Books with author P. Jacobs

Now a TV series Living Biblically streaming on CBS All Access! From the New York Times bestselling author of The Know-It-All comes a fascinating and timely exploration of religion and the Bible. A.J. Jacobs chronicles his hilarious and thoughtful year spent obeying―as literally as possible―the tenets of the Bible.Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers; to play a ten-string harp; to stone adulterers. The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal and will make you see history’s most influential book with new eyes. Jacobs’s quest transforms his life even more radically than the year spent reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica for The Know-It-All. His beard grows so unruly that he is regularly mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, battles idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations—much to his wife’s chagrin. Throughout the book, Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally. He tours a Kentucky-based creationist museum and sings hymns with Pennsylvania Amish. He dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and does Scripture study with Jehovah’s Witnesses. He discovers ancient biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first-century brain. Jacobs’s extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. A book that will charm readers both secular and religious, The Year of Living Biblically is part Cliff Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down.

Extreme weather threatens the whole of continental Europe, turning the lives of its citizens inside out. The French government calls Professor Mortimer to help solve this enigma. Mortimer travels near Paris to visit his friend Professor Labrousse, the chief French meteorologist. But when the taxi driver Labrousse sent to meet Mortimer at the station disappears, our friend becomes the prime suspect. Mortimer gets in touch with his old friend Blake, also in France, to help him out of this tricky situation.However, Blake disappears as well, so Mortimer and Labrousse have two missing-person cases to investigate. They soon discover that the two disappearances are not only linked to each other, but also to the climatic catastrophes.

Let Terry the Monkey show your child how to sign over fifty of their favourite animals in American Sign Language, from butterfly to zebra. The Terry the Monkey books are the fun way for children to learn their first signs in American Sign Language. Fully illustrated, the signs in this book include zoo animals, pets, farm animals, sea creatures and garden animals. With easy-to-follow instructions and beautiful illustrations, Terry the Monkey will teach your child how to sign cat, dog, rabbit, penguin, tiger, lion, bat, spider, horse, zebra, pig, snake, cow, giraffe, dolphin, shark, whale, fish, butterfly, hippo, rhino, sheep, donkey, parrot, duck, badger, elephant, frog, unicorn, dinosaur, dragon and many more. Loved by children and adults alike, the Terry the Monkey books are endorsed by parents and teachers and are available in both American and British Sign Language editions. Praise for the How to Sign with Terry the Monkey series:‘A gentle and witty introduction to this vital skill.’ *****‘Beautifully illustrated and written with real wit and warmth.’ ***** ‘A wonderfully interactive story book which helps children and adults learn together.’ *****‘A fantastic book for all young children, very well illustrated.’ *****‘My godchildren adored it.’ *****‘It is so full of fun and warmth and the children can’t wait for each page to reveal itself.’ *****‘My godchildren love this brilliantly original series – they didn’t know anything about BSL before they met Terry the Monkey but now they are obsessed.’ *****‘The kids will not put it down.’ *****Find out more at terrythemonkey.com

In the last few decades, many programming languages have been developed, and there are only some that have stuck around. Some examples are C, which is a popular server development and operating system for embedded systems. When it comes to databases, the Structured Query Language (SQL) has been around since the 1970s. You can use SQL to create, generate, manage and manipulate from relational databases. Most businesses prefer to use a relational database since it can store hundreds and thousands of rows of data. In this book, you will gather information about what SQL is and why it is important to learn SQL. This book also covers some of the basic commands that are used in SQL and explains how you can use those commands to manipulate information in tables and datasets. This book covers information on different data types, operators, and functions you can use to work with data and analyze data. You should continue to practice if you want to master SQL. It is okay not to know what code to use when you start learning to code in a language. It is only when you practice that you will know where you should apply a specific operator or function. So start learning to be a master of SQL and grab this book to start your journey!

An enemy’s vengeance from the grave traps Mortimer out of time.Professor Mortimer is bequeathed an old house in France by a former adversary: Miloch, the evil genius of SOS Meteors fame. Along with the house is a letter inviting the Briton, as the only man of worthy intellect, to discover a fabulous invention left behind by the departed. Following recorded instructions, Mortimer activates the device … and wakes up a hundred million years in the past! Thus begins an incredible odyssey through time…Captain Francis Blake, dashing head of England’s MI5. Professor Philip Mortimer, world-renowned nuclear physicist. The most distinguished duo of gentleman-adventurers, battling the forces of evil and their arch nemesis Olrik around the globe, below the earth, even across time itself... The 19th adventure of Her Majesty’s finest protectors!

#1 New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jacobs undergoes a hilarious, poignant quest to understand what constitutes family—where it begins and how far it goes—in It’s All Relative, a “thought-provoking…delightful, easy-to-read, informative book” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).A.J. Jacobs has received some strange emails over the years, but this note was perhaps the strangest: “You don’t know me, but I’m your eighth cousin. And we have over 80,000 relatives of yours in our database.” That’s enough family members to fill Madison Square Garden four times over. Who are these people, A.J. wondered, and how do I find them? So began Jacobs’s three-year adventure to help build the biggest family tree in history. In It’s All Relative, he “muses on the nature of family and the interconnectedness of humanity in this entertaining introduction to the world of genealogy” (Publishers Weekly). Jacobs’s journey would take him to all seven continents. He drank beer with a US president, sung with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and unearthed genetic links to Hollywood actresses and real-life scoundrels. After all, we can choose our friends, but not our family. “Whether he’s posing as a celebrity, outsourcing his chores, or adhering strictly to the Bible, we love reading about the wacky lifestyle experiments of author A.J. Jacobs” (Entertainment Weekly). Now Jacobs upends, in ways both meaningful and hilarious, our understanding of genetics and genealogy, tradition and tribalism, identity and connection. “Whimsical but also full of solid journalism and eye-opening revelations about the history of humanity, It’s All Relative is a real treat” (Booklist, starred review).

When the White family comes into the possession of a monkey’s paw that magically grant wishes, they do what many people would do—they wish for money. But every wish has a consequence, and the White family finds they are completely unprepared for what comes next. This new 2017 edition of The Monkey’s Paw includes W. W. Jacob's chilling short story In the Library.

Extreme weather threatens Europe. When France calls on Mortimer to help solve this enigma, he goes to visit Professor Labrousse, chief French meteorologist. After the driver Labrousse sends to pick up Mortimer disappears, our friend is the prime suspect. Mortimer contacts Captain Blake to help him with this tricky situation. Then Blake disappears. Mortimer and Labrousse have two missing-person cases to investigate. They soon discover that the disappearances are linked to the climatic catastrophes.

Thirty years after its publication, The Death and Life of Great American Cities was described by The New York Times as "perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning....[It] can also be seen in a much larger context. It is first of all a work of literature; the descriptions of street life as a kind of ballet and the bitingly satiric account of traditional planning theory can still be read for pleasure even by those who long ago absorbed and appropriated the book's arguments." Jane Jacobs, an editor and writer on architecture in New York City in the early sixties, argued that urban diversity and vitality were being destroyed by powerful architects and city planners. Rigorous, sane, and delightfully epigrammatic, Jacobs's small masterpiece is a blueprint for the humanistic management of cities. It is sensible, knowledgeable, readable, indispensable. The author has written a new foreword for this Modern Library edition.

Have you ever wondered what it feels like:to be stuck in a tornado?“[It] is exactly the feel of a freight train approaching—that low, ever-louder howl and the shuddering ground.”to participate in an orgy?“And all the while, the thought that keeps going through your mind (and through the cab ride home, and into breakfast the next day): ‘I’m at an orgy! I’m at an orgy!’”to have a severe stutter?“The thing is, there’s a disconnect thing between my mind and my tongue. My mind’s processing a thousand words a minute, and the tongue is only squeezing out ten or twelve.”to be a mob hitman?“It’s nerve-racking. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. Anybody who’s any good at this is concentrating with every nerve in their body, trying to get it done right and trying not to get caught.”to be 105 years old?“I was born in 1897 and I’ve seen a lot in the world. I’ve seen everything there is to see. You look back and tell yourself, ‘What have I been doing all these years?’”If these tidbits whet your appetite for real, first-person accounts of some of life’s most exhilarating, harrowing, or downright strange experiences, then you’ll be sucked in by Esquire Presents: What It Feels Like. Collected by the ever-curious editors of Esquire magazine, here are more than fifty gripping tales—straight from the mouths of the people who’ve lived them.