The Art of Getting Stared At


Book Description

Sixteen-year-old Sloane is given the biggest opportunity of her life—a chance for a film school scholarship—but she only has less than two weeks to produce a video. She also has to work with Isaac Alexander, an irresponsible charmer with whom she shares an uneasy history. Then comes a horrifying discovery: Sloane finds a bald spot on her head. The pink patch, no bigger than a quarter, shouldn’t be there. Neither should the bald spots that follow. Horror gives way to devastation when Sloane is diagnosed with alopecia areata. The autoimmune disease has no cause, no cure and no definitive outcome. The spots might grow over tomorrow or they might be there for life. She could become completely bald. No one knows. Determined to produce her video and keep her condition secret, Sloane finds herself turning into the kind of person she has always mocked: someone obsessed with their looks. She’s also forced to confront a painful truth: she is as judgmental as anyone else … but she saves the harshest judgments for herself.




The Sense of Being Stared At


Book Description

Explores Rupert Sheldrake’s more than 25 years of research into telepathy, staring and intention, precognition, and animal premonitions • Shows that unexplained human abilities--such as the sense of being stared at and phone telepathy--are not paranormal but normal, part of our biological nature • Draws on more than 5,000 case histories, 4,000 questionnaire responses, and the results of experiments carried out with more than 20,000 people • Reveals that our minds and intentions extend beyond our brains into the world around us and even into the future Nearly everyone has experienced the feeling of being watched or had their stare result in a glance in their direction. The phenomenon has been cited throughout history in nearly every culture, along with other commonplace “paranormal” occurrences such as premonitions and telepathy. In this newly updated edition, Sheldrake shares his more than 25 years of research into telepathy, the power of staring, remote viewing, precognition, and animal premonitions. Drawing on more than 5,000 case histories, 4,000 questionnaire responses, and the results of experiments on staring, thought transference, phone telepathy, and other phenomena carried out with more than 20,000 people as well as reports and data from dozens of independent research teams, Sheldrake shows that these unexplained human abilities--such as the sense of being stared at--are not paranormal but normal, part of our biological nature. He reveals that telepathy depends on social bonds and traces its evolution from the connections between members of animal groups such as flocks, schools, and packs. Sheldrake shows that our minds and intentions extend beyond our brains into our surroundings with invisible connections that link us to each other, to the world around us, and even to the future.




The Bear Who Stared


Book Description

A funny and charming picture book with heart from rising star Duncan Beedie - now shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2017. There once was a bear who liked to stare... and stare... and STARE. Bear doesn't mean to be rude, he's just curious but too shy to say anything. But nobody likes being stared at and it soon gets Bear into trouble. Luckily a goggly-eyed frog helps Bear realise that sometimes a smile is all you need to turn a stare into a friendly hello.




The Art of Optimism


Book Description

Optimism is your secret weapon in business and in life. It is custom-designed specifically for you, and it is capable of bringing you everything you want. Optimism can overcome financial problems, physical disabilities, and personal challenges. In Jim Stovall’s latest book, The Art of Optimism, he uses stories, studies, and personal experience to illustrate how adopting an attitude of optimism can change your life. Read this book and learn: How to fuel optimism How to find opportunity through optimism How to overcome negative circumstances How to maintain optimism in business and in life How optimism is your most important asset And much more! “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” -Winston Churchill




The Myth of Wu Tao-tzu


Book Description

'During the Tang dynasty, the Chinese artist Wu Tao-tzu was one day standing looking at a mural he had just completed. Suddenly, he clapped his hands and the temple gate opened. He went into his work and the gates closed behind him.' Thus begins Sven Lindqvist's profound meditation on art and its relationship with life, first published in 1967, and a classic in his home country - it has never been out of print. As a young man, Sven Lindqvist was fascinated by the myth of Wu Tao-tzu, and by the possibility of entering a work of art and making it a way of life. He was drawn to artists and writers who shared this vision, especially Hermann Hesse, in his novel Glass Bead Game. Partly inspired by Hesse's work, Lindqvist lived in China for two years, learning classical calligraphy from a master teacher. There he was drawn deeper into the idea of a life of artistic perfectionism and retreat from the world. But when he left China for India and then Afghanistan, and saw the grotesque effects of poverty and extreme inequality, Lindqvist suffered a crisis of confidence and started to question his ideas about complete immersion in art at the expense of a proper engagement with life. The Myth of Wu Tao-tzu takes us on a fascinating journey through a young man's moral awakening and his grappling with profound questions of aesthetics. It contains the bracing moral anger, and poetic, intensely atmospheric travel writing Lindqvist's readers have come to love.




The Art of Being Lewis


Book Description

Between indecent exposure and intellectual property theft, it's tough being Lewis this year. East Coast architect Lewis Morton thought he had it all: loving wife and children, dream job, and a house that meets his exacting architectural standards. But after his beloved mentor dies unexpectedly and Lewis gets pulled into a lawsuit that threatens to destroy his career and possibly his life, the respectable identity he has carefully constructed for himself after fleeing his Jewish childhood in Montreal begins to disintegrate. In trying to build his new future he must first come to terms with his past. Who is Lewis Morton, and who will he choose to become?




The Art of Being Irish in Hell's Kitchen


Book Description

Amid the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s—an era that included the Black Civil Rights movement, the war in Vietnam, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland—young Irish Americans in New York began to question what it meant to be Irish in America. Led by Irish revolutionary socialist Brian Heron, these young people discarded outdated stereotypes and created an inclusive space to explore, celebrate, and share their culture. Thus was born An Claidheamh Soluis, the Irish Arts Center, an organization that is still going strong fifty years later. As an early organizer and director of the Irish Arts Center, James F. Olwell recounts how this premier cultural institution came to be. Beginning with his own experiences growing up Irish American in the Bronx, Olwell describes how Irish Americans grew to reclaim their cultural identity and share their art, traditions, and language through the Irish Arts Center. Olwell combines his personal experiences with extensive interviews and broader historical context to bring the story of the 1970s Irish Arts Center to life. Well researched and replete with funny, moving, and thoughtful anecdotes, The Art of Being Irish in Hell’s Kitchen is an essential cultural history of the Irish American community in New York. Pull up a chair and enjoy the tale. All are welcome here.




Leading, the Art of Becoming an Executive


Book Description

Readers will discover the qualities that make a good executive, and they'll learn how to develop the critical ability to focus, coordinate, delegate, recognize, and listen.




On Looking


Book Description

You are missing at least eighty percent of what is happening around you right now. You are missing what is happening in your body, in the distance, and right in front of you. In marshalling your attention to these words, you are ignoring an unthinkably large amount of information that continues to bombard all of your senses. This ignorance is useful: indeed, we compliment it and call it concentration. It enables us to not just notice the shapes on the page, but to absorb them as intelligible words, phrases, ideas. Alas, we tend to bring this focus to every activity we do. In so doing, it is inevitable that we also bring along attention's companion: inattention to everything else. This book begins with that inattention. It is not a book about how to bring more focus to your reading of Tolstoy; it is not about how to multitask, attending to two or three or four tasks at once. It is not about how to avoid falling asleep at a public lecture, or at your grandfather's tales of boyhood misadventures. It is about attending to the joys of the unattended, the perceived 'ordinary'. Even when engaged in the simplest of activities - taking a walk around the block - we pay so little attention to most of what is right before us that we are sleepwalkers in our own lives. This book is about that walk around the block, and how to rediscover the extraordinary things that we are missing in our ordinary activities.




Between You and Me


Book Description

#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs delivers a riveting story that challenges our deepest-held beliefs... Caught between two worlds, Caleb Stoltz is bound by a deathbed promise to raise his orphaned niece and nephew in Middle Grove, where life revolves around family, farm, faith—and long-held suspicions about outsiders. When disaster strikes, Caleb is thrust into an urban environment of high-tech medicine and the relentless rush of modern life. Dr. Reese Powell is poised to join the medical dynasty of her wealthy, successful parents. Bold, assertive, and quick-thinking, she lives for the addictive rush of saving lives. When a shocking accident brings Caleb Stoltz into her life, Reese is forced to deal with a situation that challenges everything she thinks she knows—and ultimately emboldens her to question her most powerful beliefs. Then one impulsive act brings about a clash of cultures in a tug-of-war that plays out in a courtroom, challenging the very nature of justice and reverberating through generations, straining the fragile threads of faith and family.