Take This Advice

Just in time for graduation, a smart and edgy collection of advice for young people from dozens of the most creative and visionary people on the planet. Contributors include: Camille Paglia • Wayne Koestenbaum • Jonathan Ames • Jennifer Belle • Howard Zinn • Joe Dallesandro • Bruce LaBruce • Dr. Laura Schlessinger • Tom Robbins • Judith Butler • Martha Nussbaum Horst • William S. Burroughs • Larry Niven • Veruschka • Lydia Lunch • Spalding Gray • Eileen Myles • Roger Scruton • Ken Kesey Mary Gaitskill • Richard Powers • Mark Dery • Florence King • Mark Simpson • Bob Shacochis • Joanna Scott • Quentin Crisp • Carolyn Chute • Michael Thomas Ford • Alexander Theroux • George Saunders • Charles Baxter • Ian Shoales • Fay Weldon • Bruce Benderson • Scott Russell Sanders • John Shirley • Dr. John Money • Cindy Sherman • Richard Meltzer • Gene Wolfe • Abbie Hoffman • Diane Wakowski • Richard Taylor • Bette Davis • Arthur Nersesian • Jim Harrison • Martha Gellhorn • Lucius Shepard • Dan Jenkins • Steve Stern • Murray Bookchin • John Zerzan • Maurice Vellekoop • Joel-Peter Witkin • Stewart Home • Maxx Ardman • Katharine Hepburn • Bret Lott • Lynda Barry • Alain de Botton • Mary McCarthy • Hakim Bey • Anita O'Day • Chris Kraus • R. U. Sirius • C. D. Payne W. V. Quine • Rita Dove • Robert Creeley • Valerie Martin • Paul Krassner • Alphonso Lingis • Mark Helprin • John Rechy • Ram Dass • William T. Vollmann • Bettie Page

Bark compiles the 40 most powerful, affecting graduation speeches delivered in the last 10 years by popular speakers such as Toni Morrison, Judy Blume, Mister Rogers, Al Franken, Gloria Steinem, Jon Stewart, and many others.

Refreshingly approachable guide for aspiring backpackers and casual hikers of all stripes Colorful and humorous illustrations throughout Relatable, rising female voice in outdoor literature Part critique of modern hiking culture and part how-to guide, How to Suffer Outside is for anyone who wants to hit the trail without breaking the bank. Diana Helmuth offers real advice, opinionated but accessible and based on in-the-field experiences. She wins readers’ hearts and trust through a blend of self-deprecating humor and good-natured heckling of both seasoned backpackers and urbanites who romanticize being outdoorsy, plus a helpful dose of the actual advice a novice needs to get started. Featuring illustrations by artist Latasha Dunston, each chapter focuses on a critical topic: gear, food, hygiene, clothing, and more, along with useful checklists and resources. Humorous, philosophical, and practical, How to Suffer Outside teaches casual walkers, hikers, and campers of all stripes how to venture outdoors with confidence.

If you are reading this, than you're likely plagued with anxiety. The good news is that you don't have to be. You can live a life without so much anxiety and stress. You can train the mind to feel contentment, peace and joy-even in the midst of difficult circumstances. Best-selling author and long-time Buddhist meditation teacher Lodro Rinzler shows us how to work with the mind so that we don't hold ourselves in a state of stress and learn to relax into and appreciate our world once more. What you hold is a guidebook with practical and easy-to-implement steps for how to take back your mind.

Coaching is an essential skill for leaders. But for most busy, overworked managers, coaching employees is done badly, or not at all. They're just too busy, and it's too hard to change. But what if managers could coach their people in 10 minutes or less? In Michael Bungay Stanier's The Coaching Habit, coaching becomes a regular, informal part of your day so managers and their teams can work less hard and have more impact. Coaching is an art and it's far easier said than done. It takes courage to ask a question rather than offer up advice, provide an answer, or unleash a solution. Giving another person the opportunity to find their own way, make their own mistakes, and create their own wisdom is both brave and vulnerable. It can also mean unlearning our ''fix it'' habits. In this practical and inspiring book, Michael shares seven transformative questions that can make a difference in how we lead and support. And, he guides us through the tricky part - how to take this new information and turn it into habits and a daily practice. -Brené Brown, author of Rising Strong and Daring Greatly Drawing on years of experience training more than 10,000 busy managers from around the globe in practical, everyday coaching skills, Bungay Stanier reveals how to unlock your peoples' potential. He unpacks seven essential coaching questions to demonstrate how---by saying less and asking more--you can develop coaching methods that produce great results. - Get straight to the point in any conversation with The Kickstart Question - Stay on track during any interaction with The AWE Question - Save hours of time for yourself with The Lazy Question, and hours of time for others with The Strategic Question - Get to the heart of any interpersonal or external challenge with The Focus Question and The Foundation Question - Finally, ensure others find your coaching as beneficial as you do with The Learning Question A fresh, innovative take on the traditional how-to manual, the book combines insider information with research based in neuroscience and behavioural economics, together with interactive training tools to turn practical advice into practiced habits. Dynamic question-and-answer sections help identify old habits and kick-start new behaviour, making sure you get the most out of all seven chapters. Witty and conversational, The Coaching Habit takes your work--and your workplace--from good to great.

When it comes to money,hope is not a strategy. Toughen up, take action, and keep what’s yours! Have you, like many women, put off organizing your financial life? You know you want independence, you know you want to save, and you know you want a solid retirement. But if you’re overwhelmed at the thought of where and how to begin, you’re not alone. You may have been raised to defer to others in matters of money, or you may feel you simply lack the understanding of how to take on financial matters. Without the confidence they need, it’s easy for women to find themselves in a situation where the only action they feel they can take is hoping that everything will turn out all right in the end. But planning for the future doesn’t have to be this way. Money Confidence is Crystal Oculee’s authoritative and engaging reality check and call to action for women of all ages to take—or regain—control of their financial lives. The author shows why hope is not a financial strategy, and how, with the tools and information she provides, women can attain the independence, savings, and secure retirement they want. The author cleverly employs metaphors from familiar fairy tales to illuminate and accentuate the book’s serious message: Women need to toughen up; and they can and need to identify and overcome myths and mind-sets that place them at a disadvantage when it comes to dealing with their money and finding and working with financial advisors. Oculee shows women how to communicate, be strong, ask questions, and reject advisors who don’t take them seriously. Real-life scenarios of various women’s experiences with money and advisors prove how women can get the confidence they need once they know what is holding them back. The author presents informative, down-to-earth explanations of common financial situations and specific financial products along with useful worksheets in a conversational and friendly tone with a good dose of sass. Women will find her valuable and easy-to-follow advice rings true. Crystal is a personal finance expert, a national financial motivational speaker, a Personal Money Trainer™, and author. She is a regular TV and radio guest who has appeared on CBS News, Fox, ABC, KFI, KTLK, KRLA, KDAR, and KKLA. She has also been featured in publications such as Entrepreneur and Redbook. ​Crystal has been a guest speaker at numerous events sponsored by organizations such as the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE), the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG), the Motion Picture & Television Fund, California Women’s Conference, the Los Angeles Women’s Expo, An Empowered Woman, and the Guam Women’s Leadership Retreat. She is the author of Your Personal Money Diary.

For the Class of 2002 comes a smart and edgy collection of words to the wise from Spalding Gray, Fay Weldon, Tom Robbins, and dozens more of the most creative and visionary people on the planet. 50 photos throughout.

Truman Capote’s first novel is a story of almost supernatural intensity and inventiveness, an audacious foray into the mind of a sensitive boy as he seeks out the grown-up enigmas of love and death in the ghostly landscape of the deep South. “Intense, brilliant . . . . Capote has an astonishing command . . . a magic all his own.” —The Atlantic At the age of twelve, Joel Knox is summoned to meet the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at the decaying mansion in Skully’s Landing, his father is nowhere in sight. What he finds instead is a sullen stepmother who delights in killing birds; an uncle with the face—and heart—of a debauched child; and a fearsome little girl named Idabel who may offer him the closest thing he has ever known to love.

International bestselling author Guy Gavriel Kay's latest work is set in a world evoking early Renaissance Italy and offers an extraordinary cast of characters whose lives come together through destiny, love, and ambition. In a chamber overlooking the nighttime waterways of a maritime city, a man looks back on his youth and the people who shaped his life. Danio Cerra's intelligence won him entry to a renowned school even though he was only the son of a tailor. He took service at the court of a ruling count—and soon learned why that man was known as the Beast. Danio's fate changed the moment he saw and recognized Adria Ripoli as she entered the count's chambers one autumn night—intending to kill. Born to power, Adria had chosen, instead of a life of comfort, one of danger—and freedom. Which is how she encounters Danio in a perilous time and place. Vivid figures share the unfolding story. Among them: a healer determined to defy her expected lot; a charming, frivolous son of immense wealth; a powerful religious leader more decadent than devout; and, affecting all these lives and many more, two larger-than-life mercenary commanders, lifelong adversaries, whose rivalry puts a world in the balance. A Brightness Long Ago offers both compelling drama and deeply moving reflections on the nature of memory, the choices we make in life, and the role played by the turning of Fortune's wheel.