Essays from twenty-seven leading book editors: "Honest and unflinching accounts from publishing insiders . . . a valuable primer on the field." — Publishers WeeklyEditing is an invisible art in which the very best work goes undetected. Editors strive to create books that are enlightening, seamless, and pleasurable to read, all while giving credit to the author. This makes it all the more difficult to truly understand the range of roles they inhabit while sh...

Editing is an invisible art where the very best work goes undetected. Editors strive to create books that are enlightening, seamless, and pleasurable to read, all while giving credit to the author. This makes it all the more difficult to truly understand the range of roles they inhabit while shepherding a project from concept to publication.In What Editors Do, Peter Ginna gathers essays from twenty-seven leading figures in book publishing about their work. Representing bot...

Every writer knows that as rewarding as the creative process is, it can often be a bumpy road. Have hope and keep at it! Designed to kick-start creativity, this handbook from the executive director of National Novel Writing Month gathers a wide range of insights and advice for writers at any stage of their career. From tips about how to finally start that story to helpful ideas about what to do when the words just aren't quite coming out right, Pep Talks for Writers provides motiv...

Only in 1995 did the United States government officially reveal the existence of the super-secret Venona Project. For nearly fifty years American intelligence agents had been decoding thousands of Soviet messages, uncovering an enormous range of espionage activities carried out against the United States during World War II by its own allies. This extraordinary book is the first to examine the Venona messages.Venona Project cryptanalysts, linguists, and mathematicians attempted to d...

Are we "noble in reason"? Perfect, in God's image? Far from it, says New York University psychologist Gary Marcus. In this lucid and revealing book, Marcus argues that the mind is not an elegantly designed organ but a "kluge," a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption. He unveils a fundamentally new way of looking at the human mind—think duct tape, not supercomputer—that sheds light on some of the most mysterious aspects of human nature.Taking us on a tour of the fundamental areas of ...

A global account of pirates and their modus operandi from the middle ages to the present dayIn the twenty-first century piracy has regained a central place in Western culture, thanks to a surprising combination of Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise as well as the dramatic rise of modern-day piracy around Somalia and the Horn of Africa.In this global history of the phenomenon, maritime terrorism and piracy expert Peter Lehr casts...

Covering 13.8 billion years, a calculatedly concise, wryly intelligent history of everything, from the Big Bang to the advent of human civilizationWith wonder, wit, and flair—and in record time and space—geophysicist David Bercovici explains how everything came to be everywhere, from the creation of stars and galaxies to the formation of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans to the origin of life and human civilization. Bercovici marries humor and legitimate scientific intrigue, rocketing ...

Murders plague a university library—and only an intrepid book cataloger can solve them.For the staff of the library at the center of The Widening Stain, it's easy enough to dismiss the death of a woman who fell from a rolling ladder as nothing more than an unfortunate accident. It's more difficult, however, to explain away the strangled corpse of a man found inside a locked room, surrounded by rare and obscure erotica. And that's not all—a valuable manuscr...

A timeless, indispensable guide for anyone who wants to communicate with sensitivity and compassion.Most of us want to choose inclusive, respectful, and empowering language. But language—and how we use it—continually evolves, along with cultural norms. When contradictory opinions muddle our purpose, how do we align our word choices with our beliefs? Who has the final say when people disagree? And why is it so hard to let go of certain words? Afraid of getting somet...

This practical, comprehensive guide to designing and running more effective meetings will result in less time wasted, more collaborative decision-making, and measurably improved business outcomes.This valuable resource lays out a structured method for designing and leading better meetings. Its facilitative approach marks a transition from the leader as "the expert with the answers" to a new world where the leader's job is to ask the right questions and manage context. To ask the ri...

Based on the hottest, most in-demand seminar offered by the legendary story master Robert McKee -- Storynomics translates the lessons of storytelling in business into economic and leadership success.Robert McKee's popular writing workshops have earned him an international reputation. The list of alumni with Academy Awards and Emmy Awards runs off the page. The cornerstone of his program is his singular book, Story, which has defined how we talk ab...

The book that transforms our understanding of what we are and where we came from.Specialist scientific fields are developing at incredibly swift speeds, but what can they really tell us about how the universe began and how we humans evolved to play such a dominant role on Earth?John Hands’ extraordinarily ambitious quest is to bring together this scientific knowledge and evaluate without bias or preconception all the theories and evidence about the origin a...