A girl in a seven-story apartment building has trouble sleeping because of her disruptive neighbors, who all seem to be characters from fairy tales.

Seven Stories gives us the Bible as revelation of a nonviolent God. It identifies seven major themes or movements of transformation working through the text and the experiences from which it arose. Together these dynamic themes produce an overall movement of human change. They create a thrilling inversion of human meaning, from oppression to justice, from wrath to compassion, from violence to forgiveness. Seven Stories shows us a method of Bible interpretation that does not rely on a flat literal reading, but is something much more powerful and compelling. It shows a God working against the grain of violent human culture to bring about what has been intended all along: a creation birthed to peace and life by the revelation of a nonviolent God in the midst of history. The engine of human change as demonstrated in the stories is itself the divine self-revelation, and the measure, by which the truth of everything else is to be judged. Each of the seven stories contains three sub-stories or lessons, moving from the emergence of a theme in the Old Testament to its radical conclusion in Jesus. Together with introductory cycle the pattern produces a course of twenty four sessions, roughly a six month program. The way in which each motif builds on the other, both through history and the slow knitting together of new human meaning for the student, creates a teaching that is as urgently needed as it is transformative.

This remarkable and monumental book at last provides a comprehensive answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of 'basic stories' in the world. Using a wealth of examples, from ancient myths and folk tales via the plays and novels of great literature to the popular movies and TV soap operas of today, it shows that there are seven archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of storytelling. But this is only the prelude to an investigation into how and why we are 'programmed' to imagine stories in these ways, and how they relate to the inmost patterns of human psychology. Drawing on a vast array of examples, from Proust to detective stories, from the Marquis de Sade to E.T., Christopher Booker then leads us through the extraordinary changes in the nature of storytelling over the past 200 years, and why so many stories have 'lost the plot' by losing touch with their underlying archetypal purpose. Booker analyses why evolution has given us the need to tell stories and illustrates how storytelling has provided a uniquely revealing mirror to mankind's psychological development over the past 5000 years. This seminal book opens up in an entirely new way our understanding of the real purpose storytelling plays in our lives, and will be a talking point for years to come.

How do the best salespeople connect, influence and persuade? With stories. 'Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell' takes you on a high-stakes sales journey, using stories to establish rapport and trust, deliver insight, inspire action and close the deal, and in doing so win new friends and collaborators. When you share purposeful stories in your client conversations, you'll create more new business than you thought possible. Sharing more than 50 stories from around the world, Mike draws on his diverse international sales career to teach and demonstrate the power of storytelling -- from first hello to signed contract. You'll learn stories to help you: Establish rapport and trust Present challenging insights Differentiate your solution Share your company values Unstick negotiation stand-offs Create better business outcomes. This book will change the way you think about selling. Rather than seeing your role as that of a transactional deal closer, you'll become a story master, creating new stories for your clients.

The revival of independent bookselling has already begun and is one of the amazing stories of our times. Bookseller Andy Laties wrote the first edition of Rebel Bookseller six years ago, hoping it would spark a movement. Now, with this second edition, Laties’s book can be a rallying cry for everyone who wants to better understand how the rise of the big bookstore chains led irrevocably to their decline, and how even in the face of electronic readers from three of America’s largest and most successful companies—Apple, Amazon, and Google—the movement to support locally owned independent stores, especially bookstores, is on the rise. From the mid-1980s to the present, Andy Laties has been an independent bookseller, starting out in Chicago, teaching along the way at the American Booksellers Association, and finally running the bookshop at the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts. His innovations were adapted by Barnes & Noble, Zany Brainy, and scores of independent stores. In Rebel Bookseller, Laties tells how he got started, how he kept going, and why he believes independent bookselling has a great future. He alternates his narrative with short anecdotes, interludes between the chapters that give his credo as a bookseller. Along the way, he explains the growth of the chains, and throws in a treasure trove of tips for anyone who is considering opening up a bookstore. Rebel Bookseller is a must read for those in the book biz, a testament to the ingeniousness of one man man’s story of making a life out of his passionate commitment to books and bookselling.

THE book on how we came to be what we are. Unprecedented in its appraoch, teh number and diversity of the species presented and the quality and diversity of its photographs, this is spectacular,elegant, mysterious, grotesque. Skeletons of the vertebrates that inhabit the earth today carry with them the imprint of an evolutionary process that has lasted several billion years. A dual approach, scientific and aesthetic, combines stunning photographs of whole or part skeletons with a short text that illuminates chosen themes of evolution.

Detailing Monroe’s life with unusual depth and empathy, this biography in comics form reexamines one of America’s most familiar icons in a startling and fresh way. Marilyn speaks for herself--to her psychoanalyst, to a reporter, and ultimately, to the reader of this book. Beginning where her unstable mother leaves off, Monroe picks up her dream of fame in early childhood. The reader follows Monroe’s rise to stardom, progressing through the lower depths of Hollywood into the hard realities of fame. Seen through the prism of Marilyn’s own inner world, her achievements and failures take on a new complexity and poignancy. Marilyn: The Story of a Woman is told as a direct narrative in words and dark, compelling images. This biography will appeal to fans of Marilyn, comics, and anyone interested in women’s lives.