Java: The Good Parts

In North America and elsewhere, there is a growing concern by many that they are no longer connected in any meaningful way with the production or processing of the food they consume. Furthermore, many sources portray a negative bias regarding the production, transport, processing, and marketing of today?s food.

In DEMYSTIFYING FOOD FROM FARM TO FORK, author Maurice J. Hladik examines a plethora of issues surrounding the agricultural industry. It answers the questions of what is food, what does farm to market really mean, and whether the food we eat is safe. It also discusses the controversies and socioeconomic concerns surrounding food and the food supply, such as the role of government; farming, environment, and biodiversity; genetically modi?ed food; organic foods; the 100-mile diet; weather, climate, and food; and animal and poultry welfare.

Hladik?a descendant of European farmers who settled on farms in Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota as early as 1834?not only provides a lively discussion of food controversies, but also shares hundreds of little-known facts about food and farming.

The authors describe how the champions of product development separate themselves from less sophisticated companies by building entire families of strong products from a single "platform" of common product structures, technologies, and automated product processes. These successful companies recognize and respond to new market opportunities by integrating core skills and technology in the form of new products. In this easy-to-read and practical book, the authors masterfully elucidate this dynamic and forward-thinking strategy which enables companies to develop innovative products faster, more cheaply, and with less effort.

Drawing on in-depth case studies and personal experience with successful companies such as Hewlett-Packard, EMC, Black & Decker, and Boeing, Meyer and Lehnerd show managers how to create extraordinary products and thereby set the standard for combined value and cost leadership in their products. They argue that when a company's products are robust—highly functional, elegant in their design, reasonably priced, and a pleasure to use—the corporation will be equally robust. More importantly, The Power of Product Platforms reveals the methodology and organizational approach for designing, developing, and revitalizing strong products that enable the firm to make the transition from one generation of technology to the next. The authors also explain how well-designed product platforms can generate streams of derivative products through a continuous systematic process of renewal.

Meyer and Lehnerd apply this methodology to a broad range of industries; manufacturing in both consumer and industrial markets, software firms, and Internet information services providers.

"The stories collected here challenge the orthodoxy of what Canadian fiction can and should do, while continually adding fuel to the eternal flame of literature. These are "tales from tomorrow" in that the future is now -- it's 2010...We need more books like this, Canada. If you're one of those who counts themselves among Darwin's illegitimate children as well, check this one out." -- Broken Pencil

"Canadians who read this book will be proud to see that their imaginative landscape is as wildly bizarre - and honest to the truth - as ever." -- Globe & Mail

Social satire, fabulist tales and darkly humorous dystopian visions by some of Canada's most adventurous and distinguished writers.

The 23 stories in Darwin's Bastards take us on a twisted, wild ride into some future times and parallel universes where characters as diverse as a dead boy, a one-legged international actuarial forensics specialist, a pharmaceutical guinea pig, and a far-sighted fetus engage in their own games of the survival of the fittest.

The collection includes the first new short story by William Gibson to be published since 1997, as well as original, previously unpublished fiction by Lee Henderson, Timothy Taylor, Heather O'Neill, Mark Anthony Jarman, and others.

From recent Trillium Award-winner Pasha Malla's hilarious take on the apocalypse, where Prince is the only man left alive, to newcomer Matthew J. Trafford's brilliant triptych about the fallout from the cloning of Jesus Christ, to iconoclast Sheila Heti's meditative romp about beleaguered physicists and Oracle of Delphi-like BlackBerrys, Darwin's Bastards is a fast-moving, thought-provoking reading extravaganza.

The companion to Drucker's seminal work Management, completely revised and updated

Management Cases, Revised Edition is a collection of thought-provoking case studies—each a timeless representative of a challenge that all managers will face at some point in their careers. Longtime Drucker colleague, collaborator, and eminent management professor Joseph A. Maciariello has organized the material to be used in conjunction with Management, Revised Edition, making the book particularly useful in undergraduate, MBA, and executive education classrooms.

It contains fifteen completely new cases written especially for this edition plus another thirty-five revised and updated cases, ensuring that the book provides comprehensive coverage of the most important management dilemmas and most timeless leadership wisdom. An essential resource for business students and working professionals alike, the book will help readers test and hone their management skills.

Think again.

The Carrot Principle reveals the groundbreaking results of one of the most in-depth management studies ever undertaken, showing definitively that the central characteristic of the most successful managers is that they provide their employees with frequent and effective recognition. With independent research from The Jackson Organization and analysis by bestselling leadership experts Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, this breakthrough study of 200,000 people over ten years found dramatically greater business results when managers offered constructive praise and meaningful rewards in ways that powerfully motivated employees to excel.

Drawing on case studies from leading companies including Disney, DHL, KPMG, and Pepsi Bottling Group, bestselling authors Gostick and Elton show how the transformative power of purpose-based recognition produces astonishing increases in operating results -- whether measured by return on equity, return on assets, or operating margin. And they show how great managers lead with carrots, not sticks, and in doing so achieve higher

• Productivity
• Engagement
• Retention
• Customer satisfaction

The Carrot Principle illustrates that the relationship between recognition and improved business results is highly predictable -- it's proven to work. But it's not the employee recognition some of us have been using for years. It is recognition done right, recognition combined with four other core traits of effective leadership.

Gostick and Elton explain the remarkably simple but powerful methods great managers use to provide their employees with effective recognition, which all managers can easily learn and begin practicing for immediate results. Great recognition doesn't take time -- it can be done in a matter of moments -- and it doesn't take budget-busting amounts of money.

This exceptional book presents the simple steps to becoming a Carrot Principle manager and to building a recognition culture in your organization; it offers a wealth of specific examples, culled from real-life cases, of the ways to do recognition right. Following these simple steps will make you a high-performance leader and take your team to a new level of achievement.

In the spirit of the mega-selling On Bullshit, philosopher Aaron James presents a theory of the asshole that is both intellectually provocative and existentially necessary.

What does it mean for someone to be an asshole? The answer is not obvious, despite the fact that we are often personally stuck dealing with people for whom there is no better name. Try as we might to avoid them, assholes are found everywhere—at work, at home, on the road, and in the public sphere. Encountering one causes great difficulty and personal strain, especially because we often cannot understand why exactly someone should be acting like that.

Asshole management begins with asshole understanding. Much as Machiavelli illuminated political strategy for princes, this book finally gives us the concepts to think or say why assholes disturb us so, and explains why such people seem part of the human social condition, especially in an age of raging narcissism and unbridled capitalism. These concepts are also practically useful, as understanding the asshole we are stuck with helps us think constructively about how to handle problems he (and they are mostly all men) presents. We get a better sense of when the asshole is best resisted, and when he is best ignored—a better sense of what is, and what is not, worth fighting for.