Showing results by author "a.a. clifford" in All Categories

Jenkins was a robot. He was built to be the perfect worker, tireless and uncomplaining. But, quite unexpectedly, he also became a close companion to generation after generation of his owners as the human race matured, moved beyond the confines of its once tiny planet, and eventually changed beyond all recognition.

In this long-awaited memoir, dancer and choreographer John Clifford offers a highly personal look inside the day-to-day operations of the New York City Ballet and its creative mastermind, George Balanchine. Balanchine’s Apprentice is the story of Clifford - an exceptionally talented artist - and the guiding inspiration for his life’s work in dance.

Most people don't need to be experts in their field. Yes, the successful know more than the average person about a particular topic, and they often possess a better-than-average ability with a particular skill set; but not everyone who is successful is an expert, he makes clear. And yet we continue to deeply value the expertise ideal. In Master of None, Hudson turns expertise on its head and shows that by embracing variety and becoming more versatile, anyone can succeed and become more open to different opportunities in life.

This new edition of this best-selling guide offers an integrated approach to process improvement that delivers quick and substantial results in quality and productivity in diverse settings. The authors explore their Model for Improvement that worked with international improvement efforts at multinational companies as well as in different industries such as healthcare and public agencies. This edition includes new information that shows how to accelerate improvement by spreading changes across multiple sites.

For 500 years, the Cahills have been the most powerful family in the world. For 500 years, they've protected the source of their power - the 39 Clues. And for 500 years, they've kept their secrets silent. Until now. This extraordinary stand-alone novel cracks open the Cahill vault to tell the story of the most coveted piece of artwork in the world, a masterpiece that has been the target of seven separate theft attempts: Jan van Eyck’s altarpiece at Ghent.

Since the dawn of mankind, immortality has been the ultimate reward. But by the year 2148, it requires no act of faith to believe in an afterlife. Forever Center promises to bring people back to a life beyond death. Now everyone spends their lives in poverty, giving all their money to Forever Center to ensure their happiness and comfort in the next eternal life.

Razier is young, handsome, and has a severe lack of control when it comes to women. Even after several warnings from his loving mother, he just can't help himself. Then he meets an older woman who changes his life in a way that every man dreams of. All of a sudden, he has everything he's ever wanted: lots of sex, a successful business, a new home, a new car, and a wardrobe that would break your heart. When a past indiscretion from his time in the Navy resurfaces, it puts all that he has gained at risk.

The Seven Days Campaign was a series of battles fought near Richmond at the end of June 1862. General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had routed General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Depriving McClellan of a military decision meant the war would continue for two more years. The Seven Days depicts a critical turning point in the Civil War that would ingrain Robert E. Lee in history as one of the finest generals of all time.

Author Jay Vickers would like nothing more than to be left alone so he can finish his next book. But "there's something strange going on," as his peculiar neighbor, Horton Flanders, says. The market is filling with new inventions that supposedly last forever-cars, razors, cigarette lighters, and more. Individuals and whole families are disappearing. Soon, even Mr. Flanders vanishes-but not before leaving Vickers a note.

In this Hugo Award-winning classic, Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit, striding across his untended farm as he had done for over a century, still carrying the gun with which he had served in the Civil War. But what his neighbors must never know is that, inside his unchanging house, he meets with a host of unimaginable friends from the farthest stars.

More than a thousand years have passed since humankind intentionally destroyed its treacherous technology, choosing to revert back to a primitive tribal state. In this society the rusting brain cases of long-inert robots are considered trophies, and the scant knowledge that has survived is doled out to an inquisitive few in monasterylike "universities". It is at one such center of learning that young Tom Cushing first reads of the legendary "Place of Going to the Stars".

Whether you’ve been married a day, a decade, or half a century, if your sexual relationship is marred by pain, tension, or disappointment - you are not alone. Thousands of couples struggle with sexual problems that keep their marriages from being all that God intended them to be. But there is hope!

From the KGB to the Kremlin: a multidimensional portrait of the man at war with the West. Where do Vladimir Putin's ideas come from? How does he look at the outside world? What does he want, and how far is he willing to go? The great lesson of the outbreak of World War I in 1914 was the danger of misreading the statements, actions, and intentions of the adversary. Today, Vladimir Putin has become the greatest challenge to European security and the global world order in decades.

Clifford Nass has developed a powerful theory: Our brains can’t fundamentally distinguish between interacting with people and interacting with devices. Nass’s discoveries push the boundaries of both psychology and technology and provide nothing less than a new blueprint for successful human relationships.

On the heels of a divorce, a mid-list mystery writer returns to his hometown in Central Connecticut and is dragged back into a decades-old unsolved case involving former missing classmates to expose the horrific secrets of a quaint, idyllic New England town. Fusing the modern domestic psychological thriller with popular unsolved mysteries (Girl on the Train meets In Cold Blood), this meta blend of true crime and fiction plays with expectations and perspective before its mind-blowing conclusion.

In rural Wisconsin, wonder clashes dangerously with corporate greed when an alien visitor opens up a gateway through time into a breathtaking prehistoric lost world. On sabbatical from teaching at a small university, paleontologist Asa Steele is content to relax amid the pastoral splendor of his Wisconsin farm. That is until his dog starts bringing home unrecognizable artifacts and, strangest of all, fresh dinosaur bones.

No margin--no mission! What does it take to bring financial justice to communities of color? Cliff Rosenthal, shaped by the movements of the 1960s, fought for decades against government indifference and systemic bias finally seeing change come after the death of George Floyd. Michael McCray, a renowned whistle-blower, led an unprecedented court challenge to the unjust federal termination of his fraternity's Kappa Alpha Psi Federal Credit Union.

In the title story, a man's newfound ability to walk in the past allows him to dwell among dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers . . . and something even more timeless. In "Construction Shack," the first manned expedition to Pluto reveals that no matter how advanced aliens may be, even they don't always get everything right. And in "Univac 2200," the thin line between humans creating technology and humans becoming technology is about to be crossed-and there may be no going back.

Twenty years ago, Asher Sutton vanished somewhere in the star system 61 Cygni, an inaccessible corner of the universe that humankind has thus far been unable to explore. Now Asher has returned to Earth, having impossibly survived catastrophic damage to his spacecraft. But the star traveler is not the same man he was when he began his journey two decades earlier. He is, in fact, no longer completely human. And he isn't alone.

The astonishing story of the billionaire businessman Jimmy Lai, who became one of Hong Kong’s leading activists for democracy and is China’s most famous political prisoner.