In his poetry book, Ron documents the process of his inner and outer journey of self-discovery. This journey involved awakening to the fact that he wanted more out of life, the internal struggle he faced while convincing himself to leave the only home he knew, and eventually departing his comfort zone by buying a one-way plane ticket. This collection of prose explores the obstacles we must face and figure out for ourselves, the discovery of our true purpose, and the realization that many things in life are more straightforward than we imagine them to be, despite how unnecessarily complicated we make them.

I have no idea why I'm full of tadpoles and mayonnaise. No idea why this cockroach is psychoanalyzing me. I don't know what you're doing with that moose on your shoulder, don't know why you still don't love me even after I bought you that pack of gum. I'm not sure where this elevator is going, or how I got on it. Not sure how I didn't notice the ground beef coming out of every faucet in my new apartment. I have no idea why bagpipes and drums go so well with chainsaw murder. I have no idea what kind of sandwich I want before I commit suicide. I have no idea what I'm doing. Containing thirty-one stories written over the past ten years, this collection chronicles the total inability of Andrew Wayne Adams to know what he is doing.

Father·ish: adjective. When a man is trying his best. Clint Edwards equates fatherhood to the time he did an important live TV interview from home: To the viewers, he looked put-together in a nice button-up shirt . . . but below the camera he wasn’t wearing any pants. And it may have looked like he was in a nice office, but he was in fact hidden in his bedroom closet because his whole house was too messy to show. This highly relatable collection gets to the heart of parenting: all those unexpected fails, awkward conversations, and well-intentioned little white lies. Clint chronicles all these things and more with stories like “The Time My Son Realized I Was Santa,” “I’ve Never Been to Hell, but I Have Been to a Little Girl’s Birthday Party,” and “How to Get the Sex Talk Very, Very Wrong.” And with each story you’ll see over and over again that there really aren’t any rules when it comes to parenting, and all you can do is try your best. Whether you’re a first-time parent unaware of what you’ve gotten yourself into yet, or a father of five, clinging to your last ounce of sanity, you’ll find relief in knowing that at end of the day, we’re all not wearing any pants.

Prepare to learn everything we still don’t know about our strange and mysterious universe Humanity's understanding of the physical world is full of gaps. Not tiny little gaps you can safely ignore —there are huge yawning voids in our basic notions of how the world works. PHD Comics creator Jorge Cham and particle physicist Daniel Whiteson have teamed up to explore everything we don't know about the universe: the enormous holes in our knowledge of the cosmos. Armed with their popular infographics, cartoons, and unusually entertaining and lucid explanations of science, they give us the best answers currently available for a lot of questions that are still perplexing scientists, including: * Why does the universe have a speed limit? * Why aren't we all made of antimatter? * What (or who) is attacking Earth with tiny, superfast particles? * What is dark matter, and why does it keep ignoring us? It turns out the universe is full of weird things that don't make any sense. But Cham and Whiteson make a compelling case that the questions we can't answer are as interesting as the ones we can. This fully illustrated introduction to the biggest mysteries in physics also helpfully demystifies many complicated things we do know about, from quarks and neutrinos to gravitational waves and exploding black holes. With equal doses of humor and delight, Cham and Whiteson invite us to see the universe as a possibly boundless expanse of uncharted territory that's still ours to explore.

Get ready to relearn everything you thought you knew about what a successful career path can look like. Today, unemployment hovers at a near-record high, yet 3.5 million American jobs remain unfilled. Why? Because companies simply cannot find people with the skills they actually need. The good news is that this skills gap represents unprecedented opportunities for every person seeking a successful and exciting career. But these opportunities can’t be found inside the walls of the traditional classroom. Instead, they lie in the myriad of educational options that provide the technical, vocational, and soft skills on demand in today’s workplace, such as: -Professional certifications: Start your career faster in fields like bioscience aviation, culinary arts, and medical technology. -Associates degrees: Increase earning potential through inexpensive 2-year programs in subjects like civil engineering, environmental science, education, and nursing. -Apprenticeships: Earn while you learn under the direct supervision of a skilled expert. Far beyond the artisan trades, today’s apprenticeships can be found at companies like Volkswagen and Siemens. -Occupational learning: Refresh or reboot your skill sets through on-the-job training or online education. In Job U, you’ll learn about these paths to rewarding occupations; where to find them and how to parlay them into the best paying job in any field. And along the way, you’ll meet individuals of all ages who have attained their “dream jobs” through a non-traditional education: from an emergency air paramedic, to a lead mechanic of a racecar team, to an engineer of complex gas turbine generators, to a bestselling cookbook author. Whether you are recent high school or college graduate, or well along in your career journey, Job U will help you find your way to a more secure and prosperous future.

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

A deeply-reported examination of why "doing what you love" is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives. You're told that if you "do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Whether it's working for "exposure" and "experience," or enduring poor treatment in the name of "being part of the family," all employees are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do what we love. In Work Won't Love You Back, Sarah Jaffe, a preeminent voice on labor, inequality, and social movements, examines this "labor of love" myth—the idea that certain work is not really work, and therefore should be done out of passion instead of pay. Told through the lives and experiences of workers in various industries—from the unpaid intern, to the overworked teacher, to the nonprofit worker and even the professional athlete—Jaffe reveals how all of us have been tricked into buying into a new tyranny of work. As Jaffe argues, understanding the trap of the labor of love will empower us to work less and demand what our work is worth. And once freed from those binds, we can finally figure out what actually gives us joy, pleasure, and satisfaction.