It tells the story of William Stoner, who attends the state university to study agronomy, but instead falls in love with English literature and becomes an academic. The novel narrates the many disappointments and struggles in Stoner's academic and personal life, including his estrangement from his wife and daughter, set against the backdrop of the first half of the twentieth century.In his entry in the Bookmarked series, author Steve Almond writes about why Stoner has endured, and the manner in which it speaks to the impoverishment of the inner life in America. Almond will also use the book as a launching pad for an investigation of America’s soul, in the process, writing about his own struggles as a student of writing, as a father and husband, and as a man grappling with his own mortality.

    This compendium is bursting with little-known gems such as: the Bible is the most stolen book in America; humans and giraffes have the same number of vertebrae in their necks (seven); and the first thermometer was filled with brandy, not mercury (and was quite accurate). Presented with humor and precision, The Instant Genius is an engrossing battery of over 200 facts sure to settle at least one thorny question in everyone's mind.

    It is without question Schopenhauer's greatest work. Conceived and published before the philosopher was 30 and expanded 25 years later, it is the summation of a lifetime of thought.For 70 years, the only unabridged English translation of this work was the Haldane-Kemp collaboration. In 1958, a new translation by E. F. J. Payne appeared that decisively supplanted the older one. Payne's translation is superior because it corrects nearly 1,000 errors and omissions in the Haldane-Kemp translation, and it is based on the definitive 1937 German edition of Schopenhauer's work prepared by Dr. Arthur Hübscher. Payne's edition is the first to translate into English the text's many quotations in half a dozen languages. It is thus the most useful edition for the student or teacher.

    Particular attention is paid to the everyday lives of the working classes and their cultural development. Their exploits, challenges, and struggles are covered over a broad time frame that links as well as differentiates past and present circumstances.

    This straightforward guide to communicating across all cultures with credibility and respect will give you a significant competitive advantage in a complex and crowded global marketplace. --Guenter Lauber, Vice President, Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc., EA SystemsExceptional Selling may be one of the most important books written on sales and marketing communications for high stakes sales. It shows you how to stand apart from your competition, communicate with great clarity, and position your solution as the most compelling choice for the long term. --Rob Mancuso, Senior Vice President, Investors Financial Services Corp.Thull has taken consultative and collaborative sales to new heights. The knowledge in this book is priceless. The trust and respect created by the diagnostic process is a must-have for success here in Asia and around the globe. It enables us to differentiate ourselves early and achieve long-lasting success. --Tay Chong Siew, Major Customer Director, North Asia, BOC GasesHaving achieved exceptional success by working with Thull and implementing the strategy and process in his first two books, I'm astounded that his leading-edge thinking is captured in yet more detail in another brilliant book. The conversation examples of his powerful diagnostic approach will bring even greater success to our organization. Truly exceptional! --Alberto Chacin, Director of On Demand Services LAD, Oracle USAExceptional Selling is a dramatic departure from the vast majority of sales books. It scares me to see all the ways in which we can self-sabotage our sales opportunities-but that's only chapter one. Throughout the book, Thull describes compelling examples of how to succeed in a cluttered marketplace. --Steven Rodriguez, Senior Vice President, Ceridian CorporationThull has again extended the concepts and thinking he developed in The Prime Solution and Mastering the Complex Sale. This is an essential read for anyone working to understand his customers in a complex world. --Wayne Hutchinson, Vice President of SalesMarketing and Consulting, Shell Global Solutions International B.V.

    BASE jumping in Europe. Climbing big walls in Yosemite. Riding bulls in Texas. These first-person stories from acclaimed climber and adventurer John Long may be vastly different in content, but they share an identifiable emotional texture, tone and delivery, and fundamentally are of one piece. This is storytelling at its best--nonfiction that reads like fiction. In Stories from the Dirt, the action leaves you breathless, but it's the characters that really leave a lasting mark. Like all stories worth a damn, this collection is all about the people.

    Mayer's consequential biography will be read for generations to come.

    Murrow's radio program, This I Believe, gave voice to the feelings and treasured beliefs of Americans around the country. Fifty years later, the popular update of the series, which now continues on Bob Edwards Weekend on public radio, explores the beliefs that people hold dear today. This book brings together essays on love from ordinary people far and wide whose sentiments and stories will surprise, inspire, and move you.Includes extraordinary essays written by ordinary Americans on love in its many manifestations-from romantic love and love of family to love of place and love of animals Paints a compelling portrait of the diverse range of beliefs and experiences related to what is perhaps the most powerful and complex of human emotions-love Based on the popular This I Believe radio series and thisibelieve.org Web site By turns funny and profound, yet always engaging, This I Believe: On Love is a perfect gift to give or to keep.

    Why have we become so afraid of authority? What real needs for authority do we have—for guidance, stability, images of strength? What happens when our fear of and our need for authority come into conflict? In exploring these questions, Sennett examines traditional forms of authority (The father’s in the family, the lord’s in society) and the dominant contemporary styles of authority, and he shows how our needs for, no less than our resistance to, authority have been shaped by history and culture, as well as by psychological disposition.

    Now that notion is being challenged, as white people wrestle with what it means to be part of a fast-changing, truly multicultural nation. Facing chronic economic insecurity, a popular culture that reflects the nation's diverse cultural reality, a future in which they will no longer constitute the majority of the population, and with a black president in the White House, whites are growing anxious.This anxiety has helped to create the Tea Party movement, with its call to "take our country back." By means of a racialized nostalgia for a mythological past, the Right is enlisting fearful whites into its campaign for reactionary social and economic policies.In urgent response, Tim Wise has penned his most pointed and provocative work to date. Employing the form of direct personal address, he points a finger at whites' race-based self-delusion, explaining how such an agenda will only do harm to the nation's people, including most whites. In no uncertain terms, he argues that the hope for survival of American democracy lies in the embrace of our multicultural past, present and future.

    Robinson has become a national icon, his name a virtual synonym for pathbreaker. Indeed, much has transpired between this young African-American's first bold strides around the baseball diamonds of a segregated America and General Manager Bob Watson's pride in assembling 1996 World Champion New York Yankees. Recognizing this monumental event in America's continuing struggle for integration, Jules Tygiel has expanded his highly acclaimed Baseball's Great Experiment. In a new afterword, he addresses the mythology surrounding Robinson's achievements, his overall effect on baseball and other sports, and the enduring legacy Robinson has left for African Americans and American society. In this gripping account of one of the most important steps in the history of American desegregation, Tygiel tells the story of Jackie Robinson's crossing of baseball's color line. Examining the social and historical context of Robinson's introduction into white organized baseball, both on and off the field, Tygiel also tells the often neglected stories of other African-American players--such as Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron--who helped transform our national pastime into an integrated game. Drawing on dozens of interviews with players and front office executives, contemporary newspaper accounts, and personal papers, Tygiel provides the most telling and insightful account of Jackie Robinson's influence on American baseball and society.

    Many people were elated when Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in May 1954, the ruling that struck down state-sponsored racial segregation in America's public schools. Thurgood Marshall, chief attorney for the black families that launched the litigation, exclaimed later, "I was so happy, I was numb." The novelist Ralph Ellison wrote, "another battle of the Civil War has been won. The rest is up to us and I'm very glad. What a wonderful world of possibilities are unfolded for the children!"Here, in a concise, moving narrative, Bancroft Prize-winning historian James T. Patterson takes readers through the dramatic case and its fifty-year aftermath. A wide range of characters animates the story, from the little-known African Americans who dared to challenge Jim Crow with lawsuits (at great personal cost); to Thurgood Marshall, who later became a Justice himself; to Earl Warren, who shepherded a fractured Court to a unanimous decision. Others include segregationist politicians like Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas; Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon; and controversial Supreme Court justices such as William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas.Most Americans still see Brown as a triumph--but was it? Patterson shrewdly explores the provocative questions that still swirl around the case. Could the Court--or President Eisenhower--have done more to ensure compliance with Brown? Did the decision touch off the modern civil rights movement? How useful are court-ordered busing and affirmative action against racial segregation? To what extent has racial mixing affected the academic achievement of black children? Where indeed do we go from here to realize the expectations of Marshall, Ellison, and others in 1954?

    A celebrated writing coach with a sense of humor and a gentle touch, she’s also a master writer herself with a long and distinguished career in both teaching and practicing the art of writing.The Book on Writing contains 25 chapters in three sections: A dozen essential but easy-to-apply guidelines to good writing, from the importance of clarity to the value of a conversational tone. Paula LaRocque believes learning is easier and more successful when we are not only told but also shown. So her Book on Writing is chockfull of actual writing examples that supplement and illustrate principles that apply as naturally to fiction as they do to nonfiction.How to tell a story—from building suspense, to effective description, to the uses of metaphor and literary devices. Paula LaRocque also deals with the narrative “engine” and the value of the archetype in plotting and characterization—as well as with pace and speed and leveling what she terms writing’s “speedbumps.” A clear and concise handbook that deals with common problems in grammar, usage, punctuation, and style—the kind of problems that often trouble even wordsmiths. The handbook also debunks pesky language “rules” that are actually myths. The Book on Writing is one-stop shopping for writers. Read it once, and you’ll be a better writer. Read it often, and you’ll be among the best.

    Readers of all ages will enjoy stories of Lewis's boyhood in Ireland and the imaginary world he and his brother created. They will also gain an understanding of Lewis's quest for joy, his personal struggles, and the ways his stories reflect his deep and powerful experience of God.

    Robinson. “Good makeup reclaims you.” Robinson, whose illustrious career has included positions such as the chief marketing officer of Estée Lauder, president of Tom Ford Beauty, beauty editor of Vogue, and president of Ralph Lauren Fragrances, is the ultimate industry insider. Now, she shares her decades of experience in this honest and straightforward guide for women fifty and over.In Toss the Gloss, you will learn . . .Why the right cosmetics, not anti-aging skincare, will help you look your youthful best.How to recognize the seduction of beauty-industry tactics designed to get you to spend more money than you need to.Gimmick-free tips and easy-to-follow shortcuts to make the most of your features.Stylishly illustrated by Chesley McLaren, this inspiring book is a reader’s guide to feeling fresher, healthier, prettier, and more confident—at any age.