The obits. It’s the first section many of us turn to when we open the paper, not to see who died, but rather to find out about who lived to discover the interesting lives of people who’ve made a mark. A new annual that collects nearly 300 of the best of The New York Times obituaries from the previous year, The Obits Annual 2012 is a compelling, addictive-as-salted-peanuts “who’s who” of some of the most fascinating people of the twentieth century. Written by top journalists each entry is a jewel, a miniature, nuanced biography filled with the facts we love to read, with the surprise and serendipity of life. There’s David L. Wolper, the producer of Roots—and the story of how he got his start purchasing film footage from Sputnik. The jazz singer, Abbey Lincoln, and her change from glamorous performer—she owned a dress of Marilyn Monroe’s—to civil rights activist (she burned the Monroe dress). Owsley Stanley, the quirky perfecter of LSD, who blamed a heart attack on the fact that his mother made him eat broccoli as a child. Patricia Neal—known by most as a movie star, but her real life, filled with tragedy, adversity, and incredible professional ups and downs, is almost a surreal play of triumph and tragedy. Arranged chronologically, like the obits themselves, it’s a deliciously random walk through the recent past, meeting the philosophers, newsmen, spies, publishers, moguls, soul singers, baseball managers, Nobel Prize winners, models, and others who’ve shaped the world.

Obituaries published in the New York times of notable individuals who died from August 2010 through July 2011.

You can do many things with NOOK HD right out of the box, but if you really want to get the most from your HD or HD+ tablet, start with this book. With clear instructions, full-color illustrations, and savvy advice from technology expert Preston Gralla, you’ll learn how to use email and the Web, watch movies and shows, play games, listen to music, and enjoy your personal ebook library. The important stuff you need to know: Relax with a book. Load your NOOK library with ebooks, comics, and interactive books for kids. Play with apps. Enjoy the games and apps everyone’s talking about. Go online. Browse the Web and check your email with built-in WiFi. Be social. Share books and recommendations with your NOOK Friends, and Facebook and Twitter contacts. Take in a show. Watch movies and TV series, and listen to your favorite music anywhere. Read all about it. Subscribe to a variety of magazines and newspapers.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Clear Thinking and Farnam Street founder, Shane Parrish. The third book in the timeless Great Mental Models series. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. Volume 3 of The Great Mental Models series focuses on systems and mathematics, simplifying more than twenty-four key concepts from these technical fields into easy-to-understand terms. It provides insights into the unseen mechanisms that influence our environment and teaches you how to apply these principles to benefit your life. Some of the mental models covered in this book include: Margin of Safety: Engineers design for extremes, not averages. To create a robust system, ensure a meaningful gap between what the system is capable of handling and what it is required to handle. Compounding: The most powerful force in the universe can work in domains other than money. The law of diminishing returns: Inputs to a system lead to more output, up until a point where each further unit of input will lead to a decreasing amount of output. Regression to the mean: Above- or below- average performance tends to correct towards the average over the long term. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.

Modern Sports around the World focuses on the history, geography, sociology, economics, and technological advancements of 50 sports played from India to Ireland. Sports have become an international spectacle that influences nations' foreign policy, world economies, and regional morale. Hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake as governments and multinational corporations rush to make sure they have a place at the table. And yet, sports come from humble beginnings. We are fascinated by who can run the fastest, lift the most weight, jump the highest, swim the farthest, and act with the most precision. The history of sports is the history of the world. Modern Sports around the World examines 50 of the world's most popular sports. Each chapter features one sport and details that sport's origins, global migration, economic forces, media influences, political environment, pop-culture inspirations, scandalous moments, and key individuals. Sports history is a tapestry of sociological variables; Modern Sports around the World weaves them together to create a unique history book that explains not only where humanity has been, but where it might be going.

Eat more steak, drink more whiskey, take more naps, lay off all the kale, and throw out your multivitamins and standing desk. In The Good News About What's Bad For You...The Bad News About What's Good for You author Jeff Wilser shares all the research that allows you to celebrate all your vices and stop feeling bad about not brushing your teeth after eating that extra slice of cake. This book has two sides to it: one sharing all the good news, then the flip side contains all the bad news, making this the perfect gift that people will want to share and commiserate over with friends. Told with wit, charm, and a large dose of humor, the author sprints through a broad range of topics-from coffee to green tea, tequila to Vitamin Water, to apologizing and swearing. Wilser sifts through each study to reveal everything from the merits of procrastination to the downsides of yoga. In an age where so many people bend over backwards in pursuit of the most healthy and "pure" lifestyle, The Good News/The Bad News reminds readers to stop denying yourself pleasure and brings back to the tried-and-true golden rule of "everything in moderation."

This book investigates the connections between socio-structural aspects, individual agency and happiness in contemporary Japan from a life course perspective. The contributors examine empirical data on the processes which impact how happiness and well-being are envisioned, crafted and debated in Japan across the life-cycle. The book discusses the shifting notions of happiness during people’s lives from birth to death, analyzing the age group-specific experiences while taking into consideration people's life trajectories and historical changes. It points also out recent developments in regards to demographic change, late marriage, and the changing labor market.

This three-volume set presents entries and primary sources that will impress on readers that what we do—or don't do—today regarding climate change will dramatically influence what life on this planet will be like for untold numbers of generations. How are the behaviors of birds, butterflies, and other migratory animals connected to climate change? What does the term "thermal inertia" mean, and what does this geophysical effect have on predicting what the planet's future will be like? What is the context for the effects we are seeing on various forms of animal life, from migrating birds to polar bears to mosquitoes that transmit Zika and other diseases? Climate Change: An Encyclopedia of Science, Society, and Solutions combines entries describing Earth's variable climatic history, references to scientific literature, weather record data, and selected primary documents to present readers with a comprehensive account of global warming's effects worldwide. By examining verifiable, quantitative information such as the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and changes in the hydrological cycle, as well as clear patterns and trends of alternating droughts and deluges and wildfires, melting ice, and rising seas, readers will be able to understand why scientists are so concerned about the future of our climate. Researchers will benefit from detailed explanations of scientific topics such as thermal inertia, feedbacks, and tipping points; and receive invaluable context on the role of energy use in climate change, including automobiles and air travel. Readers will learn about the role of China in the current global climate and in the future; the widespread effects of climate change on agriculture; and how indigenous peoples' lives are being impacted, from drought and the Navajos to hunters' lives in the Arctic. The work concludes with thought-provoking debates regarding potential solutions, from wind power and solar power to geo-engineering.

It is difficult to find an area of public policy more plagued by misunderstanding than energy policy. Even worse, every time the subject is raised, we are obligated to get mired in pointless arguments about the weather. This book helps set the record straight. Not convinced? Consider some of these inconvenient truths: The cost of green energy climate remediation is anywhere from 10 to 1,000 times greater than the damage from the climate change it attempts to alleviate. Obama's carbon tax would cost Americans $1.2 trillion over just ten years, but would only reduce the midrange three-degree modeled twenty-second-century global temperature increase by 0.038 degrees Celsius. This is not another skeptical global warming polemic, but an economic evaluation of how and why green energy will fail. A thoroughly researched, heavily documented book by an expert in his field, it will demonstrate in meticulous detail how wasteful and economically inefficient Obama's green energy future will be compared to other worthy alternatives.