Acquiring skills and nurturing talents are attributes that must be inculcated and embraced in homes, schools, work, and play by children, young, and older adults alike everywhere in the world. The title of the book, Acquiring Skills and Nurturing Talent, chronicles my life story. It presents the details of my family experiences, education, work, and community engagement. I have worked and traveled extensively in America, Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Liberia), Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia (Singapore, China), and other parts of the world. The book illustrates the important role that acquiring skills and nurturing talents, such as technical skills, artistic skills, sports skills, language skills, and entrepreneurial skills, play in instilling self-development. They also facilitate community empowerment and contribute immensely toward the complex and difficult enterprise of nation building. Chapters 1 through 7 is the autobiographical narrative. In the remaining chapters 7 through 15, the book provides a group of lectures, presentations, and some prior publications, whose contents vividly and fully describe my activities. They offer tremendous insight into how I went about putting into practice my strong belief in the value of acquiring skills for the purpose of self-development, community empowerment, and nation building. Chapter 16 is a photo gallery of a portion of my larger extended family. They are spread around the world. It is said that "a picture is worth a thousand words." So I have included lots of pictures to bring the narratives to life.

Acquiring skills and nurturing talents are attributes that must be inculcated and embraced in homes, schools, work, and play by children, young, and older adults alike everywhere in the world. The title of the book, Acquiring Skills and Nurturing Talent, chronicles my life story. It presents the details of my family experiences, education, work, and community engagement. I have worked and traveled extensively in America, Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Liberia), Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia (Singapore, China), and other parts of the world. The book illustrates the important role that acquiring skills and nurturing talents, such as technical skills, artistic skills, sports skills, language skills, and entrepreneurial skills, play in instilling self-development. They also facilitate community empowerment and contribute immensely toward the complex and difficult enterprise of nation building. Chapters 1 through 7 is the autobiographical narrative. In the remaining chapters 7 through 15, the book provides a group of lectures, presentations, and some prior publications, whose contents vividly and fully describe my activities. They offer tremendous insight into how I went about putting into practice my strong belief in the value of acquiring skills for the purpose of self-development, community empowerment, and nation building. Chapter 16 is a photo gallery of a portion of my larger extended family. They are spread around the world. It is said that "a picture is worth a thousand words." So I have included lots of pictures to bring the narratives to life.

#1 New York Times bestseller “Barry will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history.”—Bill Gates "Monumental... an authoritative and disturbing morality tale."—Chicago Tribune The strongest weapon against pandemic is the truth. Read why in the definitive account of the 1918 Flu Epidemic. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, The Great Influenza provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. As Barry concludes, "The final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that...those in authority must retain the public's trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best. A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete. Only then will people be able to break it apart." At the height of World War I, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease.

"In Moving: A Memoir of Education and Social Mobility author Andy Hargreaves tells the story of his working-class roots, his education, and his experiences with social mobility. Beginning with his youth in the small working-class town of Accrington in Northern England and ending with his experiences at University, the author relates his journey through the education system and all that education has done for him. The author describes what it means to be working-class, his personal successes and failures, and the ways that education allowed him to lift himself out of poverty. However, he also describes the ways that many others were left behind and never given the chance to be socially mobile. The author believes that there are lessons that can be learned from his experience of social mobility and that these lessons can be applied to society at large. In particular, educators can use these lessons to encourage and support students' social mobility and increase the number of students who can become socially mobile. These lessons can also be used to create schools that are kinder to working-class students and to students who are socially mobile. Readers will connect to the engaging, heart-felt story of the author's life and, through it, learn about the reality of social mobility, how it is experienced, and how it can be supported"--

You don't have to change your life overnight--instead, you can make small changes that leave a lasting impact. In The 2% Way, discover the simple, revolutionary practice behind the against-the-odds success story of Dr. Myron L. Rolle. Dr. Rolle has led a remarkable life: from earning a scholarship to a prestigious private high school to becoming a top-rated recruit at Florida State University; from winning the Rhodes Scholarship for study at Oxford to playing football in the NFL and then becoming a neurosurgery resident at Harvard. In this inspiring book, Dr. Rolle tells the story of his incredible journey, revealing how a strong work ethic, deep faith, and the family values instilled by his Bahamian immigrant parents set the stage for the transformative life philosophy that enabled him to overcome adversity, defy expectations, and create a life of meaning and purpose. Whether you're struggling with your own obstacles, looking to improve yourself, searching for your purpose and identity, or seeking inspiration, Dr. Rolle's story will give you the encouragement and tools you need to: Make incremental improvements that lead to long-lasting results Build a life full of purpose and meaning Tackle life with the assurance that you're moving in the right direction The 2% Way will change the way you think about self-improvement, proving that you have the power to make strides toward the life you've always dreamed of.

A classic memoir that's gripping, funny, and ultimately unforgettable from the bestselling former National Ambassador of Books for Young People. A strong choice for summer reading—an engaging and powerful autobiographical exploration of growing up a so-called "bad boy" in Harlem in the 1940s. As a boy, Myers was quick-tempered and physically strong, always ready for a fight. He also read voraciously—he would check out books from the library and carry them home, hidden in brown paper bags in order to avoid other boys' teasing. He aspired to be a writer (and he eventually succeeded). But as his hope for a successful future diminished, the values he had been taught at home, in school, and in his community seemed worthless, and he turned to the streets and to his books for comfort. Don’t miss this memoir by New York Times bestselling author Walter Dean Myers, one of the most important voices of our time.

In this inspiring memoir, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush recounts the lessons he learned from his small Southern hometown. Welcome to Madison Park, a small community in Alabama founded by freed slaves in 1880. Eric Motley came of age in this remarkable place, where lessons in self-determination, hope, and an unceasing belief in the American dream taught him everything he needed for his life’s journey—a journey that led him to the Oval Office as a Special Assistant to President George W. Bush. Eric grew up among people who believed in giving and never turning away from a neighbor’s need. There was Aunt Shine, the goodly matriarch who cared so much about young Motley’s schooling that she would stand up in a crowded church and announce Eric’s progress—or shortcomings; Old Man Salery, who secretly siphoned gasoline from his beat-up car into the Motleys’ tank at night; Motley’s grandparents, who spent the last of their seed money on books for Eric; and Reverend Brinkley, a man of enormous faith and simple living. It was said that whenever the Reverend came your way, light abounded. Life in Madison Park wasn’t always easy or fair, and Motley reveals personal and heartbreaking stories of racial injustice and segregation. But Eric shows how the community taught him everything he needed to know about love and faith.

National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “A deeply reported, deeply personal history of Zionism and Israel that does something few books even attempt: It balances the strength and weakness, the idealism and the brutality, the hope and the horror, that has always been at Zionism’s heart.”—Ezra Klein, The New York Times Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Ari Shavit’s riveting work, now updated with new material, draws on historical documents, interviews, and private diaries and letters, as well as his own family’s story, to create a narrative larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and of profound historical dimension. As he examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, Shavit asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can it survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. Shavit’s analysis of Israeli history provides a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.