We Have Fun

The story of baseball in America begins not with the fabled Abner Doubleday but with a generation of mid-nineteenth-century Americans who moved from the countryside to the cities and brought a cherished but delightfully informal game with them. But Didn't We Have Fun? will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about baseball's origins. Peter Morris, author of the prizewinning A Game of Inches, takes a fresh look at the early amateur years of the game. Mr. Morris retrieves a lost eraand a lost way of life. Offering a challenging new perspective on baseball's earliest years, and conveying the sense of delight that once pervaded the game and its players, Mr. Morris supplants old myths with a story just as marvelous-but one that reallyhappened. With 25 rare photographs and drawings.

Hilda Robinson, artist and grandmother, shares the joys of growing up in a closely-knit African American family and neighborhood. She describes the games she played, the songs she sang, and chores she did long before television was invented.

A creative companion to Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon Molly Lou Melon's grandma taught her to be happy with herself no matter what, but that's not all she learned. Molly Lou heard all about how her grandma didn't have fancy store-bought toys when she was little. She made dolls out of twigs and flowers and created her own fun in her backyard. So Molly Lou does just that, proving that the best thing to play with is a huge imagination!

With 90 million copies sold worldwide, the Key Words with Ladybird reading scheme is the springboard to reading for life. 100 Key Words make up half of all those we read and write. This essential vocabulary is carefully introduced, practised and developed throughout the scheme.

Possibly the best book ever written about an American magazine editor, this biography offers a 3-D view of the assassinations, the student riots, the counterculture, the politicians, the pop icons and the war that made the 60s America's unforgettable decade. Under the aegis of former Marine Harold Hayes, Esquire helped turn journalists, editors and photographers like Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Raymond Carver, Michael Herr, John Berendt and Diane Arbus into celebrities in their own right. Polsgrove's brilliant book, often resembling an Esquire cover story, offers a warts and all portrait of Hayes. Afterword by Ben Bagdikian.

If you’re not having fun, you’re not fully living. The author of How to Break Up with Your Phone makes the case that, far from being frivolous, fun is actually critical to our well-being—and shows us how to have more of it. “This delightful book might just be what we need to start flourishing.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Adam Grant Journalist and screen/life balance expert Catherine Price argues persuasively that our always-on, tech-addicted lifestyles have led us to obsess over intangible concepts such as happiness while obscuring the fact that real happiness lies in the everyday experience of fun. We often think of fun as indulgent, even immature and selfish. We claim to not have time for it, even as we find hours a day for what Price calls Fake Fun—bingeing on television, doomscrolling the news, or posting photos to social media, all in hopes of filling some of the emptiness we feel inside. In this follow-up to her hit book, How to Break Up with Your Phone, Price makes the case that True Fun—which she defines as the magical confluence of playfulness, connection, and flow—will give us the fulfillment we so desperately seek. If you use True Fun as your compass, you will be happier and healthier. You will be more productive, less resentful, and less stressed. You will have more energy. You will find community and a sense of purpose. You will stop languishing and start flourishing. And best of all? You’ll enjoy the process. Weaving together scientific research with personal experience, Price reveals the surprising mental, physical, and cognitive benefits of fun, and offers a practical, personalized plan for how we can achieve better screen/life balance and attract more True Fun into our daily lives—without feeling overwhelmed. Groundbreaking, eye-opening, and packed with useful advice, The Power of Fun won’t just change the way you think about fun. It will bring you back to life.

From performers who bask in the spotlight to those who find inspiration in the midnight glow of a computer monitor, the world has no shortage of creative people. While the day-to-day realities of a ballerina may be quite different from that of a novelist, actor, graphic artist, musician, or software developer, they share many things in common. Chief among these is the desire to make a living with their art. Maybe you’re working to build a sustainable, full-time creative career. Or perhaps you're happy in the corporate world but would like to turn your love for music, dance, painting, or programming into a steady stream of extra income. Either way, if you’re like most creative souls, you tend to focus on your passion to the exclusion of all else—and you may scorn the details of business and promotion. Yet as Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity shows, developing business skills couldn’t be more important for those who want to achieve success and generate steady income from their work. With decades of professional experience in creative fields such as music, software, writing and speaking, bestselling author Christopher Duncan demystifies the path to getting paid for your artistic talents. With lighthearted stories and down-to-earth advice, he starts with the basics and shows you how to build a solid, dependable career. All that’s required is consistent effort and a bit of commonsense. In Have Fun, Get Paid you will learn how to: Find paying work and get the gigs Market your talent without selling your soul Build an image as a highly sought after professional Manage the business details of your creative career Harness the power of relationships for long term success With advances in technology and the global reach of the Internet, creative people are empowered today as never before. Have Fun, Get Paid will show you how to take control of your dreams and bring them to life.