Category Archives: Education

The School of Life Presents: How to Change the World and How to Find Fulfilling Work

School of Life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Change the World by John-Paul Flintoff
How to Find Fulfilling Work by Roman Krznaric
A Picador Original Series
Publication Date: April 23, 2013
Business / Careers / Self-Help / Education

For review copies (US and Canada only) or to schedule an interview with John-Paul Flintoff or Roman Krznaric, please email gabrielle.gantz [at] picadorusa.com

PRAISE FOR THE SCHOOL OF LIFE SERIES
“Alain de Botton … has begun issuing a new series of books, written by himself and others, titled The School of Life. A better and more aspirational name for this series might be Self-Help Books for the Rest of Us.”
—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

PRAISE FOR HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD
“[How to Change the World] will provide plenty of fodder for conversation between burgeoning activists. … as a first push toward directing one’s energies outward, this is an encouraging primer.”—Publishers Weekly

“A credible book to inspire even the most cynical among us.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Flintoff has not written a history, though he has woven the essential historical facts into his narrative. He has done something far more rewarding and entertaining.”—The Times Literary Supplement

“Entertaining and thoughtful…Flintoff is the gentlest of moralists.”
—Financial Times

“Manages to be both supremely entertaining and an invaluable social document.”—Telegraph

ABOUT HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD
We all want to live in a better world, but sometimes it feels that we lack the ability to make a difference. Author, broadcaster, and journalist John-Paul Flintoff offers a powerful reminder that through the generations, society has been transformed by the actions of individuals who understood that if they didn’t like something they could change it. Combining fresh new insights from history, and other disciplines, this book will give you a sense of what might just be possible, as well as the inspiration and the courage you need to improve and change the world.

In an interview, John-Paul Flintoff can discuss:

  • Why making a difference in the world is not just for bleeding-heart liberals
  • Why working for an NGO is not inherently good
  • How acting locally is more effective and fulfilling than helping on a large scale
  • Why enjoying the solution is just as important as obtaining the goal
  • The importance of small steps over having a grand plan

JOHN-PAUL FLINTOFF is an author, broadcaster and journalist. He has written several highly praised books. In one, Sew Your Own, he investigated sweat shops and global resource shortages. As a writer with the Financial Times and The Sunday Times, Flintoff has changed government policy, and raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for good causes. He lives in London. You can find him online at http://www.flintoff.org/

PRAISE FOR HOW TO FIND FULFILLING WORK
“An inspirational self-help book with an intellectual pedigree.”—Kirkus

“[Roman Krznaric’s] thought exercises pose important questions…and invite readers to imagine what they might be doing in parallel universes.”—Publishers Weekly

“Krznaric is a congenial writer, and the interweaving of historical fact, psychology, and interviews is nicely done.”—Steven Poole, The Guardian

ABOUT HOW TO FIND FULFILLING WORK
The desire for fulfilling work is one of the great aspirations of our age. This book reveals explores the competing claims we face for money, status, and meaning in our lives. Drawing on wisdom from a variety of disciplines, cultural thinker Roman Krznaric sets out a practical guide to negotiating the labyrinth of choices, overcoming fear of change, and finding a career in which you thrive. Overturning a century of traditional thought about career change, Krznaric reveals just what it takes to find life-enhancing work.

In an interview, Roman Krznaric can discuss:

  • How we’ve become obsessed with specialization, and should consider becoming a generalist rather than a specialist
  • Why we need to reject the standard ‘plan then implement’ model sold to us by careers advisers
  • Why businesses need to offer their employees community and an opportunity to put their values into practice
  • How to take an experimental approach to career change, such as going on a ‘radical sabbatical’
  • What philosophy can teach us about career change – from Aristotle to Bertrand Russell
  • What history can teach us about career change – the Renaissance, the industrial revolution
  • How we need to rethink the ideal of ‘having it all’, and how men and women can support each other in the search for fulfilling work

ROMAN KRZNARIC is a cultural thinker and founding faculty member of The School of Life. He advises organizations including Oxfam and the United Nations on using empathy and conversation to create social change, and has been named by The Observer as one of Britain’s leading lifestyle philosophers. His works, including The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to Live and The First Beautiful Game: Stories of Obsession in Real Tennis, have been translated into over a dozen languages. You can find him online at http://www.romankrznaric.com/

MORE INFORMATION
The School of Life website
John-Paul Flintoff on How to Change the World (video)
Roman Krznaric on How to Find Fulfilling Work (video)
Roman’s blog at Psychology Today
How to Change the World (cover image)
How to Find Fulfilling Work (cover image)

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Filed under Business, Education, Paperback Original, Self Help, Young Adult

Planning Ahead: Summer 2012

Here’s a list of books I’m working on for our Summer 2012 season. I have a limited number of galleys but feel free to request. As review copies become available each title will have its own page. Please follow Books on Tap on Facebook for updates. Please email me at Gabrielle.Gantz [at] us.penguingroup.com to be included on a book’s mailing list. More information about these titles will be posted as it becomes available.

May
As the Crow Flies
Craig Johnson
Viking (Hardcover)
On Sale: May 14, 2012
Category: Mystery / Western
Author’s website

In AS THE CROW FLIES, the eighth book in Craig Johnson’s Sheriff Walt Longmire series, Walt is forced, on the eve of hisdaughter’s wedding, to lead adarkly complex investigation into thedeath of Audrey Last Bull, an Iraqi war veteran, on the Cheyenne Reservation.

The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet
Robert M. Hazen
Viking (Hardcover)
On Sale: April 30, 2012
Category: Science / Earth Science

THE STORY OF EARTH: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet by Robert M. Hazen takes readers on an astonishing journey across space and time to bring to life the story of the only home any of us has ever known.

Jack’s Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac
Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee
Penguin Paperback
On Sale:  April 24, 2012
Category: Biography

Here, in what has become a classic of its kind since its publication in 1978, is the fascinating story of Jack Kerouac, “King of the Beats” and American literary legend, recorded through the voices of his friends and lovers.

June
The Obamians: How a Band of Newcomers Redefined American Power
James Mann
Viking (Hardcover)
On Sale: June 18, 2012
Category: Politics / Current Events

THE OBAMIANS is the definitive analysis of the events, ideas, personalities, and conflicts that have defined Obama’s foreign policy.

Witness the Night: A Novel
Kishwar Desai
Penguin Paperback Original
On Sale: May 29, 2012
Category: Fiction / Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Costa First Novel Award winner WITNESS THE NIGHT: A Novel by Kishwar Desai is adazzling mystery that takes readers into the heart of India.

Autobiographical Writings
Mark Twain
Penguin Classics
On Sale: May 29, 2012
Category:  Classics, Memoir, Autobiography, Essays

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITINGS is a curated collection of Mark Twain’s autobiographical writings with particular attention to texts reflecting his early life.

July
Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand at a Time
Carissa Phelps
Viking (Hardcover)
On Sale: July 9, 2012
Category: Memoir
Author’s website 

RUNAWAY GIRL is Carissa’s story, the tale of a girl who lost herself and survived, against all odds, through the generosity of strangers. It is an inspiring true story about finding the courage to run toward healing and summoning the strength to light the way for others.

August
Now You See It: How Technology and Brain Science Will Transform Schools andBusiness for the 21st Century
Cathy N. Davidson
Penguin Paperback
On Sale: July 31, 2012
Category: Education / Technology
Author’s website

Pyg: The Memoirs of Toby, the Learned Pig
Russell Potter
Penguin Paperback Original
On Sale: July 31, 2012
Category: Fiction

Blending the sophisticated satire of Jonathan Swift with the charming exuberance of a Pixar film, PYG tells the story of Toby, a truly exceptional pig who lived in late eighteenth-centuryEngland.

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Filed under Classics, Current Events / Politics, Education, Fiction, Literary, Memoir, Mystery, Paperback Original, Politics, Science, Season Roundup, Technology

Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn

Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn
Viking / On Sale: August 18, 2011

“Davidson offers a stunning new vision for the future, showing how the latest advances in brain research could revolutionize education and workplace management … Davidson has produced an exceptional and critically important book, one that is all-but-impossible to put down and likely to shape discussions for years to come.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A remarkable new book, Now You See It . . . offers a fresh and reassuring perspective on how to manage anxieties about the bewildering pace of technological change. . . . Her work is the most powerful yet to insist that we can and should manage the impact of these changes in our lives.”
—Anya Kamanetz, Fast Company

ABOUT THE BOOK
In 2003, Cathy Davidson, then Duke University’s Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies, helped spearhead the school’s effort to provide free iPods to every member of the incoming freshman class. No one expected the uproar their decision provoked. Critics decried it as wasteful and irresponsible—what educational value could a music player have for college kids? Yet by the end of the year, and nearly 2,000 iPods later, Duke students had found academic uses for iPods in virtually every discipline, from environmental science majors who used them to conduct and edit interviews for documentaries, to medical students who used them to identify heart arrhythmias during patient’s exams. The iPod experiment proved to be a classic example of the power of disruption—a way of adopting changing technology, refocusing attention and exploring new possibilities.

This idea is at the heart of Davidson’s brilliant new book, NOW YOU SEE IT: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn . Using cutting-edge research on the brain, Davidson shows how the phenomenon of “attention blindness” shapes our lives, and how it has led to one of the greatest problems of our time: we have embraced technologies that have transformed our lives and our work, but our institutions remain unchanged. The result: while we handily blog, tweet, and text, many of us still toil in schools and workplaces designed for the Industrial Age and measure our success by standards that are no longer relevant.

ABOUT CATHY N. DAVIDSON
Cathy N. Davidson served from 1998 until 2006 as the first Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University, where she worked with faculty to help create many programs, including the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the program in Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS). She is the co-founder of Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, HASTAC (“haystack”), a network of innovators dedicated to new forms of learning for the digital age. She is also co-director of the $2 million annual HASTAC/John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition.

Davidson is the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.  She has published more than 20 books, including Revolution and the Word:  The Rise of the Novel in America,  Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (with photographer Bill Bamberger) and The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age (with HASTAC co-founder David Theo Goldberg). She blogs regularly on new media, learning and innovation on the www.hastac.org website as “Cat in the Stack” as well as on www.dmlcentral.com and Psychology Today.com. In December 2010, President Obama nominated her to the National Council on the Humanities.

For More Information: 
Press Release
Cover Image for Download
Now You See It website
Fast Company profile

For a review copy please contact gabrielle.gantz [at] us.penguingroup.com

 

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Filed under Current Events / Politics, Education, Science, Technology