Jason Stanley presents a powerful new account of how we acquire knowledge. He argues for the surprising thesis that practical knowledge is a kind of theoretical knowledge: that knowing how to do something amounts to knowing a truth about the world. It is our success as inquirers that explains our capacity for skilful engagement with the world.

Turn Your Know-How Into Someone Else’s Know-How-To Everyone—whether subject matter experts, proficient performers, managers, coaches, or co-workers—will need to transfer knowledge to others at some point in their life. And, often, that responsibility falls to an occasional trainer, someone with considerable knowledge and experience on how to perform a task, but little expertise to successfully transfer their know-how to another. What they need is a great resource to round out their repertoire of training skills. Enter Know-How. This easy-to-read book lays out a simple-to-follow path to help the trainers and occasional trainers with whom you work improve their impact. Adding to the sustained influence of their previous books, especially Telling Ain’t Training, Harold and Erica have written a fun, effective guide on how to make your know-how stick to another’s brain. The 12 chapters each focus on a single theme and are sequenced like stepping-stones to help you understand how to best transfer know-how to those who learn from you. Chapters include brief explanations, guidance, tools, activities, tangible and accessible examples of real-world applications, and a summary exercise to reinforce your retention of key points. Discover what you need now to quickly get people learning and up-to-speed. No fumbling, bumbling, rambling, or messing with people’s heads—this book delivers know-how.

Presents step-by-step instructions and resources for gardening, including knowing the soil, planning, starting seeds, and making and using organic fertilizer.

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.

Show Me How is a revolutionary reimagining of the reference genre, one part how-to guide, one part graphic art showpiece, and one part pure inspiration. In a series of 500 nearly wordless, highly informative step-by-step procedurals, readers learn how to do hundreds of useful (and fascinating and important and sometimes downright bizarre) tasks, including: Perform CPR, dance the tango, pack a suitcase, win a bar bet, play the blues, make authentic sushi rolls, fight a shark . . . and 493 more essentials of modern life. Packed with useful hands-on reference material, Show Me How is a work of art that just happens to also be an indispensable real-life resource. Visit showmenow

A guide to creating a home computer network covers such topics as implementing network addressing, configuring network adapters and routers, sharing music and photos, automating household appliances, and troubleshooting.

"Taking its name from a line in the Wallace Stevens' poem "The Gray Room," Alec Soth's latest book is a lyrical exploration of the limitations of photographic representation. While these large-format color photographs are made all over the world, they aren't about any particular place or population. By a process of intimate and often extended engagement, Soth's portraits and images of his subject's surroundings involve an enquiry into the extent to which a photographic likeness can depict more than the outer surface of an individual, and perhaps even plumb the depths of something unknowable about both the sitter and the photographer"--The publisher.