She's joined the FBI Art Crime Team with the secret hope that one of her cases will lead to his killer. Now, despite her mother's pleas to do something safer--like get married--Serena's learning how to go undercover to catch thieves and black market traders.When a local museum discovers an irreplaceable Monet missing, Jones leaps into action. The clues point in different directions, and her boss orders her to cease investigating her most promising suspect. But determined to solve the case and perhaps discover another clue in her grandfather's murder, she pushes ahead, regardless of the danger.

    YouTube and Facebook dominate the web. In Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, his landmark new book, David Shields (author of the New York Times best seller The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead) argues that our culture is obsessed with “reality” precisely because we experience hardly any.Most artistic movements are attempts to figure out a way to smuggle more of what the artist thinks is reality into the work of art. So, too, every artistic movement or moment needs a credo, from Horace’s Ars Poetica to Lars von Trier’s “Vow of Chastity.” Shields has written the ars poetica for a burgeoning group of interrelated but unconnected artists in a variety of forms and media who, living in an unbearably manufactured and artificial world, are striving to stay open to the possibility of randomness, accident, serendipity, spontaneity; actively courting reader/listener/viewer participation, artistic risk, emotional urgency; breaking larger and larger chunks of “reality” into their work; and, above all, seeking to erase any distinction between fiction and nonfiction.The questions Reality Hunger explores—the bending of form and genre, the lure and blur of the real—play out constantly all around us. Think of the now endless controversy surrounding the provenance and authenticity of the “real”: A Million Little Pieces, the Obama “Hope” poster, the sequel to The Catcher in the Rye, Robert Capa’s “The Falling Soldier” photograph, the boy who wasn’t in the balloon. Reality Hunger is a rigorous and radical attempt to reframe how we think about “truthiness,” literary license, quotation, appropriation.Drawing on myriad sources, Shields takes an audacious stance on issues that are being fought over now and will be fought over far into the future. People will either love or hate this book. Its converts will see it as a rallying cry; its detractors will view it as an occasion for defending the status quo. It is certain to be one of the most controversial and talked-about books of the year.

    Voted an "outstanding academic book" by Choice, and winner of the Presidential Book Award from the American Association for Italian Studies, this classic book on Italian films and filmmakers has now been revised and brought completely up-to-date.

    -- Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to GreatnessPixar is one of the most creative organizations in the world. Read Innovate the Pixar Way and explore the true beauty in how they sustain the environment. Who knows, maybe a little Pixar dust will fall on you! -- John Christensen, coauthor of Fish! and playground director AKA: CEO, ChartHouse LearningCreativity makes it possible for our dreams to become real--my life is my proof. This book puts all those possibilities in the hands of the reader . . . for those who will be creating the future. -- Carol Lawrence, singer, dancer, actress, and national spokesperson for the Opening Minds Through the Arts student achievement programWith great and useful tips from beginning to end, this book will inspire workplaces to have more fun AND more success. I guarantee it! -- George Zimmer, founder and CEO, Men's WearhouseThis insightful work is a great primer for leaders who are looking to unleash creative potential and instill a sense of joy and playfulness in their organizations. -- Brian Walker, president and CEO, Herman Miller, Inc.Animate your team and unleash their creative power . . . The Pixar WayCreativity doesn't follow titles; it just comes from where it comes from. -- Ed Catmull, Pixar cofounder, Pixar and Disney Animation Studios presidentIn movies from Toy Story to The Incredibles to WALL-E to Up, Pixar Studios continues to set new standards for commercial and critical achievement. Pixar is a place where collaboration sets the tone for "artists and geeks to work side by side in a spirit of mutual respect and trust. The key lies not just in who--writers, animators, directors, tech wizards, and others--makes Pixar outstanding, but in how Pixar creates the ultimate haven where creativity overflows.In this eye-opening book, Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson, authors of The Disney Way, reveal how Pixar has reawakened the innovative spirit of Walt Disney. They explore how president Ed Catmull and chief creative officer John Lasseter and the rest of Pixar's brain trust have built an organization on the simple philosophy that quality is the best businessplan. It makes no difference if you are making a movie that takes four years or serving a customer that takes four minutes, you have only one chance to deliver that magical, magnetic, enchanting experience for your customer.In this concise, accessible book, Capodagli and Jackson offer examples of how it's done--and explain what it takes to get your people to achieve greatness by unleashing their power toDream like a child . . . Have a vision, and be able to clearly communicate your objectives and goals.Believe in your playmates . . . Hire creative people, trust in their skills and judgment, and inspire them to trust their colleagues.Dare to jump in the water and make waves . . . Challenge the status quo. Encourage risktaking, but permit your people to fail, get back up, and try again.Unleash your childlike potential . . . Focus on the details; make quality work your business's highest priority.Learn not only from Pixar but also from how other leading organizations--Google, Griffin Hospital, Men's Wearhouse, OMA (Opening Minds Through the Arts) student achievement program, Nike, Target, and the Internet shoe giant Zappos--unshackle their people's imaginations and do outrageously great things. And by motivating your team to Innovate the Pixar Way you, too, can discover the magic that will help your business stay ahead of the competition, attract the best talent, and fatten the bottom line.In 1993, Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson cofounded Capodagli Jackson Consulting in West Olive, Michigan. They have helped scores of organizations revamp their customer service experiences and develop innovative products, and they also have developed performance strategies to impact organizational change using Walt Disney's Dream, Believe, Dare, Do success credo. Bill Capodagli is the most requested keynote speaker on the creative cultures of both Disney and Pixar.Visit the authors at capojac.com

    Throughout these pages Meisner is delight--always empathizing with his students and urging them onward, provoking emotion, laughter, and growing technical mastery from his charges. With an introduction by Sydney Pollack, director of "Out of Africa" and "Tootsie," who worked with Meisner for five years."This book should be read by anyone who wants to act or even appreciate what acting involves. Like Meisner's way of teaching, it is the straight goods."--Arthur Miller"If there is a key to good acting, this one is it, above all others. Actors, young and not so young, will find inspiration and excitement in this book."--Gregory Peck

    With the LEGO® Minifigures: Character Encyclopedia, readers will get to know all of the fun and fantastic minifigures from Series 1 through 10.LEGO Minifigures collectors and fans alike will love this guide showcasing each and every LEGO Minifigures character available, allowing them to see exactly which minifigures they still need to complete their collections. LEGO Minifigures are only bought in blind packs; this book will be a definitive list of every LEGO Minifigures character available!

    The pervasiveness of images of torture, horror, and war has all but demolished the twentieth-century hope that such imagery might shock us into a less alienated state, or aid in the creation of a just social order. What to do now? When to look, when to turn away?Genre-busting author Maggie Nelson brilliantly navigates this contemporary predicament, with an eye to the question of whether or not focusing on representations of cruelty makes us cruel. In a journey through high and low culture (Kafka to reality TV), the visual to the verbal (Paul McCarthy to Brian Evenson), and the apolitical to the political (Francis Bacon to Kara Walker), Nelson offers a model of how one might balance strong ethical convictions with an equally strong appreciation for work that tests the limits of taste, taboo, and permissibility.

    For thirty-five years, Carol Spencer enjoyed an unparalleled reign as a Barbie fashion designer, creating some of Barbie’s most iconic looks from the early 1960s until the late 1990s.Barbie’s wide-ranging wardrobe—including princess gowns and daisy-print rompers, flirty sundresses and smart pantsuits— combined fashion trends and haute couture with a liberal dose of fantasy. In Dressing Barbie, the successful and prolific designer reminisces about her time at Mattel working with legendary figures such as Ruth Handler, Barbie’s creator, and Charlotte Johnson, the original Barbie designer, and talks about her best and most beloved clothing designs from each decade. But Carol’s most impressive creation is her own life. As Handler famously said, “Barbie always represented the fact that a girl has choices”—a credo Carol epitomized. In Dressing Barbie, she talks candidly about how she broke free of the constraints of the late 1950s to pursue a dazzling career and an independent life for herself.Over the course of her successful and prolific career, Carol won many accolades. She was the first designer to have her signature on the doll, the first to go on a signing tour, the first to design a limited-edition Barbie Doll for collectors, and the designer of the biggest selling Barbie of all time. Now, Carol is the first member of the inner circle to take fans behind the pink curtain, revealing the fashion world of Barbie, the quintessential California girl, as never before.

    A concise atlas of anatomy, it contains more than 200 specially prepared accurate and clear drawings that include material never illustrated before. The text is as informative as the drawings; written at a level appropriate to undergraduate students and to bird lovers in general, it discusses why birds look and act the way they do.Designed to supplement a basic ornithology textbook, the Manual of Ornithology covers systematics and evolution, topography, feathers and flight, the skeleton and musculature, and the digestive, circulatory, respiratory, excretory, reproductive, sensory, and nervous systems of birds, as well as field techniques for watching and studying birds. Each chapter concludes with a list of key references for the topic covered, with a comprehensive bibliography at the end of the volume. The book will be a guide and reference for every level of bird study—a basic tool for investigation for anyone curious about the fascinating world of birds.

    The final chapter, "Apollonian Evaluation of a Dionysian Epoch," discusses the music of our time, with particular reference to the possibility of new methods of harmonic analysis.Structural Functions of Harmony is a standard work on its subject and provides an invaluable key to the development of musical structure during the last two hundred and fifty years. This new edition, with corrections, a new preface, and an index of subject headings, has been prepared under the editorial supervision of Leonard Stein.

    This edition contains NEW tables on Properties of Ionic Liquids, Solubilities of Hydrocarbons in Sea Water, Solubility of Organic Compounds in Superheated Water, and Nutritive Value of Foods. It also updates many tables including Critical Constants, Heats of Vaporization, Aqueous Solubility of Organic Compounds, Vapor Pressure of Mercury, Scientific Abbreviations and Symbols, and Bond Dissociation Energies. The 88th Edition also presents a new Foreword written by Dr. Harold Kroto, a 1996 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry.

    With no soul to give, her body becomes the bargaining chip to infiltrate a warlord's inner circle, the man called The Devil who killed her family and helped destroy a region. As son of the warlord, Baine Kendrick will happily use Sloan's body, if it expedites his father's demise. Yet, he is wholly unprepared for the possessive and protective emotions she provokes. Maybe it’s the flashes of memory. Two forgotten children drawing in the dirt beneath the boabab tree. But he fears there is more at stake than his life. In the Devil's den with Baine by her side, Sloan braves certain death and discovers a spirit for living.

    How to Read Literature is the book of choice for students new to the study of literature and for all other readers interested in deepening their understanding and enriching their reading experience. In a series of brilliant analyses, Eagleton shows how to read with due attention to tone, rhythm, texture, syntax, allusion, ambiguity, and other formal aspects of literary works. He also examines broader questions of character, plot, narrative, the creative imagination, the meaning of fictionality, and the tension between what works of literature say and what they show. Unfailingly authoritative and cheerfully opinionated, the author provides useful commentaries on classicism, Romanticism, modernism and postmodernism along with spellbinding insights into a huge range of authors, from Shakespeare and Jane Austen to Samuel Beckett and J. K. Rowling.

    This book is a must for all music fans who wish to experience music more fully and deeply through one of the most inspired, and inspiring, music intellects of our time. Employing the creative device of "Imaginary Conversations" in the first section of his book, Bernstein illuminates the importance of the symphony in America, the greatness of Beethoven, and the art of composing. The book also includes a photo section and a third section with the transcripts from his televised Omnibus music series, including "Beethoven's Fifth Symphony," "The World of Jazz," "Introduction to Modern Music," and "What Makes Opera Grand."

    A comprehensive overview of all of Marvel's greatest heroes and villains furnishes profiles of more than one thousand characters that document their individual superpowers and their careers, in a reference that traces the history of Marvel Comics and encompasses stunning artwork by some of Marvel's greatest artists.