Harsh's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 20 Mar 2025 08:31:44 -0700 60 Harsh's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government]]> 24723229
America’s greatest untold story: the United Statesâ€� rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on revelatory new materials—including newly discovered U.S. government documents, U.S. and European intelligence sources, the personal correspondence and journals of Allen Dulles’s wife and mistress, and exclusive interviews with the children of prominent CIA officials—Talbot reveals the underside of one of America’s most powerful and influential figures.

Dulles’s decade as the director of the CIA—which he used to further his public and private agendas—were dark times in American politics. Calling himself “the secretary of state of unfriendly countries,â€� Dulles saw himself as above the elected law, manipulating and subverting American presidents in the pursuit of his personal interests and those of the wealthy elite he counted as his friends and clients—colluding with Nazi-controlled cartels, German war criminals, and Mafiosi in the process. Targeting foreign leaders for assassination and overthrowing nationalist governments not in line with his political aims, Dulles employed those same tactics to further his goals at home, Talbot charges, offering shocking new evidence in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

An exposĂ© of American power that is as disturbing as it is timely, The Devil’s Chessboard is a provocative and gripping story of the rise of the national security state—and the battle for America’s soul.]]> 704 David Talbot 0062276166 Harsh 0 to-read 4.33 2015 The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
author: David Talbot
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2015
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]]> <![CDATA[The Invention of the Jewish People]]> 6476509
Shlomo Sand argues that most Jews actually descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered far across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The formation of a Jewish people and then a Jewish nation out of these disparate groups could only take place under the sway of a new historiography, developing in response to the rise of nationalism throughout Europe. Beneath the biblical back fill of the nineteenth-century historians, and the twentieth-century intellectuals who replaced rabbis as the architects of Jewish identity, uncovers a new narrative of Israel’s formation, and proposes a bold analysis of nationalism that accounts for the old myths.

After a long stay on Israel’s bestseller list, and winning the coveted Aujourd’hui Award in France, is finally available in English. The central importance of the conflict in the Middle East ensures that Sand’s arguments will reverberate well beyond the historians and politicians that he takes to task. Without an adequate understanding of Israel’s past, capable of superseding today’s opposing views, diplomatic solutions are likely to remain elusive. In this iconoclastic work of history, Shlomo Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel’s future.]]> 332 Shlomo Sand 1844674223 Harsh 0 to-read 4.10 2008 The Invention of the Jewish People
author: Shlomo Sand
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2008
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]]> The Controversy of Zion 2834316 587 Douglas Reed 0949667277 Harsh 0 to-read 4.48 1978 The Controversy of Zion
author: Douglas Reed
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation (Modern Library Classics)]]> 36959638 From the author of Letters to a Young Poet, one of the greatest letter collections of all time, comes a new selection of the great poet's writings to bereaved friends and acquaintances, reflecting on death and dying, providing comfort in a time of grief.

Gleaned from Rainer Maria Rilke's voluminous, never-before-translated correspondence, this book collects the poet's best writings on grief and loss in one place for the first time. The result is a profound vision of the mourning process and a meditation on death's place in our lives, as well as a compilation of sensitive and moving expressions of consolation and condolence. Following the format of Rilke's classic, Letters to a Young Poet, this volume arranges a series of letters to Rilke's mourning friends, composed into a continuous, uninterrupted sequence, showcasing the full range of Rilke's thoughts on finding meaning and, perhaps, some form of comfort in the process of grieving.]]> 128 Rainer Maria Rilke 0525509844 Harsh 0 4.18 2018 The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation (Modern Library Classics)
author: Rainer Maria Rilke
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2018
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]]> <![CDATA[The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World]]> 205495275 From one of the world’s most prominent thinkers comes an urgent warning of the threat that US power poses to humanity’s future

The land of the free. The home of the brave. But what has America achieved in the aim of “spreading democracyâ€� â€� except wreak havoc in country after country and establish a reckless foreign policy that served the interest of few and endangered all too many? Without, ironically, making Americans any safer. In this timely book, Noam Chomsky, one of the most widely known intellectuals of all time, and his fellow political commentator Nathan J. Robinson vividly trace America’s pursuit of global domination, offering an incisive critique of the self-serving myths they continue to push.

Offering penetrating accounts of Washington’s relationship with the Global South, its role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they argue, they are now driving us closer to wars with Russia and China that imperil humanity’s future. At once thorough and devastating, urgent and provocative, The Myth of American Idealism offers a highly readable entry to the conclusions Noam Chomsky has come to after a lifetime of thought and activism.]]> 396 Noam Chomsky 1405967153 Harsh 0 to-read 4.44 2024 The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World
author: Noam Chomsky
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.44
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]]> <![CDATA[GOVERNMENT BY GUNPLAY Assassination Conspiracy Theories from Dallas to Today]]> 128657934 0 SID (ed.) BLUMENTHAL Harsh 0 to-read 0.0 GOVERNMENT BY GUNPLAY Assassination Conspiracy Theories from Dallas to Today
author: SID (ed.) BLUMENTHAL
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]]> <![CDATA[The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health]]> 58063409
Pharma-funded mainstream media has convinced millions of Americans that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a hero. He is anything but.

As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci dispenses $6.1 billion in annual taxpayer-provided funding for scientific research, allowing him to dictate the subject, content, and outcome of scientific health research across the globe. Fauci uses the financial clout at his disposal to wield extraordinary influence over hospitals, universities, journals, and thousands of influential doctors and scientists—whose careers and institutions he has the power to ruin, advance, or reward.

During more than a year of painstaking and meticulous research, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unearthed a shocking story that obliterates media spin on Dr. Fauci . . . and that will alarm every American—Democrat or Republican—who cares about democracy, our Constitution, and the future of our children’s health.

The Real Anthony Fauci reveals how “America’s Doctorâ€� launched his career during the early AIDS crisis by partnering with pharmaceutical companies to sabotage safe and effective off-patent therapeutic treatments for AIDS. Fauci orchestrated fraudulent studies, and then pressured US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulators into approving a deadly chemotherapy treatment he had good reason to know was worthless against AIDS. Fauci repeatedly violated federal laws to allow his Pharma partners to use impoverished and dark-skinned children as lab rats in deadly experiments with toxic AIDS and cancer chemotherapies.

In early 2000, Fauci shook hands with Bill Gates in the library of Gates� $147 million Seattle mansion, cementing a partnership that would aim to control an increasingly profitable $60 billion global vaccine enterprise with unlimited growth potential. Through funding leverage and carefully cultivated personal relationships with heads of state and leading media and social media institutions, the Pharma-Fauci-Gates alliance exercises dominion over global health policy.

The Real Anthony Fauci details how Fauci, Gates, and their cohorts use their control of media outlets, scientific journals, key government and quasi-governmental agencies, global intelligence agencies, and influential scientists and physicians to flood the public with fearful propaganda about COVID-19 virulence and pathogenesis, and to muzzle debate and ruthlessly censor dissent.]]> 934 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Harsh 0 4.49 2021 The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health
author: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
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]]> <![CDATA[No Heroes, No Monsters: What I Learned Being the Most Hated Woman on the Internet]]> 211003485 356 Anna Ardin 9180576117 Harsh 1 trash 2.00 No Heroes, No Monsters: What I Learned Being the Most Hated Woman on the Internet
author: Anna Ardin
name: Harsh
average rating: 2.00
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]]> <![CDATA[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]> 17125 The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.]]> 182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Harsh 0 to-read 3.98 1962 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lost Peace: How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War]]> 59017714 Ìę
1989 heralded a unique prospect for an enduring global peace, as harsh ideological divisions and conflicts began to be resolved. Now, three decades on, that peace has been lost. With war in Ukraine and increasing tensions between China, Russia, and the West, great power politics once again dominates the world stage. But could it have been different?
Ìę
Richard Sakwa shows how the years before the first mass invasion of Ukraine represented a hiatus in conflict rather than a lasting accord â€� and how, since then, we have been in a ‘Second Cold Warâ€�. Tracing the mistakes on both sides that led to the current crisis, Sakwa considers the resurgence of China and Russia and the disruptions and ambitions of the liberal order that opened up catastrophic new lines of conflict.
Ìę
This is a vital, strongly-argued account of how the world lost its chance at peace, and instead saw the return of war in Europe, global rivalries, and nuclear brinkmanship.]]> 448 Richard Sakwa 0300255012 Harsh 0 to-read 4.03 The Lost Peace: How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War
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]]> Reflections on Hanging 41861066 Reflections on Hanging is a searing indictment of capital punishment, inspired by its author's own time in the shadow of a firing squad. During the Spanish Civil War, Arthur Koestler was held by the Franco regime as a political prisoner, and condemned to death. He was freed, but only after months of witnessing the fates of less-fortunate inmates. That experience informs every page of the book, which was first published in England in 1956, and followed in 1957 by this American edition.



As Koestler ranges across the history of capital punishment in Britain (with a focus on hanging), he looks at notable cases and rulings, and portrays politicians, judges, lawyers, scholars, clergymen, doctors, police, jailers, prisoners, and others involved in the long debate over the justness and effectiveness of the death penalty.

In Britain, Reflections on Hanging was part of a concerted, ultimately successful effort to abolish the death penalty. At that time, in the forty-eight United States, capital punishment was sanctioned in forty-two of them, with hanging still practiced in five. This edition includes a preface and afterword written especially for the 1957 American edition. The preface makes the book relevant to readers in the U.S.; the afterword overviews the modern-day history of abolitionist legislation in the British Parliament.

Reflections on Hanging is relentless, biting, and unsparing in its details of botched and unjust executions. It is a classic work of advocacy for some of society's most defenseless members, a critique of capital punishment that is still widely cited, and an enduring work that presaged such contemporary problems as the sensationalism of crime, the wrongful condemnation of the innocent and mentally ill, the callousness of penal systems, and the use of fear to control a citizenry.]]> 0 Arthur Koestler 0820355348 Harsh 0 to-read 4.71 1956 Reflections on Hanging
author: Arthur Koestler
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.71
book published: 1956
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]]> Justice with Michael Sandel 34100768 Michael J. Sandel Harsh 5 4.38 2007 Justice with Michael Sandel
author: Michael J. Sandel
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?]]> 6452731
Affirmative action, same-sex marriage, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, national service, the moral limits of markets―Sandel relates the big questions of political philosophy to the most vexing issues of the day, and shows how a surer grasp of philosophy can help us make sense of politics, morality, and our own convictions as well.

Justice is lively, thought-provoking, and wise―an essential new addition to the small shelf of books that speak convincingly to the hard questions of our civic life.]]> 308 Michael J. Sandel 0374180652 Harsh 0 4.30 2007 Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
author: Michael J. Sandel
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2007
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]]> <![CDATA[Corporate Coup: Venezuela and the End of US Empire]]> 75595503 In January of 2019, the Trump Administration decided to recognize a previously little known opposition lawmaker named Juan GuaidĂł as President of Venezuela. The policy was unprecedented â€� whileÌęWashington’s history of coups in Latin America is well documented, never before had the United States taken the step of legally recognizing a new government before an actual change in leadership had taken place. Within months it became clear that the attempt at regime change had fallen all Venezuelan territory, government ministries, and the country’s military remained under the control of President NicolĂĄs Maduro. While US officials, such as Trump Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams boasted that roughly 54 countries followed Washington’s lead and recognized Guaidó’s authority, the vast majority of United Nations member states rejected the coup policy and maintained relations with Maduro’s government. Three years on from the coup attempt, Venezuela’s government is firmly in place and GuaidĂł is virtually nowhere to be seen. So what did this ham-fisted regime change effort truly achieve?
Parampil provides a narrative history of the Chavista revolution and offers character sketches of the figures who have come to lead it since Hugo Chávez’s death in 2014. She shows how Guaidó’s shadow regime consisted of individuals with deep connections to transnational corporations which sought to overturn the revolution and exploit Venezuela’s resources, revealing their plot to steal Citgo Petroleum, the country’s most valuable international asset. Corporate Coup exposes the hidden personalities and interests driving US policy on Venezuela, revealing that while the recognition of Guaidó failed at changing reality on the ground in Caracas, it succeeded in providing cover for the unprecedented looting of the country’s internationally-stored wealth. It is based on the extensive investigation and on-the-ground reporting Anya Parampil has conducted since the US coup attempt began, during which she cultivated relationships with top Venezuelan government officials as well as members of the country’s opposition who oppose Guaidó and US sanction policy.
This gripping story from Venezuela encapsulates the tenor of a US foreign policy that is happy to trample on democratic norms and illustrates how a new, multipolar world is rising in order to resist it.]]> 400 Anya Parampil 1682193594 Harsh 5 to-read 4.24 Corporate Coup: Venezuela and the End of US Empire
author: Anya Parampil
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.24
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]]> The Road to Wigan Pier 30553 215 George Orwell Harsh 5 3.92 1937 The Road to Wigan Pier
author: George Orwell
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1937
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq]]> 503644
H.-C. von Sponeck, the former -UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, - explores the UN's sanction policies against Iraq, their consequences, and the domestic conditions during this period. His extensive research is based on previously unpublished internal UN documents and discussions with UN decision makers (such as General Secretary Kofi Annan), Iraqi officials and politicians (including Saddam Hussein), and ordinary Iraqis. The author's findings question who really benefited from the program, what role the UN Security Council and its various member states played, and whether there were then and are today alternatives to the UN's Iraq policies.]]> 336 Hans C. von Sponeck 1845452224 Harsh 0 to-read 4.30 2006 A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq
author: Hans C. von Sponeck
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2006
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]]> <![CDATA[Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands]]> 24717077 443 Richard Sakwa Harsh 0 to-read 3.93 2014 Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands
author: Richard Sakwa
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2014
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]]> The Denial of Death 2761 The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie -- man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.]]> 336 Ernest Becker Harsh 0 to-read 4.07 1973 The Denial of Death
author: Ernest Becker
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1973
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]]> <![CDATA[One Nation Under Blackmail, Vol. 1: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein]]> 51074723 544 Whitney Alyse Webb 1634243013 Harsh 0 to-read 4.20 2022 One Nation Under Blackmail, Vol. 1: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein
author: Whitney Alyse Webb
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2022
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]]> <![CDATA[How the West Brought War to Ukraine: Understanding How U.S. and NATO Policies Led to Crisis, War, and the Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe]]> 62693035
That story is incorrect.

In reality, the United States and NATO bear much of the responsibility for the Ukraine crisis. Through a series of misguided policies, Washington and its European allies placed Russia in an untenable situation for which war seemed, to Mr. Putin and his military staff, the only workable solution.

In How the West Brought War to Ukraine, author Benjamin Abelow lays out the relevant history and explains how the West needlessly produced conflict, subjecting its own citizens—and the rest of the world—to the risk of nuclear war.

Endorsed by leading defense experts and policy analysts, this brief and highly readable book shows how the West provoked the crisis and now labors under an existential threat of its own making.

How the West Brought War to Ukraine looks beneath the surface of recent events. It lets readers understand the deeper sources of the Ukraine war and provides new insights into how the conflict might be resolved.

If you'd like to hear the author respond to the claims that the Ukraine war is a "humanitarian" venture and that Ukraine has the "right" to join NATO, go to the Author's page. There you will find two short video clips (two minutes each).To get to that page, click on the author's photo beneath the cover image of the book (this may not be an option from mobile devices).]]> 76 Benjamin Abelow 0991076710 Harsh 0 to-read 4.15 2022 How the West Brought War to Ukraine: Understanding How U.S. and NATO Policies Led to Crisis, War, and the Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe
author: Benjamin Abelow
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
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]]> <![CDATA[War with Russia? From Putin & Ukraine To Trump & Russiagate]]> 42429312
America is in a new Cold War with Russia even more dangerous than the one the world barely survived in the twentieth century. The Soviet Union is gone, but the two nuclear superpowers are again locked in political and military confrontations, now from Ukraine to Syria. All of this is exacerbated by Washington’s war-like demonizing of the Kremlin leadership and by Russiagate’s unprecedented allegations. US mainstream media accounts are highly selective and seriously misleading. American “disinformation,â€� not only Russian, is a growing peril.

In War With Russia? , Stephen F. Cohen—the widely acclaimed historian of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia—gives readers a very different, dissenting narrative of this more dangerous new Cold War from its origins in the 1990s, the actual role of Vladimir Putin, and the 2014 Ukrainian crisis to Donald Trump’s election and today’s unprecedented Russiagate allegations. Topics

Cohen’s views have made him, it is said, “America’s most controversial Russia expert.â€� Some say this to denounce him, others to laud him as a bold, highly informed critic of US policies and the dangers they have helped to create.

War With Russia? gives readers a chance to decide for themselves who is are we living, as Cohen argues, in a time of unprecedented perils at home and abroad?]]> 420 Stephen F. Cohen Harsh 0 to-read 3.80 2018 War with Russia? From Putin & Ukraine To Trump & Russiagate
author: Stephen F. Cohen
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2018
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]]> <![CDATA[The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power]]> 60199854 208 Noam Chomsky 1620977605 Harsh 0 to-read 4.14 2022 The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power
author: Noam Chomsky
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2022
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]]> <![CDATA[R for Data Science: Import, Tidy, Transform, Visualize, and Model Data]]> 33399049
Authors Hadley Wickham and Garrett Grolemund guide you through the steps of importing, wrangling, exploring, and modeling your data and communicating the results. You'll get a complete, big-picture understanding of the data science cycle, along with basic tools you need to manage the details. Each section of the book is paired with exercises to help you practice what you've learned along the way.

You'll learn how

Wrangle—transform your datasets into a form convenient for analysisProgram—learn powerful R tools for solving data problems with greater clarity and easeExplore—examine your data, generate hypotheses, and quickly test themModel—provide a low-dimensional summary that captures true "signals" in your datasetCommunicate—learn R Markdown for integrating prose, code, and results]]> 521 Hadley Wickham 1491910356 Harsh 0 currently-reading 4.56 2016 R for Data Science: Import, Tidy, Transform, Visualize, and Model Data
author: Hadley Wickham
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/07/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Margin of Victory: Five Battles that Changed the Face of Modern War]]> 27751151 288 Douglas A. Macgregor 1612519962 Harsh 0 to-read 4.08 Margin of Victory: Five Battles that Changed the Face of Modern War
author: Douglas A. Macgregor
name: Harsh
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]]> <![CDATA[Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty]]> 43868109 The highly anticipated portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, by the prize-winning, bestselling author of Say Nothing.

The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions: Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing OxyContin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis.

Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling.]]> 535 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385545681 Harsh 0 to-read 4.54 2021 Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2021
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]]> <![CDATA[Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time]]> 4988505
]]> 984 Joseph Frank 0691128197 Harsh 0 to-read 4.49 2002 Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time
author: Joseph Frank
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2002
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]]> Notes from Underground 49455 Notes from Underground marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In complete retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man’s essentially irrational nature.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose Dostoevsky translations have become the standard, give us a brilliantly faithful edition of this classic novel, conveying all the tragedy and tormented comedy of the original.]]> 136 Fyodor Dostoevsky 067973452X Harsh 5 4.21 1864 Notes from Underground
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1864
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sinner and the Saint: Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece]]> 57066978 From the New York Times bestselling author of THE MOST DANGEROUS BOOK, the true story behind the creation of another masterpiece of world literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.


THE SINNER AND THE SAINT is the deeply researched and immersive tale of how Dostoevsky came to write this great murder story--and why it changed the world. As a young man, Dostoevsky was a celebrated writer, but his involvement with the radical politics of his day condemned him to a long Siberian exile. There, he spent years studying the criminals that were his companions. Upon his return to St. Petersburg in the 1860s, he fought his way through gambling addiction, debilitating debt, epilepsy, the deaths of those closest to him, and literary banishment to craft an enduring classic.

The germ of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT came from the sensational story of Pierre Francois Lacenaire, a notorious murderer who charmed and outraged Paris in the 1830s. Lacenaire was a glamorous egoist who embodied the instincts that lie beneath nihilism, a western-influenced philosophy inspiring a new generation of Russian revolutionaries. Dostoevsky began creating a Russian incarnation of Lacenaire, a character who could demonstrate the errors of radical politics and ideas. His name would be Raskolnikov.

Lacenaire shaped Raskolnikov in profound ways, but the deeper insight, as Birmingham shows, is that Raskolnikov began to merge with Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky was determined to tell a murder story from the murderer's perspective, but his character couldn't be a monster. No. The murderer would be chilling because he wants so desperately to be good.

The writing consumed Dostoevsky. As his debts and the predatory terms of his contract caught up with him, he hired a stenographer to dictate the final chapters in time. Anna Grigorievna became Dostoevsky's first reader and chief critic and changed the way he wrote forever. By the time Dostoevsky finished his great novel, he had fallen in love.

Dostoevsky's great subject was self-consciousness. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT advanced a revolution in artistic thinking and began the greatest phase of Dostoevsky's career. THE SINNER AND THE SAINT now gives us the thrilling and definitive story of that triumph.]]> 416 Kevin Birmingham 1594206309 Harsh 0 to-read 4.26 2021 The Sinner and the Saint: Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece
author: Kevin Birmingham
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.26
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]]> <![CDATA[The Code of the Woosters (Jeeves, #7)]]> 9858081 272 P.G. Wodehouse 0393339815 Harsh 0 4.31 1938 The Code of the Woosters (Jeeves, #7)
author: P.G. Wodehouse
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1938
rating: 0
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]]> My Man Jeeves (Jeeves, #1) 200572 My Man Jeeves is sure to please anyone with a taste for pithy buffoonery, moronic misunderstandings, gaffes, and aristocratic slapstick.

Contents:
"Leave It to Jeeves"
"Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest"
"Jeeves and the Hard-boiled Egg"
"Absent Treatment"
"Helping Freddie"
"Rallying Round Old George"
"Doing Clarence a Bit of Good"
"The Aunt and the Sluggard"

Of the eight stories in the collection, half feature the popular characters Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, while the others concern Reggie Pepper, an early prototype for Bertie Wooster.

Revised versions of all the Jeeves stories in this collection were later published in the 1925 short story collection Carry On, Jeeves. One of the Reggie Pepper stories in this collection was later rewritten as a Jeeves story, which was also included in Carry On, Jeeves.]]> 256 P.G. Wodehouse 1585678759 Harsh 0 4.07 1919 My Man Jeeves (Jeeves, #1)
author: P.G. Wodehouse
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1919
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way: Understanding Statistics and Probability with Star Wars, LEGO, and Rubber Ducks]]> 41392893
Probability and statistics are increasingly important in a huge range of professions. But many people use data in ways they don't even understand, meaning they aren't getting the most from it. Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way will change that.

This book will give you a complete understanding of Bayesian statistics through simple explanations and un-boring examples. Find out the probability of UFOs landing in your garden, how likely Han Solo is to survive a flight through an asteroid shower, how to win an argument about conspiracy theories, and whether a burglary really was a burglary, to name a few examples.

By using these off-the-beaten-track examples, the author actually makes learning statistics fun. And you'll learn real skills, like how

- How to measure your own level of uncertainty in a conclusion or belief
- Calculate Bayes theorem and understand what it's useful for
- Find the posterior, likelihood, and prior to check the accuracy of your conclusions
- Calculate distributions to see the range of your data
- Compare hypotheses and draw reliable conclusions from them

Next time you find yourself with a sheaf of survey results and no idea what to do with them, turn to Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way to get the most value from your data.]]> 256 Will Kurt 1593279566 Harsh 0 to-read 4.20 Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way: Understanding Statistics and Probability with Star Wars, LEGO, and Rubber Ducks
author: Will Kurt
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.20
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]]> <![CDATA[Songs of Innocence and of Experience]]> 171547 Songs of Innocence and of ExperienceÌęis an collection of poems byÌęWilliam Blake.

Note: For a complete Table of Contents of the included poems, see the 'Questions' section below.

This book appeared in two phases. A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William Blake himself in 1789; five years later he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titledÌęSongs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.

The work compiles two contrasting but directly related books of poetry by William Blake. Songs of Innocence honors and praises the natural world, the natural innocence of children and their close relationship to God. Songs of Experience contains much darker, disillusioned poems, which deal with serious, often political themes. It is believed that the disastrous end to the French Revolution produced this disillusionment in Blake. He does, however, maintain that true innocence is achieved only through experience.]]> 56 William Blake 1420925806 Harsh 5 4.10 1794 Songs of Innocence and of Experience
author: William Blake
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1794
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion]]> 1419286
"Although it's a pernicious fraud, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion has unfortunately had a widespread influence--all of it evil--on the history of the 20th century. It was exposed as a hoax in 1921, yet it has been used as a justification for the Holocaust and for innumerable pogroms in Russia and the Soviet Union.

The Protocols was supposedly written in 1897 from the minutes of 24 secret meetings between Jews and Freemasons in which they conspired to bring down Western civilization and jointly rule the world. In reality, it is nothing of the sort. In 1921, Philip Graves of the London Times revealed The Protocols to be a fraud, showing it to be based on a French satire aimed at Napoleon III. In a series of side-by-side extracts printed in the Times, Graves demonstrated that the forgers took long portions of the original text, titled Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, and simply replaced "France" with "Zion" and "The Emperor" with "We the Jews." Further investigations by the Russian historian Vladimir Burtsev revealed other sources for The Protocols, including a fantasy novel by Hermann Goedsche and, more darkly, the hand of the Russian secret police.

Sadly, despite its clearly fraudulent nature, The Protocols continues today to feed the fears of the credulous and to fan the flames of fanaticism and hate." --Perry M. Atterberry (Amazon Review)]]> 312 Matvei Vasilyevich Golovinski 159364020X Harsh 0 trash, to-read 3.03 1903 The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
author: Matvei Vasilyevich Golovinski
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.03
book published: 1903
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Politics and the English Language]]> 6324725 20 George Orwell Harsh 5 4.31 1946 Politics and the English Language
author: George Orwell
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1946
rating: 5
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]]> 1984 40961427 Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmarish vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life—the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language—and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written.]]> 298 George Orwell Harsh 0 4.24 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1949
rating: 0
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]]> Animal Farm 170448 Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.]]> 141 George Orwell 0451526341 Harsh 0 4.07 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1945
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)]]> 968 The da Vinci Code, The da Vinci Code, The da Vinci Code, and The da Vinci Code

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.

The Da Vinci Code heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightning-paced, intelligent thriller utterly unpredictable right up to its stunning conclusion.]]> 489 Dan Brown Harsh 1 trash 3.92 2003 The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)
author: Dan Brown
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2003
rating: 1
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]]> Swaraj 15770887 175 Arvind Kejriwal 8172237677 Harsh 2 3.60 2012 Swaraj
author: Arvind Kejriwal
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2012
rating: 2
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]]> <![CDATA[12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos]]> 30257963 What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research.

Humorous, surprising, and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the street.

What does the nervous system of the lowly lobster have to tell us about standing up straight (with our shoulders back) and about success in life? Why did ancient Egyptians worship the capacity to pay careful attention as the highest of gods? What dreadful paths do people tread when they become resentful, arrogant, and vengeful? Dr. Peterson journeys broadly, discussing discipline, freedom, adventure, and responsibility, distilling the world's wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. 12 Rules for Life shatters the modern commonplaces of science, faith, and human nature while transforming and ennobling the mind and spirit of its listeners.]]> 409 Jordan B. Peterson 0345816021 Harsh 1 trash 3.90 2018 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
author: Jordan B. Peterson
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 1
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]]> <![CDATA[Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America's Progressive Elite]]> 49856417
Clinton Cash revealed the Clintonsâ€� international money flow, exposed global corruption, and sparked an FBI investigation. Secret Empires exposed bipartisan corruption and launched congressional investigations. And Throw Them All Out and Extortion prompted passage of the STOCK Act. Indeed, Schweizer’s “follow the moneyâ€� bombshell revelations have been featured on the front pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and regularly appear on national news programs, including 60 Minutes.

Now Schweizer and his team of seasoned investigators turn their focus to the nation’s top progressives—politicians who strive to acquire more government power to achieve their political ends.

Can they be trusted with more power?

In Profiles in Corruption, Schweizer offers a deep-dive investigation into the private finances, and secrets deals of some of America’s top political leaders. And, as usual, he doesn’t disappoint, with never-before-reported revelations that uncover corruption and abuse of power—all backed up by a mountain of corporate documents and legal filings from around the globe. Learn about how they are making sweetheart deals, generating side income, bending the law to their own benefits, using legislation to advance their own interests, and much more.

Profiles in Corruption contains tomorrow’s headlines.]]> 368 Peter Schweizer 0062897926 Harsh 1 trash 4.22 2020 Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America's Progressive Elite
author: Peter Schweizer
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 1
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]]> Mortality 18487100 113 Christopher Hitchens Harsh 5 4.28 2012 Mortality
author: Christopher Hitchens
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2012
rating: 5
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date added: 2020/07/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement]]> 113934 Written in a fast-paced thriller style, The Goal is the gripping novel which is transforming management thinking throughout the Western world.

Alex Rogo is a harried plant manager working ever more desperately to try and improve performance. His factory is rapidly heading for disaster. So is his marriage. He has ninety days to save his plant—or it will be closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. It takes a chance meeting with a colleague from student days—Jonah—to help him break out of conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done.

The story of Alex's fight to save his plant is more than compulsive reading. It contains a serious message for all managers in industry and explains the ideas which underline the Theory of Constraints (TOC) developed by Eli Goldratt.]]> 384 Eliyahu M. Goldratt 0884271781 Harsh 0 4.06 1984 The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
author: Eliyahu M. Goldratt
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1984
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]]> <![CDATA[Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right]]> 322900 This book is a complete translation of Marx's critical commentary on paragraphs 261-313 of Hegel's major work in political theory. In this text Marx subjects Hegel's doctrine on the internal constitution of the state to a lengthy analysis. It was Marx's first attempt to expose & criticize Hegel's philosophy in general & his political philosophy in particular. It also represents his early efforts to criticize existing political institutions & to clarify the relations between the political & economic aspects of society. The Critique provides textual evidence in support of the argument that Marx's early writings don't exhibit radically different doctrinal principles & theoretical & practical concerns from his later work. This edition also includes a translation of the introduction Marx wrote for his proposed revised version of the Critique which he never completed. In a substantial introduction, Prof. O'Malley provides valuable information on Marx's intellectual development.]]> 224 Karl Marx 0521292115 Harsh 0 to-read 3.95 1843 Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
author: Karl Marx
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.95
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]]> <![CDATA[Elements of the Philosophy of Right]]> 25248 569 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 0521348889 Harsh 0 to-read 3.89 1821 Elements of the Philosophy of Right
author: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1821
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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.â€�

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 Harsh 0 3.88 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
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]]> A Modest Proposal 5206937
A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. This satirical hyperbole mocks heartless attitudes towards the poor, who were predominantly Irish Catholic, as well as British policy towards the Irish in general.]]> 48 Jonathan Swift 1605977276 Harsh 5 4.04 1729 A Modest Proposal
author: Jonathan Swift
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1729
rating: 5
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]]> <![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 Harsh 5 4.15 2014 Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
author: Michael Lewis
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How To Take It Back]]> 39979237 From ruined towns on the edge of Siberia, to Bond-villain lairs in Knightsbridge and Manhattan, something has gone wrong with the workings of the world.

Once upon a time, if an official stole money, there wasn't much he could do with it. He could buy himself a new car or build himself a nice house or give it to his friends and family, but that was about it. If he kept stealing, the money would just pile up in his house until he had no rooms left to put it in, or it was eaten by mice.

And then some bankers in London had a bright idea.

Join the investigative journalist Oliver Bullough on a journey into Moneyland - the secret country of the lawless, stateless superrich.

Learn how the institutions of Europe and the United States have become money-laundering operations, undermining the foundations of Western stability. Discover the true cost of being open for business no matter how corrupt and dangerous the customer. Meet the kleptocrats. Meet their awful children. And find out how heroic activists around the world are fighting back.

This is the story of wealth and power in the 21st century. It isn't too late to change it.

]]> 305 Oliver Bullough 1782833331 Harsh 0 4.21 2018 Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How To Take It Back
author: Oliver Bullough
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2018
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]]> <![CDATA[Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst]]> 31170723 Why do we do the things we do?

More than a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy.

And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. A behavior occurs—whether an example of humans at our best, worst, or somewhere in between. What went on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happened? Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones acted hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli that triggered the nervous system? By now he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened.

Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that person's adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than one individual. How did culture shape that individual's group, what ecological factors millennia old formed that culture? And on and on, back to evolutionary factors millions of years old.

The result is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do ... for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right.]]> 790 Robert M. Sapolsky 1594205078 Harsh 0 to-read 4.39 2017 Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
author: Robert M. Sapolsky
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
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]]> <![CDATA[Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life]]> 36064445 New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan, a bold new work that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility

In his most provocative and practical book yet, one of the foremost thinkers of our time redefines what it means to understand the world, succeed in a profession, contribute to a fair and just society, detect nonsense, and influence others. Citing examples ranging from Hammurabi to Seneca, Antaeus the Giant to Donald Trump, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows how the willingness to accept one’s own risks is an essential attribute of heroes, saints, and flourishing people in all walks of life.

As always both accessible and iconoclastic, Taleb challenges long-held beliefs about the values of those who spearhead military interventions, make financial investments, and propagate religious faiths. Among his insights:

â€� For social justice,Ìęfocus on symmetry and risk sharing. You cannot make profits and transfer the risks to others, as bankers and large corporations do. You cannot get rich without owning your own risk and paying for your own losses. Forcing skin in the game corrects this asymmetry better than thousands of laws and regulations.
â€� Ethical rules aren’t universal. You’re part of a group larger than you, but it’s still smaller than humanity in general.
� Minorities, not majorities, run the world. The world is not run by consensus but by stubborn minorities imposing their tastes and ethics on others.
â€� You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot. “Educated philistinesâ€� have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low-carb diets.
� Beware of complicated solutions (that someone was paid to find). A simple barbell can build muscle better than expensive new machines.
â€� True religion is commitment, not just faith. How much you believe in something is manifested only by what you’re willing to risk for it.

The phrase “skin in the gameâ€� is one we have often heard but rarely stopped to truly dissect. It is the backbone of risk management, but it’s also an astonishingly rich worldview that, as Taleb shows in this book, applies to all aspects of our lives. As Taleb says, “The symmetry of skin in the game is a simple rule that’s necessary for fairness and justice, and the ultimate BS-buster,â€� and “Never trust anyone who doesn’t have skin in the game. Without it, fools and crooks will benefit, and their mistakes will never come back to haunt them.”]]> 272 Nassim Nicholas Taleb 0241300657 Harsh 0 to-read 3.88 2018 Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2018
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]]> <![CDATA[Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder]]> 13530973
In The Black Swan Taleb outlined a problem; in Antifragile he offers a definitive solution: how to gain from disorder and chaos while being protected from fragilities and adverse events. For what he calls the "antifragile" is one step beyond robust, as it benefits from adversity, uncertainty and stressors, just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension.

Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, and proposing that things be built in an antifragile manner. Extremely ambitious and multidisciplinary, Antifragile provides a blueprint for how to behave—and thrive—in a world we don't understand and which is too uncertain for us to even try to understand. He who is not antifragile will perish. Why is the city state better than the nation state, why is debt bad for you, and why is almost everything modern bound to fail? The book covers innovation, health, biology, medicine, life decisions, politics, foreign policy, urban planning, war, personal finance, and economic systems. Throughout, the voice and recipes of the ancient wisdom from Phoenician, Roman, Greek, and Medieval sources are heard loud and clear.]]> 426 Nassim Nicholas Taleb 1400067820 Harsh 0 to-read 4.08 2012 Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2012
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]]> The Brothers Karamazov 4934
This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal inventiveness of Dostoevsky’s prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel.]]> 796 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0374528373 Harsh 0 4.36 1880 The Brothers Karamazov
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1880
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]]> Crime and Punishment 7144 671 Fyodor Dostoevsky Harsh 5 4.26 1866 Crime and Punishment
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1866
rating: 5
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]]> Bullshit Jobs: A Theory 34466958 From bestselling writer David Graeber, a powerful argument against the rise of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs, and their consequences.

Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.â€� It went viral. After a million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer.

There are millions of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs.

Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation.]]> 335 David Graeber 150114331X Harsh 0 4.03 2018 Bullshit Jobs: A Theory
author: David Graeber
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
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]]> <![CDATA[Remembrance of Things Past: Volume I - Swann's Way & Within a Budding Grove]]> 190576
Originally rendered by C.K. Scott Moncrieff from an early and unreliable French edition, Proust’s masterpiece has now been flawlessly translated by Terence Kilmartin in this acclaimed version.]]> 1056 Marcel Proust 0394711823 Harsh 0 hitch-recom, to-read 4.29 1913 Remembrance of Things Past: Volume I - Swann's Way & Within a Budding Grove
author: Marcel Proust
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1913
rating: 0
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]]> Pale Fire 7805
Nabokov's darkly witty, richly inventive masterpiece is a suspenseful whodunit, a story of one-upmanship and dubious penmanship, and a glorious literary conundrum.

Part of a major new series of the works of Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita and Pale Fire, in Penguin Classics.]]> 246 Vladimir Nabokov Harsh 0 hitch-recom, to-read 4.17 1962 Pale Fire
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens]]> 25245967
In The Hidden Wealth of Nations , Zucman offers an inventive and sophisticated approach to quantifying how big the problem is, how tax havens work and are organized, and how we can begin to approach a solution. His research reveals that tax havens are a quickly growing danger to the world economy. In the past five years, the amount of wealth in tax havens has increased over 25%—there has never been as much money held offshore as there is today. This hidden wealth accounts for at least $7.6 trillion, equivalent to 8% of the global financial assets of households. Fighting the notion that any attempts to vanquish tax havens are futile, since some countries will always offer more advantageous tax rates than others, as well the counter-argument that since the financial crisis tax havens have disappeared, Zucman shows how both sides are actually very wrong. In The Hidden Wealth of Nations he offers an ambitious agenda for reform, focused on ways in which countries can change the incentives of tax havens. Only by first understanding the enormity of the secret wealth can we begin to estimate the kind of actions that would force tax havens to give up their practices.

Zucman’s work has quickly become the gold standard for quantifying the amount of the world’s assets held in havens. In this concise book, he lays out in approachable language how the international banking system works and the dangerous extent to which the large-scale evasion of taxes is undermining the global market as a whole. If we are to find a way to solve the problem of increasing inequality, The Hidden Wealth of Nations is essential reading.
Ìę
Ìę]]> 129 Gabriel Zucman 022624542X Harsh 0 to-read 3.94 2015 The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens
author: Gabriel Zucman
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/10/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind]]> 23692271 512 Yuval Noah Harari Harsh 5 4.33 2011 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/09/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty]]> 12158480 Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?

Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are?

Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence?

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.

Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including:

ÌęÌę - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed andÌęoverwhelm the West?
ÌęÌę - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority?
ÌęÌę - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More
philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions?

Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.]]> 529 Daron Acemoğlu 0307719219 Harsh 0 to-read 4.06 2012 Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
author: Daron Acemoğlu
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/04/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism]]> 1237300 The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq. At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. By capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, Klein argues that the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years.]]> 558 Naomi Klein 0805079831 Harsh 0 to-read 4.27 2007 The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
author: Naomi Klein
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/04/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Capital in the Twenty First Century]]> 18736925 Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality.

Piketty shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality—the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth—today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, Piketty says, and may do so again.]]> 685 Thomas Piketty 067443000X Harsh 5 4.04 2013 Capital in the Twenty First Century
author: Thomas Piketty
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2016/04/03
date added: 2016/04/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics]]> 22456 527 Eric D. Beinhocker 157851777X Harsh 0 to-read 4.27 2006 The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics
author: Eric D. Beinhocker
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/06/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry]]> 12391521
The Psychopath Test is a fascinating journey through the minds of madness. Jon Ronson's exploration of a potential hoax being played on the world's top neurologists takes him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the madness industry. An influential psychologist who is convinced that many important CEOs and politicians are, in fact, psychopaths teaches Ronson how to spot these high-flying individuals by looking out for little telltale verbal and nonverbal clues. And so Ronson, armed with his new psychopath-spotting abilities, enters the corridors of power. He spends time with a death-squad leader institutionalized for mortgage fraud in Coxsackie, New York; a legendary CEO whose psychopathy has been speculated about in the press; and a patient in an asylum for the criminally insane who insists he's sane and certainly not a psychopath.

Ronson not only solves the mystery of the hoax but also discovers, disturbingly, that sometimes the personalities at the helm of the madness industry are, with their drives and obsessions, as mad in their own way as those they study. And that relatively ordinary people are, more and more, defined by their maddest edges.]]> 275 Jon Ronson 1594485755 Harsh 4 3.97 2011 The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
author: Jon Ronson
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2015/04/23
date added: 2015/04/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis]]> 21951209
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta shows how the simmering controversy over the rich natural gas reserves in the Krishna-Godavari Basin boiled over into a primetime storm on gas pricing involving the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas as well as the Prime Minister's Office, even as he introduces new dimensions to it. While many reasons have been attributed to the split in the powerful Indian business family, the Ambanis, this book argues that the battle between the Ambani brothers was largely about wresting control over reserves of natural gas that are below the ocean bed along the basin of the two greatest rivers of southern India.

With painstaking research, a meticulous perusal of press reports, as well as a few surprising exclusives, Gas Wars highlights cases of crony capitalism that allowed the Reliance group to blatantly exploit loopholes which were consciously retained in the system to benefit it. Even as the book tells the story of how the country’s largest corporate conglomerate has benefited from the way government policies are structured, it lays bare the alarming facts of a natural disaster waiting to happen due to the ruthless exploitation of the country's natural resources in order to swell the fortunes of a few.]]> 588 Paranjoy Guha Thakurta 8192855139 Harsh 5 3.88 2014 Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis
author: Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2015/03/30
date added: 2015/03/30
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]]> The Communist Manifesto 18745882 30 Karl Marx Harsh 5 3.64 1848 The Communist Manifesto
author: Karl Marx
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1848
rating: 5
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date added: 2015/02/05
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]]> Steve Jobs 11084145 630 Walter Isaacson 1451648537 Harsh 4 4.15 2011 Steve Jobs
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/01/22
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]]> <![CDATA[A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing]]> 11337189
“Where did the universe come from? What was there before it? What will the future bring? And finally, why is there something rather than nothing?â€�

One of the few prominent scientists today to have crossed the chasm between science and popular culture, Krauss describes the staggeringly beautiful experimental observations and mind-bending new theories that demonstrate not only can something arise from nothing, something will always arise from nothing. With a new preface about the significance of the discovery of the Higgs particle, A Universe from Nothing uses Krauss’s characteristic wry humor and wonderfully clear explanations to take us back to the beginning of the beginning, presenting the most recent evidence for how our universe evolved—and the implications for how it’s going to end.

Provocative, challenging, and delightfully readable, this is a game-changing look at the most basic underpinning of existence and a powerful antidote to outmoded philosophical, religious, and scientific thinking.]]> 204 Lawrence M. Krauss 145162445X Harsh 0 to-read 3.93 2012 A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
author: Lawrence M. Krauss
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/01/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles]]> 12953304
As an era of easy money and easy growth comes to a close, China in particular will cool down. Other major players including Brazil, Russia, and India face their own daunting challenges and inflated expectations. The new "breakout nations" will probably spring from the margins, even from the shadows. Ruchir Sharma, one of the world’s largest investors in emerging markets for Morgan Stanley, here identifies which are most likely to leap ahead and why.

After two decades spent traveling the globe tracking the progress of developing countries, Sharma has produced a book full of surprises: why the overpriced cocktails in Rio are a sign of revival in Detroit; how the threat of the "population bomb" came to be seen as a competitive advantage; how an industrial revolution in Asia is redefining what manufacturing can do for a modern economy; and how the coming shakeout in the big emerging markets could shift the spotlight back to the West, especially American technology and German manufacturing.

What emerges is a clear picture of the shifting balance of global economic power and how it plays out for emerging nations and for the West. In a captivating exploration studded with vignettes, Sharma reveals his rules on how to spot economic success stories. Breakout Nations is a rollicking education for anyone looking to understand where the future will happen.]]> 304 Ruchir Sharma 0393080269 Harsh 5 4.03 2012 Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles
author: Ruchir Sharma
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2012
rating: 5
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date added: 2015/01/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution]]> 9704856
Francis Fukuyama, author of the bestselling The End of History and the Last ManÌęand one of our mostÌęimportant political thinkers,Ìęprovides a sweeping account of how today’s basic political institutions developed. The first of a major two-volume work, The OriginsÌęof Political OrderÌębegins with politics among our primate ancestors and follows the story through the emergence of tribal societies, the growth of the first modern state in China, the beginning ofÌęthe rule of law in India and the Middle East, and the development of political accountability in Europe up until the eve of the French Revolution.

Drawing on a vast body of knowledge—history, evolutionary biology, archaeology, and economics—Fukuyama has produced a brilliant, provocative work that offers fresh insights on the origins of democratic societies and raises essential questions about the nature of politics and its discontents.]]> 585 Francis Fukuyama 0374227349 Harsh 0 to-read 4.17 2011 The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
author: Francis Fukuyama
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Science of Stock Market Investment - Practical Guide to Intelligent Investors]]> 16134591
You may want to earn hundreds of thousands through the share market. There is nothing wrong with that desire. But you must have known the secrets of avoiding losses. Share Market is a field that has of late developed overwhelmingly. Millions of people invest in it with enthusiasm and are interested in knowing details about this grey area. Sadly, not everyone who invests in it earn profits. Some people who constantly learn end up earning, but those who do not know anything about it and put their trust on luck lose miserably. This book shows the way to avoid losses and increase gains in share market.

This comprehensive book touches upon every aspect of stock market investment. A fantastic starting point for anyone aspiring to enter into the unknown world of share market. Even for investors who are already in the market, this book can serve a guide.

People say, you either earn or learn in share market. This book preaches the secrets of learning and earning at the same time.

This work takes you through an introduction about shares, functioning of share markets, relevance of stock market indices and different approaches for primary & secondary market investments. In also talks about the real qualities of an investor and how he differs from a speculator in the marketplace. Relationship between inflation & investments and the need for achieving inflation adjusted returns are stressed upon.

Various stock selection processes, approaches to adapt for different market conditions and more more importantly the art of avoiding losses are discussed in details. You will learn how to analyse a company, its shares, market dynamics, how to value a business, what price to pay for a company etc. All important parameters, numbers and ratios are explained with interesting real time illustrations. Difference between value investing and growth oriented stock selection process is analysed thoroughly, Likewise, fundamental analysis and technical analysis are compared in a rational way. On top of these, this books describe the qualities that differentiate successful investors from ordinary ones. Those qualities are analysed in detail.

More importantly, the book stresses the importance of identifying bad companies and unethical management, and teaches how to stay away from them.]]> 329 Chellamuthu Kuppusamy Harsh 0 to-read 3.80 2012 The Science of Stock Market Investment - Practical Guide to Intelligent Investors
author: Chellamuthu Kuppusamy
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/01/20
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]]> Thinking, Fast and Slow 11468377 Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.

Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will transform the way you think about thinking.]]> 499 Daniel Kahneman 0374275637 Harsh 5 4.17 2011 Thinking, Fast and Slow
author: Daniel Kahneman
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[@War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex]]> 20448184 AÌęsurprising, page-turning account of how the wars of the future are already being fought todayThe United States military currently views cyberspace as the “fifth domainâ€� of warfare (alongside land, air, sea, and space), and the Department of Defense,Ìęthe National Security Agency, and the CIAÌęall field teams of hackers who can, and do, launch computer virus strikes against enemy targets. In fact, as @WAR shows, U.S. hackers were crucial to our victory in Iraq. Shane Harris delves into the frontlines of America’s new cyber war. As recent revelations have shown, government agencies are joining with tech giants like Google and Facebook to collect vast amounts of information. The military has also formed a new alliance with tech and finance companies to patrol cyberspace, and Harris offers a deeper glimpse into this partnership than we have ever seen before. Finally, Harris explains what the new cybersecurity regime means for all of us, who spend our daily lives bound to the Internet â€� and are vulnerable to its dangers.]]> 288 Shane Harris 0544251792 Harsh 0 to-read 3.74 2014 @War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex
author: Shane Harris
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy]]> 356824 India After Gandhi is a breathtaking chronicle of the brutal conflicts that have rocked a giant nation and the extraordinary factors that have held it together. An intricately researched and elegantly written epic history peopled with larger-than-life characters, it is the work of a major scholar at the peak of his abilities...]]> 912 Ramachandra Guha 0060198818 Harsh 5 4.38 2007 India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy
author: Ramachandra Guha
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> Batman: The Man Who Laughs 2182780 144 Ed Brubaker 1401216226 Harsh 4 4.09 2005 Batman: The Man Who Laughs
author: Ed Brubaker
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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date added: 2013/06/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Captain America by Ed Brubaker Omnibus, Vol. 1]]> 1012001 Eisner Award-nominated Best Writer Ed Brubaker's first 25 landmark issues of Captain America in one titanic tome, plus the Captain America 65th Anniversary Special and Winter Soldier: Winter Kills one-shots! This deluxe hardcover, fat-packed with extras, features the story that stunned readers worldwide and sent shockwaves through the entire Marvel Universe: the death of Captain America! Also including the return of Cap's wartime partner, Bucky Barnes, as the Winter Soldier; the death and life of his greatest enemy, the Red Skull; and the emergences of a new threat, General Aleksander Lukin, the head of one of the most powerful corporations in the world!

Collecting: Captain America 1-25, 65th Anniversary Special; Winter Soldier: Winter Kills]]> 688 Ed Brubaker 0785128662 Harsh 4 4.42 2007 Captain America by Ed Brubaker Omnibus, Vol. 1
author: Ed Brubaker
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2007
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Batman: The Dark Knight Returns]]> 59960
Crime runs rampant in the streets, and the man who was Batman is still tortured by the memories of his parents' murders. As civil society crumbles around him, Bruce Wayne's long-suppressed vigilante side finally breaks free of its self-imposed shackles.

The Dark Knight returns in a blaze of fury, taking on a whole new generation of criminals and matching their level of violence. He is soon joined by this generation's Robin—a girl named Carrie Kelley, who proves to be just as invaluable as her predecessors.

But can Batman and Robin deal with the threat posed by their deadliest enemies, after years of incarceration have made them into perfect psychopaths? And more important, can anyone survive the coming fallout of an undeclared war between the superpowers—or a clash of what were once the world's greatest superheroes?

Over fifteen years after its debut, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns remains an undisputed classic and one of the most influential stories ever told in the comics medium.

Collecting Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1-4]]> 197 Frank Miller 156389341X Harsh 4 4.26 1986 Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
author: Frank Miller
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1986
rating: 4
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]]> The Universe in a Nutshell 2095
Now, in a major publishing event, Hawking returns with a lavishly illustrated sequel that unravels the mysteries of the major breakthroughs that have occurred in the years since the release of his acclaimed first book.]]> 216 Stephen Hawking 055380202X Harsh 4 to-read 4.20 2001 The Universe in a Nutshell
author: Stephen Hawking
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2001
rating: 4
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date added: 2013/06/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet]]> 16153182
Now, in what is sure to be a wave-making new book, Assange brings together a small group of cutting-edge thinkers and activists from the front line of the battle for cyber-space to discuss whether electronic communications will emancipate or enslave us. Among the topics addressed are: Do Facebook and Google constitute "the greatest surveillance machine that ever existed," perpetually tracking our location, our contacts and our lives? Far from being victims of that surveillance, are most of us willing collaborators? Are there legitimate forms of surveillance, for instance in relation to the "Four Horsemen of the Infopocalypse" (money laundering, drugs, terrorism and pornography)? And do we have the ability, through conscious action and technological savvy, to resist this tide and secure a world where freedom is something which the Internet helps bring about?

The harassment of WikiLeaks and other Internet activists, together with attempts to introduce anti-file sharing legislation such as SOPA and ACTA, indicate that the politics of the Internet have reached a crossroads. In one direction lies a future that guarantees, in the watchwords of the cypherpunks, "privacy for the weak and transparency for the powerful"; in the other lies an Internet that allows government and large corporations to discover ever more about internet users while hiding their own activities. Assange and his co-discussants unpick the complex issues surrounding this crucial choice with clarity and engaging enthusiasm.]]> 192 Julian Assange 1939293006 Harsh 4 3.74 2012 Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet
author: Julian Assange
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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]]> Physics of the Impossible 1168341
One hundred years ago, scientists would have said that lasers, televisions, and the atomic bomb were beyond the realm of physical possibility. In Physics of the Impossible, the renowned physicist Michio Kaku explores to what extent the technologies and devices of science fiction that are deemed equally impossible today might well become commonplace in the future.

From teleportation to telekinesis, Kaku uses the world of science fiction to explore the fundamentals—and the limits—of the laws of physics as we know them today. He ranks the impossible technologies by categories—Class I, II, and III, depending on when they might be achieved, within the next century, millennia, or perhaps never. In a compelling and thought-provoking narrative, he explains:
· How the science of optics and electromagnetism may one day enable us to bend light around an object, like a stream flowing around a boulder, making the object invisible to observers “downstreamâ€�
· How ramjet rockets, laser sails, antimatter engines, and nanorockets may one day take us to the nearby stars
· How telepathy and psychokinesis, once considered pseudoscience, may one day be possible using advances in MRI, computers, superconductivity, and nanotechnology
· Why a time machine is apparently consistent with the known laws of quantum physics, although it would take an unbelievably advanced civilization to actually build one
Kaku uses his discussion of each technology as a jumping-off point to explain the science behind it. An extraordinary scientific adventure, Physics of the Impossible takes readers on an unforgettable, mesmerizing journey into the world of science that both enlightens and entertains.]]> 329 Michio Kaku 0385520697 Harsh 0 to-read 4.09 2008 Physics of the Impossible
author: Michio Kaku
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/06/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos]]> 33418 361 Michio Kaku 1400033721 Harsh 0 to-read 4.21 2004 Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos
author: Michio Kaku
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/06/20
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]]> The Grand Design 8520362
When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the nature of reality? Why are the laws of nature so finely tuned as to allow for the existence of beings like ourselves? And, finally, is the apparent “grand designâ€� of our universe evidence of a benevolent creator who set things in motion—or does science offer another explanation?

The most fundamental questions about the origins of the universe and of life itself, once the province of philosophy, now occupy the territory where scientists, philosophers, and theologians meet—if only to disagree. In their new book, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow present the most recent scientific thinking about the mysteries of the universe, in nontechnical language marked by both brilliance and simplicity.

In The Grand Design they explain that according to quantum theory, the cosmos does not have just a single existence or history, but rather that every possible history of the universe exists simultaneously. When applied to the universe as a whole, this idea calls into question the very notion of cause and effect. But the “top-downâ€� approach to cosmology that Hawking and

Mlodinow describe would say that the fact that the past takes no definite form means that we create history by observing it, rather than that history creates us. The authors further explain that we ourselves are the product of quantum fluctuations in the very early universe, and show how quantum theory predicts the “multiverse”—the idea that ours is just one of many universes that appeared spontaneously out of nothing, each with different laws of nature.

Along the way Hawking and Mlodinow question the conventional concept of reality, posing a “model-dependentâ€� theory of reality as the best we can hope to find. And they conclude with a riveting assessment of M-theory, an explanation of the laws governing us and our universe that is currently the only viable candidate for a complete “theory of everything.â€� If confirmed, they write, it will be the unified theory that Einstein was looking for, and the ultimate triumph of human reason.

A succinct, startling, and lavishly illustrated guide to discoveries that are altering our understanding and threatening some of our most cherished belief systems, The Grand Design is a book that will inform—and provoke—like no other.']]> 199 Stephen Hawking 0553805371 Harsh 5 4.07 2010 The Grand Design
author: Stephen Hawking
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2010
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory]]> 771
Today, physicists and mathematicians throughout the world are feverishly working on one of the most ambitious theories ever proposed: superstring theory. String theory, as it is often called, is the key to the Unified Field Theory that eluded Einstein for more than thirty years. Finally, the century-old antagonism between the large and the small--General Relativity and Quantum Theory--is resolved. String theory proclaims that all of the wondrous happenings in the universe, from the frantic dancing of subatomic quarks to the majestic swirling of heavenly galaxies, are reflections of one grand physical principle and manifestations of one single entity: microscopically tiny vibrating loops of energy, a billionth of a billionth the size of an atom. In this brilliantly articulated and refreshingly clear book, Greene relates the scientific story and the human struggle behind twentieth-century physics' search for a theory of everything.

Through the masterful use of metaphor and analogy, The Elegant Universe makes some of the most sophisticated concepts ever contemplated viscerally accessible and thoroughly entertaining, bringing us closer than ever to understanding how the universe works.]]> 425 Brian Greene 0375708111 Harsh 0 to-read 4.06 1999 The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
author: Brian Greene
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don't]]> 13588394
Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the "prediction paradox": The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future.

In keeping with his own aim to seek truth from data, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He explains and evaluates how these forecasters think and what bonds they share. What lies behind their success? Are they good-or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really right? He explores unanticipated commonalities and exposes unexpected juxtapositions. And sometimes, it is not so much how good a prediction is in an absolute sense that matters but how good it is relative to the competition. In other cases, prediction is still a very rudimentary-and dangerous-science.

Silver observes that the most accurate forecasters tend to have a superior command of probability, and they tend to be both humble and hardworking. They distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable, and they notice a thousand little details that lead them closer to the truth. Because of their appreciation of probability, they can distinguish the signal from the noise.]]> 544 Nate Silver 159420411X Harsh 5 to-read 3.95 2012 The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don't
author: Nate Silver
name: Harsh
average rating: 3.95
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]]> A Brief History of Time 3869
Told in language we all can understand, A Brief History of Time plunges into the exotic realms of black holes and quarks, of antimatter and “arrows of time,â€� of the big bang and a bigger God—where the possibilities are wondrous and unexpected. With exciting images and profound imagination, Stephen Hawking brings us closer to the ultimate secrets at the very heart of creation.]]> 226 Stephen Hawking 0553380168 Harsh 5 4.22 1988 A Brief History of Time
author: Stephen Hawking
name: Harsh
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1988
rating: 5
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