Philosopher and popular Middlebury professor Dr. Lorraine Besser reveals the missing third piece in our search for the Good Life—what she calls The Interesting—and teaches us how to cultivate it in our lives. Do you know anyone who's truly living The Good Life? Traditionally, philosophers and psychologists have thought of the Good Life in terms of happiness or meaning, or some combination of both. But, if it’s really that simple, if all you need is more happiness or meaning to get to the Good Life, why aren’t more of us achieving that truly “good” life? You’ve hit all the traditional markers, jumped on the happiness train, committed to a gratitude practice, sought purpose in your work, and yet The Good Life you’re seeking, is still out of reach. Emerging research is revealing that there is, in fact, more to the good life than the current —and even ancient—conversation suggests. This has been identified as psychological richness. Dr. Lorraine Besser, a founding investigator in these studies, shows how psychological richness helps to make our Good Lives more interesting. Interesting experiences captivate our minds, engage our thoughts and emotions, and often change our perspective. What’s interesting is different for everyone, and everyone can obtain and strengthen the skills necessary to access the interesting. In this illuminating book, you’ll take a deeper dive into the ways that you can cultivate the interesting in your everyday life, including: How to develop an interesting mindset How to harness the power of novelty How to turn obstacles into adventures Through delightful stories, powerful tools, and new mindsets, you’ll learn how to “keep it interesting.” Whether you feel like something is missing from your life, or you’re yearning for more, Besser's groundbreaking manifesto will guide you toward a fuller, more satisfying life.

Got wit? We’ve all been in that situation where we need to say something clever, but innocuous; smart enough to show some intelligence, without showing off; something funny, but not a joke. What we need in that moment is wit—that sparkling combination of charm, humor, confidence, and most of all, the right words at the right time. Elements of Wit is an engaging book that brings together the greatest wits of our time, and previous ones from Oscar Wilde to Nora Ephron, Winston Churchill to Christopher Hitchens, Mae West to Louis CK, and many in between. With chapters covering the essential ingredients of wit, this primer sheds light on how anyone—introverts, extroverts, wallflowers, and bon vivants—can find the right zinger, quip, parry, or retort…or at least be a little bit more interesting.

This is a book about how art history is written. It includes detailed analyses of a dozen important texts, and theories about what counts as "interesting" or "experimental" writing on art. There are chapters on texts by Rosalind Krauss, T.J. Clark, Alexander Nemerov, Gilles Deleuze, Helene Cixous, Leo Steinberg, Jean-Louis Schefer, and others; a chapter on institutions that teach experimental writing on art; analyses of rival concepts of the essay; and chapters on the absence of literary criticism in the disciplines of art history, visual studies, art theory, and art criticism.

Think quickly on your feet: be smooth, funny, and clever – all at once. Goodbye awkward silences, hello conversational agility! No matter where you lie on the spectrum of awkward to engaging, witty banter is always the end goal – and it should be. Witty banter, and all the steps that lead to it, allows you to (1) disarm and connect with anyone, (2) immediately exit boring small talk mode, and (3) instantly build rapport like you’re old friends. Flow with the conversational twists and turns like water. The Art of Witty Banter carefully examines the art, nuance, and mechanics of banter and charm to make you witty comeback machine, the likes of which your friends have never seen. You’ll be able to handle, defend, disarm, and engage others in a way that makes you comfortable and confident with each growing day. Transform "interview" conversations into comfortable rapport. Patrick King is an internationally bestselling author and Social Skills and Conversation Coach. As someone who teaches people to speak for a living, he’s broken wit and banter down to a science and given you real guidelines on what to say and when. Make a sharp, smart, and savvy impression – every time. There’s no guesswork here – you’ll get exact examples and phrases to plug into your daily conversations. 18 specific points to up your charisma quotient. How will you be clever, be quick, and be interesting? •Why the questions you use make people freeze. •How to master teasing, witty comebacks, and initiating jokes and humor. •What free association is and how it makes you quick-witted. •How to create an instant “in-group” and inside joke with someone.

An inspiring visual guide to a richer life. “If there’s a thinker to steal from, it’s Jessica Hagy.”—Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist and Newspaper Blackout How to Be Interesting is passionate, positive, down-to-earth, and irrepressibly upbeat, combining fresh and pithy life lessons, often just a sentence or two, with deceptively simple diagrams and graphs. Each of the book's more than 100 spreads will nudge readers a little bit further out of their comfort zones and into a place where suddenly everything is possible. It’s about taking chance—but also about taking daily vacations. About being childlike, not childish. It’s about ideas, creativity, risk. It’s about trusting your talents and doing only what you want—but having the courage to get lost and see where the path leads. Because it’s what you don’t know that’s interesting.

The perfect miscellany for every art lover - an essential and engaging collection of facts, figures, and findings about art, artists, and the art world, past and present This extraordinary compendium of compelling facts, figures, and findings gathers and distils obscure and fascinating information about art, artists, and the art world. Fun, surprising, and compelling, in this covetable book you will learn: - which artist's work is stolen most often (Picasso) - names of artists' pets: Fat Fat & Cous-Cous (Louise Nevelson's cats), Giotto and Goya (John Baldessari's dogs) - artist couples (Nancy Rubins and Chris Burden; Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely; Dorothea Tanning and Max Ernst) - things artists collect: prosthetic arms and legs (Sophie Calle), glass eyes (Hiroshi Sugimoto) - odd jobs and side hustles: telephone marketer (Tomma Abts), crop duster (James Turrell) - artists who were rejected from art school (Francisco Goya, Auguste Rodin) ... and hundreds of other miscellaneous details. Thoughtfully and thoroughly researched, this intriguing book offers refreshing and surprising perspectives on the world of art. The five page-turning chapters cover: - Artists - Art School - Art Studio - Art Museum - Art World

THIS BOOK IS FOR EVERYONE LOOKING AROUND AND THINKING, "NOW WHAT?” Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed commencement address, "Make Good Art," thoughtfully and aesthetically designed by renowned graphic artist Chip Kidd. This keepsake volume is the perfect gift for graduates, aspiring creators, or anyone who needs a reminder to run toward what gives them joy. When Neil Gaiman delivered his "Make Good Art" commencement address at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, he shared his thoughts about creativity, bravery, and strength. He encouraged the fledgling painters, musicians, writers, and dreamers to break rules and think outside the box. Most of all, he encouraged them to make good art. The speech resonated far beyond that art school audience and immediately went viral on YouTube and has now been viewed more than a million times. Acclaimed designer Chip Kidd brings his unique sensibility to this seminal address in this gorgeous edition that commemorates Gaiman's inspiring message.

Marie Bashkirtseff's diary is one of the great journals of all time: a Russian girl, transplanted to France, begins a little diary at the age of fourteen. Eleven years later, upon her death, she has written thousands and thousands of pages, creating an obsessively detailed monument to her own life. "...because I hope that I will be read...I am absolutely sincere. If this hook is not the exact, absolute, strict truth, it has no reason to be". But Bashkirtseff was betrayed by her own family. The diary, published posthumously in 1887, was expurgated, sanitized, and denuded. Marie's mother made sure that none of her daughter's more radical opinions - and more importantly, their strange family history - appeared in the diary's pages. Even so, it was hailed as the true portrait of a woman by the French press, and Bashkirtseff was alternately canonized as a misunderstood genius and damned as a self-absorbed misfit. Now, in this new translation, Phyllis Howard Kernberger has returned to the original text - Marie's notebooks, held in the Bibliotheque Nationale. Her scrupulous, decades-long research has unearthed the true self-portrait that Marie Bashkirtseff hoped to reveal. Marie was enraptured with her own beauty, enraged by the constraints of society (especially for women), and determined to achieve success and fame at any cost, and her diary is a vivid portrait of a free-thinking woman born before her time. Working straight from the source, Kernberger has revived the honest image of Marie - in a seductively funny, warmly personal, and thoroughly mesmerizing account of a life lived to its fullest.

Not Interesting proposes another set of terms and structures to talk about architecture, without requiring that it be interesting. This book explores a set of alternatives to the interesting and imagines how architecture might be positioned more broadly in the world using other terms: boring, confusing, and comforting. Along with interesting, these three terms make up the four chapters of the book. Each chapter introduces its topic through an analysis of a different image, which serves to unpack the specific character of each term and its relationship to architecture. In addition to text, the book contains over 50 case studies using 100 drawings and images. These are presented in parallel to the text and show what architecture may look like through the lens of these other terms.

Rock star, crowdfunding pioneer, and TED speaker Amanda Palmer knows all about asking. Performing as a living statue in a wedding dress, she wordlessly asked thousands of passersby for their dollars. When she became a singer, songwriter, and musician, she was not afraid to ask her audience to support her as she surfed the crowd (and slept on their couches while touring). And when she left her record label to strike out on her own, she asked her fans to support her in making an album, leading to the world's most successful music Kickstarter. Even while Amanda is both celebrated and attacked for her fearlessness in asking for help, she finds that there are important things she cannot ask for-as a musician, as a friend, and as a wife. She learns that she isn't alone in this, that so many people are afraid to ask for help, and it paralyzes their lives and relationships. In this groundbreaking book, she explores these barriers in her own life and in the lives of those around her, and discovers the emotional, philosophical, and practical aspects of The Art of Asking. Part manifesto, part revelation, this is the story of an artist struggling with the new rules of exchange in the twenty-first century, both on and off the Internet. The Art of Asking will inspire readers to rethink their own ideas about asking, giving, art, and love.