With a deluge of electronic conveniences and cable channels well into the hundreds, it's no wonder that many people aren't sitting down with a good old-fashioned book more often. Motivational speaker and lifelong reader Pat Williams is changing all of that, in this energetic book, Read for Your Life. With anecdotes and interviews from some of today's greatest icons in business, sports and academia, including Phoenix Suns' star Steve Nash (voted NBA's Most Valuable Player in 2005-06), Yankees' star Alex Rodriguez, Grant Hill of the Orlando Magic and former New York City mayor Rudy Guiliani, Read for Your Life will help readers discover how reading can enhance their personal and professional thinking. Read for Your Life features 11 ways to transform one's life through books. - Publisher.
Mr Gold adroitly and expertly advocates the necessity of reading in our lives. Actually he goes as far as claiming that reading is a biological necessity in the same way as eating is. Reading is thinking, imagining, understanding, feeling and healing. It is an activity that is far from an escape or an avoidance of reality because it provides the reader the necessary relief from the ad hoc reacting and chaos of socialising by taking care of us, leading us and letting us imagine alternative lives through the complex paths of experience and language. In this sense reading truly is a therapeutic experience and Mr Gold gives numerous examples of patients he managed to cure by giving them novels to read because they are an experiential tool for re-seeing and reordering the reader's own confusing experience. Novels take on our confusion, they bear our burdens and leave us to see the larger picture we cannot see because they offer another perspective. Reading being the most powerful and plentiful source of information, it isn't surprising that a vital element for the survival of any totalitarian regime is to take control of what people read because language is power. Authors like Aldus Huxley, George Orwell and above all Ray Bradbury have masterfully illustrated this point in their novels, the latter showing what happens to a civilisation in which television replaces literacy. People may still be able to read but they are what we may call "literary illiterates". No doubt Mr Gold's message is clear: we have to read for the salvation of our spirit.
An award-winning journalist and literacy advocate provides a clear, step-by-step guide to helping your child thrive as a reader and a learner. When her child went off to school, Maya Smart was shocked to discover that a good education in America is a long shot, in ways that few parents fully appreciate. Our current approach to literacy offers too little, too late, and attempting to play catch-up when our kids get to kindergarten can no longer be our default strategy. We have to start at the top. The brain architecture for reading develops rapidly during infancy, and early language experiences are critical to building it. That means parents’ work as children’s first teachers begins from day one too—and we need deeper knowledge to play our positions. Reading for Our Lives challenges the bath-book-bed mantra and the idea that reading aloud to our kids is enough to ensure school readiness. Instead, it gives parents easy, immediate, and accessible ways to nurture language and literacy development from the start. Through personal stories, historical accounts, scholarly research, and practical tips, this book presents the life-and-death urgency of literacy, investigates inequity in reading achievement, and illuminates a path to a true, transformative education for all.
Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller & Wall Street Journal Bestseller In The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy, bestselling author Ryan Holiday made ancient wisdom wildly popular with a new generation of leaders in sports, politics, and technology. In his new book, Stillness Is the Key, Holiday draws on timeless Stoic and Buddhist philosophy to show why slowing down is the secret weapon for those charging ahead. All great leaders, thinkers, artists, athletes, and visionaries share one indelible quality. It enables them to conquer their tempers. To avoid distraction and discover great insights. To achieve happiness and do the right thing. Ryan Holiday calls it stillness--to be steady while the world spins around you. In this book, he outlines a path for achieving this ancient, but urgently necessary way of living. Drawing on a wide range of history's greatest thinkers, from Confucius to Seneca, Marcus Aurelius to Thich Nhat Hanh, John Stuart Mill to Nietzsche, he argues that stillness is not mere inactivity, but the doorway to self-mastery, discipline, and focus. Holiday also examines figures who exemplified the power of stillness: baseball player Sadaharu Oh, whose study of Zen made him the greatest home run hitter of all time; Winston Churchill, who in balancing his busy public life with time spent laying bricks and painting at his Chartwell estate managed to save the world from annihilation in the process; Fred Rogers, who taught generations of children to see what was invisible to the eye; Anne Frank, whose journaling and love of nature guided her through unimaginable adversity. More than ever, people are overwhelmed. They face obstacles and egos and competition. Stillness Is the Key offers a simple but inspiring antidote to the stress of 24/7 news and social media. The stillness that we all seek is the path to meaning, contentment, and excellence in a world that needs more of it than ever.
"For twenty-eight years, Pamela Paul has been keeping a diary that records the books she reads, rather than the life she leads. Or does it? Over time, it's become clear that this Book of Books, or Bob, as she calls him, tells a much bigger story. For Paul, as for many readers, books reflect her inner life--her fantasies and hopes, her dreams and ideas. And her life, in turn, influences which books she chooses, whether for solace or escape, diversion or self-reflection, information or entertainment. My Life with Bob isn't about what's in those books; it's about the relationship between books and readers"--
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.
New York Times bestselling author Joan Anderson gives women practical advice and inspiration for building creative, independent, and fulfilling lives through discovering who they truly are and who they can be. Like Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, Joan Anderson’s bestselling A Year by the Sea revealed a far larger than expected constituency, in the form of thousands of women struggling to realize their full potential. After years of focusing on the needs of others as a wife and mother, Anderson devoted a year to rediscovering herself and reinvigorating her dreams. The questions she asked herself and the insights she gained became the core of the popular weekend workshops Anderson developed to help women figure out how—after being all things to all people—they can finally become what they need to be for themselves. A Weekend to Change Your Life brings Anderson’s techniques to women everywhere, providing a step-by-step path readers can follow at their own pace. Drawing on her own life and on the experiences of the women she meets at her workshops, Anderson shows women how to move beyond the roles they play in relationship to others and reclaim their individuality. Through illustrations and gentle instruction, she illuminates the rewards of nurturing long-neglected talents, revitalizing plans sacrificed to the demands of family life, and redefining oneself by embracing new possibilities. Wake Up, Sister. It’s Your Turn A full life requires cultivation. The minute we take our hands off the plow, fail to reseed, forget to fertilize, we’ve lost our crop. And yet, most women I know, while in the service of some greater good have let their very lives wilt on the vine. Having been taught the fine art of accommodation, most of us have developed a knack for selfless behavior. We’ve dulled our personal lives while propping up everyone else’s, and we’re no longer able even to imagine having any sort of adventure, romance, meaning, or purpose for ourselves. In short, we’ve gotten way off track and taken the wrong road to self-satisfaction, foolishly thinking that after all of the doing, giving, trying, and overworking someone will offer us a reward. But Prince Charming was a bad joke and all the fairy godmothers are dead. Instead of happy ever after, most of us end up with the ache. We wake up each day with an inner gnawing, a hunger for more, a craving for an overhaul, but we are too listless, tired, or depressed to do anything about it. We have spent the greater part of our lives pouring ourselves out like a pitcher. No wonder we feel so empty. But we lack the necessary energy, a helpful roadmap, and any type of guidance and support. Well, it’s time to change all of that. —From A Weekend to Change Your Life
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.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor tells her own story for young readers for the very first time! As the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor has inspired young people around the world to reach for their dreams. But what inspired her? For young Sonia, the answer was books! They were her mirrors, her maps, her friends, and her teachers. They helped her to connect with her family in New York and in Puerto Rico, to deal with her diabetes diagnosis, to cope with her father's death, to uncover the secrets of the world, and to dream of a future for herself in which anything was possible. In Turning Pages, Justice Sotomayor shares that love of books with a new generation of readers, and inspires them to read and puzzle and dream for themselves. Accompanied by Lulu Delacre's vibrant art, this story of the Justice's life shows readers that the world is full of promise and possibility--all they need to do is turn the page. Praise for Turning Pages: * "A sincere and insightful autobiography that also demonstrates the power of the written word. A winning addition to libraries that serve young readers." --School Library Journal, starred review "A personal and appealing book made to inspire." --Booklist "A thoughtful introduction to both the power of reading and an inspiring role model." --Kirkus Reviews "This book would be great as a read-aloud for class discussions of the Supreme Court, or United States government, or of important people in public service. It would also be good for independent reading by students interested in biographies or political figures." --School Library Connection
A profoundly moving memoir of caregiving, mourning, and love between a mother and her son—and about the joy of reading, and the ways that joy is multiplied when we share it with others. “A graceful, affecting testament to a mother and a life well lived.” —Entertainment Weekly, Grade A During her treatment for cancer, Mary Anne Schwalbe and her son Will spent many hours sitting in waiting rooms together. To pass the time, they would talk about the books they were reading. Once, by chance, they read the same book at the same time—and an informal book club of two was born. Through their wide-ranging reading, Will and Mary Anne—and we, their fellow readers—are reminded how books can be comforting, astonishing, and illuminating, changing the way that we feel about and interact with the world around us.
