Pretty Good Number One

Pretty Good Number One
Author: Matthew Amster-Burton
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2014-02-19
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 9781495974885

Everyone knows how to live the good life in Paris, Provence, or Tuscany. Now, Matthew Amster-Burton makes you fall in love with Tokyo. Experience this exciting and misunderstood city through the eyes of three Americans vacationing in a tiny Tokyo apartment. Follow 8-year-old Iris on a solo errand to the world's greatest supermarket, picnic on the bullet train, and eat a staggering array of great, inexpensive foods, from eel to udon. A humorous travel memoir in the tradition of Peter Mayle and Bill Bryson, Pretty Good Number One is the next best thing to a ticket to Tokyo. Includes a new afterword by the author featuring Christmas in Tokyo, fried UFOs, a robotic sushi restaurant, and more. "The layers of the city, its extraordinary food pleasures, its quirkinesses, emerge as the author and his family spend an intense month living in Tokyo and exploring widely...Warning: this book will make you hungry. You'll yearn, as I do, to catch the next plane to Tokyo, so you can get eating." —Naomi Duguid, writer and traveler; her most recent book is BURMA: Rivers of Flavor (Artisan 2012) "This is the book I've been hoping Matthew would write: smart, opinionated, and wickedly funny, crammed with in-the-know tips and observations about visiting Tokyo. From the intricacies of garbage sorting to the chirpy jingle for the local supermarket, the pleasures of pan-fried soup dumplings to the pain of junsai, I laughed, cringed, and got so hungry that I had to eat three bowls of cereal to make it to the end. I love this book." —Molly Wizenberg, author of A Homemade Life and creator of Orangette

Dave Barry Does Japan

Dave Barry Does Japan
Author: Dave Barry
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 222
Release: 1993
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0449908100

The award-winning author and syndicated columnist shares his humorous observations on his trip to Japan, sharing his thoughts on culture shock in all its numerous forms--from kabuki to public bathing. Reprint.

The Great Mental Models, Volume 1

The Great Mental Models, Volume 1
Author: Shane Parrish
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2024-10-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0593719972

Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.

Room

Room
Author: Emma Donoghue
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 101
Release: 2017-05-07
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 178682177X

Kidnapped as a teenage girl, Ma has been locked inside a purpose built room in her captor's garden for seven years. Her five year old son, Jack, has no concept of the world outside and happily exists inside Room with the help of Ma's games and his vivid imagination where objects like Rug, Lamp and TV are his only friends. But for Ma the time has come to escape and face their biggest challenge to date: the world outside Room.

Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin

Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin
Author: Anna Cleary
Publisher: Harlequin
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2009-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1426832435

Connor O'Brien is damaged, inside and out—proof of his dark and dangerous life. Sophy Woodruff has never known a man as devastatingly sexy as Connor. Intense, brooding and distant, he's everything she shouldn't desire…. Despite his vow of noncommitment, Connor can't resist bedding Sophy. But Sophy is a virgin, and once he's undressed her, this billionaire isn't sure he can walk away….

So Good They Can't Ignore You

So Good They Can't Ignore You
Author: Cal Newport
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2012-09-18
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1455509108

In an unorthodox approach, Georgetown University professor Cal Newport debunks the long-held belief that "follow your passion" is good advice, and sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving their careers. Not only are pre-existing passions rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work, but a focus on passion over skill can be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping. Spending time with organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, freelance computer programmers, and others who admitted to deriving great satisfaction from their work, Newport uncovers the strategies they used and the pitfalls they avoided in developing their compelling careers. Cal reveals that matching your job to a pre-existing passion does not matter. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it. With a title taken from the comedian Steve Martin, who once said his advice for aspiring entertainers was to "be so good they can't ignore you," Cal Newport's clearly written manifesto is mandatory reading for anyone fretting about what to do with their life, or frustrated by their current job situation and eager to find a fresh new way to take control of their livelihood. He provides an evidence-based blueprint for creating work you love, and will change the way you think about careers, happiness, and the crafting of a remarkable life.

A Little Life

A Little Life
Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 833
Release: 2016-01-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0804172706

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Patriot Number One

Patriot Number One
Author: Lauren Hilgers
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2018-03-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0451496159

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2018 BY New York Times Critics • Wall Street Journal • Kirkus Reviews Christian Science Monitor • San Francisco Chronicle Finalist for the PEN Jacqueline Bograd Weld Biography Award Shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize The deeply reported story of one indelible family transplanted from rural China to New York City, forging a life between two worlds In 2014, in a snow-covered house in Flushing, Queens, a village revolutionary from Southern China considered his options. Zhuang Liehong was the son of a fisherman, the former owner of a small tea shop, and the spark that had sent his village into an uproar—pitting residents against a corrupt local government. Under the alias Patriot Number One, he had stoked a series of pro-democracy protests, hoping to change his home for the better. Instead, sensing an impending crackdown, Zhuang and his wife, Little Yan, left their infant son with relatives and traveled to America. With few contacts and only a shaky grasp of English, they had to start from scratch. In Patriot Number One, Hilgers follows this dauntless family through a world hidden in plain sight: a byzantine network of employment agencies and language schools, of underground asylum brokers and illegal dormitories that Flushing’s Chinese community relies on for survival. As the irrepressibly opinionated Zhuang and the more pragmatic Little Yan pursue legal status and struggle to reunite with their son, we also meet others piecing together a new life in Flushing. Tang, a democracy activist who was caught up in the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, is still dedicated to his cause after more than a decade in exile. Karen, a college graduate whose mother imagined a bold American life for her, works part-time in a nail salon as she attends vocational school, and refuses to look backward. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, Hilgers captures the joys and indignities of building a life in a new country—and the stubborn allure of the American dream.

How to Give a Pretty Good Presentation

How to Give a Pretty Good Presentation
Author: T. J. Walker
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 89
Release: 2010-07-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0470875399

Reduce the time and stress associated with your presentations Bookshelves are crowded with books on how to be an exceptional presenter and promise to produce a brilliant, standing-ovation speaker. But what about a presentation resource for the rest of us? There are so many of us regular folk who who want to spend just a little time and effort to get over the big hurdle of giving a presentation, but don't know where to turn for advice. How to Give a Pretty Good Presentation is the easy answer to this common need. Straightforward, entertaining, and well-organized, this user-friendly resource will walk you step-by-step through the process from how to write, rehearse, and deliver a pretty good presentation that will make you appear confident, memorable, and competent. Although it does not promise the moon (or a standing ovation), this public speaking survival guide will help you: Appear confident (even while still feeling nervous!) Take the spotlight off of you and put it on your content Save time Not put people to sleep with your PowerPoint Presentation Produce better results Make better impressions Reduce the feelings of dread, sleeplessness, and procrastination associated with your presentations Prepare even if you've waited until the day before or an hour before your presentation is to be given Whatever your job, if you need to give a presentation and are feeling overwhelmed by it, How to Give a Pretty Good Presentation is there for you. If you want to reduce the time and stress associated with your presentations now and pass all future presentation opportunities with flying colors, then pick up this fun and accessible guide; you'll no doubt like the resulting improvement in both your personal and professional bottom line.