Think quickly on your feet: be smooth, funny, and clever – all at once. Goodbye awkward silences, hello conversational agility! No matter where you lie on the spectrum of awkward to engaging, witty banter is always the end goal – and it should be. Witty banter, and all the steps that lead to it, allows you to (1) disarm and connect with anyone, (2) immediately exit boring small talk mode, and (3) instantly build rapport like you’re old friends. Flow with the conversational twists and turns like water. The Art of Witty Banter carefully examines the art, nuance, and mechanics of banter and charm to make you witty comeback machine, the likes of which your friends have never seen. You’ll be able to handle, defend, disarm, and engage others in a way that makes you comfortable and confident with each growing day.

Normal People is a story of mutual fascination, friendship and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find they can't.

In de Reformclub in London wordt druk gepraat over de diefstal bij de Bank van Engeland: hoe groot is de kans dat de dief gepakt wordt? De wereld is klein geworden: men kan hem in drie maanden rondreizen! 'In tachtig dagen,' verbetert Phileas Fogg. 'Alles meegerekend?' 'Alles inbegrepen: schipbreuk, treinontsporingen, overvallen en andere ongemakken.' 'Ik wil wedden dat zo'n reis onmogelijk is!' De onverstoorbare Phileas Fogg neemt de uitdaging aan, en zo vertrekt hij met zijn knecht Passepartout op een duizelingwekkende reis.

Het portret van Dorian Gray (Engelstalige titel The Picture of Dorian Gray) is de enige gepubliceerde roman van Oscar Wilde. Hij werd voor het eerst uitgebracht in Engeland in 1890. Een Nederlandse vertaling door Elisabeth Couperus-Baud verscheen in 1893. Haar echtgenoot Louis Couperus had het boek rechtstreeks van Oscar Wilde ontvangen en zij was er diep van onder de indruk.

Following a devestating break-up and the loss of his job, one man receives an unexpected surprise when he learns that he is next in line to join a society of super-villains that controls the planet.

Following a devestating break-up and the loss of his job, one man receives an unexpected surprise when he learns that he is next in line to join a society of super-villains that controls the planet.

Following a devestating break-up and the loss of his job, one man receives an unexpected surprise when he learns that he is next in line to join a society of super-villains that controls the planet.

Following a devestating break-up and the loss of his job, one man receives an unexpected surprise when he learns that he is next in line to join a society of super-villains that controls the planet.

Following a devestating break-up and the loss of his job, one man receives an unexpected surprise when he learns that he is next in line to join a society of super-villains that controls the planet.

Following a devestating break-up and the loss of his job, one man receives an unexpected surprise when he learns that he is next in line to join a society of super-villains that controls the planet.

Following a devestating break-up and the loss of his job, one man receives an unexpected surprise when he learns that he is next in line to join a society of super-villains that controls the planet.

Following a devestating break-up and the loss of his job, one man receives an unexpected surprise when he learns that he is next in line to join a society of super-villains that controls the planet.

Turks Fruit, het hartverscheurende verhaal van de gepassioneerde maar onmogelijke liefde tussen Olga en beeldhouwer Eric, verscheen oorspronkelijk in 1969 en bracht een schok teweeg in de Nederlandse letteren. Niet alleen werden liefde, seks en dood tot zo'n pulserend en vitaal geheel gesmeed. De verfilming van Turks Fruit door Paul Verhoeven, met in de hoofdrollen Rutger Hauer en Monique van der Ven, werd uitgeroepen tot de beste Hollandse speelfilm ooit en kreeg in 1974 een oscarnominatie.

Do we have free will? Is the universe compatible with God? Do we live in a computer simulation? Does the universe think?

Physicists are great at complicated research, but they are less good at telling us why it matters. In this entertaining and groundbreaking book, theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder breaks down why we should care. Drawing on the latest research in quantum mechanics, black holes, string theory and particle physics, Existential Physics explains what modern physics can tell us about the big questions.

Filled with counterintuitive insights and including interviews with other leading scientists, this clear and yet profound book will reshape your understanding of science and the limits of what we can know.

The Mom Test is a quick, practical guide that will save you time, money, and heartbreak.

They say you shouldn't ask your mom whether your business is a good idea, because she loves you and will lie to you. This is technically true, but it misses the point. You shouldn't ask anyone if your business is a good idea. It's a bad question and everyone will lie to you at least a little. As a matter of fact, it's not their responsibility to tell you the truth. It's your responsibility to find it and it's worth doing right.

Talking to customers is one of the foundational skills of both Customer Development and Lean Startup. We all know we're supposed to do it, but nobody seems willing to admit that it's easy to screw up and hard to do right. This book is going to show you how customer conversations go wrong and how you can do better.

She is sent to an office building where she is tasked with watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods. But observing someone for hours on end isn't so easy. How will she stay awake? When can she take delivery of her favourite brand of tea? And, perhaps more importantly – how did she find herself in this situation in the first place?As she moves from job to job, writing bus adverts for shops that mysteriously disappear, and composing advice for rice cracker wrappers that generate thousands of devoted followers, it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all, but something altogether more meaningful..._______________'An irreverent but thoughtful voice, with light echoes of Haruki Murakami ... the book is uncannily timely ... a novel as smart as is quietly funny' - Financial Times'Polly Barton's translation skilfully captures the protagonist's dejected, anxious voice and her deadpan humour ... imaginative and unusual' - Times Literary Supplement

Allen Carr established himself as the world’s greatest authority on helping people stop smoking, and his internationally best-selling Easy Way to Stop Smoking has been published in over 40 languages and sold more than 10 million copies.

In this classic guide Allen applies his revolutionary method to drinking. With startling insight into why we drink and clear, simple, step-by-step instructions, he shows you the way to escape from the ‘alcohol trap’ in the time it takes to read this book.

His unique method removes the feeling of deprivation and works without using willpower. Allen dispels our illusions about alcohol, removes the psychological dependence and sets you free to enjoy life to the full.

Available at: https://research.google/pubs/pub46555/ Creating reliable, production-level machine learning systems brings on a host of concerns not found in small toy examples or even large offline research experiments. Testing and monitoring are key considerations for ensuring the production-readiness of an ML system, and for reducing technical debt of ML systems. But it can be difficult to formulate specific tests, given that the actual prediction behavior of any given model is difficult to specify a priori. In this paper, we present 28 specific tests and monitoring needs, drawn from experience with a wide range of production ML systems to help quantify these issues and present an easy to follow road-map to improve production readiness and pay down ML technical debt.

Available at:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8804457

Recent advances in machine learning have stimulated widespread interest within the Information Technology sector on integrating AI capabilities into software and services. This goal has forced organizations to evolve their development processes. We report on a study that we conducted on observing software teams at Microsoft as they develop AI-based applications. We consider a nine-stage workflow process informed by prior experiences developing AI applications (e.g., search and NLP) and data science tools (e.g. application diagnostics and bug reporting). We found that various Microsoft teams have united this workflow into preexisting, well-evolved, Agile-like software engineering processes, providing insights about several essential engineering challenges that organizations may face in creating large-scale AI solutions for the marketplace. We collected some best practices from Microsoft teams to address these challenges. In addition, we have identified three aspects of the AI domain that make it fundamentally different from prior software application domains: 1) discovering, managing, and versioning the data needed for machine learning applications is much more complex and difficult than other types of software engineering, 2) model customization and model reuse require very different skills than are typically found in software teams, and 3) AI components are more difficult to handle as distinct modules than traditional software components - models may be "entangled" in complex ways and experience non-monotonic error behavior. We believe that the lessons learned by Microsoft teams will be valuable to other organizations.

Machine learning offers a fantastically powerful toolkit for building useful complexprediction systems quickly. This paper argues it is dangerous to think ofthese quick wins as coming for free. Using the software engineering frameworkof technical debt, we find it is common to incur massive ongoing maintenancecosts in real-world ML systems. We explore several ML-specific risk factors toaccount for in system design. These include boundary erosion, entanglement,hidden feedback loops, undeclared consumers, data dependencies, configurationissues, changes in the external world, and a variety of system-level anti-patterns.

Paper available at NIPS:

https://papers.nips.cc/paper/2015/hash/86df7dcfd896fcaf2674f757a2463eba-Abstract.html

The Must-Have Guide to Humor Writing

Bring on the funny! With Comedy Writing Secrets 3rd Edition , you can discover the secrets of humor writing that will keep your readers rolling in their seats. Learn the basics of joke construction, as well as in-depth comedy-writing techniques that you can apply to a variety of print and online markets. If your aim is to make 'em laughand make a career in comedy writingthen look no further.

In this completely revised and refreshed edition, you'll discover:

• Hundreds of updated one-liners, anecdotes, and bits from top comedians like Louis C.K., Conan O’Brien, Tina Fey, Amy Schumer, Rodney Dangerfield, Jon Stewart, Steve Martin, Ellen DeGeneres, Jimmy Fallon, George Carlin, Zach Galifianakis, Stephen Colbert, Erma Bombeck, and more.
• Exclusive tips for injecting humor into articles, speeches, advertisements, greeting cards, and more.
• New instruction on writing for online markets and social media.
• Advice on brainstorming and editing to beat writer's block and generate new material.
• Exercises and expanded instructions for exaggeration, reverses, word play and more to practice and refine your writing skills.
For more than twenty years, Comedy Writing Secrets has helped humor writers of all skill levels write and sell their work. With Comedy Writing Secrets 3rd Edition , you'll be laugh-out-loud funny and leave readers wanting more.

We propose Make-A-Video -- an approach for directly translating the tremendous recent progress in Text-to-Image (T2I) generation to Text-to-Video (T2V). Our intuition is simple: learn what the world looks like and how it is described from paired text-image data, and learn how the world moves from unsupervised video footage. Make-A-Video has three advantages: (1) it accelerates training of the T2V model (it does not need to learn visual and multimodal representations from scratch), (2) it does not require paired text-video data, and (3) the generated videos inherit the vastness (diversity in aesthetic, fantastical depictions, etc.) of today's image generation models. We design a simple yet effective way to build on T2I models with novel and effective spatial-temporal modules. First, we decompose the full temporal U-Net and attention tensors and approximate them in space and time. Second, we design a spatial temporal pipeline to generate high resolution and frame rate videos with a video decoder, interpolation model and two super resolution models that can enable various applications besides T2V. In all aspects, spatial and temporal resolution, faithfulness to text, and quality, Make-A-Video sets the new state-of-the-art in text-to-video generation, as determined by both qualitative and quantitative measures.

Who are you?
What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife

Large text-to-image models achieved a remarkable leap in the evolution of AI, enabling high-quality and diverse synthesis of images from a given text prompt. However, these models lack the ability to mimic the appearance of subjects in a given reference set and synthesize novel renditions of them in different contexts. In this work, we present a new approach for "personalization" of text-to-image diffusion models (specializing them to users' needs). Given as input just a few images of a subject, we fine-tune a pretrained text-to-image model (Imagen, although our method is not limited to a specific model) such that it learns to bind a unique identifier with that specific subject. Once the subject is embedded in the output domain of the model, the unique identifier can then be used to synthesize fully-novel photorealistic images of the subject contextualized in different scenes. By leveraging the semantic prior embedded in the model with a new autogenous class-specific prior preservation loss, our technique enables synthesizing the subject in diverse scenes, poses, views, and lighting conditions that do not appear in the reference images. We apply our technique to several previously-unassailable tasks, including subject recontextualization, text-guided view synthesis, appearance modification, and artistic rendering (all while preserving the subject's key features).

We introduce Jukebox, a model that generates music with singing in the raw audio domain. We tackle the long context of raw audio using a multi-scale VQ-VAE to compress it to discrete codes, and modeling those using autoregressive Transformers. We show that the combined model at scale can generate high-fidelity and diverse songs with coherence up to multiple minutes. We can condition on artist and genre to steer the musical and vocal style, and on unaligned lyrics to make the singing more controllable.

Broken Angels is a standalone sequel, to Richard Morgan's debut novel Altered Carbon--a high-tech, ultra-violent, noir SF thriller which attracted much attention, including a movie deal.

Thirty years later, our super-soldier hero Takeshi Kovacs is wearing yet another body (swapping is easy in this future), already wounded in a messy war against revolutionary forces on the planet Sanction IV. Very soon he's lured from his duties into a hunt for a fantastic treasure discovered by archaeologists and carefully hushed up. The long-vanished Martians who once colonised the galaxy have left a buried hyperspace gateway leading to a working starship in distant orbit.

Kovacs uses frightening violence to get the attention of corporate sponsors even more ruthless than himself. His hastily assembled exploration team must work in a lethal fallout zone, racing to open the gate before they're stopped by radiation sickness, treacherous sabotage, or the threat of fast-evolving nanoweaponry. And there are repeated hints that if they ever make it through that gateway, worse things are waiting on the far side...

It's all desperately tense and crafted with appalling inventiveness. Life is cheap and death is no release, because the "cortical stack" implanted in everyone's spine constantly records the total personality, ready for "re-sleeving" in a new clone body or storage in virtual reality. So Kovacs goes recruiting at the macabre Soul Market, where thanks to the war there are literal skiploads of hacked-out sections of human spine containing stacks--for sale by the kilogram.

Other ingredients include sex, voodoo, torture, multiple betrayal, cool military technology, incomprehensible alien constructions, age-old cycles of catastrophe, and--above all--extreme violence. The screw is turned further and further, beyond what seems possible. Readers may find themselves forgetting to breathe. This is a rattling good yarn, for the strong of stomach. --David Langford

Richard K. Morgan has received widespread praise for his astounding twenty-fifth-century novels featuring Takeshi Kovacs, and has established a growing legion of fans. Mixing classic noir sensibilities with a searing futuristic vision of an age when death is nearly meaningless, Morgan returns to his saga of betrayal, mystery, and revenge, as Takeshi Kovacs, in one fatal moment, joins forces with a mysterious woman who may have the power to shatter Harlan’s World forever.

Once a gang member, then a marine, then a galaxy-hopping Envoy trained to wreak slaughter and suppression across the stars, a bleeding, wounded Kovacs was chilling out in a New Hokkaido bar when some so-called holy men descended on a slim beauty with tangled, hyperwired hair. An act of quixotic chivalry later and Kovacs was in deep: mixed up with a woman with two names, many powers, and one explosive history.

In a world where the real and virtual are one and the same and the dead can come back to life, the damsel in distress may be none other than the infamous Quellcrist Falconer, the vaporized symbol of a freedom now gone from Harlan’s World. Kovacs can deal with the madness of AI. He can do his part in a battle against biomachines gone wild, search for a three-centuries-old missing weapons system, and live with a blood feud with the yakuza, and even with the betrayal of people he once trusted. But when his relationship with “the” Falconer brings him an enemy specially designed to destroy him, he knows it’s time to be afraid. After all, the guy sent to kill him is himself: but younger, stronger, and straight out of hell.

Wild, provocative, and riveting, Woken Furies is a full-bore science fiction spectacular of the highest order–from one of the most original and spellbinding storytellers at work today.

From the Hardcover edition.

In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person's consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve") making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.

Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats "existence" as something that can be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning....

"Morgan's debut novel, the first in a series, combines noir mystery with ultra-high tech science to create a complex sf thriller. Featuring a hard-nosed antihero with his own sense of personal honor and ethics, this is highly recommended for sf collections."— Library Journal

The #1 New York Times bestseller returns! Visit new planets, meet new adversaries, and explore a very new direction as Hazel becomes a toddler, while her family struggles to stay on their feet.

Collects Saga #19-24.

**

Collecting the epic second storyline of the smash hit series Entertainment Weekly called "the kind of comic you get when truly talented superstar creators are given the freedom to produce their dream comic." Thanks to her star-crossed parents Marko and Alana, newborn baby Hazel has already survived lethal assassins, rampaging armies, and alien monstrosities, but in the cold vastness of outer space, the little girl encounters her family's greatest challenge yet: the grandparents.

Collects : Saga #7-12.

From New York Times bestselling writer BRIAN K.VAUGHAN (Y: THE LAST MAN, EX MACHINA) and critically acclaimed artist FIONA STAPLES (MYSTERY SOCIETY, NORTH 40), SAGA is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the worlds. When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe. Fantasy and science fiction are wed like never before in a sexy, subversive drama for adults. This specially priced volume collects the first arc of the smash hit series The Onion A.V. Club calls "the emotional epic Hollywood wishes it could make."

Collects : Saga #1-6.

The Eisner, Harvey, and Hugo Award-winning phenomenon continues, as new parents Marko and Alana travel to an alien world to visit their hero, while the family's pursuers finally close in on their targets.

Collects : Saga #13-18.

From the worldwide bestselling team of Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan, “The War for Phang” is an epic, self-contained Saga event! Finally reunited with her ever-expanding family, Hazel travels to a war-torn comet that Wreath and Landfall have been battling over for ages. New friendships are forged and others are lost forever in this action-packed volume about families, combat and the refugee experience.

Collects: Saga #37-42.

After a dramatic time jump, the three-time Eisner Award winner for Best Continuing Series continues to evolve, as Hazel begins the most exciting adventure of her life: kindergarten. Meanwhile, her starcrossed family learns hard lessons of their own.

Collects: Saga #31-36.

Multiple storylines collide in this cosmos-spanning new volume. While Gwendolyn and Lying Cat risk everything to find a cure for The Will, Marko makes an uneasy alliance with Prince Robot IV to find their missing children, who are trapped on a strange world with terrifying new enemies.

Collects Saga #25-30.

**

After the traumatic events of the War for Phang, Hazel, her parents, and their surviving companions embark on a life-changing adventure at the westernmost edge of the universe.

Collects: Saga #43-48.

At long last, a deluxe hardcover of the Eisner and Hugo Award-winning SAGA is finally here!

"It's easy to run out of accolades for this superb series... The dialogue is smart, arch and always rings true, and the visuals, rendered digitally, are alluring and inventive. The Stalk, an eight-eyed, eight-limbed female bounty hunter, remains a creepy favorite." - The New York Times

At long last, a deluxe hardcover of the Hugo Award-winning Saga is finally on its way! Collecting the first three trade paperbacks (issues #1-18) of the smash-hit series, this massive edition features a striking new cover, as well as special extras, including never-before-seen sketches, script pages, and a roundtable discussion with the creators about how Saga is really made. Altogether, this hardcover contains over 500 pages for less than fifty bucks!

Written by Eisner Award-winning "Best Writer" Brian K. Vaughan ( Y: The Last Man, The Private Eye ) and drawn by Harvey Award-winning "Best Artist" Fiona Staples ( Mystery Society, North 40 ) Saga is the story of Hazel, a child born to star-crossed parents from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war. Now, Hazel's fugitive family must risk everything to find a peaceful future in a harsh universe that values destruction over creation. Fantasy and science fiction are wed like never before in a sexy, subversive drama for adults that Entertainment Weekly called, "The kind of comic you get when truly talented superstar creators are given the freedom to produce their dream book."

Collects: Saga #1-18.

A CONTEMPORARY CLASSIC CELEBRATING A DECADE OF EXCELLENCE! At long last, Hazel and her star-crossed family are finally back, and they've made some new...friends? This collection features the latest six chapters of the most epic adventure in comics, including the series' double-sized first issue back from hiatus. Collects SAGA #55-60. Romeo & Juliet meets Star Wars in this genre-blending, sci-fi/fantasy space opera about star crossed lovers from enemy worlds. An epic for mature readers, Saga follows new parents Marko and Alana as they risk everything to raise their child amidst a never-ending galactic war. A multiple award winning, critically acclaimed masterpiece and one of the most iconic, bestselling comic book series of its time. The SAGA series has sold over 6.8 million copies to date across all formats, has been translated into 20 languages, and has garnered multiple Eisner and Harvey Awards, plus a Hugo Award, British Fantasy Award, Goodreads Choice Award, Shuster Award, Inkwell Award, Ringo Award, and more. It has been featured in such mainstream media outlets as TIME, Entertainment Weekly, The Atlantic, NPR, and beyond, and has become a pop culture phenomenon.

The multiple Eisner Award-winning series returns with a spacefaring adventure about fake news and genuine terror. Get ready for the most shocking, most impactful SAGA storyline yet.

Collects: Saga #49-54.

At long last, it's finally time for the second hardcover collection of SAGA, the New York Times bestselling series praised by everyone from Alan Moore to Lin-Manuel Miranda! Created by the multiple Eisner Award-winning team of artist FIONA STAPLES (Mystery Society, North 40, Archie Comics) and writer BRIAN K. VAUGHAN (THE PRIVATE EYE, PAPER GIRLS, WE STAND ON GUARD), SAGA BOOK TWO continues the action-packed education of Hazel, a child born to star-crossed parents from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war.

Collecting 18 issues of the smash-hit comic, this massive edition features a striking original cover from Fiona Staples, as well as a brand-new gallery of exclusive, never-before-seen SAGA artwork from legendary creators including CLIFF CHIANG, PIA GUERRA, FAITH ERIN HICKS, KARL KERSCHL, JASON LATOUR, SEAN GORDON MURPHY, STEVE SKROCE, and MORE!

Collects: Saga #19-36.

At long last, it's finally time for the THIRD massive hardcover collection of SAGA, the critically acclaimed sci-fi/fantasy series from the multiple Eisner Award-winning team of artist FIONA STAPLES and writer BRIAN K. VAUGHAN. Collecting 18 of the most shocking and impactful issues from the epic tale of Hazel and her star-crossed parents, this deluxe edition features a striking, all-new original cover from FIONA STAPLES, as well as exclusive, never-before-seen extras.

Collects: Saga #37-54.

De mens is een beest, zeiden de koningen. Een zondaar, zeiden de priesters. Een egoïst, zeiden de boekhouders. Al eeuwen is de westerse cultuur doordrongen van het geloof in de verdorvenheid van de mens.

Maar wat als we het al die tijd mis hadden?

In dit boek verweeft Rutger Bregman de jongste inzichten uit de psychologie, de economie, de biologie en de archeologie. Hij neemt ons mee op een reis door de geschiedenis en geeft nieuwe antwoorden op oude vragen. Waarom veroverde juist onze soort de aarde? Hoe verklaren we onze grootste misdaden? En zijn we diep vanbinnen geneigd tot het goede of het kwade?

Adembenemend, weids en revolutionair – De meeste mensen deugen herschrijft niet alleen de geschiedenis, maar werpt ook nieuw licht op onze toekomst.

'Even when I was funny, I wasn't this funny.' Augusten Burroughs. For fans of Tina Fey, David Sedaris and anyone who's ever felt like a misfit, an outrageously funny and disturbing memoir from Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess. 'When I tell people that my father is kind of a total lunatic, they laugh and nod knowingly. they assure me that theirs is too, and that he's just a "typical father". And they're probably right, if the typical father runs a full-time taxidermy business out of the house, and shows up at the local bar with a miniature donkey and a teddy Roosevelt impersonator, and thinks other people are weird for making such a big deal out of it. If the typical father says things like "Happy birthday! Here's a bathtub of raccoons!" or "We'll have to take your car. Mine has too much blood in it," then yeah, he's totally normal.' When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. that dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father and a childhood of wearing winter shoes made out of used bread sacks. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humour in the strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it. Lawson's long-suffering husband and sweet daughter help her uncover the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments - the ones we want to pretend never happened - are the very same moments that make us the people we are today. Like laughing at a funeral, LEt'S PREtEND tHIS NEVER HAPPENED is both irreverent and impossible to hold back once you get started. 'the Bloggess writes stuff that actually is laugh-out-loud, but you know that really you shouldn't be laughing and probably you'll go to hell for laughing, so maybe you shouldn't read it.' Neil Gaiman 'Even when I was funny, I wasn't this funny.' Augusten Burroughs, author of RUNNING WItH SCISSORS

Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck–impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence “Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I’ll shut up about it?”

Perhaps you want to know what Mindy thinks makes a great best friend (someone who will fill your prescription in the middle of the night), or what makes a great guy (one who is aware of all elderly people in any room at any time and acts accordingly), or what is the perfect amount of fame (so famous you can never get convicted of murder in a court of law), or how to maintain a trim figure (you will not find that information in these pages). If so, you’ve come to the right book, mostly!

With several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? proves that Mindy Kaling really is just a Girl Next Door—not so much literally anywhere in the continental United States, but definitely if you live in India or Sri Lanka.

Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck--impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence "Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I'll shut up about it?"

Perhaps you want to know what Mindy thinks makes a great best friend (someone who will fill your prescription in the middle of the night), or what makes a great guy (one who is aware of all elderly people in any room at any time and acts accordingly), or what is the perfect amount of fame (so famous you can never get convicted of murder in a court of law), or how to maintain a trim figure (you will not find that information in these pages). If so, you've come to the right book, mostly!

In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy invites readers on a tour of her life and...

Chronicles the off-beat and occasionally extraterrestrial journeys, notions, and acquaintances of galactic traveler Arthur Dent

In one complete volume, here are the five classic novels from Douglas Adams’s beloved Hitchhiker series.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ( Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read )
Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
The moment before annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat.

Life, the Universe and Everything
The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky– so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription thrusts him back to reality. So to speak.

Mostly Harmless
Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself?

Everyone’s life is governed by an internal code of conduct. Some call it morality. Others call it religion. But Bros in the know call this Holy Grail The Bro Code.

The Bro Code is a living document, much like the Constitution. Except instead of outlining a government, or the Bill of Rights, or anything even resembling laws, The Bro Code provides men with all the rules they need to know in order to become a “bro” and behave properly among other bros. Historically a spoken tradition passed from one generation to the next and dating back to the American Revolution, the official code of conduct for Bros appears here in its published form for the first time ever. By upholding the tenets of this sacred and legendary document, any dude can learn to achieve Bro-dom.

Containing approximately 150 “unspoken” rules, this code of conduct for bros can range from the simple (bros before hos) to the complex (the hot-to-crazy ratio, complete with bar graphs and charts). With helpful sidebros The Bro Code will help any ordinary guy become the best bro he can be. Let ultimate bro and coauthor Barney Stinson and his book, The Bro Code share their wisdom, lest you be caught making eye contact in a devil’s three-way (two dudes, duh).

One word. Unlimited consequences.

The book that inspired the major film starring Jim Carrey and Zooey Deschanel'I, Danny Wallace, being of sound mind and body, do hereby write this manifesto for my life. I swear I will be more open to opportunity. I swear I will live my life taking every available chance. I will say Yes to every favour, request, suggestion and invitation. I WILL SWEAR TO SAY YES WHERE ONCE I WOULD SAY NO.'Danny Wallace had been staying in. Far too much. Having been dumped by his girlfriend, he really wasn't doing the young, free and single thing very well. Instead he was avoiding people. Texting them instead of calling them. Calling them instead of meeting them. That is until one fateful date when a mystery man on a late-night bus told him to 'say yes more'. These three simple words changed Danny's life forever. Yes Man is the story of what happened when Danny decided to say YES to everything, in order to make his life more interesting. And boy, did it get more interesting.

Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update," before "Sarah Palin," Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV.She has seen both these dreams come true.At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live ; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've always suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy.Includes Special, Never-Before-Solicited Opinions on Breastfeeding, Princesses, Photoshop, the Electoral Process, and Italian Rum Cake!

Het diner van Herman Koch is een briljante en grensverleggende roman. Het verhaal voltrekt zich binnen de tijdspanne van een avond en ontwikkelt zich tot een adembenemende thriller. Verfilmd in 2017.

Herman Koch brak wereldwijd door met Het diner, een weergaloze roman die de vraag opwekt in hoeverre je als ouder verantwoordelijk bent voor de daden van je eigen kind. In soepel proza schotelt Herman Koch de lezer een bloedstollend verhaal voor dat zich binnen de tijdsspanne van een avond voltrekt.

Twee echtparen gaan een avond uit eten in een restaurant. Ze praten over alledaagse dingen, dingen waar mensen tijdens etentjes over praten: werk, de laatste films, vakantieplannen. Maar ondertussen vermijden ze waar ze het eigenlijk over moeten hebben: hun kinderen. De twee vijftienjarige zoons van beide echtparen, Michel en Rick, hebben samen iets uitgehaald wat hun toekomst kan verwoesten. Tot dusver zijn alleen vage beelden van de twee in Opsporing verzocht vertoond en zit het onderzoek naar hun identiteit vast. Maar hoe lang nog? Wat de situatie nog ingewikkelder maakt is dat de vader van Rick de beoogde nieuwe minister-president van Nederland is.

'De roman ontwikkelt zich tot een adembenemende thriller waarin niemand onschuldig is. Koch houdt de lezer in zijn greep.' – Niccolò Ammaniti

'De beste Nederlandse roman die ik in maanden heb gelezen.' – Pieter Steinz in NRC Handelsblad

'Een briljante tragikomedie over de rekbaarheid van morele verantwoordelijkheid. De lezer moet voortdurend zijn inzichten bijstellen.' – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

'Intrigerend en zeer lezenswaardig.' – The New York Times Book Review

'Een grensverleggend, intelligent geschreven en belangrijk boek.' – Nordjyske

'Herman Koch is razendsnel een van mijn favoriete schrijvers aan het worden. Zijn drie boeken zijn als een ijzersterke EP waarvan elk nummer raak is.' – Stephen King

AN UP-TO-THE -MINUTE ADAPTATION OF DALE CARNEGIE ’S TIMELESS PRESCRIPTIONS FOR THE DIGITAL AGE

DALE CARNEGIE’s commonsense approach to communicating has endured for a century, touching millions and millions of readers. The only diploma that hangs in Warren Buffett’s office is his certificate from Dale Carnegie Training. Lee Iacocca credits Carnegie for giving him the courage to speak in public. Dilbert creator Scott Adams called Carnegie’s teachings “life-changing.”

In today’s world, where more and more of our communication takes place across wires and screens, Carnegie’s lessons have not only lasted but become all the more critical. Though he never could have predicted technology’s trajectory, Carnegie proves a wise and helpful teacher in this digital landscape. To demonstrate the many ways his lessons remain relevant, Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., has reimagined his prescriptions and his advice for this difficult digital age. We may communicate today with different tools and with greater speed, but Carnegie’s advice on how to communicate, lead, and work efficiently remains priceless across the ages.