Pines and Plains Libraries

Experience the joy-and profits-that come from managing your own bed and breakfast! Whether you already know the magic that comes with owning a B&B or you are at the planning stage, the fourth edition of Open Your Own Bed & Breakfast-now updated with everything you need to know about online marketing-guides you through this special world. Barbara Notarius, one of America's most widely recognized and respected B&B experts, shows you how to make your...

"After an Oregon mother finds an SOS letter in a box of Halloween decorations, a story unfolds about the man who wrote it: a Chinese political prisoner, sentenced without trial to work grueling hours at a 'reeducation' camp--manufacturing the products sold in our own big-box stores"--

"A deeply original celebration of George Lucas's masterpiece as it relates to history, presidential politics, law, economics, fatherhood, and culture by Harvard legal scholar and former White House regulatory czar"--

The microbusiness is huge! That's not just a play on words but an indisputable fact that millions of budding entrepreneurs have already figured out. On top of adding to their income and creating safety nets in case the ax falls at work, they have been able to unlock their creativity and find a sense of fulfillment they never dreamed possible--or rather day-dreamed possible from their uninspiring cubicle. In The Economy of You, author and microbusiness...

"The Internet of today is a far cry from its early promise of a decentralized, democratic network of creativity and innovation. In the past decade, the Internet has fallen under the control of a tiny group of massive companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook. In Read Write Own, tech visionary Chris Dixon argues that the dream of an open network for fostering creativity and entrepreneurship doesn't have to die, and that in fact it can, and must, be...

When your Internet cable leaves your living room, where does it go? Almost everything about our day-to-day lives--and the broader scheme of human culture--can be found on the Internet. But what is it physically? And where is it really? Our mental map of the network is as blank as the map of the ocean that Columbus carried on his first Atlantic voyage. The Internet, its material nuts and bolts, is an unexplored territory. Until now. In Tubes, journalist...

"When the residents of Leadville, Colorado awoke the morning of February 23, 1983, it was to the Arkansas River gushing blood red with toxic mine waste headed straight to a pump station supplying public water. The event sparked a Superfund cleanup that drew national attention at the same time the mining industry abandoned the people it had supported with employment for more than a century. That volatile formula catapulted the town into a modern-day...

In 2000, Tom Zoellner purchased a diamond engagement ring and proposed. His girlfriend said, "yes" and then, suddenly, walked out of his life, making Tom the owner of a used engagement ring. Instead of hitting the self-help shelves of his local bookstore, he hit the road travelling to diamond mines in Africa, Canada, India, Brazil and Russia to discover the true worth of this shining gem. He travelled to Japan to understand how diamonds were linked...