Haiku poetry describes small animals found in nature, such as snails, butterflies, squirrels, and tree frogs.

The best-selling phenomenon from Japan that shows us a minimalist life is a happy life. Fumio Sasaki is not an enlightened minimalism expert or organizing guru like Marie Kondo—he’s just a regular guy who was stressed out and constantly comparing himself to others, until one day he decided to change his life by saying goodbye to everything he didn’t absolutely need. The effects were remarkable: Sasaki gained true freedom, new focus, and a real sense of gratitude for everything around him. In Goodbye, Things Sasaki modestly shares his personal minimalist experience, offering specific tips on the minimizing process and revealing how the new minimalist movement can not only transform your space but truly enrich your life. The benefits of a minimalist life can be realized by anyone, and Sasaki’s humble vision of true happiness will open your eyes to minimalism’s potential.

A mathematical journey through the most fascinating problems of extremes and how to solve them What is the best way to photograph a speeding bullet? How can lost hikers find their way out of a forest? Why does light move through glass in the least amount of time possible? When Least Is Best combines the mathematical history of extrema with contemporary examples to answer these intriguing questions and more. Paul Nahin shows how life often works at the extremes—with values becoming as small (or as large) as possible—and he considers how mathematicians over the centuries, including Descartes, Fermat, and Kepler, have grappled with these problems of minima and maxima. Throughout, Nahin examines entertaining conundrums, such as how to build the shortest bridge possible between two towns, how to vary speed during a race, and how to make the perfect basketball shot. Moving from medieval writings and modern calculus to the field of optimization, the engaging and witty explorations of When Least Is Best will delight math enthusiasts everywhere.

When was the last time you tried something truly new? The modern world is full of possibilities, adventures and excitement but also routines. The daily grind can make us forget about the former as we embrace the monotony of the latter. It can be hard to extract ourselves from the comforting embrace of our favourite TV programme, food or jumper. For one man, the boredom of this very modern life became too much to bear. And so he challenged himself to do something about it. Starting small, his project soon grew into one life-changing year. 52 New Things is the story of one man who decided to put down the Monster Munch, switch off the TV and do something different. He travelled, he danced, he flew, he drove across continents, but most significantly, he started saying yes to the hilarious and bewildering experiences that life has to offer. And he has the Christmas single, the tattoo and lack of body hair to prove it. 52 New Things is a book that is hard to define. Travelogue meets unconventional self-help book meets personal journey for ensuing hilarity. Nick J. Thorpe's journey to make his life more interesting has hilarious, surprising and often life-affirming consequences. He explores the dizzy array of opportunities that modern life offers with a guiding hand that is both motivational and hilarious. This is a frank, funny, full frontal account of a year's worth of new experiences. It might just inspire you to try some new things of your own.

The National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author delivers a collection of essays that serve as the perfect “antidote to mansplaining” (The Stranger). In her comic, scathing essay “Men Explain Things to Me,” Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don’t, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters. She ends on a serious note— because the ultimate problem is the silencing of women who have something to say, including those saying things like, “He’s trying to kill me!” This book features that now-classic essay with six perfect complements, including an examination of the great feminist writer Virginia Woolf’s embrace of mystery, of not knowing, of doubt and ambiguity, a highly original inquiry into marriage equality, and a terrifying survey of the scope of contemporary violence against women. “In this series of personal but unsentimental essays, Solnit gives succinct shorthand to a familiar female experience that before had gone unarticulated, perhaps even unrecognized.” —The New York Times “Essential feminist reading.” —The New Republic “This slim book hums with power and wit.” —Boston Globe “Solnit tackles big themes of gender and power in these accessible essays. Honest and full of wit, this is an integral read that furthers the conversation on feminism and contemporary society.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Essential.” —Marketplace “Feminist, frequently funny, unflinchingly honest and often scathing in its conclusions.” —Salon