NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Driving, wild and hilarious” (The Washington Post), here is the incredible “memoir” of the legendary actor, gambler, raconteur, and Saturday Night Live veteran. When Norm Macdonald, one of the greatest stand-up comics of all time, was approached to write a celebrity memoir, he flatly refused, calling the genre “one step below instruction manuals.” Norm then promptly took a two-year hiatus from stand-up comedy to live on a farm in northern Canada. When he emerged he had under his arm a manuscript, a genre-smashing book about comedy, tragedy, love, loss, war, and redemption. When asked if this was the celebrity memoir, Norm replied, “Call it anything you damn like.”

Meet Norm. He's 31, 5'9", just over 13 stone, and works a 39 hour week. He likes a drink, doesn't do enough exercise and occasionally treats himself to a bar of chocolate (milk). He's a pretty average kind of guy. In fact, he is the average guy in this clever and unusual take on statistical risk, chance, and how these two factors affect our everyday choices. Watch as Norm (who, like all average specimens, feels himself to be uniquely special), and his friends careful Prudence and reckless Kelvin, turns to statistics to help him in life's endless series of choices - should I fly or take the train? Have a baby? Another drink? Or another sausage? Do a charity skydive or get a lift on a motorbike? Because chance and risk aren't just about numbers - it's about what we believe, who we trust and how we feel about the world around us. From a world expert in risk and the bestselling author of The Tiger That Isn't (and creator of BBC Radio 4's More or Less), this is a commonsense (and wildly entertaining) guide to personal risk and decoding the statistics that represent it.

Here is the story behind the phenomenal success of Norm Miller, chairman of Interstate Batteries and businessman extraordinare. From his early years in sales to becoming chairman of the largest independent replacement battery company in the U.S., Miller talks about the principles that have been the guiding force in his life. This is a great success story and the compelling spiritual journey of an innovative leader. 8-pp photo insert.

Language is a human universal reflecting our deeply social nature. Among its essential functions, language enables us to quickly and efficiently share information. We tell each other that many things are true—that is, we routinely make assertions. Information shared this way plays a critical role in the decisions and plans we make. In Knowledge and the Norm of Assertion, a distinguished philosopher and cognitive scientist investigates the rules or norms that structure our social practice of assertion. Combining evidence from philosophy, psychology, and biology, John Turri shows that knowledge is the central norm of assertion and explains why knowledge plays this role. Concise, comprehensive, non-technical, and thoroughly accessible, this volume quickly brings readers to the cutting edge of a major research program at the intersection of philosophy and science. It presupposes no philosophical or scientific training. It will be of interest to philosophers and scientists, is suitable for use in graduate and undergraduate courses, and will appeal to general readers interested in human nature, social cognition, and communication.

Winner, 1996 Elaine and David Spitz Book Prize for the best book onliberal and democratic theory, Conference for the Study of Political Thought. Winner, 1994 First Book Prize, Foundations of Political Thought Organized Section, American Political Science Association. Between the Norm and the Exception contributes historical insight to the ongoing debate over the future of the rule of law in welfare-state capitalist democracies. The core issue is whether or not society can offer its citizens welfare-state guarantees and still preserve the liberal vision of a norm-based legal system. Franz Neumann and Otto Kirchheimer, in an age dominated by Hitler and Stalin, sought to establish a sound theoretical basis for the "rule of law" ideal. As an outcome of their sophisticated understanding of the liberal political tradition, their writings suggest a theoretical missed opportunity, an alternative critical theory that might usefully be applied in understanding (and perhaps countering) the contemporary trend toward the deformalization of law.

Recent decades have seen the rise of a global beauty boom, with profound effects on perceptions of bodies worldwide. Against this background, Beauty and the Norm assembles ethnographic and conceptual approaches from a variety of disciplines and across the globe to debate standardization in bodily appearance. Its contributions range from empirical research to exploratory conversations between scholars and personal reflections. Bridging hitherto separate debates in critical beauty studies, cultural anthropology, sociology, the history of science, disability studies, gender studies, and critical race studies, this volume reflects upon the gendered, classed, and racialized body, normative regimes of representation, and the global beauty economy.

The components of living systems strike us as functional-as for the sake of certain ends—and as endowed with specific norms of performance. The mammalian eye, for example, has the function of perceiving and processing light, and possession of this property tempts us to claim that token eyes are supposed to perceive and process light. That is, we tend to evaluate the performance of token eyes against the norm described in the attributed functional property. Hence the norms of nature. What, then, are the norms of nature? Whence do they arise? Out of what natural properties or relations are they constituted? In Norms of Nature, Paul Sheldon Davies argues against the prevailing view that natural norms are constituted out of some form of historical success—usually success in natural selection. He defends the view that functions are nothing more than effects that contribute to the exercise of some more general systemic capacity. Natural functions exist insofar as the components of natural systems contribute to the exercise of systemic capacities. This is so irrespective of the system's history. Even if the mammalian eye had never been selected for, it would have the function of perceiving and processing light, because those are the effects that contribute to the exercise of the visual system. The systemic approach to conceptualizing natural norms, claims Davies, is superior to the historical approach in several important ways. Especially significant is that it helps us understand how the attribution of functions within the life sciences coheres with the methods and ontology of the natural sciences generally.

The fourth hilarious title in the award-winning, laugh-out-loud series, The World of Norm. Perfect for fans of Tom Gates and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Norm knew it was going to be one of those days when he got out of bed and trod in something he shouldn't have... What with overdue homework, overdue pocket money and a bag full of overdue newspapers, one thing's for sure: life for Norm isn't getting any less unfair. And did he mention the fact that he's the only kid on the planet without an iPad? ABSO-FLIPPING-LUTELY RIGHT HE DID! With brilliantly funny illustrations throughout from Donough O'Malley. Praise for Jonathan Meres: 'Hilarious stuff from one of my comic heroes!' - Harry Hill 'Jonathan Meres is flipping funny!' - Eddie Izzard

Outperforming leaders are not born; they're made. They hold exceptionally high standards, are able to persevere through change and conflict, and have the ability to consistently get the best out of others in working towards a common, shared goal. Included in OUTPERFORM for Leaders: - Handle hard decisions with clarity and confidence - The biggest mistake leaders make in communication, online and offline - Lead courageously through crisis and change - Build true trust with your team by consistently showing up - 7 keys for working AND leading virtually - Peel back the onion to uncover what you DO to engage and motivate others - Empower people through delegation - Cast a compelling future vision for others to follow (new normal > old normal) - Leverage the ONE characteristic shared by the most effective teams. OUTPERFORM for Leaders, backed by sound science and research, dispels the myths around leadership and details what transformational leaders do differently, and BETTER, to raise the "game" of others. Grab your copy now!

It seems like the whole world has gone mad. His dad's obsessed with gas, his best friend has come down with a case of hormones and his brother is in dire need of deodorant. Looks like there's going to be quite a stink. Is life still unfair for Norm? ABSO-FLIPPING-LUTELY! Jonathan Meres follows up May Contain Nuts and May Cause Irritation with another laugh-out-loud story about Norm, a boy who can't understand why everything always seems unfair...