"Hosts of all kinds, this is a must-read!" --Chris Anderson, owner and curator of TED From the host of the New York Times podcast Together Apart, an exciting new approach to how we gather that will transform the ways we spend our time together—at home, at work, in our communities, and beyond. In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive--which they don't have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved. At a time when coming together is more important than ever, Parker sets forth a human-centered approach to gathering that will help everyone create meaningful, memorable experiences, large and small, for work and for play. Drawing on her expertise as a facilitator of high-powered gatherings around the world, Parker takes us inside events of all kinds to show what works, what doesn't, and why. She investigates a wide array of gatherings--conferences, meetings, a courtroom, a flash-mob party, an Arab-Israeli summer camp--and explains how simple, specific changes can invigorate any group experience. The result is a book that's both journey and guide, full of exciting ideas with real-world applications. The Art of Gathering will forever alter the way you look at your next meeting, industry conference, dinner party, and backyard barbecue--and how you host and attend them.

A crowd of siblings gathers in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother in this “stunning” novel by the award-winning author of Actress (The Washington Post). The surviving children of the Hegarty clan are gathering for the wake of their wayward, alcoholic brother, Liam, drowned in the sea after filling his pockets with stones. He is the third of the twelve Hegarty siblings to die. His sister, Veronica, collects the body and keeps the dead man company, guarding the secret she shares with him—something that happened in their grandmother’s house in the winter of 1968. As prize-winning author Anne Enright traces the line of betrayal and redemption through three generations, her distinctive intelligence twists the world a fraction and gives it back to us in a new and unforgettable light. The Gathering is an “wonderfully elegant and unsparing” epic of an Irish family (Los Angeles Times)—a novel about love and disappointment, how memories warp and secrets fester, and how fate is written in the body, not in the stars. “Entrancing…a haunting look at a broken family stifled by generations of hurt and disappointment, struggling to make peace with the irreparable.”—Entertainment Weekly “A melancholic love and rage bubbles just beneath the surface of this Dublin clan, and Enright explores it unflinchingly.”—Publishers Weekly “Her sympathy for her characters is as tender and subtle as Alice McDermott’s; her vision of Ireland is as brave and original as Edna O’Brien’s. The Gathering is her best book.”—Colm Toibin “Hypnotic.”—Booklist (starred review)

Magnificent hardcover art books featuring the incredible images and lore of Magic: The Gathering®! Danger and adventure await in these pages, lavishly illustrated with the award-winning art of Magic: The Gathering®! Optimism, innovation, and the spirit of creativity fill these pages, lavishly illustrated with the award-winning art of Magic: The Gathering™! Welcome to Kaladesh—a vibrant, beautiful plane where anything is possible. Join the heroic Planeswalkers of the Gatewatch as they explore the Inventors’ Fair, and let your imagination soar alongside thopters and airships crafted by the best artificers in the Multiverse. Come discover the marvels of Kaladesh—its inhabitants, its inventors, and its artifacts. They all await you at the grand Inventors’ Fair!

Railway art has existed as long as there have been Railways. Many famous names have included some aspect of railways in their paintings, notably Claude Monet and J M W Turner. This tradition has been kept alive by the formation in the UK of the Guild of Railway Artists, which now consists of over 200 artists, of which Jonathan Clay is one. Over the last few years, Jonathan has had many requests to produce his own book of pictures, and, having relented at last, this is the result.??In order to save time for his first ever railway event in 1999, he painted a series of locomotive pictures without backgrounds, intending to add the scenery later. However, they sold so well, that they became the norm, and the series of 'Locomotive Portraits' was born.

This book investigates the diverse visual representations of the Orchid Pavilion Gathering produced during the Edo period Japan.

The Great Han is an ethnographic study of the Han Clothing movement (Hanfu yundong), a neo-traditionalist and majority racial nationalist movement that has emerged in China since 2001. Participants come together both online and in person in cities across China to revitalize their utopian vision of the authentic “Great Han” and corresponding “real China” through pseudo-traditional ethnic dress, reinvented Confucian ritual, and anti-foreign sentiment. Employing close analysis of movement ideas and practices, this book finds that the movement’s “real China,” envisioning a pure, perfectly ordered, ethnically homogeneous, and secure society, is in fact an imaginary vision constructed in response to the challenging realities of the present. Yet this national imaginary is reproduced precisely through its own perpetual elusiveness. The Great Han is a pioneering analysis of Han identity, nationalism, and social movements in a rapidly changing China.