Nuclear bombs in suitcases, anthrax bacilli in ventilators, tsunamis and meteors, avian flu, scorchingly hot temperatures: nightmares that were once the plot of Hollywood movies are now frighteningly real possibilities. How can we steer a path between willful inaction and reckless overreaction? Cass Sunstein explores these and other worst-case scenarios and how we might best prevent them in this vivid, illuminating, and highly original analysis. Singling out the problems of terrorism and climate change, Sunstein explores our susceptibility to two opposite and unhelpful reactions: panic and utter neglect. He shows how private individuals and public officials might best respond to low-probability risks of disaster—emphasizing the need to know what we will lose from precautions as well as from inaction. Finally, he offers an understanding of the uses and limits of cost–benefit analysis, especially when current generations are imposing risks on future generations. Throughout, Sunstein uses climate change as a defining case, because it dramatically illustrates the underlying principles. But he also discusses terrorism, depletion of the ozone layer, genetic modification of food, hurricanes, and worst-case scenarios faced in our ordinary lives. Sunstein concludes that if we can avoid the twin dangers of overreaction and apathy, we will be able to ameliorate if not avoid future catastrophes, retaining our sanity as well as scarce resources that can be devoted to more constructive ends.

The authors of the phenomenally best-selling Worst-Case Scenario Survival series have taught millions to prepare for the worst—but how can readers be sure they're really ready? The Worst-Case Scenario Book of Survival Questions collects hundreds of survival dilemmas and questions designed to test true survival skill and daring. Fifty percent longer than the handbooks, this challenging, interactive, and informative book is packed with survival trivia, expert tips, adventurous situations, and illustrations. Your car is careening toward a 20-foot drop into a river: do you leap from the car immediately, or wait to swim free once it begins to sink? Is it worse to be lost in the jungle during the day or in the desert at night? If you had to perform an emergency tracheotomy, where would you make the incision? In hundreds of multiple-choice quizzes, story problems, and questions, The Worst-Case Scenario Book of Survival Questions provides need-to-know answers to life's unexpected turns for the worst. Also included is a Worst-Case Scenario Aptitude Test (WCSAT), which can be scored at home to ensure optimum readiness. Don't wait until it's too late!

Based on the best-selling WORST-CASE SCENARIO Survival Handbook, with more than six million copies in print, this handy pocket-size version prepares you for life's unexpected perils. Would you know what to do if the worst actually happened? How would you survive an earthquake? Would you know what to do if you had to deliver a baby in a taxicab? Step-by-step survival instructions for these scenarios and many more are provided in The WORST-CASE SCENARIO Little Book for Survival: * How to Identify a Mail Bomb * How to Survive in the Line of Fire * How to Fend Off an Alligator Carry this pocket-size volume with you at all times, because you just never know when you'll need it. Published under license from Chronicle Books, LLC. Worst-Case Scenario and The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook are trademarks of Quirk Productions, Inc. The little books are based on the books The WORST-CASE SCENARIO Survival Handbook, 1999 by Quirk Productions, Inc., and The WORST-CASE SCENARIO Survival Handbook: Dating and Sex, 2001 by Quirk Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. First published by Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco, California, USA.

Provides step-by-step instructions for dealing with the best life has to offer, including success, wealth, and fame.

Annie Nobody thought she was, well, nobody, living in a nowhere town where nothing goes her way. Day 1 at her newest foster home proves to be dreadful, too . . . and things get even worse when she's chased by something big and scary that definitely wants to eat her. Luckily for Annie, not everything is what it seems, and she gets swept up--literally--by a sassy dwarf on a hovercraft snowmobile and taken to Aurora, a hidden, magical town on the coast of Maine. There, she finds a new best friend in Jamie Hephastion Alexander--who thought he was a normal kid (but just might be a troll)--and Annie discovers that she's not exactly who she thought she was, either. She's a Time Stopper, meant to protect the enchanted. Together, Annie and Jamie discover a whole new world of magic, power, and an incredible cast of creatures and characters. But where there's great power, there are also those who want to misuse it, and Aurora is under siege. It's up to the kids to protect their new home, even if it means diving headfirst into magical danger. Awards for Need An Indiebound Next Pick A YALSA BBYA Nominee

The Defining Decade has changed the way millions of twentysomethings think about their twenties—and themselves. Revised and reissued for a new generation, let it change how you think about you and yours. Our "thirty-is-the-new-twenty" culture tells us the twentysomething years don't matter. Some say they are an extended adolescence. Others call them an emerging adulthood. In The Defining Decade, Meg Jay argues that twentysomethings have been caught in a swirl of hype and misinformation, much of which has trivialized the most transformative time of our lives. Drawing from more than two decades of work with thousands of clients and students, Jay weaves the latest science of the twentysomething years with behind-closed-doors stories from twentysomethings themselves. The result is a provocative read that provides the tools necessary to take the most of your twenties, and shows us how work, relationships, personality, identity and even the brain can change more during this decade than at any other time in adulthood—if we use the time well. Also included in this updated edition: Up-to-date research on work, love, the brain, friendship, technology, and fertility What a decade of device use has taught us about looking at friends—and looking for love—online 29 conversations to have with your partner—or to keep in mind as you search for one A social experiment in which "digital natives" go without their phones A Reader's Guide for book clubs, classrooms, or further self-reflection