"For Reasoning Aficionados From All Walks of Life " This guidebook addresses one of the most critical yet seldom taught skills. Reasoning skills help us make sense of the world, including how to better make decisions, tackle opportunities, evaluate claims, and solve problems. Interwoven within the book's five sections -- Perception & Mindset, Decision Making, Creative Thinking, Analyzing Arguments, and Mastering Logic -- reader's will discover 50 reasoning tips that summarize the common themes behind classic reasoning problems and situations. Appendixes contain summaries of fallacious reasoning, analogies, trade-offs, and a review of critical reading skills. A wealth of examples, charts, and insightful problems makes "The Little Blue Reasoning Book" an invaluable guide for any individual wanting to further sharpen his or her thinking skills. Enjoy the benefits of your own self-paced reasoning course: *Gain insights into the four classic mindsets and how each influences one's outlook. *Make better decisions by framing problems with quantitative tools. *Employ creative thinking to bypass "roadblocks" and unlock novel solutions. *Evaluate claims by challenging the strength of key assumptions. *Use logic to break down arguments in a clear, easy-to-understand manner. *Review the 10 classic trade-offs to speed recognition of core issues. *Read with added clarity, whether your goal involves pleasure or profit. Author's bio: Brandon Royal is an award-winning writer whose educational authorship includes "The Little Red Writing Book, The Little Gold Grammar Book, " and "The Little Green Math Book." During his tenure working in Hong Kong for US-based Kaplan Educational Centers -- a Washington Post subsidiary and the largest test-preparation organization in the world -- Brandon honed his theories of teaching and education and developed a set of key learning "principles" to help define the basics of writing, grammar, math, and reasoning. A Canadian by birth and graduate of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, his interest in writing began after completing writing courses at Harvard University. Since then he has authored a dozen books and reviews of his books have appeared in "Time Asia" magazine, "Publishers Weekly, Library Journal of America, Midwest Book Review, The Asian Review of Books, Choice Reviews Online, Asia Times Online, " and About.com. Brandon is a five-time winner of the International Book Awards, a five-time gold medalist at the President's Book Awards, as well as a winner of the Global eBook Awards, the USA Book News "Best Book Awards," and recipient of the 2011 "Educational Book of the Year" award as presented by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. "A wonderful work that shows how reasoning is challenging, yet engaging, rewarding and fun. Because reasoning involves people, it is an art as well as a science. And to remind ourselves just why it's not always easy to mix the two, we owe a cheerful salute to Nobel prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann who observed: 'Think how hard physics would be if particles could think.'" --Dr. William A. McEachern, author, award-winning teacher, and founding editor of "The Teaching Economist"

"For Grammar Aficionados from All Walks of Life " There's no need to fear the grammar goblin. Whether you're a high school or college student, test-prep candidate, or working professional, this guidebook offers a review of grammar that is both relevant and distilled. A wealth of examples, charts, and engaging exercises makes "The Little Gold Grammar Book" an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to master those skills that will make a good writer even better. Enjoy the benefits of your own self-paced grammar course: *Grammar: A 100-question quiz focuses on the most useful areas of the "big six" grammar categories -- subject-verb agreement, pronoun usage, modification, parallelism, comparisons, and verb tenses. *Diction: A collection of 50-plus word pairings highlight differences among easily confused word choices. Should we write "anyone" or "any one" ... "who" or "whom" ... "may be" or "maybe" ... "toward" or "towards" ... "different from" or "different than?" *Idioms: A compilation of 200 idioms provides a convenient review of tricky "grammatical phrases." Do we write "prefer x to y" or "prefer x over y" ... "in comparison to" or "in comparison with" ... "regarded as" or "regarded to be?" *Review: A selection of 30 multiple-choice problems, complete with explanations and author's notes, integrate key concepts of grammar, diction, idioms, and style. *Also included are special sections on editing tips and punctuation, American English vs. British English, and traditional writing vs. digital writing. This book -- a winner at the USA Book News Best Book Awards and voted Educational Book of the Year by the BPAA -- is suitable for high school, community college, or university students, as well as any individual wanting to improve his or her core essential grammar skills. Author's bio: Brandon Royal is an award-winning writer whose educational authorship includes "The Little Red Writing Book, The Little Red Writing Book Deluxe Edition, The Little Green Math Book, " and " The Little Blue Reasoning Book." During his tenure working in Hong Kong for US-based Kaplan Educational Centers -- a Washington Post subsidiary and the largest test-preparation organization in the world -- Brandon honed his theories of teaching and education and developed a set of key learning "principles" to help define the basics of writing, grammar, math, and reasoning. A Canadian by birth and graduate of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, his interest in writing began after completing writing courses at Harvard University. Since then he has authored a dozen books and reviews of his books have appeared in "Time Asia" magazine, "Publishers Weekly, Library Journal of America, Midwest Book Review, The Asian Review of Books, Choice Reviews Online, Asia Times Online, " and About.com. Brandon is a five-time winner of the International Book Awards, a five-time gold medalist at the President's Book Awards, as well as a winner of the Global eBook Awards, the USA Book News "Best Book Awards," and recipient of the 2011 "Educational Book of the Year" award as presented by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. "A must-have for anyone wishing to improve her or his writing capabilities. Whether you're interested in personal achievement, professional advancement, or educational attainment, I highly recommend this book as a permanent addition to your library." --Dr. Donald C. Martin, PhD, college admissions expert and former Dean of Enrollment for the Teacher's College at Columbia University

For Math Aficionados From All Walks of Life The Little Green Math Book reads like a collection of math recipes to help us blend problems, principles, and approaches in creating our own lineup of splendid math cuisine. The book's four chapters include: (1) Basic Numeracy Ingredients, (2) Wonderful Math Recipes, (3) Favorite Numeracy Dishes, and (4) Special Math Garnishments. Along with 30 of the most fundamental, recurring math principles and rules, you ll find a three-tier system to rate the difficulty level of all problems -- one chili ( mild ), two chilies ( hot ), and three chilies ( very hot ). Fine-tune your numerical mindset with a quantitative review that serves as a refresher course and as a tool for perceiving math in a new way. Whether you re a high school or college student, test-prep candidate, or working professional, this book s wealth of explanations and insights makes it a perfect learning companion. Enjoy the benefits of your own self-paced math course: *Contains 120 all-star problems to help readers discover the secrets of basic math. *Develop a feel for how numbers behave and what makes math problems tick. *Learn to solve equations by translating math into words and thinking conceptually. *Watch for pitfalls when working with percentage increase and decrease. *Use simple math to solve business scenarios involving price, cost, volume, profit, and break-even, as well as how to calculate markup versus margin and efficiency. *Be able to glance at graphs and grasp their underlying meaning. *Understand correlation: weak or strong, positive or negative, linear or nonlinear. *Gain a newfound confidence with an increased competency with numbers.