Perform a flawless Level 10 gymnastics routine? Easy. Jump fourteen feet in the air using a spindly fiberglass pole? Please. Turn two hundred dollars into a six-figure business? Piece of cake. Live in a house with sixteen strangers, surrounded by cameras? Uh . . . With a wry sense of humor and fearless attitude, Angela Rummans takes us on a journey from top-tier athlete to reality TV star and self-made businesswoman in this tell-all memoir. Along the way, she shares powerful lessons of how to get back up when life knocks you down. Throughout the book, Angela rips the band-aid off her most painful moments and tells life where to stick those lemons. From her highest highs—competing in pole vault at the Olympic level, building a business from scratch and finding her soulmate—to the lowest lows, she shows how it is truly possible to reinvent yourself as many times as you want.

    She draws on conversations with hundreds of the world's top scientists and on her own work as a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the New York Times to create a thoroughly entertaining guide to scientific literacy. Angier's gifts are on full display in The Canon, an ebullient celebration of science that stands to become a classic. The Canon is vital reading for anyone who wants to understand the great issues of our time -- from stem cells and bird flu to evolution and global warming. And it's for every parent who has ever panicked when a child asked how the earth was formed or what electricity is. Angier's sparkling prose and memorable metaphors bring the science to life, reigniting our own childhood delight in discovering how the world works. "Of course you should know about science," writes Angier, "for the same reason Dr. Seuss counsels his readers to sing with a Ying or play Ring the Gack: These things are fun and fun is good." The Canon is a joyride through the major scientific disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. Along the way, we learn what is actually happening when our ice cream melts or our coffee gets cold, what our liver cells do when we eat a caramel, why the horse is an example of evolution at work, and how we're all really made of stardust. It's Lewis Carroll meets Lewis Thomas -- a book that will enrapture, inspire, and enlighten.

    Over 100 illustrations spotlight dozens of different varieties, including Oak, Willow, Pine, and Palmetto. Topics include shading techniques, composition, portraying shadow and light, and approaches to outlining.Author and illustrator Victor Perard, a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, was an art instructor at New York City's Cooper Union for twenty years. This informative volume reflects his extensive teaching experience and provides practical advice for artists at every level.

    His powerful message, conveyed with humor, compassion, and art: to know these animals is to save them.Sartore intends to photograph every animal in captivity in the world. He is circling the globe, visiting zoos and wildlife rescue centers to create studio portraits of 12,000 species, with an emphasis on those facing extinction. He has photographed more than 6,000 already and now, thanks to a multi-year partnership with National Geographic, he may reach his goal. This book showcases his animal portraits: from tiny to mammoth, from the Florida grasshopper sparrow to the greater one-horned rhinoceros. Paired with the eloquent prose of veteran wildlife writer Douglas Chadwick, this book presents a thought-provoking argument for saving all the species of our planet.

    As miraculous a feat of nature as the snowflakes has been, have we ever been truly able to appreciate this infinitesimal wonder in all its crystalline glory? Art of the Snowflake, as much a work of art as a testament to science, reveals how one of the snowflake's most inspired photographers came to such intimate knowledge of his craft and its fleeting focus. Beautiful pictures illustrate Kenneth Libbrecht's story of the microphotography of snow crystals, from the pioneering work of Wilson Bentley in the 1890s right up to Ken's own innovations in our age of digital images. A breathtaking look at the works of art that melt in an instant, this is a book to flip through and savor, season after season.

     From backpackers in Peru to artists in Berlin to storytellers in Morocco, Dame Traveler celebrates the diversity and bravery of women from around the world who are not afraid to think (and live) outside the box.The revolutionary Dame Traveler Instagram account was founded by Nastasia Yakoub, who was born into a strict Chaldean-Middle Eastern community where women are expected to marry young and put aside other personal ambitions. But at the age of twenty, Nastasia embarked on a solo trip to South Africa to volunteer at an orphanage in Cape Town, which sparked a love of world travel. Recognizing a void in the travel industry, she founded Dame Traveler, the first female travel community on Instagram, now more than half a million strong. Nastasia herself has traveled to sixty-three countries on solo adventures, sharing colorful photos of her tantalizing travels along the way.Dame Traveler celebrates these women with a photographic collection of 200 stunning images paired with inspiring captions, 80% of which have never been seen on the Instagram account. Organized into sections on architecture, culture, nature, and water, each entry features travel information, plus tips, advice, unique solo-travel experiences, and wisdom from contributing globe-trotters to embolden the next generation of Dame Travelers.

    Inspirational, inviting, and beautiful, it combines stunning images with entertaining and informative text that captures the essence of being there.

    With vast deserts in twilight, snowcapped mountain ranges at the brink of dawn, a forest in the height of autumn colors, these indelible images will magnify the beauty, emotion, and depth that can be captured in the split second of a camera flash, taking readers on a spectacular visual journey and offering an elegant conduit to the world around them. Paired with illuminating insights from celebrated photographers, this beautiful book weaves a vibrant tapestry of images that readers will turn to again and again.

    Create your own art journal while using a variety of mixed-media techniques and explore seven important elements of art:ColorTextureShapeSpaceDepthMark makingAnd shadingAn art-making workshop in a book, Creating Art at the Speed of Life offers a 30-day syllabus, introducing and exploring each element in a series of exercises, complete with worksheets to help you evaluate your work and make it more successful and satisfying.In an -open studio- at the end of each chapter, well-known contributing artists share inspirational work focused on that chapter's element. With Pam's lessons and advice on how to assess your artwork, you will experiment and grow into a more confident artist.

    Shea Serrano deftly pays homage to the most important song of each year. Serrano also examines the most important moments that surround the history and culture of rap music—from artists’ backgrounds to issues of race, the rise of hip-hop, and the struggles among its major players—both personal and professional. Covering East Coast and West Coast, famous rapper feuds, chart toppers, and show stoppers, The Rap Year Book is an in-depth look at the most influential genre of music to come out of the last generation.    Complete with infographics, lyric maps, hilarious and informative footnotes, portraits of the artists, and short essays by other prominent music writers, The Rap Year Book is both a narrative and illustrated guide to the most iconic and influential rap songs ever created.

    Smiles of recognition turn into grins of enthusiasm as more people discover them and dream about making their own private retreats or family play spaces. And it's nice to remind ourselves that treehouses are built into the oldest and most forgiving, living things on earth. Also, history records treehouses as being built as deliberate follies, as challenges for arboreal designers, for merrymaking, and for keeping the spirit of fairy tales alive. But treehouses can also be social places. We will visit many that were built to entertain, to hang out with friends, or as guest houses. Trees welcome all types. Master treehouse builders Peter and Judy Nelson, with David Larkin, have embarked on yet another treehouse-discovery expedition across America, this time adding the investigation of backyard playhouses to their agenda. Now, in The Treehouse Book, they reveal their findings, illustrated and described in the most complete volume yet. From casual treeshacks made from discarded lumber to multitiered feats of fancy, they found shelters representing myriad builders-interesting characters ranging from childhood fanatics grown up, to weekend carpenters, to those who want their grandkids to have the best clubhouse on the block. Detailed how-to information, including plans and drawings, is woven with behind-the-scenes tales of each structure's occupants and stunning interior and exterior photographic explorations.

    senator, in January 2005, and served as the chief official White House photographer for the President's full two terms. Souza was with President Obama more often, and at more crucial moments, than any friend or staff member, or even the First Lady--and he photographed it all. Souza captured nearly 2 million photographs of Obama, in moments ranging from classified to disarmingly candid.This large-format (12"x10"), exquisitely produced book presents more than 300 of Souza's favorite and most iconic images from these historic years; many have never been seen before. This seminal work on the Obama presidency documents moments of national importance--including the historic image of the President and his advisors watching tensely in the Situation Room as the Bin Laden mission unfolded--alongside unguarded moments with the President's family, his many encounters with children, and his time spent interacting with world leaders, members of Congress, White House staff, artists, musicians and more.The photographs are paired with captions and stories providing behind-the-scenes context for each, and offer insight into the special relationship Souza and the President forged during their time together. The result is a stunning record of a landmark era in American history.Souza's work enabled us to feel that we knew the President. This book puts us in the White House with him.

    Throughout, gorgeous photographs of rooms with rare collections, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and stacks upon stacks of books inspire readers to live better with their own collections.Praise for Bibliostyle"Featuring enviable private libraries and packed floor-to-ceiling shelves, this beautiful volume makes a compelling case for books as d�cor."--New York"Freudenberger spotlights the splendid, enviable personal libraries of literary figures whose owners obviously care about their book collections and have actually read them, too."--The Boston Globe"This is a coffee table book that makes you think as well as admire and desire."--Sydney Herald"Offers a look into the fabulous homes of book lovers the world over, showcasing how their interior design is built around the tomes they love most."--CN"The photographs of rooms with rare collections, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and stacks upon stacks of books will inspire readers to live better with their own collections."--Publishers Weekly "Nina Freudenberger teams with Sadie Stein of The New Yorker and photographer Shade Degges of Architectural Digest to showcase beautiful photographs of the private libraries of book lovers from all over the world."--BookRiot

    But the reality of punk stretches over three decades and numerous countries, with a history as rich and varied as it is shocking and daring. With this lavishly illustrated and authoritative A-Z guide, Brian Cogan leads readers through the fiery history of a furious, rebellious, contradictory, and boundary-redefining musical genre and cultural movement that remains as massively influential as it is wildly misunderstood. As The Encyclopedia of Punk clearly proves, punk music and culture has produced a rich trove of material, above and beyond the hundreds of bands, from books and films to incendiary political movements.

    These are the portraits of today's tongue-in-cheek masculinity, as conceived by Emmy Award-winning director and photographer Robert Trachtenberg. Red-Blooded American Male presents 100 of his most imaginative, striking, and unconventionally sexy portraits of both celebrities and regular guys going about their thoroughly modern lives. No longer do men have to be serious businessmen or hunky firefighters to be deemed attractive--they can also ride tricycles and get pedicures. Revealing a surprising (and often self-deprecating) side to Mel Brooks, Seth Rogan, Jimmy Fallon, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Hamm, Conan O'Brien, and more, this gorgeous coffee-table book features an introduction about male images and stereotypes plus pithy captions about each photo's shoot, giving readers a peek behind the curtain of a famed portrait photographer's creative process.