A Man with No Talents


Book Description

"San'ya," Tokyo's largest day-laborer quarter and the only one with lodgings, had been Oyama Shiro's home for 12 years when he took up his pen and began writing about his life as a resident of Tokyo's most notorious neighborhood. In this fascinating book, he portrays himself as an outsider both from mainstream society and from his adopted home.




The Man Without Talent


Book Description

A Japanese manga legend's autobiographical graphic novel about a struggling artist and the first full-length work by the great Yoshiharu Tsuge available in the English language. Yoshiharu Tsuge is one of comics' most celebrated and influential artists, but his work has been almost entirely unavailable to English-speaking audiences. The Man Without Talent, his first book ever to be translated into English, is an unforgiving self-portrait of frustration. Swearing off cartooning as a profession, Tsuge takes on a series of unconventional jobs -- used camera salesman, ferryman, and stone collector -- hoping to find success among the hucksters, speculators, and deadbeats he does business with. Instead, he fails again and again, unable to provide for his family, earning only their contempt and his own. The result is a dryly funny look at the pitfalls of the creative life, and an off-kilter portrait of modern Japan. Accompanied by an essay from translator Ryan Holmberg that discusses Tsuge's importance in comics and Japanese literature, The Man Without Talent is one of the great works of comics literature.




The Little Book of Talent


Book Description

A manual for building a faster brain and a better you! The Little Book of Talent is an easy-to-use handbook of scientifically proven, field-tested methods to improve skills—your skills, your kids’ skills, your organization’s skills—in sports, music, art, math, and business. The product of five years of reporting from the world’s greatest talent hotbeds and interviews with successful master coaches, it distills the daunting complexity of skill development into 52 clear, concise directives. Whether you’re age 10 or 100, whether you’re on the sports field or the stage, in the classroom or the corner office, this is an essential guide for anyone who ever asked, “How do I get better?” Praise for The Little Book of Talent “The Little Book of Talent should be given to every graduate at commencement, every new parent in a delivery room, every executive on the first day of work. It is a guidebook—beautiful in its simplicity and backed by hard science—for nurturing excellence.”—Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of The Power of Habit “It’s so juvenile to throw around hyperbolic terms such as ‘life-changing,’ but there’s no other way to describe The Little Book of Talent. I was avidly trying new things within the first half hour of reading it and haven’t stopped since. Brilliant. And yes: life-changing.”—Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence




Talent is Overrated


Book Description

Fortune magazine editor Geoff Colvin offers new evidence that top performers in any field are not determined by their inborn talents. Greatness, he argues, does not come from DNA but from practice and perseverance honed over decades. The key to this is how successful people practice, how the results of practice are analysed and how they learn from their mistakes. This new mindset will change the way reader's think about their jobs and careers, and will inspire them to achieve more in all they do.




To Ride Pegasus


Book Description

“McCaffrey's world of the Talented is as vivid as that of Pern and its dragons.”—Publishers Weekly When a freak accident furnishes solid scientific proof of paranormal mental abilities, the world reacts with suspicion and fear. How can ordinary people coexist with a minority able to read minds, heal with a touch, peer into the future, or move objects with a thought? How can anyone with such power be trusted not to abuse it? Harsh repression seems the only answer Gifted with precognitive talent, Henry Darrow has other ideas, foreseeing a future in which the Talents are accepted for what they are and not what they can offer their fellow humans. But the road to that future will not be easy. Darrow and the powerful telepath Daffyd op Owen must win the public's trust while overcoming the threat of rogue Talents like Solange Boshe, a young girl so consumed with hatred that her thoughts can kill, and the singer known as Amalda, whose telepathic prowess can unite a thousand strangers in joyful harmony—or mold them into a bloodthirsty mob. . . .







The Dark Talent


Book Description

The Dark Talent is the fifth action-packed fantasy adventure in the Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series for young readers by the #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson. This never-before-published, fast-paced, and funny novel is now available in a deluxe hardcover edition, illustrated by Hayley Lazo. Alcatraz Smedry has successfully defeated the army of Evil Librarians and saved the kingdom of Mokia. Too bad he managed to break the Smedry Talents in the process. Even worse, his father is trying to enact a scheme that could ruin the world, and his friend, Bastille, is in a coma. To revive her, Alcatraz must infiltrate the Highbrary--known as The Library of Congress to Hushlanders--the seat of Evil Librarian power. Without his Talent to draw upon, can Alcatraz figure out a way to save Bastille and defeat the Evil Librarians once and for all? “Like Lemony Snicket and superhero comics rolled into one.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.