A.J. Jacobs – författare

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.From the Trade Paperback edition.

The World’s Cities offers instructors and students in higher education an accessible introduction to the three major perspectives influencing city-regions worldwide: City-Regions in a World System; Nested City-Regions; and The City-Region as the Engine of Economic Activity/Growth.The book provides students with helpful essays on each perspective, case studies to illustrate each major viewpoint, and discussion questions following each reading. The World’s Cities concludes with an original essay by the editor that helps students understand how an analysis incorporating a combination of theoretical perspectives and factors can provide a richer appreciation of the world’s city dynamics.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically goes on a rollicking journey to understand the enduring power of puzzles: why we love them, what they do to our brains, and how they can improve our world.“Even though I’ve never attempted the New York Times crossword puzzle or solved the Rubik’s Cube, I couldn’t put down The Puzzler.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project and Better Than BeforeLook for the author’s new podcast, The Puzzler, based on this book!What makes puzzles—jigsaws, mazes, riddles, sudokus—so satisfying? Be it the formation of new cerebral pathways, their close link to insight and humor, or their community-building properties, they’re among the fundamental elements that make us human. Convinced that puzzles have made him a better person, A.J. Jacobs—four-time New York Times bestselling author, master of immersion journalism, and nightly crossworder—set out to determine their myriad benefits. And maybe, in the process, solve the puzzle of our very existence. Well, almost.In The Puzzler, Jacobs meets the most zealous devotees, enters (sometimes with his family in tow) any puzzle competition that will have him, unpacks the history of the most popular puzzles, and aims to solve the most impossible head-scratchers, from a mutant Rubik’s Cube, to the hardest corn maze in America, to the most sadistic jigsaw. Chock-full of unforgettable adventures and original examples from around the world—including new work by Greg Pliska, one of America’s top puzzle-makers, and a hidden, super-challenging but solvable puzzle—The Puzzler will open readers’ eyes to the power of flexible thinking and concentration. Whether you’re puzzle obsessed or puzzle hesitant, you’ll walk away with real problem-solving strategies and pathways toward becoming a better thinker and decision maker—for these are certainly puzzling times.

Over the past forty years, state/provincial and local governments in the United States and Canada have provided foreign automakers with approximately $4.80 billion in incentives in order to lure light vehicles assembly plants to their areas. This has included tax abatements, infrastructure construction, land giveaways, job training programs, and other subsidies. As of early 2015, ten foreign vehicle makers operated 20 light vehicles in developed North America. Despite the fact that all ten of these automakers have pursued a similar pattern—first exporting vehicles into the United States and Canada before launching vehicle plants in developed North America—each has followed its own specific historical development path and has created its own unique growth trajectory.This book provides a unique historical and qualitative review of these ten vehicle makers, from their early beginnings to their export entry into the United States and/or Canada through early 2015. In addition, it chronicles the histories of more than a dozen former automakers and potential future foreign light motor vehicle assembly plants in the United States and Canada. This includes the first foreign automaker to build its cars in the United States, De Dion-Bouton of France in July 1900, the early 20th Century endeavors of Fiat, Mercedes, and Rolls Royce, and the present day hopes of Chinese and Indian automakers. In the process, the text also provides an assessment of the top competing states and sites for any future plants, the possible incentives packages governments may offer to attract such facilities, and an estimated incentive value for each automaker.Overall, the goal of this book is to expand the knowledge of policymakers at all tiers of government in the United States and Canada and to help them take a more holistic look at the pros and cons of attracting Automobile Manufacturing FDI. It is hoped that this will enable them to make more informed decisions when pursuing a new foreign motor vehicle assembly plant. Its findings should also prove informative to urban and regional planning, political science, sociology, economics, labor, and international development scholars and students in North America and worldwide.

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.”And so begins A.J. Jacobs’s quest to build the biggest family tree in history. In an era of us-versus-them thinking, this book is a hilarious, heartfelt and profound exploration of what binds us all – where family begins, how far it goes, and the science that is revolutionizing the way we think about ethnicity, history and the human species.This book is about A.J. Jacobs’s family. But it’s also about your family. Because it is the same family.

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.” And so begins A.J. Jacobs’s quest to build the biggest family tree in history. In an era of us-versus-them thinking, this book is a hilarious, heartfelt and profound exploration of what binds us all – where family begins, how far it goes, and the science that is revolutionizing the way we think about ethnicity, history and the human species. This book is about A.J. Jacobs’s family. But it’s also about your family. Because it is the same family.

This volume chronicles the maturation of the South Korean auto industry and its native automakers, from the 1997 Asian Crisis to 2019. After examining the context for domestic vehicle production in South Korea, the author presents multiple case studies for all five Korean automakers: General Motors Korea/Daewoo Motors, Kia, Hyundai, Ssangyong and Renault Samsung. This includes coverage of Hyundai-Kia’s foreign plants in North America, Europe, India, China, and Emerging Asia. The book closes by assessing the five-to-ten-year future outlooks for Korean automakers at home and abroad. This important work will prove informative to scholars of business, management, automotive history, international development, Asian studies, and public administration.