, or painting a masterpiece? <br>Bestselling novelist Steven Pressfield identifies the enemy that every one of us must face, outlines a battle plan to conquer this internal foe, then pinpoints just how to achieve the greatest success. <br>"The War of Art" emphasizes the resolve needed to recognize and overcome the obstacles of ambition and then effectively shows how to reach the highest level of creative discipline. Think of it as tough love . . . for yourself. <br>Whether an artist, writer or business person, this simple, personal, and no-nonsense book will inspire you to seize the potential of your life. </p></div>


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<p>A groundbreaking and fascinating investigation into the transformative effects of exercise on the brain, from the bestselling author and renowned psychiatrist John J. Ratey, MD. </p>
<p>Did you know you can beat stress, lift your mood, fight memory loss, sharpen your intellect, and function better than ever simply by elevating your heart rate and breaking a sweat? The evidence is incontrovertible: Aerobic exercise physically remodels our brains for peak performance. </p>
<p>In SPARK, John J. Ratey, M.D., embarks upon a fascinating and entertaining journey through the mind-body connection, presenting startling research to prove that exercise is truly our best defense against everything from depression to ADD to addiction to aggression to menopause to Alzheimer's. Filled with amazing case studies (such as the revolutionary fitness program in Naperville, Illinois, which has put this school district of 19,000 kids first in the world of science test scores), SPARK is the first book to explore comprehensively the connection between exercise and the brain. It will change forever the way you think about your morning run---or, for that matter, simply the way you think</p></div>


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<p>Low-level entertainment lawyer Nick Carter thinks it’s a prank, not an alien encounter, when a redheaded mullah and a curvaceous nun show up at his office. But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. And boy, do they have news. The entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on humanity’s music ever since “Year Zero” (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang. The resulting fines and penalties have bankrupted the whole universe. We humans suddenly own <em>everything</em> —and the aliens are not amused. Nick now has forty-eight hours to save humanity, while hopefully wowing the hot girl who lives down the hall from him.</p></div>


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<p>Sex is as fascinating to scientists as it is to the rest of us. A vast pool of knowledge, therefore, has been gleaned from research into the nature of sex, from the contentious problem of why the wasteful reproductive process exists at all, to how individuals choose their mates and what traits they find attractive. This fascinating book explores those findings, and their implications for the sexual behaviour of our own species. It uses the Red Queen from ‘Alice in Wonderland’ – who has to run at full speed to stay where she is – as a metaphor for a whole range of sexual behaviours. The book was shortlisted for the 1994 Rhone-Poulenc Prize for Science Books. </p>
<p>‘Animals and plants evolved sex to fend off parasitic infection. Now look where it has got us. Men want BMWs, power and money in order to pair-bond with women who are blonde, youthful and narrow-waisted … a brilliant examination of the scientific debates on the hows and whys of sex and evolution’ Independent.</p></div>


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<p>Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair's breadth. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.com. </p>
<p>Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the "prediction paradox": The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future. </p>
<p>In keeping with his own aim to seek truth from data, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He explains and evaluates how these forecasters think and what bonds they share. What lies behind their success? Are they good-or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really right? He explores unanticipated commonalities and exposes unexpected juxtapositions. And sometimes, it is not so much how good a prediction is in an absolute sense that matters but how good it is relative to the competition. In other cases, prediction is still a very rudimentary-and dangerous-science. </p>
<p>Silver observes that the most accurate forecasters tend to have a superior command of probability, and they tend to be both humble and hardworking. They distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable, and they notice a thousand little details that lead them closer to the truth. Because of their appreciation of probability, they can distinguish the signal from the noise.</p></div>


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<p>In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. </p>
<p>Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness. </p>
<p>First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.</p></div>


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<p><strong>The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.</strong> <strong>Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s</strong> The Great American Read </p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">A Penguin Classic </p>
<p>First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics. </p>
<p>This Penguin Classics edition contains an introduction and notes by Steinbeck scholar Robert Demott. </p>
<p>For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.</p></div>


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<p>The classic, bestselling book on the psychology of racism-now fully revised and updated Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides. These topics have only become more urgent as the national conversation about race is increasingly acrimonious. This fully revised edition is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of race in America. </p>
<p>"An unusually sensitive work about the racial barriers that still divide us in so many areas of life. </p>
<p>"-Jonathan Kozol</p></div>


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<p>Already a #1 bestselling author in England, Pratchett now gives his U.S. fans another taste of his tremendous talent in this fast-paced novel about the dark and mysterious man we call Death. When Death begins to question the P's and Q's of his job, he is officially retired, which leads to the kind of chaos that always ensues when a public service is withdrawn.</p></div>


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<p>Terry Pratchett's profoundly irreverent novels, consistent number one bestsellers in England, have garnered him a revered position in the halls of parody along with Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen. </p>
<p>In <em>Equal Rites,</em> a dying wizard tries to pass on his powers to an eighth son of an eighth son, who is just at that moment being born. The fact that the son is actually a daughter is discovered just a little too late...</p></div>


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<p>Discworld's only demonology hacker, Eric, is about to make life very difficult for the rest of Ankh-Morpork's denizens. This would-be Faust is very bad...at his work, that is. All he wants is to fulfill three little wishes:to live forever, to be master of the universe, and to have a stylin' hot babe. </p>
<p>But Eric isn't even good at getting his own way. Instead of a powerful demon, he conjures, well, Rincewind, a wizard whose incompetence is matched only by Eric's. And as if that wasn't bad enough, that lovable travel accessory the Luggage has arrived, too. Accompanied by his best friends, there's only one thing Eric wishes now -- that he'd never been born!</p></div>


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<p>NOW UPDATED to include material on the Discworld books up to <em>Raising Steam</em>. </p>
<p>Most of us grow up having always known to touch wood or cross our fingers, and what happens when a princess kisses a frog or a boy pulls a sword from a stone, yet sadly some of these things are now beginning to be forgotten. Legends, myths, fairytales: our world is made up of the stories we told ourselves about where we came from and how we got there. It is the same on Discworld, except that beings which on Earth are creatures of the imagination - like vampires, trolls, witches and, possibly, gods - are real, alive and in some cases kicking on the Disc. </p>
<p>In <em>The Folklore of Discworld</em> , Terry Pratchett teams up with leading British folklorist Jacqueline Simpson to take an irreverent yet illuminating look at the living myths and folklore that are reflected, celebrated and affectionately libelled in the uniquely imaginative universe of Discworld.</p></div>


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<p>Tiffany Aching is a trainee witch — now working for the seriously scary Miss Treason. But when Tiffany witnesses the Dark Dance — the crossover from summer to winter — she does what no one has ever done before and leaps into the dance. Into the oldest story there ever is. And draws the attention of the wintersmith himself. </p>
<p>As Tiffany-shaped snowflakes hammer down on the land, can Tiffany deal with the consequences of her actions? Even with the help of Granny Weatherwax and the Nac Mac Feegle — the fightin’, thievin’ pictsies who are prepared to lay down their lives for their “big wee hag.”Wintersmith is the third title in an exuberant series crackling with energy and humour. It follows The Wee Free Men.</p></div>


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<p>The Heroine: Tiffany Aching, incipient witch and cheese maker extraordinaire. Once saved world from Queen of the Elves. Is about to discover that battling evil monarchs is child's play compared to mortal combat with a Hiver (see below). At eleven years old, is boldest heroine ever to have confronted the Forces of Darkness while armed with a frying pan. The Threat: A Hiver, insidious disembodied presence drawn to powerful magic. highly dangerous, frequently lethal. Cannot be stopped with iron or fire. Its target: Tiffany Aching (see above). The Nac Mac Feegle: A.k.a. the Wee Free Men. Height: six inches. Color: blue. Famed for drinking, stealing, and fighting. Will attack anything larger than themselves. Members include: Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, and Awfully Wee Billy Bigchin. Allies to Tiffany Aching (see above). The Book: Hilarious, breathtaking, spine-tingling sequel to the acclaimed Wee Free Men. The Author: Terry Pratchett, celebrated creator of the internationally best-selling Discworld series. Carnegie Medalist and writer extraordinaire.</p></div>


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<p><em>Librarian's Note: For an alternate cover edition of the same ISBN, click</em><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26227981-the-wee-free-men"><em style="color: #6cb4ee">here</em></a><em>.</em> </p>
<p>*"Another world is colliding with this one," said the toad. "All the monsters are coming back." </p>
<p>"Why?" said Tiffany. </p>
<p>"There's no one to stop them." </p>
<p>There was silence for a moment. </p>
<p>Then Tiffany said, "There's me."* </p>
<p>Armed only with a frying pan and her common sense, Tiffany Aching, a young witch-to-be, is all that stands between the monsters of Fairyland and the warm, green Chalk country that is her home. Forced into Fairyland to seek her kidnapped brother, Tiffany allies herself with the Chalk's local Nac Mac Feegle - aka the Wee Free Men - a clan of sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men who are as fierce as they are funny. Together they battle through an eerie and ever-shifting landscape, fighting brutal flying fairies, dream-spinning dromes, and grimhounds - black dogs with eyes of fire and teeth of razors - before ultimately confronting the Queen of the Elves, absolute ruler of a world in which reality intertwines with nightmare. And in the final showdown, Tiffany must face her cruel power alone... </p>
<p>In a riveting narrative that is equal parts suspense and humor, Carnegie Medalist Terry Pratchett returns to his internationally popular Discworld with a breathtaking tale certain to leave fans, new and old, enthralled.</p></div>


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<p>Cohen the Barbarian. </p>
<p>He's been a legend in his own lifetime. </p>
<p>He can remember the good old days of high adventure, when being a Hero meant one didn't have to worry about aching backs and lawyers and civilization. </p>
<p>But these days, he can't always remember just where he put his teeth...So now, with his ancient (yet still trusty) sword and new walking stick in hand, Cohen gathers a group of his old -- very old -- friends to embark on one final quest. He's going to climb the highest mountain of Discworld and meet the gods. </p>
<p>It's time the Last Hero in the world returns what the first hero stole. Trouble is, that'll mean the end of the world, if no one stops him in time.</p></div>


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<p style="font-style: italic">'What shall we do?' said Twoflower.<br>'Panic?' said Rincewind hopefully. He always held that panic was the best means of survival. </p>
<p>As it moves towards a seemingly inevitable collision with a malevolent red star, the Discworld could do with a hero. What it doesn’t need is a singularly inept and cowardly wizard, still recovering from the trauma of falling off the edge of the world, or a well-meaning tourist and his luggage which has a mind (and legs) of its own. Which is a shame because that's all there is...</p></div>


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<p>*Alternate Cover Edition can be found<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27254094-the-colour-of-magic"><span style="color: #6cb4ee">here</span></a>. * </p>
<p>On a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly eccentric expedition sets out. There's an avaricious but inept wizard, a naive tourist whose luggage moves on hundreds of dear little legs, dragons who only exist if you believe in them, and of course THE EDGE on the planet...</p></div>


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<p>It's the most wonderful time of the year, Hogswatchnight, when the Hogfather himself dons his red suit and climbs in his sleigh pulled by--of course--eight hogs, to shower gifts across Discworld. But when the fat man goes missing, someone has to sit in. It's up to Death to take up the reigns--otherwise the sun won't shine tomorrow . . . or ever again. </p>
<p>Who would want to harm Discworld's most beloved icon? Very few things are held sacred in this twisted, corrupt, heartless--and oddly familiar--universe, but the Hogfather is one of them. Yet here it is, Hogswatchnight, that most joyous and acquisitive of times, and the jolly, old, red-suited gift-giver has vanished without a trace. And there's something shady going on involving an uncommonly psychotic member of the Assassins' Guild and certain representatives of Ankh-Morpork's rather extensive criminal element. Suddenly Discworld's entire myth system is unraveling at an alarming rate. Drastic measures must be taken, which is why Death himself is taking up the reins of the fat man's vacated sleigh . . . which, in turn, has Death's level-headed granddaughter, Susan, racing to unravel the nasty, humbuggian mess before the holiday season goes straight to hell and takes everyone along with it. </p></div>


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<p style="font-weight: bold">A man with no eyes. <em>No eyes at all. Two tunnels in his head...</em> </p>
<p>It's not easy being a witch, and it's certainly not all whizzing about on broomsticks, but Tiffany Aching - teen witch - is doing her best. Until something evil wakes up, something that stirs up all the old stories about nasty old witches, so that just wearing a pointy hat suddenly seems a very bad idea. Worse still, this evil ghost from the past is hunting down one witch in particular. He's hunting for Tiffany. And he's <em>found</em> her . . . </p>
<p>A fabulous Discworld title filled with witches and magic and told in the inimitable Terry Pratchett style, <em>I Shall Wear Midnight</em> is the fourth Discworld title to feature Tiffany and her tiny, fightin', boozin' pictsie friends, the Nac Mac Feegle (aka The Wee Free Men).</p></div>


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<p>For use in schools and libraries only. In the latest installment of the Discworld saga, a mysterious island rises out of the sea that everyone wants to claim, and as a battle rages between the Ankh-Morpork and the Al-Khali, the Ankh-Morpork turn to the brilliant Leonard of Quirm, who is more than happy to design the ultimate weapon for war.</p></div>


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<p>Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is now on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds. </p>
<p>The Bands of Mourning are the mythical metal minds owned by the Lord Ruler, said to grant anyone who wears them the powers that the Lord Ruler had at his command. Hardly anyone thinks they really exist. A kandra researcher has returned to Elendel with images that seem to depict the Bands, as well as writings in a language that no one can read. Waxillium Ladrian is recruited to travel south to the city of New Seran to investigate. Along the way he discovers hints that point to the true goals of his uncle Edwarn and the shadowy organization known as The Set.</p></div>


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<p>A New York Times Bestseller -- Book 1 in the Harry Potter series. The author's first novel introduces Harry Potter, the son of a powerful wizard and witch who are killed by an even more powerful sorcerer. Sent to live with his Muggle (non-magical) aunt, uncle, and cousin, Harry is treated poorly without knowing why. On his tenth birthday, Harry learns that he is a wizard and is to go off to Hogwarts, a prestigious school for wizards and witches. Harry and his friends, Hermione and Ron, soon discover that something shady is going on, and they must save Hogwarts from the very sorcerer who killed Harry's parents. No Canadian Rights for the Harry Potter Series. HARRY POTTER and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Harry Potter publishing rights -- J. K. Rowling. (s05).</p>
<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3>
<p>Say you've spent the first 10 years of your life sleeping under the stairs of a family who loathes you. Then, in an absurd, magical twist of fate you find yourself surrounded by wizards, a caged snowy owl, a phoenix-feather wand, and jellybeans that come in every flavor, including strawberry, curry, grass, and sardine. Not only that, but you discover that you are a wizard yourself! This is exactly what happens to young Harry Potter in J.K. Rowling's enchanting, funny debut novel, <em>Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone</em>. In the nonmagic human world--the world of "Muggles"--Harry is a nobody, treated like dirt by the aunt and uncle who begrudgingly inherited him when his parents were killed by the evil Voldemort. But in the world of wizards, small, skinny Harry is famous as a survivor of the wizard who tried to kill him. He is left only with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, curiously refined sensibilities, and a host of mysterious powers to remind him that he's quite, yes, altogether different from his aunt, uncle, and spoiled, piglike cousin Dudley. </p>
<p>A mysterious letter, delivered by the friendly giant Hagrid, wrenches Harry from his dreary, Muggle-ridden existence: "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Of course, Uncle Vernon yells most unpleasantly, "I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" Soon enough, however, Harry finds himself at Hogwarts with his owl Hedwig... and that's where the real adventure--humorous, haunting, and suspenseful--begins. <em>Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone</em> , first published in England as <em>Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone</em> , continues to win major awards in England. So far it has won the National Book Award, the Smarties Prize, the Children's Book Award, and is short-listed for the Carnegie Medal, the U.K. version of the Newbery Medal. This magical, gripping, brilliant book--a future classic to be sure--will leave kids clamoring for <em>Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets</em> and <em>Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban</em>. (Ages 8 to 13) <em>--Karin Snelson</em></p>
<p>--This text refers to an alternate paperback edition.</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>“Wonderful…Funny, moving and impressive” The New York Times Book Review<br>Starred: “A delightful award-winning debut from an author who dances in the footsteps of P.L. Travers and Roald Dahl” Publisher Weekly starred review </p>
<p>“A delightful award-winning debut from an author who dances in the footsteps of P.L. Travers and Roald Dahl” - <em>Publisher Weekly</em> starred review --This text refers to an alternate paperback edition.</p>
<h3>From the Inside Flap</h3>
<p>Read by Jim Dale<br>8 hours 17 minutes, 6 cassettes </p>
<p>Harry Potter has no idea how famous he is. That's because he's being raised by his miserable aunt and uncle who are terrified Harry will learn that he's really a wizard, just as his parents were. But everything changes when Harry is summoned to attend an infamous school for wizards, and he begins to discover some clues about his illustrious birthright. From the surprising way he is greeted by a lovable giant, to the unique curriculum and colorful faculty at his unusual school, Harry finds himself drawn deep inside a mystical world he never knew existed and closer to his own noble destiny. --This text refers to an alternate paperback edition.</p>
<h3>From Booklist</h3>
<p>Gr. 4^-7. Orphaned in infancy, Harry Potter is raised by reluctant parents, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, an odious couple who would be right at home in a Roald Dahl novel. Things go from awful to hideous for Harry until, with the approach of his eleventh birthday, mysterious letters begin arriving addressed to him! His aunt and uncle manage to intercept these until a giant named Hagrid delivers one in person, and to his astonishment, Harry learns that he is a wizard and has been accepted (without even applying) as a student at Hogworts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There's even more startling news: it turns out that his parents were killed by an evil wizard so powerful that everyone is afraid to so much as utter his name, Voldemort. Somehow, though, Harry survived Voldemort's attempt to kill him, too, though it has left him with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead and enormous celebrity in the world of magic, because Voldemort vanished following his failure. But is he gone for good? What is hidden on the third floor of Hogworts Castle? And who is the Man with Two Faces? Rowling's first novel, which has won numerous prizes in England, is a brilliantly imagined and beautifully written fantasy that incorporates elements of traditional British school stories without once violating the magical underpinnings of the plot. In fact, Rowling's wonderful ability to put a fantastic spin on sports, student rivalry, and eccentric faculty contributes to the humor, charm, and, well, delight of her utterly captivating story. <em>Michael Cart</em> --This text refers to an alternate paperback edition.</p>
<h3>From Kirkus Reviews</h3>
<p>In a rousing first novel, already an award-winner in England, Harry is just a baby when his magical parents are done in by Voldemort, a wizard so dastardly other wizards are scared to mention his name. So Harry is brought up by his mean Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia Dursley, and picked on by his horrid cousin Dudley. He knows nothing about his magical birthright until ten years later, when he learns he's to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hogwarts is a lot like English boarding school, except that instead of classes in math and grammar, the curriculum features courses in Transfiguration, Herbology, and Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry becomes the star player of Quidditch, a sort of mid-air ball game. With the help of his new friends Ron and Hermione, Harry solves a mystery involving a sorcerer's stone that ultimately takes him to the evil Voldemort. This hugely enjoyable fantasy is filled with imaginative details, from oddly flavored jelly beans to dragons' eggs hatched on the hearth. It's slanted toward action-oriented readers, who will find that Briticisms meld with all the other wonders of magic school. (Fiction. 10-14) -- <em>Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.</em> --This text refers to an alternate paperback edition.</p>
<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>Readers are in for a delightful romp with this award-winning debut from a British author who dances in the footsteps of P.L. Travers and Roald Dahl. As the story opens, mysterious goings-on ruffle the self-satisfied suburban world of the Dursleys, culminating in a trio of strangers depositing the Dursleys' infant nephew Harry in a basket on their doorstep. After 11 years of disregard and neglect at the hands of his aunt, uncle and their swinish son Dudley, Harry suddenly receives a visit from a giant named Hagrid, who informs Harry that his mother and father were a witch and a wizard, and that he is to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry himself. Most surprising of all, Harry is a legend in the witch world for having survived an attack by the evil sorcerer Voldemort, who killed his parents and left Harry with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. And so the fun begins, with Harry going off to boarding school like a typical English kid?only his supplies include a message-carrying owl and a magic wand. There is enchantment, suspense and danger galore (as well as enough creepy creatures to satisfy the most bogeymen-loving readers, and even a magical game of soccerlike Quidditch to entertain sports fans) as Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione plumb the secrets of the forbidden third floor at Hogwarts to battle evil and unravel the mystery behind Harry's scar. Rowling leaves the door wide open for a sequel; bedazzled readers will surely clamor for one. Ages 8-12. <br>Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate paperback edition.</p>
<h3>From AudioFile</h3>
<p>If you haven't heard of Harry Potter then you haven't turned on your TV or radio or opened a newspaper in the last few months. For the uninitiated, Harry is a young orphan who is living with his nasty relatives when he's summoned to claim his magical heritage by attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. What could be better (or more satisfying to children) than studying, not English and chemistry, but Potions and Defense-Against-the-Dark-Arts? Jim Dale, with his fully voiced reading, brings the world of wizards to life in ways unimagined even by those who have read and re-read the book. The accents are sure, the inflections perfectly suit the characters, and some of Rowling's particularly inventive bits, like the game of Quidditch, become clearer. Sometimes poignant, often funny, Dale's interpretation of this enchanted other world is the consummate family-listening experience. S.G. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate paperback edition.</p>
<h3>From School Library Journal</h3>
<p>Grade 4-7-Harry Potter has spent 11 long years living with his aunt, uncle, and cousin, surely the vilest household in children's literature since the family Roald Dahl created for Matilda (Viking, 1988). But like Matilda, Harry is a very special child; in fact, he is the only surviving member of a powerful magical family. His parents were killed by the evil Voldemort, who then mysteriously vanished, and the boy grew up completely ignorant of his own powers, until he received notification of his acceptance at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Once there, Harry's life changes dramatically. Hogwarts is exactly like a traditional British boarding school, except that the professors are all wizards and witches, ghosts roam the halls, and the surrounding woods are inhabited by unicorns and centaurs. There he makes good friends and terrible enemies. However, evil is lurking at the very heart of Hogwarts, and Harry and his friends must finally face the malevolent and powerful Voldemort, who is intent on taking over the world. The delight of this book lies in the juxtaposition of the world of Muggles (ordinary humans) with the world of magic. A whole host of unique characters inhabits this world, from the absentminded Head Wizard Dumbledore to the sly and supercilious student Draco Malfoy to the loyal but not too bright Hagrid. Harry himself is the perfect confused and unassuming hero, whom trouble follows like a wizard's familiar. After reading this entrancing fantasy, readers will be convinced that they, too, could take the train to Hogwarts School, if only they could find Platform Nine and Three Quarters at the King's Cross Station.<br><em>Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public Library</em><br>Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate paperback edition.</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p>J. K. Rowling is the author of the beloved, bestselling, record-breaking Harry Potter series. She started writing the series during a delayed Manchester to London King’s Cross train journey, and during the next five years, outlined the plots for each book and began writing the first novel. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was published in the United States by Arthur A. Levine Books in 1998, and the series concluded nearly ten years later with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, published in 2007. J. K. Rowling is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees including an OBE for services to children’s literature, France’s Légion d’Honneur, and the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award. She supports a wide number of causes through her charitable trust Volant, and is the founder of Lumos, a charity working to transform the lives of disadvantaged children. J. K. Rowling lives in Edinburgh with her husband and three children. </p>
<p>Kazu Kibuishi is the creator of the <em>New York Times</em> bestselling <em>Amulet</em> series and <em>Copper</em> , a collection of his popular webcomic. He is also the founder and editor of the acclaimed Flight anthologies. <em>Daisy Kutter: The Last Train</em> , his first graphic novel, was listed as one of the Best Books for Young Adults by YALSA, and <em>Amulet, Book One: The Stonekeeper</em> was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a Children's Choice Book Award finalist. Kazu lives and works in Alhambra, California, with his wife and fellow comics artist, Amy Kim Kibuishi, and their two children. Visit Kazu online at www.boltcity.com. </p>
<p>Mary GrandPré has illustrated more than twenty beautiful books for children, including the American editions of the Harry Potter novels. Her work has also appeared in the <em>New Yorker</em> , the <em>Atlantic Monthly</em> , and the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> , and her paintings and pastels have been shown in galleries across the United States. Ms. GrandPré lives in Sarasota, Florida, with her family. </p>
<p>--This text refers to an alternate paperback edition.</p>
<h3>From The Washington Post</h3>
<p>Obviously, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone should make any modern 11-year-old a very happy reader. The novel moves quickly, packs in everything from a boa constrictor that winks to a melancholy Zen-spouting centaur to an owl postal system, and ends with a scary surprise. --This text refers to an alternate paperback edition.</p></div>


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<p>Alternate Cover Edition <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38330582-harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince"><span style="color: #6cb4ee">here</span></a>. </p>
<p>It is Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As Voldemort's sinister forces amass and a spirit of gloom and fear sweeps the land, it becomes more and more clear to Harry that he will soon have to confront his destiny. But is he up to the challenges ahead of him? </p>
<p>In this dark and breathtaking adventure, J.K. Rowling skilfully begins to unravel the complex web she has woven, as we discover more of the truth about Harry, Dumbledore, Snape and, of course, He Who Must Not Be Named . . . </p>
<p>--back cover</p></div>


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<p>Dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed Harry through his half-moon glasses. 'It is time,' he said, 'for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Harry. Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything.' Harry Potter is due to start his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizadry. He is desperate to get back to school and find out why his friends Ron and Hermione have been so secretive all summer. However, what Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his whole world upside down ... But before he even gets to school, Harry has an unexpected and frightening encounter with two Dementors, has to face a court hearing at the Ministry of Magic and has been escorted on a night-time broomstick ride to the secret headquarters of a mysterious group called 'The Order of the Phoenix'. And that is just the start.</p></div>


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<p>Harry Potter is lucky to reach the age of thirteen, since he has survived the murderous attacks of the feared Dark Wizard Voldemort three times. But his hopes for a quiet term concentrating on Quidditch are dashed when a maniacal mass-murderer escapes from Azkaban, pursued by the soul-sucking Dementors who guard the prison. It's assumed that Hogwarts is the safest place for Harry to be. But is it a coincidence that he can feel eyes watching him in the dark, and should he be taking Professor Trelawney's ghoulish predictions seriously?</p></div>


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<p><strong>The Final Chapter</strong> <br>Harry has been burdened with a dark, dangerous and seemingly impossible task: that of locating and destroying Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes. Never has Harry felt so alone, or faced a future so full of shadows. But Harry must somehow find within himself the strength to complete the task he has been given. He must leave the warmth, safety and companionship of The Burrow and follow without fear or hesitation the inexorable path laid out for him.</p>
<p>In this final, seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectactular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited. The spellbinding, richly woven narrative, which plunges, twists and turns at a breathtaking pace, confirms the author as a mistress of storytelling, whose books will be read, reread and read again.</p></div>


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<p>Harry can't wait for his holidays with the dire Dursleys to end. But a small, self-punishing house-elf warns Harry of mortal danger awaiting him at Hogwarts School. Returning to the castle nevertheless, Harry hears a rumour about a chamber of secrets, holding unknown horrors for wizards of Muggle parentage. Now someone is casting spells that paralyse people, making them seem dead, and a terrible warning is found painted on the wall. The chief suspect - and always in the wrong place - is Harry. But something much darker has yet to be unleashed.<br>--back cover</p></div>


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<p><strong>A special new edition in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the publication of</strong> Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone <strong>, with a stunning new cover illustration by Caldecott Medalist Brian Selznick.</strong> " <em>Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire</em> is the pivotal fourth novel in the seven-part tale of Harry Potter's training as a wizard and his coming of age. Harry wants to get away from the pernicious Dursleys and go to the International Quidditch Cup with Hermione, Ron, and the Weasleys. He wants to dream about Cho Chang, his crush (and maybe do more than dream). He wants to find out about the mysterious event involving two other rival schools of magic, and a competition that hasn't happened for a hundred years. He wants to be a normal, fourteen-year-old wizard. Unfortunately for Harry Potter, he's not normal - even by wizarding standards.And in this case, different can be deadly.</p></div>


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<p><em>Librarian's Note: For alternate cover editions for same ISBN published later, click</em><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25881322-lords-and-ladies"><em style="color: #6cb4ee">here</em></a><em> for paperback and click </em><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25873389-lords-and-ladies"><em style="color: #6cb4ee">here</em></a><em> for hardcover.</em> </p>
<p>A Discworld Novel. It's a hot Midsummer Night. The crop circles are turning up everywhere-even on the mustard-and-cress of Pewseyy Ogg, aged four. And Magrat Garlick, witch, is going to be married in the morning...Everything ought to be going like a dream. But the Lancre All-Comers Morris Team have got drunk on a fairy mound and the elves have come back, bringing all those things traditionally associated with the magical, glittering realm of Faerie: cruelty, kidnapping, malice and evil, evil murder.* Granny Weatherwax and her tiny argumentative coven have really got their work cut out this time...With full supporting cast of dwarfs, wizards, trolls, Morris Dancers and one orang-utan. And lots. of hey-nonny-nonny and blood all over the place. </p>
<p>*But with tons of style.</p></div>


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<p>Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork. And now the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match, without using magic, so they’re in the mood for trying everything else. </p>
<p>The prospect of the Big Match draws in a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can, a maker of jolly good pies, a dim but beautiful young woman, who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been, and the mysterious Mr Nutt (and no one knows anything much about Mr Nutt, not even Mr Nutt, which worries him, too). As the match approaches, four lives are entangled and changed forever. </p>
<p>Because the thing about football — the important thing about football — is that it is not just about football. Here we go! Here we go! Here we go!</p>
<p>**</p>
<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>Football, food, fashion and wizards collide in Pratchett's 37th Discworld novel (after 2007's <em>Making Money</em> ), an affectionate satire on the foibles of sports and sports fans. The always out-of-touch wizards at Ankh-Morpork's Unseen University stand to lose a very big bequest unless they enter a team in a violent but popular street sport competition. As the wizards struggle to learn the game, aided by the university's hired help, Ankh-Morpork's ruler schemes to use the competition for his own purposes. Though the book suffers from a few awkward moments (Pratchett's attempts to discuss racism through the strained relationships of dwarves, humans and goblins fall particularly flat), the prose crackles with wit and charm, and the sendups of league football, academic posturing, <em>Romeo and Juliet</em> and cheesy sports dramas are razor sharp and hilarious but never cruel. At its heart, this is an intelligent, cheeky love letter to football, its fans and the unifying power of sports. <em>(Oct.)</em> <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>• "Behind the fantasy Terry Pratchett looks at very real contemporary issues and scores many goals. This isn't just football, it's Discworld football. Or, to borrow another phrase, it's about life, the Universe, and everything." -- <em>The Times<br></em><br>• "Satirical, historical, fantastical and irresistible." -- *Daily Mail </p>
<ul><li>• "The subject matter is football, with a dash of Romeo and Juliet... exactly what's needed to cheer us all up in the autumnal gloom. Terry has none of his ability to raise a laugh." -- *Daily Express </li></ul>
<p style="font-style: italic">From the Trade Paperback edition.</p></div>


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<p>For more than two decades, Terry Pratchett has been regaling readers with tales of Discworld—a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants, which are standing on the back of a giant turtle, flying through space. It is a world populated by ineffectual wizards and sharp-as-tacks witches, by tired policemen and devious dictators, by reformed thieves and vampires who have sworn to drink no blood. It is a world that is vastly different from our own . . . except when it isn't. Now, in The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld, various nuggets of Pratchett's witty commentary and sagacious observations have been compiled by Pratchett expert Stephen Briggs, a man who, they say, knows even more about Discworld than Terry Pratchett. Within these pages, you'll find musings on: Interior decorating: "It's a fact known throughout the universes that no matter how carefully the colors are chosen, institutional decor ends up as either vomit green, unmentionable brown, nicotine yellow, or surgical appliance pink. By some little-understood process of sympathetic resonance, corridors painted in those colors always smell slightly of boiled cabbage—even if no cabbage is ever cooked in the vicinity. </p>
<p>" (Equal Rites) Travel: "Any seasoned traveler soon learns to avoid anything wished on them as a 'regional speciality,' because all the term means is that the dish is so unpleasant the people living everywhere else will bite off their own legs rather than eat it. But hosts still press it upon distant guests anyway: 'Go on, have the dog's head stuffed with macerated cabbage and pork noses—it's a regional speciality.'" (The Last Continent) Young men: "And then there was the young male walk. At least women swung only their hips. Young men swung everything, from the shoulders down. You have to try to occupy a lot of space. It makes you look bigger, like a tomcat fluffing his tail. The boys tried to walk big in self-defense against all those other big boys out there. I'm bad, I'm fierce, I'm cool, I'd like a pint of shandy and me mam wants me home by nine. </p>
<p>" (Monstrous Regiment) Class: "'Old money' meant that it had been made so long ago that the black deeds that had originally filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant. Funny, that; a brigand for a father was something you kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of. </p>
<p>" (Making Money) . . . and more! Culled from all the Discworld novels, The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld confirms Pratchett's place in the pantheon of great satirists and proves why the Chicago Tribune has praised his Discworld as "entertaining and gloriously funny . . . an accomplishment nothing short of magical. </p>
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<p><em>Librarian's Note: For alternate cover edition for same ISBN published later, click</em><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25690965-maskerade"><em style="color: #6cb4ee">here</em></a><em>.</em> </p>
<p>The Ghost in the bone-white mask who haunts theAnkh-Morpork Opera House was always considered a benign presence -- some would even say lucky -- until he started killing people. The sudden rash of bizarre backstage deaths now threatens to mar the operatic debut of country girl Perdita X. (nee Agnes) Nitt, she of the ample body and ampler voice. </p>
<p>Perdita's expected to hide in the chorus and sing arias out loud while a more petitely presentable soprano mouths the notes. But at least it's an escape from scheming Nanny Ogg and old Granny Weatherwax back home, who want her to join their witchy ranks. </p>
<p>Once Granny sets her mind on something, however, it's difficult -- and often hazardous -- to dissuade her. And no opera-prowling phantom fiend is going to keep a pair of determined hags down on the farm after they've seen Ankh-Morpork.</p></div>


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<p>Alone on a desert island — everything and everyone he knows and loves has been washed away in a storm — Mau is the last surviving member of his nation. He’s completely alone — or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes, wears strange lacy trousers like the grandfather bird, and gives him a stick that can make fire.<br>Daphne, sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy, almost immediately regrets trying to shoot the native boy. Thank goodness the powder was wet and the gun only produced a spark. She’s certain her father, distant cousin of the Royal family, will come and rescue her but it seems, for now, that all she has for company is the boy and the foul-mouthed ship’s parrot, until other survivors arrive to take refuge on the island. Together, Mau and Daphne discover some remarkable things (including how to milk a pig, and why spitting in beer is a good thing), and start to forge a new nation. </p>
<p>Encompassing themes of death and nationhood, Terry Pratchett’s new novel is, as can be expected, extremely funny, witty and wise. Mau’s ancestors have something to teach us all. Mau just wishes they would shut up about it and let him get on with saving everyone’s lives!</p></div>


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<p>Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch had it all. But now he's back in his own rough, tough past without even the clothes he was standing up in when the lightning struck... </p>
<p>Living in the past is hard. Dying in the past is incredibly easy. But he must survive, because he has a job to do. He must track down a murderer, teach his younger self how to be a good copper, and change the outcome of a bloody rebellion. There's a problem: if he wins, he's got no wife, no child, no future. </p>
<p>A Discworld Tale of One City, with a full chorus of street urchins, ladies of negotiable affection, rebels, secret policemen, and other children of the revolution. </p>
<p>Truth! Justice! Freedom! <br>And a Hard-boiled Egg!</p></div>


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<p>The seventh novel in the "Discworld" series concentrates on the problems of being a teenage pharaoh and humorously explores Egyptian history. The other novels in the series include "The Colour of Magic", "Sourcery" and "Wyrd Sisters".</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>"'As funny as Wodehouse and as witty as Waugh'" Independent "'The best kind of parody - funny and smart and still a good story'" Mail on Sunday "'Imagine a collision between Jonathan Swift at his most scatologically-minded and J.R.R. Tolkien on speed'" Daily Telegraph "'Like Dickens, much of Pratchett's appeal lies in his humanism, both in a sentimental regard for his characters' good fortune, and in that his writing is generous-spirited and inclusive'" Guardian </p>
<h3>From the Inside Flap</h3>
<p>No. 7 in the Discworld opus: Teppic, a student assassin on Ankh-Morpork, must return home to claim the throne of Djelibaybi on his father's death. But High Priest, Dios, is running the show and manipulates Teppic into constructing a pyramid for his father. And the magic just keeps building up. </p></div>


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<p>The twelfth Discworld novel -- It seemed an easy job . . . After all, how difficult could it be <br>to make sure that a servant girl doesn't marry a prince? </p>
<p>But for the witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick, travelling to the distant city of Genua, things are never that simple. Servant girls have to marry the prince. That's what life is all about. You can't fight a Happy Ending. At least -- up until now.</p></div>


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<p>There’s a werewolf with pre-lunar tension in Ankh-Morpork. And a dwarf with attitude, and a Golem who’s begun to think for itself. But Commander Vimes is more concerned about the crime that’s happened. He’s got to find out not only whodunit, but howdunit too. He’s not even sure what they dun. But as soon as he knows what the questions are, he’s going to want some answers.</p>
<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3>
<p>In <em>Feet of Clay</em> , Terry Pratchett continues the fantasy adventures on Discworld--where anything goes. Anything but murder, that is. Commander Vimes of the Watch must investigate a puzzling series of deaths, with help from various trolls and dwarfs. Pratchett's humor and excellent writing skills draw the reader effortlessly into his zany world. <em>Feet of Clay</em> is 19th in the series. <em>--Blaise Selby</em></p>
<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>A flat platter of a planet spinning atop the backs of four giant elephants perched on the shell of an immense turtle: it's no surprise that life on Discworld is far from mundane. Pratchett's 17th Discworld novel picks up where his last, Men at Arms, left off, following Ankh-Morpork City Watch Commander Samuel Vimes and his fellow cops as they strive to maintain a semblance of order in a city as infamous for its intrigues as for its ethnic diversity. An elderly priest is killed, then the harmless old curator of the Dwarf Bread Museum is found beaten to death with one of his own exhibits. Investigation reveals a link to the city's golems?silent, tireless workers built of clay and brought to life with magic. There's a rash of golem suicides, and Vimes uncovers a plot that could topple the government. Pratchett's latest is full of sly puns and the lively, outrageous characters his readers expect. Those new to Discworld?which first appeared in Pratchett's The Colour of Magic, 1983?will have no trouble keeping up with the action. This is fantasy served with a twist of Monty Python, parody that works by never taking itself too seriously. Author tour; U.K. and translation rights: Ralph Vicinanza. <br>Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p></div>


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<p>In the four decades since his first book appeared in print, Terry Pratchett has become one of the world’s best-selling and best-loved authors. Here for the first time are his short stories and other short form fiction collected into one volume. <em>A Blink of the Screen</em> charts the course of Pratchett’s long writing career: from his schooldays through to his first writing job on the Bucks Free Press,; to the origins of his debut novel, <em>The Carpet People</em> ; and on again to the dizzy mastery of the phenomenally successful Discworld series. </p>
<p>Here are characters both familiar and yet to be discovered; abandoned worlds and others still expanding; adventure, chickens, death, disco and, actually, some quite disturbing ideas about Christmas,all of it shot through with his inimitable brand of humour. </p>
<p>With an introduction by Booker Prize-winning author A.S. Byatt, illustrations by the late Josh Kirby and drawings by the author himself, this is a book to treasure.</p></div>


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<p>Suddenly, condemned arch-swindler Moist von Lipwig found himself with a noose around his neck and dropping through a trapdoor into ... a government job?</p>
<p>By all rights, Moist should be meeting his maker rather than being offered a position as Postmaster by Lord Vetinari, supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork. Getting the moribund Postal Service up and running again, however, may prove an impossible task, what with literally mountains of decades-old undelivered mail clogging every nook and cranny of the broken-down post office. Worse still, Moist could swear the mail is talking to him. Worst of all, it means taking on the gargantuan, greedy Grand Trunk clacks communication monopoly and its bloodthirsty piratical headman. But if the bold and undoable are what's called for, Moist's the man for the job -- to move the mail, continue breathing, get the girl, and specially deliver that invaluable commodity that every being, human or otherwise, requires: hope.</p></div>


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<p>Here there be dragons...and the denizens of Ankh-Morpork wish one huge firebreather would return from whence it came. Long believed extinct, a superb specimen of draco nobilis ("noble dragon" for those who don't understand italics) has appeared in Discworld's greatest city. Not only does this unwelcome visitor have a nasty habit of charbroiling everything in its path, in rather short order it is crowned King (it is a noble dragon, after all...).</p></div>


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<p>When her dear old Granddad -- the Grim Reaperhimself -- goes missing, Susan takes over the family business. The progeny of Death's adopted daughter and his apprentice, she shows real talent for the trade. That is until a little string in her heart goes "twang.</p>

<p>"With a head full of dreams and a pocketful of lint,Imp the Bard lands in Ankh-Morpork, yearning to become a rock star. Determined to devote his life to music, the unlucky fellow soon finds that all his dreams are coming true. Well almost.</p>

<p>In this finger-snapping, toe-tapping tale of youth,Death, and rocks that roll, Terry Pratchett once again demonstrates the wit and genius that have propelled him to the highest echelons of parody next to Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen.</p>


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<p>*Alternative cover edition for this ISBN<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/618207.Sourcery"> here</a> *  </p>
<p>There was an eighth son of an eighth son. He was, quite naturally, a wizard. And there it should have ended. However (for reasons we'd better not go into), he had seven sons. And then he had an eighth son... a wizard squared...a source of magic...a Sourcerer.  </p>
<p><em>SOURCERY</em> SEES THE RETURN OF RINCEWIND AND THE LUGGAGE AS THE DISCWORLD FACES ITS GREATEST - AND FUNNIEST - CHALLENGE YET.</p>


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<p>Unthinkingly inviting Uberwald's undead, the Magpyrs, into Lancre to celebrate the birth of his daughter, King Verence makes a big mistake. Really big. Because once they're ensconced within the castle, these wine-drinking, garlic-eating, sun-loving modern vampires have no intention of leaving. Ever. And only an uneasy alliance between a nervous young priest and the argumentative local witches can save the country from being taken over by people with a cultivated bloodlust and bad taste in silk waistcoats. As the Lancre living are about to discover, there's only one way to fight. Go for the throat, or as the vampyres themselves say ... carpe jugulum!</p>


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<p>War has come to Discworld ... again.</p>
<p>And, to no one's great surprise, the conflict centers around the small, arrogantly fundamentalist duchy of Borogravia, which has long prided itself on its unrelenting aggressiveness. A year ago, Polly Perks's brother marched off to battle, and Polly's willing to resort to drastic measures to find him. So she cuts off her hair, dons masculine garb, and -- aided by a well-placed pair of socks -- sets out to join this man's army. Since a nation in such dire need of cannon fodder can't afford to be too picky, Polly is eagerly welcomed into the fighting fold—along with a vampire, a troll, an Igor, a religious fanatic, and two uncommonly close "friends." It would appear that Polly "Ozzer" Perks isn't the only grunt with a secret. But duty calls, the battlefield beckons. And now is the time for all good ... er ... "men" to come to the aid of their country.</p>


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<p>Discworld's pesky alchemists are up to their old tricks again. This time, they've discovered how to get gold from silver -- the silver screen that is. Hearing the siren call of Holy Wood is one Victor Tugelbend, a would-be wizard turned extra. He can't sing, he can't dance, but he can handle a sword (sort of), and now he wants to be a star. So does Theda Withel, an ambitious ingenue from a little town (where else?) you've probably never heard of.  </p>
<p>But the click click of moving pictures isn't just stirring up dreams inside Discworld. Holy Wood's magic is drifting out into the boundaries of the universes, where raw realities, the could-have-beens, the might-bes, the never-weres, the wild ideas are beginning to ferment into a really stinky brew. It's up to Victor and Gaspode the Wonder Dog (a star if ever one was born!) to rein in the chaos and bring order back to a starstruck Discworld. And they're definitely not ready for their close-up!</p>


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<p><strong>Winner of the 2001 Carnegie Medal</strong>   </p>
<p>*One rat, popping up here and there, squeaking loudly, and taking a bath in the cream, could be a plague all by himself. After a few days of this, it was amazing how glad people were to see the kid with his magical rat pipe. And they were amazing when the rats followed hint out of town.  </p>
<p>They'd have been really amazed if they'd ever found out that the rats and the piper met up with a cat somewhere outside of town and solemnly counted out the money.*  </p>
<p>The Amazing Maurice runs the perfect Pied Piper scam. This streetwise alley cat knows the value of cold, hard cash and can talk his way into and out of anything. But when Maurice and his cohorts decide to con the town of Bad Blinitz, it will take more than fast talking to survive the danger that awaits. For this is a town where food is scarce and rats are hated, where cellars are lined with deadly traps, and where a terrifying evil lurks beneath the hunger-stricken streets....  </p>
<p>Set in Terry Pratchett's widely popular Discworld, this masterfully crafted, gripping read is both compelling and funny. When one of the world's most acclaimed fantasy writers turns a classic fairy tale on its head, no one will ever look at the Pied Piper or rats the same way again!</p>


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<p><em>Everyone knows that the world is flat, and supported on the backs of four elephants. But weren't there supposed to be five? Indeed there were. So where is it?...</em>  </p>
<p>When duty calls. Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork constabulary answers. Even when he doesn't want to. He's been "invited" to attend a royal function as both detective and diplomat. The one role he relishes; the other requires, well, ruby tights. Of course where cops (even those clad in tights) go, alas, crime follows. An attempted assassination and a theft soon lead to a desperate chase from the low halls of Discworld royalty to the legendary fat mines of Uberwald, where lard is found in underground seams along with tusks and teeth and other precious ivory artifacts. It's up to the dauntless Vimes -- bothered as usual by a familiar cast of Discworld inhabitants (you know, trolls, dwarfs, werewolves, vampires and such) -- to solve the puzzle of the missing pachyderm. Which of course he does. After all, solving mysteries <em>is</em> his job.</p>


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<p>This is the Discworld's last continent, a completely separate creation.  </p>
<p>It's hot. It's dry... very dry. There was this thing once called The Wet, which no one now believes in. Practically everything that's not poisonous is venomous. But it's the best bloody place in the world, all right?  </p>
<p>And it'll die in a few days, except...  </p>
<p>Who is this hero striding across the red desert? Champion sheep shearer, horse rider, road warrior, beer drinker, bush ranger, and someone who'll even eat a Meat Pie Floater when he's sober? A man in a hat, whose Luggage follows him on little legs, who's about to change history by preventing a swagman stealing a jumbuck by a billabong?  </p>
<p>Yes... all this place has between itself and wind-blown doom is Rincewind, the inept wizard who can't even spell wizard. He's the only hero left.  </p>
<p>Still... no worries, eh?</p>


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<p>The denizens of Ankh-Morpork fancy they've seen just about everything. But then comes the <em>Ankh-Morpork Times,</em> struggling scribe William de Worde's upper-crust, newsletter turned Discworld's first paper of record.</p>
<p>An ethical journalist, de Worde has a proclivity for investigating stories -- a nasty habit that soon creates powerful enemies eager to stop his presses. And what better way than to start the <em>Inquirer,</em> a titillating (well, what else would it be?) tabloid that conveniently interchanges what's real for what sells.</p>
<p>But de Worde's got an inside line on the hot story concerning Ankh-Morpork's leading patrician Lord Vetinari. The facts say Vetinari is guilty. But as William de Worde learns, facts don't always tell the whole story. There's that pesky little thing called <em>the truth ...</em></p>


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<p>Everybody wants more time, which is why on Discworld only the experts can manage it -- the venerable Monks of History who store it and pump it from where it's wasted, like underwater (how much time does a codfish really need?), to places like cities, where busy denizens lament, "Oh where does the time go?" While everyone always talks about slowing down, one young horologist is about to do the unthinkable. He's going to stop. Well, stop time that is, by building the world's first truly accurate clock. Which means esteemed History Monk Lu-Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd have to put on some speed to stop the timepiece before it starts. For if the Perfect Clock starts ticking, Time -- as we know it -- will end. And then the trouble will really begin...</p>


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<p>Terry's Pratchett's profoundly irreverent novels are consistent number one bestsellers in England, where they have catapulted him into the highest echelons of parody next to Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen.</p>
<p>Meet Granny Weatherwx, the most highly regarded non-leader a coven of non-social witches could ever have. Generally, these loners don't get involved in anything, mush less royal intrigue. but then there are those times they can't help it. As Granny Weatherwzx is about to discover, though, it's a lot harder to stir up trouble in the castle than some theatrical types would have you think. Even when you've got a few unexpected spells up your sleave.</p>


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<p>"May you live in interesting times" is the worst thing one can wish on a citizen of Discworld -- especially on the distinctly unmagical sorcerer Rincewind, who has had far too much perilous excitement in his life. But when a request for a "Great Wizzard" arrives in Ankh-Morpork via carrier albatross from the faraway Counterweight Continent, it's he who's sent as emissary. Chaos threatens to follow the impending demise of the Agatean Empire's current ruler. And, for some incomprehensible reason, someone believes Rincewind will have a mythic role in the war and wholesale bloodletting that will surely ensue. (Carnage is pretty much a given, since Cohen the Barbarian and his extremely elderly Silver Horde are busily formulating their own plan for looting, pillaging, and, er, looking wistfully at girls.) However, Rincewind firmly believes there are too many heroes already in the world, yet only one Rincewind. And he owes it to the world to keep that one alive for as long as possible.</p>


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<p>"The Ankh-Morpork Post Office is running like...well, not at all like a government office. The mail is delivered promptly; meetings start and end on time; five out of six letters relegated to the Blind Letter Office ultimately wend their way to the correct addresses. Postmaster General Moist von Lipwig, former arch-swindler and confidence man, has exceeded all expectations -- including his own. So it's somewhat disconcerting when Lord Vetinari summons Moist to the palace and asks, "Tell me, Mr. Lipwig, would you like to make some <em>real</em> money?" </p>
<p>Vetinari isn't talking about wages, of course. He's referring, rather, to the Royal Mint of Ankh-Morpork, a venerable institution that has run for centuries on the hereditary employment of the Men of the Sheds and their loyal outworkers, who <em>do</em> make money in their spare time. Unfortunately, it costs <em>more</em> than a penny to <em>make</em> a penny, so the whole process seems somewhat counter-intuitive.</p>
<p>Next door, at the Royal Bank, the Glooper, an "analogy machine," has scientifically established that one never has quite as much money at the end of the week as one thinks one should, and the bank's chairman, one elderly Topsy (nee Turvy) Lavish, keeps two loaded crossbows at her desk. Oh, and the chief clerk is probably a vampire.</p>
<p>But before Moist has time to fully consider Vetinari's question, fate answers it for him. Now he's not only making money, but enemies too; he's got to spring a prisoner from jail, break into his own bank vault, stop the new manager from licking his face, and, above all, find out where all the gold has gone -- otherwise, his life in banking, while very exciting, is going to be really, really short..." </p>


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<p>Terry Pratchett's profoundly irreverent novels are consistent number one bestseller in England, where they have catapulted him into the highest echelons of parody next to Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen.</p>

<p>In this Discworld installment, Death comes to Mort with an offer he can't refuse -- especially since being, well, dead isn't compulsory.</p>

<p>As Death's apprentice, he'll have free board and lodging, use of the company horse, and he won't need time off for family funerals. The position is everything Mort thought he'd ever wanted, until he discovers that this perfect job can be a killer on his love life.</p>


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<p><em>Librarian's Note: For alternate cover edition of same ISBN published later, click</em><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6048593-small-gods"><em style="color: #6cb4ee">here</em></a><em>.</em> </p>
<p>Internationally acclaimed author Terry Pratchett takes the name of religion humorously in vain in this classic tale of gods, miracles, and monsters. A simple lad who can neither read nor write, Brutha is content growing melons for the Temple monks. But his lot changes when a tortoise appears in his garden. To Brutha's dismay, he discovers that he's become his god's Chosen One--a difficult position that requires spreading goodness and stopping holy wars. </p>
<p>Of course no good deed goes unpunished, and soon some rather inquisitive folk are taking an unhealthy interest in Brutha. They don't see a need for peace, love, and tolerance. They liked the old days just fine. And Brutha, too, yearns for the simple life he once led--a desire that leads him to wonder just why his god didn't <em>choose someone else</em>.</p></div>

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<p>'Deftly weaves themes of forgiveness, belief and spiritual regeneration' The TimesThe Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . . 'Just because you can't explain it, doesn't mean it's a miracle.'In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was: 'Hey, you!' This is the Discworld, after all, and religion is a controversial business. Everyone has their own opinion, and indeed their own gods, of every shape and size, and all elbowing for space at the top. In such a competitive environment, shape and size can be pretty crucial to make one's presence felt. So it's certainly not helpful to be reduced to appearing in the form of a tortoise, a manifestation far below god-like status in anyone's book. </p>
<p>In such instances, you need an acolyte, and fast: for the Great God Om, Brutha the novice is the Chosen One – or at least the only One available. He wants peace and justice and brotherly love. He also wants the Inquisition to stop torturing him now, please . . . ___________________The Discworld novels can be read in any order but Small Gods is a standalone novel.</p></div>


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<p>Once, in a gods-forsaken hellhole called Koom Valley, trolls and dwarfs met in bloody combat. Centuries later, each species still views the other with simmering animosity. Lately, the influential dwarf, Grag Hamcrusher, has been fomenting unrest among Ankh-Morpork's more diminutive citizens—a volatile situation made far worse when the pint-size provocateur is discovered bashed to death . . . with a troll club lying conveniently nearby.</p>
<p>Commander Sam Vimes of the City Watch is aware of the importance of solving the Hamcrusher homicide without delay. (Vimes's second most-pressing responsibility, in fact, next to always being home at six p.m. sharp to read <em>Where's My Cow?</em> to Sam, Jr.) But more than one corpse is waiting for Vimes in the eerie, summoning darkness of a labyrinthine mine network being secretly excavated beneath Ankh-Morpork's streets. And the deadly puzzle is pulling him deep into the muck and mire of superstition, hatred, and fear—and perhaps all the way to Koom Valley itself. </p></div>


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<p>“One of the 12 best business books of all time…. Timeless principles of empowering leadership.” – USA Today"The best how-to manual anywhere for managers on delegating, training, and driving flawless execution.” —FORTUNESince Turn the Ship Around! was published in 2013, hundreds of thousands of readers have been inspired by former Navy captain David Marquet’s true story. Many have applied his insights to their own organizations, creating workplaces where everyone takes responsibility for his or her actions, where followers grow to become leaders, and where happier teams drive dramatically better results. </p>
<p>Marquet was a Naval Academy graduate and an experienced officer when selected for submarine command. Trained to give orders in the traditional model of “know all–tell all” leadership, he faced a new wrinkle when he was shifted to the Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine. Facing the high-stress environment of a sub where there’s little margin for error, he was determined to reverse the trends he found on the Santa Fe: poor morale, poor performance, and the worst retention rate in the fleet. Almost immediately, Marquet ran into trouble when he unknowingly gave an impossible order, and his crew tried to follow it anyway. When he asked why, the answer was: “Because you told me to.” Marquet realized that while he had been trained for a different submarine, his crew had been trained to do what they were told—a deadly combination. </p>
<p>That’s when Marquet flipped the leadership model on its head and pushed for leadership at every level. Turn the Ship Around! reveals how the Santa Fe skyrocketed from worst to first in the fleet by challenging the U.S. Navy’s traditional leader-follower approach. Struggling against his own instincts to take control, he instead achieved the vastly more powerful model of giving control to his subordinates, and creating leaders. </p>
<p>Before long, each member of Marquet’s crew became a leader and assumed responsibility for everything he did, from clerical tasks to crucial combat decisions. The crew became completely engaged, contributing their full intellectual capacity every day. The Santa Fe set records for performance, morale, and retention. And over the next decade, a highly disproportionate number of the officers of the Santa Fe were selected to become submarine commanders. </p>
<p>Whether you need a major change of course or just a tweak of the rudder, you can apply Marquet’s methods to turn your own ship around.</p></div>


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<p>This is a story of dreaming big and working hard, of spectacular success and breathtaking failure, of shouted questions, and, at long last, whispered answers. With trademark wit and heart, Phil Vischer shares how God can use the death of a dream to point us toward true success. </p>
<p>Larry. Bob. Archibald. These VeggieTales stars are the most famous vegetables you'll ever eat. Oops, meet. Their antics are known around the world. But so much of the VeggieTales story hasn't been told. In <em>Me, Myself, and Bob,</em> Phil Vischer, founder of Big Idea and creator of VeggieTales, gives a behind-the-scenes look at his not-so-funny journey with the loveable veggies. From famed creator to bankrupt dreamer, Vischer shares his story of trial and ultimate triumph as God inspired him with one big idea after another.</p></div>


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<p>This book is about pleasure. It's also about pain. Most important, it's about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We're living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting... The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we've all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption. </p>
<p>In <em>Dopamine Nation</em> , Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain...and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, <em>Dopamine Nation</em> shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery. </p>
<p style="font-weight: bold">"Brilliant... riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued."--Beth Macy, author of <em>Dopesick</em> </p>
<p>INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES and LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER<br>“Brilliant… riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued.”—Beth Macy, author of Dopesick<br>As heard on Fresh Air</p></div>


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<p><strong>Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction • Winner of the National Book Award •</strong> New York Times **Bestseller </p>
<p>Renowned scholar Stephen Greenblatt brings the past to vivid life in what is at once a supreme work of scholarship, a literary page-turner, and a thrilling testament to the power of the written word.**</p>
<p>In the winter of 1417, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties plucked a very old manuscript off a dusty shelf in a remote monastery, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. He was Poggio Bracciolini, the greatest book hunter of the Renaissance. His discovery, Lucretius’ ancient poem <em>On the Nature of Things,</em> had been almost entirely lost to history for more than a thousand years. </p>
<p>It was a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functions without the aid of gods, that religious fear is damaging to human life, that pleasure and virtue are not opposites but intertwined, and that matter is made up of very small material particles in eternal motion, randomly colliding and swerving in new directions. Its return to circulation changed the course of history. The poem’s vision would shape the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein, and—in the hands of Thomas Jefferson—leave its trace on the Declaration of Independence. </p>
<p>From the gardens of the ancient philosophers to the dark chambers of monastic scriptoria during the Middle Ages to the cynical, competitive court of a corrupt and dangerous pope, Greenblatt brings Poggio’s search and discovery to life in a way that deepens our understanding of the world we live in now. </p>
<p>“An intellectually invigorating, nonfiction version of a Dan Brown–like mystery-in-the-archives thriller.” — <em>Boston Globe</em> 16 pages of color illustrations</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>"The ideas in <em>The Swerve</em> are tucked, cannily, inside a quest narrative. . . . The details that Mr. Greenblatt supplies throughout <em>The Swerve</em> are tangy and exact. . . . There is abundant evidence here of what is Mr. Greenblatt’s great and rare gift as a writer: an ability, to borrow a phrase from <em>The Swerve</em> , to feel fully 'the concentrated force of the buried past.'"<br>― New York Times </p>
<p>"In this gloriously learned page-turner, both biography and intellectual history, Harvard Shakespearean scholar Greenblatt turns his attention to the front end of the Renaissance as the origin of Western culture's foundation: the free questioning of truth."<br>― <strong>starred review,</strong> Publishers Weekly </p>
<p>"More wonderfully illuminating Renaissance history from a master scholar and historian."<br>― <strong>starred review,</strong> Kirkus Reviews </p>
<p>"In <em>The Swerve</em> , the literary historian Stephen Greenblatt investigates why [Lucretius'] book nearly dies, how it was saved and what its rescue means to us."<br>― <strong>Sarah Bakewell,</strong> New York Times Book Review </p>
<p>"In this outstandingly constructed assessment of the birth of philosophical modernity, renowned Shakespeare scholar Greenblatt deftly transports reader to the dawn of the Renaissance...Readers from across the humanities will find this enthralling account irresistible."<br>― <strong>starred review,</strong> Library Journal </p>
<p>"Every tale of the preservation of intellectual history should be as rich and satisfying as Stephen Greenblatt's history of the reclamation and acclamation of Lucretius's <em>De rerum natura</em> from obscurity."<br>― <strong>John McFarland,</strong> Shelf Awareness </p>
<p>"It's fascinating to watch Greenblatt trace the dissemination of these ideas through 15th-century Europe and beyond, thanks in good part to Bracciolini's recovery of Lucretius' poem."<br>― Salon.com </p>
<p>"But <em>Swerve</em> is an intense, emotional telling of a true story, one with much at stake for all of us. And the further you read, the more astonishing it becomes. It's a chapter in how we became what we are, how we arrived at the worldview of the present. No one can tell the whole story, but Greenblatt seizes on a crucial pivot, a moment of recovery, of transmission, as amazing as anything in fiction."<br>― Philadelphia Inquirer </p>
<p>"[ <em>The Swerve</em> ] is thrilling, suspenseful tale that left this reader inspired and full of questions about the ongoing project known as human civilization."<br>― Boston Globe </p>
<p>"Can a poem change the world? Harvard professor and bestselling Shakespeare biographer Greenblatt ably shows in this mesmerizing intellectual history that it can. A richly entertaining read about a radical ancient Roman text that shook Renaissance Europe and inspired shockingly modern ideas (like the atom) that still reverberate today."<br>― Newsweek </p>
<p>"A fascinating, intelligent look at what may well be the most historically resonant book-hunt of all time."<br>― Booklist </p>
<p>"Pleasure may or may not be the true end of life, but for book lovers, few experiences can match the intellectual-aesthetic enjoyment delivered by a well-wrought book. In the world of serious nonfiction, Stephen Greenblatt is a pleasure maker without peer."<br>― Newsday </p>
<p>" <em>The Swerve</em> is one of those brilliant works of non-fiction that's so jam-packed with ideas and stories it literally boggles the mind."<br>― <strong>Maureen Corrigan,</strong> NPR/Fresh Air</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p><strong>Stephen Greenblatt</strong> (Ph.D. Yale) is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. Also General Editor of <em>The Norton Anthology of English Literature</em> , he is the author of eleven books, including <em>Tyrant,</em> <em>The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve: The Story that Created Us,</em> <em>The Swerve: How the World Became Modern</em> (winner of the 2011 National Book Award and the 2012 Pulitzer Prize); <em>Shakespeare's Freedom</em> ; <em>Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare</em> ; <em>Hamlet in Purgatory</em> ; <em>Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World</em> ; <em>Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture</em> ; and <em>Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare</em>. He has edited seven collections of criticism, including <em>Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto</em> , and is a founding coeditor of the journal <em>Representations</em>. His honors include the MLA’s James Russell Lowell Prize, for both <em>Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England</em> and <em>The Swerve</em> , the Sapegno Prize, the Distinguished Humanist Award from the Mellon Foundation, the Wilbur Cross Medal from the Yale University Graduate School, the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre, the Erasmus Institute Prize, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California, Berkeley. He was president of the Modern Language Association of America and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.</p></div>


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<p><strong>THE INSTANT</strong> NEW YORK TIMES <strong>BESTSELLER. From the bestselling author of</strong> Blood, Sweat, and Pixels <strong>comes the next definitive, behind-the-scenes account of the video game industry: how some of the past decade's most renowned studios fell apart—and the stories, both triumphant and tragic, of what happened next.</strong> </p>
<p>Jason Schreier's groundbreaking reporting has earned him a place among the preeminent investigative journalists covering the world of video games. In his eagerly anticipated, deeply researched new book, Schreier trains his investigative eye on the volatility of the video game industry and the resilience of the people who work in it. </p>
<p>The business of videogames is both a prestige industry and an opaque one. Based on dozens of first-hand interviews that cover the development of landmark games—Bioshock Infinite, Epic Mickey, Dead Space, and more—on to the shocking closures of the studios that made them, <em>Press Reset</em> tells the stories of how real people are affected by game studio shutdowns, and how they recover, move on, or escape the industry entirely. </p>
<p>Schreier's insider interviews cover hostile takeovers, abusive bosses, corporate drama, bounced checks, and that one time the Boston Red Sox's Curt Schilling decided he was going to lead a game studio that would take out World of Warcraft. Along the way, he asks pressing questions about why, when the video game industry is more successful than ever, it's become so hard to make a stable living making video games—and whether the business of making games can change before it's too late.</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p>"Schreier writes lucidly and entertainingly. For neophytes, PRESS RESET is a useful introduction to the business of videogames. For those who play… the book may prove compulsively readable."―Wall Street Journal </p>
<p>"A must-read... Schreier's reporting is unparalleled."―Forbes </p>
<p>“Brilliant [as a] detective’s massive corkboard, covered in names and pieces of string… Entertaining, educational, and breezy. Highly recommended.”</p>
<p>―Ars Technica </p>
<p>"Meticulously researched and briskly presented."―The AV Club </p>
<p>“Intriguing, hopeful, and sometimes darkly funny.”</p>
<p>―The Verge </p>
<p>“An informed, well-balanced report on the video game industry’s passions and pitfalls.”</p>
<p>―Kirkus </p>
<p>“This standout book will appeal to readers of Kotaku, Polygon, and IGN, as well as viewers of NoClip’s YouTube documentaries. Beyond gamers, this well-researched account will also interest labor advocates.”</p>
<p>―Library Journal</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p><strong>Jason Schreier</strong> is the author of <em>Blood, Sweat, and Pixels</em> and a reporter at <em>Bloomberg News</em> , where he covers the video game industry. Previously, he spent eight years at <em>Kotaku</em> , one of the biggest video game websites in the world. He has also covered games for <em>Wired</em> and has contributed to a wide range of outlets including <em>The New York Times, Edge, Paste, Kill Screen</em> , and <em>The Onion News Network</em>. He lives in New York with his wife and daughter.</p></div>


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<p><strong>INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER</strong> • <strong>An engaging, deeply researched guide to flourishing in a world of increasing stress and negativity—the inspiration for one of the most popular TED Talks of all time</strong> </p>
<p><strong>“Powerful [and] charming . . . A book for just about anyone . . . The philosophies in this book are easily the best wire frames to build a happy and successful life.”—</strong> Medium </p>
<p style="font-style: italic">Happiness is not the belief that we don’t need to change; it is the realization that we can. </p>
<p>Our most commonly held formula for success is broken. Conventional wisdom holds that once we succeed, we’ll be happy; that once we get that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But the science reveals this formula to be backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around. </p>
<p>Research shows that happy employees are more productive, more creative, and better problem solvers than their unhappy peers. And positive people are significantly healthier and less stressed and enjoy deeper social interaction than the less positive people around them. </p>
<p>Drawing on original research—including one of the largest studies of happiness ever conducted—and work in boardrooms and classrooms across forty-two countries, Shawn Achor shows us how to rewire our brains for positivity and optimism to reap the happiness advantage in our lives, our careers, and even our health. His strategies include: </p>
<p>• <strong>The Tetris Effect:</strong> how to retrain our brains to spot patterns of possibility so we can see and seize opportunities all around us<br>• <strong>Social Investment:</strong> how to earn the dividends of a strong social support network<br>• <strong>The Ripple Effect:</strong> how to spread positive change within our teams, companies, and families </p>
<p>By turns fascinating, hopeful, and timely, <em>The Happiness Advantage</em> reveals how small shifts in our mind-set and habits can produce big gains at work, at home, and elsewhere.</p>
<h3>Review</h3>
<p><strong>Praise for Shawn Achor and</strong> The Happiness Advantage </p>
<p>“Achor transports us to his virtual classroom, a journey along which we glean the seven secrets of happiness. <em>The Happiness Advantage</em> reveals the most important discoveries coming out of modern psychology.” <strong>—Rom Brafman, bestselling co-author of</strong> Sway <strong>and</strong> Click </p>
<p>“Thoughtfully lays out the steps to increasing workplace positivity.” <strong>—</strong> Forbes </p>
<p>“Powerful . . . A supremely important book for anyone in management . . . accessible [and] easy to read.” <strong>—</strong> Medium </p>
<p>“A big star . . . a world-famous expert.” <strong>—</strong> New York Times </p>
<p>“Shawn Achor is funny, self-deprecating, and devastating to my notions of what his field is all about. . . . I’m butter to his knife.” <strong>—</strong> Boston Globe </p>
<p>“Achor bases his training on a burgeoning body of research on the positive psychology movement, which emphasizes instilling resiliency and positive attitudes.” <strong>—</strong> The Wall Street Journal</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p><strong>Shawn Achor</strong> is one of the world’s leading experts on happiness, success, and potential. His research has graced the cover of <em>Harvard Business Review</em> , and his TED Talk is one of the most popular of all time, with more than 15 million views. Shawn spent twelve years at Harvard before bringing this research to nearly half the Fortune 100, as well as places like the Pentagon, impoverished schools in Africa, and the White House. His research has also been published in top psychology journals and featured in the <em>New York Times</em> , the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> , <em>Forbes</em> , and <em>Fortune</em>. His interview with Oprah Winfrey and his PBS program have been seen by millions. He now serves on the World Happiness Council and continues his research.</p>
<h3>Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.</h3>
<p>I applied to Harvard on a dare. </p>
<p>I was raised in Waco, Texas, and never really expected to leave. Even as I was applying to Harvard, I was setting down roots and training to be a local volunteer firefighter. For me, Harvard was a place from the movies, the place mothers joke about their kids going to when they grow up. The chances of actually getting in were infinitesimally small. I told myself I’d be happy just to tell my kids someday, offhandedly at dinner, that I had even applied to Harvard. (I imagined my imaginary children being quite impressed.) </p>
<p>When I unexpectedly got accepted, I felt thrilled and humbled by the privilege. I wanted to do the opportunity justice. So I went to Harvard, and I stayed . . . for the next twelve years. </p>
<p>When I left Waco, I had been out of Texas four times and never out of the country (though Texans consider anything out of Texas foreign travel). But as soon as I stepped out of the T in Cambridge and into Harvard Yard, I fell in love. So after getting my BA, I found a way to stay. I went to grad school, taught sections in sixteen different courses, and then began delivering lectures. As I pursued my graduate studies, I also became a Proctor, an officer of Harvard hired to live in residence with undergraduates to help them navigate the difficult path to both academic success and happiness within the Ivory Tower. This effectively meant that I lived in a college dorm for a total of 12 years of my life (not a fact I brought up on first dates). </p>
<p>I tell you this for two reasons. First, because I saw Harvard as such a privilege, it fundamentally changed the way my brain processed my experience. I felt grateful for every moment, even in the midst of stress, exams, and blizzards (something else I had only seen in the movies). Second, my 12 years teaching in the classrooms and living in the dorms afforded me a comprehensive view of how thousands of other Harvard students advanced through the stresses and challenges of their college years. That’s when I began noticing the patterns. </p>
<p>Paradise Lost and Found </p>
<p>Around the time that Harvard was founded, John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost, “The Mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” </p>
<p>Three hundred years later, I observed this principle come to life. Many of my students saw Harvard as a privilege, but others quickly lost sight of that reality and focused only on the workload, the competition, the stress. They fretted incessantly about their future, despite the fact that they were earning a degree that would open so many doors. They felt overwhelmed by every small setback instead of energized by the possibilities in front of them. And after watching enough of those students struggle to make their way through, something dawned on me. Not only were these students the ones who seemed most susceptible to stress and depression, they were the ones whose grades and academic performance were suffering the most. </p>
<p>Years later, in the fall of 2009, I was invited to go on a monthlong speaking tour throughout Africa. During the trip, a CEO from South Africa named Salim took me to Soweto, a township just outside of Johannesburg that many inspiring people, including Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have called their home. </p>
<p>We visited a school next to a shantytown where there was no electricity and scarce running water. Only when I was in front of the children did it dawn on me that none of the stories I normally use in my talks would work. Sharing the research and experiences of privileged American college students and wealthy, powerful business leaders seemed inappropriate. So I tried to open a dialogue. Struggling for points of common experience, I asked in a very clearly tongue-in-cheek tone, “Who here likes to do schoolwork?” I thought the seemingly universal distaste for schoolwork would bond us together. But to my shock, 95 percent of the children raised their hands and started smiling genuinely and enthusiastically. </p>
<p>Afterward, I jokingly asked Salim why the children of Soweto were so weird. “They see schoolwork as a privilege,” he replied, “one that many of their parents did not have.” When I returned to Harvard two weeks later, I saw students complaining about the very thing the Soweto students saw as a privilege. I started to realize just how much our interpretation of reality changes our experience of that reality. The students who were so focused on the stress and the pressure?—?the ones who saw learning as a chore?—?were missing out on all the opportunities right in front of them. But those who saw attending Harvard as a privilege seemed to shine even brighter. Almost unconsciously at first, and then with ever-increasing interest, I became fascinated with what caused those high potential individuals to develop a positive mindset to excel, especially in such a competitive environment. And likewise, what caused those who succumbed to the pressure to fail—or stay stuck in a negative or neutral position. </p>
<p>Researching Happiness at Hogwarts </p>
<p>For me, Harvard remains a magical place, even after twelve years. When I invite friends from Texas to visit, they claim that eating in the freshman dining hall is like being at Hogwarts, Harry Potter’s fantastical school of magic. Add in the other beautiful buildings, the university’s abundant resources, and the seemingly endless opportunities it offers, and my friends often end up asking, “Shawn, why would you waste your time studying happiness at Harvard? Seriously, what does a Harvard student possibly have to be unhappy about?” </p>
<p>In Milton’s time, Harvard had a motto that reflected the school’s religious roots: Veritas, Christo et Ecclesiae (Truth, for Christ and the Church). For many years now, that motto has been truncated to a single word: Veritas, or just truth. There are now many truths at Harvard, and one of them is that despite all its magnificent facilities, a wonderful faculty, and a student body made up of some of America’s (and the world’s) best and brightest, it is home to many chronically unhappy young men and women. In 2004, for instance, a Harvard Crimson poll found that as many as 4 in 5 Harvard students suffer from depression at least once during the school year, and nearly half of all students suffer from depression so debilitating they can’t function.1 </p>
<p>This unhappiness epidemic is not unique to Harvard. A Conference Board survey released in January of 2010 found that only 45 percent of workers surveyed were happy at their jobs, the lowest in 22 years of polling.2 Depression rates today are ten times higher than they were in 1960.3 Every year the age threshold of unhappiness sinks lower, not just at universities but across the nation. Fifty years ago, the mean onset age of depression was 29.5 years old. Today, it is almost exactly half that: 14.5 years old. My friends wanted to know, Why study happiness at Harvard? The question I asked in response was: Why not start there? </p>
<p>So I set out to find the students, those 1 in 5 who were truly flourishing?—?the individuals who were above the curve in terms of their happiness, performance, achievement, productivity, humor, energy, or resilience?—?to see what exactly was giving them such an advantage over their peers. What was it that allowed these people to escape the gravitational pull of the norm? Could patterns be teased out of their lives and experience to help others in all walks of life to be more successful in an increasingly stressful and negative world? As it turns out, they could. </p>
<p>Scientific discovery is a lot about timing and luck. I serendipitously found three mentors?—?Harvard professors Phil Stone, Ellen Langer, and Tal Ben-Shahar?—?who happened to be at the vanguard of a brand new field called positive psychology. Breaking with traditional psychology’s focus on what makes people unhappy and how they can return to “normal,” these three were applying the same scientific rigor to what makes people thrive and excel?—?the very same questions I wanted to answer. </p>
<p>Escaping the Cult of the Average </p>
<p>The graph below may seem boring, but it is the very reason I wake up excited every morning. (Clearly, I live a very exciting life.) It is also the basis of the research underlying this book. </p>
<p>This is a scatter-plot diagram. Each dot represents an individual, and each axis represents some variable. This particular diagram could be plotting anything: weight in relation to height, sleep in relation to energy, happiness in relation to success, and so on. If we got this data back as researchers, we would be thrilled because very clearly there is a trend going on here, and that means that we can get published, which in the academic world is all that really matters. The fact that there is one weird red dot?—?what we call an outlier?—?up above the curve is no problem. It’s no problem because we can just delete it. We can delete it because it’s clearly a measurement error?—?and we know that it’s an error because it’s screwing up our data. </p>
<p>One of the very first things students in intro psychology, statistics, or economics courses learn is how to “clean up the data.” If you are interested in observing the general trend of what you are researching, then outliers mess up your findings. That’s why there exist countless formulas and statistics packages to help enterprising researchers eliminate these “problems.” And to be clear, this is not cheating; these are statistically valid procedures?—?if, that is, one is interested only in the general trend. I am not. </p>
<p>The typical approach to understanding human behavior has always been to look for the average behavior or outcome. But in my view this misguided approach has created what I call the “cult of the average” in the behavioral sciences. If someone asks a question such as “How fast can a child learn how to read in a classroom?” science changes that question to “How fast does the average child learn to read in the classroom?” We then ignore the children who read faster or slower, and tailor the classroom toward the “average” child. That’s the first mistake traditional psychology makes. </p>
<p>If we study merely what is average, we will remain merely average. </p>
<p>Conventional psychology consciously ignores outliers because they don’t fit the pattern. I’ve sought to do the opposite: Instead of deleting these outliers, I want to learn from them.</p></div>


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<p>Logen Ninefiingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught up in one feud too many he's about to become a dead barbarian, leaving nothing behind but bad songs and dead friends. Jezal dan Luther, paragon of selfishness, has nothing more dangerous in mind than winning glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules. -- back cover.</p></div>


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<p>Bitter and merciless war is coming to the frozen north. It's bloody and dangerous and the Union army, split by politics and hamstrung by incompetence, is utterly unprepared for the slaughter that's coming. Lacking experience, training, and in some cases even weapons the army is scarcely equipped to repel Bethod's scouts, let alone the cream of his forces. In the heat-ravaged south the Gurkish are massing to assault the city of Dagoska, defended by Inquisitor Glokta. The city is braced for the inevitable defeat and massacre to come, preparations are made to make the Gurkish pay for every inch of land ...but a plot is festering to hand the city to its beseigers without a fight, and the previous Inquisitor of Dagoska vanished without trace. Threatened from within and without the city, Glokta needs answers, and he needs them soon. And to the east a small band of malefactors travel to the edge of the world to reclaim a device from history - a Seed, hidden for generations - with tremendous destructive potential. A device which could put a end to war, to the army of Eaters in the South, to the invasion of Shanka from the North - but only if it can be found, and only if its power can be controlled ...</p></div>


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<p>The end is coming. Logen Ninefingers might only have one more fight in him but it's going to be a big one. Battle rages across the North, the King of the Northmen still stands firm, and there's only one man who can stop him. His oldest friend, and his oldest enemy. It's past time for the Bloody-Nine to come home. </p>
<p>With too many masters and too little time, Superior Glokta is fighting a different kind of war. A secret struggle in which no one is safe, and no one can be trusted. His days with a sword are far behind him. It's a good thing blackmail, threats and torture still work well enough. </p>
<p>Jezal dan Luthar has decided that winning glory is far too painful, and turned his back on soldiering for a simple life with the woman he loves. But love can be painful too, and glory has a nasty habit of creeping up on a man when he least expects it. </p>
<p>While the King of the Union lies on his deathbead, the peasants revolt and the nobles scramble to steal his crown. No one believes that the shadow of war is falling across the very heart of the Union. The First of the Magi has a plan to save the world, as he always does. But there are risks. There is no risk more terrible, after all, than to break the First Law...</p></div>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>Starred Review. Abercrombie returns to the blood-drenched arena of the First Law trilogy ( <em>The Blade Itself</em> , etc.) with this skillfully crafted and bleakly humorous sword and sorcery adventure. Duke Orso imagines that he can become king by ending the civil wars that have devastated Styria, but he errs by trying to kill his overly popular general, mercenary Monza Murcatto. Recovering from her massive injuries and mourning her murdered brother, Monza vows vengeance on Orso and half a dozen of his accomplices. Employing her own motley crew of death dealers, Monza gets her revenge, but it's neither simple nor satisfying; each target requires fresh strategy, and each death has unexpected effects. Abercrombie is both fiendishly inventive and solidly convincing, especially when sprinkling his appallingly vivid combat scenes with humor so dark that it's almost ultraviolet. <em>(Aug.)</em> <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.</p>
<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>Springtime in Styria. And that means war. </p>
<p>There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white. Armies march, heads roll and cities burn, while behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king. </p>
<p>War may be hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso's employ, it's a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular - a shade too popular for her employer's taste. Betrayed and left for dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die. </p>
<p>Her allies include Styria's least reliable drunkard, Styria's most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a Northman who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started... </p>
<p>Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge. </p>
<p>BEST SERVED COLD is the new standalone novel set in the world of Joe Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy.</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p>Joe Abercrombie is a freelance film editor, working mostly on documentaries and live music events for bands from Coldplay to Iron Maiden. He lives and works in London. He was nominated for the 2008 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Visit Joe Abercrombie online at www.joeabercrombie.com.</p></div>


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<h3>Review</h3>
<p>"Lord of the rings as directed by Kurosawa" --- Wall Street Journal. </p>
<p>"Magnificent, richly entertaining." --- *Time </p>
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<li>"Abercrombie never glosses over a moment of the madness, passion, and horror of war, nor the tribulations that turn ordinary people into the titular heroes." --- <em>Publishers Weekly</em> (Starred Review) </li></ul>
<p>" <em>The Heroes</em> is an indictment of war and the duplicity that corrupts men striving for total power: bloody and violent, but never gratuitously so, it's imbued with cutting humour, acute characterisation and world-weary wisdom about the weaknesses of the human race. Brilliant." --- Eric Brown, <em>The Guardian</em> (UK) </p>
<p>"Delivered in Abercrombie's trademark witty style ... This is an action-packed novel full of brutality, black humour and razor-sharp characterisation." --- Dave Bradley, <em>SFX</em> (5 star review) </p>
<p>"It's an excellent tale and arguably Abercrombie's best book yet ... Its pace really showcases his talent for differently voiced and realistically motivated characters ... any genre fan can enjoy what's one of the best fantasy books of the past year." --- <em>SciFi Now</em> (5 star review)</p>
<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>They say Black Dow's killed more men than winter, and clawed his way to the throne of the North up a hill of skulls. The King of the Union, ever a jealous neighbor, is not about to stand smiling by while he claws his way any higher. The orders have been given and the armies are toiling through the northern mud. Thousands of men are converging on a forgotten ring of stones, on a worthless hill, in an unimportant valley, and they've brought a lot of sharpened metal with them. </p>
<p>THE HEROES </p>
<p>For glory, for victory, for staying alive.</p>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p><strong>Joe Abercrombie</strong> is the <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author of <em>Red Country</em> and the First Law trilogy: <em>The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged</em> , and <em>Last Argument of Kings</em>. He is a full-time writer and occasional freelance film editor who lives in Bath, England with his wife and three children.</p></div>


