A bit of magic, a sprinkling of adventure, and a whole lot of heart collide in All the Impossible Things, Lindsay Lackey's extraordinary middle-grade novel about a young girl navigating the foster care system in search of where she belongs. "Wise and wondrous, this is truly a novel to cherish.” —Katherine Applegate, New York Times–bestselling author of Wishtree An Indies Introduce Selection Red’s inexplicable power over the wind comes from her mother. Whenever Ruby “Red” Byrd is scared or angry, the wind picks up. And being placed in foster care, moving from family to family, tends to keep her skies stormy. Red knows she has to learn to control it, but can’t figure out how. This time, the wind blows Red into the home of the Grooves, a quirky couple who run a petting zoo, complete with a dancing donkey and a giant tortoise. With their own curious gifts, Celine and Jackson Groove seem to fit like a puzzle piece into Red’s heart. But just when Red starts to settle into her new life, a fresh storm rolls in, one she knows all too well: her mother. For so long, Red has longed to have her mom back in her life, and she’s quickly swept up in the vortex of her mother’s chaos. Now Red must discover the possible in the impossible if she wants to overcome her own tornadoes and find the family she needs.
Charles Ferguson's hilarious, hard-boiled journey into the heart of high-tech darkness has become the signal book of the start-up generation. Charles Ferguson started Vermeer Technologies and turned his very big idea into FrontPage, the first software product for creating and managing a website. Ferguson took a good idea, started a company, and sold it to Microsoft for $133 million -- all in less than two years. High Stakes, No Prisoners is both a blistering inside account of how he did it and a brilliant tour of the brutally competitive and utterly unique world of Silicon Valley. - Publisher.
Presents a narrative analysis of the federal budget that reveals how funds were actually spent in 2011, evaluating the roles of such contributors as Jacob Lew, Douglas Elmendorf, and Pete Peterson.
For today's poker players, Texas hold 'em is the game. Every day, tens of thousands of small stakes hold 'em games are played all over the world in homes, card rooms, and on the Internet. These games can be very profitable -- if you play well. But most people don't play well and end up leaving their money on the table. Small Stakes Hold 'em: Winning Big with Expert Play explains everything you need to be a big winner. Unlike many other books about small stakes games, it teaches the aggressive and attacking style used by all professional players. However, it does not simply tell you to play aggressively; it shows you exactly how to make expert decisions through numerous clear and detailed examples. Small Stakes Hold 'em teaches you to think like a professional player. Topics include implied odds, pot equity, speculative hands, position, the importance of being suited, hand categories, counting outs, evaluating the flop, large pots versus small pots, protecting your hand, betting for value on the river, and playing overcards. In addition, after you learn the winning concepts, test your skills with over fifty hand quizzes that present you with common and critical hold 'em decisions. Choose your action, then compare it to the authors' play and reasoning. This text presents cutting-edge ideas in straightforward language. It is the most thorough and accurate discussion of small stakes hold 'em available. Your opponents will read this book; make sure you do, too!
Author and former literary agent Nathan Bransford shares his secrets for creating killer plots, fleshing out your first ideas, crafting compelling characters, and staying sane in the process. Read the guide that New York Times bestselling author Ransom Riggs called "The best how-to-write-a-novel book I've read."
Keep your cool and get the results you want when faced with crucial conversations. This New York Times bestseller and business classic has been fully updated for a world where skilled communication is more important than ever. The book that revolutionized business communications has been updated for today’s workplace. Crucial Conversations provides powerful skills to ensure every conversation—especially difficult ones—leads to the results you want. Written in an engaging and witty style, the book teaches readers how to be persuasive rather than abrasive, how to get back to productive dialogue when others blow up or clam up, and it offers powerful skills for mastering high-stakes conversations, regardless of the topic or person. This new edition addresses issues that have arisen in recent years. You’ll learn how to: Respond when someone initiates a crucial conversation with you Identify and address the lag time between identifying a problem and discussing it Communicate more effectively across digital mediums When stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong, you have three choices: Avoid a crucial conversation and suffer the consequences; handle the conversation poorly and suffer the consequences; or apply the lessons and strategies of Crucial Conversations and improve relationships and results. Whether they take place at work or at home, with your coworkers or your spouse, crucial conversations have a profound impact on your career, your happiness, and your future. With the skills you learn in this book, you'll never have to worry about the outcome of a crucial conversation again.
Make your story a page-turner; make a living as a writer. Wouldn't it be great if readers stayed up all night to finish your screenplay or novel? After such an intense emotional experience, when they're done with your story, these readers won't quickly forget about it and reach for another spec script or novel in their TBR pile. Nope. They'll transform into raving fans who'll tell everyone they know about your work. That's how you get onto Hollywood's radar and eventually make the big spec sale. That's how you get the word-of-mouth recommendations that propel a novel to the top of the best-seller lists. It's how you finally achieve your writing dreams through your creativity. Sounds nice, right? But how do you make it happen? How do you keep readers glued to your screenplay or novel? At first, you might use your writing skills to create a likeable hero or craft a high-concept premise. Sure, these things are important. They entice readers to give your story a chance. But they only go so far. They don't keep readers engaged till the very end. To accomplish this, you need something more. You need stakes. Because of stakes, your hero can't walk away from his problem. As a result, readers won't be able to walk away from your story. See, when stakes are in play, readers will be wondering if your hero will succeed or fail at his goal. Then, they worry about him. Then, they're under tension. To relieve this tension, they MUST stay up all night and finish your story-and when they have, they'll rave about the amazing page-turner they couldn't put down. They'll rave about you. Master story stakes, and your screenplay or novel will stand out in a crowded marketplace. This writing skills guide will show you how. Specifically, you'll learn about: 11 Types of Story Stakes Which Increase Tension and Reader Engagement Some of them you already know. A few will be new. At the very least, you'll have a convenient list to check the next time you need a new reason for your hero to save the day, trick your leading lady, or chase down a suspect. Plus, we'll cover best practices. That way, you'll get the most mileage out of the stakes you choose to include in your story. 8 Modulating Factors Which Affect the Emotional Impact of the Stakes Think of modulating factors like the knobs on a stereo system. They can either turn up the emotional "volume," or...they can mute it. Oftentimes, modulating factors are the secret to wringing out the extra drop of emotion that will give your story an advantage over others in its genre. The Story Stake Matrix This is where we put everything together. It's a tool which will show you: how to use stakes to craft a premise with more commercial appeal how to to raise the stakes (even when they're already high!) how to avoid an anticlimactic ending Let's focus on that second benefit for a minute. Several writing guides will tell you that to keep readers interested, you've got apply your creativity and raise the stakes. But, these books are frustratingly vague on how to accomplish this. This book is not vague. This book will give you specific strategies you can use right away to make high stakes feel even higher. Buy this writing skills guide today and take a step closer toward enthralled readers, raving fans, and killer sales! Also available (in ebook): Inciting Incident: How to Begin Your Story and Engage Audiences Right Away Trough of Hell: How to Wrap Up the Middle of Your Story with Maximum Impact Story Climax: How to Avoid Disappointed Audiences and Craft a Screenplay or Novel Climax that Thrills and Delights
Scholars have long regarded ‘Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the Reign of Louis XV’ (1976) as marking an important moment in the study of the social, political and cultural history of eighteenth-century France. ‘The Stakes of Regulation’ is the companion volume to a new edition of this landmark study, revealing how Kaplan’s thinking has evolved in reaction both to the changing intellectual, epistemological, historiographical and socio-political environment, and to the significant scholarship that has been accomplished during the past forty years. Kaplan remains faithful to his original premise: that the subsistence question is at the core of eighteenth century history, and that the issues joined by the struggle over liberalization continue to shape our destiny today through the bristling tension between liberty and equality, and the debate over the necessity, legitimacy and character of regulation.
In this “heart-stopping” (Publishers Weekly) page-turner from New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance, Ali Reynolds finds herself working against the police to clear two innocent names. Former reporter Ali Reynolds finds herself working against the police to add up the clues that connect one frightened teenager, two dead bodies, and $300,000...with the body count rising. Hired to investigate the grisly murder of a gold-digging divorcée on behalf of the woman accused of the crime, Ali Reynolds is immediately drawn to the case of the secretive teenager who found the body. A. J. Sanders was in the Camp Verde desert to retrieve a mystery box buried by his absent father—a box that turns out to be filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of poker chips. When a second body is found in the desert, it seems the three cases are more closely related than anyone could have imagined. Though Ali’s friends in the police department grow increasingly irritated by her involvement, Ali must stop a ruthless killer from claiming another victim...before she is lost in this game of deadly stakes.
When cub reporter Ruby falls for her boss, all bets are off. He's a challenge, he's her editor, and he wants her to stop being quippy and clever and become the writer--and the woman--he knows she can be. But what happens when she realizes Mr. Right has his own unresolved past? A bestseller in hardcover.
