Search results for ""Author Francis"

Deepen your understanding of how to adapt to international travellers' different needs and backgrounds. Harness the burgeoning levels of tourism and learn everything you need to engage travellers with your business and spending money. The modern traveller is complex, even more so in a post-pandemic world. International consumers are in search of memorable experiences that make them feel special and, ideally, share those experiences with others and bring those feelings home with them. While wanting to be more adventurous, they also want to make their trip safe and special while minimizing their impact on the environment. Leading Travel and Tourism Retail is an invaluable guide for any professional involved in the world of retail, including consumer brands, retailers, hospitality, landlords, politicians, airports, transportation and technology groups. Engaging and accessible, this book covers everything from assessing the competitive market situation to product adaptation, ESG, human talent management, accessing funding, political considerations, and the role of technology and data. It offers a unique glimpse behind the inner workings of some of the best-known brands in the world across airports, shopping malls, and city centre locations. Delivering invaluable insight through fascinating interviews from high-profile leaders, including the President of LVMH Retail Asia, the CEO of Harrods, the President of CHANEL Perfumes & Cosmetics worldwide, this is a must-have book for those who want to drive profits. LIST OF INTERVIEWS Sir Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, UK Pierre-Hugues Schmit, Chief Commercial & Operations Officer at Vinci Airports Group, France Ravi Thakran, Group Chairman of LVMH Asia, Singapore Michael Ward, Managing Director of Harrods, UK Jacques Stern, CEO of Global Blue, Switzerland Vasiliki Petrou, CEO of Unilever Prestige, UK Andrea d'Avack, President of the CHANEL Foundation, France Pallak Seth, CEO of PDS Apparel Manufacturing, India Louis de Bourgoing, International Chairman of WHSmith, UK Jose-Antonio Lasanta, CEO of Prosegur Cash, Spain Dan Cockerell, former Vice President of Disney's Magic Kingdom, USA Tine Arentsen Willumsen, CEO of Above & Beyond Group, Founder of The Diversity Council, Denmark Paul Samuels, Executive Vice President of AEG Entertainment Group, UK Hugo Brady, Vice President of AEG Entertainment Group, UK Malik Fernando, Director of Dilmah Tea, MJF Hotels and Holdings, Sri Lanka Jonathan Chippindale, CEO of Holition Technologies, UK Ben Zifkin, President of Hubba, Canada Desirée Bollier, Chair and Chief Merchant of Value Retail, UK Stewart Wingate, CEO of London Gatwick Airport, UK Craig Robins, Founder and Owner of Miami Design District Development, USA Taylor Safford, President and CEO of Pier 39, San Francisco, USA Frances O'Grady, Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress, UK Christine Comaford, business and leadership coach Baroness Nicky Morgan former Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport, UK Professor Ian Woodward at INSEAD, Singapore Professor Steve Jarding, Harvard University, USA Lesley Batchelor OBE, Director General of The Institute for Export & International Trade, UK Jason Holt, Chair of the Apprenticeship Ambassador Network, Chairman of Holts Group, UK Julia Simpson, President & CEO of World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC)

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A Most Uncertain Crusade traces and analyzes the emergence of human rights as both an international concern and as a controversial domestic issue for US policy makers during and after World War II. Rowland Brucken focuses on officials in the State Department, at the United Nations, and within certain domestic non-governmental organizations, and explains why, after issuing wartime declarations that called for the definition and enforcement of international human rights standards, the US government refused to ratify the first UN treaties that fulfilled those twin purposes. The Truman and Eisenhower administrations worked to weaken the scope and enforcement mechanisms of early human rights agreements, and gradually withdrew support for Senate ratification. A small but influential group of isolationist–oriented senators, led by John Bricker (R-OH), warned that the treaties would bring about socialism, destroy white supremacy, and eviscerate the Bill of Rights. At the UN, a growing bloc of developing nations demanded the inclusion of economic guarantees, support for decolonization, and strong enforcement measures, all of which Washington opposed. Prior to World War II, international law considered the protection of individual rights to fall largely under the jurisdiction of national governments. Alarmed by fascist tyranny and guided by a Wilsonian vision of global cooperation in pursuit of human rights, President Roosevelt issued the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter. Behind the scenes, the State Department planners carefully considered how an international organization could best protect those guarantees. Their work paid off at the 1945 San Francisco Conference, which vested the UN with an unprecedented opportunity to define and protect the human rights of individuals. After two years of negotiations, the UN General Assembly unanimously approved its first human rights treaty, the Genocide Convention. The UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), led by Eleanor Roosevelt, drafted the nonbinding Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Subsequent efforts to craft an enforceable covenant of individual rights, though, bogged down quickly. A deadlock occurred as western nations, communist states, and developing countries disagreed on the inclusion of economic and social guarantees, the right of self-determination, and plans for implementation. Meanwhile, a coalition of groups within the United States doubted the wisdom of American accession to any human rights treaties. Led by the American Bar Association and Senator Bricker, opponents proclaimed that ratification would lead to a U.N. led tyrannical world socialistic government. The backlash caused President Eisenhower to withdraw from the covenant drafting process. Brucken shows how the American human rights policy had come full circle: Eisenhower, like Roosevelt, issued statements that merely celebrated western values of freedom and democracy, criticized human rights records of other countries while at the same time postponed efforts to have the UN codify and enforce a list of binding rights due in part to America's own human rights violations.

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NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNER — PARENTING & FAMILY • 2022 IPPY AWARDS GOLD MEDALIST — PARENTING“Timely, informative, thought-provoking, inspirationally motivating.” —Midwest Book Review"[Brown] offers pragmatic advice for teachers on how to stand up for diversity and inclusiveness in the classroom." —San Francisco Book ReviewWe need only scan the latest news headlines to see how bias and prejudice harm adults and children alike—every single day. Police shootings that give rise to the Black Lives Matter revolution . . . rampant sexual harassment of women and the subsequent #MeToo movement . . . extreme violence toward trans men and women.It would be easy to fix these problems if the examples stopped with a few racist or sexist individuals, but there are also biases embedded in our government policies, media, and institutions. As a developmental psychologist and international expert on stereotypes and discrimination in children, Dr. Christia Spears Brown knows that biases and prejudice don’t just develop as people become adults (or CEOs or politicians). They begin when children are young, slowly growing and exposed to prejudice in their classrooms, after-school activities, and, yes, even in their homes, no matter how enlightened their parents may consider themselves to be. The only way to have a more just and equitable world—not to mention more broad-minded, empathetic children—is for parents to closely examine biases beginning in childhood and how they infiltrate our kids’ lives.In her new book Unraveling Bias: How Prejudice Has Shaped Children for Generations and Why It's Time to Break the Cycle, Dr. Brown will uncover what scientists have learned about how children are impacted by biases, and how we adults can help protect them from those biases. Part science, part history, part current events, and part call to arms, Unraveling Bias provides readers with the answers to vital questions: • How do biased policies, schools, and media harm our children? • Where does childhood prejudice come from, and how do these prejudices shape children’s behavior, goals, relationships, and beliefs about themselves? • What can we learn from modern-day science to help us protect our children from these biases?Few issues today are as critical as being aware of bias and prejudice all around us and making sure our kids don’t succumb to them. To change lives and advance society, it’s time to unravel our biases—starting with the future leaders of the world.

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Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2023 An inside account of gender and racial discrimination in the high-tech industry Why is being a computer “geek” still perceived to be a masculine occupation? Why do men continue to greatly outnumber women in the high-technology industry? Since 2014, a growing number of employment discrimination lawsuits has called attention to a persistent pattern of gender discrimination in the tech world. Much has been written about the industry’s failure to adequately address gender and racial inequalities, yet rarely have we gotten an intimate look inside these companies. In Geek Girls, France Winddance Twine provides the first book by a sociologist that “lifts the Silicon veil” to provide firsthand accounts of inequality and opportunity in the tech ecosystem. This work draws on close to a hundred interviews with male and female technology workers of diverse racial, ethnic, and educational backgrounds who are currently employed at tech firms such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, and at various start-ups in the San Francisco Bay area. Geek Girls captures what it is like to work as a technically skilled woman in Silicon Valley. With a sharp eye for detail and compelling testimonials from industry insiders, Twine shows how the technology industry remains rigged against women, and especially Black, Latinx, and Native American women from working class backgrounds. From recruitment and hiring practices that give priority to those with family, friends, and classmates employed in the industry, to social and educational segregation, to academic prestige hierarchies, Twine reveals how women are blocked from entering this industry. Women who do not belong to the dominant ethnic groups in the industry are denied employment opportunities, and even actively pushed out, despite their technical skills and qualifications. While the technology firms strongly embrace the rhetoric of diversity and oppose discrimination in the workplace, Twine argues that closed social networks and routine hiring practices described by employees reinforce the status quo and reproduce inequality. The myth of meritocracy and gender stereotypes operate in tandem to produce a culture where the use of race-, color-, and power-evasive language makes it difficult for individuals to name the micro-aggressions and forms of discrimination that they experience. Twine offers concrete insights into how the technology industry can address ongoing racial and gender disparities, create more transparency and empower women from underrepresented groups, who continued to be denied opportunities.

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“A remarkable book.”—Malcolm Gladwell, San Francisco ChronicleDeaths of civilians at the hands of on-duty police are in the national spotlight as never before. How many killings by police occur annually? What circumstances provoke police to shoot to kill? Who dies? The lack of answers to these basic questions points to a crisis in American government that urgently requires the attention of policy experts. When Police Kill is a groundbreaking analysis of the use of lethal force by police in the United States and how its death toll can be reduced.Franklin Zimring compiles data from federal records, crowdsourced research, and investigative journalism to provide a comprehensive, fact-based picture of how, when, where, and why police resort to deadly force. Of the 1,100 killings by police in the United States in 2015, he shows, 85 percent were fatal shootings and 95 percent of victims were male. The death rates for African Americans and Native Americans are twice their share of the population.Civilian deaths from shootings and other police actions are vastly higher in the United States than in other developed nations, but American police also confront an unusually high risk of fatal assault. Zimring offers policy prescriptions for how federal, state, and local governments can reduce killings by police without risking the lives of officers. Criminal prosecution of police officers involved in killings is rare and only necessary in extreme cases. But clear administrative rules could save hundreds of lives without endangering police officers.“Roughly 1,000 Americans die each year at the hands of the police…The civilian body count does not seem to be declining, even though violent crime generally and the on-duty deaths of police officers are down sharply…Zimring’s most explosive assertion—which leaps out…—is that police leaders don’t care…To paraphrase the French philosopher Joseph de Maistre, every country gets the police it deserves.”—Bill Keller, New York Times“If you think for one second that the issue of cop killings doesn’t go to the heart of the debate about gun violence, think again. Because what Zimring shows is that not only are most fatalities which occur at the hands of police the result of cops using guns, but the number of such deaths each year is undercounted by more than half!…[A] valuable and important book…It needs to be read.”—Mike Weisser, Huffington Post

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This new biography—featuring over 150 archival images and full-color photographs printed throughout—introduces Julia Morgan as both a pioneering architect and a captivating individual. Julia Morgan was a lifelong trailblazer. She was the first woman admitted to study architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the first licensed to practice architecture in California. Over the first half of the 20th century, she left an indelible mark on the American West. Of her remarkable 700 creations, the most iconic is Hearst Castle. Morgan spent thirty years constructing this opulent estate on the California coast for the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst—forging a lifelong friendship and creative partnership with him. Together, they built a spectacular and unequalled residence that once hosted the biggest stars of Hollywood's golden age, and that now welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. This compelling biography draws on interviews, letters, and Morgan's diaries, including never-before-seen reflections on faith, art, and her life experiences. Morgan's friendship with Hearst, her passion for California's landscape, her struggles with familial dementia, and her devotion to architecture reveal her to have been a singularly brilliant and determined artist. PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED CONTENT: Victoria Kastner has spent years compiling photographs, interviews, letters, drawings, and diaries—including material never published before—to create the first truly comprehensive portrait of this amazing woman. OVER 150 PHOTOGRAPHS: This book features over 150 photographs, printed throughout the text. These include both fascinating archival images and beautiful, full-color contemporary shots of Morgan's buildings. INSPIRING STORY: By exploring both Morgan's work and her life, Kastner weaves a captivating tale about courage, vision, and resilience. Julia Morgan forged a path for herself against the odds, and her story will inspire contemporary women and creatives. ARCHITECTURAL ICON: Julia Morgan created 700 buildings during her career, from hotels to churches to private homes. Born in San Francisco and trained in Paris, she developed a distinctive aesthetic that now defines certain regions of California. But only in the last twenty years has her contribution to architecture been fully recognized and celebrated. In 2014, the American Institute of Architects' posthumously awarded her its Gold Medal; she was the first female recipient. Perfect for: • History buffs • Students, enthusiasts, and professional architects • Aspiring creatives in all fields • Feminists seeking role models • Visitors to Hearst Castle and Morgan's other buildings • Californians and visitors to California

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THE ICONIC CLASSIC, WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEONE OF THE BBC '100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD''A lush celebration of all that it means to be a black female. I love that The Color Purple doesn't try to soften its blows but is also courageous enough to hold on to a wonderfully affirming faith in possibility, in forgiveness and kindness and hope' Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie'The Color Purple is my go-to comfort novel. Every single time I read this book, I walk away as a slightly better person than I was when I picked it up' Tayari Jones'I think that The Color Purple was the first book that made me think that I could try to be a writer - or that made me aware that a young black woman from the South could write about the South' Jesmyn Ward 'I got the book and read it, in one day, when it came out. And then I went back, the next day, and bought every copy they had' Oprah Winfrey A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Sisters Celie and Nettie share the pain and struggle of growing up as African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Forced into an abusive marriage, at least Celie can offer Nettie refuge from their violent father in her new home - until Nettie catches the attention of Celie's husband and is forced to leave and forge her own journey. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years - first from Celie to God, then between the two sisters - they manage to sustain their hope in each other across time, distance and silence, in a triumph of resilience, bravery and ultimately, love. Beloved by generations of readers, The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. 'One of the most haunting books you could ever wish to read. It is stunning - moving, exciting and wonderful' Lenny Henry'The Color Purple needs no category other than the fact that it is superb' Rita Mae Brown'The great irony about The Color Purple is that it transcends colour. One of the greatest books of all time' Benjamin Zephaniah 'A unique blend of serenity and immediacy that makes your senses ache' Helen Dunmore'A genuinely mind-expanding book' Patrick Ness'Indelibly affecting... Alice Walker is a lavishly gifted writer' New York Times'One of the great books of our time' Essence Magazine'A work to stand beside literature of any time and place' San Francisco Chronicle

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An exceptional storyteller with an analytical eye, Merrel Clubb has gathered the letters he sent his parents from the Pacific Theater of World War II and his subsequent reflections on that war and on his life into a kind of then-and-now memoir. The letters are a treasure trove of humor, anxiety, and hope, revealing a young man thrust into a war that he does not understand. Through this exceptional portal on the past, we learn of the tragic absurdity of war, of a soldier trained for naval warfare but sent into land battle with weapons he'd never before fired; of command post latrines at which even commanding officers were sitting ducks; of the ghoulish trophies and mementos that soldiers collected from the battlefields. The letters describe a vivid cast of characters, from Clubb's childhood friend who instilled a love of poetry in his comrades to the hillbilly singer and the prostitute with whom the young Clubb had varied amorous adventures. But the most compelling figure in this narrative is, of course, Clubb himself, an intellectual who carried Jane Austen and Joseph Conrad along with his tommy gun; who used books as a fortification for his foxhole, discovering upon waking one morning that "Ouspensky stopped a bullet"; and who, in a darkly humorous moment, wrote home that "Plato is pretty consoling, because I can always think that somewhere there is a perfect hell of a navy of which this is but an imitation or representation." Returning to these letters years later prompts Clubb to look again at the Second World War and at the atomic bomb that ended it. In an analysis as useful to understanding our own historical moment as it is to reconsidering the past, Clubb counters the conventional wisdom shared by veterans and civilians alike, particularly regarding the concept of a "just war." For Clubb, as for so many veterans, the war does not end with the victory over Japan. Despite the intervening years, Clubb finds that the haunting episodes experienced over half a century ago echo still. Even in the solitude of the forest, in the hunting parties he meets, in the animals he himself kills, he hears again the sound of battle, sees again the faces of the victims of war. Part letters, part memoir, and part scholarly analysis, this volume ranges over a vast, colorful, and weighted territory. From the battles and respites in the Pacific Islands, to the night clubs and call girls of mainland San Francisco and San Diego; from the relative quiet of his aptly named hometown, Stillwater, to the similarly quiet Montana backcountry, Clubb's narrative explores the psychological terrain of a life disturbed, and forever changed, by war.

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A Los Angeles Times's and Southern California Indie Bookseller Association's Bestseller! Los Angeles Stories is a collection of loosely linked, noir-ish tales that evoke a bygone era in one of America's most iconic cities. In post-World War II Los Angeles, as power was concentrating and fortunes were being made, a do-it-yourself culture of cool cats, outsiders, and oddballs populated the old downtown neighborhoods of Bunker Hill and Chavez Ravine. Ordinary working folks rubbed elbows with petty criminals, grifters, and all sorts of women at foggy end-of-the-line outposts in Venice Beach and Santa Monica. Rich with the essence and character of the times, suffused with the patois of the city's underclass, these are stories about the common people of Los Angeles, "a sunny place for shady people," and the strange things that happen to them. Musicians, gun shop owners, streetwalkers, tailors, door-to-door salesmen, drifters, housewives, dentists, pornographers, new arrivals, and hard-bitten denizens all intersect in cleverly plotted stories that center around some kind of shadowy activity. This quirky love letter to a lost way of life will appeal to fans of hard-boiled fiction and anyone interested in the city itself. "Taken as a whole, this collection offers a panoramic view of a rapidly changing Los Angeles and its immigrant communities, rich in period detail and idiomatic dialogue, sometimes based on Cooder's own memories of growing up in the same neighborhoods in which the stories are often set." --Uncut Magazine "Cooder shouldn't stop making records. He should keep writing, too." --Rolling Stones "The stories of Ry Cooder are a lot like his music: stately, precise, well constructed; they grab you by the throat, quietly, and never let go..." --Andrew J. Khaled Madigan, The Iowa Review "The strict Los Angeles setting - the city's highs and lows romanticised ceaselessly - make them like Raymond Chandler or Mickey Spillane." --Chris Johnston, Sydney Morning Herald "In Los Angeles Stories, his first published collection of stories, Cooder pays homage to the jazz, the blues and the Latin beat of a bygone era. He also honors a cast of boisterous musicians, some murdered, others spared to tell their gritty tales of life and death. A few famous musicians - John Lee Hooker and Charlie Parker among them - make cameo appearances in these pages, but most of the guitar players, drummers and lounge singers are as unknown as the repossession men, waitresses and mechanics they entertain in forgotten bars and derelict nightclubs." -- San Francisco Chronicle Ry Cooder is a world-famous guitarist, singer, and composer known for his slide guitar work, interest in roots music, and more recently for his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries, including The Buena Vista Social Club. He has composed soundtracks for more than twenty films, including Paris, Texas. Two recent albums were accompanied by stories Cooder wrote to accompany the music. This is his first published collection of stories.

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"Surprisingly readable and studded with nuggets of insight." —The Daily Yomiuri "This insightful, well-written, fascinating book offers new understandings, not only of Japan, but also of American culture. It is essential for those in anthropology, psychology, sociology, and psychiatry who are interested in culture, as well as those in law and the business community who deal with Japan." —Paul Ekman, Ph.D.,Director, Human Interaction Laboratory, Langley Porter Institute, University of California, San Francisco "[A] thoughtful cross-cultural study of development...His work can only enhance the still evolving psychoanalytic theory of preoedipal development as it is being derived mostly from psychoanalytic research on child-parent interaction in American families." —Calvin F. Settlage, M.D. "Johnson's ambitious and exhaustive synthesis of anthropological and psychological treatments of dependency raises interesting questions. . . Johnson alerts the reader to issues of universalism and relativity and leads us to ask, 'What would psychoanalysis be like, if it had originated in Japan?'" —Merry I. White, Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University ". . . Johnson's erudite and critical re-examination of human dependence succeeds to re-profile dependence meaningfully and revives our interest in this major aspect of human experience. Indeed, much food for thought for both psychoanalysts and anthropologists." —Henri Parens, M.D., Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute Western ideologies traditionally emphasize the concepts of individualism, privacy, freedom, and independence, while the prevailing ethos relegates dependency to a disparaged status. In Japanese society, the divergence from these western ideals can be found in the concept of amae (perhaps best translated as indulgent dependency) which is part of the Japanese social fiber and pervades their experience. For the Western reader, the concept of amae is somewhat alien and unfamiliar, but in order to understand the Japanese fully, it is essential to acquire a familiarity with the intensity that accompanies interdependent affiliations within their culture. To place amae in the proper context, Johnson critically examines the western attitudes toward dependency from the perspectives of psychoanalysis, psychiatry, developmental psychology, and anthropology. Johnson traces the development of the concept and uses of the term dependency in academic and developmental psychology in the West, including its recent eclipse by more operationally useful terms attachment and interdependency. This timely books makes use of the work of Japanese psychiatrist Takeo Doi, whose book The Anatomy of Dependence introduced the concept of amae to the West. Johnson goes on to illuminate the collective manner in which Japanese think and behave which is central to their socialization and educational practices, especially as seen in the stunning success of Japanese trading practices during the past twenty years. A major emphasis is placed upon the positive aspects of amae, which are compared and contrasted with attitudes toward dependency seen among other nationalities, cultures, and groups in both Western and Asian societies. Complete with a glossary of Japanese terms, Dependency and Japanese Socialization provides a comprehensive investigation into Japanese behavior.

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A heartbreaking, lyrical story for all of those who have fantasised about escaping their daily lives and starting over.Michael Kabongo is a British-Congolese teacher living in London on the cusp of two identities. On paper, he seems to have it all - he's loved by his students, popular with his colleagues, and enjoys the pride of his mother who emigrated from the Congo. But behind closed doors, he's been struggling with the overwhelming sense that he can't improve the injustices he sees - from his efforts to change the lives of his students, to his attempts to transcend the violence that marginalises young Black men around the world.Then Michael suffers a devastating loss, and his life is thrown into a tailspin. As he struggles to find a way forward, memories of his fathers' violent death, the weight of being a refugee, and an increasing sense of dread threaten everything he's worked so hard to achieve.Longing to escape the shadows in his mind and start anew, Michael decides to spontaneously pack up and go to America, the mythical 'land of the free,' where he imagines everything will be better, easier - a place where he can become someone new, someone without a past filled with pain. On this transformative journey, Michael travels from New York City to San Francisco, partying with new friends, sparking fleeting romances, and splurging on big adventures.In the back of his mind, Michael has a plan: follow his dreams until the money in his bank account runs out, and then he will decide if his life is truly worth living...Written in spellbinding prose, with Bola's trademark, magnetic storytelling, The Selfless Act of Breathing is a heart-wrenching and deeply emotional novel about mental health, masculinity and the power of love. Perfect for fans of Rainbow Milk and the works of Derek Owusu.What people are saying about The Selfless Act of Breathing:'Well, wow. The writing in this book was so lyrical and beautiful... I really couldn't put this book down and finished it in two days... The last page had me on the verge of tears.' NetGalley Reviewer'I knew from the opening that this book was going to break my heart. Breathless and gripping, it is a masterclass in empathy.' Yvonne Battle-Felton'Heartfelt and searing... Devastating and insightful... Readers will be swept up in the sheer beauty of Bola's writing.' The i'Possessed by a daring turn of phrase and at times a beautifully powerful sense of personal poignancy... Should be pushed into the hands of friends accompanied by the question: do you feel this too?' Big Issue'Absolutely stunning.' Elizabeth Day'I loved this book - I lost my whole day reading - just couldn't bear to put it down!' NetGalley Reviewer'Wonderfully tender... Bola's vulnerable, delicate writing conveys so much truth and heart about the quiet pain in our hearts.' Nikesh Shukla'Arresting... Important and emotive... Powerfully raw.' Guardian'A bold work with a broad scope, bravely tackling masculinity, hopelessness and despair with force and directness.' Okechukwu Nzelu'A beautiful, absorbing read. By turns searing and quietly devastating.' Irenosen Okojie'An emotive, brave novel that ultimately holds out the prospect of salvation, without sacrificing any of its power.' Daily Mail'Providing a spark of hope.' Observer'Narrated with haunting lyricism... An intimate journey through the darkest of human impulses to the gleaming flickers of love and radical hope.' Susan Abulhawa'Bola's insightful, intimate and lyrical work has been entrancing readers... Reminiscent of Paul Beatty and Ralph Ellison.' The Bookseller

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A heartbreaking, lyrical story for all of those who have fantasised about escaping their daily lives and starting over.Michael Kabongo is a British-Congolese teacher living in London on the cusp of two identities. On paper, he seems to have it all - he's loved by his students, popular with his colleagues, and enjoys the pride of his mother who emigrated from the Congo. But behind closed doors, he's been struggling with the overwhelming sense that he can't improve the injustices he sees - from his efforts to change the lives of his students, to his attempts to transcend the violence that marginalises young Black men around the world.Then Michael suffers a devastating loss, and his life is thrown into a tailspin. As he struggles to find a way forward, memories of his fathers' violent death, the weight of being a refugee, and an increasing sense of dread threaten everything he's worked so hard to achieve.Longing to escape the shadows in his mind and start anew, Michael decides to spontaneously pack up and go to America, the mythical 'land of the free,' where he imagines everything will be better, easier - a place where he can become someone new, someone without a past filled with pain. On this transformative journey, Michael travels from New York City to San Francisco, partying with new friends, sparking fleeting romances, and splurging on big adventures.In the back of his mind, Michael has a plan: follow his dreams until the money in his bank account runs out, and then he will decide if his life is truly worth living...Written in spellbinding prose, with Bola's trademark, magnetic storytelling, The Selfless Act of Breathing is a heart-wrenching and deeply emotional novel about mental health, masculinity and the power of love. Perfect for fans of Rainbow Milk and the works of Derek Owusu.What people are saying about The Selfless Act of Breathing:'Well, wow. The writing in this book was so lyrical and beautiful... I really couldn't put this book down and finished it in two days... The last page had me on the verge of tears.' NetGalley Reviewer'I knew from the opening that this book was going to break my heart. Breathless and gripping, it is a masterclass in empathy.' Yvonne Battle-Felton'Heartfelt and searing... Devastating and insightful... Readers will be swept up in the sheer beauty of Bola's writing.' The i'Possessed by a daring turn of phrase and at times a beautifully powerful sense of personal poignancy... Should be pushed into the hands of friends accompanied by the question: do you feel this too?' Big Issue'Absolutely stunning.' Elizabeth Day'I loved this book - I lost my whole day reading - just couldn't bear to put it down!' NetGalley Reviewer'Wonderfully tender... Bola's vulnerable, delicate writing conveys so much truth and heart about the quiet pain in our hearts.' Nikesh Shukla'Arresting... Important and emotive... Powerfully raw.' Guardian'A bold work with a broad scope, bravely tackling masculinity, hopelessness and despair with force and directness.' Okechukwu Nzelu'A beautiful, absorbing read. By turns searing and quietly devastating.' Irenosen Okojie'An emotive, brave novel that ultimately holds out the prospect of salvation, without sacrificing any of its power.' Daily Mail'Providing a spark of hope.' Observer'Narrated with haunting lyricism... An intimate journey through the darkest of human impulses to the gleaming flickers of love and radical hope.' Susan Abulhawa'Bola's insightful, intimate and lyrical work has been entrancing readers... Reminiscent of Paul Beatty and Ralph Ellison.' The Bookseller

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In this lavishly illustrated volume, Laura Lee introduces the art of Tokyo-based digital art collective teamLab, which has soared to global fame with its electrifying immersive and interactive installations. The first of its kind, Worlds Unbound: The Art of teamLab provides a comprehensive overview of teamLab’s artistic vision and achievements from its beginnings to its twentieth anniversary in 2021, and illuminates the remarkable scope of teamLab’s groundbreaking art and its fundamental contribution to the pivotal field of new media art. This original new book, the first scholarly monograph on this popular group, unpacks the popularity and success of the digital immersive environments created worldwide by the Tokyo-based collective, teamLab, from multiple perspectives and addresses the lack of critical appreciation of their work. The book includes an extensive interview with teamLab. teamLab launched in January 2001 with five members and now comprises more than 600 individuals in a multidisciplinary collaboration of engineers, computer graphics animators, mathematicians, graphic designers, architects, artists and computer programmers. The digital art collective has attained international celebrity for its electrifying installations that transcend boundaries between gallery, public space and popular entertainment and, judging from press coverage, ticket sales and prolific production, it seems clear teamLab’s success is only on the rise. In 2018, the collective opened the MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: teamLab Borderless, a massive technological environment in Tokyo that recorded 2.3 million visitors in its first year of operation – the world’s largest annual number of visitors of any single-artist museum. The same year saw numerous other high-profile immersive exhibitions, including teamLab: Massless in Helsinki, Au-delà des limites in Paris, and teamLab Planets TOKYO, a second exhibition in Tokyo. These were quickly followed by two new museums, teamLab Borderless Shanghai in 2019 and, in 2020, teamLab SuperNature in Macao. The vast sea of selfies that have emerged from these venues index the collective’s soaring global popularity. At the same time, teamLab’s works have found art market success and have been exhibited in major museums worldwide, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and they are part of the permanent collection of The Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, and Amos Rex in Helsinki, among numerous others. This canonization of teamLab’s art belies the fact that the group did not have a traditional gallery start, and in fact teamLab has always engaged in software development and corporate work, in addition to creating artworks. The collective thus boasts an enigmatic status, spanning conventional categories and defying traditional art world pedigree. In so doing it has produced a tremendously rich body of work that speaks to several overlapping issues pertinent to contemporary art while advancing a unique artistic vision. Primary readership will include artists, art historians and visual studies scholars who are particularly interested in the most recent media art and Japanese contemporary art. It will be an essential resource for students and scholars working in Japanese art, global contemporary art, digital art, augmented reality, expanded cinema and installation art and related fields. It will also be of more general interest to those who have visited, or hope to visit, teamLab environments worldwide.

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Whether you'd like to sail around the entire world or just part of it, the well-tested sea wisdom in "How to Sail Around the World" will make your voyage easier and more successful. Here's clear and authoritative information on how to buy a small sailing yacht at a modest price, how to sail her on a big ocean, and what it's like to live aboard. Hal Roth has been a long-distance sailor for 37 years. He has sailed around the world three times and has logged 200,000 miles at sea either with his wife or by himself. His books "Two Against Cape Horn", "Two on a Big Ocean", and "Always a Distant Anchorage" are recognized classics of voyaging literature, and his instructional book "After 50,000 Miles", published a quarter century ago, ranks among the most influential sailing books ever written.Yet Roth's first sympathies are still 'for the beginner with stars in his eyes and not much money,' and "How to Sail Around the World" emphasizes the simple, the essential, and the affordable for ordinary people who would like to see the world from a new and challenging perspective. To a rare degree, Roth combines a mastery of technical content with an ability to render it in elegant writing that's a pleasure to read. "How to Sail Around the World" is at once authoritative and accessible. Roth's strongly held opinions, convincingly argued (he chooses not to sail with a refrigerator, for example), add to the book's appeal. "How to Sail Around the World" will tell you how sailing yachts are built and rigged, how to handle the sails, and what you need to know about anchors and anchoring. There are details of cooking and eating aboard, sailing at night, planning the trip, foreign paperwork, and exact figures on what it all costs, as well as the clearest and most comprehensive directions ever published on how to deal with storms at sea. In the beginning, voyaging can be a terrifying prospect. The storms, the leaks, the anchoring, handling the sails, deciding on the route - so many unknowns. But what a payoff!You can sail to Venice, London, Sydney, San Francisco, or Hong Kong. You can pick an island in the middle of the Aegean, listen to green and yellow parrots in the wilds of the Amazon, or visit a thousand places in between. It's exciting to sail to a distant landfall at a slow and leisurely pace, and to meet people in foreign lands. Fortunately, yachts travel slowly and give you time to learn the fundamentals of long-distance sailing. With patience you will begin to put it all together; life aboard will suddenly start to click. It will happen sooner than you think, and this book will help you. The big secret of world travel is to do it in a sailing yacht. You take your deluxe hotel with you, which gives you everything you need to exist pleasantly and comfortably - a snug berth, a writing desk, a navigation center, and a compact little galley - all in a small and neat package.Once you have your own boat, you can sail for years without the terrible daily costs and hassles of hotels, restaurants, and airplanes. You entirely sidestep the annoyance of reservations, standing in line, security screening, and dragging around awkward luggage. You do things at your own pace because you're in charge. Where do you begin? Start by reading "How to Sail Around the World". In this guide, based on 200,000 miles of hands-on world-cruising experience, Hal Roth gives you all the information you need to plan, launch, and relish every moment of a journey that is every sailor's dream. You'll learn how to: find a suitable boat for your voyaging ; assemble a versatile sail inventory; select tools and spare parts; plan your route and timing; choose the right anchors and how to use them; minimize costs; stay warm, dry, and well fed; cope with paperwork in foreign ports; and, much more!

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