In East Asia’s largest cities, hundreds of thousands of women remain single into middle age and beyond, giving rise to a demographic transformation with profound implications for their societies. Labeled in the media as “loser dogs” and “parasites” in Japan and “leftover women” in mainland China and Hong Kong, single women in East Asia are criticized for being choosy, selfish, and overly independent. Based on ethnographic research and interviews with more than a hundred single women in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, Making Our Own Destiny is the first study to comprehensively compare the views and experiences of single women living in these three great cities—cities that stand at the forefront of the region’s movement toward later marriage and rising singlehood. This well-researched book explores how single women attempt to take advantage of unprecedented opportunities for success in education and work while navigating marriage and family expectations. Unlike their counterparts in Europe and North America, many do not have romantic partners and most do not have children. What do these women want? How do they see themselves and their place in society? What are their values, goals, and dreams? As they work to balance opportunities with expectations, single women in urban East Asia find themselves deeply embedded in the caregiving systems of their societies. In Shanghai, author Lynne Nakano finds single women rushing to marry to enter intergenerational relationships of care. In Hong Kong, they consider the risks of marriage as they tend to the needs of natal and extended families. In Tokyo, many single women hope to marry to have children while others find a place for themselves in their families as elder caregivers. Nakano’s intimate portrayals not only expose meticulously planned family strategies gone awry, engagements broken, and careers abandoned, but also highlight the experiences of women embracing the joys of remaining single. Hers is a fascinating study of modern women finding meaning in their lives while offering an insightful glimpse into the future of urban families in an age of low fertility and long transitions into adulthood.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage • “Life has questions. They have answers.” —The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.

In a society that pushes conformity, how can you be courageously authentic despite fear of judgment? Award-winning leadership and diversity expert Ritu Bhasin gives you the tools to make this happen. This is more than a call to "be yourself"-it's a rally to disrupt the status quo, bring your differences to the light, and help others do the same.

A New York Times bestseller • A New York Times Notable Book “The tale of how Konnikova followed a story about poker players and wound up becoming a story herself will have you riveted, first as you learn about her big winnings, and then as she conveys the lessons she learned both about human nature and herself.” —The Washington Post It's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel, Poker Hall of Fame inductee and winner of tens of millions of dollars in earnings, and convinced him to be her mentor. But she knew her man: a famously thoughtful and broad-minded player, he was intrigued by her pitch that she wasn't interested in making money so much as learning about life. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance had led her to a giant of game theory, who pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish between what can be controlled and what can't. And she certainly brought something to the table, including a Ph.D. in psychology and an acclaimed and growing body of work on human behavior and how to hack it. So Seidel was in, and soon she was down the rabbit hole with him, into the wild, fiercely competitive, overwhelmingly masculine world of high-stakes Texas Hold'em, their initial end point the following year's World Series of Poker. But then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel's guidance, Konnikova did have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read, not just her opponents but far more importantly herself; how to identify what tilted her into an emotional state that got in the way of good decisions; and how to get to a place where she could accept luck for what it was, and what it wasn't. But she also began to win. And win. In a little over a year, she began making earnest money from tournaments, ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She won a major title, got a sponsor, and got used to being on television, and to headlines like "How one writer's book deal turned her into a professional poker player." She even learned to like Las Vegas. But in the end, Maria Konnikova is a writer and student of human behavior, and ultimately the point was to render her incredible journey into a container for its invaluable lessons. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until the luck once again breaks our way.

What can you uniquely give the world? We often sell ourselves short with self-limiting beliefs, but most of us would be amazed and delighted to know that we do have something special - our distinctive passions and talents - to offer. And what if I told you that what you have to give will also enable you to live a life of true contentment? How is that possible? It happens when you embrace and curate your own simply luxurious life. We tend to not realize the capacity of our full potential and settle for what society has deemed acceptable. However, each of us has a unique journey to travel if only we would find the courage, paired with key skills we can develop, to step forward. This book will help you along the deeper journey to discovering your best self as you begin to trust your intuition and listen to your curiosity. You will learn how to: - Recognize your innate strengths - Acquire the skills needed to nurture your best self - Identify and navigate past societal limitations often placed upon women - Strengthen your brand both personally and professionally - Build a supportive and healthy community - Cultivate effortless style - Enhance your everyday meals with seasonal fare - Live with less, so that you can live more fully - Understand how to make a successful fresh start - Establish and mastermind your financial security - Experience great pleasure and joy in relationships - Always strive for quality over quantity in every arena of your life Living simply luxuriously is a choice: to think critically, to live courageously, and to savor the everydays as much as the grand occasions. As you learn to live well in your everydays, you will elevate your experience and recognize what is working for you and what is not. With this knowledge, you let go of the unnecessary, thus simplifying your life and removing the complexity. Choices become easier, life has more flavor, and you begin to feel deeply satisfying true contentment. The cultivation of a unique simply luxurious life is an extraordinary daily journey that each of us can master, leading us to our fullest potential.

A must-read for community activists who've ever wondered how to get their stories in the media. How to Make Our Own News will also be a useful resource for journalists who cover environmental issues. The author is a veteran journalist who also has long been directly engaged in work on behalf of the environment, and he has written a cogent "how to" on reaching audiences, developing story ideas, conducting successful interviews and writing stories that will be accepted by news editors. The work includes appendixes that summarise Agenda 21, the principles of sustainable development that resulted from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

There no longer seems any point to criticizing the internet. We indulge in the latest doom-mongering about the evils of social media-on social media. We scroll through routine complaints about the deterioration of our attention spans. We resign ourselves to hating the internet even as we spend much of our waking lives with it. Yet our unthinking surrender to its effects-to the ways it recasts our aims and desires-is itself digital technology's most powerful achievement. A Web of Our Own Making examines how online practices are reshaping our lives outside our notice. Barba-Kay argues that digital technology is a 'natural technology'-a technology so intuitive as to conceal the extent to which it transforms our attention. He shows how and why this technology is reconfiguring knowledge, culture, politics, aesthetics, and theology. The digital revolution is primarily taking place not in Silicon Valley but within each of us.