Author Kel Landis has spent 30 years in banking and private equity, and a lifetime as a community leader. An insightful observer of humanity, he’s learned why some people struggle to find success, purpose, and fulfillment, while others seem to have it all.

In The Little Book of Do, Kel reveals that it’s not the achievement of goals that makes life rich and fulfilling, but the journey in pursuit of those goals—it’s the doing part that counts. Moreover, it demonstrates that do is the key driver of success in becoming an action-oriented contributor in your family, workplace, and community. Citing real people in real-life situations, he illustrates a central premise: by doing, we become.

Kel identifies the impediments to a life of doing and offers a practical methodology for deciding which pursuits should be delayed, which should be dismissed, and which should be pursued as if your life depends on it.

Filled with practical advice, The Little Book of Do can help you live a happier, healthier and more satisfying life. In the process, you’ll encourage and influence others to do the same.

April Michelle Davis spent a few weeks proofreading this manuscript, ensuring there were no egregious errors in the text. Proofreading is usually performed on a manuscript that has already been through developmental or copyediting and has already been laid out by a designer into page proofs. It provides a last review of egregious errors, such as basic grammar, punctuation, spelling, and inconsistencies, and any other errors that were inserted during the design process. April Michelle Davis is a professional proofreader with over 20 years of experience genres, and she delights in making manuscripts the best version for the author and the readers.

We are living in disruptive times. In fact 76% of wholesaler-distributors surveyed believe we are living in an environment we could call the “age of disruption.” Leaders throughout the industry are challenged by the constant pressures coming at them from all directions. These pressures could come from marketplace competitors or be the result of new government regulations, shifting demographics, the accelerating pace of technology, and others. Navigating these big shifts to create a sustainable and relevant business has become the new mandate for every leader and every employee in distribution.

Innovation is at the core of this new mandate, and future success in wholesale distribution will be based on the ability of distribution firms to innovate. To help you and your team hone your innovation knowledge and abilities, trust the expert guidance and real-world expertise found in INNOVATE! How Successful Distributors Lead Change in Disruptive Times by Dirk Beveridge. Each chapter concludes with specific thought processes, action items, and exercises to guide you in your innovation journey.

Innovation means leading customers to a better future for which they are capable and willing to reward you. This requires a continuous journey of change and evolution. Innovative distribution executives will empower their team members to think critically about how to improve their companies … and then to take action on their ideas. For innovation to catch fire, your employees at every level of your company must be prepared, willing, and excited to look at your business as if they have never seen it. They must understand that the ability to transform your business for the future resides within each of them.

April Michelle Davis spent several weeks proofreading this manuscript, ensuring there were no egregious errors in the text. Proofreading is usually performed on a manuscript that has already been through developmental or copyediting and has already been laid out by a designer into page proofs. It provides a last review of egregious errors, such as basic grammar, punctuation, spelling, and inconsistencies, and any other errors that were inserted during the design process.

Combining close textual readings with a broad theoretical perspective, Gender, Narrative, and Dissonance in the Modern Italian Novel is a study of the ways in which gender shapes the principal characters and narratives of seven important Italian novels of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from Alessandro Manzoni’s I promessi sposi (1827) to Elsa Morante’s Aracoeli (1982).

Silvia Valisa’s innovative approach focuses on the tensions between the characters and the gender ideologies that surround them, and the ways in which this dissonance exposes the ideological and epistemological structures of the modern novel. A provocative account of the intersection between gender, narrative, and epistemology that draws on the work of Georg Lukács, Barbara Spackman, and Teresa de Lauretis, this volume offers an intriguing new approach to investigating the nature of fiction.

April Michelle Davis spent several weeks writing the index for this book.

Growth is imperative. Distributors that are not growing are essentially dying in slow motion. Achieving top-line growth is becoming increasingly difficult given today’s economic challenges and customer demands. That is why the path to achieving and sustaining profitable growth needs a systematic and dynamic approach.

Driving Profitable Growth: A Distributor’s Playbook to Generate–Manage–Sustain Competitive Advantage is the first research study in wholesale distribution to examine both public and private firms and uncover a roadmap that addresses the three dimensions—generating, managing, and sustaining—of profitable growth. At last, distributors have a growth playbook that is based on research and analytics instead of anecdotal information!

The research combines rigorous analytics that were collected from a decade of financial data with input from wholesaler-distributors from multiple lines of trade. It reflects the current environment and determines the roadmap to the future. This study speaks to the growth planning and execution issues all distributors face in leading and growing their organizations. There is no more important time than right now for distribution management teams to read this study!

April Michelle Davis spent a month copyediting this manuscript, preparing it for publication.