Every artist starts with the basics and here is a step-by-step guide to them all. With this how to draw for kids book, every kid can be creative and capture whatever catches their eye.In How to Draw, kids ages 9-12 will try their hand at everything from magical creatures and cartoons to realistic landscapes, portraits, and so much more. Covering basic techniques as they go, this book will prepare and inspire young artists to create their very own masterpieces. It’s easier than you think.How to draw for kids includes: Age-appropriate basics—Kids will learn how to shade dark and light, use perspective, create 3D shapes effects, and more. Easy-to-follow steps—Get start-to-finish instruction for every exercise. Cool pictures—Unicorns, faces of friends and neighbors, buildings, plants and trees—the possibilities are as endless as your child’s creativity. Every kid has the potential to be creative—this how to draw for kids workbook nurtures their confidence step-by-step.

    money management firm researching, analyzing, and investing in Chinese and Japanese equities. Richard is fluent in Chinese and Japanese and continues to live in Asia with his family.

    Diane Durston’s meditation on the Japanese philosophy of wabi sabi will inspire you to focus on the blessings hiding in your daily life. Celebrating the way things are rather than how they should be, Durston encourages you to bask in the subtle joys of the natural world and cultivate an appreciation for everyday objects. Step back from the hectic modern world and find enjoyment and gratitude as you explore the ancient and powerful concepts of wabi sabi.

    . . Take[s] the reader behind the scenes in the Cavaliers' front office, revealing how championship contenders are built" -- Library JournalTwo award-winning sports journalists give an in-depth look at how a team and a city were rebuilt around superstar LeBron James.When the Cleveland Cavaliers drew the top pick in the 2003 NBA draft, an entire city buzzed with excitement. After all, how often does a LeBron James come along? Especially for Cleveland, a midmarket Rust Belt city without a sports championship in forty years. Especially for the Cavaliers, a long-struggling team that had never reached the NBA finals.Soon, everyone had something riding on LeBron--billionaire team owner Dan Gilbert looking for a return on his investment . . . teammates eager for a championship ring . . . the league in need of the next Michael Jordan to promote . . . the shoe company with its multimillion-dollar endorsement deal . . . even popcorn vendors in the stands of Quicken Loans Arena and servers waiting restaurant tables in a downtown that now booms every game night.Terry Pluto and Brian Windhorst tell the converging stories of a struggling franchise that had to get worse in order to get better and a highly touted teenage phenom, the local kid who became their future.This book will fascinate any basketball fan who wants the inside story of how LeBron James became the young superstar shouldering the weight of an entire NBA franchise. Chock full of facts and analysis.

    He is grieving for the loss of his wife when the tunnel collapses and traps the bus inside. In the darkness that follows, he manages to fumble out of the bus with the only other survivor, an astute and gentle woman who reminds him of his late wife. Without any light to guide them and with only each other to depend on, they try to escape the stifling darkness and along the way find themselves confronted by their pasts and given their last chance at intimacy, and ultimately, absolution.A realist story that plays with surreal elements, the tale poses a simple question: what is the meaning of hope?

    The book encompasses the time before enlistment, Boot Camp, Infantry Training Regiment, Artillery School, and his time in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive of 1968. Incorporated with actual pictures from the times and places remembered in this book, it gives the reader a mix of emotions felt during the good times and bad, of combat and of non-combat, with the intent of giving the lay person a more complete picture of the Vietnam experience. After serving in Vietnam, Dr. Cowart earned a B.A. degree in Zoology from the University of Washington, and a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the UW School of Dentistry He currently lives, writes, and maintains a general dental practice in Kent, Washington. Visit the "BLOOD ON RED DIRT" Facebook page to see all the pictures in this book in full size and living color.

    That quixotic quest for understanding has drawn much of the world’s population eastward ever since Buddha first assumed the lotus position, and writer Mara Altman needed to know why. So she flew around the world in search of an answer not only to that mystery, but also to the deeper questions that plague all who yearn to define the meaning of life. What Altman found in her wild, comic 18-day reporting trek across India – a journey that took her on a laborious, 37-hour cross-country train trip, onto a mystical flat rock by the ocean in Pondicherry, and eventually into the emergency room of a cut-rate Bangalore hospital – will make you laugh, learn and ponder. By the end of her epic odyssey, it will also take you unexpectedly and thrillingly close to the pulsing heart of human existence. After graduating from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Mara Altman worked as a staff writer for The Village Voice. In 2009, HarperCollins published Altman's first book, Thanks For Coming: A Young Woman's Quest for an Orgasm, which was optioned as a comedy series by HBO. She has published seven bestselling Kindle Singles, including the #1 bestseller Bearded Lady, and has also written for New York Magazine and The New York Times. Cover design by Adil Dara

    In 1997 it had been running for 50 years, with less than one hundred people successfully completing it – only four of which had been non-Japanese. In the same year Scott Langley was at the top of his game, a third degree black belt, captain of the British JKS National Team and JKS European and World Champion. He moved to Japan with a secret plan – to be the fifth foreigner to complete the course. This is the true story of Scott’s Journey, spanning five years, chronicling the highs and lows of facing karate’s toughest challenge and how he learnt to survive and never give in.In Autumn 2013 Scott sent this book to his Sensei in Japan for their approval. They responded immediately declaring the book to be full of lies and misrepresentations of Japan and forbade him to publish it. He was suspended for a month and then affectively expelled in January 2014. Suddenly, his 30 year relationship with Japanese karate had abruptly come to an end. This had been major a part of his entire karate life and he had dedicated himself to its values and rules, running a karate organization in Ireland for over ten years. He never wanted to jeopardize his position or damage the reputation of the group. However, unfortunately, the sacrifices he made during this true story are nothing compared to the sacrifices he has had to make to publish it. About the Author Scott Langley began karate in 1985. Showing a rare combination of aptitude, dedication and love of the art, Scott rose through the grades at a steady rate. In 1991 he gained his black belt. However, this was just the beginning. He quickly began winning national competitions and in 1993 was selected for the Japan Karate Shotorenmei national team. While at university he trained daily at his university club and under the guidance of Sadashige Kato 8th Dan. By the time Scott graduated, he was a 3rd Dan and had become one of the youngest people to win the JKS World Championships. But this was just the foundation of what lay ahead. In 1997 Scott moved to Japan to train full time at the World Headquarters. In 2000 he was invited to enter the elusive instructors’ course and after two years of intensive training, graduated, becoming only the fifth westerner to complete the challenge. He moved to Ireland with a mandate to promote the JKS within the British Isles. Within a decade Scott’s group had become the biggest single style association in the UK and Ireland and was as big at the JKS in Japan. He now teaches fulltime at www.hombudojokarate.com

    She is the first non-aristocratic woman to enter the longest-running, almost hermetically sealed, and mysterious monarchy in the world. Met with cruelty and suspicion by the Empress and her minions, Haruko is controlled at every turn. The only interest the court has in her is her ability to produce an heir. After finally giving birth to a son, Haruko suffers a nervous breakdown and loses her voice. However, determined not to be crushed by the imperial bureaucrats, she perseveres. Thirty years later, now Empress herself, she plays a crucial role in persuading another young woman's rising star in the foreign ministry to accept the marriage proposal of her son, the Crown Prince. The consequences are tragic and dramatic.Told in the voice of Haruko, meticulously researched and superbly imagined, The Commoner is the mesmerizing, moving, and surprising story of a brutally rarified and controlled existence at once hidden and exposed, and of a complex relationship between two isolated women who, despite being visible to all, are truly understood only by each other. With the unerring skill of a master storyteller, John Burnham Schwartz has written his finest novel yet.

    After having their first child in 1986, they have decided to pursue their long-hidden dream of exploring the world. Inspired by their life-changing adventure throughout the world, they have decided to serve as a tour guide. This happy couple has been serving as a Japan local tour guide for more than 30 years now. In their effort to show the world what Japan truly is, they have decided to write a book about it. Download your copy today! Take action and experience Japan at its fullest potential now! Get this book for FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

    The web of murder and greed is clearly explained in this book that was the first to reveal the strong ties that developed from Malcolm Wallace all the way to the Johnson White House - encircling the richest and most influential men in Texas - oil barons, weapons manufacturers, and businessmen who would consider the removal of John Kennedy an act of patriotism.

    (No one will tell her exactly why.) Alex Thorn, an American psychologist, is mourning his son, a Shizuyama exchange student who was killed in an accident. (No one will tell him exactly how.) Alex has come to this utterly foreign place to find the truth, and now Gaby is serving as his translator and guide. The key to mastering Japanese, she keeps telling him, is understanding what's not being said. And in this "deft and delightful" (Karen Joy Fowler) novel, the unsaid truths about everything from work and love to illness and death cast a deafening silence-and tower in the background like Mount Fuji itself.

    Not in 4000 years of Japanese recorded history had anyone followed the Cherry Blossom Front from one end of the country to the other. Nor had anyone hitchhiked the length of Japan. But, heady on sakura and sake, Will Ferguson bet he could do both. The resulting travelogue is one of the funniest and most illuminating books ever written about Japan. And, as Ferguson learns, it illustrates that to travel is better than to arrive.

    Tailored to meet the needs of the first time bonsai owner, this book is an extensive directory of every major bonsai type. Bonsai Basics explains in detail all the techniques needed to keep a bonsai alive and in good shape.  Clear text and step-by-step illustrations ensure that even the most nervous newcomer can approach looking after bonsai with confidence.  Filled with over 120 specially commissioned photographs and illustrations, the New Pyramid Bonsai Basics is an extensive directory of both indoor and outdoor trees and their characteristics.

    So why did he dream the other night--and dream that he has a son?At one time, Batou had a human love for his partner, the legendary Major, before he witnessed her transfiguration into something beyond humanity. Now he has only his job, and his beloved basset hound, Gabriel. But when Batou has a near-death experience in an arranged car "accident," he returns home to find Gabriel has gone missing--perhaps, to go look for her owner's lost soul.Batou's desperate search for Gabriel leads him down surreal streets where homeless men fight tanks and yakuza racing hounds chase rabbits downloaded into their heads. Batou fears his poor dog has made a horrible mistake out of innocence--for Batou has taken a cold look inside himself...and decided that he never truly had a soul...Innocence, After The Long Goodbye is the prequel to the Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence film, also available as a four-volume Ani-Manga box set from VIZ Media. The Innocence novel contains a special bonus discussion between the director, Mamoru Oshii, and the author, Masaki Yamada.