Note: Inside illustrations are in black-and-white for this paperback version. For full color illustrations, check out the other edition of the paperback. Disillusioned businessman, John Lawrence Locke, finds himself summoned as a hero to another world, filled with monsters and magic! With his body reverted to the age of fifteen, the thirty-three-year-old's mind is filled with the possibility of battles and adventures, like the ones in his favorite video games. Unfortunately for him, life isn't also so convenient. Betrayed by the very people who summoned him, he's condemned as the False Hero and forced to flee for his life. Alone in an unfamiliar world and hunted by all of humanity, he takes on the alias of Lutz and uses his gaming knowledge to quickly adapt to the world's strangely game-like mechanics.

Best known for his Buddhist teachings, Thich Nhat Hanh has lived in exile from his native Vietnam since 1966. These remarkable early journals reveal not only an exquisite portrait of the Zen master as a young man, but the emergence of a great poet and literary voice of Vietnam. From his years as a student and teaching assistant at Princeton and Columbia, to his efforts to negotiate peace and a better life for the Vietnamese, Fragrant Palm Leaves offers an elegant and profound glimpse into the heart and mind of one of the world's most beloved spiritual teachers.

In his latest book, bestselling author Gregory Michie critiques high-stakes schooling and provides a powerful alternative vision of teaching as a humanistic enterprise, students as multidimensional beings, and schools as spaces where young people can imagine and become, not just achieve. Drawing on his experiences over the past two decades as a classroom teacher, community volunteer, researcher, and teacher educator in Chicago's public schools, Michie offers compelling accounts of teaching and learning in urban America. Mindful of the complex realities educators face, he portrays urban schools as they really are: sites of struggle, hope, and possibility. At a time when others relentlessly trumpet a competitive, data-driven, corporatized notion of education, the essays in We Don't Need Another Hero challenge the dominant images of failing urban schools and bad teachers. Like Michie's now classic Holler If You Hear Me, this book gives much-needed hope to new and seasoned teachers alike. It is also an important resource for school administrators, policymakers, parents, and anyone who wants to better understand what is really happening in American schools. Gregory Michie teaches in the Department of Foundations and Social Policy at Concordia University Chicago. He is the bestselling author of Holler If You Hear Me: The Education of a Teacher and His Students, Second Edition, and See You When We Get There: Teaching for Change in Urban Schools. “Greg Michie is right: we don't need another hero. The heroes are already there: they are our students, as well as the teachers and administrators who have a passion for justice.Those are the voices we must heed.” —From the Foreword by Sonia Nieto, professor emerita, University of Massachusetts, Amherst “There is no writer working today who captures the excruciating complexity of a life in teaching with as much grace and clarity as Gregory Michie. These everyday heroes are the heart of teaching and the soul of democracy.” —William Ayers, educator and bestselling author of To Teach, Third Edition and Teaching the Taboo “Gregory Michie's experiences in the classroom and his purview post-teaching make this a good peek into the thoughts of a man willing to challenge the current notions of education reform. Rather than sit in frustration over the current tenor surrounding these so-called reforms, Michie seeks meaningful progress and solutions.” —Jose Luis Vilson, NYC Public School lead teacher and writer at TheJoseVilson.com

If you love the danger and sword-fighting of MERLIN, you'll like this! In a discontent kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king's long-lost son and install him as a puppet prince. Four orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner's motives are more than questionable, yet his life balances on a sword's point - he must be chosen to play the prince or he will certainly be killed. As Sage's journey continues, layer upon layer of treachery and deceit unfold, until finally a truth is revealed that proves more dangerous than all of the lies put together.

According to the hundreds of emails and multiple great comments on my YouTube channel that I have received, people have been asking me the almost identical question, as to how would they go about tracing their family's genealogical background by records. Some of these people have stated that they have attempted to start their own research, but they tend to quit abruptly due to the lack of supporting instructions or directions as to where they should look next. Also, I took notice to many people stating that they have since researched the information and sources that I have previously presented, concerning those famously known genealogy DNA testing companies, who are blatantly and consistently producing fictitious test results, but promoting the results as if they are creditable and factual records of information, surrounding your actual genealogical historic background. When that is absolutely not true. Those constant contacts from people that I have received, led me to put together this very informative instructional reference book that will assist those in need of guidelines, as to how the beautiful journey of learning and researching one's historic background should go step by step from start to finish.

The 90-Day Screenplay is a day-by-day guide through the process of outlining, writing, and polishing a screenplay in three months.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.

One of our most brilliantly iconoclastic playwrights takes on the art of profession of acting with these words: invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school. Acting schools, “interpretation,” “sense memory,” “The Method”—David Mamet takes a jackhammer to the idols of contemporary acting, while revealing the true heroism and nobility of the craft. He shows actors how to undertake auditions and rehearsals, deal with agents and directors, engage audiences, and stay faithful to the script, while rejecting the temptations that seduce so many of their colleagues. Bracing in its clarity, exhilarating in its common sense, True and False is as shocking as it is practical, as witty as it is instructive, and as irreverent as it is inspiring.

A National Indie Bestseller An NPR Best Book of the Year A New York Times Best Book of the Year An Amazon Best Book of the Year A Booklist Editors' Choice A BookPage Best Book of the Year A NECBA Windows & Mirrors Selection A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year A Today.com Best of the Year PRAISE "A modern masterpiece." —The New York Times Book Review "Supple, sparkling and original." —The Wall Street Journal "Mesmerizing." —TODAY.com "This book could change the world." —BookPage "Like nothing else you've read or ever will read." —Linda Sue Park "It hooks you right from the opening line." —NPR SEVEN STARRED REVIEWS ★ "A modern epic." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review ★ "A rare treasure of a book." —Publishers Weekly, starred review ★ "A story that soars." —The Bulletin, starred review ★ "At once beautiful and painful." —School Library Journal, starred review ★ "Raises the literary bar in children's lit." —Booklist, starred review ★ "Poignant and powerful." —Foreword Reviews, starred review ★ "One of the most extraordinary books of the year." —BookPage, starred review A sprawling, evocative, and groundbreaking autobiographical novel told in the unforgettable and hilarious voice of a young Iranian refugee. It is a powerfully layered novel that poses the questions: Who owns the truth? Who speaks it? Who believes it? "A patchwork story is the shame of the refugee," Nayeri writes early in the novel. In an Oklahoman middle school, Khosrou (whom everyone calls Daniel) stands in front of a skeptical audience of classmates, telling the tales of his family's history, stretching back years, decades, and centuries. At the core is Daniel's story of how they became refugees—starting with his mother's vocal embrace of Christianity in a country that made such a thing a capital offense, and continuing through their midnight flight from the secret police, bribing their way onto a plane-to-anywhere. Anywhere becomes the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy, and then finally asylum in the U.S. Implementing a distinct literary style and challenging western narrative structures, Nayeri deftly weaves through stories of the long and beautiful history of his family in Iran, adding a richness of ancient tales and Persian folklore. Like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights in a hostile classroom, Daniel spins a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. EVERYTHING SAD IS UNTRUE (a true story) is a tale of heartbreak and resilience and urges readers to speak their truth and be heard.