Once I received a beautiful card wishing me a happy birthday. My husband was so proud of his effortsuntil he realized it wasnt my birthday. It was our anniversary. How do you spend the days or hours leading up to a celebration of your special lady? Are you always shopping at the last minute for her gifthoping that whatever you get her will be good enough for the occasion and something she will like? In If You Have to Do It, You Might as Well Get Good at It, author Brenda Righter will help you avoid eleventh-hour shopping, that dreaded time when you go to the mall or sit in front of your computer staring at some generic website searching for the perfect gift. She shares great gift ideas to consider in more than fifteen categories, such as clothing, shoes, jewelry, outerwear, and many more. She has also included a cheat sheet as a bonus for your special lady, so that she can help you become an expert shopper. By using the tactics suggested in this guide, you can find much greater pleasure in shopping for your sweetheart and youll rediscover the joy of gift-giving. This handy guide will help you give the right gifts for each of the special occasions in your life.

His powerful new book looks set to be his most influential yet: Whole Earth Discipline is a hand grenade aimed at the very movement he helped to found.

Written with all the scathing dark humor that is a hallmark of BoJack Horseman, Raphael Bob-Waksberg delivers a fabulously off-beat collection of short stories about love—the best and worst thing in the universe. Featuring: • A young engaged couple forced to deal with interfering relatives dictating the appropriate number of ritual goat sacrifices for their wedding. • A pair of lonely commuters who ride the subway in silence, forever, eternally failing to make that longed-for contact. • A struggling employee at a theme park of U.S. presidents who discovers that love can’t be genetically modified. And fifteen more tales of humor, romance, whimsy, cultural commentary, and crushing emotional vulnerability.

Martin Luther's conception of the Nativity found expression in sermon, song, and art. This beautiful gift edition of a classic collection combines all three.

Told by one of our greatest chroniclers of technology and society, the definitive biography of iconic serial visionary Stewart Brand, from the Merry Pranksters and the generation-defining Whole Earth Catalog to the marriage of environmental consciousness and hacker capitalism and the rise of a new planetary culture—the story behind so many other stories Stewart Brand has long been famous if you know who he is, but for many people outside the counterculture, early computing, or the environmental movement, he is perhaps best known for his famous mantra “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” Steve Jobs’s endorsement of these words as his code to live by is fitting; Brand has played many roles, but one of the most important is as a model for how to live. The contradictions are striking: A blond-haired WASP with a modest family inheritance, Brand went to Exeter and Stanford and was an army veteran, but in California in the 1960s he became an artist and a photographer in the thick of the LSD revolution. While tripping on acid on the roof of his building, he envisioned how valuable it would be for humans to see a photograph of the planet they shared from space, an image that in the end landed on the cover of his Whole Earth Catalog, the defining publication of the counterculture. He married a Native American woman and was committed to protecting indigenous culture, which connected to a broader environmentalist mission that has been a through line of his life. At the same time, he has outraged purists because of his pragmatic embrace of useful technologies, including nuclear power, in the fight against climate change. The famous tagline promise of his catalog was “Access to Tools”; with rare exceptions he rejected politics for a focus on direct power. It was no wonder, then, that he was early to the promise of the computer revolution and helped define it for the wider world. Brand's life can be hard to fit onto one screen. John Markoff, also a great chronicler of tech culture, has done something extraordinary in unfolding the rich, twisting story of Brand’s life against its proper landscape. As Markoff makes marvelously clear, the streams of individualism, respect for science, environmentalism, and Eastern and indigenous thought that flow through Brand’s entire life form a powerful gestalt, a California state of mind that has a hegemonic power to this day. His way of thinking embraces a true planetary consciousness that may be the best hope we humans collectively have.

A captivating exploration of the ever-evolving world of architecture and the untold stories buildings tell. When a building is finished being built, that isn’t the end of its story. More than any other human artifacts, buildings improve with time—if they’re allowed to. Buildings adapt by being constantly refined and reshaped by their occupants, and in that way, architects can become artists of time rather than simply artists of space. From the connected farmhouses of New England to I.M. Pei’s Media Lab, from the evolution of bungalows to the invention of Santa Fe Style, from Low Road military surplus buildings to a High Road English classic like Chatsworth—this is a far-ranging survey of unexplored essential territory. Discover how structures become living organisms, shaped by the people who inhabit them, and learn how architects can harness the power of time to create enduring works of art through the interconnected worlds of design, function, and human ingenuity.

Johan Bruyneel knows what it takes to win. In 1998, this calculating Belgian and former professional cyclist looked Lance Armstrong in the eye and said, "Look, if we’re going to ride the Tour, we might as well win." In that powerful phrase a dynasty was born.We Might AsWellWin takes readers behind the scenes and inside the team car, as Bruyneel reveals the planning, training, strategy, and tactics that led to a record seven Tour de France victories with Armstrong and an eighth with Alberto Contador. Through thrilling stories of his own racing career and those of the cyclists he has guided during his extraordinary career, Bruyneel reveals the keys to victory both in cycling and in life. This paperback edition includes a new afterword on the 2008 season, with Bruyneel’s reflections on his record eleventh grand tour victory at the Giro d’Italia and the exclusion of his team Astana from the 2008 Tour de France.