Learn to use some of the most exciting and powerful tools to deliver world-class quality software with continuous delivery and DevOps About This Book Get to know the background of DevOps so you understand the collaboration between different aspects of an IT organization and a software developer Deploy top-quality software and ensure software maintenance and release management with this practical guide This course covers some of the most exciting technology available to DevOps engineers, and demonstrates multiple techniques for using them Real-world and realistic examples are provided to help you as you go about the implementation and adoption of continuous delivery and DevOps Who This Book Is For This course is for developers who want to understand how the infrastructure that builds today's enterprises works, and how to painlessly and regularly ship quality software. What You Will Learn Set up and familiarize yourself with all the tools you need to be efficient with DevOps Design an application that is suitable for continuous deployment systems with DevOps in mind Test the code using automated regression testing with Jenkins Selenium Managing the lifecycle of hosts, from creation to ongoing management using Puppet Razor Find out how to manage, use, and work with Code in the Git version management system See what traps, pitfalls, and hurdles to look out for as you implement continuous delivery and DevOps In Detail Harness the power of DevOps to boost your skill set and make your IT organization perform better. If you’re keen to employ DevOps techniques to better your software development, this course contains all you need to overcome the day-to-day complications of managing complex infrastructures the DevOps way. Start with your first module – Practical DevOps - that encompasses the entire flow from code from testing to production. Get a solid ground-level knowledge of how to monitor code for any anomalies, perform code testing, and make sure the code is running smoothly through a series of real-world exercise, and develop practical skills by creating a sample enterprise Java application. In the second module, run through a series of tailored mini-tutorials designed to give you a complete understanding of every DevOps automation technique. Create real change in the way you deliver your projects by utilizing some of the most commendable software available today. Go from your first steps of managing code in Git to configuration management in Puppet, monitoring using Sensu, and more. In the final module, get to grips with the continuous delivery techniques that will help you reduce the time and effort that goes into the delivery and support of software. This Learning Path combines some of the best that Packt has to offer in one complete, curated package. It includes content from the following Packt products: Practical DevOps by Joakim Verona DevOps Automation Cookbook by Michael Duffy Continuous Delivery and DevOps : A Quickstart Guide - Second Edition by Paul Swartout Style and approach This course is an easy to follow project based guide for all those with a keen interest in deploying world-class software using some of the most effective and remarkable technologies available.

Build real-world, production-ready solutions by harnessing the powerful features of Go About This Book An easy-to-follow guide that provides everything a developer needs to know to build end-to-end web applications in Go Write interesting and clever, but simple code, and learn skills and techniques that are directly transferable to your own projects A practical approach to utilize application scaffolding to design highly scalable programs that are deeply rooted in go routines and channels Who This Book Is For This book is intended for developers who are new to Go, but have previous experience of building web applications and APIs. What You Will Learn Build a fully featured REST API to enable client-side single page apps Utilize TLS to build reliable and secure sites Learn to apply the nuances of the Go language to implement a wide range of start-up quality projects Create websites and data services capable of massive scale using Go's net/http package, exploring RESTful patterns as well as low-latency WebSocket APIs Interact with a variety of remote web services to consume capabilities ranging from authentication and authorization to a fully functioning thesaurus Explore the core syntaxes and language features that enable concurrency in Go Understand when and where to use concurrency to keep data consistent and applications non-blocking, responsive, and reliable Utilize advanced concurrency patterns and best practices to stay low-level without compromising the simplicity of Go itself In Detail Go is an open source programming language that makes it easy to build simple, reliable, and efficient software. It is a statically typed language with syntax loosely derived from that of C, adding garbage collection, type safety, some dynamic-typing capabilities, additional built-in types such as variable-length arrays and key-value maps, and a large standard library. This course starts with a walkthrough of the topics most critical to anyone building a new web application. Whether it’s keeping your application secure, connecting to your database, enabling token-based authentication, or utilizing logic-less templates, this course has you covered. Scale, performance, and high availability lie at the heart of the projects, and the lessons learned throughout this course will arm you with everything you need to build world-class solutions. It will also take you through the history of concurrency, how Go utilizes it, how Go differs from other languages, and the features and structures of Go's concurrency core. It will make you feel comfortable designing a safe, data-consistent, and high-performance concurrent application in Go. This course is an invaluable resource to help you understand Go's powerful features to build simple, reliable, secure, and efficient web applications. Style and approach This course is a step-by-step guide, which starts off with the basics of go programming to build web applications and will gradually move on to cover intermediate and advanced topics. You will be going through this smooth transition by building interesting projects along with the authors, discussing significant options, and decisions at each stage, while keeping the programs lean, uncluttered, and as simple as possible.

Build and run intelligent applications by leveraging key Java machine learning libraries About This Book ? Develop a sound strategy to solve predictive modelling problems using the most popular machine learning Java libraries. ? Explore a broad variety of data processing, machine learning, and natural language processing through diagrams, source code, and real-world applications ? This step-by-step guide will help you solve real-world problems and links neural network theory to their application Who This Book Is For This course is intended for data scientists and Java developers who want to dive into the exciting world of deep learning. It will get you up and running quickly and provide you with the skills you need to successfully create, customize, and deploy machine learning applications in real life. What You Will Learn ? Get a practical deep dive into machine learning and deep learning algorithms ? Explore neural networks using some of the most popular Deep Learning frameworks ? Dive into Deep Belief Nets and Stacked Denoising Autoencoders algorithms ? Apply machine learning to fraud, anomaly, and outlier detection ? Experiment with deep learning concepts, algorithms, and the toolbox for deep learning ? Select and split data sets into training, test, and validation, and explore validation strategies ? Apply the code generated in practical examples, including weather forecasting and pattern recognition In Detail Machine learning applications are everywhere, from self-driving cars, spam detection, document search, and trading strategies, to speech recognitionStarting with an introduction to basic machine learning algorithms, this course takes you further into this vital world of stunning predictive insights and remarkable machine intelligence. This course helps you solve challenging problems in image processing, speech recognition, language modeling. You will discover how to detect anomalies and fraud, and ways to perform activity recognition, image recognition, and text. You will also work with examples such as weather forecasting, disease diagnosis, customer profiling, generalization, extreme machine learning and more. By the end of this course, you will have all the knowledge you need to perform deep learning on your system with varying complexity levels, to apply them to your daily work. The course provides you with highly practical content explaining deep learning with Java, from the following Packt books: 1. Java Deep Learning Essentials 2. Machine Learning in Java 3. Neural Network Programming with Java, Second Edition Style and approach This course aims to create a smooth learning path that will teach you how to effectively use deep learning with Java with other de facto components to get the most out of it. Through this comprehensive course, you’ll learn the basics of predictive modelling and progress to solve real-world problems and links neural network theory to their application

My name is Ree. Some folks know me as The Pioneer Woman. After years of living in Los Angeles, I made a pit stop in my hometown in Oklahoma on the way to a new, exciting life in Chicago. It was during my stay at home that I met Marlboro Man, a mysterious cowboy with steely blue eyes and a muscular, work-honed body. A strict vegetarian, I fell hard and fast, and before I knew it we were married and living on his ranch in the middle of nowhere, taking care of animals, and managing a brood of four young children. I had no idea how I'd wound up there, but I knew it was exactly where I belonged.The Pioneer Woman Cooks is a homespun collection of photography, rural stories, and scrumptious recipes that have defined my experience in the country. I share many of the delicious cowboy-tested recipes I've learned to make during my years as an accidental ranch wife—including Rib-Eye Steak with Whiskey Cream Sauce, Lasagna, Fried Chicken, Patsy's Blackberry Cobbler, and Cinnamon Rolls—not to mention several "cowgirl-friendly" dishes, such as Sherried Tomato Soup, Olive Cheese Bread, and Crème Br?lée. I show my recipes in full color, step-by-step detail, so it's as easy as pie to follow along.You'll also find colorful images of rural life: cows, horses, country kids, and plenty of chaps-wearing cowboys.I hope you get a kick out of this book of mine. I hope it makes you smile. I hope the recipes bring you recognition, accolades, and marriage proposals. And I hope it encourages even the most harried urban cook to slow down, relish the joys of family, nature, and great food, and enjoy life.

An inviting, down-to-earth, full-color baking book filled with 130 recipes for irresistible must-bake favorites, from cakes to cookies to brownies to muffins to breads, from the New York Times bestselling star of Food Network’s hit series Ace of Cakes and owner of Charm City Cakes and Duff’s Cake Mix.Duff Goldman may dazzle fans with his breathtaking cake decorating, but behind the rigged-up gravity-defying cakes and fancy fondant is a true pastry chef who understands the fundamentals of making incredibly delicious baked goods at home.In Duff Bakes, he truly gives home bakers the down-to-earth essentials they need for creating mouthwatering favorites. Inside you’ll find the perfect muffin recipe to eat straight while waiting for your morning bus, an easy pizza dough recipe for a quick weeknight dinner, and cookie recipes for every occasion. Filled with Duff’s engaging earthiness and hilarious personality, Duff Bakes includes chapters on different types of pastry dough, a variety of cookies, brownies, muffins, bread, biscuits, pies, cakes and cake decorating, gluten-free and vegan desserts, and much more.Duff provides 130 recipes for a diverse range of goodies, including nutter butter cookies, white chocolate blondies, apple streusel muffins, cereal bars, bacon jalapeno biscuits, banana bourbon cream pie, zucchini lemon cake, and savory bread pudding. Here are a few classics as well, like a re-make of the childhood favorite, Twinkies. Duff Bakes will help both novices and seasoned bakers master the best, most delicious home baked goods, build on their baking successes, hone their skills, and understand the science behind the fundamentals of baking.

Fall in love with the magic of natural sugars!From honey and pure maple syrup to smoky muscovado, exotic coconut sugar, and more, there's a world of white-sugar alternatives just waiting to add mind-blowing flavor to your home baking. Real Sweet is the first naturally sweet baking book that's more "hip" than "hippie"—chockablock with eighty-plus recipes ranging from family-friendly favorites to dinner-party showstoppers. This irresistible collection includes Breakfast Cookies; Dark, Fudgy Muscovado Brownies; Raw Sugar and Mascarpone Caramels; and Maple Cream, Chocolate, and Walnut Tart—all without a speck of refined white sugar!Cookbook author and blogger Shauna Sever brings her fresh, modern, and charmingly funny style to this natural-sugars primer, along with tricks for converting your favorite white-sugar recipes, making Real Sweet the go-to inspiration source for the exciting range of natural and unrefined sugars and sweeteners on the market today.

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AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “Mr. Wright’s imagined history of the rise and fall of the sugary drink empire is so robust and recognizable that you might feel nostalgic for the taste of a soda you’ve never had.” – Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK BY Parade • Cosmopolitan • Town & Country • AARP •  InStyle • Garden & Gun • Vol. 1 BrooklynThe story of a family.The story of an empire. The story of a nation.Moving from Mississippi to Paris to New York and back again, a saga of family, ambition, passion, and tragedy that brings to life one unforgettable Southern dynasty—the Forsters, founders of the world’s first major soft-drink company—against the backdrop of more than a century of American cultural history. The child of immigrants, Houghton Forster has always wanted more—from his time as a young boy in Mississippi, working twelve-hour days at his father’s drugstore; to the moment he first laid eyes on his future wife, Annabelle Teague, a true Southern belle of aristocratic lineage; to his invention of the delicious fizzy drink that would transform him from tiller boy into the founder of an empire, the Panola Cola Company, and entice a youthful, enterprising nation entering a hopeful new age.Now the heads of a preeminent American family spoken about in the same breath as the Hearsts and the Rockefellers, Houghton and Annabelle raise their four children with the expectation they’ll one day become world leaders. The burden of greatness falls early on eldest son Montgomery, a handsome and successful politician who has never recovered from the horrors and heartbreak of the Great War. His younger siblings Ramsey and Lance, known as the “infernal twins,” are rivals not only in wit and beauty, but in their utter carelessness with the lives and hearts of others. Their brother Harold, as gentle and caring as the twins can be cruel, is slowed by a mental disability—and later generations seem equally plagued by misfortune, forcing Houghton to seriously consider who should control the company after he’s gone.An irresistible tour de force of original storytelling, American Pop blends fact and fiction, the mundane and the mythical, and utilizes techniques of historical reportage to capture how, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s words, “families are always rising and falling in America,” and to explore the many ways in which nostalgia can manipulate cultural memory—and the stories we choose to tell about ourselves.

Major Sharpe finds himself a fugitive, hunted by enemy and ally alike. Major Richard Sharpe awaits the opening shots of the army’s campaign with grim expectancy. For victory depends on the increasingly fragile alliance between Britain and Spain – an alliance that must be maintained at any cost. Pierre Ducos, the wily French intelligence officer, sees a chance both to destroy the alliance and to achieve a personal revenge on Richard Sharpe. And when the lovely spy, La Marquesa, takes a hand in the game, Sharpe finds himself enmeshed in a web of political intrigue for which his military expertise has left him fatally unprepared. Soldier, hero, rogue – Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.

PBS host, weight-loss expert, and renowned authority on longevity, Dr. John Tickell shares the secret to a long life: moderation. Moderation in everything except love, laughter, and fish (and a few vegetables!).Based on common sense, sound science, and good food, Love, Laugh, and Eat is an easy-to-follow guide that will help put the bounce back in your step and add years to your life. With his characteristic wit and medical expertise, Dr. Tickell lays out his proven Activity, Coping, and Eating (ACE) program, which simultaneously works out your body, your brain, and your mouth—the three keys to a healthy life—through physical activity and stress-management techniques and his revolutionary Four Simple Rules of Nutrition. He also serves up a seven-day detoxification plan and a series of delicious, manageable, and satisfying meal plans that actually work, as well as his eight Fall-Safe Snacks to keep you energized morning, noon, and night.Through Dr. Tickell's Love, Laugh, and Eat program you will:Look better Sleep better Feel better Love betterInspiring and engaging, Love, Laugh, and Eat is the approach to healthy living and longevity you've been waiting for. Healthy living has never been so easy—or so much fun.

Eat as much as you want, whenever you want. Welcome to the end of dieting.We're fatter, sicker, and hungrier than ever, and the billion-dollar diet industry—with its trendy weight-loss protocols and eat-this-notthat ratios of fat, carbs, and protein—offers only temporary short-term solutions at the expense of our permanent long-term health. As a result, we're trapped in a cycle of food addiction, toxic hunger, and overeating.In The End of Dieting, Joel Fuhrman, M.D., a board-certified doctor and the New York Times bestselling author of Eat to Live and The End of Diabetes, shows us how to break free from this vicious cycle once and for all. Dr. Fuhrman lays out in full all the dietary and nutritional advice necessary to eat our way to a healthier and happier life. At the center of his revolutionary plan is his trademark health formula: Health = Nutrients/Calories. Foods high in nutrient density, according to Dr. Fuhrman, are more satisfying than foods high in calories. They eliminate our cravings for fat, sweets, and carbs. The more nutrient-dense food we consume, the more our bodies can function as the self-healing machines they're designed to be. Weight drops, diseases reverse course and disappear, and our lives become longer and healthier.The End of Dieting is the book we have been waiting for—a proven, effective, and sustainable approach to eating that lets us prevent and reverse disease, lose weight, and reclaim our right to excellent health.

Time is not money.Time is more important than money. Today's customers are overwhelmed, overworked, and overstressed, and it seems that everyone from CEOs to soccer moms is short on time and inundated with information. As a result, despite the availability of 24/7 commerce and countless ways of engaging people in our multiscreen (mobile, TV, and PC) economy, companies find it more difficult than ever to claim even a fraction of the 1,440 minutes in their customers' precious 24 hours. In The 24-Hour Customer, Adrian C. Ott, CEO of a successful Silicon Valley consultancy, argues that companies need to strategically harness the ebbs and flows of customer time and attention in order to win in today's competitive landscape. She explores the economics of time and attention, including why customers will devote hours addicted to social networks, yet will say "I have no time!" to other offerings. Based on extensive research and real-world results with market-leading companies, this book provides tools, such as Time-Value Tradeoffs and Time-ographics, that pinpoint opportunities to increase revenue and gain market traction. Filled with fascinating case studies from companies like Johnson Johnson, Amazon, and iPhone app start-ups, The 24-Hour Customer offers fresh ideas for capitalizing on the elements of time, attention, and value to innovate never-before-considered products, services, and programs for today's ber-connected, multitasking customer. Readers will discover how: Zipcar utilized time-slicing to redefine automobile ownership and grew by 70 percent, while the auto industry struggled in 2009; Netflix, Hulu, and others time-shifted to movies on-demand, ultimately restructuring the entertainment industry; P&G leveraged inattention by enabling habit-formation for some of its most successful brands. This book shares the latest strategic weapons for achieving market leadership and will change the way executives think about their businesses and their customers.

Is Your Diet Making You Fat?From her Health and Eating Laboratory at the University of Minnesota, Professor Traci Mann researches self-control and dieting. And what she has discovered is groundbreaking: not only do diets not work, they often result in weight gain. We are losing the battle of the bulge because our bodies and brains are not hardwired to resist food—in fact, the very idea of it works against our biological imperative to survive.In Secrets from the Eating Lab, Mann challenges assumptions—including those that make up the foundation of the weight loss industry—about how diets work and why they fail. As Mann explains, most weight loss plans are reliant on the notion of willpower—and willpower is an illusion. Moreover, even when we are able to successfully lose weight, our bodies fight our efforts, seeking to regain the weight we've worked so hard to lose. In the end, we become chronic "yo-yo" dieters, destined to lose and regain the same pounds time and again. The diet industry is well aware of these facts and has tellingly built their business model on the concept of the "repeat customer"; they know we'll be back.The result of more than two decades of research, Secrets from the Eating Lab presents cutting-edge science and offers exciting new insights into the American obesity epidemic and our relationship with food. From redefining "comfort food" to reconsidering healthy food labeling that, ironically, makes us less inclined to make healthy choices, Mann presents an arsenal of simple, common-sense strategies that take advantage of human nature instead of fighting it—helping you to achieve a healthy and sustainable weight.

The quintessential self-made man, master of brand identity, New York Times bestselling author, and award-winning executive KISS's Gene Simmons shares his manifesto for business success.KISS did not become one of the most successful rock bands in history by accident. Long before he first took the stage, Gene Simmons had a clear-cut operating plan for the business. Over the past forty years, KISS has sold more than 100 million CDs and DVDs worldwide and manages 5,000 licensed merchandise items from comic books and coffins to action figures and video games. The band received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2014 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to KISS, Simmons's lucrative ventures include two hit reality shows, a professional sports team, a restaurant chain, and a record label. A recipient of the Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award, this brilliant executive runs all of his businesses on his own no personal assistant, few handlers, and as little red tape as possible.In Me, Inc., Simmons gives aspiring entrepreneurs the critical tools they need to succeed. He discusses how to build a solid business strategy, harness the countless tools available in the digital age, educate yourself, and be the architect for the business entity that is you. Inspired by The Art of War, Me, Inc. is organized around thirteen specific, easy-to-understand principles for success "The Art of More" drawn from Simmons's own triumphs and failures. From finding the confidence necessary to get started, to surrounding yourself with the right people, to knowing when to pull the plug and when to double-down, these principles can help you attain the freedom and wealth of your dreams.

The definitive guide to turning the Millennials' great expectations into even greater results The Millennial generation (those born between 1982 and 2000) has rapidly entered the workforce in greater numbers, but its introduction to the workplace has been anything but seamless. In fact, many companies already report attention-grabbing stories about: the mother who called HR to complain when her Millennial daughter got a mediocre performance review; the new hire who dialed the CEO directly to tell him what the company could be doing better; the young employee who revealed a confidential new product on her Facebook page before it was made public. Clashes like these are happening in workplaces around the world, and they leave leaders and coworkers scratching their heads and wondering, "What do these Millennials wantWhy are they so differentHow do we get the good ones in the doorHow do we keep them there without alienating the other generations?" Going forward, a company's success will depend upon knowing the answers to these questions, because they are the keys to motivating this new generation and to taking advantage of the amazing potential it possesses. In The M-Factor, Baby Boomer Lynne Lancaster and Generation Xer David Stillman draw on cutting-edge case studies, findings from large-scale surveys, and hundreds of interviews to identify the seven trends essential for understanding and managing the Millennials: the role of the parents, entitlement, the search for meaning, great expectations, the need for speed, social networking, and collaboration. Observant, humorous, and savvy, this book the ultimate guide to Millennials in the workplace offers valuable insights and practical, take-action tips and solutions that Traditionalists, Boomers, Gen Xers, and even Millennials can use to bridge generational gaps, be more productive, and achieve organizational success like never before.

Never before has the so-called mainstream media shown such naked political bias as in the 2012 presidential election. In 2012 Barack Obama was narrowly reelected, with naked support from a liberal media desperate to hide his failures, trumpet his accomplishments, and discredit his GOP rivals. Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich, Santorum: one by one the media took them apart using hidden-camera exposés, innuendo from anonymous accusers, repetition of harmful sound bites, and irrelevant—even untrue—storytelling. As soon as Mitt Romney emerged as the Republican Party's nominee, the liberal media went to work in earnest. They repeated Obama's campaign caricatures that Romney terrified his family dog, enjoyed firing people, and was nothing more than a willing tool of wealthy radical-right extremists. The Washington Post published a 5,400-word "exposé" on the allegation that in 1965 he may have pinned down a boy and cut his hair. Those same Post readers were then treated to 5,500 words on Barack Obama's lifelong love of basketball. Unquestionably, 2012 was the year when the liberal news media did all in their power to steal the presidential election—and they arguably succeeded. Media Research Center Founder and President Brent Bozell and MRC Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham provide the dramatic and conclusive evidence to prove this point—and show conservatives how to put an end to the leftist media agenda threatening democracy itself.

The all-American chronicle of radio legend Carol Miller, from her rise to success in a male dominated world, to the rockstars she's know along the way, to, for the first time, the private story of her quietly waged battle with a deadly disease.As one of the nation's top radio DJs, Carol Miller introduced the music of Bruce Springsteen to the New York airwaves, was on a first-name basis with Sir Paul McCartney, dated Steven Tyler, and has been recognized by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her on-air approach and singular voice have infl uenced the sound of rock radio for more than four decades, and her satellite and syndicated Get the Led Out programs are heard nationwide. In Up All Night, Carol spins the entertaining, moving, and revealing story of her life and times in rock radio and beyond. A nice Jewish girl from Queens, Carol was supposed to be a doctor or, at the very least, a lawyer. But hearing a doo-wop trio in the alley under her window changed the direction of her life forever: she fell in love with popular music. As the tumult and excitement of the sixties rocked colleges across America, Carol a biology major at the University of Pennsylvania became an underground rock DJ at the campus radio station. Radio jobs in Philadelphia and New York City quickly followed, and Carol rose to the top of the profession. But even as she enjoyed a professional and personal life imbued with rock and roll glamour, Carol harbored guilt, disappointment, and alienation, believing she'd failed her traditional, intellectual Jewish parents and often feeling like an outsider in the very culture she had helped to create. The specter of an unnamed illness that had claimed many of her relatives' lives hung over hers as well, and she too would face a monumental challenge when diagnosed with breast and uterine cancer. Told in the distinctive voice that has charmed millions of listeners for decades, Up All Night is a frank, funny, and inspiring memoir. Offering snapshots of the rarefied world of pop music and the shifting social history of our times, it is as much a cultural chronicle as it is one woman's candid and moving story.

The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Your Mental StrengthEveryone knows that regular exercise and weight training lead to physical strength. But how do we strengthen ourselves mentally for the truly tough timesAnd what should we do when we face these challengesOr as psychotherapist Amy Morin asks, what should we avoid when we encounter adversityThrough her years counseling others and her own experiences navigating personal loss, Morin realized it is often the habits we cannot break that are holding us back from true success and happiness. Indulging in self-pity, agonizing over things beyond our control, obsessing over past events, resenting the achievements of others, or expecting immediate positive results holds us back. This list of things mentally strong people don't do resonated so much with readers that when it was picked up by Forbes.com it received ten million views.Now, for the first time, Morin expands upon the thirteen things from her viral post and shares her tried-and-true practices for increasing mental strength. Morin writes with searing honesty, incorporating anecdotes from her work as a college psychology instructor and psychotherapist as well as personal stories about how she bolstered her own mental strength when tragedy threatened to consume her.Increasing your mental strength can change your entire attitude. It takes practice and hard work, but with Morin's specific tips, exercises, and troubleshooting advice, it is possible to not only fortify your mental muscle but also drastically improve the quality of your life.

The Democratic Party has long presented itself as the party of the poor, the working class, the little guy. As Jay Cost's sweeping revisionist history reveals, nothing could be further from the truth.Why have the Democrats gone from being the people's party of reform to the party of special-interest carve-outsIn Spoiled Rotten, political analyst Jay Cost tells the story of the modern Democratic party from the end of the Civil War to the present, tracing the sad decline of a once noble political coalition that is no longer capable of living up to its lofty ideals.When Andrew Jackson formed the Democratic party in 1828, he promised to stand up for the little guy against the rule of privileged elites. What has become of this promiseAccording to Cost, recent history has shown the Democrats to be anything but the party of and for the people. Instead, they have become a collection of special-interest groups feeding off the federal government, exchanging votes for subsidies and benefits. With the creation of a partisan spoils system in the nineteenth century, both parties practiced the politics of patronage. But, starting with the New Deal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the power of big government to transform whole classes of society into clients of the Democratic party. Urban machines, southern segregationists, and organized labor all benefited from this approach. FDR's successors Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter followed suit, turning African Americans, environmentalists, feminists, government workers, teachers, and a number of other groups into loyal Democratic factions. As a result, the Democratic party has become a kind of national Tammany Hall whose real purpose is to colonize the federal government on behalf of its clients. No longer able to govern for the vast majority of the country, the Democratic party simply taxes Middle America to pay off its clients while hiding its true nature behind a smoke screen of idealistic rhetoric. Thus, the Obama health care, stimulus, and auto bailout health care bill were created not to help all Americans but to secure contributions and votes. Average Americans need to see that whatever the Democratic party claims it is doing for the country, it is in fact governing simply for its base. Hard-hitting and uncompromising, Spoiled Rotten is a timely, powerful polemic from a rising intellectual star.

一本幽默诙谐的现代社会寓言小说集，记录了普通人平凡却又跌宕起伏的生活。 From the?author of the “sophisticated and erudite”?Peculiar Ground?(Boston Globe),?comes a collection of classic, witty fables, elegantly updated for our modern times.It's in the nature of myth to be infinitely adaptable.Each of these startlingly original stories is set in modern Britain. Their characters include a people-trafficking gang-master and a prostitute, a migrant worker and a cocksure estate agent, an elderly musician doubly befuddled by dementia and the death of his wife, a pest-controller suspected of paedophilia and a librarian so well-behaved that her parents wonder anxiously whether she’ll ever find love.They’re ordinary people, preoccupied, as we all are now, by the deficiencies of the health service, by criminal gangs and homelessness, by the pitfalls of dating in the age of #metoo. All of their stories, though, are inspired by ones drawn from Graeco-Roman myth, from the Bible or from folk-lore.The ancients invented myths to express what they didn’t understand. These witty fables, elegantly written and full of sharp-eyed observation of modern life, are also visionary explorations of potent mysteries and strange passions, charged with the hallucinatory beauty and horror of their originals.

“As intellectually playful as the best of Thomas Pynchon and as sardonically warm as the best of Kurt Vonnegut, The Heap is both a hilarious send-up of life under late capitalism and a moving exploration of the peculiar loneliness of the early 21st century. A masterful and humane gem of a novel.” —Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of MonstersBlending the piercing humor of Alexandra Kleeman and the jagged satire of Black Mirror, an audacious, eerily prescient debut novel that chronicles the rise and fall of a massive high-rise housing complex, and the lives it affected before - and after - its demise.Standing nearly five hundred stories tall, Los Verticalés once bustled with life and excitement. Now this marvel of modern architecture and nontraditional urban planning has collapsed into a pile of rubble known as the Heap. In exchange for digging gear, a rehabilitated bicycle, and a small living stipend, a vast community of Dig Hands removes debris, trash, and bodies from the building’s mountainous remains, which Orville Anders burrows into the bowels of the Heap to find his brother Bernard, the beloved radio DJ of Los Verticalés, who is alive and miraculously broadcasting somewhere under the massive rubble. For months, Orville has lived in a sea of campers that surrounds the Heap, working tirelessly to free Bernard—the only known survivor of the imploded city—whom he speaks to every evening, calling into his radio show.The brothers’ conversations are a ratings bonanza, and the station’s parent company, Sundial Media, wants to boost its profits by having Orville slyly drop brand names into his nightly talks with Bernard. When Orville refuses, his access to Bernard is suddenly cut off, but strangely, he continues to hear his own voice over the airwaves, casually shilling products as “he” converses with Bernard.What follows is an imaginative and darkly hilarious story of conspiracy, revenge, and the strange life and death of Los Verticalés that both captures the wonderful weirdness of community and the bonds that tie us together.