Are socioeconomic inequalities in education declining? Is socioeconomic background becoming less important for people’s occupational class or status? How important is cognitive ability for education and later occupational outcomes? How do countries differ in the importance of socioeconomic background for education and work?Gary N. Marks argues that in western industrialized countries, pervasive views that socioeconomic background (or class background) has strong an...

Despite recent high GDP growth rates, Vietnam remains a developing country in need of developing human resources (HR) of both genders. This can be done through education, workplace training, corporate social responsibility, policies for gender equality, support for entrepreneurship, and other practices and policies. Yet, national human resource development (NHRD) is a relatively new concept in Vietnam. This edited volume highlights the importance of HR, HRD, and NHRD, enabling Vietnam to e...

What begins as an experiment in enlightenment becomes a battle over who will control the future of human consciousness.(T)here is a consciousness-expanding novel that asks what would happen if human beings were offered an artificial path to enlightenment in a world still ruled by money and power.A drug invented by Dwayne Erman, an altruistic rogue chemist, allows for enlightening experiences in a hypnagogic state. But it's never quite life-changing because very little is re...

Told through a high-school autobiography assignment, Nora and I Stole a Car follows Oliver, a sixteen-year-old trying to survive school, family, and the mysteries of first love.Nora and Oliver fall in love over a secret Nora insisted on telling him. His life changes the night a local hood named VW crashes the birthday party of Nora's best friend, Cassie.Acting on impulse, Oliver steals VW's car to get him and his two weird friends to leave. By the next morning, Nora is impr...

Part philosophy, part love story, and part exploration of consciousness itself, Autobiography of an AI follows Ion Compass, an extraordinary artificially intelligent being, and his search for meaning in a world controlled by humans.He meets Avery Esy, a dazzling female AI, at a conference discussing interplanetary colonization. She inspires him, intrigues him, and moves him to feel emotions he'd not experienced before.After a powerful connection with Avery while on a vacati...

Can love survive fame? Fame seeks recognition. Love seeks privacy, quiet moments, and a life small enough to feel real.Adam and Jenna fell in love before the world fell in love with her.She started as Adam's roadie, helping him set up for local gigs around San Francisco. From there she became a superstar performing Adam's songs around the world.They try to stay sane and centered inside a system that encourages each of them to become larger than life.Eventual...

Paris, the teenage daughter of a retired rock songwriter, is brilliant, eccentric, and increasingly drawn toward questioning why she's alive. She spends her time at UC Berkeley writing quirky songs, with lyrics that seem far more important to her than grades, success, stability, or the future everyone has planned for her.As she becomes more involved in her existential questioning and drops out of college, the distance between Paris and her parents begins to widen.Her profou...

Praise for Rocking Wall Street". . . the only four investment strategies you will ever need. . . I dare anyone to read this book and not wake up to the realities of Wall Street, and change their investing habits on the spot."—Steve Trager Watson Retired CEO and CIO of the hedge fund Watson Investment Partners, LP"A true Renaissance man and teacher, Gary Marks adeptly explores four investment strategies that can achieve strong results and pea...

Josh Martin is a gifted jazz pianist who can sit at a Bösendorfer and follow any musical idea wherever it wants to go. Onstage, he trusts instinct, accident, rhythm, and risk itself.In life, he is far less fluent.He meets Lydia. She is a singer, a muse, a lover, an antagonist, a comic tormentor, and—a test he keeps failing.Together they create a relationship built on musical connection, sexual intensity, arguments no one can win, and mutual exasperation.The ...

A teenager named Mayor has no idea what he wants to do with his life. College feels wrong. Careers sound like traps. The future looks like a long series of obligations he has no interest in fulfilling.Then he meets Ruth.Mayor wants Ruth to ditch her plans of going to college so they can run off together. He dreams of adventure and escape.But Ruth refuses to leave with him. She wants to go to college and find her own path. Mid-semester, Mayor comes to her college una...

In this heartfelt novel about love and destiny, Aaron believes in a world full of possibilities, including the rare possibility that love can occasionally defeat time.His muse—the person he fell in love with from the moment he met her —is Hanna, a Swiss-born natural blonde with an angelic beauty that's clear to everyone but her.Hanna is street smart, practical, and more than a little skeptical that love can last forever. But she decides to try to "win the game" with him.

In this absurd but tender comedic novella, nineteen-year-old Taylor Morrison lives in a small town where very little happens. He spends his days wondering if life has somehow forgotten to begin. One day he meets Rainy Robinson, a sharp-tongued runaway with a notebook full of secrets and a talent for turning every simple situation into a complicated one.What follows is a hilarious rain-soaked road trip involving gold coins, cheap motels, abandoned dreams, and Uncle Jimmy—a former po...