Lawrence Weinstein

Why settle for a normal book on grammar when you could learn new things about it and become your own best self at the same time? If you're looking for a traditional manual of rules, this much-acclaimed, groundbreaking book by a cofounder of Harvard University's Writing Center may not be the one for you. Grammar is about much more than rules: it's about choices, too-since a thought can always be expressed correctly in multiple ways. In Grammar for a Full Life, author Lawrence Weinstein reveals how our grammatical choices either stifle or boost our... sense of agency in lifecreativitydepth of connection to othersand mindfulness. Weinstein shows that certain tweaks to a person's grammar can bring consequential changes in his or her fulfillment and well-being. In this wonderfully readable book, he describes some forty transformative moves that can be made with English punctuation and syntax. In the book, you'll learn, for instance, why a greater use of active voice constructions builds assertive energy in us. You'll discover how-paradoxically-cutting back on the "intensifiers" (exclamation marks and words like really, absolutely) heightens our awareness of the world. There is not too much about personality and life that Weinstein doesn't see benefitting from a wiser use of grammar. In a chapter titled "Bonding," even sex comes in for some grammatical attention. Even fear of death receives its own, almost lyrical chapter near book's end. The farther one gets into this remarkable book, the clearer it becomes that Weinstein's wish-for both himself and us-is actualization of "the whole person," through language. No reader should be intimidated by Weinstein's university credentials. As important a book as his is, it's conversational throughout-and it's packed with numerous compelling, clear examples. You will never think of commas or possessive pronouns in the same way again. Your regard for the conjunction "but" is likely to soar. Praise for Grammar for a Full Life has been coming in from thought leaders of all kinds, ranging from well-known authors on language, such as Anne Fadiman, Lynne Truss, and Richard Lederer, to influential spiritual thinkers, like Rabbi Lawrence Kushner. Cornel West calls it "brilliant and original." Pioneer in mind-body studies Joan Borysenko writes, "If you read just one book this year, let this be the one." PLEASE NOTE: Grammar for a Full Life is not a book intended for the person new to the English language. It assumes familiarity with many of the basics of English.]

Guesstimation 2.0 reveals the simple and effective techniques needed to estimate virtually anything--quickly--and illustrates them using an eclectic array of problems. A stimulating follow-up to Guesstimation, this is the must-have book for anyone preparing for a job interview in technology or finance, where more and more leading businesses test applicants using estimation questions just like these. The ability to guesstimate on your feet is an essential skill to have in today's world, whether you're trying to distinguish between a billion-dollar subsidy and a trillion-dollar stimulus, a megawatt wind turbine and a gigawatt nuclear plant, or parts-per-million and parts-per-billion contaminants. Lawrence Weinstein begins with a concise tutorial on how to solve these kinds of order of magnitude problems, and then invites readers to have a go themselves. The book features dozens of problems along with helpful hints and easy-to-understand solutions. It also includes appendixes containing useful formulas and more. Guesstimation 2.0 shows how to estimate everything from how closely you can orbit a neutron star without being pulled apart by gravity, to the fuel used to transport your food from the farm to the store, to the total length of all toilet paper used in the United States. It also enables readers to answer, once and for all, the most asked environmental question of our day: paper or plastic?

Grammar Moves: Shaping Who You Are helps students understand how the grammatical moves they make reveal their personality traits and present their persona to their readers. The text’s rhetorical approach emphasizes the transformative power that grammar choices can have on a writer and helps students develop the personality the wish to portray in their writing. Writers can use the imperative mood to suggest control, colons to be assertive, parenthesis to keep the conversation real, and even commas to present an organized persona. By showing students how seemingly small choices can help them manage the impression they make on readers, Grammar Moves: Shaping Who You Are helps students become more deliberate writers.

Guesstimation is a book that unlocks the power of approximation--it's popular mathematics rounded to the nearest power of ten! The ability to estimate is an important skill in daily life. More and more leading businesses today use estimation questions in interviews to test applicants' abilities to think on their feet. Guesstimation enables anyone with basic math and science skills to estimate virtually anything--quickly--using plausible assumptions and elementary arithmetic. Lawrence Weinstein and John Adam present an eclectic array of estimation problems that range from devilishly simple to quite sophisticated and from serious real-world concerns to downright silly ones. How long would it take a running faucet to fill the inverted dome of the Capitol? What is the total length of all the pickles consumed in the US in one year? What are the relative merits of internal-combustion and electric cars, of coal and nuclear energy? The problems are marvelously diverse, yet the skills to solve them are the same. The authors show how easy it is to derive useful ballpark estimates by breaking complex problems into simpler, more manageable ones--and how there can be many paths to the right answer. The book is written in a question-and-answer format with lots of hints along the way. It includes a handy appendix summarizing the few formulas and basic science concepts needed, and its small size and French-fold design make it conveniently portable. Illustrated with humorous pen-and-ink sketches, Guesstimation will delight popular-math enthusiasts and is ideal for the classroom.