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<b>Blasting clich茅d career advice, the contrarian pundit and creator of <i>Dilbert</i> recounts the humorous ups and downs of his career, revealing the outsized role of luck in our lives and how best to play the system. </b><br /><br /> Scott Adams has likely failed at more things than anyone you鈥檝e ever met or anyone you鈥檝e even heard of. So how did he go from hapless office worker and serial failure to the creator of聽<i>Dilbert</i>, one of the world鈥檚 most famous syndicated comic strips, in just a few years? In<i>聽How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big</i>, Adams shares the game plan he鈥檚 followed since he was a teen: invite failure in, embrace it, then pick its pocket.<br /><br /> No career guide can offer advice that works for everyone. As Adams explains, your best bet is to study the ways of others who made it big and try to glean some tricks and strategies that make sense for you. Adams pulls back the covers on his own unusual life and shares how he turned one failure after another鈥攊ncluding his corporate career, his inventions, his investments, and his two restaurants鈥攊nto something good聽and lasting. There鈥檚 a lot to learn from his personal story, and a lot of entertainment along the way. Adams discovered some unlikely truths that helped to propel him forward. For instance:<br /><br /> 鈥?Goals are for losers. Systems are for winners.<br /> 鈥?鈥淧assion鈥?is bull. What you need is personal energy.<br /> 鈥?A combination of mediocre skills can make you surprisingly valuable.<br /> 鈥?You can manage your odds in a way that makes you look lucky to others.<br /><br /> Adams hopes you can laugh at his failures while discovering some unique and helpful ideas on your own path to personal victory. As he writes: 鈥淭his is a story of one person鈥檚 unlikely success within the context of scores of embarrassing failures. Was my eventual success primarily a result of talent, luck, hard work, or an accidental just-right balance of each? All I know for sure is that I pursued a conscious strategy of managing my opportunities in a way that would make it easier for luck to find me.鈥?/div>
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<b>A revised edition of the classic bestselling how to draw book. A life-changing book, this fully revised and updated edition of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is destined to inspire generations of readers and artists to come.</b><br /><br /> Translated into more than seventeen languages, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is the world's most widely used instructional drawing book. Whether you are drawing as a professional artist, as an artist in training, or as a hobby, this book will give you greater confidence in your ability and deepen your artistic perception, as well as foster a new appreciation of the world around you. This revised/updated fourth edition includes:<br /><br /> 鈥⒙燼 new introduction;<br /> 鈥⒙燾rucial updates based on recent research on the brain's plasticity and the enormous value of learning new skills/ utilizing the right hemisphere of the brain;<br /> 鈥⒙爊ew focus on how the ability to draw on the strengths of the right hemisphere can serve as an antidote to the increasing left-brain emphasis in American life-the worship of all that is linear, analytic, digital, etc.;<br /> 鈥⒙燼n informative section that addresses recent research linking early childhood "scribbling" to later language development and the importance of parental encouragement of this activity;<br /> 鈥⒙燼nd new reproductions of master drawings throughout
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<b>Overflowing with drawing prompts and tips, <i>Your Year in Art</i> will invigorate beginning and practicing artists as they build skills, gain confidence, and overcome artistic anxiety.聽</b><br /><br /> Leave your artistic anxiety behind with 52 weeks of hearty inspiration. <i>Your Year in Art </i>is a must-have guide to rouse your creative side. Designed for aspiring, beginning, and practicing artists looking to hone their skills,聽<i>Your Year in Art </i>is packed with <b>unique projects and encouraging instruction</b>.<br /><br /> The mission of <i>Your Year in Art </i>is to <b>sharpen your art skills and quiet your inner critic</b> by showing you how to draw habitually and spontaneously. As you build your craft, techniques, and confidence, this guide encourages you to create in a way that celebrates your individuality.<br /><br /> Fifty-two clever <b>drawing prompts, along with tips and tricks</b>, from expert illustrator Chelsea Ward will get your creative juices flowing. Weekly challenges include making a 鈥渟elf-portrait鈥?by sketching things that describe you; practicing mark-making techniques like cross-hatching and stippling; filling a sketchbook page with drawings on a theme, like potted plants or fire hydrants; and adding water to ink drawings to practice wash techniques.<br /><br /> Join fellow artists in an exciting yearlong journey of developing creative habits and discovering new ways to express yourself.
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<p>In his <i>New York Times</i> bestseller <i>Steal Like an Artist</i>, Austin Kleon showed readers how to unlock their creativity by 鈥渟tealing鈥?from the community of other movers and shakers. Now, in an even more forward-thinking and necessary book, he shows how to take that critical next step on a creative journey鈥攇etting known.<br /><br /><i> Show Your Work!</i> is about why generosity trumps genius. It鈥檚 about getting <i>findable</i>, about using the network instead of wasting time 鈥渘etworking.鈥?It鈥檚 not self-promotion, it鈥檚 self-discovery鈥攍et others into your process, then let them steal from you. Filled with illustrations, quotes, stories, and examples, <i>Show Your Work!</i> offers ten transformative rules for being open, generous, brave, productive.<br /><br /> In chapters such as<b> You Don鈥檛 Have to Be a Genius</b>; <b>Share Something Small Every Day</b>; and <b>Stick Around</b>, Kleon creates a user鈥檚 manual for embracing the communal nature of creativity鈥?what he calls the 鈥渆cology of talent.鈥?From broader life lessons about work (you can鈥檛 find your voice if you don鈥檛 use it) to the etiquette of sharing鈥攁nd the dangers of oversharing鈥攖o the practicalities of Internet life (build a good domain name; give credit when credit is due), it鈥檚 an inspiring manifesto for succeeding as any kind of artist or entrepreneur in the digital age.</p>
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<b>Improve your bullet journals, to-do lists, class notes, and everything in between with聽<i>The Art of Visual Notetaking</i>聽and its unique approach to taking聽notes in the twenty-first century.</b><br /><br /> Visual notetaking is the perfect skill for聽journaling,聽class lectures,聽conferences, and聽any other time that retaining information is key. Also referred to as <b>sketchnoting</b>, visual notetaking is ideal for documenting processes, planning projects, outlining ideas, and capturing information. And as you'll learn in聽<i>The Art of Visual Notetaking</i>, this approach聽doesn't require advanced drawing or hand-lettering skills; anyone can learn how to use simple lines, connectors, shapes, and text to take dynamic notes.<br /> 聽<br /> In <i>The Art of Visual Notetaking</i>,聽aspiring sketchnoters and journalers will find helpful "Getting Started" pages of <b>icons and badges</b> for common note-taking purposes, with tips and encouragement for聽<b>creating you own unique icons</b>. You'll go on to discover instruction and how-to techniques, tips, and tutorials that focus on visual <b>notetaking for different settings</b>, from a business meeting,聽workshop, or聽convention, to a聽college lecture聽or聽sermon. Expert instruction from a professional sketchnote artist and educator demonstrates how to visually arrange and compile ideas, focal points, and key concepts.
Lanny: A Novel
by
Max Porter
Language
English
Pages
160
Publication Date
May 14, 2019
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<p><b>Longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize</b><br /><b></b><br /><b>An entrancing new novel by the author of the prizewinning <i>Grief Is the Thing with Feathers</i></b></p><p>There鈥檚 a village an hour from London. It鈥檚 no different from many others today: one pub, one church, redbrick cottages, some public housing, and a few larger houses dotted about. Voices rise up, as they might anywhere, speaking of loving and needing and working and dying and walking the dogs. This village belongs to the people who live in it, to the land and to the land鈥檚 past.</p><p>It also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort, a mythical figure local schoolchildren used to draw as green and leafy, choked by tendrils growing out of his mouth, who awakens after a glorious nap. He is listening to this twenty-first-century village, to its symphony of talk: drunken confessions, gossip traded on the street corner, fretful conversations in living rooms. He is listening, intently, for a mischievous, ethereal boy whose parents have recently made the village their home. Lanny.</p><p>With <i>Lanny</i>, Max Porter extends the potent and magical space he created in <i>Grief Is the Thing with Feathers</i>. This brilliant novel will ensorcell readers with its anarchic energy, with its bewitching tapestry of fabulism and domestic drama. <i>Lanny</i> is a ringing defense of creativity, spirit, and the generative forces that often seem under assault in the contemporary world, and it solidifies Porter鈥檚 reputation as one of the most daring and sensitive writers of his generation.</p>
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<p><strong>A <em>Sunday Times</em> (UK) Book of the Year<br /><br />Shortlisted 鈥?Society of Authors' Somerset Maugham Award<br /><br />A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week</strong></p><br /><p><strong>The best-selling author of <em>The Secret Lives of Color</em> returns with this rollicking narrative of the 30,000-year history of fabric, briskly told through thirteen charismatic episodes.</strong></p><br /><p>From colorful 30,000-year-old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to the Indian calicoes that sparked the Industrial Revolution, <em>The Golden Thread</em> weaves an illuminating story of human ingenuity. Design journalist Kassia St. Clair guides us through the technological advancements and cultural customs that would redefi ne human civilization鈥攆rom the fabric that allowed mankind to achieve extraordinary things (traverse the oceans and shatter athletic records) and survive in unlikely places (outer space and the South Pole). She peoples her story with a motley cast of characters, including Xiling, the ancient Chinese empress credited with inventing silk, to Richard the Lionhearted and Bing Crosby. Offering insights into the economic and social dimensions of clothmaking鈥攁nd countering the enduring, often demeaning, association of textiles as 鈥渕erely women鈥檚 work鈥濃€?lt;em>The Golden Thread</em> offers an alternative guide to our past, present, and future.</p>
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<b>The true鈥攁nd often shocking鈥攕tories behind some of the biggest names in business.</b><br /> 聽<br /> We live our lives immersed in name brand products. What most of us don't know is that the origins of many of the most well-known and beloved brands in the world are shrouded in controversy, drug use, and sometimes even blatant racism.<br /><br /><i>A Secret History of Brands</i> cuts through the rumors and urban legends and paints a picture of the true dark history of famous brands, like Coca-Cola, Hugo Boss, Adidas, Ford, Bayer, Chanel, and BMW, among others. Learn about: <ul><li>the mystery of the cocaine content of Coca-Cola</li><li>the Hitler-Henry Ford connection</li><li>why Bayer is famous for aspirin, but began their journey with Heroin</li><li>how Kellogg's Corn Flakes were crafted to deter sexual arousal</li><li>and more</li></ul>
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<b>Keep Working. Keep Playing. Keep Creating.</b><br /><br /> In his previous books <i>Steal Like an Artist </i>and <i>Show Your Work!</i>, both <i>New York Times </i>bestsellers, Austin Kleon gave readers the keys to unlock their creativity and showed them how to become known. Now he offers his most inspiring work yet, with ten simple rules for how to stay creative, focused, and true to yourself鈥攆or life.<br /><br /> The creative life is not a linear journey to a finish line, it鈥檚 a loop鈥攕o find a daily routine, because today is the only day that matters. Disconnect from the world to connect with yourself鈥攕ometimes you just have to switch into airplane mode. <i>Keep Going</i> celebrates getting outdoors and taking a walk (as director Ingmar Bergman told his daughter, 鈥漈he demons hate fresh air鈥?. Pay attention, and especially pay attention to what you pay attention to. Worry less about getting things done, and more about the worth of what you鈥檙e doing. Instead of focusing on making your mark, work to leave things better than you found them.<br /><br /><i>Keep Going</i> and its timeless, practical, and ethical principles are for anyone trying to sustain a meaningful and productive life.<br /> 聽