The Pick Up

Longlisted for the 2002 Booker Prize: the compelling story of a relationship between a young white South African woman and a young Arab man

"Nine all-stars in the field of YA lit contribute stories. . . . An anthology of stand-alone stories that invite — no, demand — a straight read-through." — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review) Nine of YA literature’s top writers, including Walter Dean Myers, Rita Williams-Garcia, Adam Rapp, Joseph Bruchac, and Sharon Flake reveal how it all goes down in a searing collection of short stories, in which each one picks up where the previous one ends. Characters weave in and out of narratives, perspectives change, and emotions play out for a fluid and fast-paced ode to the game of street basketball. Crackling with humor, grit, and streetball philosophy, and featuring poems and photographs by Charles R. Smith Jr., this anthology is a slam dunk.

Meeting a gorgeous guy in a rideshare headed to Lollapalooza is not how Mari expected her Chicago summer to start. She doesn't believe in dating...but TJ may just change her mind. Can an electric, weekend romance turn into more than just a summer fling? When Mari hails a Ryde to a music festival, the last thing she expects is for the car to pick up a gorgeous guy along the way. Mari doesn't believe in dating—it can only end with a broken heart. Besides, she's only staying at her dad's house in Chicago for the weekend. How close can you get to a guy in three days? TJ wants to study art in college, but his family's expectations cast a long shadow over his dreams. When he meets Mari in the back of a rideshare, he feels alive for the first time in a long time. Mari and TJ enter the festival together and share an electric moment but get separated in a crowd with seemingly no way to find each other. When fate reunites them (with a little help from a viral hashtag), they'll have to decide: was it love at first sight, or the start of nothing more than a weekend fling?

First published as an unheralded paperback original, Pick-Up is an authentic underground classic, an explosive bulletin from the urban underbelly of mid-1950s America. It was Charles Willeford’s second novel, after a rough and wandering earlier life that had taken him from Depression-era hobo camps and soup kitchens to wartime battlefields. The unblinking story of two lost and self-destructive drifters—a failed painter working as a counterman in a cheap diner and a woman in flight from domestic violence—trying to find a place for themselves in the back streets of San Francisco, Pick-Up is hardboiled writing at its nihilistic best: Willeford’s preferred title for the book was Until I Am Dead. Its bleak vision of life beyond the edge is haunted by rape, racism, alcoholism, suicide, and inescapable poverty, yet shot through with a tenderness and compassion sustained against all odds in a society offering few breaks to its outcasts and misfits. Pick-Up’s many twists and violent turns culminate in an ending that continues to surprise, confirming it as what critic Woody Haut has called “a razor-sharp narrative that rips open the genre.”

A tried-and-tested programme to help men become confident and skilled at approaching and talking to any woman. Imagine having the confidence to approach any woman. Imagine knowing exactly what to say to her. Imagine looking forward to a date, rather than it filling you with dread. With Robert King's methods all of this can become a reality. Robert King is an ordinary guy, who has become a master of picking up and dating attractive women and has brought dating success to thousands of men. In The Pick-Up Game he shares his methods. Learn what to say to a woman you like, how to interact socially and how to handle the logistics of approaching and spending time with women. Then learn the Zen way of letting go, especially when under pressure socially, and how not to try too hard to make something work - simply let it all unfold naturally. With Robert's techniques you will gain total confidence in yourself, learn to read and understand women and maximize every date you go on. Whatever your goal - whether it's to have more fun, more sex or a serious relationship - look no further than this invaluable book. You really can become a success with women.Robert King read his first self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, at the age of 19 and this sparked his desire for personal transformation. Naturally shy and reserved, after university Robert discovered the pick-up artist community and soon cultivated a natural style with women. After teaching at other pick-up companies and becoming "wings" with the best pick-up artists in the community he set up his own company www.puamethod.com, which has featured in The Sunday Times and The Sun newspapers and on various television programmes. He has taught close to 1,000 students natural pick up.

The creator of the "Mystery Method" introduced in Neil Strauss's best-selling The Game imparts salacious techniques for picking up and seducing women, in a guide that also shares extreme stories from Mystery's life. TV tie-in.

Unlock the power of a simple phone call to boost your sales with guidance from a world-renowned expert In Pick Up The Phone and Sell: How Proactive Calls To Customers and Prospects Can Double Your Sales, sales expert, consultant, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Alex Goldfayn delivers a comprehensive roadmap to one of the most important weapons in any salesperson’s arsenal: the phone. From the author of Selling Boldly and 5-Minute Selling, the book teaches you techniques to supercharge your sales by making the proactive call the tip of your selling spear. In addition to critical advice on how to call people you don’t know, this timely and important book includes: A thorough introduction to the power of a proactive phone call and links to free call planners and trackers at goldfayn.com Direction on how to use text messaging as an adjunct to phone sales Instructions on the appropriate role of social media, including LinkedIn, in boosting telephone sales Guidance on how to stop being afraid of phone calls and how to effectively warm up any cold call. Perfect for new and experienced salespeople alike, who are more comfortable with email, videoconferencing, social media, and text than they are with the telephone, Pick Up The Phone and Sell is an indispensable guide to one of the most important and lucrative tools in the selling profession.