A NPR, Electric Lit, and Entropy Best Book of the Year A Washington Post, Shondaland, NPR Books, Parade, Lit Hub, PureWow, Harper’s Bazaar, PopSugar, NYLON, Alta, Ms. Magazine, Debutiful and Good Housekeeping Best Book of Fall A perceptive and powerful debut of identity and belonging—of a young woman determined to be seen. Willa Chen has never quite fit in. Growing up as a biracial Chinese American girl in New Jersey, Willa felt both hypervisible and unseen, too Asian to fit in at her mostly white school, and too white to speak to the few Asian kids around. After her parents’ early divorce, they both remarried and started new families, and Willa grew up feeling outside of their new lives, too. For years, Willa does her best to stifle her feelings of loneliness, drifting through high school and then college as she tries to quiet the unease inside her. But when she begins working for the Adriens—a wealthy white family in Tribeca—as a nanny for their daughter, Bijou, Willa is confronted with all of the things she never had. As she draws closer to the family and eventually moves in with them, Willa finds herself questioning who she is, and revisiting a childhood where she never felt fully at home. Self-examining and fraught with the emotions of a family who fails and loves in equal measure, Win Me Something is a nuanced coming-of-age debut about the irreparable fissures between people, and a young woman who asks what it really means to belong, and how she might begin to define her own life.

Teresa Mandrell’s first encounter with advertising executive Rayann Germaine begins badly and goes downhill from there. Within minutes of their meeting, Rayann dubs Teresa a ” bumbling amateur” . The event changes the course of Teresa’s life—she abandons the corporate world for what she hopes is a more satisfying career in Fine Arts Management. When budget cuts leave her without work, Teresa gets a job as a design artist in another firm, only to discover that the new department head is…Rayann! But the difference in the woman’s demeanor is so startling that Teresa can’t believe her eyes. Although the woman she’d fought with had been insensitive and rude, she was full of fire and passion. This Rayann is cold and withdrawn. To Teresa’s chagrin, the woman doesn’t even remember their fight. In fact, the two fall easily into an increasingly harmonious work relationship. As they grow even closer, Teresa slowly uncovers layer after layer of Rayann’s hurt and pain. When she at last arrives at the terrible truth, Teresa is left with one burning question: How can she turn Rayann’s heart away from grief and lead her back toward life and love? Watermark is the heartbreaking and heartmending sequel to Touchwood.

'Reading Brodsky's essays is like a conversation with an immensely erudite, hugely entertaining and witty (and often very funny) interlocutor' Wall Street Journal Watermark is Joseph Brodsky's witty, intelligent, moving and elegant portrait of Venice. Looking at every aspect of the city, from its waterways, streets and architecture to its food, politics and people, Brodsky captures its magnificence and beauty, and recalls his own memories of the place he called home for many winters, as he remembers friends, lovers and enemies he has encountered. Above all, he reflects with great poetic force on how the rising tide of time affects city and inhabitants alike. Watermark is an unforgettable piece of writing, and a wonderful evocation of a remarkable, unique city. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

From Christy Ann Conlin, the critically acclaimed and award winning author of Heave, comes a breathtaking and unforgettable collection about how the briefest moment can shape us forever. In these evocative and startling stories, we meet people navigating the elemental forces of love, life, and death. An insomniac on Halifax’s moonlit streets. A runaway bride. A young woman accused of a brutal murder. A man who must live in exile if he is to live at all. A woman coming to terms with her eccentric childhood in a cult on the Bay of Fundy shore. A master of North Atlantic Gothic, Christy Ann Conlin expertly navigates our conflicting self-perceptions, especially in moments of crisis. She illuminates the personality of land and ocean, charts the pull of the past on the present, and reveals the wildness inside each of us. These stories offer a gallery of both gritty and lyrical portraits, each unmasking the myth and mystery of the everyday.

Matt Frazier's discovery in the post-hurricane wreckage of his Gulfport, Mississippi home puts him at the center of a conspiracy, leaving Matt to rely on a small group of friends and family to help keep him safe and alive.

“Watermark is a powerful novel about the destructive forces unleashed by ignorance and superstition. Readers will care deeply for the courageous Auda.” —New York Times bestselling author Sharon Kay Penman Watermark is a magnificent debut by Vanitha Sankaran—an atmospheric and compelling novel about the search for identity, the power of self-expression, and value of the written word, set during the dark days of the Inquisition in Medieval France. Readers who were captivated by The Illuminator by Brenda Rickman Vantrease or Geraldine Brooks’s People of the Book will be enthralled by this thrilling journey to a colorful and dangerous past.

"An exploration of depictions and use of water within Renaissance Italy, and especially in the work of polymath Leonardo da Vinci. Both a practical necessity and a powerful symbol, water presents one of the most challenging problems in visual art due to its formlessness, clarity, and mutability. In Renaissance Italy, it was a nearly inexhaustible subject of inquiry for artists, engineers, and architects alike: it represented an element to be productively harnessed and a force of untamed nature. Watermarks places the depiction and use of water within an intellectual history of early modern Italy, examining the parallel technological and aesthetic challenges of mastering water and the scientific and artistic practices that emerged in response to them. Focusing primarily on the wide-ranging work of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)-at once an artist, scientist, and inventor-Leslie Geddes shows how the deployment of artistic media, such as ink and watercolor, closely correlated with the engineering challenges of controlling water in the natural world. For da Vinci and his peers, she argues, drawing was an essential form of visual thinking. Geddes analyses a wide range of da Vinci's subject matter, including machine drawings, water management schemes, and depictions of the natural landscape, and demonstrates how drawing-as an intellectual practice, a form of scientific investigation, and a visual representation-constituted a distinct mode of problem solving integral to his understanding of the natural environment. Throughout, Geddes draws important connections between works by da Vinci that have long been overlooked, the artistic and engineering practices of his day, and critical questions about the nature of seeing and depicting the almost unseeable during the early modern period"--

Digital audio, video, images, and documents are flying through cyberspace to their respective owners. Unfortunately, along the way, individuals may choose to intervene and take this content for themselves. Digital watermarking and steganography technology greatly reduces the instances of this by limiting or eliminating the ability of third parties to decipher the content that he has taken. The many techiniques of digital watermarking (embedding a code) and steganography (hiding information) continue to evolve as applications that necessitate them do the same. The authors of this second edition provide an update on the framework for applying these techniques that they provided researchers and professionals in the first well-received edition. Steganography and steganalysis (the art of detecting hidden information) have been added to a robust treatment of digital watermarking, as many in each field research and deal with the other. New material includes watermarking with side information, QIM, and dirty-paper codes. The revision and inclusion of new material by these influential authors has created a must-own book for anyone in this profession. - This new edition now contains essential information on steganalysis and steganography - New concepts and new applications including QIM introduced - Digital watermark embedding is given a complete update with new processes and applications

Perfect for fans of Andrew Clements and The Borrowers, By the Grace of Todd is the laugh-out-loud answer to what happens if you leave dirty laundry on the floor . . . and don’t follow your mother’s instructions to clean your room. Twelve-year-old Todd has created life through sheer grossness. How did he become an accidental god? Ingredient A: A worn athletic sock Ingredient B: Dirt from the Great and Powerful Todd himself Instructions: Leave under bed for months. Do not clean room. Yields: 50 ant-sized Toddlians BUT WATCH OUT! When school bully Max Loving puts the future of the tiny Toddlians in jeopardy, Todd will have to do everything in his power to save the race his very negligence created.

If you’re aspiring to satisfy your customers, then you’re aspiring to mediocrity. That’s the fascinating premise of From Impressed to Obsessed, a book that will fundamentally change how you think about creating a successful, beloved business. Acclaimed customer experience expert Jon Picoult explains why building customer loyalty requires leaving indelible positive impressions on everyone you work with—not just shaping their experiences, but also shaping their memories. Picoult explores the cognitive science behind great customer experiences, pinpointing the breakthrough, psychology-based strategies that both industry leaders (like Apple, Disney, and Southwest Airlines) as well as fast-growing startups (like BILT and Framebridge) use to shape people’s perceptions and sculpt unforgettable impressions—thereby turning more sales prospects into customers, and more customers into obsessed brand ambassadors. Packed with intriguing case studies, engaging stories, and eye-opening research, the book details these proven principles and illustrates how they can be applied to almost any type of business or customer. Examples include cases that show how to: • Create Peaks & Avoid Valleys—leverage the science of memory to etch positive impressions in people’s minds, by creating greater experiential peaks and fewer experiential valleys. • Give the Perception of Control—the almost magical power of giving customers a sense of agency, via choice and expectation-setting, causing them to feel better about the experience a business is already delivering. • Make It Effortless—make interactions easy for customers, not just from a physical perspective, but also a cognitive one, to satisfy today’s demand for simplicity and convenience. • Stir Emotion—harness the power of emotion as a memory cue, by infusing customer experiences with emotional resonance, highlighting positive feelings while stemming negative ones. No matter what kind of constituency you serve—customers or colleagues, individuals or institutions, employees or employment candidates—this book will help you do it with distinction. Picoult’s message is particularly relevant for managers, as he shows the parallels between how great companies cultivate engagement with customers, and how great leaders accomplish the same with their workforce. From Impressed to Obsessed reveals the what, the why, and—most importantly—the how behind great customer experiences. Filled with actionable insights, the book provides an invaluable roadmap for becoming the company that everyone wants to do business with, the employer everyone wants to work for, and the leader everyone wants to follow.