Presents a step-by-step home decorating guide to creating stylish and innovative rooms that reflect an individual's true personality, interests, tastes, and lifestyle, with photographs that provide inspirational ideas and techniques.

Recipient of the Gold Medal in the Living Now Awards-Home Improvement The essential do-it-yourself guide from one of the top designers in the country that uncovers the secret home design rules used by the pros Many design books are filled with lavish photography of perfect rooms that most of us can only dream of re-creating. Without any practical advice, the look is unattainable. That's where Design Rules comes in. Here, Elaine Griffin, one of the country's 100 top designers (House Beautiful), explains all the practical decorating standards that professionals use behind the scenes to create flowing, balanced, gorgeous design. Packed with helpful illustrations and hundreds of step-by-step tips, Design Rules includes essential advice such as: ?Pick a pleasing color palette (that really works) ?Correctly size their bedsize tables (so they don't tower over their beds) ?Enhance the visual appeal of windowless rooms (so they're not dungeons) ?Design furniture arrangements that function and flow ?Style up even the most forlorn kitchens, baths and yes, basements and laundry rooms (honey, no space is too dreadful to be made ultra fab) ?Brighten up their kitchens with a can of paint and a burst of strategically- placed color (location, location, location!) ?Figure out which styles of furniture go together (there is a rule and it's easy!) ?Make their own personalities shine throughout their homes (because they should) ?And oodles more! Design Rules is for the growing number of savvy, novice home designers who are well-versed in what good design looks like, but need advice on how to translate it into their own home. It is the home design bible people have been waiting for.

In Home Rule Nandita Sharma traces the historical formation and political separation of Natives and Migrants from the nineteenth century to the present to theorize the portrayal of Migrants as “colonial invaders.” The imperial-state category of Native, initially a mark of colonized status, has been revitalized in what Sharma terms the Postcolonial New World Order of nation-states. Under postcolonial rule, claims to autochthony—being the Native “people of a place”—are mobilized to define true national belonging. Consequently, Migrants—the quintessential “people out of place”—increasingly face exclusion, expulsion, or even extermination. This turn to autochthony has led to a hardening of nationalism(s). Criteria for political membership have shrunk, immigration controls have intensified, all while practices of expropriation and exploitation have expanded. Such politics exemplify the postcolonial politics of national sovereignty, a politics that Sharma sees as containing our dreams of decolonization. Home Rule rejects nationalisms and calls for the dissolution of the ruling categories of Native and Migrant so we can build a common, worldly place where our fundamental liberty to stay and move is realized.

The authors use their varied backgrounds in design, environmental psychology and child development to explore one family's relationship to the built environment. By investigating the living room of a couple and their two children, they search for an understanding of every room as a cultural institution. Each object in the room is photographed in black and white, usually from a child's-eye view, and the rules surrounding its use are listed. No bibliography. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Most of us have no idea what’s really going on inside our heads. Yet brain scientists have uncovered details every business leader, parent, and teacher should know—like the need for physical activity to get your brain working its best. How do we learn? What exactly do sleep and stress do to our brains? Why is multi-tasking a myth? Why is it so easy to forget—and so important to repeat new knowledge? Is it true that men and women have different brains? In Brain Rules, Dr. John Medina, a molecular biologist, shares his lifelong interest in how the brain sciences might influence the way we teach our children and the way we work. In each chapter, he describes a brain rule—what scientists know for sure about how our brains work—and then offers transformative ideas for our daily lives. Medina’s fascinating stories and infectious sense of humor breathe life into brain science. You’ll learn why Michael Jordan was no good at baseball. You’ll peer over a surgeon’s shoulder as he proves that most of us have a Jennifer Aniston neuron. You’ll meet a boy who has an amazing memory for music but can’t tie his own shoes. You will discover how: Every brain is wired differently Exercise improves cognition We are designed to never stop learning and exploring Memories are volatile Sleep is powerfully linked with the ability to learn Vision trumps all of the other senses Stress changes the way we learn In the end, you’ll understand how your brain really works—and how to get the most out of it.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things and the modern classics My Sister’s Keeper, The Storyteller, and more, comes a “complex, compassionate, and smart” (The Washington Post) novel about a family torn apart by a murder accusation. When your son can’t look you in the eye…does that mean he’s guilty? Jacob Hunt is a teen with Asperger’s syndrome. He’s hopeless at reading social cues or expressing himself well to others, though he is brilliant in many ways. He has a special focus on one subject—forensic analysis. A police scanner in his room clues him in to crime scenes, and he’s always showing up and telling the cops what to do. And he’s usually right. But when Jacob’s small hometown is rocked by a terrible murder, law enforcement comes to him. Jacob’s behaviors are hallmark Asperger’s, but they look a lot like guilt to the local police. Suddenly the Hunt family, who only want to fit in, are thrust directly in the spotlight. For Jacob’s mother, it’s a brutal reminder of the intolerance and misunderstanding that always threaten her family. For his brother, it’s another indication why nothing is normal because of Jacob. And for the frightened small town, the soul-searing question looms: Did Jacob commit murder? House Rules is “a provocative story in which [Picoult] explores the pain of trying to comprehend the people we love—and reminds us that the truth often travels in disguise” (People).