Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The game of blackjack is simple. You are dealt two cards and left with one decision. Ask for more or stick with what you’ve got. The object of the game is for your total card value to be at or as close to twenty-one as possible. #2 I learned that life doesn’t have to be so logical. When uncertainty hits, go with it. You have the opportunity to create something new and different. Don’t be afraid of the calculations or the odds. #3 I always knew I wanted to communicate. I love helping people see the best in themselves and bringing out the best in me as well. I wanted to refine my skills as a speaker, so after each day of training, I went home and called everyone I knew to see what opportunities were out there. #4 I was asked to join ESPN, the network referred to as the worldwide leader in sports. I was set to be the youngest national football analyst to grace the platform. I obliged. By this point, I knew not to take a conventional measure of success like a job promotion to mean I’d made it.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, a call to break through our limits and say yes to a life of infinite possibility. You may know Emmanuel Acho as the host of groundbreaking video series “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man.” Or as a New York Times bestselling author. Or as an Emmy-winning television broadcaster. Or as a former linebacker for two NFL franchises. What you probably don’t know is that Emmanuel defines his own life with just one word: Illogical. Behind every triumph, every expression of his gifts, Acho has had to ignore what everyone around him called “logic”: the astronomical odds against making it, the risks of continuing to dream bigger or differently. Instead of playing it safe, at every turn Acho has thrown conventional wisdom—logic—out the window. Now, in this revelatory book, he’s empowering us all to do the same. Whether it’s creating the next groundbreaking startup, fighting for change as an activist, or committing to a personal passion, Illogical is the go-to book for all readers ready to become change-makers. With a step-by-step guide to finding our callings and shifting our mindsets, enlivened by stories from Acho’s life and other illogical pioneers, and the Bible, Acho asks us to replace the limits set for us, and which we set for ourselves, with a world of possibility. Our horizons, he shows us, are endless.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An urgent primer on race and racism, from the host of the viral hit video series “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man” “You cannot fix a problem you do not know you have.” So begins Emmanuel Acho in his essential guide to the truths Americans need to know to address the systemic racism that has recently electrified protests in all fifty states. “There is a fix,” Acho says. “But in order to access it, we’re going to have to have some uncomfortable conversations.” In Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, Acho takes on all the questions, large and small, insensitive and taboo, many white Americans are afraid to ask—yet which all Americans need the answers to, now more than ever. With the same open-hearted generosity that has made his video series a phenomenon, Acho explains the vital core of such fraught concepts as white privilege, cultural appropriation, and “reverse racism.” In his own words, he provides a space of compassion and understanding in a discussion that can lack both. He asks only for the reader’s curiosity—but along the way, he will galvanize all of us to join the antiracist fight.

NFL linebacker, speaker, podcaster, and humanitarian Sam Acho gives a blueprint for taking off our masks and living lives of genuine authenticity. Most of us hide. We play small and don't live up to our full potential. Sam Acho was one of those people. As an NFL linebacker, for example, he earned his MBA but told no one because he was afraid of what people might think if they found out that he cared about things that weren't "normal" for his profession. After many years of hiding himself, the person he had become had no connection to the real Sam. Only when he lost a friend and a mentor did he realize he was doing it all wrong--just like many us do, when we try to become someone we're not. All the while, we ignore the unique gifts and talents and personality we truly possess. But there is another way of living: Let the world see you. Your quirks, your passions, and your inner desires were not given to you by accident. And the world needs your gifts. In Let the World See You, Sam Acho shares lessons from his own life as well as stories from others to reveal how you can overcome your fears and discover your true selves. Being the real you pays big. No one else has what you have. No one else can share what you share. Let the World See You helps crack the shell of people who are in hiding and reveals the benefits of a lifestyle lived on purpose.

As a serial entrepreneur, Kevin Kruse has seen time and again that the leadership practices that actually work are the opposite of what is commonly taught and implemented. Close Your Open Door Policy shows how a contrarian approach can be a better, faster, and easier way to succeed as a leader. Chapter by chapter, Kruse focuses on a piece of popular wisdom, then shows with real-world case studies and quantitative research that the opposite approach will lead to better results, encouraging leaders to play favorites, stay out of meetings, and, of course, close their open doors.

The account of one radically new school year for a Teacher of the Year and for his nonbinary, art-obsessed, brilliant child Seven-year-old Ollie was researching local advanced school programs—because every second grader does that, right? Ollie, who used to hate weekends because they meant no school, was crying on the way to school almost every day. Sure, there were the slings and arrows of bullies and bad teachers, but, maybe worse, Ollie, a funny, anxious, smart kid with a thing for choir and an eye for graphic art, was gravely underchallenged and also struggling with identity and how to live totally as themselves. Ollie begged to switch to a new school with “kids like me,” where they wouldn’t feel so alone, or so bored, and so they made the change. Raising Ollie is dad Tom Rademacher’s story (really, many stories) of that eventful and sometimes painful school year, parenting Ollie and relearning every day what it means to be a father and teacher. As Ollie—who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, and prefers art to athletics, vegetables to cake, and animals to most humans—flourishes in their new school, Rademacher is making an eye-opening adjustment to a new school of his own, one that’s whiter and more suburban than anywhere he has previously taught, with a history of racial tension that he tries to address and navigate. While Ollie is learning to code, 3D model, animate, speak Japanese, and finally feel comfortable at school, Rademacher increasingly sees how his own educational struggles, anxieties, and childhood upbringing are reflected in his teaching, writing, and parenting, as well as in Ollie’s experience. And with this story of one anything-but-academic year of inquiry and wonder, doubt and revelation, he shows us how raising a kid changes everything—and how much raising a kid like Ollie can teach us about who we are and what we’re doing in the world.

A new, interactive approach to storytime, The Whole Book Approach was developed in conjunction with the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and expert author Megan Dowd Lambert's graduate work in children's literature at Simmons College, offering a practical guide for reshaping storytime and getting kids to think with their eyes. Traditional storytime often offers a passive experience for kids, but the Whole Book approach asks the youngest of readers to ponder all aspects of a picture book and to use their critical thinking skills. Using classic examples, Megan asks kids to think about why the trim size of Ludwig Bemelman's Madeline is so generous, or why the typeset in David Wiesner's Caldecott winner,The Three Pigs, appears to twist around the page, or why books like Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express and Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar are printed landscape instead of portrait. The dynamic discussions that result from this shared reading style range from the profound to the hilarious and will inspire adults to make children's responses to text, art, and design an essential part of storytime.

“I see God,” wrote Norman Mailer, “as a Creator, as the greatest artist. I see human beings as His most developed artworks.” In these moving, amusing, and probing dialogues conducted in the years before his death, Mailer establishes his own system of belief, rejecting both organized religion and atheism. He avows that sensual pleasures were bestowed on us by God; he finds fault with the Ten Commandments; and he holds that technology was the Devil’s most brilliant creation. In short, Mailer is original and unpredictable in this inspiring journey, in which “God needs us as much as we need God.” Praise for On God “[Norman Mailer’s] theology is not theoretical to him. After eight decades, it is what he believes. He expects no adherents, and does not profess to be a prophet, but he has worked to forge his beliefs into a coherent catechism.”—New York “The glory of an original mind in full provocation.”—USA Today “At once illuminating and exciting . . . a chance to see Mailer’s intellect as well as his lively conversational style of speech.”—American Jewish Life “Remarkable . . . [Mailer’s] a believer—in his own fashion. . . . He has made [God] into a complex character.”—The Globe and Mail Praise for Norman Mailer “[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times “A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker “Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.”—The Washington Post “A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life “Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books “The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune “Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post

Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish Life and Prac­tice Finalist for the 2021 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A startling and profound exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture—and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the "righteous Gentile" Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present. Horn draws upon her travels, her research, and also her own family life—trying to explain Shakespeare’s Shylock to a curious ten-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children’s school, the profound perspective offered by traditional religious practice and study—to assert the vitality, complexity, and depth of Jewish life against an antisemitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget," is on the rise. As Horn explores the (not so) shocking attacks on the American Jewish community in recent years, she reveals the subtler dehumanization built into the public piety that surrounds the Jewish past—making the radical argument that the benign reverence we give to past horrors is itself a profound affront to human dignity. Now including a reading group guide.

My friend Bill Thierfelder, a great leader and motivator, puts the words and descriptions to what we leaders try to do every day to challenge ourselves and our teams to be at our best, all the time. —Coach Mike Krzyzewski, from the Foreword Dr. Bill Thierfelder knows what it takes to win. As a student at the University of Maryland he dominated the high jump, winning fame as an All-American and Irish national champion. Later he earned his doctorate in sports psychology. He became a private coach and mentor to the world's top athletes...and revealed to them his hard won secrets for success. In Less Than a Minute to Go: The Secret to World-class Performance in Sport, Business and Everyday Life, Thierfelder, now President of Belmont Abbey College, reveals the secrets to: • Becoming a world-class performer • Preparing your mind to win • Making peak performance a common occurrence • Playing with a passion that never ends But Thierfelder does more than give peak performance techniques. In these pages he shows why sports are worthy of our deep attention and effort, whether as athletes or as avid spectators and fans. He shows how sports can and should engage the highest parts of our nature that, in fact, only when we are so engaged can we truly excel. And he reveals how sports train and prepare us for other arenas...where we all are players and where our choices have more significance than any World Series or Super Bowl. Join Dr. Bill Thierfelder in an exploration of sport—and of life—as you have never considered them before. Let this world-class athlete, mentor and coach teach you what he has taught so many others, from college students to superstars: How to give your very best when the clock is ticking...everything is on the line...and you have Less Than a Minute to Go.