Eighteen-year-old River Lang struggles after the death of his best friend and reluctantly joins a research study for struggling teens where he confronts his complex relationship with Dylan's ex, develops feelings for a charismatic jock, and uncovers unsettling truths about the study.

Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of prac­ticing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct com­plex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By complet­ing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the meth­ods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard key­board, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the sim­ple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Fig­ure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcompo­nents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accu­rate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chain­saws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.

While on a brief leave home from the deadly skies of World War II, a decorated German flying ace must decide between conscience and country when his courageous fiancé reveals her potentially deadly secret she's been keeping right under the nose of the SS. She wondered if he was the man she was searching for. How many men after all could have that name, and be both a retired musician and a former Luftwaffe ace? She had so many unanswered questions. How would he explain the violence, the many deaths by his own hand? How had he survived when so many of his comrades perished under the guns of the Allied air armadas? And most important, had this man somehow found redemption? Or was he just another grizzled old Nazi living out his last days in undeserved anonymity, still unrepentant for the horrors his people inflicted upon the world, and her people in particular. Rachael Azerod, a New York reporter, flies to London to interview Harmon Becker, the former German WW II hero whom Hitler himself awarded the highest honors—but she has her own reasons for meeting. Was he just a soldier? Or did he do something so astounding that not even he was willing to remember it…until now. Of Another Time and Place is a novel about love, redemption, and two young lovers separated by war and desperate to survive the unparalleled violence consuming their war-torn nation. It is the story of a country gone astray, mesmerized by their mad Fuehrer, and the artist-turned-warrior and his courageous bride who vow to break his spell and make a difference, even it if means dangling at end of a Nazi rope. A worthy addition to the pantheon of beloved war novels from A Farewell to Arms to All Quiet on the Western Front, Brad Schaeffer’s gripping story draws the reader into the very heart of the conflagration that was the Second World War. He takes the reader deep into the conflicts that raged not only in the skies over Germany, but within the hearts of combatants and non-combatants alike who found themselves trying to maintain their humanity when all decency seemed to have abandoned the happy lives they once knew.

“A beautifully written and well-researched cultural criticism as well as an honest memoir” (Los Angeles Review of Books) from the author of the popular New York Times essay, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” explores the romantic myths we create and explains how they limit our ability to achieve and sustain intimacy. What really makes love last? Does love ever work the way we say it does in movies and books and Facebook posts? Or does obsessing over those love stories hurt our real-life relationships? When her parents divorced after a twenty-eight year marriage and her own ten-year relationship ended, those were the questions that Mandy Len Catron wanted to answer. In a series of candid, vulnerable, and wise essays that takes a closer look at what it means to love someone, be loved, and how we present our love to the world, “Catron melds science and emotion beautifully into a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation” (Bookpage). She delves back to 1944, when her grandparents met in a coal mining town in Appalachia, to her own dating life as a professor in Vancouver. She uses biologists’ research into dopamine triggers to ask whether the need to love is an innate human drive. She uses literary theory to show why we prefer certain kinds of love stories. She urges us to question the unwritten scripts we follow in relationships and looks into where those scripts come from. And she tells the story of how she decided to test an experiment that she’d read about—where the goal was to create intimacy between strangers using a list of thirty-six questions—and ended up in the surreal situation of having millions of people following her brand-new relationship. “Perfect fodder for the romantic and the cynic in all of us” (Booklist), How to Fall in Love with Anyone flips the script on love. “Clear-eyed and full of heart, it is mandatory reading for anyone coping with—or curious about—the challenges of contemporary courtship” (The Toronto Star).

Published by the Boy Scouts of America for all BSA registered adult volunteers and professionals, Scouting magazine offers editorial content that is a mixture of information, instruction, and inspiration, designed to strengthen readers' abilities to better perform their leadership roles in Scouting and also to assist them as parents in strengthening families.