That's Not what We Meant to Do


Book Description

With a shrewd eye for historical absurdity, Gillon takes readers on a tour of this century's reforms and legal innovations--federal welfare policy, community mental health, immigration, and campaign finance reform, to name a few--and describes the unintended consequences of their enactment.




What You're Really Meant to Do


Book Description

How do you create your own definition of success—and reach your unique potential? Building a fulfilling life and career can be a daunting challenge. It takes courage and hard work. Too often, we charge down a path leading to “success” as defined by those around us—and ultimately, are left feeling dissatisfied. Each of us is unique and brings distinctive skills and qualities to any situation. So why is it that most of us fail to spend sufficient time learning to understand ourselves and creating our own definition of success? The truth is, it can seem so natural and so much easier to just do what everyone else is doing—for now—leaving it for later to develop our best selves and figure out our own unique path. Is there a road map that will enable you to defy conventional wisdom, resist peer pressure, and carve out a path that fits your unique skills and passions? Robert Steven Kaplan, leadership expert and author of the highly successful book What to Ask the Person in the Mirror, regularly advises executives and students on how to tackle these questions. In this indispensable new book, Kaplan shares a specific and actionable approach to defining your own success and reaching your potential. Drawing on his years of experience, Kaplan proposes an integrated plan for identifying and achieving your goals. He outlines specific steps and exercises to help you understand yourself more deeply, take control of your career, and build your capabilities in a way that fits your passions and aspirations. Are you doing what you’re really meant to do? If you’re ready to face this question, this book can help you change your life.




I Totally Meant to Do That


Book Description

Jane Borden is a hybrid too horrifying to exist: a hipster-debutante. She was reared in a propert Southern home in Greensboro, North Carolina, sent to boarding school in Virginia, and then went on to join a sorority in Chapel Hill. She next moved to New York and discovered that none of this grooming meant a lick to anyone. In fact, she hid her upbringing for many years--it was easier than explaining what a debutante "does" (the short answer: not much). Anyone who has moved away from home or lived in (or dreamed of living in) New York will appreciate the hilarity of Jane's musings on the intersections of and altercations between Southern hospitality and Gotham cool.




They May Not Mean To, But They Do


Book Description

From one of America’s greatest comic novelists, a hilarious new novel about aging, family, loneliness, and love The Bergman clan has always stuck together, growing as it incorporated in-laws, ex-in-laws, and same-sex spouses. But families don’t just grow, they grow old, and the clan’s matriarch, Joy, is not slipping into old age with the quiet grace her children, Molly and Daniel, would have wished. When Joy’s beloved husband dies, Molly and Daniel have no shortage of solutions for their mother’s loneliness and despair, but there is one challenge they did not count on: the reappearance of an ardent suitor from Joy’s college days. And they didn’t count on Joy herself, a mother suddenly as willful and rebellious as their own kids. The New York Times–bestselling author Cathleen Schine has been called “full of invention, wit, and wisdom that can bear comparison to [ Jane] Austen’s own” (The New York Review of Books), and she is at her best in this intensely human, profound, and honest novel about the intrusion of old age into the relationships of one loving but complicated family. They May Not Mean To, But They Do is a radiantly compassionate look at three generations, all coming of age together.




Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It


Book Description

This Is Just to Say If you’re looking for a nice happy book put this one down and run away quickly Forgive me sweetness and good cheer are boring Inspired by William Carlos Williams’s famous poem ”This Is Just to Say,” Newbery Honor author Gail Carson Levine delivers a wickedly funny collection of her own false apology poems, imagining how tricksters really feel about the mischief they make. Matthew Cordell’s clever and playful line art lightheartedly captures the spirit of the poetry. This is the perfect book for anyone who’s ever apologized . . . and not really meant it.




The Fourth Turning


Book Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Discover the game-changing theory of the cycles of history and what past generations can teach us about living through times of upheaval—with deep insights into the roles that Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials have to play—now with a new preface by Neil Howe. First comes a High, a period of confident expansion. Next comes an Awakening, a time of spiritual exploration and rebellion. Then comes an Unraveling, in which individualism triumphs over crumbling institutions. Last comes a Crisis—the Fourth Turning—when society passes through a great and perilous gate in history. William Strauss and Neil Howe will change the way you see the world—and your place in it. With blazing originality, The Fourth Turning illuminates the past, explains the present, and reimagines the future. Most remarkably, it offers an utterly persuasive prophecy about how America’s past will predict what comes next. Strauss and Howe base this vision on a provocative theory of American history. The authors look back five hundred years and uncover a distinct pattern: Modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting about the length of a long human life, each composed of four twenty-year eras—or “turnings”—that comprise history’s seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and rebirth. Illustrating this cycle through a brilliant analysis of the post–World War II period, The Fourth Turning offers bold predictions about how all of us can prepare, individually and collectively, for this rendezvous with destiny.




The Vulnerable Pastor


Book Description

Sometimes pastors fear that if people knew who we really are, we'd be disqualified from ministry. Not so, says pastor Mandy Smith. Transparently describing her pastoral journey, Smith shows how vulnerability shapes ministry, unpacking the biblical paradox that God's strength is revealed in our weakness. God has called you to lead just as the human you are.




Summary of "That’s Not What I Meant! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships" by Deborah Tannen


Book Description

Abstract from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, University of Paderborn (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Contemporary Language Course Intermediate, language: English, abstract: This is a summary of Deborah Tannen's "That’s Not What I Meant! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships", which was published in 1986. It deals with the language in conversations which can cause misunderstandings due to differing interpretations. Tannen divides her work into ten short chapters which fall under the ambit of four more general topics: Linguistic and Conversational Style, Conversational Strategies, Talking at Home: Conversational Style in Close Relationships and What You Can and Can’t Do with Conversational Style.




Mindstorms


Book Description

In this revolutionary book, a renowned computer scientist explains the importance of teaching children the basics of computing and how it can prepare them to succeed in the ever-evolving tech world. Computers have completely changed the way we teach children. We have Mindstorms to thank for that. In this book, pioneering computer scientist Seymour Papert uses the invention of LOGO, the first child-friendly programming language, to make the case for the value of teaching children with computers. Papert argues that children are more than capable of mastering computers, and that teaching computational processes like de-bugging in the classroom can change the way we learn everything else. He also shows that schools saturated with technology can actually improve socialization and interaction among students and between students and teachers. Technology changes every day, but the basic ways that computers can help us learn remain. For thousands of teachers and parents who have sought creative ways to help children learn with computers, Mindstorms is their bible.




The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k


Book Description

The word-of-mouth bestseller * Published in more than 30 countries * 3 million copies sold worldwide Are you stressed out, overbooked and underwhelmed by life? Fed up with pleasing everyone else before you please yourself? Finding it hard working from home? Then it's time to stop giving a f**k, and care less to get more. This irreverent and practical book explains how to rid yourself of unwanted obligations, shame, and guilt - and give your f**ks instead to people and things that make you happy. From family dramas to having a bikini body, the simple 'NotSorry Method' for mental decluttering will help you unleash the power of not giving a f**k and will free you to spend your time, energy and money on the things that really matter. 'The anti-guru' Observer 'Absolutely blinding. Read it. Do it.' Mail on Sunday 'Genius' Cosmopolitan 'I love Knight's book even before I start reading . . . Works a charm' Sunday Times Magazine 'Life-affirming . . . The key practice she advocates is devising for yourself a "fuck budget" . . . It's a beautiful way of streamlining your psyche' Lucy Mangan, Guardian ALSO AVAILABLE FROM SARAH KNIGHT: YOU DO YOU: how to be who you are and use what you've got to get what you want AND Get Your Sh*t Together - the New York Times bestseller helping you organise the f**ks you want and need to give