In this taut and thrilling debut, an unraveling woman, unhappily childless and recently separated, becomes fixated on her neighbor--the beautiful, famous actress. The unnamed narrator can't help noticing with wry irony that, though she and the actress live just a few doors apart, they are separated by a chasm of professional success and personal fulfillment. When an interaction with the actress at the annual block party takes a disastrous turn, what began as an innocent preoccupation spirals quickly, and lethally, into a frightening and irretrievable madness.

*Featured on Best of Lists in Vogue, People, Entertainment Weekly, Real Simple, Southern Living, and more* In this “wicked slow burn” (Entertainment Weekly) of psychological suspense from the author of How Can I Help You, a woman becomes fixated on her neighbor—the actress. Though the two women live just a few doors apart, a chasm lies between them. The actress, a celebrity with a charmed career, shares a gleaming brownstone with her handsome husband and three adorable children, while the recently separated narrator, unhappily childless and stuck in a dead-end job, lives in a run-down, three-story walk-up with her ex-husband’s cat. As her fascination with her famous neighbor grows, the narrator’s hold on reality begins to slip. Before long, she’s collecting cast-off items from the actress’s stoop and fantasizing about sleeping with the actress’s husband. After a disastrous interaction with the actress at the annual block party, what began as an innocent preoccupation turns into a stunning—and irrevocable—unraveling. A riveting portrait of obsession, Looker is “a sugarcoated poison pill of psychological terror” (The Wall Street Journal) and an immersive and darkly entertaining read—“by the end you’ll be gasping” (People).

From 1968 to 1972, St. Louis was home to the Black Artists' Group (BAG), a seminal arts collective that nurtured African American experimentalists involved with theater, visual arts, dance, poetry, and jazz. Inspired by the reinvigorated black cultural nationalism of the 1960s, artistic collectives had sprung up around the country in a diffuse outgrowth known as the Black Arts Movement. These impulses resonated with BAG's founders, who sought to raise black consciousness and explore the far reaches of interdisciplinary performance--all while struggling to carve out a place within the context of St. Louis history and culture.A generation of innovative artists--Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, and Emilio Cruz, to name but a few--created a moment of intense and vibrant cultural life in an abandoned industrial building on Washington Avenue, surrounded by the evisceration that typified that decade's "urban crisis." The 1960s upsurge in political art blurred the lines between political involvement and artistic production, and debates over civil rights, black nationalism, and the role of the arts in political and cultural struggles all found form in BAG. This book narrates the group's development against the backdrop of St. Louis spaces and institutions, examines the work of its major artists, and follows its musicians to Paris and on to New York, where they played a dominant role in Lower Manhattan's 1970s "loft jazz" scene. By fusing social concern and artistic innovation, the group significantly reshaped the St. Louis and, by extension, the American arts landscape.

Use Looker for visualizing data, data analysis, and reporting, and learn how to connect to your data, build dashboards and reports, and share insights with your team Key Features Explore data visualization, analysis, and reporting with Looker to gain insights from your data Connect to data sources, build dashboards, and create reports to track and share key metrics Share insights with your team to make better business decisions Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Book DescriptionLooker is a data analytics and business intelligence platform that allows organizations to explore, analyze, and visualize their data. It provides tools for data modeling, exploration, and visualization, enabling you to gain insights from your data to make informed business decisions. You’ll start with the basics, from setting up your Looker environments to configuring views and models using LookML. As you progress, you’ll delve into more advanced topics, such as navigating data in Explore, tailoring dashboards to your needs, and adding dynamic elements for interactivity. Along the way, you'll gain invaluable troubleshooting skills to tackle common issues and optimize your Looker usage, ensuring a smooth and seamless experience. Furthermore, the book extends your understanding beyond the basics, equipping you with the knowledge you need to develop Looker applications and seamlessly integrate them with other tools and applications. You'll also explore advanced techniques for harnessing Looker's full potential, empowering you to establish data-driven decision-making and innovation within your organization. By the end of this BI book, you'll have gained a solid understanding of how to use Looker to find important information, make tasks easier, and derive important insights.What you will learn Understand Looker's key components, including LookML, data models, and dashboards. Explore Looker's functionality, including custom fields, calculations, and visualizations. Work with Looker dashboards using dynamic elements like links and actions. Use different types of filters for dimensions to create dashboards Develop Looker applications using essential tools and frameworks Explore additional applications for the Looker organization Integrate Looker with other tools using APIs, connectors, and data pipelines Who this book is for If you’re a business analyst, data analyst, or BI developer who wants to get well-versed with the features of Looker, this book is for you. Basic knowledge of business intelligence is required to get started.

Apply data storytelling concepts and analytical thinking to create dashboards and reports in Looker Studio to aid data-driven decision making Key FeaturesGain a solid understanding of data visualization principles and learn to apply them effectivelyGet to grips with the concepts and features of Looker Studio to create powerful data storiesExplore the end-to-end process of building dashboards with the help of practical examplesBook Description Presenting data visually makes it easier for organizations and individuals to interpret and analyze information. Looker Studio is an easy-to-use, collaborative tool that enables you to transform your data into engaging visualizations. This allows you to build and share dashboards that help monitor key performance indicators, identify patterns, and generate insights to ultimately drive decisions and actions. Data Storytelling with Looker Studio begins by laying out the foundational design principles and guidelines that are essential to creating accurate, effective, and compelling data visualizations. Next, you'll delve into features and capabilities of Looker Studio – from basic to advanced – and explore their application with examples. The subsequent chapters walk you through building dashboards with a structured three-stage process called the 3D approach using real-world examples that'll help you understand the various design and implementation considerations. This approach involves determining the objectives and needs of the dashboard, designing its key components and layout, and developing each element of the dashboard. By the end of this book, you will have a solid understanding of the storytelling approach and be able to create data stories of your own using Looker Studio. What you will learnUnderstand what storytelling with data means, and explore its various formsDiscover the 3D approach to building dashboards – determine, design, and developTest common data visualization pitfalls and learn how to mitigate themGet up and running with Looker Studio and leverage it to explore and visualize dataExplore the advanced features of Looker Studio with examplesBecome well-versed in the step-by-step process of the 3D approach using practical examplesMeasure and monitor the usage patterns of your Looker Studio reportsWho this book is for If you are a beginner or an aspiring data analyst looking to understand the core concepts of data visualization and want to use Looker Studio for creating effective dashboards, this book is for you. No specific prior knowledge is needed to understand the concepts present in this book. Experienced data analysts and business intelligence developers will also find this book useful as a detailed guide to using Looker Studio as well as a refresher of core dashboarding concepts.

Building Interactive Business Intelligence Dashboards with Google Looker: Beginner's Practical Guide Unlock the power of your data and transform it into actionable insights with this beginner-friendly guide to Google Looker. Learn how to connect to diverse data sources, transform raw data into meaningful metrics, and create visually stunning, interactive dashboards that drive informed decision-making. This book is your roadmap to mastering Looker's intuitive interface and powerful features, enabling you to uncover hidden patterns, track key performance indicators, and communicate your findings effectively. Whether you're a business analyst, marketer, or data enthusiast, this practical guide will empower you to harness the full potential of Google Looker and elevate your business intelligence capabilities.

Jefferson’s years in France as minister plenipotentiary were a time of large edification. He approached his ministry as a “looker on”: Jefferson, while in France, always kept a critical distance from events, so that he could measure and critically examine them from the perspective of a dispassionate natural philosopher. Being dispassionate, Jefferson was pulled into events only insofar as circumstances required him to do so. Yet his “adventures” from his critical distance (e.g., his trip to London to meet the king, his ventures in the salons of Paris, and his travels through Southern France, Northern Italy, the Rhineland, and the Netherlands) were many, and varied. He even, at times, lost his critical, looker-on perspective from distance as he allowed himself to become immersed in events, as in the case of his relationship with lovely Italian artist and musician Maria Cosway.... > This book is a portal into the mind of Thomas Jefferson, as looker-on, during his tenure in Paris. Why was Jefferson so eager to accept the ministry to Paris? What was his impression of the great city and its people while he stayed? What lessons, while in Paris, did he learn which he could transport to Virginia and his country? Those and other questions Holowchak aims to answer in this book.