Lens on Life


Book Description

Mostly candid and spontaneous, documentary photography serves to preserve a moment in time. In Lens on Life, celebrated documentary photographer and author of the best-selling The Art of iPhoneography: A Guide to Mobile Creativity, Stephanie Calabrese Roberts, inspires you to explore, shoot, and share documentary photographs, guiding you as you define your own style. Illustrated with the author's striking artwork and diverse insight and perspectives from seasoned photographers including Elliott Erwitt, Elizabeth Fleming, Sion Fullana, Ed Kashi, John Loengard, Beth Rooney, and Rick Smolan, this book will sharpen your artistic intuition and give you the confidence to take on personal or professional documentary assignments. Full of advice that will challenge you and strengthen your photography, Lens on Life shows you how to capture an authentic view of your world.




Lens of the World


Book Description

This is the story of Nazhuret, an outcast, the dwarfish offspring of unknown parents. Yet his story is a great one, filled with surprising rewards and amazing adventures. By the hands of Powl, mentor, madman, and lens grinder, Nazhuret is put to extreme mental and physical test and is blessed with knowledge. He embarks upon a journey to his destiny through war, darkness, and death. He is determined to emerge beyond the tiny status he was given at birth.




The Rock


Book Description

Dynamic, funny, and inspiring photos of global entertainment icon, entrepreneur, and trailblazer, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, featuring twenty years' worth of candids, family moments, and snapshots from film and television sets, many never-before-seen. Hiram Garcia, who has known Dwayne Johnson since college, is a longtime collaborator, producing partner, and talented photographer. As a film and television producer as well as in his role as the President of Production at Seven Bucks Productions, Garcia has unprecedented access to capture images on the sets of Seven Bucks’ films including such blockbuster hits as Jumanji: The Next Level, Jungle Cruise, Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, and more. As one of his closest friends, Garcia knows Johnson inside and out, and that deep relationship informs the photographs he shares in this book. Whether it’s an action-packed photo snapped during an intense film take, or a relaxed and candid shot of Johnson with his daughters, Garcia focuses his lens on the qualities he most admires in his friend: his extraordinary work ethic, his infectious smile, his empathy and sense of humor, and the joy and determination Johnson brings to everything he does. With scores of photos—most of them never been seen before and taken over two decades—The Rock: Through the Lens: His Life, His Movies, His World is enhanced by captions revealing the inside stories behind these remarkable images.




Lens to the Natural World


Book Description

This book straddles the fertile middle ground between science and religion at a time when the conversation is dominated by extremists on both sides. Taking seriously the modern view of the universe, including the fossil record for the history of life across millions of years, the author considers our relationship to the rest of nature. In addition, the age-old questions concerning meaning, values, and our place within it all are perhaps more pressing than ever before. This work provides a broad engagement with major ideas, including evolution and earth stewardship, while drawing upon a rich heritage of philosophy and literature and doing so in a manner accessible to the general reader.




The Belly of the Wolf


Book Description

Half-student, half-servant in the military Royal School of Sordaling, where he appears short and ugly to his tall Velonyan companions, Nazhuret is forced out at age 20. He is taken on by Powl - a mysterious individual learned in arts such as astronomy, war and languages - who teaches Nazhuret, above all, to control his body and mind. After several years, Nazhuret begins to find his own way, traveling around Velonya as an itinerant optician and befriending a wolf. Going south, he works as a bouncer in a tavern, where he discovers his mixed heritage: he is part Rezhmian, of a neighboring country often at war with Velonya. When he discovers a plot to kill King Raduf, Nazhuret's training, both of body and mind, is sorely tested. MacAvoy's complex realm is full of confusion and ambiguity, in which, as Powl says, "You, Nazhuret . . . are the lens of the world: the lens through which the world may become aware of itself. The world, on the the other hand, is the only lens in which you can see yourself."




Reading People


Book Description

If the viral Buzzfeed-style personality quizzes are any indication, we are collectively obsessed with the idea of defining and knowing ourselves and our unique place in the world. But what we're finding is this: knowing which Harry Potter character you are is easy, but actually knowing yourself isn't as simple as just checking a few boxes on an online quiz. For readers who long to dig deeper into what makes them uniquely them (and why that matters), popular blogger Anne Bogel has done the hard part--collecting, exploring, and explaining the most popular personality frameworks, such as Myers-Briggs, StrengthsFinder, Enneagram, and others. She explains to readers the life-changing insights that can be gained from each and shares specific, practical real-life applications across all facets of life, including love and marriage, productivity, parenting, the workplace, and spiritual life. In her friendly, relatable style, Bogel shares engaging personal stories that show firsthand how understanding personality can revolutionize the way we live, love, work, and pray.




A Lens to the World


Book Description




Illuminature


Book Description

Explore ten of the world's most diverse environments and reveal their hidden secrets with a magic coloured lens that illuminates each page in a kaleidoscope of colour. Discover the dark and mysterious creatures of the night, whose super-sensory powers allow them to live and survive in the shadows, then switch the lens to step into daylight, where the heat of the sun supercharges the secret lives of creatures big and small. Finally, use the third lens to reveal the luscious plant life of every habitat as you travel through a jungle, a reef, grasslands, woodland and uncover a world that never sleeps. This is an animal book like no other, allowing you to view the natural world in full technicolour.




The Lens of the World Trilogy


Book Description

The enchanting fantasy series by the John W. Campbell Award–winning author of Tea with the Black Dragon. Warrior, linguist, astronomer, philosopher, lens grinder, lord, dwarf—the name Nazhuret conjures many definitions. His story is not a simple one: The course of his history is a strange and winding tale filled with danger. All three novels in this epic saga about the outcast-turned-legend are collected in one incredible volume. Lens of the World: In this New York Times Notable Book, a tenacious orphan discovers his identity. Raised as both servant and student at the military Royal School of Sordaling, Nazhuret has been an outsider as long as he can recall. Yet, when he is taken in by a mysterious madman and educated in arts ranging from lens grinding to war, he sets on a path that will change the course of not only his own life, but the entire realm of Velonya. King of the Dead: Fate has offered Nazhuret the opportunity to rise above his status to a position of glory and wealth, but he would rather live quietly in obscurity with Arlin, the love of his life. Unfortunately, the secrets of his past cannot stay buried, and Nazhuret soon finds himself once again embroiled in the conflicts of the kingdom, fighting for his life and for the land he calls home. The Belly of the Wolf: In the twilight of his life, after a long respite from the tumultuous world of war and intrigue, Nazhuret embarks on one final adventure. Velonya is in chaos after the apparently unnatural death of Nazhuret’s old friend, the king. Together with his daughter, Nazhuret must use his wisdom, courage, and talent to keep civil war from destroying everything he loves.




The Marbury Lens


Book Description

“Mixing a trauma reckoning with dark, apocalyptic fantasy,” a psychological thriller about a teen who faces down demons in an alternate universe (Booklist, starred review). Sixteen-year-old Jack gets drunk and is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is kidnapped. He escapes, narrowly. The only person he tells is his best friend, Conner. When they arrive in London as planned for summer break, a stranger hands Jack a pair of glasses. Through the lenses, he sees another world called Marbury. There is war in Marbury. It is a desolate and murderous place where Jack is responsible for the survival of two younger boys. Conner is there, too. But he’s trying to kill them. Meanwhile, Jack is falling in love with an English girl, and afraid he’s losing his mind. Andrew Smith has written his most beautiful and personal novel yet, as he explores the nightmarish outer limits of what trauma can do to our bodies and our minds. “An engrossing horror/fantasy hybrid . . . Nightmarish imagery is chillingly effective, and the pacing superbly builds suspense.” —Kirkus Reviews “[The Marbury Lens] will keep readers enthralled with its well-developed characters and unique plot.” —School Library Journal “This bloody and genuinely upsetting book packs an enormous emotional punch.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “The Marbury Lens crawls inside your head and won’t leave. Scary, creepy, awful and awesome. What a cool book!” —Michael Grant, New York Times–bestselling author of Gone and Hunger “Smith keeps the tension between Marbury and the present-day worlds as taut as the tightrope Jack walks. . . . Just try to put this book down.” —Shelf Awareness