Boris's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 24 Sep 2024 00:06:42 -0700 60 Boris's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions]]> 29632790 An exploration of how computer algorithms can be applied to our everyday lives to solve common decision-making problems and illuminate the workings of the human mind. What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of the new and familiar is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not. Computers, like us, confront limited space and time, so computer scientists have been grappling with similar problems for decades. And the solutions they’ve found have much to teach us.In a dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths show how algorithms developed for computers also untangle very human questions. They explain how to have better hunches and when to leave things to chance, how to deal with overwhelming choices and how best to connect with others. From finding a spouse to finding a parking spot, from organizing one’s inbox to peering into the future, Algorithms to Live By transforms the wisdom of computer science into strategies for human living.]]> 410 Brian Christian 1627790373 Boris 0 4.24 2016 Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
author: Brian Christian
name: Boris
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/24
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]]> The New One Minute Manager 22103881 The One Minute Manager® has helped millions achieve more successful professional and personal lives. While the principles it lays out are timeless, our world has changed drastically since the book’s publication. The exponential rise of technology, global flattening of markets, instant communication, and pressures on corporate workforces to do more with less—including resources, funding, and staff—have all revolutionized the world in which we live and work.

Now, Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson have written The New One Minute Manager to introduce the book’s powerful, important lessons to a new generation. In their concise, easy-to-read story, they teach readers three very practical secrets about leading others—and explain why these techniques continue to work so well.

As compelling today as the original was thirty years ago, this classic parable of a young man looking for an effective manager is more relevant and useful than ever.]]> 112 Kenneth H. Blanchard 0062367544 Boris 0 mgmt 3.76 1981 The New One Minute Manager
author: Kenneth H. Blanchard
name: Boris
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at: 2017/01/06
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: mgmt
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]]> <![CDATA[The New Dad's Playbook: Gearing Up for the Biggest Game of Your Life]]> 32510934 The New Dad's Playbook is every man's game plan to being the best partner and the best father, from pre-season (preparing for fatherhood) to Super Bowl (birth) to post-season (after baby is home). It helps men understand what their wives are going through physically and emotionally during and after pregnancy, allowing them to support their most important teammate. It tells men what to expect when their baby is home--and what to do when the unexpected happens. This tell-it-like-it-is book will take men from just winging it to winning it.]]> 208 Benjamin Watson 0801018978 Boris 5 3.87 The New Dad's Playbook: Gearing Up for the Biggest Game of Your Life
author: Benjamin Watson
name: Boris
average rating: 3.87
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2019/01/26
date added: 2019/01/26
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]]> Sleeping Beauties 34466922
If they are awakened, and the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place.

The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease.

Is Evie a medical anomaly to be studied, or is she a demon who must be slain?]]> 702 Stephen King 150116340X Boris 0 currently-reading 3.71 2017 Sleeping Beauties
author: Stephen King
name: Boris
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/01/26
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People]]> 40536148 Well-known technology executive and angel investor Elad Gil has worked with high growth tech companies like Airbnb, Twitter, Google, Instacart, Coinbase, Stripe, and Square as they've grown from small companies into global brands. Across all of these break-out companies, a set of common patterns has evolved into a repeatable playbook that Gil has codified in High Growth Handbook.

Covering key topics including the role of the CEO, managing your board, recruiting and managing an executive team, M&A, IPOs and late stage funding rounds, and interspersed with over a dozen interviews with some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley including Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Marc Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz), and Aaron Levie (Box), High Growth Handbook presents crystal clear guidance for navigating the most complex challenges that confront leaders and operators in high-growth startups.

In what Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn and co-author of the #1 NYT bestsellers The Alliance and The Startup of You calls "a trenchant guide," High Growth Handbook is the playbook for turning a startup into a unicorn.

"Elad Gil is one of Silicon Valley's seriously knowledgeable and battle-tested players. If you want the chance to turn your startup into the next Google or Twitter, then read this trenchant guide from someone who played key roles in the growth of these companies."
- Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, co-author of the #1 NYT bestsellers "The Alliance" and "The Startup of You," and host of the podcast Masters of Scale

"Elad eschews trite management aphorisms in favor of pragmatic and straight-shooting insights on complex topics like managing a board of directors, executing functional re-organizations with as little trauma as possible, and everything in-between."
- Dick Costolo, former CEO of Twitter and serial entrepreneur

"Elad first invested in Airbnb when we were less than 10 people and provided early advice on scaling the company. This book shares these learnings for the next generation of entrepreneurs."
- Nathan Blecharczyk, cofounder of Airbnb, Chief Strategy Officer, and Chairman of Airbnb China

"Elad jam-packs every useful lesson about building and scaling companies into a single, digestible book. My only gripe is that he didn't write this when we were in the early days of Box as it would have saved my ass countless times."
-Aaron Levie, cofounder and CEO of Box

"Armed with observations gathered scaling some of the most successful and important companies of Silicon Valley, Elad has no-nonsense, highly applicable advice to any operator transitioning a company from the proverbial garage to the next stage and beyond."
- Max Levchin, cofounder and CEO of Affirm, cofounder and CTO of PayPal

"Elad is one of the most experienced operators in Silicon Valley having seen numerous companies hit their inflection point. His advice has been key for Coinbase as we go through hypergrowth, from hiring executives to improving M&A."
- Brian Armstrong, cofounder and CEO of Coinbase

"Elad is one of the best connected and respected early stage investors in the Valley - he invested in Minted when we had fewer than 50 employees and his advice was critical to us in growing our business to where we are now, in the low hundreds of millions in sales. In his book, he crystallizes all of these learnings for the next generation of companies."
-Mariam Naficy, cofounder and CEO of Minted]]> 344 Elad Gil 1732265100 Boris 5 4.02 2018 High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People
author: Elad Gil
name: Boris
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2018/08/11
date added: 2019/01/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike]]> 27220736
In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed $8,000 his first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of startups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all startups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognizable symbols in the world today.

But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, in a memoir that is candid, humble, gutsy, and wry, he tells his story, beginning with his crossroads moment. At 24, after backpacking around the world, he decided to take the unconventional path, to start his own business—a business that would be dynamic, different.

Knight details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream—along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls the formative relationships with his first partners and employees, a ragtag group of misfits and seekers who became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything.]]> 400 Phil Knight 1501135910 Boris 4 4.45 2016 Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
author: Phil Knight
name: Boris
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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]]> The 4-Hour Workweek 368593
Join Tim Ferriss as he teaches you:
- How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want?
- How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs?
- How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist?
- How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and freuent "mini-retirements"?
- What the crucial difference is between absolute and relative income?
- How to train your boss to value performance over presence, or kill your job (or company) if it's beyond repair?
- What automated cash-flow "muses" are and how to create one in 2 to 4 weeks?
- How to cultivate selective ignorance-and create time-with a low-information diet?
- What the management secrets of Remote Control CEOs are?
- How to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50-80% off?
- How to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office]]> 308 Timothy Ferriss 0307353133 Boris 5 3.93 2007 The 4-Hour Workweek
author: Timothy Ferriss
name: Boris
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> 11/22/63 10644930
In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sets out on an insane � and insanely possible � mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping, the sound of Elvis, and the taste of root beer.

In this haunting world, Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian. And, as the ominous date of 11/22/63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald...]]> 849 Stephen King 1451627289 Boris 4 4.33 2011 11/22/63
author: Stephen King
name: Boris
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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date added: 2019/01/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads]]> 597544 Be Prepared is loaded with one-of-a-kind insights, MacGyver-esque tips and tricks, and no-nonsense advice for mastering the first year as a dad.
Finally, a book that teaches men all the things they really need to know about fatherhood...including how to:

- change a baby at a packed sports stadium
- create a decoy drawer full of old wallets, remote controls, and cell phones to throw baby off the scent of your real gear
- stay awake (or at least upright) at work
- babyproof a hotel room in four minutes flat
- construct an emergency diaper out of a towel, a sock, and duct tape

Packed with helpful diagrams and detailed instructions, and delivered with a wry sense of humor, Be Prepared is the ultimate guide for sleep-deprived, applesauce-covered fathers everywhere.]]> 240 Gary Greenberg 0743251547 Boris 0 to-read 4.06 2004 Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads
author: Gary Greenberg
name: Boris
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/08/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Five Dysfunctions of a Team]]> 21343 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams.

Kathryn Petersen, Decision Tech's CEO, faces the ultimate leadership crisis: Uniting a team in such disarray that it threatens to bring down the entire company. Will she succeed? Will she be fired? Will the company fail? Lencioni's utterly gripping tale serves as a timeless reminder that leadership requires as much courage as it does insight.

Throughout the story, Lencioni reveals the five dysfunctions which go to the very heart of why teams even the best ones-often struggle. He outlines a powerful model and actionable steps that can be used to overcome these common hurdles and build a cohesive, effective team. Just as with his other books, Lencioni has written a compelling fable with a powerful yet deceptively simple message for all those who strive to be exceptional team leaders.]]> 228 Patrick Lencioni 0787960756 Boris 4 mgmt 4.09 2002 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
author: Patrick Lencioni
name: Boris
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2002
rating: 4
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date added: 2018/06/14
shelves: mgmt
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]]> <![CDATA[Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time]]> 19288230
If you’ve ever been startled by how fast the world is changing, Scrum is one of the reasons why. Productivity gains of as much as 1200% have been recorded, and there’s no more lucid � or compelling � explainer of Scrum and its bright promise than Jeff Sutherland, the man who put together the first Scrum team more than twenty years ago.

The thorny problem Jeff began tackling back then boils down to this: people are spectacularly bad at doing things with agility and efficiency. Best laid plans go up in smoke. Teams often work at cross purposes to each other. And when the pressure rises, unhappiness soars. Drawing on his experience as a West Point-educated fighter pilot, biometrics expert, early innovator of ATM technology, and V.P. of engineering or CTO at eleven different technology companies, Jeff began challenging those dysfunctional realities, looking for solutions that would have global impact.

In this book you’ll journey to Scrum’s front lines where Jeff’s system of deep accountability, team interaction, and constant iterative improvement is, among other feats, bringing the FBI into the 21st century, perfecting the design of an affordable 140 mile per hour/100 mile per gallon car, helping NPR report fast-moving action in the Middle East, changing the way pharmacists interact with patients, reducing poverty in the Third World, and even helping people plan their weddings and accomplish weekend chores.

Woven with insights from martial arts, judicial decision making, advanced aerial combat, robotics, and many other disciplines, Scrum is consistently riveting. But the most important reason to read this book is that it may just help you achieve what others consider unachievable � whether it be inventing a trailblazing technology, devising a new system of education, pioneering a way to feed the hungry, or, closer to home, a building a foundation for your family to thrive and prosper.]]> 237 Jeff Sutherland 038534645X Boris 0 mgmt 4.12 2014 Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time
author: Jeff Sutherland
name: Boris
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/06/14
shelves: mgmt
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]]> <![CDATA[Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future]]> 25541028 392 Ashlee Vance 0062301233 Boris 5 4.12 2015 Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
author: Ashlee Vance
name: Boris
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2015
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/01/09
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]]> Norse Mythology 30809689 Neil Gaiman has long been inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical realms of his fiction. Now he turns his attention back to the source, presenting a bravura rendition of the great northern tales.

In Norse Mythology, Gaiman stays true to the myths in envisioning the major Norse pantheon: Odin, the highest of the high, wise, daring, and cunning; Thor, Odin’s son, incredibly strong yet not the wisest of gods; and Loki—son of a giant—blood brother to Odin and a trickster and unsurpassable manipulator.

Gaiman fashions these primeval stories into a novelistic arc that begins with the genesis of the legendary nine worlds and delves into the exploits of deities, dwarfs, and giants. Once, when Thor's hammer is stolen, Thor must disguise himself as a woman—difficult with his beard and huge appetite—to steal it back. More poignant is the tale in which the blood of Kvasir—the most sagacious of gods—is turned into a mead that infuses drinkers with poetry. The work culminates in Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods and rebirth of a new time and people.

Through Gaiman’s deft and witty prose emerge these gods with their fiercely competitive natures, their susceptibility to being duped and to duping others, and their tendency to let passion ignite their actions, making these long-ago myths breathe pungent life again.]]> 299 Neil Gaiman 039360909X Boris 0 to-read 4.10 2017 Norse Mythology
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Boris
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/02/21
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]]> The Magic of Thinking Big 759945 238 David J. Schwartz 0671646788 Boris 0 currently-reading 4.26 1959 The Magic of Thinking Big
author: David J. Schwartz
name: Boris
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/02/21
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life]]> 28257707 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062457738

In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people.

For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.

Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited�"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek.

There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.]]> 212 Mark Manson Boris 0 currently-reading 3.87 2016 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
author: Mark Manson
name: Boris
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/02/21
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits]]> 116184
Fund manager Joel Greenblatt has been beating the Dow (with returns of 50 percent a year) for more than a decade. And now, in this highly accessible guide, he’s going to show you how to do it, too. You’re about to discover investment opportunities that portfolio managers, business-school professors, and top investment experts regularly miss—uncharted areas where the individual investor has a huge advantage over the Wall Street wizards. Here is your personal treasure map to special situations in which big profits are possible,

-Spin-offs
-Restructurings
-Merger Securities
-Rights Offerings
-Recapitalizations
-Bankruptcies
-Risk Arbitrage

Prepared with the tools from this guide, it won’t be long until you’re a stock market genius!]]> 285 Joel Greenblatt 0684840073 Boris 0 to-read 4.22 1997 You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits
author: Joel Greenblatt
name: Boris
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite]]> 7936425
Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge fund moguls have become the It Boys of twenty-first ­century capitalism. Ken Griffin of Citadel started out trading convertible bonds from his dorm room at Harvard. Julian Robertson staffed his hedge fund with college athletes half his age, then he flew them to various retreats in the Rockies and raced them up the mountains. Paul Tudor Jones posed for a magazine photograph next to a killer shark and happily declared that a 1929-style crash would be "total rock-and-roll" for him. Michael Steinhardt was capable of reducing underlings to sobs. "All I want to do is kill myself," one said. "Can I watch?" Steinhardt responded.

Finance professors have long argued that beating the market is impossible, and yet drawing on insights from physics, economics, and psychology, these titans have cracked the market's mysteries and gone on to earn fortunes. Their innovation has transformed the world, spawning new markets in exotic financial instruments and rewriting the rules of capitalism.

More than just a history, More Money Than God is a window on tomorrow's financial system. Hedge funds have been left for dead after past financial panics: After the stock market rout of the early 1970s, after the bond market bloodbath of 1994, after the collapse of Long Term Capital Management in 1998, and yet again after the dot-com crash in 2000. Each time, hedge funds have proved to be survivors, and it would be wrong to bet against them now. Banks such as CitiGroup, brokers such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, home lenders such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, insurers such as AIG, and money market funds run by giants such as Fidelity-all have failed or been bailed out. But the hedge fund industry has survived the test of 2008 far better than its rivals. The future of finance lies in the history of hedge funds.]]> 496 Sebastian Mallaby 1594202559 Boris 0 to-read 4.09 2010 More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite
author: Sebastian Mallaby
name: Boris
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/02/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Little Book That Beats the Market]]> 75889 176 Joel Greenblatt 0471733067 Boris 0 to-read 3.96 1999 The Little Book That Beats the Market
author: Joel Greenblatt
name: Boris
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/02/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Win Friends & Influence People]]> 4865
Since its release in 1936, How to Win Friends and Influence People has sold more than 30 million copies. Dale Carnegie's first book is a timeless bestseller, packed with rock-solid advice that has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives.

As relevant as ever before, Dale Carnegie's principles endure, and will help you achieve your maximum potential in the complex and competitive modern age.

Learn the six ways to make people like you, the twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking, and the nine ways to change people without arousing resentment.]]> 288 Dale Carnegie Boris 5 mgmt 4.22 1936 How to Win Friends & Influence People
author: Dale Carnegie
name: Boris
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1936
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/01/06
shelves: mgmt
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]]> Dark Matter 27833670 A mindbending, relentlessly surprising thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy.

Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.

"Are you happy with your life?"

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend."

In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that's the dream?

And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could've imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human--a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of.]]> 342 Blake Crouch 1101904224 Boris 4 4.13 2016 Dark Matter
author: Blake Crouch
name: Boris
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/09/06
date added: 2016/09/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction]]> 23995360 Ěý
In Superforecasting, Tetlock and coauthor Dan Gardner offer a masterwork on prediction, drawing on decades of research and the results of a massive, government-funded forecasting tournament. The Good Judgment Project involves tens of thousands of ordinary people—including a Brooklyn filmmaker, a retired pipe installer, and a former ballroom dancer—who set out to forecast global events. Some of the volunteers have turned out to be astonishingly good. They’ve beaten other benchmarks, competitors, and prediction markets. They’ve even beaten the collective judgment of intelligence analysts with access to classified information. They are "superforecasters."
Ěý
In this groundbreaking and accessible book, Tetlock and Gardner show us how we can learn from this elite group. Weaving together stories of forecasting successes (the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound) and failures (the Bay of Pigs) and interviews with a range of high-level decision makers, from David Petraeus to Robert Rubin, they show that good forecasting doesn’t require powerful computers or arcane methods. It involves gathering evidence from a variety of sources, thinking probabilistically, working in teams, keeping score, and being willing to admit error and change course. Superforecasting offers the first demonstrably effective way to improve our ability to predict the future—whether in business, finance, politics, international affairs, or daily life—and is destined to become a modern classic.]]> 352 Philip E. Tetlock 0804136696 Boris 0 to-read 4.06 2015 Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction
author: Philip E. Tetlock
name: Boris
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/08/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble]]> 26030703 Newsweek told him. Fifty years old and with a wife and two young kids, Dan was, in a word, screwed. Then an idea hit. Dan had long reported on Silicon Valley and the tech explosion. Why not join it? HubSpot, a Boston start-up, was flush with $100 million in venture capital. They offered Dan a pile of stock options for the vague role of "marketing fellow." What could go wrong?

HubSpotters were true believers: They were making the world a better place ... by selling email spam. The office vibe was frat house meets cult compound: The party began at four thirty on Friday and lasted well into the night; "shower pods" became hook-up dens; a push-up club met at noon in the lobby, while nearby, in the "content factory," Nerf gun fights raged. Groups went on "walking meetings," and Dan's absentee boss sent cryptic emails about employees who had "graduated" (read: been fired). In the middle of all this was Dan, exactly twice the age of the average HubSpot employee, and literally old enough to be the father of most of his co-workers, sitting at his desk on his bouncy-ball "chair."

Mixed in with Lyons's uproarious tale of his rise and fall at Hubspot is a trenchant analysis of the start-up world, a de facto conspiracy between those who start companies and those who fund them, a world where bad ideas are rewarded with hefty investments, where companies blow money lavishing perks on their post-collegiate workforces, and where everybody is trying to hang on just long enough to reach an IPO and cash out.

With a cast of characters that includes devilish angel investors, fad-chasing venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and "wantrapreneurs," bloggers and brogrammers, social climbers and sociopaths, Disrupted is a gripping and definitive account of life in the (second) tech bubble.]]> 272 Dan Lyons 0316306088 Boris 4 3.84 2016 Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
author: Dan Lyons
name: Boris
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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date added: 2016/08/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal]]> 18656827
Now Nick Bilton of the New York Times takes readers behind the scenes with a narrative that shows what happened inside Twitter as it grew at exponential speeds. This is a tale of betrayed friendships and high-stakes power struggles as the four founders—Biz Stone, Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, and Noah Glass—went from everyday engineers to wealthy celebrities, featured on magazine covers, Oprah, The Daily Show, and Time’s list of the world’s most influential people.

Bilton’s exclusive access and exhaustive investigative reporting—drawing on hundreds of sources, documents, and internal e-mails—have enabled him to write an intimate portrait of fame, influence, and power. He also captures the zeitgeist and global influence of Twitter, which has been used to help overthrow governments in the Middle East and disrupt the very fabric of the way people communicate.]]> 299 Nick Bilton 1591846013 Boris 4 4.01 2013 Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal
author: Nick Bilton
name: Boris
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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date added: 2016/08/07
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]]> JavaScript: The Good Parts 2998152 153 Douglas Crockford 0596517742 Boris 4 4.23 2008 JavaScript: The Good Parts
author: Douglas Crockford
name: Boris
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2016/08/07
date added: 2016/08/07
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]]> <![CDATA[David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants]]> 15751404 The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell has explored the ways we understand and change our world. Now he looks at the complex and surprising ways the weak can defeat the strong, the small can match up against the giant, and how our goals (often culturally determined) can make a huge difference in our ultimate sense of success. Drawing upon examples from the world of business, sports, culture, cutting-edge psychology, and an array of unforgettable characters around the world, David and Goliath is in many ways the most practical and provocative book Malcolm Gladwell has ever written.]]> 305 Malcolm Gladwell 0316204366 Boris 0 3.97 2013 David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Boris
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking]]> 40102 The Tipping Point a classic, Blink changes the way you'll understand every decision you make. Never again will you think about thinking the same way.

Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant - in the blink of an eye - that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work - in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?

In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing" - filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.]]> 296 Malcolm Gladwell 0316010669 Boris 0 3.97 2005 Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Boris
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference]]> 2612 The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.]]> 301 Malcolm Gladwell 0316346624 Boris 0 4.01 2002 The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Boris
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Outliers: The Story of Success]]> 3228917 Learn what sets high achievers apart � from Bill Gates to the Beatles � in this #1 bestseller from "a singular talent" (New York Times Book Review).

In this stunning book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"—the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.]]> 309 Malcolm Gladwell 0316017922 Boris 0 4.19 2008 Outliers: The Story of Success
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Boris
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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]]> Steve Jobs 11084145 630 Walter Isaacson 1451648537 Boris 0 4.15 2011 Steve Jobs
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Boris
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life]]> 5507552 432 Neil Strauss 0060898771 Boris 3 3.80 2009 Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life
author: Neil Strauss
name: Boris
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2009
rating: 3
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]]> The Art of Smart Football 25917374
Pete Carroll's aggressive defense Chip Kelly's spread offense and new-school methods The roots of Bill Belichick's defensive genius Gus Malzahn's up-tempo offense The strategies Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Aaron Rodgers use to shred defenses Art Briles and Baylor's wide open attack Nick Saban's defensive evolution

The book also includes explorations of the newest trends in football, including "packaged plays" that combine runs and passes into one play, "pattern match" defenses that blend man-to-man and zone pass coverages, how defenses are responding to the spread offense, and much more.



Praise for The Art of Smart

"The Art of Smart Football made me a smarter football writer . . . Football, as presented by these coaches and by Brown, is such an imaginative game. It’s a great Go buy it." -- Peter King, The MMQB/Sports Illustrated

"A must read if you are a football junkie." -- Trent Dilfer, ESPN/13-year NFL Veteran Quarterback

"The best analysis in the game today."-- Rolling Stone

"Awesome stuff. I recommend The Art of Smart Football to any coach or fan." -- Matt Bowen, ESPN Columnist/NFL Veteran

"When Chris B. Brown releases a book, you should buy it."-- Bill Barnwell, Grantland/ESPN

"A deep dive into football. Highly recommended."-- Field Yates, ESPN

"The Art of Smart Football is a perfect read for anyone looking to take their knowledge of the game up a notch."-- ElevenWarriors.com]]> 183 Chris B. Brown 0692491538 Boris 0 to-read 4.21 2015 The Art of Smart Football
author: Chris B. Brown
name: Boris
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships]]> 26887738 The Game, a funny and slyly instructive account of how he transformed himself from a scrawny, insecure nerd into the ultra-confident, ultra-successful “pickup artist� known as Style. The book jump-started the international “seduction community,� and made Strauss a household name—revered or notorious—among single men and women alike.

But the experience of writing The Game also transformed Strauss into a man who could have what every man wants: the ability to date or have casual sex with almost every woman he met. The results were heady, to be sure. But they also conditioned him to view the world as a kind of constant parade of women, sex, and opportunity—with intimacy and long-term commitment taking a back seat. That is, until he met the woman who forced him to choose between herself and the parade. The choice was not only difficult, it was wrenching. It forced him deep into his past, to confront not only the moral dimensions of his pickup lifestyle, but also a wrenching mystery in his childhood that shaped the man that he became. It sent him into extremes of behavior that exposed just how conflicted his life had become. And it made him question everything he knew about himself, and about the way men and women live with and without each other.

He would never be the same again.

Searingly honest, compulsively readable, this book may have the same effect on you.]]> 448 Neil Strauss 0060898763 Boris 0 to-read 4.07 2015 The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships
author: Neil Strauss
name: Boris
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/07/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> What Is a Dog? 26195612
Exploring the natural history of these animals, the Coppingers explain how the village dogs of Vietnam, India, Africa, and Mexico are strikingly similar. These feral dogs, argue the Coppingers, are in fact the truly archetypal dogs, nearly uniform in size and shape and incredibly self-sufficient. Drawing on nearly five decades of research, they show how dogs actually domesticated themselves in order to become such efficient scavengers of human refuse. The Coppingers also examine the behavioral characteristics that enable dogs to live successfully and to reproduce, unconstrained by humans, in environments that we ordinarily do not think of as dog friendly.

Providing a fascinating exploration of what it actually means—genetically and behaviorally—to be a dog, What Is a Dog? will undoubtedly change the way any beagle or bulldog owner will reflect on their four-legged friend.
Ěý]]> 272 Raymond Coppinger 022612794X Boris 0 to-read 3.96 2016 What Is a Dog?
author: Raymond Coppinger
name: Boris
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease]]> 1820055 601 Gary Taubes 1400040787 Boris 0 to-read 4.16 2004 Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease
author: Gary Taubes
name: Boris
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/07/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It]]> 7495395 --Warren Buffett
Ěý
In March of 2006, the world’s richest men sipped champagne in an opulent New York hotel. ĚýThey were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes, but those numbers meant nothing to them. ĚýThey were accustomed to risking billions. Ěý
Ěý
At the card table that night was Peter Muller, an eccentric, whip-smart whiz kid who’d studied theoretical mathematics at Princeton and now managed a fabulously successful hedge fund called PDT…when he wasn’t playing his keyboard for morning commuters on the New York subway. ĚýWith him was Ken Griffin, who as an undergraduate trading convertible bonds out of his Harvard dorm room had outsmarted the Wall Street pros and made money in one of the worst bear markets of all time. ĚýNow he was the tough-as-nails head of Citadel Investment Group, one of the most powerful money machines on earth. There too were Cliff Asness, the sharp-tongued, mercurial founder of the hedge fund AQR, a man as famous for his computer-smashing rages as for his brilliance, and Boaz Weinstein, chess life-master and king of the credit default swap, who while juggling $30 billion worth of positions for Deutsche Bank found time for frequent visits to Las Vegas with the famed MIT card-counting team. Ěý
Ěý
On that night in 2006, these four men and their cohorts were the new kings of Wall Street. ĚýMuller, Griffin, Asness, and Weinstein were among the best and brightest of a Ěýnew breed, the quants . ĚýOver the prior twenty years, this species of math whiz --technocrats who make billions not with gut calls or fundamental analysis but with formulas and high-speed computers-- had usurped the testosterone-fueled, kill-or-be-killed risk-takers who’d long been the alpha males the world’s largest casino. ĚýThe quants believed that a dizzying, indecipherable-to-mere-mortals cocktail of differential calculus, quantum physics, and advanced geometry held the key to reaping riches from the financial markets. ĚýAnd they helped create a digitized money-trading machine that could shift billions around the globe with the click of a mouse. Ěý
Ěý
Few realized that night, though, that in creating this unprecedented machine, men like Muller, Griffin, Asness and Weinstein had sowed the seeds for history’s greatest financial disaster. Ěý
Ěý
Drawing on unprecedented access to these four number-crunching titans, The Quants tells the inside story of what they thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize â€� and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQ’s had led them so wrong, so fast. ĚýHad their years of success been dumb luck, fool’s gold, a good run that could come to an end on any given day? ĚýWhat if The Truth they sought -- the secret of the markets -- wasn’t knowable? Worse, what if there wasn’t any Truth?
Ěý
In The Quants , Scott Patterson tells the story not just of these men, but of Jim Simons, the reclusive founder of the most successful hedge fund in history; Aaron Brown, the quant who used his math skills to humiliate Wall Street’s old guard at their trademark game of Liar’s Poker, and years later found himself with a front-row seat to the rapid emergence of mortgage-backed securities; and gadflies and dissenters such as Paul Wilmott, Nassim Taleb, and Benoit Mandelbrot. Ěý
Ěý
With the immediacy of today’s NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy, The Quants is at once a masterpiece of explanatory journalism, a gripping tale of ambition and hubris…and an ominous warning about Wall Street’s future.
ĚýĚý]]> 337 Scott Patterson 0307453375 Boris 0 3.87 2010 The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It
author: Scott Patterson
name: Boris
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age]]> 20763746 Introducing the new, realistic loyalty pact between employer and employee.

The employer-employee relationship is broken, and managers face a seemingly impossible dilemma: the old model of guaranteed long-term employment no longer works in a business environment defined by continuous change, but neither does a system in which every employee acts like a free agent.

The solution? Stop thinking of employees as either family or as free agents. Think of them instead as allies .

As a manager you want your employees to help transform the company for the future. And your employees want the company to help transform their careers for the long term. But this win-win scenario will happen only if both sides trust each other enough to commit to mutual investment and mutual benefit. Sadly, trust in the business world is hovering at an all-time low.

We can rebuild that lost trust with straight talk that recognizes the realities of the modern economy. So, paradoxically, the alliance begins with managers acknowledging that great employees might leave the company, and with employees being honest about their own career aspirations.

By putting this new alliance at the heart of your talent management strategy, you’ll not only bring back trust, you’ll be able to recruit and retain the entrepreneurial individuals you need to adapt to a fast-changing world.

These individuals, flexible, creative, and with a bias toward action, thrive when they’re on a specific “tour of duty”—when they have a mission that’s mutually beneficial to employee and company that can be completed in a realistic period of time.

Coauthored by the founder of LinkedIn, this bold but practical guide for managers and executives will give you the tools you need to recruit, manage, and retain the kind of employees who will make your company thrive in today’s world of constant innovation and fast-paced change.]]> 224 Reid Hoffman 1625275773 Boris 0 to-read 3.78 2014 The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age
author: Reid Hoffman
name: Boris
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster]]> 16033602
Lean Analytics can help. By measuring and analyzing as you grow, you can validate whether a problem is real, find the right customers, and decide what to build, how to monetize it, and how to spread the word. Focusing on the One Metric That Matters to your business right now gives you the focus you need to move ahead--and the discipline to know when to change course.

Written by Alistair Croll (Coradiant, CloudOps, Startupfest) and Ben Yoskovitz (Year One Labs, GoInstant),Ěýthe bookĚýlays out practical, proven steps to take your startup from initial idea to product/market fit and beyond. Packed with over 30 case studies, and based on a year of interviews with over a hundred founders and investors, the book is an invaluable, practical guide for Lean Startup practitioners everywhere.]]> 440 Alistair Croll 1449335675 Boris 0 to-read 4.10 2013 Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster
author: Alistair Croll
name: Boris
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/07/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Short Drop (Gibson Vaughn, #1)]]> 27239265
For legendary hacker and marine Gibson Vaughn, the case is personal—Suzanne Lombard had been like a sister to him. On the tenth anniversary of her disappearance, the former head of Benjamin Lombard’s security asks for Gibson’s help in a covert investigation of the case, with new evidence in hand.

Haunted by tragic memories, he jumps at the chance to uncover what happened all those years ago. Using his military and technical prowess, he soon discovers multiple conspiracies surrounding the Lombard family—and he encounters powerful, ruthless political players who will do anything to silence him and his team. With new information surfacing that could threaten Lombard’s bid for the presidency, Gibson must stay one step ahead as he navigates a dangerous web to get to the truth.]]> 397 Matthew FitzSimmons 150395241X Boris 0 4.18 2015 The Short Drop (Gibson Vaughn, #1)
author: Matthew FitzSimmons
name: Boris
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> Modern Romance 23453112
Some of our problems are unique to our time.Ěý“Why did this guy just text me an emoji of a pizza?”Ěý“Should I go out with this girl even though sheĚýlisted Combos as one of her favorite snack foods?ĚýCombos?!â€� “My girlfriend just got a message fromĚýsome dude named Nathan. Who’s Nathan? Did heĚýjust send her a photo of his penis? Should I checkĚýjust to be sure?”Ě�

But the transformation of our romantic livesĚýcan’t be explained by technology alone. In a shortĚýperiod of time, the whole culture of finding loveĚýhas changed dramatically. A few decades ago,Ěýpeople would find a decent person who lived inĚýtheir neighborhood. Their families would meetĚýand, after deciding neither party seemed like aĚýmurderer, they would get married and soon haveĚýa kid, all by the time they were twenty-four. Today,Ěýpeople marry later than ever and spend years ofĚýtheir lives on a quest to find the perfect person, aĚýsoul mate.

For years, Aziz Ansari has been aiming hisĚýcomic insight at modern romance, but for ModernĚýRomance, the book, he decided he needed to takeĚýthings to another level. He teamed up with NYUĚýsociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massiveĚýresearch project, including hundreds of interviewsĚýand focus groups conducted everywhere fromĚýTokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita. They analyzedĚýbehavioral data and surveys and created their ownĚýonline research forum on Reddit, which drewĚýthousands of messages. They enlisted the world’sĚýleading social scientists, including Andrew Cherlin, Eli Finkel, HelenĚýFisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, SherryĚýTurkle, and Robb Willer. The result is unlike anyĚýsocial science or humor book we’ve seen before.

In Modern Romance, Ansari combines hisĚýirreverent humor with cutting-edge social scienceĚýto give us an unforgettable tour of our newĚýromantic world.]]> 279 Aziz Ansari 1594206279 Boris 0 3.79 2015 Modern Romance
author: Aziz Ansari
name: Boris
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley]]> 28259132 Liar’s Poker meets The Social Network in an irreverent exposé of life inside the tech bubble, from industry provocateur Antonio García Martínez, a former Twitter advisor, Facebook product manager and startup founder/CEO.

The reality is, Silicon Valley capitalism is very simple:

Investors are people with more money than time.

Employees are people with more time than money.

Entrepreneurs are the seductive go-between.

Marketing is like sex: only losers pay for it.Ěý

Imagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a datacenter powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this “chaos monkey� to test online services� robustness—their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society’s chaos monkeys, disruptors testing and transforming every aspect of our lives, from transportation (Uber) and lodging (AirBnB) to television (Netflix) and dating (Tinder). One of Silicon Valley’s most audacious chaos monkeys is Antonio García Martínez.

After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook’s nascent advertising team, turning its users� data into profit for COO Sheryl Sandberg and chairman and CEO Mark “Zuck� Zuckerberg. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company’s monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. He also fathered two children with a woman he barely knew, committed lewd acts and brewed illegal beer on the Facebook campus (accidentally flooding Zuckerberg's desk), lived on a sailboat, raced sport cars on the 101, and enthusiastically pursued the life of an overpaid Silicon Valley wastrel.

Now, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future. Weighing in on everything from startups and credit derivatives to Big Brother and data tracking, social media monetization and digital “privacy,� García Martínez shares his scathing observations and outrageous antics, taking us on a humorous, subversive tour of the fascinatingly insular tech industry. Chaos Monkeys lays bare the hijinks, trade secrets, and power plays of the visionaries, grunts, sociopaths, opportunists, accidental tourists, and money cowboys who are revolutionizing our world. The question is, will we survive?]]> 528 Antonio García Martínez 0062458191 Boris 0 3.66 2016 Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
author: Antonio GarcĂ­a MartĂ­nez
name: Boris
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/07/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Code Warriors: NSA's Code Breakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union]]> 26827093 A sweeping, in-depth history of NSA, whose famous “cult of silence� has left the agency shrouded in mystery for decades

The National Security Agency was born out of the legendary codebreaking programs of World War II that cracked the famed Enigma machine and other German and Japanese codes, thereby turning the tide of Allied victory. In the postwar years, as the United States developed a new enemy in the Soviet Union, our intelligence community found itself targeting not soldiers on the battlefield, but suspected spies, foreign leaders, and even American citizens. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, NSA played a vital, often fraught and controversial role in the major events of the Cold War, from the Korean War to the Cuban Missile Crisis to Vietnam and beyond.

In Code Warriors, Stephen Budiansky—a longtime expert in cryptology—tells the fascinating story of how NSA came to be, from its roots in World War II through the fall of the Berlin Wall. Along the way, he guides us through the fascinating challenges faced by cryptanalysts, and how they broke some of the most complicated codes of the twentieth century. With access to new documents, Budiansky shows where the agency succeeded and failed during the Cold War, but his account also offers crucial perspective for assessing NSA today in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations. Budiansky shows how NSA’s obsession with recording every bit of data and decoding every signal is far from a new development; throughout its history the depth and breadth of the agency’s reach has resulted in both remarkable successes and destructive failures.

Featuring a series of appendixes that explain the technical details of Soviet codes and how they were broken, this is a rich and riveting history of the underbelly of the Cold War, and an essential and timely read for all who seek to understand the origins of the modern NSA.]]> 416 Stephen Budiansky 0385352662 Boris 5 3.66 2016 Code Warriors: NSA's Code Breakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union
author: Stephen Budiansky
name: Boris
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2016/06/22
date added: 2016/06/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit]]> 115587
Delta Force. They are the U.S. Army's most elite top-secret strike force. They dominate the modern battlefield, but you won't hear about their heroics on CNN. No headlines can reveal their top-secret missions, and no book has ever taken readers inside—until now. Here, a founding member of Delta Force takes us behind the veil of secrecy and into the action-to reveal the never-before-told story of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-D (Delta Force).

He is a master of espionage, trained to take on hijackers, terrorists, hostage takers, and enemy armies. He can deploy by parachute or arrive by commercial aircraft. Survive alone in hostile cities. Speak foreign languages fluently. Strike at enemy targets with stunning swiftness and extraordinary teamwork. He is the ultimate modern the Delta Force Operator.

In this dramatic behind-the-scenes chronicle, Eric Haney, one of the founding members of Delta Force, takes us inside this legendary counterterrorist unit. Here, for the first time, are details of the grueling selection process—designed to break the strongest of men—that singles out the best of the the Delta Force Operator.

With heart-stopping immediacy, Haney tells what it's really like to enter a hostage-held airplane. And from his days in Beirut, Haney tells an unforgettable tale of bodyguards and bombs, of a day-to-day life of madness and beauty, and of how he and a teammate are called on to kill two gunmen targeting U.S. Marines at the Beirut airport. As part of the team sent to rescue American hostages in Tehran, Haney offers a first-person description of that failed mission that is a chilling, compelling account of a bold maneuver undone by chance—and a few fatal mistakes.

From fighting guerrilla warfare in Honduras to rescuing missionaries in Sudan and leading the way onto the island of Grenada, Eric Haney captures the daring and discipline that distinguish the men of Delta Force. Inside Delta Force brings honor to these singular men while it puts us in the middle of action that is sudden, frightening, and nonstop around the world.]]> 324 Eric L. Haney 0385339364 Boris 4 non-fiction 4.16 2002 Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit
author: Eric L. Haney
name: Boris
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2016/06/22
date added: 2016/06/22
shelves: non-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt]]> 24724602 #1 New York Times Bestseller � With a new Afterword

In Michael Lewis's game-changing bestseller, a small group of Wall Street iconoclasts realize that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders. They band together—some of them walking away from seven-figure salaries—to investigate, expose, and reform the insidious new ways that Wall Street generates profits. If you have any contact with the market, even a retirement account, this story is happening to you.]]> 304 Michael Lewis 0393351599 Boris 4 4.15 2014 Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
author: Michael Lewis
name: Boris
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 4
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date added: 2016/06/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking)]]> 21480734
An audacious, irreverent investigation of human behavior—and a first look at a revolution in the making
Ěý
Our personal data has been used to spy on us, hire and fire us, and sell us stuff we don’t need. In Dataclysm , Christian Rudder uses it to show us who we truly are.
Ěý
For centuries, we’ve relied on polling or small-scale lab experiments to study human behavior. Today, a new approach is possible. As we live more of our lives online, researchers can finally observe us directly, in vast numbers, and without filters. Data scientists have become the new demographers.
Ěý
In this daring and original book, Rudder explains how Facebook "likes" can predict, with surprising accuracy, a person’s sexual orientation and even intelligence; how attractive women receive exponentially more interview requests; and why you must have haters to be hot. He charts the rise and fall of America’s most reviled word through Google Search and examines the new dynamics of collaborative rage on Twitter. He shows how people express themselves, both privately and publicly. What is the least Asian thing you can say? Do people bathe more in Vermont or New Jersey? What do black women think about Simon & Garfunkel? ( they don’t think about Simon & Garfunkel.) Rudder also traces human migration over time, showing how groups of people move from certain small towns to the same big cities across the globe. And he grapples with the challenge of maintaining privacy in a world where these explorations are possible.
Ěý
Visually arresting and full of wit and insight, Dataclysm is a new way of seeing ourselves—a brilliant alchemy, in which math is made human and numbers become the narrative of our time.]]> 304 Christian Rudder 0385347375 Boris 4 3.70 2014 Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking)
author: Christian Rudder
name: Boris
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2014
rating: 4
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date added: 2016/06/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk]]> 33449 143 Al Ries 0887306667 Boris 4 4.05 1993 The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk
author: Al Ries
name: Boris
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1993
rating: 4
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date added: 2016/06/22
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]]> The Martian 18007564
Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error� are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills � and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit � he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

]]> 384 Andy Weir 0804139024 Boris 5 4.41 2011 The Martian
author: Andy Weir
name: Boris
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future]]> 18050143
The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.

Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.

Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.

Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.]]> 195 Peter Thiel 0804139296 Boris 5 4.15 2014 Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
author: Peter Thiel
name: Boris
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership]]> 22129114
Now Branson gives an inside look at his strikingly differentĚýswashbuckling style of leadership. Learn how fun, family,Ěýpassion, and the dying art of listening are key components toĚýwhat his extended family of employees around the world haveĚýalways dubbed (with a wink) the “Virgin Way.â€�

This unique perspective comes from a man who droppedĚýout of school at sixteen, suffers from dyslexia, and has neverĚýworked for anyone but himself. He may be famous for thinkingĚýoutside the box—an expression he despises—but BransonĚýasserts that “you’ll never have to think outside the box if youĚýrefuse to let anyone build one around you.â€�

This is a unique book on leadership from someone whoĚýreadily admits he has never read a book on leadership in hisĚýlife. So expect the unexpected.]]> 400 Richard Branson 1591847370 Boris 4 3.93 2014 The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership
author: Richard Branson
name: Boris
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2014
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship]]> 18176747
In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, draws on his own story of founding, running, selling, buying, managing, and investing in technology companies to offer essential advice and practical wisdom for navigating the toughest problems business schools don't cover. His blog has garnered a devoted following of millions of readers who have come to rely on him to help them run their businesses. A lifelong rap fan, Horowitz amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs and tells it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, from cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.

His advice is grounded in anecdotes from his own hard-earned rise—from cofounding the early cloud service provider Loudcloud to building the phenomenally successful Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm, both with fellow tech superstar Marc Andreessen (inventor of Mosaic, the Internet's first popular Web browser). This is no polished victory lap; he analyzes issues with no easy answers through his trials, including demoting (or firing) a loyal friend;
whether you should incorporate titles and promotions, and how to handle them;
if it's OK to hire people from your friend's company; how to manage your own psychology, while the whole company is relying on you; what to do when smart people are bad employees; why Andreessen Horowitz prefers founder CEOs, and how to become one; whether you should sell your company, and how to do it.

Filled with Horowitz's trademark humor and straight talk, and drawing from his personal and often humbling experiences, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures.]]> 304 Ben Horowitz 0062273205 Boris 5 4.20 2014 The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship
author: Ben Horowitz
name: Boris
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business]]> 2615
Focusing on "disruptive technology" -- the Honda Super Cub, Intel's 8088 processor, or the hydraulic excavator, for example -- Christensen shows why most companies miss "the next great wave." Whether in electronics or retailing, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know when to abandon traditional business practices. Using the lessons of successes and failures from leading companies, "The Innovator's Dilemma" presents a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.]]> 320 Clayton M. Christensen 0060521996 Boris 0 currently-reading 4.03 1997 The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
author: Clayton M. Christensen
name: Boris
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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]]> The Lean Startup 10127019 Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.



The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on "validated learning," rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.

Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it's too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.]]> 299 Eric Ries 0307887898 Boris 0 currently-reading 4.11 2011 The Lean Startup
author: Eric Ries
name: Boris
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon]]> 17660462 The definitive story of Amazon.com, one of the most successful companies in the world, and of its driven, brilliant founder, Jeff Bezos.

Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now. Brad Stone enjoyed unprecedented access to current and former Amazon employees and Bezos family members, giving readers the first in-depth, fly-on-the-wall account of life at Amazon. Compared to tech's other elite innovators--Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg--Bezos is a private man. But he stands out for his restless pursuit of new markets, leading Amazon into risky new ventures like the Kindle and cloud computing, and transforming retail in the same way Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing.

The Everything Store will be the revealing, definitive biography of the company that placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read.]]> 384 Brad Stone 0316219266 Boris 0 4.12 2013 The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
author: Brad Stone
name: Boris
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Finders Keepers (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #2)]]> 22453035 Librarian's Note: Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here.

A masterful, intensely suspenseful novel about a reader whose obsession with a reclusive writer goes far too far—a book about the power of storytelling, starring the same trio of unlikely and winning heroes King introduced in Mr. Mercedes

“Wake up, genius.� So begins King’s instantly riveting story about a vengeful reader. The genius is John Rothstein, an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn’t published a book for decades. Morris Bellamy is livid, not just because Rothstein has stopped providing books, but because the nonconformist Jimmy Gold has sold out for a career in advertising. Morris kills Rothstein and empties his safe of cash, yes, but the real treasure is a trove of notebooks containing at least one more Gold novel.

Morris hides the money and the notebooks, and then he is locked away for another crime. Decades later, a boy named Pete Saubers finds the treasure, and now it is Pete and his family that Bill Hodges, Holly Gibney, and Jerome Robinson must rescue from the ever-more deranged and vengeful Morris when he’s released from prison after thirty-five years.

Not since Misery has King played with the notion of a reader whose obsession with a writer gets dangerous. Finders Keepers is spectacular, heart-pounding suspense, but it is also King writing about how literature shapes a life—for good, for bad, forever.]]> 448 Stephen King 1501100130 Boris 0 3.99 2015 Finders Keepers (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #2)
author: Stephen King
name: Boris
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)]]> 18775247
Months later, an ex-cop named Bill Hodges, still haunted by the unsolved crime, contemplates suicide. When he gets a crazed letter from "the perk," claiming credit for the murders, Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, fearing another even more diabolical attack and hell-bent on preventing it.

Brady Hartfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. He loved the feel of death under the wheels of the Mercedes, and he wants that rush again. Only Bill Hodges, with a couple of eccentric and mismatched allies, can apprehend the killer before he strikes again. And they have no time to lose, because Brady's next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim thousands.

Mr. Mercedes is a war between good and evil from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of this obsessed, insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.
--front flap]]> 437 Stephen King 1476754454 Boris 0 4.01 2014 Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)
author: Stephen King
name: Boris
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #3)]]> 25526965
In Room 217 of the Lakes Region Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic, something has awakened. Something evil. Brady Hartsfield, perpetrator of the Mercedes Massacre, where eight people were killed and many more were badly injured, has been in the clinic for five years, in a vegetative state. According to his doctors, anything approaching a complete recovery is unlikely. But behind the drool and stare, Brady is awake, and in possession of deadly new powers that allow him to wreak unimaginable havoc without ever leaving his hospital room.

Retired police detective Bill Hodges, the unlikely hero of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers, now runs an investigation agency with his partner, Holly Gibney—the woman who delivered the blow to Hartsfield’s head that put him on the brain injury ward. When Bill and Holly are called to a suicide scene with ties to the Mercedes Massacre, they find themselves pulled into their most dangerous case yet, one that will put their lives at risk, as well as those of Bill’s heroic young friend Jerome Robinson and his teenage sister, Barbara. Brady Hartsfield is back, and planning revenge not just on Hodges and his friends, but on an entire city.

In End of Watch, Stephen King brings the Hodges trilogy to a sublimely terrifying conclusion, combining the detective fiction of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers with the heart-pounding, supernatural suspense that has been his bestselling trademark. The result is an unnerving look at human vulnerability and chilling suspense. No one does it better than King.]]> 432 Stephen King 1501129740 Boris 0 4.07 2016 End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #3)
author: Stephen King
name: Boris
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2016
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]]> The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 24583
Unlike his brother Sid, Tom receives "lickings" from his Aunt Polly; ever the mischief-maker, would rather play hooky than attend school and often sneaks out his bedroom window at night to adventure with his friend, Huckleberry Finn ­ the town's social outcast. Tom, despite his dread of schooling, is extremely clever and would normally get away with his pranks if Sid were not such a "tattle-tale."

As punishment for skipping school to go swimming, Aunt Polly assigns Tom the chore of whitewashing the fence surrounding the house. In a brilliant scheme, Tom is able to con the neighborhood boys into completing the chore for him, managing to convince them of the joys of whitewashing. At school, Tom is equally as flamboyant, and attracts attention by chasing other boys, yelling, and running around. With his usual antics, Tom attempts to catch the eye of Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get "engaged" by kissing him. But their romance collapses when she learns Tom has been "engaged" previously to Amy Lawrence. Shortly after Becky shuns him, he accompanies Huckleberry Finn to the graveyard at night, where they witness the murder of Dr. Robinson.

Excerpt:
"TOM!"
No answer.
"TOM!"
No answer.
"What's gone with that boy, ĚýI wonder? You TOM!"
No answer.
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never lookedĚýthroughĚýthem for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service—she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll�"
She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.
"I never did see the beat of that boy!"]]> 244 Mark Twain Boris 5 3.92 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
author: Mark Twain
name: Boris
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1876
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[All Quiet on the Western Front]]> 355697
In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the â€glorious warâ€�. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young â€unknown soldierâ€� experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.]]> 296 Erich Maria Remarque 0449213943 Boris 5 4.04 1928 All Quiet on the Western Front
author: Erich Maria Remarque
name: Boris
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1928
rating: 5
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]]> The Grapes of Wrath 4395 The Grapes of Wrath is a landmark of American literature. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. Although it follows the movement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma family, the Joads, who are driven off their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.

First published in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath summed up its era in the way that Uncle Tom's Cabin summed up the years of slavery before the Civil War. Sensitive to fascist and communist criticism, Steinbeck insisted that "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" be printed in its entirety in the first edition of the book—which takes its title from the first verse: "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s fictional chronicle of the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s is perhaps the most American of American Classics.]]> 455 John Steinbeck Boris 5 3.88 1939 The Grapes of Wrath
author: John Steinbeck
name: Boris
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1939
rating: 5
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]]> The Outsiders 231804 The Outsiders is about two weeks in the life of a 14-year-old boy. The novel tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser.

Librarian note: This record is for one of the three editions published with different covers and with ISBN 0-140-38572-X / 978-0-14-038572-4. The records are for the 1988 cover (this record), the 1995 cover, and the 2008 cover which is also the current in-print cover.]]> 208 S.E. Hinton 0670532576 Boris 4 4.13 1967 The Outsiders
author: S.E. Hinton
name: Boris
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1967
rating: 4
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]]> The Secret Garden 2998
Mary Lennox, a spoiled, ill-tempered, and unhealthy child, comes to live with her reclusive uncle in Misselthwaite Manor on England’s Yorkshire moors after the death of her parents. There she meets a hearty housekeeper and her spirited brother, a dour gardener, a cheerful robin, and her wilful, hysterical, and sickly cousin, Master Colin, whose wails she hears echoing through the house at night.

With the help of the robin, Mary finds the door to a secret garden, neglected and hidden for years. When she decides to restore the garden in secret, the story becomes a charming journey into the places of the heart, where faith restores health, flowers refresh the spirit, and the magic of the garden, coming to life anew, brings health to Colin and happiness to Mary.]]> 331 Frances Hodgson Burnett 0517189607 Boris 4 4.16 1911 The Secret Garden
author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
name: Boris
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1911
rating: 4
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]]> Of Mice and Men 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.�

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]> 107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 Boris 5 3.88 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Boris
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Chronicles of Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia, #1-7)]]> 11127 Librarian note: An alternate cover for this edition can be found here: 2005.

Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures, and epic battles between good and evil—what more could any reader ask for in one book? The book that has it all is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, written in 1949 by Clive Staples Lewis. But Lewis did not stop there. Six more books followed, and together they became known as The Chronicles of Narnia.

For the past fifty years, The Chronicles of Narnia have transcended the fantasy genre to become part of the canon of classic literature. Each of the seven books is a masterpiece, drawing the reader into a land where magic meets reality, and the result is a fictional world whose scope has fascinated generations.

This edition presents all seven books—unabridged—in one impressive volume. The books are presented here in chronlogical order, each chapter graced with an illustration by the original artist, Pauline Baynes. Deceptively simple and direct, The Chronicles of Narnia continue to captivate fans with adventures, characters, and truths that speak to readers of all ages, even fifty years after they were first published.]]> 767 C.S. Lewis 0066238501 Boris 5 4.27 1956 The Chronicles of Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia, #1-7)
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Boris
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1956
rating: 5
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]]> Lord of the Flies 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 Boris 5 3.70 1954 Lord of the Flies
author: William Golding
name: Boris
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 5
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]]> The Great Gatsby 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Boris 5 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Boris
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 5
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]]> The Catcher in the Rye 5107 It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school...

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

J.D. Salinger's (1919�2010) classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.]]> 277 J.D. Salinger 0316769177 Boris 3 3.81 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Boris
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 3
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]]> To Kill a Mockingbird 2657 "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film.]]> 323 Harper Lee 0060935464 Boris 4 4.25 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: Boris
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 4
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]]> Moneyball 1301 Moneyball, had a problem: how to win in the Major Leagues with a budget that's smaller than that of nearly every other team. Conventional wisdom long held that big name, highly athletic hitters and young pitchers with rocket arms were the ticket to success. But Beane and his staff, buoyed by massive amounts of carefully interpreted statistical data, believed that wins could be had by more affordable methods such as hitters with high on-base percentage and pitchers who get lots of ground outs. Given this information and a tight budget, Beane defied tradition and his own scouting department to build winning teams of young affordable players and inexpensive castoff veterans.

Lewis was in the room with the A's top management as they spent the summer of 2002 adding and subtracting players and he provides outstanding play-by-play. In the June player draft, Beane acquired nearly every prospect he coveted (few of whom were coveted by other teams) and at the July trading deadline he engaged in a tense battle of nerves to acquire a lefty reliever. Besides being one of the most insider accounts ever written about baseball, Moneyball is populated with fascinating characters. We meet Jeremy Brown, an overweight college catcher who most teams project to be a 15th round draft pick (Beane takes him in the first). Sidearm pitcher Chad Bradford is plucked from the White Sox triple-A club to be a key set-up man and catcher Scott Hatteberg is rebuilt as a first baseman. But the most interesting character is Beane himself. A speedy athletic can't-miss prospect who somehow missed, Beane reinvents himself as a front-office guru, relying on players completely unlike, say, Billy Beane. Lewis, one of the top nonfiction writers of his era (Liar's Poker, The New New Thing), offers highly accessible explanations of baseball stats and his roadmap of Beane's economic approach makes Moneyball an appealing reading experience for business people and sports fans alike. --John Moe

]]> 317 Michael Lewis 0393324818 Boris 4 4.26 2003 Moneyball
author: Michael Lewis
name: Boris
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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]]> Arguably: Selected Essays 10383597 Arguably offers an indispensable key to understanding the passionate and skeptical spirit of one of our most dazzling writers, widely admired for the clarity of his style, a result of his disciplined and candid thinking.

Topics range from ruminations on why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men to the haunting science fiction of J.G. Ballard; from the enduring legacies of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell to the persistent agonies of anti-Semitism and jihad. Hitchens even looks at the recent financial crisis and argues for the enduring relevance of Karl Marx.

The book forms a bridge between the two parallel enterprises of culture and politics. It reveals how politics justifies itself by culture, and how the latter prompts the former. In this fashion, Arguably burnishes Christopher Hitchens' credentials as (to quote Christopher Buckley) our "greatest living essayist in the English language."]]> 816 Christopher Hitchens 0771041411 Boris 3 4.19 2011 Arguably: Selected Essays
author: Christopher Hitchens
name: Boris
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2011
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World]]> 2714607 442 Niall Ferguson 1594201927 Boris 4 3.90 2007 The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
author: Niall Ferguson
name: Boris
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2007
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World]]> 9534444
Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a piñata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish.

Michael Lewis's investigation of bubbles beyond our shores is so brilliantly, sadly hilarious that it leads the American reader to a comfortable complacency: oh, those foolish foreigners. But when he turns a merciless eye on California and Washington, DC, we see that the narrative is a trap baited with humor, and we understand the reckoning that awaits the greatest and greediest of debtor nations.]]> 213 Michael Lewis 0393081818 Boris 5 3.89 2011 Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
author: Michael Lewis
name: Boris
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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]]> No One Would Listen 7740121 No One Would Listen is the thrilling story of how the Harry Markopolos, a little-known number cruncher from a Boston equity derivatives firm, and his investigative team uncovered Bernie Madoff's scam years before it made headlines, and how they desperately tried to warn the government, the industry, and the financial press.

Page by page, Markopolos details his pursuit of the greatest financial criminal in history, and reveals the massive fraud, governmental incompetence, and criminal collusion that has changed thousands of lives forever-as well as the world's financial system.

The only book to tell the story of Madoff's scam and the SEC's failings by those who saw both first hand Describes how Madoff was enabled by investors and fiduciaries alike Discusses how the SEC missed the red flags raised by Markopolos

Despite repeated written and verbal warnings to the SEC by Harry Markopolos, Bernie Madoff was allowed to continue his operations. No One Would Listen paints a vivid portrait of Markopolos and his determined team of financial sleuths, and what impact Madoff's scam will have on financial markets and regulation for decades to come.

]]> 368 Harry Markopolos 0470625767 Boris 5 3.84 2010 No One Would Listen
author: Harry Markopolos
name: Boris
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2010
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine]]> 6463967
Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a handful of unlikely-really unlikely-heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.]]> 264 Michael Lewis 0393072231 Boris 5 4.20 2010 The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
author: Michael Lewis
name: Boris
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2010
rating: 5
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]]> The Stand 149267 For hundreds of thousands of fans who read The Stand in its original version and wanted more, this new edition is Stephen King's gift. And those who are listening to The Stand for the first time will discover a triumphant and eerily plausible work of the imagination that takes on the issues that will determine our survival.]]> 1152 Stephen King Boris 5 4.35 1978 The Stand
author: Stephen King
name: Boris
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1978
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals]]> 3109 What should we have for dinner? For omnivore like ourselves, this simple question has always posed a dilemma. When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods on offer might shorten your life. Today, buffered by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. The omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.
The Omnivore's Dilemma is groundbreaking book, in which one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species. Should we eat a fast-food hamburger? Something organic? Or perhaps something we hunt, gather, or grow ourselves?
To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.
The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us. Ultimately, this is a book as much about visionary solutions as it is about problems, and Pollan contends that, when it comes to food, doing the right thing often turns out to be the tastiest thing an eater can do. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore’s Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same.]]> 450 Michael Pollan 1594200823 Boris 3 4.18 2006 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
author: Michael Pollan
name: Boris
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2006
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052
Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . .

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]> 374 Suzanne Collins Boris 4 4.34 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Boris
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)]]> 6148028 Sparks are igniting.
Flames are spreading.
And the Capitol wants revenge.

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol—a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest that she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.]]> 391 Suzanne Collins 0439023491 Boris 3 4.34 2009 Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Boris
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2009
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans—except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]> 390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Boris 3 4.10 2010 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Boris
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[The Girl Who Played With Fire (Millennium #2)]]> 5060378 Millenium publisher Mikael Blomkvist has made his reputation exposing corrupt establishment figures. So when a young journalist approaches him with an investigation into sex trafficking, Blomkvist cannot resist waging war on the powerful figures who control this lucrative industry.

The Murder
When a young couple is found dead in their Stockholm apartment, it's a straightforward job for Inspector Bublanski and his team. The killer left the weapon at the scene - and the fingerprints on the gun point in only one direction.

The Girl Who Played with Fire
Ex-security analyst Lisbeth Salander is wanted for murder. Her history of unpredictable and vengeful behaviour makes her an official danger to society - but no-one can find her. The only way Salander can be reached is by computer. But she can break into almost any network she chooses...]]> 503 Stieg Larsson 0307269981 Boris 0 currently-reading 4.25 2006 The Girl Who Played With Fire (Millennium #2)
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Boris
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business]]> 12609433 375 Charles Duhigg 1400069289 Boris 0 currently-reading 4.13 2012 The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
author: Charles Duhigg
name: Boris
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/07/30
shelves: currently-reading
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