The New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically goes on a rollicking journey to understand the enduring power of puzzles: why we love them, what they do to our brains, and how they can improve our world.**“Even though I’ve never attempted the New York Times crossword puzzle or solved the Rubik’s Cube, I couldn’t put down The Puzzler.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project and Better T...

The New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically chronicles his hilarious adventures in attempting to follow the original meaning of the Constitution, as he searches for answers to one of the most pressing issues of our time: How should we interpret America’s foundational document?“I don’t know how I learned so much while laughing so hard.”—Andy BorowitzA.J. Jacobs learned the hard way that donning a ...

This book chronicles the divergent growth trends in car production in Belgium and Spain. It delves into how European integration, high wages, and the demise of GM and Ford led to plant closings in Belgium. Next, it investigates how lower wages and the expansion strategies of Western European automakers stimulated expansion in the Spanish auto industry. Finally, it offers three alternate scenarios regarding how further EU expansion and Brexit may potentially reshape the geographic footprint...

This volume chronicles the maturation of the South Korean auto industry and its native automakers, from the 1997 Asian Crisis to 2019. After examining the context for domestic vehicle production in South Korea, the author presents multiple case studies for all five Korean automakers: General Motors Korea/Daewoo Motors, Kia, Hyundai, Ssangyong and Renault Samsung. This includes coverage of Hyundai-Kia’s foreign plants in North America, Europe, India, China, and Emerging Asia. The book close...

In 1962, South Korea assembled just 1,100 new automobiles. By 1996, this total had soared to 2,812,714. What explains this remarkable growth? The answer is complex, and involves a combination of a supportive State, timely technology alliances, a skilled but historically low-paid workforce, aggressive pricing, savvy entrepreneurs, and fortuitous circumstances. Despite this amazing ascent, comparatively little has been written about the Korean auto industry in English. In the first of a two-...

Over the past forty years, state/provincial and local governments in the United States and Canada have provided foreign automakers with approximately $4.80 billion in incentives in order to lure light vehicles assembly plants to their areas. This has included tax abatements, infrastructure construction, land giveaways, job training programs, and other subsidies. As of early 2015, ten foreign vehicle makers operated 20 light vehicles in developed North America. Despite the fact that all ten...

This book examines the dramatic increase in automotive assembly plants in the former Socialist Central European (CE) nations of Czechia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia from 1989 onwards. Enticed by relatively lower-wage labour and significant government incentives, the world’s largest automakers have launched more than 20 passenger car assembly complexes in CE nations, with production accelerating dramatically since 2001. As a result, the annual passenger car production in Wes...

#1 New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jacobs undergoes a hilarious, poignant quest to understand what constitutes family—where it begins and how far it goes—in It’s All Relative, a “thought-provoking…delightful, easy-to-read, informative book” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).A.J. Jacobs has received some strange emails over the years, but this note was perhaps the strangest: “You don’t know me, but I’m your eighth cousin. And we have...

Inspiration for the TV series Living Biblically streaming now!From the New York Times bestselling author of The Know-It-All comes a fascinating and timely exploration of religion and the Bible. A.J. Jacobs chronicles his hilarious and thoughtful year spent obeying?as literally as possible?the tenets of the Bible.Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A...

The New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically chronicles his hilarious adventures in attempting to follow the original meaning of the Constitution, as he searches for answers to one of the most pressing issues of our time: How should we interpret America’s foundational document?“I don’t know how I learned so much while laughing so hard.”—Andy BorowitzA.J. Jacobs learned the hard way that donning a ...

The New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically goes on a rollicking journey to understand the enduring power of puzzles: why we love them, what they do to our brains, and how they can improve our world.What makes puzzles—jigsaws, mazes, riddles, sudokus—so satisfying? Be it the formation of new cerebral pathways, their close link to insight and humor, or their community-building properties, they’re among the fundamental ele...

Part memoir and part education (or lack thereof), The Know-It-All chronicles NPR contributor A. J. Jacobs's hilarious, enlightening, and seemingly impossible quest to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z.To fill the ever-widening gaps in his Ivy League education, A. J. Jacobs sets for himself the daunting task of reading all thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His wife, Julie, tells him it's a waste of time, his f...