For, in this stylish, erudite and frequently hilarious book, de Botton dips deeply into Proust’s life and work—his fiction, letter, and conversations—and distills from them that rare self-help manual: one that is actually helpful.Here, tendered in prose almost as luminous as it’s subject’s, is advice on cultivating friendships, suffering successfully, recognizing love and understanding why you should never sleep with someone on the first date. And here, too, is a generously perceptive literary biography that suggests that the master is as relevant today as he was in fin de siècle Paris. At once slyly ironic and genuinely wise, How Proust Can Change Your Life is an unqualified delight.

    Lewis is a full-time "language hacker," someone who devotes all of his time to finding better, faster, and more efficient ways to learn languages. Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World is a new blueprint for fast language learning. Lewis argues that you don't need a great memory or "the language gene" to learn a language quickly, and debunks a number of long-held beliefs, such as adults not being as good of language learners as children.

    This one tells you exactly what you need to know to prepare for and complete a long-distance hike on the A.T. From determining a budget, preparing an itinerary, and packing gear to resupplying, using bounce boxes, and staying on schedule, this book will help any hiker make certain their long-distance trek is a success.You can hear an interview with Michelle Ray on how to prepare for your thru-hike if you click here.

    Captained by hirsute woodworker, actor, comedian, and writer Nick Offerman, the shop produces not only fine handcrafted furniture, but also fun stuff—kazoos, baseball bats, ukuleles, even mustache combs.Now Nick and his ragtag crew of champions want to share their experiences of working at the Woodshop, tell you all about their passion for the discipline of woodworking, and teach you how to make a handful of their most popular projects along the way. This book will take readers behind the scenes of the woodshop, both inspiring and teaching them to make their own projects and besotting them with the infectious spirit behind the shop and its complement of dusty wood-elves.In these pages you will find a variety of projects for every skill level, with personal, accessible instructions by the OWS woodworkers themselves; and, what’s more, this tutelage will be augmented by mouth-watering color photos (Nick calls it "wood porn"). You will also find writings by Nick, offering recipes for both comestibles and mirth, humorous essays, odes to his own woodworking heroes, insights into the ethos of woodworking in modern America, and other assorted tomfoolery.Whether you’ve been working in your own shop for years, or if holding this stack of compressed wood pulp is as close as you’ve ever come to milling lumber, or even if you just love Nick Offerman’s brand of bucolic yet worldly wisdom, you’ll find Good Clean Fun full of useful, illuminating, and entertaining information.

    Explores the development of boys from birth to manhood and discusses the relationship between sports and values, creating caring attitudes towards sex, and the role of community and school in raising a boy.

    With this book in hand, thousands of students have watched the story of art unfold in its full historical, social, religious, economic, and cultural context, and thus deepened their understanding of art, architecture, painting, and sculpture. By virtue of its comprehensive coverage, strong emphasis on context, and rich, accurate art reproductions, GARDNER'S ART THROUGH THE AGES has earned and sustained a reputation of excellence and authority. So much so, that in 2001, the Text and Academic Authors Association awarded both the McGuffey and the "Texty" Book Prizes to the Eleventh Edition of the text. It is the first art history book to win either award and the only title ever to win both prizes in one year. The Twelfth Edition maintains and exceeds the richness of the Gardner legacy with updated research and scholarship and an even more beautiful art program featuring more color images than any other art history book available. The Twelfth Edition features such enhancements as more color photographs, a stunning new design, and the most current research and scholarship. What's more, the expanded ancillary package that accompanies GARDNER'S ART THROUGH THE AGES, features a wealth of tools to enhance your students' experience in the course. With each new copy of the book, students receive a copy of the ArtStudy 2.0 CD-ROM--an interactive electronic study aid that fully integrates with the Twelfth Edition and includes hundreds of high-quality digital images, plus maps, quizzes, and more.

    Use them to pry, chip, yank and sift good characters out of the place where they live in your memory, your imagination and your soul.Award-winning author Orson Scott Card explains in depth the techniques of inventing, developing and presenting characters, plus handling viewpoint in novels and short stories. With specific examples, he spells out your narrative options–the choices you'll make in creating fictional people so "real" that readers will feel they know them like members of their own families.You'll learn how to: draw the characters from a variety of sources, including a story's basic idea, real life–even a character's social circumstances make characters show who they are by the things they do and say, and by their individual "style" develop characters readers will love–or love to hate distinguish among major characters, minor characters and walk-ons, and develop each one appropriately choose the most effective viewpoint to reveal the characters and move the storytelling decide how deeply you should explore your characters' thoughts, emotions and attitudes

    Rather than focus on art techniques that build skills or overcome creative blocks through playful activities or writing, this guide walks the artist through exercises designed to develop the personal qualities critical to being an artist in the world, such as courage, the ability to look and see, and connection to the true creative self. This is a hands-on, experiential action book designed to get the reader creating art and exploring a variety of possibilities for being an artist. According to the teachings of this handbook, engagement with art is less about end results or products and more about the self-awareness and competence that frees the artist to seek out and create work that is vital. This is a rigorous programme that allows artists of any skill level to deepen their creative habits and be the best artists possible.

    This new edition is fully updated with fresh insights and innovative training techniques from one of the sport's leading voices. Danny Dreyer teaches us how to heal and prevent injuries and also to run faster, farther, and with much less effort at any age or ability.With more than 150,000 copies in print, this groundbreaking program makes running safe and fun for beginning and seasoned runners, while also giving competitive runners the edge they seek. ChiRunning employs the deep power reserves in the core muscles, an approach found in disciplines such as yoga, Pilates, and in this case T'ai Chi. Make knee pain and shin splints a thing of the past Experience the natural efficiency of the midfoot strike Dramatically reduce your potential for injury Transform your running with our new 10-step training program ChiRunning provides powerful insight and transforms running from a high-injury sport to a body-friendly fitness phenomenon. Join the revolution!

    George combines clear, intelligent, and functional advice on fiction writing with anecdotes from her own life, the story of her journey to publication, and inside information on how she meticulously researches and writes her novels. George's solid understanding of craft is conveyed in the enticing manner of a true storyteller, making Write Away not only a marvelous, interesting, and informative book but also a glimpse inside the world of a beloved writer.

    This beautifully illustrated guide will not only enhance your understanding of how to bring out the best in every woman, but also sharpen your photography skills in order to capture her successfully. Whether shooting with a pro model, plain-Jane, curvy gal, or soccer mom, Christa gets to know her subject intimately in order to help her look and feel beautiful, sexy, and confident. Christa shares her personal tips and techniques throughout the entire process, creating an amazing experience that produces photographs packed with emotion. She covers every step in creating a successful boudoir shoot, including how to prepare a subject who has never posed before, coaching sensual movement, beautiful lighting setups with minimal equipment, how to flatter every figure, and more. With "Before and After" profiles and "Do and Don't" scenarios throughout, essential lists, practical tips for male photographers, metadata for every shot, as well as post-processing techniques in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, this book offers clear and inspiring instruction. The Art of Boudoir Photography is about transformation. It's about cultivating sex appeal and enthusiastic positivity. It's that jolt of confidence and bolt of sexual prowess to tease out of your subject. It's for each woman to recognize her individual beauty, provide an opportunity for her to break through her comfort zone, honor her body, and celebrate femininity. For photographers with varying levels of experience, this book is for you-to appreciate and embrace boudoir photography, enhance your understanding of what it is, what it can do for women, and most importantly, how to have fun with it!

    "The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop" is devoted exclusively to the topic and shows you how to make the most of that control. Now that raw image processing technology has matured as an essential aspect of digital photography, you need a modern book that takes a seasoned approach to the technology and explains the advantages and challenges of using Lightroom or Camera Raw to produce magnificent images. Renowned photographer and bestselling author Jeff Schewe outlines a foolproof process for working with these digital negatives and presents his real-world expertise on optimizing raw images. You ll also learn hands-on techniques for exposing and shooting for raw image capture and developing a raw processing workflow, as well as Photoshop techniques for perfecting the master image, converting color to black and white, and processing for panoramic and HDR images. Get the best tone and color from your digital negatives. Use Lightroom and Camera Raw sharpening controls to maximize image quality. Take advantage of Photoshop to do what Lightroom and Camera Raw can t. Produce stunning black-and-white images. Visit the book s companion website at TheDigitalNegativeBook.com for sample images and more!"

    And once you've got an idea, what then? Ideas without a plan, without a purpose, are no more than pleasant thoughts. In The Writer's Idea Book, Jack Heffron, former senior editor at Writer's Digest Books and Story Press, will help you find the answer. Utilizing over 400 prompts and exercises, you'll generate intriguing ideas and plumb their possibilities to turn them into something amazing. The Writer's Idea Book will give you the insight and the self-awareness to create and refine ideas that demand to be transformed into greater works, the kind of compelling, absorbing writing that will have other writers asking "where do you get those ideas?"

    Be a hero, not a spectator. You want to be interesting. (Who doesn t?) But sometimes it takes a nudge, a wake-up call, an intervention! and a little help. This is where Jessica Hagy comes in. A writer and illustrator of great economy, charm, and insight, she s created How to Be Interesting, a uniquely inspirational how-to that combines fresh and pithy lessons with deceptively simple diagrams and charts.Ms. Hagy started on Forbes.com, where she s a weekly blogger, by creating a How to Be Interesting post that went viral, attracting 1.4 million viewers so far, with tens of thousands of them liking, linking, and tweeting the article. Now she s deeply explored the ideas that resonated with so many readers to create this small and quirky book with a large and universal message. It s a book about exploring: Talk to strangers. About taking chances: Expose yourself to ridicule, to risk, to wild ideas. About being childlike, not childish: Remember how amazing the world was before you learned to be cynical. About being open: Never take in the welcome mat. About breaking routine: Take daily vaca- tions . . . if only for a few minutes. About taking ownership: Whatever you re doing, enjoy it, embrace it, master it as well as you can. And about growing a pair: If you re not courageous, you re going to be hanging around the water cooler, talking about the guy that actually is.

    which 150 pages will you read? Is it possible to: Reach your genetic potential in 6 months? Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours? Lose more fat than a marathoner by bingeing?   Indeed, and much more. This is not just another diet and fitness book.The 4-Hour Body is the result of an obsessive quest, spanning more than a decade, to hack the human body. It contains the collective wisdom of hundreds of elite athletes, dozens of MDs, and thousands of hours of jaw-dropping personal experimentation. From Olympic training centers to black-market laboratories, from Silicon Valley to South Africa, Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, fixated on one life-changing question: For all things physical, what are the tiniest changes that produce the biggest results? Thousands of tests later, this book contains the answers for both men and women. From the gym to the bedroom, it’s all here, and it all works. YOU WILL LEARN (in less than 30 minutes each):How to lose those last 5-10 pounds (or 100+ pounds) with odd combinations of food and safe chemical cocktails.* How to prevent fat gain while bingeing (X-mas, holidays, weekends) * How to increase fat-loss 300% with a few bags of ice * How Tim gained 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days, without steroids, and in four hours of total gym time * How to sleep 2 hours per day and feel fully rested * How to produce 15-minute female orgasms * How to triple testosterone and double sperm count* How to go from running 5 kilometers to 50 kilometers in 12 weeks * How to reverse “permanent” injuries * How to add 150+ pounds to your lifts in 6 months * How to pay for a beach vacation with one hospital visit         And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  There are more than 50 topics covered, all with real-world experiments, many including more than 200 test subjects. You don't need better genetics or more discipline. You need immediate results that compel you to continue. That’s exactly what The 4-Hour Body delivers.