Author: Richard E. Crandall
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1466505907
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 542
Book Description
Businesses need to become more consumer-centric, efficient, and quality conscious. Yet global competition and supply chain complexity are increasing so rapidly that managers must reach across the manufacturing and service boundary to gather more universally applicable ideas. Vanishing Boundaries: How Integrating Manufacturing and Services Creates Customer Value, Second Edition addresses the unprecedented array of new conditions that today’s business managers must face. The book is a revision of the authors’ previous book, New Methods of Competing in the Global Marketplace, Critical Success Factors from Service and Manufacturing. The concepts underpinning the first edition continue to be relevant today and, in this revised edition, are complemented with coverage of additional emerging issues in today’s business environment. The basic theme of the book is captured in its title and illustrated with the addition of case studies of some of today’s most prominent companies. See What’s New in the Second Edition: The emerging relationship between risk management and supply management Risk management, and its corollary, crisis management Trends in outsourcing, such as near-sourcing and in-sourcing Health care improvement programs to reduce cost and improve quality Sustainability – alternative energy infrastructure and the triple bottom line Integration of supply chain services to align goods, information and funds flows Advances in information technology, i.e., cloud computing, videoconferencing Present, and potential, role of social media in attracting customers, servicing customers and building network trading partners. This second edition creates greater awareness of the benefits that businesses can gain by sharing techniques and methodologies across the manufacturing/services boundary. The book emphasizes that successful change management requires a holistic focus on three levels of an organization - its technology, infrastructure, and organizational culture. It includes solutions and implementation strategies for risk and crisis management, sourcing, healthcare, alternative energy infrastructure, integration of supply chain services, advances in IT, social media, and customer relationship building.
Vanishing Boundaries
Author: Richard E. Crandall
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1466505907
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 542
Book Description
Businesses need to become more consumer-centric, efficient, and quality conscious. Yet global competition and supply chain complexity are increasing so rapidly that managers must reach across the manufacturing and service boundary to gather more universally applicable ideas. Vanishing Boundaries: How Integrating Manufacturing and Services Creates Customer Value, Second Edition addresses the unprecedented array of new conditions that today’s business managers must face. The book is a revision of the authors’ previous book, New Methods of Competing in the Global Marketplace, Critical Success Factors from Service and Manufacturing. The concepts underpinning the first edition continue to be relevant today and, in this revised edition, are complemented with coverage of additional emerging issues in today’s business environment. The basic theme of the book is captured in its title and illustrated with the addition of case studies of some of today’s most prominent companies. See What’s New in the Second Edition: The emerging relationship between risk management and supply management Risk management, and its corollary, crisis management Trends in outsourcing, such as near-sourcing and in-sourcing Health care improvement programs to reduce cost and improve quality Sustainability – alternative energy infrastructure and the triple bottom line Integration of supply chain services to align goods, information and funds flows Advances in information technology, i.e., cloud computing, videoconferencing Present, and potential, role of social media in attracting customers, servicing customers and building network trading partners. This second edition creates greater awareness of the benefits that businesses can gain by sharing techniques and methodologies across the manufacturing/services boundary. The book emphasizes that successful change management requires a holistic focus on three levels of an organization - its technology, infrastructure, and organizational culture. It includes solutions and implementation strategies for risk and crisis management, sourcing, healthcare, alternative energy infrastructure, integration of supply chain services, advances in IT, social media, and customer relationship building.
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1466505907
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 542
Book Description
Businesses need to become more consumer-centric, efficient, and quality conscious. Yet global competition and supply chain complexity are increasing so rapidly that managers must reach across the manufacturing and service boundary to gather more universally applicable ideas. Vanishing Boundaries: How Integrating Manufacturing and Services Creates Customer Value, Second Edition addresses the unprecedented array of new conditions that today’s business managers must face. The book is a revision of the authors’ previous book, New Methods of Competing in the Global Marketplace, Critical Success Factors from Service and Manufacturing. The concepts underpinning the first edition continue to be relevant today and, in this revised edition, are complemented with coverage of additional emerging issues in today’s business environment. The basic theme of the book is captured in its title and illustrated with the addition of case studies of some of today’s most prominent companies. See What’s New in the Second Edition: The emerging relationship between risk management and supply management Risk management, and its corollary, crisis management Trends in outsourcing, such as near-sourcing and in-sourcing Health care improvement programs to reduce cost and improve quality Sustainability – alternative energy infrastructure and the triple bottom line Integration of supply chain services to align goods, information and funds flows Advances in information technology, i.e., cloud computing, videoconferencing Present, and potential, role of social media in attracting customers, servicing customers and building network trading partners. This second edition creates greater awareness of the benefits that businesses can gain by sharing techniques and methodologies across the manufacturing/services boundary. The book emphasizes that successful change management requires a holistic focus on three levels of an organization - its technology, infrastructure, and organizational culture. It includes solutions and implementation strategies for risk and crisis management, sourcing, healthcare, alternative energy infrastructure, integration of supply chain services, advances in IT, social media, and customer relationship building.
Vanishing Boundaries
Author: Dean R. Hoge
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 9780664254926
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
This in-depth survey provides a vivid overview of the religious world of the Baby Boomers. The authors examine their religious faith and explores the reasons they give for leaving or staying in the church. Their findings provide some unexpected results.
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 9780664254926
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
This in-depth survey provides a vivid overview of the religious world of the Baby Boomers. The authors examine their religious faith and explores the reasons they give for leaving or staying in the church. Their findings provide some unexpected results.
The Vanishing American Adult
Author: Ben Sasse
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1250114411
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In an era of safe spaces, trigger warnings, and an unprecedented election, the country's youth are in crisis. Senator Ben Sasse warns the nation about the existential threat to America's future. Raised by well-meaning but overprotective parents and coddled by well-meaning but misbegotten government programs, America's youth are ill-equipped to survive in our highly-competitive global economy. Many of the coming-of-age rituals that have defined the American experience since the Founding: learning the value of working with your hands, leaving home to start a family, becoming economically self-reliant—are being delayed or skipped altogether. The statistics are daunting: 30% of college students drop out after the first year, and only 4 in 10 graduate. One in three 18-to-34 year-olds live with their parents. From these disparate phenomena: Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse who as president of a Midwestern college observed the trials of this generation up close, sees an existential threat to the American way of life. In The Vanishing American Adult, Sasse diagnoses the causes of a generation that can't grow up and offers a path for raising children to become active and engaged citizens. He identifies core formative experiences that all young people should pursue: hard work to appreciate the benefits of labor, travel to understand deprivation and want, the power of reading, the importance of nurturing your body—and explains how parents can encourage them. Our democracy depends on responsible, contributing adults to function properly—without them America falls prey to populist demagogues. A call to arms, The Vanishing American Adult will ignite a much-needed debate about the link between the way we're raising our children and the future of our country.
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1250114411
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In an era of safe spaces, trigger warnings, and an unprecedented election, the country's youth are in crisis. Senator Ben Sasse warns the nation about the existential threat to America's future. Raised by well-meaning but overprotective parents and coddled by well-meaning but misbegotten government programs, America's youth are ill-equipped to survive in our highly-competitive global economy. Many of the coming-of-age rituals that have defined the American experience since the Founding: learning the value of working with your hands, leaving home to start a family, becoming economically self-reliant—are being delayed or skipped altogether. The statistics are daunting: 30% of college students drop out after the first year, and only 4 in 10 graduate. One in three 18-to-34 year-olds live with their parents. From these disparate phenomena: Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse who as president of a Midwestern college observed the trials of this generation up close, sees an existential threat to the American way of life. In The Vanishing American Adult, Sasse diagnoses the causes of a generation that can't grow up and offers a path for raising children to become active and engaged citizens. He identifies core formative experiences that all young people should pursue: hard work to appreciate the benefits of labor, travel to understand deprivation and want, the power of reading, the importance of nurturing your body—and explains how parents can encourage them. Our democracy depends on responsible, contributing adults to function properly—without them America falls prey to populist demagogues. A call to arms, The Vanishing American Adult will ignite a much-needed debate about the link between the way we're raising our children and the future of our country.
Discourses of the Vanishing
Author: Marilyn Ivy
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226388344
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Japan today is haunted by the ghosts its spectacular modernity has generated. Deep anxieties about the potential loss of national identity and continuity disturb many in Japan, despite widespread insistence that it has remained culturally intact. In this provocative conjoining of ethnography, history, and cultural criticism, Marilyn Ivy discloses these anxieties—and the attempts to contain them—as she tracks what she calls the vanishing: marginalized events, sites, and cultural practices suspended at moments of impending disappearance. Ivy shows how a fascination with cultural margins accompanied the emergence of Japan as a modern nation-state. This fascination culminated in the early twentieth-century establishment of Japanese folklore studies and its attempts to record the spectral, sometimes violent, narratives of those margins. She then traces the obsession with the vanishing through a range of contemporary reconfigurations: efforts by remote communities to promote themselves as nostalgic sites of authenticity, storytelling practices as signs of premodern presence, mass travel campaigns, recallings of the dead by blind mediums, and itinerant, kabuki-inspired populist theater.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226388344
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Japan today is haunted by the ghosts its spectacular modernity has generated. Deep anxieties about the potential loss of national identity and continuity disturb many in Japan, despite widespread insistence that it has remained culturally intact. In this provocative conjoining of ethnography, history, and cultural criticism, Marilyn Ivy discloses these anxieties—and the attempts to contain them—as she tracks what she calls the vanishing: marginalized events, sites, and cultural practices suspended at moments of impending disappearance. Ivy shows how a fascination with cultural margins accompanied the emergence of Japan as a modern nation-state. This fascination culminated in the early twentieth-century establishment of Japanese folklore studies and its attempts to record the spectral, sometimes violent, narratives of those margins. She then traces the obsession with the vanishing through a range of contemporary reconfigurations: efforts by remote communities to promote themselves as nostalgic sites of authenticity, storytelling practices as signs of premodern presence, mass travel campaigns, recallings of the dead by blind mediums, and itinerant, kabuki-inspired populist theater.
Contemporary Color
Author: Steven Bleicher
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000841642
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
This fully revised and updated third edition offers students and artists valuable insights into traditional color theory and its practical application using todayʼs cutting-edge technology. The text is lavishly illustrated, stressing issues of contemporary color use and examining how today’s artists and designers are using color in a multitude of mediums in their work. It is the only book that has parity between the male and female artists and designers represented, while containing more multicultural and global examples of art and design than any other text. This book begins with how we see color and its biological basis, progressing to the various theories about color and delving into the psychological meaning of color and its use. There are individual chapters on color use in art and design, as well as global and multicultural color use. One chapter investigates cross cultural life events such as marriages and funerals, while examining the six major religions’ conceptual and psychological underpinnings of color use. The final chapter explores the future of color. Contemporary Color is the ideal text for color theory courses, but also for beginning art and design students, no matter what their future major discipline or emphasis may be. It provides the foundation on which to build their career and develop their own personal artistic voice and vision.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000841642
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
This fully revised and updated third edition offers students and artists valuable insights into traditional color theory and its practical application using todayʼs cutting-edge technology. The text is lavishly illustrated, stressing issues of contemporary color use and examining how today’s artists and designers are using color in a multitude of mediums in their work. It is the only book that has parity between the male and female artists and designers represented, while containing more multicultural and global examples of art and design than any other text. This book begins with how we see color and its biological basis, progressing to the various theories about color and delving into the psychological meaning of color and its use. There are individual chapters on color use in art and design, as well as global and multicultural color use. One chapter investigates cross cultural life events such as marriages and funerals, while examining the six major religions’ conceptual and psychological underpinnings of color use. The final chapter explores the future of color. Contemporary Color is the ideal text for color theory courses, but also for beginning art and design students, no matter what their future major discipline or emphasis may be. It provides the foundation on which to build their career and develop their own personal artistic voice and vision.
Business Challenges in the Changing Economic Landscape - Vol. 2
Author: Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319225936
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 473
Book Description
This book is the second of the two volumes featuring selected articles from the 14th Eurasia Business and Economics conference held in Barcelona, Spain, in October 2014. Peer-reviewed articles in this second volume present latest research findings and breakthroughs in the areas of General Management, Human Resource Management, Marketing, SMEs, and Entrepreneurship. The contributors are both distinguished and young scholars from different parts of the World.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319225936
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 473
Book Description
This book is the second of the two volumes featuring selected articles from the 14th Eurasia Business and Economics conference held in Barcelona, Spain, in October 2014. Peer-reviewed articles in this second volume present latest research findings and breakthroughs in the areas of General Management, Human Resource Management, Marketing, SMEs, and Entrepreneurship. The contributors are both distinguished and young scholars from different parts of the World.
Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention – MICCAI 2018
Author: Alejandro F. Frangi
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030009378
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 785
Book Description
The four-volume set LNCS 11070, 11071, 11072, and 11073 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2018, held in Granada, Spain, in September 2018. The 373 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 1068 submissions in a double-blind review process. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: Part I: Image Quality and Artefacts; Image Reconstruction Methods; Machine Learning in Medical Imaging; Statistical Analysis for Medical Imaging; Image Registration Methods. Part II: Optical and Histology Applications: Optical Imaging Applications; Histology Applications; Microscopy Applications; Optical Coherence Tomography and Other Optical Imaging Applications. Cardiac, Chest and Abdominal Applications: Cardiac Imaging Applications: Colorectal, Kidney and Liver Imaging Applications; Lung Imaging Applications; Breast Imaging Applications; Other Abdominal Applications. Part III: Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Functional MRI: Diffusion Tensor Imaging; Diffusion Weighted Imaging; Functional MRI; Human Connectome. Neuroimaging and Brain Segmentation Methods: Neuroimaging; Brain Segmentation Methods. Part IV: Computer Assisted Intervention: Image Guided Interventions and Surgery; Surgical Planning, Simulation and Work Flow Analysis; Visualization and Augmented Reality. Image Segmentation Methods: General Image Segmentation Methods, Measures and Applications; Multi-Organ Segmentation; Abdominal Segmentation Methods; Cardiac Segmentation Methods; Chest, Lung and Spine Segmentation; Other Segmentation Applications.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030009378
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 785
Book Description
The four-volume set LNCS 11070, 11071, 11072, and 11073 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2018, held in Granada, Spain, in September 2018. The 373 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 1068 submissions in a double-blind review process. The papers have been organized in the following topical sections: Part I: Image Quality and Artefacts; Image Reconstruction Methods; Machine Learning in Medical Imaging; Statistical Analysis for Medical Imaging; Image Registration Methods. Part II: Optical and Histology Applications: Optical Imaging Applications; Histology Applications; Microscopy Applications; Optical Coherence Tomography and Other Optical Imaging Applications. Cardiac, Chest and Abdominal Applications: Cardiac Imaging Applications: Colorectal, Kidney and Liver Imaging Applications; Lung Imaging Applications; Breast Imaging Applications; Other Abdominal Applications. Part III: Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Functional MRI: Diffusion Tensor Imaging; Diffusion Weighted Imaging; Functional MRI; Human Connectome. Neuroimaging and Brain Segmentation Methods: Neuroimaging; Brain Segmentation Methods. Part IV: Computer Assisted Intervention: Image Guided Interventions and Surgery; Surgical Planning, Simulation and Work Flow Analysis; Visualization and Augmented Reality. Image Segmentation Methods: General Image Segmentation Methods, Measures and Applications; Multi-Organ Segmentation; Abdominal Segmentation Methods; Cardiac Segmentation Methods; Chest, Lung and Spine Segmentation; Other Segmentation Applications.
Intrinsic motivations and open-ended development in animals, humans, and robots
Author: Gianluca Baldassarre
Publisher: Frontiers E-books
ISBN: 2889193721
Category : Autonomous robots
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
The aim of this Research Topic for Frontiers in Psychology under the section of Cognitive Science and Frontiers in Neurorobotics is to present state-of-the-art research, whether theoretical, empirical, or computational investigations, on open-ended development driven by intrinsic motivations. The topic will address questions such as: How do motivations drive learning? How are complex skills built up from a foundation of simpler competencies? What are the neural and computational bases for intrinsically motivated learning? What is the contribution of intrinsic motivations to wider cognition? Autonomous development and lifelong open-ended learning are hallmarks of intelligence. Higher mammals, and especially humans, engage in activities that do not appear to directly serve the goals of survival, reproduction, or material advantage. Rather, a large part of their activity is intrinsically motivated - behavior driven by curiosity, play, interest in novel stimuli and surprising events, autonomous goal-setting, and the pleasure of acquiring new competencies. This allows the cumulative acquisition of knowledge and skills that can later be used to accomplish fitness-enhancing goals. Intrinsic motivations continue during adulthood, and in humans artistic creativity, scientific discovery, and subjective well-being owe much to them. The study of intrinsically motivated behavior has a long history in psychological and ethological research, which is now being reinvigorated by perspectives from neuroscience, artificial intelligence and computer science. For example, recent neuroscientific research is discovering how neuromodulators like dopamine and noradrenaline relate not only to extrinsic rewards but also to novel and surprising events, how brain areas such as the superior colliculus and the hippocampus are involved in the perception and processing of events, novel stimuli, and novel associations of stimuli, and how violations of predictions and expectations influence learning and motivation. Computational approaches are characterizing the space of possible reinforcement learning algorithms and their augmentation by intrinsic reinforcements of different kinds. Research in robotics and machine learning is yielding systems with increasing autonomy and capacity for self-improvement: artificial systems with motivations that are similar to those of real organisms and support prolonged autonomous learning. Computational research on intrinsic motivation is being complemented by, and closely interacting with, research that aims to build hierarchical architectures capable of acquiring, storing, and exploiting the knowledge and skills acquired through intrinsically motivated learning. Now is an important moment in the study of intrinsically motivated open-ended development, requiring contributions and integration across a large number of fields within the cognitive sciences. This Research Topic aims to contribute to this effort by welcoming papers carried out with ethological, psychological, neuroscientific and computational approaches, as well as research that cuts across disciplines and approaches.
Publisher: Frontiers E-books
ISBN: 2889193721
Category : Autonomous robots
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
The aim of this Research Topic for Frontiers in Psychology under the section of Cognitive Science and Frontiers in Neurorobotics is to present state-of-the-art research, whether theoretical, empirical, or computational investigations, on open-ended development driven by intrinsic motivations. The topic will address questions such as: How do motivations drive learning? How are complex skills built up from a foundation of simpler competencies? What are the neural and computational bases for intrinsically motivated learning? What is the contribution of intrinsic motivations to wider cognition? Autonomous development and lifelong open-ended learning are hallmarks of intelligence. Higher mammals, and especially humans, engage in activities that do not appear to directly serve the goals of survival, reproduction, or material advantage. Rather, a large part of their activity is intrinsically motivated - behavior driven by curiosity, play, interest in novel stimuli and surprising events, autonomous goal-setting, and the pleasure of acquiring new competencies. This allows the cumulative acquisition of knowledge and skills that can later be used to accomplish fitness-enhancing goals. Intrinsic motivations continue during adulthood, and in humans artistic creativity, scientific discovery, and subjective well-being owe much to them. The study of intrinsically motivated behavior has a long history in psychological and ethological research, which is now being reinvigorated by perspectives from neuroscience, artificial intelligence and computer science. For example, recent neuroscientific research is discovering how neuromodulators like dopamine and noradrenaline relate not only to extrinsic rewards but also to novel and surprising events, how brain areas such as the superior colliculus and the hippocampus are involved in the perception and processing of events, novel stimuli, and novel associations of stimuli, and how violations of predictions and expectations influence learning and motivation. Computational approaches are characterizing the space of possible reinforcement learning algorithms and their augmentation by intrinsic reinforcements of different kinds. Research in robotics and machine learning is yielding systems with increasing autonomy and capacity for self-improvement: artificial systems with motivations that are similar to those of real organisms and support prolonged autonomous learning. Computational research on intrinsic motivation is being complemented by, and closely interacting with, research that aims to build hierarchical architectures capable of acquiring, storing, and exploiting the knowledge and skills acquired through intrinsically motivated learning. Now is an important moment in the study of intrinsically motivated open-ended development, requiring contributions and integration across a large number of fields within the cognitive sciences. This Research Topic aims to contribute to this effort by welcoming papers carried out with ethological, psychological, neuroscientific and computational approaches, as well as research that cuts across disciplines and approaches.
Faith Traditions and the Family
Author: Phyllis D. Airhart
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 9780664255817
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
This exploration offers readers fresh and broad ranges of ways to evaluate their own religious traditions when dealing with issues related to the future of the family.
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 9780664255817
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
This exploration offers readers fresh and broad ranges of ways to evaluate their own religious traditions when dealing with issues related to the future of the family.
The Art of Vanishing
Author: Laura Smith
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 039956358X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
A young woman chafing at the confines of marriage confronts the high cost of craving freedom and adventure in a memoir that "pushes literary boundaries" (The Atlantic) At twenty-five, as her wedding date approached, Laura Smith began to feel trapped. Not by her fiancé, who shared her appetite for adventure, but by the unsettling idea that it was hard to be at once married and free. Laura wanted her life to be different. She wanted her marriage to be different. And she found in the strangely captivating story of another restless young woman determined to live without constraints both an enticement and a challenge. Barbara Newhall Follett was a free-spirited trailblazer who published her first novel at 11, enlisted as a deck hand on a boat bound for the south China seas at 15 and was one of the first women to hike the Appalachian trail. Then in December 1939, when she was not much older than Laura, she walked out of her apartment on a quiet tree-lined street in Brookline, leaving behind a fraying marriage, and vanished without a trace. Obsessed by her story, Laura set off to find out what had happened. The Art of Vanishing is a riveting mystery and a piercing exploration of marriage and convention that asks deep and uncomfortable questions: Why do we give up on our childhood dreams? Is marriage a golden noose? Must we find ourselves in the same row houses with Pottery Barn lamps telling our kids to behave? Searingly honest and written with a raw intensity, it will challenge you to rethink your most intimate decisions and may just upend your life.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 039956358X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
A young woman chafing at the confines of marriage confronts the high cost of craving freedom and adventure in a memoir that "pushes literary boundaries" (The Atlantic) At twenty-five, as her wedding date approached, Laura Smith began to feel trapped. Not by her fiancé, who shared her appetite for adventure, but by the unsettling idea that it was hard to be at once married and free. Laura wanted her life to be different. She wanted her marriage to be different. And she found in the strangely captivating story of another restless young woman determined to live without constraints both an enticement and a challenge. Barbara Newhall Follett was a free-spirited trailblazer who published her first novel at 11, enlisted as a deck hand on a boat bound for the south China seas at 15 and was one of the first women to hike the Appalachian trail. Then in December 1939, when she was not much older than Laura, she walked out of her apartment on a quiet tree-lined street in Brookline, leaving behind a fraying marriage, and vanished without a trace. Obsessed by her story, Laura set off to find out what had happened. The Art of Vanishing is a riveting mystery and a piercing exploration of marriage and convention that asks deep and uncomfortable questions: Why do we give up on our childhood dreams? Is marriage a golden noose? Must we find ourselves in the same row houses with Pottery Barn lamps telling our kids to behave? Searingly honest and written with a raw intensity, it will challenge you to rethink your most intimate decisions and may just upend your life.