New titles

 

Small Data: The Tiny Clues that Uncover Huge Trends by Martin Lindstrom and Chip Heath 

Hired by the world's leading brands to find out what makes their customers tick, Martin Lindstrom spends 300 nights a year in strangers’ homes, carefully observing every detail in order to uncover their hidden desires, and, ultimately, the clues to a multi-million dollar product. 

Lindstrom connects the dots in this globetrotting narrative that will enthrall enterprising marketers, as well as anyone with a curiosity about the endless variations of human behavior. You’ll learn… 

• How a noise reduction headset at 35,000 feet led to the creation of Pepsi’s new trademarked signature sound. • How a worn down sneaker discovered in the home of an 11-year-old German boy led to LEGO’s incredible turnaround. • How a magnet found on a fridge in Siberia resulted in a U.S. supermarket revolution. • How a toy stuffed bear in a girl’s bedroom helped revolutionize a fashion retailer’s 1,000 stores in 20 different countries. • How an ordinary bracelet helped Jenny Craig increase customer loyalty by 159% in less than a year. • How the ergonomic layout of a car dashboard led to the redesign of the Roomba vacuum. 

 

Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939 by Volker Ullrich 

For all the literature about Adolf Hitler there have been just four seminal biographies; this is the fifth, a landmark work that sheds important new light on Hitler himself. Drawing on previously unseen papers and a wealth of recent scholarly research, Volker Ullrich reveals the man behind the public persona, from Hitler's childhood to his failures as a young man in Vienna to his experiences during the First World War to his rise as a far-right party leader. Ullrich deftly captures Hitler's intelligence, instinctive grasp of politics, and gift for oratory as well as his megalomania, deep insecurity, and repulsive worldview.  Many previous biographies have focused on the larger social conditions that explain the rise of the Third Reich. Ullrich gives us a comprehensive portrait of a postwar Germany humiliated by defeat, wracked by political crisis, and starved by an economic depression, but his real gift is to show vividly how Hitler used his ruthlessness and political talent to shape the Nazi party and lead it to power. For decades the world has tried to grasp how Hitler was possible. By focusing on the man at the center of it all, on how he experienced his world, formed his political beliefs, and wielded power, this riveting biography brings us closer than ever to the answer. 

 

The Tyrannosaur Chronicles: The Biology of the Tyrant Dinosaurs by David Hone 

In the mid-nineteenth century, many dinosaur fossils were found in the United States, especially during the 1870s and 1880s "Bone Wars." Paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh discovered dozens of skeletons, but in 1905, fossil hunter Barnum Brown named the first tyrannosaur known to science--Tyrannosaurus rex. 

Tyrannosaurus was an impressive beast; it topped five tons, was more than thirty-five feet (twelve meters) long, and had the largest head and most powerful bite of any land animal, ever. Tyrannosaurs started small, just a couple of yards long, and over the course of 100 million years, evolved into giant meat-slicing bone crushers. 

As of 2015, there were nearly 30 described species of tyrannosaur, but during the last decade at least one new species has been identified and named every year, greatly improving what we know about how they lived, fed, bred, and died. THE TYRANNOSAUR CHRONICLES tracks the rise of these dinosaurs, and presents the latest research into their biology, showing off more than just their impressive statistics--tyrannosaurs had feathers, and fought and even ate one another. Indeed, David Hone tells the evolutionary story of the group through their anatomy, ecology, and behavior, exploring how they came to be the dominant terrestrial predators of the Mesozoic--and more recently, one of the great icons of biology. 

 

Single-Tasking: Getting More Done, One Thing at a Time by Devora Zack 

Too many of us have become addicted to the popular, enticing, dangerously misleading drug of multitasking. Devora Zack was once hooked herself. But she beat it and became more efficient, and you can too.   Zack marshals convincing neuroscientific evidence to prove that you really can't do more by trying to tackle several things at once—it's an illusion. There is a better way to deal with all the information and interruptions that bombard us today. Singletasking explains exactly how to clear and calm your mind, arrange your schedule and environment, and gently yet firmly manage the expectations of people around you so that you can accomplish a succession of tasks, one by one—and be infinitely more productive. Singletasking is the secret to success and sanity. 

 

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K.Rowling 

The Eighth Story. Nineteen Years Later. Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London’s West End on July 30, 2016.   It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.  While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places. 

 

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead 

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.      In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.      Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share. 

 

Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape by Jessica Luther 

Football teams create playbooks, in which they draw up the plays they will use on the field. Playbooks are how teams work and why they win. This book is about a different kind of playbook: the one coaches, teams, universities, police, communities, the media, and fans seem to follow whenever a college football player is accused of sexual assault. It's a deep dive into how different institutions--the NCAA, athletic departments, universities, the media--run the same plays over and over again when these stories break. If everyone runs his play well, scrutiny dies down quickly, no institution ever has to change how it operates, and the evaporation of these cases into nothingness looks natural. In short, this playbook is why nothing ever changes.  Unsportsmanlike Conduct unpacks this societal playbook piece by piece, and not only advocates that we destroy the old plays, but also suggests we replace them with ones that will force us to finally do something about this issue.  Political sportswriter and Edge of Sports imprint curator Dave Zirin (the Nation) has never shied away from criticizing that which die-hard sports fans hold dear. The Edge of Sports titles will address issues across many different sports—football, basketball, swimming, tennis, etc.—and at both the professional and nonprofessional/collegiate levels. Furthermore, Zirin brings to the table select stories of athletes’ journeys and what they are facing and how they evolve both in their sport as well as against the greater backdrop of one’s life’s odyssey. 

 

Explaining Psychological Statistics by Barry H Cohen 

A clear and accessible statistics text— now fully updated and revised 

Now with a new chapter showing students how to apply the right test in the right way to yield the most accurate and true result, Explaining Psychological Statistics, Fourth Edition offers students an engaging introduction to the field. Presenting the material in a logically flowing, non-intimidating way, this comprehensive text covers both introductory and advanced topics in statistics, from the basic concepts (and limitations) of null hypothesis testing to mixed-design ANOVA and multiple regression. 

The Fourth Edition covers: 

• Basic statistical procedures 
• Frequency tables, graphs, and distributions 
• Measures of central tendency and variability 
• One- and two-sample hypothesis tests 
• Hypothesis testing 
• Interval estimation and the t distribution 

 

Literary Analysis: the Basics by Celena Kusch 

Literary Analysis: The Basics is an insightful introduction to analysing a wide range of literary forms. Providing a clear outline of the methodologies employed in twenty-first century literary analysis, it introduces readers to the genres, canons, terms, issues, critical approaches, and contexts that affect the analysis of any text. It addresses such questions as: 

• What counts as literature? 
• Is analysis a dissection? 
• How do gender, race, class and culture affect the meaning of a text? 
• Why is the social and historical context of a text important? 
• Can digital media be analyzed in the same way as a poem? 

With examples from ancient myths to young adult fiction, a glossary of key terms, and suggestions for further reading, Literary Analysis: The Basics is essential reading for anyone wishing to improve their analytical reading skills.