The Lazy Intellectual: Maximum Knowledge, Minimal Effort


Richard J. Wallace - 2010
    They want their information. And they want it now. This book fills that void next to the recliner as the go-to reference whenever work conversations or bar trivia have you feeling stupid. The top ten academic subjects are broken into digestible pieces such as:Fast Facts: One-liners that delivers important informationRepeatable Quotables: Smart words by smart people to make readers look smart by repeatingVisual Aids: Graphs, charts, and tables for when even a few words are way too muchCheat Sheets: Chapter-ending recaps that reinforce the major points to take awayWhether they want an answer to a biology question, or to brush up on their Spanish during a commercial break, this book is perfect for people who couldn't bother paying attention the first time.

Getting the Little Blighters to Eat


Claire Potter - 2013
    Does your child decide they don't like a food before they've even tried it? Do they say 'Yuk' to foods they used to eat happily? Would they live off chips and ice-cream and never touch a vegetable again if given the chance? This little book provides easy-to-follow, easy-to-remember rules to help re-programme your child into a happy, healthy, adventurous eater.

Lost At Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries


Jon Ronson - 2012
    Collected here from various sources (including the Guardian and GQ America) are the best of his adventures. Always intrigued by our ability to believe the unbelievable, Jon meets the man preparing to welcome the aliens to earth, the woman trying to build a fully-conscious robotic replica of the love of her life and the Deal or No Deal contestants with a fool proof system to beat the Banker. Jon realises that it’s possible for our madness to be a force for good when he meets America’s real-life superheroes or a force for evil when he meets the Reverend ‘Death’ George Exoo, who has dubiously assisted in more than a hundred mercy killings.He goes to a UFO convention in the Nevada desert with Robbie Williams, asks Insane Clown Posse (who are possibly America’s nastiest rappers) whether it’s true they’ve actually been evangelical Christians all along and rummages through the extensive archives of Stanley Kubrick. Frequently hilarious, sometimes disturbing, always entertaining, these compelling encounters with people on the edge of madness will have you wondering just what we’re capable of.

The Storm of Creativity


Kyna Leski - 2015
    Although each instance of creativity is singular and specific, Kyna Leski tells us, the creative process is universal. Artists, architects, poets, inventors, scientists, and others all navigate the same stages of the process in order to discover something that does not yet exist. All of us must work our way through the empty page, the blank screen, writer's block, confusion, chaos, and doubt. In this book, Leski draws from her observations and experiences as a teacher, student, maker, writer, and architect to describe the workings of the creative process.Leski sees the creative process as being like a storm; it slowly begins to gather and take form until it overtakes us--if we are willing to let it. It is dynamic, continually in motion; it starts, stops, rages and abates, ebbs and flows. In illustrations that accompany each chapter, she maps the arc of the creative process by tracing the path of water droplets traveling the stages of a storm.Leski describes unlearning, ridding ourselves of preconceptions; only when we realize what we don't know can we pose the problem that we need to solve. We gather evidence--with notebook jottings, research, the collection of objects--propelling the process. We perceive and conceive; we look ahead without knowing where we are going; we make connections. We pause, retreat, and stop, only to start again. To illustrate these stages of the process, Leski draws on examples of creative practice that range from Paul Klee to Steve Jobs, from the discovery of continental drift to the design of Antoni Gaud�'s Sagrada Familia.Creativity, Leski tells us, is a path with no beginning or end; it is ongoing. This revelatory view of the creative process will be an essential guide for anyone engaged in creative discovery.The Creative ProcessUnlearningProblem MakingGathering and TrackingPropellingPerceiving and ConceivingSeeing AheadConnectingPausingContinuing

Chasing Space


Leland Melvin - 2017
    When the former Detroit Lion’s football career was cut short by an injury, Leland didn’t waste time mourning his broken dream. Instead, he found a new one—something that was completely out of this world.He joined NASA, braved an injury that nearly left him permanently deaf, and still managed to muster the courage and resolve to travel to space on the shuttle Atlantis to help build the International Space Station. Leland’s problem-solving methods and can-do attitude turned his impossible-seeming dream into reality.Leland’s story introduces readers to the fascinating creative and scientific challenges he had to deal with in space and will encourage the next generation of can-do scientists to dare to follow their dreams.

The Shadow of God: A Novel of War and Faith


Anthony A. Goodman - 2002
    The year is 1522. Two great leaders, twenty-five-year-old Suleiman the Magnificent, the absolute ruler of the mighty Ottoman Empire, and Philippe de L'Isle Adam, the grisly, fifty-eight-year-old Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes, come to war on the Greek island of Rhodes. For 145 days, Philippe and 500 European Knights fight to protect their fortressed city and withstand an assault of nearly 200,000 men from Suleiman's army, in a battle that becomes the historic hallmark for siege warfare. Authentic in all its historical detail, The Shadow of God evokes a seismic clash of cultures: Muslim versus Christian, the Ottoman Empire versus the last remaining Knights of the Crusades and, most important, two of the most powerful men of their time. Embedded in this fictional account is the secret marriage of a lovely Jewish nurse to her Christian French Knight, as well as the forbidden love of the Grand Master for the beautiful Helene. An epic of bravery and courage, The Shadow of God weaves a tapestry of beauty, terror and triumph set in a forgotten time of brutality and courage, loyalty and honor.

How To Raise Emotionally Healthy Children: Meeting The Five Critical Needs of Children...and Parents Too! Updated Edition [Kindle Edition]


Gerald Newmark - 1999
    Failure to support our children's emotional health at home and in schools is jeopardizing their future and that of our nation. The book has a compelling and provocative message about parent-child relations. It provides powerful and practical concepts and tools that enable parents, teachers, and childcare providers to interact with children and with each other in emotionally healthy ways. In the process, children learn to interact with each other in the same way. How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children, shows parents and teachers how to nourish emotional health at home and at school. Failure to meet these emotional needs of our children is one of the most serious and under-recognized problems facing our country. The book enables parents to recognize and satisfy the five critical emotional needs that all children have: to feel respected, important, accepted, included, and secure, and in the process, parents will have their own needs satisfied too. Babies, toddlers, children, teenagers, parents and grandparents all have these same emotional needs. Meeting these needs in childhood provides the foundation for success in school, work, relationships, marriage and life in general.

The Designer's Dictionary of Color


Sean Adams - 2017
    Organized by spectrum, in color-by-color sections for easy navigation, this book documents each hue with charts showing color range and palette variations. Chapters detail each color’s creative history and cultural associations, with examples of color use that extend from the artistic to the utilitarian—whether the turquoise on a Reid Miles album cover or the avocado paint job on a 1970s Dodge station wagon. A practical and inspirational resource for designers and students alike, The Designer’s Dictionary of Color opens up the world of color for all those who seek to harness its incredible power.

The Courage to Be Free: Discover Your Original Fearless Self


Guy Finley - 2010
    Those limitations are not part of our "original equipment." In the words of bestselling author and beloved teacher Guy Finley, "When you realize no else on this earth can be like you... that no other soul may know the beauty, sorrow, light and darkness you alone are given to see, then you will no longer want to be like anyone else on this earth. You will, at last, be the fearless individual you heart of hearts has called you to be."There is a world of wisdom in this small gem of a book. Guy Finley is a master at opening our eyes, ears, and hearts to the plain and simple truths of this life. We are not our sense of inadequacy, our compulsions, our defeated thoughts and feelings. We can choose the fearless path because we were, in fact, born fearless.

The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple


Jeff Guinn - 2017
    His congregation was racially integrated, and he was a much-lauded leader in the contemporary civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California. He became involved in electoral politics, and soon was a prominent Bay Area leader.In this riveting narrative, Jeff Guinn examines Jones’s life, from his extramarital affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing to the fraught decision to move almost a thousand of his followers to a settlement in the jungles of Guyana in South America. Guinn provides stunning new details of the events leading to the fatal day in November, 1978 when more than nine hundred people died—including almost three hundred infants and children—after being ordered to swallow a cyanide-laced drink.Guinn examined thousands of pages of FBI files on the case, including material released during the course of his research. He traveled to Jones’s Indiana hometown, where he spoke to people never previously interviewed, and uncovered fresh information from Jonestown survivors. He even visited the Jonestown site with the same pilot who flew there the day that Congressman Leo Ryan was murdered on Jones’s orders. The Road to Jonestown is the definitive book about Jim Jones and the events that led to the tragedy at Jonestown.