Part psychological study, part self-help book, Finding Flow is a prescriptive guide that helps us reclaim ownership of our lives. Based on a... far-reaching study of thousands of individuals, Finding Flow contends that we often walk through our days unaware and out of touch with our emotional lives. Our inattention makes us constantly bounce between two extremes: during much of the day we live filled with the anxiety and pressures of our work and obligations, while during our leisure moments, we tend to live in passive boredom. The key, according to Csikszentmihalyi, is to challenge ourselves with tasks requiring a high degree of skill and commitment. Instead of watching television, play the piano. Transform a routine task by taking a different approach. In short, learn the joy of complete engagement. Thought they appear simple, the lessons in Finding Flow are life-altering.

Since its introduction in 1998, Finding Freedom in the Classroom has impacted countless educators and preservice teachers by providing provocative... questions about taken-for-granted educational routines as well as an alternative, imaginative view of what classrooms might become. This revised edition brings the conversation to the present day with contemporary examples and references to the best current thinking and writing on relevant issues. By defining terms in everyday language and demonstrating their relevance to everyday life in and out of the classroom, the book demystifies such formidable concepts as hegemony, epistemology, and praxis for readers with little or no background in educational philosophy. Each chapter in this edition ends with several thought-provoking discussion questions and an annotated list of suggestions for further reading, which together provide a sturdy bridge between the theoretical and the practical. Finding Freedom in the Classroom can help teachers both imagine and build new classroom worlds, empowering students and teachers alike to actively shaperather than passively accepttheir fates.

The fifth edition of this bestseller brings the reader up-to-date with newly researched Web sites and effective strategies for writing government,... foundation, and private grants.

Read Emma Larkin's posts on the Penguin Blog Over the years the American writer Emma Larkin has spent traveling in Burma, she's come to know all too... well the many ways this brutal police state can be described as "Orwellian." The life of the mind exists in a state of siege in Burma, and it long has. But Burma's connection to George Orwell is not merely metaphorical; it is much deeper and more real. Orwell's mother was born in Burma, at the height of the British raj, and Orwell was fundamentally shaped by his experiences in Burma as a young man working for the British Imperial Police. When Orwell died, the novel-in-progress on his desk was set in Burma. It is the place George Orwell's work holds in Burma today, however, that most struck Emma Larkin. She was frequently told by Burmese acquaintances that Orwell did not write one book about their country - his first novel, Burmese Days - but in fact he wrote three, the "trilogy" that included Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. When Larkin quietly asked one Burmese intellectual if he knew the work of George Orwell, he stared blankly for a moment and then said, "Ah, you mean the prophet!" In one of the most intrepid political travelogues in recent memory, Emma Larkin tells of the year she spent traveling through Burma using the life and work of George Orwell as her compass. Going from Mandalay and Rangoon to poor delta backwaters and up to the old hill-station towns in the mountains of Burma's far north, Larkin visits the places where Orwell worked and lived, and the places his books live still. She brings to vivid life a country and a people cut off from the rest of the world, and from one another, by the ruling military junta and its vast network of spies and informers. Using Orwell enables her to show, effortlessly, the weight of the colonial experience on Burma today, the ghosts of which are invisible and everywhere. More important, she finds that the path she charts leads her to the people who have found ways to somehow resist the soul-crushing effects of life in this most cruel police state. And George Orwell's moral clarity, hatred of injustice, and keen powers of observation serve as the author's compass in another sense too: they are qualities she shares and they suffuse her book - the keenest and finest reckoning with life in this police state that has yet been written.

Dispelling the myth that spiritual retreats are only for those who can get away for an extended time, seasoned spiritual director William A. Barry,... S.J., shares his unique understanding of the Spiritual Exercises and demonstrates how they can benefit the ordinary person's relationship with God. Finding God in All Things gives new life to the spirituality of St. Ignatius and illuminates the transforming power of the Exercises. With over 50,000 copies sold of the first edition, this timely new edition offers today's readers a clear presentation of the themes and contemporary practice of this classic spiritual retreat.

Named one of the 2004 Top Ten Religious Books by the Massachusetts Bible Society! #8 on the Hardcover Advice Bestseller List! (June 14, 2004) #7 on... the Religion Hardcover Bestseller List (October 2004) Do you wonder whether or not God is real? Do you doubt that religion can be relevant? Do you wish that faith were possible for you? Don't shy away from your questions, says Dr. Timothy Johnson, medical editor for ABC News. He believes that's where God meets you--in the midst of honest grappling with heartfelt issues. In this remarkable book, Dr. Johnson discloses his deeply personal journey of faith. With the same keen mind accustomed to medical and scientific examination, he investigates the plausibility of God's existence and explores the significance of the person of Jesus. Despite all the difficulties of faith, he explains what he believes and why. He writes, "As a physician, I have committed my professional life to healing and wellness. But my public work is only a small part of who I really am--or rather, who I want to be. This book is, in a sense, 'the rest of the story.' "For many people, religion provides answers to the big questions of life. For others, the absolute claims of religion raise more questions than they answer. I have lived on both sides--and in some senses, I still do. My path of faith has wandered through both doubt and belief, often at the same time. "Doubt doesn't have to tear down belief, however; it can purify it. When it does, the beliefs on the other side become more certain. This is why I would like to affirm that it is possible to find God even while you are still asking the big questions." Come join a fellow pilgrim on the journey. Ask your questions--and perhaps find God behind them. This new paperback edition includes a new afterword and a study guide with questions for personal reflection or group discussion.

This is a book about God, specifically about the different ways Jews have spoken of God throughout history. In its examination of 4,000 years of Jewish... thought, it presents the broad spectrum of theological opinions that have been explored and affirmed by great Jewish thinkers, ancient and modern. Many Jews today avoid speaking about God. Unable to accept the traditional notions presented to them as authoritative, they often turn to other faiths or cults that offer the possibility of spiritual expression more in keeping with their personal God concept. Unaware of the variety within Judaism, they abandon their religious community in the mistaken impression that their longing for God cannot be satisfied within the faith of their ancestors. In this book, the authors skillfully present ten distinct Jewish theological perspectives, each of which has something to say to us today about our lives as individuals and as Jews. Each grapples with the following crucial questions: What is God? Is there more than one God? What is God's name? How can we know God? What is God's relationship to the world? Does God have a special relationship with the Jewish people? What does God "want" from us? How does God relate to me? Why is there evil in the world? "If we make it possible for one Jew to reclaim his or her Jewish spiritual identity, " the authors write, "if we help others to begin to talk about God without ambivalence or embarrassment, if we serve as a catalyst for further study of these and other Jewish thinkers, we will consider our work worthwhile."

Bruce Springsteen's music and performances have provided an emotional outlet for thousands of fans all over the world. Drawing from participant... observation, the statements of Springsteen fans, and the life and music of Springsteen, Randall's ethnographic treatment documents the ways in which fans are inspired to create a global cultural community. This community functions as a social network, offering emotional support, spirituality, and the motivation for doing good works. Randall discovers that the sensitivities and values Springsteen instills in his fans are as alive and valid as those experienced by adherents of widely recognized spiritual traditions. Her in-depth examination of the thoughts and actions of these fans reveals that embracing nontraditional spiritual values can engender multifaceted feelings, including trust, hope, and respect for humankind. By acknowledging that a personal spiritual connection can develop outside a sectarian landscape, an appreciation of and tolerance for different belief systems can be cultivated and nourished.

Abandoned by her mother and raised by her loving but religiously zealous grandmother, 16-year-old Heavenly Faith Simms (H.F. for short) has never felt... like she belonged anywhere. When she finds her mother's address in a drawer, she and her best friend, Bo, an emotionally repressed gay boy, hit the road in Bo's scrap heap of a car and head south. Their journey through the heart of the American South awakens both teens to the realization that there is a life waiting for them that is very different from what they have known and that the concept of family is more far-reaching than they had ever imagined.

In this brief but substantive examination of the prayers Jesus prayed, Stephen Shoemaker offers helpful applications of Jesus’ prayers as both a way... to better understand Jesus and as a way to use his prayers as a model for our own prayer lives. The book addresses our twin hungers for spirituality and for a deeper grasp of who Jesus was. The author takes seriously the way Jesus prayed and how his prayers open a window to our own experience of God. Included are discussions of: the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13), the Prayer of Thanksgiving amid Life’s Reversals (Matt.11:25-26), the Gethsemane Prayer (Mark 14:36), the Prayers from the Cross (Luke 23:34; Matt. 27:46; Luke 23:46), and prayers from John's Gospel (11:41-42, 12:27, 17:11). The author stays close to the text of the prayers (sometimes including his own translations) but explores their meaning in our lives. He uses Abba rather than the English translation “Father” in order to bring the reader closer to Jesus as he spoke the words of each prayer. A study guide is included to assist leaders in using the book with small groups. “Jesus’ prayers are a challenge and a scandal to the ways our culture wants to pray. His spirituality, found in his prayers, is a profound guide to the soul and a remedy to a culture in search of a soul.” --H. Stephen Shoemaker

Psychology is one of the most popular college majors, and can lead to a satisfying career in many different fields. If graduate school is not in your... immediate plans, this book is for you. It will show you how to leverage your bachelor's degree to find a career with intellectual, emotional, and perhaps even financial rewards. In this book, 28 professionals describe the scope of their work, level of career satisfaction, and how their bachelor's degree. helped get them there. You also get a snapshot of salary, benefits, and day-to-day pleasures and challenges in a variety of jobs as well as advice and questions to help you reflect on the classes, internships, experiences, and attitudes that will make you a success in your career of choice. In addition to the profiles, this book offers detailed instructions for how to use interest inventory and career search tools such as the Holland Self-Directed Search and O*NET database to refine your post-college plans. It candidly reviews best and worst strategies for resume building, job searching, and interviewing and offers up-to-date tips on how to combine personal networking and technology to get noticed. As a bonus, author R. Eric Landrum provides a backstage pass to the research behind this book, uncovering the process so you can appreciate the data or perhaps get some ideas for your next project.

Explore the Middle Ages, a complex and often misunderstood period in European history, through this vivid examination. Details of everyday living... recreate the time period for modern readers, conveying the foreignness of the medieval world while bringing it into focus. The volume provides a two-pronged approach to history beginning with a broad sketch of the general dynamics that shaped the medieval experience while at the same time creating a detailed and clear portrait of what life would have been like for real individuals living in specific settings at the time.The reader is introduced to medieval society in the first three chapters, which include information on the life cycle, material culture, and the economy. These chapters provide an understanding of what people ate, what their social lives were like, what they wore, what kinds of jobs they had, and much more. Following are portraits of life in four specific medieval settings, offering in each case a particular example of the type: the village (Cuxham in Oxfordshire), the castle (Dover), the monastery (Cluny) and the town (Paris). Extensive use of documentary sources from each place sketch the broad contours of the social setting and provide details of the everyday experiences of real individuals. The volume concludes with an exploration of how ordinary people perceived the world in which they lived. Original games, recipes, and music are also provided to round out this rich introduction to life in medieval Europe.

Previously published in HC as Dancing With Rose One journalist?s riveting?and surprisingly hopeful? in-the-trenches view of Alzheimer?s Nearly five... million people in the United States are living with Alzheimer?s. Like many children of Alzheimer?s sufferers, Lauren Kessler, an accomplished journalist, was devastated by the disease that seemed to erase her mother?s identity even before claiming her life. But suppose people with Alzheimer?s are not slates wiped blank. Suppose they experience friendship and loss, romance and jealousy, joy and sorrow? To better understand this debilitating condition, Kessler enlists as a bottom-of-the-rung caregiver at an Alzheimer?s facility and learns lessons that challenge what we think we know about the disease. A compelling, clear-eyed, and emotionally resonant narrative, Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer?s offers a new optimistic look at what the disease can teach us and a much-needed tonic for those faced with providing care for someone they love.

The problem of "lost space," or the inadequate use of space, afflicts most urban centers today. The automobile, the effects of the Modern Movement in... architectural design, urban-renewal and zoning policies, the dominance of private over public interests, as well as changes in land use in the inner city have resulted in the loss of values and meanings that were traditionally associated with urban open space. This text offers a comprehensive and systematic examination of the crisis of the contemporary city and the means by which this crisis can be addressed. Finding Lost Space traces leading urban spatial design theories that have emerged over the past eighty years: the principles of Sitte and Howard; the impact of and reactions to the Functionalist movement; and designs developed by Team 10, Robert Venturi, the Krier brothers, and Fumihiko Maki, to name a few. In addition to discussions of historic precedents, contemporary approaches to urban spatial design are explored. Detailed case studies of Boston, Massachusetts; Washington, D.C.; Goteborg, Sweden; and the Byker area of Newcastle, England demonstrate the need for an integrated design approach--one that considers figure-ground, linkage, and place theories of urban spatial design. These theories and their individual strengths and weaknesses are defined and applied in the case studies, demonstrating how well they operate in different contexts. This text will prove invaluable for students and professionals in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning. Finding Lost Space is going to be a primary text for the urban designers of the next generation. It is the first book in the field to absorb the lessons of the postmodern reaction, including the work of the Krier brothers and many others, and to integrate these into a coherent theory and set of design guidelines. Without polemics, Roger Trancik addresses the biggest issue in architecture and urbanism today: how can we regain in our shattered cities a public realm that is made of firmly shaped, coherently linked, humanly meaningful urban spaces? Robert Campbell, AIA Architect and architecture critic Boston Globe