"When I got knocked down by guys bigger than me . . . [my mother] sent me back out and demanded that I bloody their nose so I could walk down the street the next day." Joe Biden In this, the first definitive biography of Vice President Joe Biden, renowned journalist Jules Witcover examines the fascinating life of a man who, with his tenacity, outspokenness, and charming smile, has shaped Washington politics for the past forty years and who now serves as the forty-seventh vice president of the United States.Raised in the working-class towns of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware, and with lackluster grades in school and no particular goals other than to play sports or, fleetingly, to become a priest, Biden shocked the nation in 1972 when he became one of the youngest elected senators in U.S. history. From that point forward, he carved a legacy for himself as one of the most respected legislators in the country. Biden's record in Congress was impressive. He chaired three Senate committees, confronted Slobodan Miloevic head-on as a war criminal, and conducted the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court justices. After voting for the 2002 Senate resolution to use force in Iraq, he later called for its repeal and became an outspoken critic of the conduct of the war.Yet for all of Biden's achievements in the Senate, his life has been filled with tragedy and countless challenges. Within two months of being elected in 1972, Biden lost his wife, Neilia, and his young daughter in a tragic accident a loss that brought him to the nadir of despair and shook his resolve to stay in politics. And even after Biden vowed to continue his career, his tenure was marked by two brain aneurysms and career-threatening verbal gaffes. Then, after being considered among the front-runners in the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries, Biden was accused of plagiarism for a speech he made at the Iowa State Fair. He dropped out of the race to the sounds of Washington pundits chattering that the presidency would never be his. Through it all, Biden survived and ran and eventually dropped out again in the 2008 primaries. But even with this defeat, Barack Obama recognized Biden's vast experience in domestic and foreign affairs, and selected him to be his running mate.Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption is based on exhaustive research by one of Washington's most prolific journalists. In drawing on numerous exclusive interviews with Biden's confidants and family members, as well as President Obama and Vice President Biden, Witcover has gone beyond conventional biography to track the forces that have shaped a man who, with his plainspoken style and inspiring life story, has resonated with millions of Americans and whose work is now influencing the Obama-Biden administration and shaping America.

What can chess masters teach us about how humans become expertsWhy can't race car drivers explain decisions they've made behind the wheel?What does predicting the winner of a soccer match say about our ability to make the right choiceWhen we talk about experts, we typically have bought into the idea that they have all the answers. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Gordon Rugg exposes the surprising ways in which all people tend to make the same sorts of mistakes, regardless of what field they are in, how smart they are, or even their level of expertise. Focusing on why and how we make decisions, Rugg offers insight into what motivates us, how we fail to find the answers we are looking for, how we can learn to ask the essential questions, and more. Rugg has devoted his life to learning how experts solve problems. He gained international attention after arguing persuasively that the famous Voynich Manu* is a hoax. Now, he demonstrates his techniques in the Verifier Method, which can be applied to any seemingly unsolvable problem.Drawing on his personal odyssey in the field of human expertise, Rugg makes astute and entertaining conclusions about how and why we inevitably fail, and explains how to make better mistakes, work backward, and reengineer the ways we pursue success.

A comprehensive look at 300 of the most financially and/or critically successful motion pictures of all time many made despite seemingly insurmountable economic, cultural, and political challenges set against the prevailing production, distribution, exhibition, marketing, and technology trends of each decade in movie business history.

City Parks illuminates the spirit and beauty of the world's most loved city parks: an extraordinary visual and poetic journey from London to Brooklyn, Calcutta to Chicago, and Paris to San Francisco, captured in breathtaking photographs and the evocative words of celebrated writers and personalities.

This first-ever book of its kind, Designing for the Greater Good, features hundreds of illustrated examples of the best nonprofit and cause-related design worldwide, plus 24 inspiring case studies and insights into great nonprofit branding campaigns. A comprehensive resource for designers, creative professionals, marketers, corporate communications departments and nonprofit leaders, this book showcases work from a variety of sectors including Family and Community, Animal Causes, Health, Human Rights, Environmental Awareness, Spirituality, and the Arts. The 24 case studies feature interviews with the designers for such campaigns as the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, The Hurricane Katrina Poster Project and Get London Reading. Materials presented in Designing for the Greater Good include: cause-specific campaigns and case studies; logos and branding for nonprofits; websites, posters, brochures, advertising, and marketing materials for cause-related events and nonprofits; packaging; invitations for fundraisers and events.

Cutting-edge, user-friendly, and comprehensive: the revolutionary guide to the brain, now fully revised and updatedAt birth each of us is given the most powerful and complex tool of all time: the human brain. And yet, as we well know, it doesn't come with an owner's manual until now. In this unsurpassed resource, Dr. Pierce J. Howard and his team distill the very latest research and clearly explain the practical, real-world applications to our daily lives. Drawing from the frontiers of psychology, neurobiology, and cognitive science, yet organized and written for maximum usability, The Owner's Manual for the Brain, Fourth Edition, is your comprehensive guide to optimum mental performance and well-being. It should be on every thinking person's bookshelf. What are the ingredients of happinessWhich are the best remedies for headaches and migrainesHow can we master creativity, focus, decision making, and willpowerWhat are the best brain foodsHow is it possible to boost memory and intelligenceWhat is the secret to getting a good night's sleepHow can you positively manage depression, anxiety, addiction, and other disordersWhat is the impact of nutrition, stress, and exercise on the brainIs personality hard-wired or fluidWhat are the best strategies when recovering from trauma and lossHow do moods and emotions interactWhat is the ideal learning environment for childrenHow do love, humor, music, friendship, and nature contribute to well-beingAre there ways of reducing negative traits such as aggression, short-temperedness, or irritabilityWhat is the recommended treatment for concussionsCan you delay or prevent Alzheimer's and dementiaWhat are the most important ingredients to a successful marriage and familyWhat do the world's most effective managers know about leadership, motivation, and persuasionPlus 1,000s more topics!

Who can forget the over-the-top, white-on-white, high-gloss interiors through which Fred Astaire danced in Top HatThe modernist high-rise architecture, inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, in the adaptation of Ayn Rand's The FountainheadThe lavish, opulent drawing rooms of Martin Scorsese's The Age of InnocenceThrough the use of film design called both art direction and production design in the film industry movies can transport us to new worlds of luxury, highlight the ornament of the everyday, offer a vision of the future, or evoke the realities of a distant era. In Designs on Film, journalist and interior designer Cathy Whitlock illuminates the often undercelebrated role of the production designer in the creation of the most memorable moments in film history. Through a lush collection of rare archival photographs, Whitlock narrates the evolving story of art direction over the course of a century from the massive Roman architecture of Ben-Hur to the infamous Dakota apartment in Rosemary's Baby to the digital CGI wonders of Avatar's Pandora.Drawing on insights from the most prominent Hollywood production designers and the historical knowledge of the venerable Art Directors Guild, Whitlock delves into the detailed process of how sets are imagined, drawn, built, and decorated. Designs on Film is the must-have look book for film lovers, movie buffs, and anyone looking to draw interior design inspiration from the constructions and confections of Hollywood. Whitlock lifts the curtain on movie magic and celebrates the many ways in which art direction and set design allow us to lose ourselves in the diverse worlds showcased on the big screen.

In 2010 the U.S. Army Special Operations Command created Cultural Support Teams, a pilot program to put women on the battle field alongside Army Rangers, Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and other special operations teams on sensitive missions in Afghanistan. The idea was that women could access places and people that had remained out of reach and could build relationships woman to woman in ways that male soldiers in a conservative, traditional country could not. Though officially banned from combat, female soldiers could be "attached" to different teams, and for the first time women throughout the Army, the National Guard, and the Reserves heard the call to join male soldiers on special ops missions. Each had her own reason for wanting to serve alongside America's finest fighters for wanting, as the recruiting poster advertised, "to be part of history."In Ashley's War, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses exhaustive firsthand reporting and a finely tuned understanding of the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women handpicked from across the Army, and of the remarkable hero at its heart: First Lieutenant Ashley White. Lemmon reveals how First Lieutenant White and the pioneers of CST-2 worked to earn the respect of combat-tested special operations warriors and illuminates the very human stakes of their battlefield successes. Transporting readers into the little-known world of the CSTs, a community of fierce women bound together by valor, danger, and the desire to serve, Ashley's War is a gripping combat narrative and a testament to the unbreakable bond of friendship born of war.

In 2008, Bonner Paddock summited 19,341-foot-high mount kilimanjaro, the world's tallest freestanding mountain. Four years later, he earned the elite triathlete title kona Ironman. Thousands have done each individually. Bonner is the first person with cerebral palsy to do both.Bonner Paddock grew up just wanting to be ordinary. Despite his skinny legs and habit of tripping over nothing, he fought to keep up with his athletic older brothers, learned to battle riptides with his grandfather on close watch, and did everything he could to feel like a regular kid, even when it became clear he wasn't. After being diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age eleven, Bonner didn't let it limit him instead he simply ignored its existence. For the next eighteen years, he guarded the truth about his health, building a normal life and keeping his secret from everyone most of all himself.But the sudden death of a friend's young son named Jake, a boy who also suffered from cerebral palsy, forced Bonner to reevaluate who he was. No longer content striving for normal, he began to pursue one breathtaking experience after another in Jake's memory, never hiding from his physical limitations and, in the process, raising international awareness about cerebral palsy. T is appetite for challenges led him to the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro where, pushing his fragile body to the brink and barely surviving, he braved one mountain only to discover that he still had farther to climb.Embracing his weaknesses to understand his strengths, he then pursued the ultimate adventure: testing his mind, body, and will at the Ironman in Kona, Hawaii, a race regarded by many as the hardest on earth. Along the way he forged a renewed bond with his family and launched a foundation to help disabled children in Africa and at home.In the end, his remarkable journey took him across the globe and introduced him to a compelling cast of characters from Tanzanian mountain guides to top-class surgeons, to disabled children, to champion athletes all of whom inspired his quest. Infused with his irresistible charisma, courage, and heart, and illustrated with sixteen pages of color photos, One More Step is a gripping story of human perseverance that demonstrates how our lives are not defined by limits, but by the moments and lessons that push us past them.

In this gripping narrative history, Al Roker from NBC’s Today and the Weather Channel vividly examines the deadliest natural disaster in American history—a haunting and inspiring tale of tragedy, heroism, and resilience that is full of lessons for today’s new age of extreme weather. On the afternoon of September 8, 1900, two-hundred-mile-per-hour winds and fifteen-foot waves slammed into Galveston, the booming port city on Texas’s Gulf Coast. By dawn the next day, the city that hours earlier had stood as a symbol of America’s growth and expansion was now gone. Shattered, grief-stricken survivors emerged to witness a level of destruction never before seen: Eight thousand corpses littered the streets and were buried under the massive wreckage. Rushing water had lifted buildings from their foundations, smashing them into pieces, while wind gusts had upended steel girders and trestles, driving them through house walls and into sidewalks. No race or class was spared its wrath. In less than twenty-four hours, a single storm had destroyed a major American metropolis—and awakened a nation to the terrifying power of nature. Blending an unforgettable cast of characters, accessible weather science, and deep historical research into a sweeping and dramatic narrative, The Storm of the Century brings this legendary hurricane and its aftermath into fresh focus. No other natural disaster has ever matched the havoc caused by the awesome mix of winds, rain, and flooding that devastated Galveston and shocked a young, optimistic nation on the cusp of modernity. Exploring the impact of the tragedy on a rising country’s confidence—the trauma of the loss and the determination of the response—Al Roker illuminates the United States’s character at the dawn of the “American Century,” while also underlining the fact that no matter how mighty they may become, all nations must respect the ferocious potential of our natural environment.

For nearly three decades political observers have sought to understand the complex relationship between Hillary Clinton's faith and her politics. Now, in this first spiritual biography of the former first lady, acclaimed historian Paul Kengor sets out to answer the elusive question: What does Hillary Clinton believeBased on exhaustive research, God and Hillary Clinton tells the surprising story of Hillary's spiritual evolution, detailing the interaction between her lifelong religious beliefs and her personal history that has made her the politician she is today. Offering an in-depth spiritual chronology of Clinton's life, author Paul Kengor also analyzes the fraught relationship between her faith and her secular policies most notably how she reconciles her pro-choice stance on abortion with her Christian beliefs and scrutinizes how these policies have changed over the course of her political career. What emerges is an unexpected portrait of a political figure whose ideals have been shaped by both the power of her politics and the depth of her religious devotion.

This is an anthology designed to help you get through the stresses of modern life. For rapid and effective relief around the clock, 24-7, without side effects, try a poem -- whatever the time of the day (or night), you can be sure that some poet, past or present, has been there too.To help you find the right poem at the right time, the organization of the book is like that of a book of hours. Starting with Getting Up, it then moves on to those other morning traumas: Stepping on the Scale and Looking into the Mirror.As the day moves on there are sections to cover everything, from Office Politics to Off to School. And if by five p.m. your head is throbbing, dig into the poems in the Take 5 section and let the world recede. By the end of the day you may want to look for inspiration among the poems in Going Home, but if you are intent on veering from the straight and narrow, then turn to the Behaving Badly poems and you'll find you're in good company. Anyone who feels vaguely guilty about settling down in front of the TV instead of taking café society by storm should turn to the poems in the Not Tonight section.

The Collins College Outline for Introduction to Business provides students with a detailed overview of the basic business studies curriculum. This guide covers business foundations, the global economy, company structure and formation, personnel and production management, labor-management relations, marketing concepts and logistics, statistical analysis, financial strategies, careers in business, and much more. Completely revised and updated by Dr. H. James Williams, Introduction to Business includes practical "test yourself" sections with answers and complete explanations at the end of each chapter. Also included are bibliographies for further reading, as well as charts, graphs, and illustrations.The Collins College Outlines are a completely revised, in-depth series of study guides for all areas of study, including the Humanities, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Science, Language, History, and Business. Featuring the most up-to-date information, each book is written by a seasoned professor in the field and focuses on a simplified and general overview of the subject for college students and, where appropriate, Advanced Placement students. Each Collins College Outline is fully integrated with the major curriculum for its subject and is a perfect supplement for any standard textbook.

Since the day she was scouted by a modeling agent while shopping at a London street fair when she was just nineteen, Alek Wek's life has been nothing short of a fantasy. When she's not the featured model in print campaigns for hip companies, or gracing the cover of Elle, she is working the runways of Paris, New York, and Milan to model for the world's leading designers, including Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. But nothing in her early years prepared her for the life of a model.Born in Wau, in the southern Sudan, Alek knew only a few years of peace with her family before they were caught up in a ruthless civil war that pitted outlaw militias, the Muslim-dominated government, and southern rebels against each other in a brutal conflict that killed nearly two million people. Here is her daring story of fleeing the war on foot and her escape to London, where her rise from young model to supermodel was all the more notable because of Alek's non-European looks. A probe into the Sudanese conflict and an inside look into the life of a most unique supermodel, Alek is a book that will inspire as well as inform.

Autumn Rose has the chance to save the world she loves. But how much will she have to sacrificeAutumn Rose lives in a sleepy seaside town, but buried deep under the surface of her quiet life are dark secrets. Her grandmother is dead, murdered eighteen months ago, and the vibrant London social scene in which she was brought up is a world away. Even worse, at her new school she is shunned and condemned––all because of the swirling marks on her skin that prevent her from blending in with the crowd. Then the appearance at her school of a handsome young man—who has the same curious markings as Autumn—sends her world into turmoil. Suddenly the marks are deemed cool, and Autumn is thrust into the limelight. But her sudden popularity brings danger as her secrets threaten to come to light. And then there are her recurring dreams about a girl who is about to be seduced by a very dark prince . . . and Autumn must figure out how to save her before it is too late.

It's time to take back our country.Now. It's that simple. It's that urgent.So begins Dick Morris and Eileen McGann's latest and most important book. They say that we must act before President Barack Obama fully implements his radical political agenda. Because after Obama has won his war on prosperity and canceled the war on terror, it will be too late to regain our liberty or our security.At a time when we needed a pragmatic centrist to lead us out of recession, we got a doctrinaire socialist who wants to use the crisis to put the government in charge of the economy and enact European socialism here in the United States. Cars, banks what's nextHe will keep at it until Washington governs every major business in America and sets all our salaries.It's a catastrophe.Dick Morris and Eileen McGann saw the meltdown coming. In their book Outrage, they called out the house of cards that was Fannie Mae. In Fleeced, they went after the credit card companies, the subprime mortgage lenders, and the hedge fund billionaires who conspired to wreck the economy and Barack Obama, whose policies, they predicted last summer, would "trigger a stock market crash." Now, in Catastrophe, Morris and McGann take a hard look at America in free fall and at how Obama is transforming a vulnerable America into a socialist state.They tell the truth about Obama and his radical policies: He will destroy our health care system so that no one gets adequate care. He designed his bank rescue plan to pave the way for nation-alization of the banks and socialization of the economy. He firmly believes in government control of our major industries he's already commandeered the banks and the automobile industry. He plans to reshape the political landscape to keep the left in power for decades by cooking the census, enfranchising illegal immigrants, muzzling talk radio, and coercing workers into unions. He is attacking those who fight terrorism while letting the terrorists go free. He gives aid to Hamas while Shariah Law threatens to take over America. He has repealed the Declaration of Independence and put us under a worldwide, European-dominated financial regulatory system. But Obama is not working alone. Morris and McGann spell out how Congress is complicit: How Senator Chris Dodd and Congressman Charlie Rangel use special interests and special friends for their own enrichment and glorification. How Ted Kennedy Jr. is exploiting his father's health care power. "This is no time for apathy or alienation or hopelessness," Morris and McGann remind us. "It's a time for action." And that action must begin now before it's too late.

The renowned science writer, mathematician, and bestselling author of Fermat's Last Theorem masterfully refutes the overreaching claims of the "New Atheists," providing millions of educated believers with a clear, engaging explanation of what science really says, how there's still much space for the Divine in the universe, and why faith in both God and empirical science are not mutually exclusive In recent years a highly publicized coterie of scientists and thinkers, including Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, and Lawrence Krauss, have vehemently contended that breakthroughs in modern science have disproven the existence of God, asserting we must accept that the creation of the universe came out of nothing, that religion is evil, that evolution fully explains the dazzling complexity of life, and more. However, in this much-needed book, veteran science journalist Amir Aczel profoundly disagrees and convincingly demonstrates that science has not, as yet, provided any definitive proof refuting the existence of God. Based on interviews with eleven Nobel Prize winners and many other prominent physicists, biologists, anthropologists, and psychologists, as well as leading theologians and spiritual leaders, Why Science Does Not Disprove God is a fascinating tour through the history of science and a brilliant and incisive analysis of the religious implications of our ever-increasing understanding of life and the universe. Throughout, Aczel reminds us that science, at its best, is about the dispassionate pursuit of truth not a weapon in cultural debates. Respectful of both science and faith and argued from the perspective of no single religious tradition Aczel's book is an essential corrective that should be read by all.

For the first time, Nia Vardalos, writer and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, tells her hilarious and heartfelt bumpy-road-to-parenting story that eventually leads to her meeting an almost-three-year old girl who she knows instantly is her daughter.Vardalos chronicles it all with her signature wit and candor but also weaves in delicious behind-the-scenes Hollywood stories on the making of her films from working with Tom Hanks to meeting Oprah to having dinner with the Queen of England.In Instant Mom, Vardalos writes how moments after she finds out she has been nominated for an Academy Award, she is alone and en route to a fertility clinic, trying yet again for a chance at motherhood, wondering how long she can continue. When she finally adopts her daughter via American Foster Care, Vardalos reveals what really came next how, with only fourteen hours' notice, she and her husband transitioned their preschool aged daughter into their home. The Appendix includes information on how to adopt from all over the world. Vardalos will donate proceeds from the book sales to charities.In her memoir, Instant Mom, Vardalos reveals how she broke into the movie industry, became a working screenwriter and actress . . . and finally became a mom. Instantly.

A fascinating exploration of the contents of Agatha Christie's seventy-three private notebooks, including illustrations and two unpublished Poirot stories When Agatha Christie died in 1976, at age eighty-five, she had become the world's most popular author. With sales of more than two billion copies worldwide, in more than one hundred countries, she had achieved the impossible more than one book every year since the 1920s, every one a bestseller.So prolific was Agatha Christie's output sixty-six crime novels, twenty plays, six romance novels under a pseudonym and more than one hundred and fifty short stories it was often claimed that she had a photographic memory. Was this trueOr did she resort over those fifty-five years to more mundane methods of working out her ingenious crimesFollowing the death of Agatha's daughter, Rosalind, at the end of 2004, a remarkable legacy was revealed. Unearthed among her affairs at the family home of Greenway were Agatha Christie's private notebooks, seventy-three handwritten volumes of notes, lists and drafts outlining all her plans for her many books, plays and stories. Buried in this treasure trove, all in her unmistakable handwriting, are revelations about her famous books that will fascinate anyone who has ever read or watched an Agatha Christie story.How did the infamous twist in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd really come aboutWhich very famous Poirot novel started life as an adventure for Miss MarpleWhich books were designed to have completely differ-ent endings, and what were theyWhat were the plot ideas that she considered but rejected?Full of details she was too modest to reveal in her own autobiography, this remarkable new book includes a wealth of excerpts and pages reproduced directly from the notebooks and her letters, plus, for the first time, two newly discovered complete Hercule Poirot short stories never before published.

A provocative critique of modern frivolity and a guide to being serious in an unserious age We used to live in a world run by serious people: politicians and religious leaders, writers and artists, journalists and academics, lawyers and business executives, who approached their work with maturity and mindfulness. Today it seems as if most of these figures have all but disappeared, leaving our country and our culture in the hands of amateurs, buffoons, and professional clowns. Yet, according to Lee Siegel, seriousness has been elusive in every age, and every age has its own particular obstacles to living seriously. In a unique combination of fiction, memoir, history, social criticism, satire, and spiritual reflection, Siegel illuminates our contemporary distractions of profit, popularity, and instant pleasure as we search for ways to be serious in culture, in politics, and in everyday life.Are You Seriousis a thoughtful and enlightening exploration of seriousness in all its incarnations, from the heights of intellectual endeavor to the depths of political conflict to how the word itself is used in ordinary situations, from romance to business. Siegel lays bare the forces in modern life that create the silliness all around us, and he describes how seriousness may be attained through the qualities of attention, purpose, and continuity, in satisfying lives forged in bonds of work and love.

Let us suppose for a moment that paper were to disappear.Would anything be lost?Everything would be lost.aper surrounds us. Not only as books, letters and diaries, but as beer mats and birth certificates, board games and business cards, fireworks and flypaper, photographs and playing cards, tickets and tea bags. We are paper people.But the age of paper is coming to an end. E-books regularly outsell physical books. E-tickets replace the paper variety. Archives are digitized. The world we know was made from paper, and yet everywhere we look, paper is beginning to disappear. As we enter a world beyond paper, Ian Sansom explores the paradoxes of the greatest of man-made materials and shows how some kinds of paper, and the ghosts and shadows of paper, will always be with us.Paper: An Elegy is a history of paper in all its forms and functions. Both a cultural study and a series of personal reflections on the meaning of paper, this book is a timely meditation on the very paper it is printed on.