"A Rule Is To Break says: Go ahead and throw your best self a party! So glad it exists."—Kristin Hersh, Throwing Muses "After encountering the lively little anarchist in John and Jana's delightful A Rule is To Break, I will always remember the playful little devil with a mind of her own. A children's book on anarchy seems somehow just right: an instinctive, intuitive sense of fairness, community, and interdependence sits naturally enough with a desire for participatory democracy, self-determination, and peace and global justice."—Bill Ayers, author of To Teach: The Journey in Comics and Fugitive Days Simply celebrating childhood: the joy, the wonder of discovery, the spontaneity, and strong emotions. . . . Wild Child is free to do as she pleases. A Rule Is To Break: A Child's Guide to Anarchy follows Wild Child as she learns about just being herself and how that translates into kid autonomy. It presents the ideas of challenging societal expectations and tradition and expressing yourself freely in kid-terms that are both funny and thought provoking—it even functions as a guidebook for adults to understand what it is to be a critically thinking, creative individual. Wild Child is the role model for disobedience that is sometimes civil. John Seven and Jana Christy's previous collaboration The Ocean Story won Creative Child magazine's 2011 Creative Child Award Seal of Excellence and was shortlisted for the 2012 Green Earth Book Award.

The greatest managers in the world seem to have little in common. They differ in sex, age, and race. They employ vastly different styles and focus on different goals. Yet despite their differences, great managers share one common trait: They do not hesitate to break virtually every rule held sacred by conventional wisdom. They do not believe that, with enough training, a person can achieve anything he sets his mind to. They do not try to help people overcome their weaknesses. They consistently disregard the golden rule. And, yes, they even play favorites. This amazing book explains why. Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman of the Gallup Organization present the remarkable findings of their massive in-depth study of great managers across a wide variety of situations. Some were in leadership positions. Others were front-line supervisors. Some were in Fortune 500 companies; others were key players in small, entrepreneurial companies. Whatever their situations, the managers who ultimately became the focus of Gallup's research were invariably those who excelled at turning each employee's talent into performance. In today's tight labor markets, companies compete to find and keep the best employees, using pay, benefits, promotions, and training. But these well-intentioned efforts often miss the mark. The front-line manager is the key to attracting and retaining talented employees. No matter how generous its pay or how renowned its training, the company that lacks great front-line managers will suffer. Buckingham and Coffman explain how the best managers select an employee for talent rather than for skills or experience; how they set expectations for him or her -- they define the right outcomes rather than the right steps; how they motivate people -- they build on each person's unique strengths rather than trying to fix his weaknesses; and, finally, how great managers develop people -- they find the right fit for each person, not the next rung on the ladder. And perhaps most important, this research -- which initially generated thousands of different survey questions on the subject of employee opinion -- finally produced the twelve simple questions that work to distinguish the strongest departments of a company from all the rest. This book is the first to present this essential measuring stick and to prove the link between employee opinions and productivity, profit, customer satisfaction, and the rate of turnover. There are vital performance and career lessons here for managers at every level, and, best of all, the book shows you how to apply them to your own situation.

In this groundbreaking work of ecstatic criticism, Carole Maso shows why she has risen, over the past fifteen years, as one of the brightest stars in the literary firmament. Ever refusing to be marginalized or categorized by genre, Maso is an incisive, compassionate writer who deems herself daughter of William Carlos Williams, a pioneer in combining poetry and fiction with criticism, journalism, and the visual arts. She is daughter, too, of Allen Ginsberg, who also came from Paterson, New Jersey. Known for her audacity, whether exploring language and memory or the development of the artistic soul, Maso here gives us a form–challenging collection, intelligent, and persuasive.

“Imagination may be thought of as a ‘work-around.’ It is a resourceful tactic to ‘undo’ a rule by creating a path around it without necessarily defying it. . . . Transgression, on the other hand, is rule breaking. There is no pretense of reinterpretation; it is defiance pure and simple. Whether imagination or disobedience is the source, constraints need not constrain, ties need not bind.” So writes Kenneth A. Shepsle in his introduction to Rule Breaking and Political Imagination. Institutions are thought to channel the choices of individual actors. But what about when they do not? Throughout history, leaders and politicians have used imagination and transgression to break with constraints upon their agency. Shepsle ranges from ancient Rome to the United States Senate, and from Lyndon B. Johnson to the British House of Commons. He also explores rule breaking in less formal contexts, such as vigilantism in the Old West and the CIA’s actions in the wake of 9/11. Entertaining and thought-provoking, Rule Breaking and Political Imagination will prompt a reassessment of the nature of institutions and remind us of the critical role of political mavericks.

New York Times best-selling celebrity Mark Bego herin delves into another self-made and strong-willed femail star: internationally renowned soul/pop vocalist Tina Turner.

Edgar Award Finalist For fans of The Westing Game and From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler comes a clever, treasure-hunt mystery based on a real-life art heist. Moxie Fleece knows the rules and follows them--that is, until the day she opens her front door to a mysterious stranger. Suddenly Moxie is involved in Boston's biggest unsolved mystery: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist. Moxie has two weeks to find the art, otherwise she and the people she loves will be in big-time danger. Her tools? Her best friend, Ollie, a geocaching addict who loves to find stuff; her Alzheimer's suffering grandfather, Grumps, who knows lots more than he lets on; and a geometry proof that she sets up to sort out the clues. It's a race against the clock through downtown Boston as Moxie and Ollie break every rule she's ever lived by to find the art and save her family.

It's time to stop. It's time to break the rules. Join speaker and coach Heather Whelpley as she shares her life-changing journey to let go of proving, pleasing, and perfecting-and guides you to do the same. Through a seamless blend of vulnerable, heartfelt stories and practical tools, you'll discover why you go into overachieving perfection mode and learn how to: Quiet the inner critic-and reawaken your true inner voice Reconnect to your body Reclaim your joy Redefine success on your own terms Reset boundaries and say no An Overachiever's Guide to Breaking the Rules is more than a personal development book. It's an inward journey to free yourself from the weight of perfection and start living your truth.