I Was Lured Into A Tea Shop

It was the dawn of a New Year and I was ready to make my resolutions. As I watched the countdown of 2012 and prepared myself to usher in 2013, I made a commitment to complete a 1- year photography project that would explore and encompass Vancouver's Chinatown.I began in the cold months of early 2013 and started walking around Chinatown rather casually. I usually started from the large gate standing over Pender Street and then worked my way around the various other avenues and roads that encompassed Vancouver's Chinatown. I explored shops and stalls and observed people going about their daily lives, all while documenting it with my camera as best as I could.As I passed by people and observed both from a distance and up-close, a thought came to me: I was an outsider. I didn't know anyone in Chinatown and having not grown up in the neighborhood I found myself in unfamiliar territory. This meant that everything was fresh and new to me as I walked around the Chinatown streets but also meant that, despite a few visits to Chinatown in my earlier years, I was basically a blank canvas.

This is an Open Access book. Hoping to incubate a unique idea about workplace design, Dr. Agustin Chevez walked in isolation for 42 days from Melbourne to Sydney. His pilgrimage delivered 34 Signposts, a collection of insights which hold the promise to guide us to a better place to work. While firmly positioned within the shifting context of work, the Signposts point away from reactive solutions with a short shelf life. Instead, these markers are infused with a diversity of thought instilled by Agustin's pilgrimage and reclaim the forgotten qualities of solitude, boredom, adversity, and absurdity as mechanisms to deliver innovation and create improved working environments. On his way to Sydney Agustin relied on maps and people with local knowledge of the lands he traversed. Similarly, in this book, he consults people with local knowledge in various design disciplines, management, and technology as he navigates the many regions of the workplace and work practices covered by the Signposts. When he reaches the end of the known trails, he starts laying paths that take us closer to where the Signposts converge. Agustin writes from the perspective of a pilgrim, architect, workplace consultant, and researcher and invites you to join him as a fellow pilgrim. You will be rewarded with a journey that revisits our assumptions about the way we use space to host the ever-evolving notion of work - an expedition leading not only to better versions of the workplace, but a better version of ourselves. "This book takes about three hours to read, and it could take a lifetime to fully extract all the benefits that it contains. This does not suggest that there are not immediate benefits available from reflecting on and applying the Signposts that are core to the book's intellectual contribution." - Peer Review extract.

A federal prosecutor’s disappearance launches a high-stakes case for FBI agents Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan. From the bestselling author of Thief’s Mark. When prosecutor Tamara McDermott is a no-show at a Boston dinner party, newlyweds Emma and Colin are suspicious. Matt Yankowski, head of HIT, Emma and Colin’s small, elite Boston-based team, is a friend of Tamara’s, and he needs them to find her. In London, a woman who was supposed to meet Emma’s art-detective grandfather to talk about forgeries is discovered near death. Her husband has vanished. The couple’s connection to Tamara adds to the puzzle. As the search intensifies, a seemingly unrelated murder leads Emma, Colin and HIT deep into a maze of misdirection created by a clever, lethal criminal. Emma must draw on her expertise in art crimes and Colin on his experience as a deep-cover agent as the investigation takes a devastating turn—one that tests the strengths of their families and friendships as well as their FBI colleagues like never before. “Neggers fashions a colorful landscape shaded with just enough darkness to create the brooding atmosphere in which her heroes best thrive . . . Reels you straight in and doesn’t let go.” —The Providence Journal

Revisit the fifth novel in bestselling author Sheila Roberts’ adored Life in Icicle Falls series When it comes to men, sisters don’t share! After a fake food poisoning incident in L.A., Bailey Sterling’s dreams of becoming a caterer to the stars collapse faster than a soufflé. Now Bailey’s face is in all the gossip rags and her business is in ruins. But the Sterling women close ranks and bring her back to Icicle Falls, where she’ll stay with her sister Cecily. All goes well between the sisters until Bailey comes up with a new business idea—a tea shop on a charming street called Lavender Lane. She’s going into partnership with Todd Black, who—it turns out—is the man Cecily’s started dating. It looks to Cecily as if there’s more than tea brewing in that cute little shop. And she’s not pleased. Wait! Isn’t Cecily seeing Luke Goodman? He’s a widower with an adorable little girl, and yes, Cecily does care about him. But Todd’s the one who sends her zing-o-meter off the charts. So now what? Should you have to choose between your sister and the man you love (or think you love)? Originally published in 2014