isn't it?'A John Cleese Twitter question ['What is your pet peeve?'], first sparked the 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' blog, which grew over three years into one bookseller's collection of ridiculous conversations on the shop floor. From 'Did Beatrix Potter ever write a book about dinosaurs?' to the hunt for a paperback which could forecast the next year's weather; and from 'I've forgotten my glasses, please read me the first chapter' to 'Excuse me... is this book edible?: here is a book for heroic booksellers and booklovers everywhere.This full-length collection illustrated by the Brothers McLeod also includes top 'Weird Things' from bookshops around the world.

    Whether decorating a dorm room, an apartment, or a little cottage, what we strive for is a look and feel that expresses our individual personalities. Part style guide, part idea sourcebook, this handy volume--designed to meet the needs of real people with real budgets--is bundled with smart ideas, basic design principles, and enough inspiration to get you off the sofa to make it happen. In her lively, informative text, design guru Marisa Bartolucci takes readers inside 33 small homes from cities across the U.S. to reveal how a strong sense of style--rather than design know-how or unlimited resources--is the most effective tool for transforming an ordinary cramped living space into a smart yet functional private sanctuary.

    She has slept with most of her male friends. Most of her male friends have slept with most of her female friends. Sexual promiscuity is the norm. But up until a few years ago, she still envisioned her sexual experience "eventually reaching a terminus, like a monorail gliding to a stop at Epcot Center." Like many people, she imagined herself disembarking, finding herself face-to-face with another human being, "and there we would remain in our permanent station in life: the future."But, as we all know, things are more complicated than that. Love is rare and frequently unreciprocated. Sexual acquisitiveness is risky and can be hurtful. And generalizing about what women want or don't want or should want or should do seems to lead nowhere. Don't our temperaments, our hang-ups, and our histories define our lives as much as our gender?In Future Sex, Witt captures the experiences of going to bars alone, dating online, and hooking up with strangers. From her home in San Francisco, she decides to say yes to everything and to find her own path. She observes the subcultures she encounters with a wry sense of humor, capturing them in all of their strangeness, ridiculousness, and beauty. The result is an open-minded, honest account of the contemporary pursuit of connection and pleasure, and an inspiring new model of female sexuality--open, forgiving, and unafraid.

    Far from being meek and mild, they were violent, ruthless and fundamentally intolerant. Unlike the polytheistic world, in which the addition of one new religion made no fundamental difference to the old ones, this new ideology stated not only that it was the way, the truth and the light but that, by extension, every single other way was wrong and had to be destroyed. From the 1st century to the 6th, those who didn't fall into step with its beliefs were pursued in every possible way: social, legal, financial and physical. Their altars were upturned and their temples demolished, their statues hacked to pieces and their priests killed. It was an annihilation.Authoritative, vividly written and utterly compelling, this is a remarkable debut from a brilliant young historian.

    . . there aren't many titles that haven’t been bestowed on LEGO toys, and it’s not hard to see why. From its inception in the early 1930s right up until today, the LEGO Group’s history is as colorful as the toys it makes. Few other playthings share the LEGO brand’s creative spirit, educative benefits, resilience, quality, and universal appeal. The LEGO name is now synonymous with playtime, but it wasn’t always so. This history charts the birth of the LEGO Group in the workshop of a Danish carpenter and its steady growth as a small, family-run toy manufacturer to its current position as a market-leading, award-winning brand. The company’s ever-increasing catalogof products—including the earliest wooden toys, plastic bricks, play themes, and other building systems such as DUPLO, Technic, and MINDSTORMS—are chronicled in detail, alongside the manufacturing process, LEGOLAND parks, licensed toys, and computer games. Learn all about how LEGO pulled itself out of an economic crisis and embraced technology to make building blocks relevant to twenty-first-century children and discover the vibrant fan community of kids and adults whose conventions, websites, and artwork keep the LEGO spirit alive. As nostalgic as it is contemporary, A Million Little Bricks will have you reminiscing about old Classic Space sets, rummaging through the attic for forgotten Minifigure friends, and playing with whatever LEGO bricks you can get your hands on (even if it means sharing with your kids).

    In this book, Chris Orwig offers a unique perspective on the creative process, showing you how to find meaning in your work, be inspired, and discover the life for which you were designed.With thoughtful and engaging chapters such as "Keep the Edges Wild," "Einstein's Game of Connect the Dots," and "Grit and Glory," Chris presents each concept through personal examples--his own and others'--showing how to live a more creative and meaningful life.Drawn from his 12 years as a faculty member at the prestigious Brooks Institute as well as his experience leading creative inspiration and photography workshops and speaking on global stages, Chris's stories are designed to teach you how to discover your own creative voice. Each chapter includes exercises to help you incorporate what you've learned and connect the topics directly to your own experience. Features the friendly, approachable voice of Chris Orwig, whose photography, teaching, and speaking have inspired countless aspiring amateurs and professionals alike Includes exercises in every chapter to help you put the concepts you learned into practice Offers an elegant design filled with the author's original photographs captured to visually support the ideas discussed in the book For resources and inspiration, check out the book's companion site, thecreativefight.com.

    Based on extensive research and over 140 exclusive interviews with key movers and shakers from gaming's past, Replay tells the sensational story of how the creative vision of game designers gave rise to one of the world's most popular and dynamic art forms.

    The text covers the basic principles and equations of fluid mechanics in the context of numerous and diverse real-world engineering examples. The text helps students develop an intuitive understanding of fluid mechanics by emphasizing the physics, and by supplying attractive figures, numerous photographs and visual aids to reinforce the physics.

    Blending personal stories from Martin's own history with accessible social science, cultural theory, and interviews with sex researchers, psychologists, primatologists, anthropologists, and real women from all walks of life, she reveals startling insights about female sexuality.

    or the starting point for innovation? Instead of asking whether the Web is making us stupid, Howard Rheingold (whom MIT calls "the first citizen of the internet") turns that question around and asks how designing and using digital media mindfully could make us smarter. What if humans could build tools that leverage our ability to think, communicate, and cooperate? Humans invented social learning, speech, writing, alphabets, printing, computers, and the Internet, which means we should be systematically directing the evolution of intellectual augmentation. Mind Amplifier: Can Our Digital Tools Make Us Smarter? examines the origins of digital mind-extending tools, and then lays out the foundations for their future. Rheingold proposes an applied, interdisciplinary science of mind amplification. He also unveils a new protocol for developing techno-cognitive-social technologies that embrace empathy, mindfulness, and compassion — elements lacking from existing digital mind-tools.

    This is not a "how-to" book in any sense. Korn wants to get at the why of craft, in particular, and at the satisfactions of creative work, in general to understand their essential nature. How does the making of objects both reflect and refine our own identities? What is it about craft and creative work that makes them so rewarding? What is the nature of those rewards? How do the products of creative work inform society?

    Against overwhelming adversity, these remarkable women raised their voices and changed history.With her one-of-a-kind wit and dazzling drawings, celebrated graphic novelist Pénélope Bagieu profiles the lives of these feisty female role models, some world-famous, some little known. From Nellie Bly to Mae Jemison or Josephine Baker to Naziq al-Abid, the stories in this comic biography are sure to inspire the next generation of rebel ladies.

    In this fascinating, provocative new book, Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes in our lives—from virtual reality in the home to an on-demand economy to artificial intelligence embedded in everything we manufacture—can be understood as the result of a few long-term, accelerating forces. Kelly both describes these deep trends—flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, tracking, and questioning—and demonstrates how they overlap and are codependent on one another. These larger forces will completely revolutionize the way we buy, work, learn, and communicate with each other. By understanding and embracing them, says Kelly, it will be easier for us to remain on top of the coming wave of changes and to arrange our day-to-day relationships with technology in ways that bring forth maximum benefits. Kelly’s bright, hopeful book will be indispensable to anyone who seeks guidance on where their business, industry, or life is heading—what to invent, where to work, in what to invest, how to better reach customers, and what to begin to put into place—as this new world emerges.

    Drawing on interviews, oral histories, memoirs, archival collections, and news reports, W. Joseph Campbell presents a vivid, detail-rich portrait of those memorable twelve months. This book offers fresh interpretations of the decisive moments of 1995, including the emergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web in mainstream American life; the bombing at Oklahoma City, the deadliest attack of domestic terrorism in U.S. history; the sensational “Trial of the Century,” at which O.J. Simpson faced charges of double murder; the U.S.-brokered negotiations at Dayton, Ohio, which ended the Bosnian War, Europe’s most vicious conflict since the Nazi era; and the first encounters at the White House between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, a liaison that culminated in a stunning scandal and the spectacle of the president’s impeachment and trial. As Campbell demonstrates in this absorbing chronicle, 1995 was a year of extraordinary events, a watershed at the turn of the millennium. The effects of that pivotal year reverberate still, marking the close of one century and the dawning of another.

    In this surreal atmosphere created to disorient us and undermine our sense of truth, we’ve lost not only our grip on peace and democracy — but our very notion of what those words even mean.Peter Pomerantsev takes us to the front lines of the disinformation age, where he meets Twitter revolutionaries and pop-up populists, “behavioral change” salesmen, Jihadi fanboys, Identitarians, truth cops, and many others. Forty years after his dissident parents were pursued by the KGB, Pomerantsev finds the Kremlin re-emerging as a great propaganda power. His research takes him back to Russia — but the answers he finds there are not what he expected.Blending reportage, family history, and intellectual adventure, This Is Not Propaganda explores how we can reimagine our politics and ourselves when reality seems to be coming apart.