PERFECT HUSBANDS ARE MADE, NOT BORN LADIES: At long last, a practical guide to help your man become the perfect husband. How to Iron Your Own Damn Shirt is your salvation, with simple, easy-for-a-guy-to-follow instructions on those little things you can never get him to do, such as: • How to Put the Toilet Seat Down • How to Stop Snoring • How to Ask for Directions • Plus, more than 50 other essential topics (even How to Dance at a Wedding) It’s a must-have guide that will finally convince him it’s in his best interest to make you happy, no matter what it takes. GUYS: Don’t panic. It’s not how perfect you are, it’s how perfect she thinks you are. How to Iron Your Own Damn Shirt is your key to the castle. Imagine what she’ll let you get away with if you master a few skills, such as: • How to Appear Calm While She’s Driving • How to Apologize Convincingly • How to Enjoy a Chick Flick • Plus, more than 50 other essential topics (even How to Hide Your Porn) How to Iron Your Own Damn Shirt includes countless tips and tricks for keeping you sane, keeping her happy, and keeping you both laughing.

Winner of: The Pulitzer Prize The National Book Critics Circle Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Jon Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize A Time Magazine #1 Fiction Book of the Year One of the best books of 2007 according to: The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, People, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Salon, Baltimore City Paper, The Christian Science Monitor, Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, New York Public Library, and many more... Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere—and risk it all—in the name of love.

Praise for Willie's Way: "Willie's Way is a fascinating compilation of real-life customer service stories that actually make a difference. It's about building your brand one customer at a time. Read how enthusiasm, confidence, and sincerity can impact your customers, grow revenues, and impact your bottom line. This is the best book I've read on customer service in a long time." --Joe Scarlett Chairman of the Board Tractor Supply Company "Wow! Willie's Way is simply infectious. Every reader is sure to find the six secrets to be very practical. In fact, they leave us without excuse. Without a doubt, Willie's Way has the power to transform an organization from one delivering mediocre customer service to one performing at the top." --Chris Strippelhoff Vice President-Member Services Municipal Gas Authority of Georgia "Van Hooser absolutely hit the bull's-eye with an outstanding instruction manual about the keys to extraordinary customer service. I have no doubt that companies and customer service professionals across virtually every industry will find value and fresh new insights in the pages of this brilliantly written gem." --Richard G. Kelley Director of Sales Training, North America Axcan Pharma, Inc.

Explains that the selling of ideas is a matter of encouraging others to share one's beliefs in a guide for salespeople that invites readers to self-assess their persuasion personality and build on natural strengths.

A #1 New York Times Bestseller! Based on their #1 kids podcast, Wow in the World, hosts Mindy Thomas and Guy Raz take readers on a hilarious, fact-filled, and highly illustrated journey through the human body—covering everything from our toes to our tongues to our brains and our lungs! WHY in the world do I have a belly button? And WHAT in the world does it do? WHEN in the world will my nose stop growing? And HOW in the world does my pee keep flowing? The human body is a fascinating piece of machinery. It's full of mystery, and wonder, and WOW. And it turns out, every single human on the planet has one! Join Mindy Thomas and Guy Raz, hosts of the mega-popular Wow in the World podcast, as they take you on a fact-filled adventure from your toes and your tongues to your brain and your lungs. Featuring hilarious illustrations and filled with facts, jokes, photos, quizzes, and Wow-To experiments, The How and Wow of the Human Body has everything you need to better understand your own walking, talking, barfing, breathing, pooping body of WOW!

Destroy the competition on game night with this seriously funny guide packed with handy strategy, tricks, and tips from the experts Games are way more fun to play when you win—especially when you crush your friends and family! In How to Win Games and Beat People, Times science editor Tom Whipple explores inside tips, strategy, and advice from a ridiculously overqualified array of experts that will help you dominate the competition when playing a wide range of classic games—from Hangman to Risk to Trivial Pursuit and more. A mathematician explains how to approach Connect 4; a racecar driver guides you through the corners in slot car racing; a mime shares trade secrets for performing the best Charades; a Scrabble champion reveals his secret strategies; and a game theorist teaches you to become a real estate magnate, recommending the Monopoly properties to acquire that will bankrupt and embarrass your opponents (sorry, Mom and Dad). Funny, smart, and endlessly useful, this is a must-read for anyone who takes games too seriously, and the bible for sore losers everywhere.

A grieving widow discovers a most unexpected form of healing—hunting for mushrooms. “Moving . . . Long tells the story of finding hope after despair lightly and artfully, with self-effacement and so much gentle good nature.”—The New York Times Long Litt Woon met Eiolf a month after arriving in Norway from Malaysia as an exchange student. They fell in love, married, and settled into domestic bliss. Then Eiolf’s unexpected death at fifty-four left Woon struggling to imagine a life without the man who had been her partner and anchor for thirty-two years. Adrift in grief, she signed up for a beginner’s course on mushrooming—a course the two of them had planned to take together—and found, to her surprise, that the pursuit of mushrooms rekindled her zest for life. The Way Through the Woods tells the story of parallel journeys: an inner one, through the landscape of mourning, and an outer one, into the fascinating realm of mushrooms—resilient, adaptable, and essential to nature’s cycle of death and rebirth. From idyllic Norwegian forests and urban flower beds to the sandy beaches of Corsica and New York’s Central Park, Woon uncovers an abundance of surprises often hidden in plain sight: salmon-pink Bloody Milk Caps, which ooze red liquid when cut; delectable morels, prized for their earthy yet delicate flavor; and bioluminescent mushrooms that light up the forest at night. Along the way, she discovers the warm fellowship of other mushroom obsessives, and finds that giving her full attention to the natural world transforms her, opening a way for her to survive Eiolf’s death, to see herself anew, and to reengage with life. Praise for The Way Through the Woods “In her search for new meaning in life after the death of her husband, Long Litt Woon undertook the study of mushrooms. What she found in the woods, and expresses with such tender joy in this heartfelt memoir, was nothing less than salvation.”—Eugenia Bone, author of Mycophilia and Microbia

The Complete Book of Ferns is filled with botanical information, indoor and outdoor growing and care information, details on propagation, display ideas, and even craft projects. This gorgeous book is authored by Mobee Weinstein, the Foreman of Gardeners at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx and a veteran guest on the Martha Stewart Living TV show and other media outlets. Houseplants in general are in ascendance, but no category is hotter than ferns. From the otherworldly Staghorns—mounted like antler trophies in homes throughout the world—to the classic Boston Ferns and newer varieties like Crispy Wave, ferns are definitely back in fashion. And to no one’s surprise. After all, ferns are among the very oldest plants on the planet, with a long and storied history. There are tens of thousands of known varieties of ferns. In the Victorian Era, ferns created an absolute craze for more than 50 years. They re-emerged as integral home décor accessories in the '50s and '60s, and who didn’t spend time in a "Fern Bar" back in the '80s? And they are back again. This comprehensive reference starts its examination of ferns 400 million years ago, when the first species of this group of spore-reproducing plants appeared on Earth, exploring their evolution and eventual incorporation into human culture, including the powers associated with them and their practical and ornamental uses. Then, after an exploration of fern botany—its parts, how it grows, its variability in size and form, habitats, propagation, etc.—you'll learn how to green your indoor and outdoor environments with ferns. Every aspect of fern care is covered: potting/planting, watering, fertilizing, pest and disease control, and more. With this knowledge absorbed, explore creative planting projects, like terrariums, vertical gardens (living walls), mixed tabletop gardens, and moss baskets. To make your survey of ferns complete, create pressed fern art, fabric wall hangings with chlorophyll-stained designs, cyanotypes, and hand-made fern-decorated paper. In the end, you will understand why this ancient plant class continues to be all the rage.

Looking to improve your customer experience? These 68 strategies will show you how to stand out from your competitors, whatever your business. Full of practical tips, inspiring insights and interviews with a wide range of leaders and entrepreneurs, How to Wow reveals all you need to deliver a world-class customer experience. Covering both the customer and business side of the equation, you’ll learn how to attract new customers, design a leading customer experience and quickly resolve a wide range of problems, plus much more. Don’t let your business fall behind, look inside and take your customer experience to the next level. “Essential and powerful insights for everyone who aspires to map out and enhance the customer journey and drive growth.” Keith Lewis, COO, Matchtech Group plc “At last – a book that provides practical ways of delivering the superior experience that today’s customers demand.” Olivier Njamfa, Co-Founder and CEO of customer experience software company Eptica

From the New York Times columnist, a portrait of a family and the cycles of joy and grief that mark the natural world: “Has the makings of an American classic.” —Ann Patchett Growing up in Alabama, Margaret Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents—her exuberant, creative mother; her steady, supportive father—and of the bittersweet moments that accompany a child’s transition to caregiver. And here, braided into the overall narrative, Renkl offers observations on the world surrounding her suburban Nashville home. Ringing with rapture and heartache, these essays convey the dignity of bluebirds and rat snakes, monarch butterflies and native bees. As these two threads haunt and harmonize with each other, Renkl suggests that there is astonishment to be found in common things: in what seems ordinary, in what we all share. For in both worlds—the natural one and our own—“the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only love’s own twin.” Gorgeously illustrated by the author’s brother, Billy Renkl, Late Migrations is an assured and memorable debut. “Magnificent . . . Readers will savor each page and the many gems of wisdom they contain.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)