Books published by Random House USA Inc

A revised and updated edition of the career advancement guide that advocates working smarter, not harder, from one of America's premier career consultants.Do your job, do it well, and you'll be rewarded, right? Actually, probably not. According to career guru Donald Asher, advancement at work is less about skillsets and more about strategy. The revised and expanded edition of WHO GETS PROMOTED, WHO DOESN'T, AND WHY details exactly what puts one employee on the fast track to an exceptional career, while another stays on the treadmill to mediocrity. Whether you're new to the workforce, repairing a recession-damaged career, or feeling stagnant and overlooked at work, this book is your ticket to advancement. Learn:∙ why timing is more important than talent∙ how corporations actually make promotion decisions ∙ how to avoid career mistakes you don't even know you're making ∙ what women in the workforce particularly need to know ∙ and the twelve proven strategies for promotion regardless of your industry and experience If you want to know how to control your career destiny, the solution is to work smarter, not harder. WHO GETS PROMOTED, WHO DOESN'T, AND WHY will help you do just that.

From authentic Korean kimchi, Indian chutney, and Japanese tsukemono to innovative combinations ranging from mild to delightfully spicy, the time-honored traditions of Asian pickling are made simple and accessible in this DIY guide.Asian Pickles introduces the unique ingredients and techniques used in Asian pickle-making, including a vast array of quick pickles for the novice pickler, and numerous techniques that take more adventurous cooks beyond the basic brine. With fail-proof instructions, a selection of helpful resources, and more than seventy-five of the most sought-after pickle recipes from the East-Korean Whole Leaf Cabbage Kimchi, Japanese Umeboshi, Chinese Preserved Vegetable, Indian Coconut-Cilantro Chutney, Vietnamese Daikon and Carrot Pickle, and more-Asian Pickles is your passport to explore this region's preserving possibilities.

NATIONAL BESTSELLERMarc Maron is "a master of spinning humor out of anguish" (Bookforum), even when that anguish is pretty clearly self-inflicted. In Attempting Normal, he threads together twenty-five stories from his life and near-death, from his first comedy road trips (with a fugitive junkie comic with a missing tooth) to his love affair with feral animals (his cat rescues are bloody epics) to his surprisingly moving tales of lust, heartbreak, and hope. The stories are united by Maron's thrilling storytelling style-intensely smart, disarmingly honest, and explosively funny. Together, they add up to a hilarious and moving tale of failing, flailing, and finding a way.Praise for Attempting Normal "I laughed so hard reading this book."-David Sedaris "Funny . . . surprisingly deep . . . laced with revelatory insights."-Los Angeles Times "Superb . . . A reason that [it] is a superior example of an overcrowded genre-the comedian memoir-is Mr. Maron's hardheaded approach to his history, the wisdom of experience."-The New York Times "Marc Maron is a legend because he is both a great comic and a brilliant mind. Attempting Normal is a deep, hilarious megashot of feeling and truth as only this man can administer."-Sam Lipsyte Praise for Marc Maron and WTF "The stuff of comedy legend."-Rolling Stone "Marc Maron is a startlingly honest, compelling, and hilarious comedian-poet. Truly one of the greatest of all time."-Louis C.K. "I've known Marc for years and I can tell you first hand that he's passionate, fearless, honest, self-absorbed, neurotic, and screamingly funny."-David Cross "Revered among his peers . . . raw and unflinchingly honest."-Entertainment Weekly"Devastatingly funny."-Los Angeles Times "For a comedy nerd, this show is nirvana."-Judd Apatow

William Esper, one of the most celebrated acting teachers of our time, takes us through his step-by-step approach to the central challenge of advanced acting work: creating and playing a character. Esper's first book, The Actor's Art and Craft, earned praise for describing the basics taught in his famous first-year acting class. The Actor's Guide to Creating a Character continues the journey. In these pages, co-author Damon DiMarco vividly re-creates Esper's second-year course, again through the experiences of a fictional class. Esper's training builds on Sanford Meisner's legendary exercises, a world-renowned technique that Esper further developed through his long association with Meisner and the decades he has spent training a host of distinguished actors. His approach is flexible enough to apply to any role, helping actors to create characters with truthful and compelling inner lives.

Follow the world's greatest detective, Nero Wolfe, on a trail of money, mayhem, and murder in three cases of capital crime.The trail of bodies begins with the death of a self-made millionaire, a fortune in uranium, and the perfect weapon . . . which no longer exists. Then it's on to a rural lodge to teach two arrogant billionaires, a foreign ambassador, and a famous diplomat that murder is bad for business. Finally, it's a case of politics making the strangest of bedfellows when a fake millionaire becomes a real corpse in the state capital and the evidence has Nero and Archie in the hot seat. Introduction by Sharyn McCrumb "It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore."-The New York Times Book Review A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America's greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together, Stout and Wolfe have entertained-and puzzled-millions of mystery fans around the world. Now, with his perambulatory man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth is back in the original seventy-three cases of crime and detection written by the inimitable master himself, Rex Stout.

Simply the best and most complete mushroom field guide and reference book, MUSHROOMS DEMYSTIFIED includes descriptions and keys to more than 2,000 species of mushrooms, with more than 950 photographs. Mushroom authority David Arora provides a beginner's checklist of the 70 most distinctive and common mushrooms, plus detailed chapters on terminology, classification, habitats, mushroom cookery, mushroom toxins, and the meanings of scientific mushroom names. Beginning and experienced mushroom hunters everywhere will find MUSHROOMS DEMYSTIFIED a delightful, informative, and indispensible companion.

The now classic work on Buddhism and business from the foremost American teacher of Tibetan Buddhism-reissued in a tenth anniversary edition with compelling case studies that showcase its principles in action around the globe.With a unique combination of ancient and contemporary wisdom from Tibetan Buddhism, The Diamond Cutter presents readers with empowering strategies for success in their personal and professional lives. The book is presented in three layers. The first is a translation of The Diamond Sutra, an ancient text of conversations between the Buddha and his close disciple, Subhuti. The second contains quotes from some of the best commentaries in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. And the third layer, the main text, is the practical application of Buddhist philosophies to the world of business, based upon Geshe Michael Roach's seventeen-years of experience as an employee of the Andin International Diamond Corporation, a company that grew during his tenure from four employees to a world leader in the jewelry industry. Roach's easy style and spiritual understanding make The Diamond Cutter an invaluable source of timeless wisdom for those familiar or unfamiliar with Tibetan Buddhism. His focus on practical personal and business applications has resonated with and changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals the world over since its original publication.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"Son, we're going to Hell." The navigator of the USS Houston confided these prophetic words to a young officer as he and his captain charted a course into U.S. naval legend. Renowned as FDR's favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. It wasn't a fair fight, but the men of the Houston would wage it to the death. Hornfischer brings to life the awesome terror of nighttime naval battles that turned decks into strobe-lit slaughterhouses, the deadly rain of fire from Japanese bombers, and the almost superhuman effort of the crew as they miraculously escaped disaster again and again-until their luck ran out during a daring action in Sunda Strait. There, hopelessly outnumbered, the Houston was finally sunk and its survivors taken prisoner. For more than three years their fate would be a mystery to families waiting at home. In the brutal privation of jungle POW camps dubiously immortalized in such films as The Bridge on the River Kwai, the war continued for the men of the Houston-a life-and-death struggle to survive forced labor, starvation, disease, and psychological torture. Here is the gritty, unvarnished story of the infamous Burma-Thailand Death Railway glamorized by Hollywood, but which in reality mercilessly reduced men to little more than animals, who fought back against their dehumanization with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, will-power-and the undying faith that their country would prevail. Using journals and letters, rare historical documents, including testimony from postwar Japanese war crimes tribunals, and the eyewitness accounts of Houston's survivors, James Hornfischer has crafted an account of human valor so riveting and awe-inspiring, it's easy to forget that every single word is true.

The Good Old Days-were they really good? On the surface they appear to be so-especially the period to which this term is most often applied, the years from the end of the Civil War to the early 1900's. This period of history has receded into a benevolent haze, leaving us with the image of an ebullient, carefree America, the fun and charm of the Gilded Age, the Gay Nineties. But this gaiety was only a brittle veneer that covered widespread turmoil and suffering. The good old days were good for but the privileged few. For the farmer, the laborer, the average breadwinner, life was an unremitting hardship. This segment of the populace was exploited or lived in the shadow of total neglect. And youth had no voice. These are the people, the mass of Americans, whose adversities this book attempts to chronicle.

Angels have been with us in every time and culture, and in many religious traditions. Ask Your Angels vividly chronicles how they are currently reaching out to every one of us in a totally new way, bridging our physical reality with their pure spiritual energy. From historical writings and widespread contemporary experience that includes their own workshops, the authors show us how we can draw on the power of angels to reconnect with our lost inner selves and to achieve our goals, whether they be better relationships, healing an illness, or recovery from addictionTo align with the angelic energy field, you will use five simple steps, as well as exercises, meditations, and visualizations, to learn how to talk with your angels-in your mind, in letters, in dreams, on a computer-and ask their guidance in matters from the inspired to the mundane.From Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Uriel to the angels of birth and death, from the Earth Angel to the guardian or companion angel who is your personal teacher, comforter, and intimate friend, this guide will introduce you to humor, wisdom, and companionship that come from contact with angels, for they are a doorway to the Divine within us.

A year's worth of fear-facing prompts and mottoes of encouragement will motivate you to jot down one thing a day and make a daily habit of thinking courageously. Each day is an opportunity to perform one small act of bravery; singing out loud, asking for help, admitting a mistake, pitching an idea, accepting a compliment, changing your hair, going for the prize, failing spectacularly and trying agin. This journal contains a year's worth of fear-facing prompts and mottoes of encouragement. It provides space to jot down daily examples of your own courage--the small steps that culminate in one bold year. Jotting down one thing a day, especially on fortifying subjects like gratitude and happiness, is an enormously popular journaling practice (one that is recommended by nearly every best-selling self-help author). Bravery is another key ingredient of self-actualization, so why not make a daily habit of thinking courageously? This journal is perfect for recent graduates, milestone birthdays, or as a year-end holiday gift to kick off "New Year, New You" projects.

The universe was born in a nuclear explosion. We live on a radioactive planet. Without radiation there would be not life. And yet radiation remains deeply misunderstood and often mistakenly feared. Now Dr. Robert Peter Gale-one of the world's leading experts on the subject-and Eric Lax set the record straight about subjects like uranium, plutonium, iodine-131, X-Rays, CT scans, and the radiation of food, while lucidly debunking myths about radioactivity. In this fascinating book, the authors explore the science, benefits, and risks of radiation exposure, drawing on the most up-to-date research and Gale's extensive experience treating victims of radiation accidents around the globe. Here is an illuminating and essential guide to our post-Chernobyl, post-Fukushima world.

Translated by Audie E. Bock."A first rate book and a joy to read.... It''s doubtful that a complete understanding of the director''s artistry can be obtained without reading this book.... Also indispensable for budding directors are the addenda, in which Kurosawa lays out his beliefs on the primacy of a good script, on scriptwriting as an essential tool for directors, on directing actors, on camera placement, and on the value of steeping oneself in literature, from great novels to detective fiction."--Variety"For the lover of Kurosawa''s movies...this is nothing short of must reading...a fitting companion piece to his many dynamic and absorbing screen entertainments."--Washington Post Book World

Coming Apart - an acclaimed bestseller that explains why white America has become fractured and divided in education and class.In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way of driving home the fact that the trends he describes do not break along lines of race or ethnicity. Drawing on five decades of statistics and research, Coming Apart demonstrates that a new upper class and a new lower class have diverged so far in core behaviors and values that they barely recognize their underlying American kinship—divergence that has nothing to do with income inequality and that has grown during good economic times and bad. The top and bottom of white America increasingly live in different cultures, Murray argues, with the powerful upper class living in enclaves surrounded by their own kind, ignorant about life in mainstream America, and the lower class suffering from erosions of family and community life that strike at the heart of the pursuit of happiness. That divergence puts the success of the American project at risk. The evidence in Coming Apart is about white America. Its message is about all of America.

"Dr. Gundry has crafted a wise program with a powerful track record." -Mehmet Oz, M.D.Does losing weight and staying healthy feel like a battle? Well, it's really a war. Your enemies are your own genes, backed by millions of years of evolution, and the only way to win is to outsmart them. Renowned surgeon and founder of Gundry MD, Dr. Steven Gundry's revolutionary book shares the health secrets other doctors won't tell you:• Why plants are "good" for you because they're "bad" for you, and meat is "bad" because it's "good" for you• Why plateauing on this diet is actually a sign that you're on the right track• Why artificial sweeteners have the same effects as sugar on your health and your waistline• Why taking antacids, statins, and drugs for high blood pressure and arthritis masks health issues instead of addressing themAlong with the meal planner, 70 delicious recipes, and inspirational stories, Dr. Gundry's easy-to-memorize tips will keep you healthy and on course.

Tolstoy's final work-a gripping novella about the struggle between the Muslim Chechens and their inept occupiers-is a powerful moral fable for our time. Inspired by a historical figure Tolstoy heard about while serving in the Caucasus, this story brings to life the famed warrior Hadji Murat, a Chechen rebel who has fought fiercely and courageously against the Russian empire. After a feud with his commander he defects to the Russians, only to find that he is now trusted by neither side. He is first welcomed but then imprisoned by the Russians under suspicion of being a spy, and when he hears news of his wife and son held captive by the Chechens, Murat risks all to try to save his family. In the award-winning Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, Hadji Murat is a thrilling and provocative portrait of a tragic figure that has lost none of its relevance.

The personal account of a guerrilla fighter in the French Foreign Legion, reveals the Nazi Battalion's inhumanities to Indochinese villagers.

Here''s the second book in the beloved and hilarious Alvin Ho chapter book series, which has been compared to Diary of a Wimpy Kid and is perfect for both beginning and reluctant readers. Alvin, an Asian American second grader who''s afraid of everything, is back, and his worst fear has come true: he has to go camping. What will he do exposed in the wilderness with bears and darkness and . . . pit toilets? Luckily, he’s got his night-vision goggles and water purifying tablets and super-duper heavy-duty flashlight to keep him safe. And he’s got his dad, too. From Lenore Look and New York Times bestselling illustrator LeUyen Pham comes a drop-dead-funny and touching series with a truly unforgettable character.“Shares with Diary of a Wimpy Kid the humor that stems from trying to manipulate the world.” —Newsday “Alvin’s a winner.” —New York Post