Michael's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 06 Sep 2024 09:31:01 -0700 60 Michael's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[My Life And Work (The Autobiography Of Henry Ford)]]> 1122054 140 Henry Ford 1420928198 Michael 0 to-read 4.15 1922 My Life And Work (The Autobiography Of Henry Ford)
author: Henry Ford
name: Michael
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1922
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism]]> 35569731 Americana takes us on a four-hundred-year journey of this spirit of innovation and ambition through a series of Next Big Things -- the inventions, techniques, and industries that drove American history forward: from the telegraph, the railroad, guns, radio, and banking to flight, suburbia, and sneakers, culminating with the Internet and mobile technology at the turn of the twenty-first century. The result is a thrilling alternative history of modern America that reframes events, trends, and people we thought we knew through the prism of the value that, for better or for worse, this nation holds dearest: capitalism.Ěý

In a winning, accessible style, Bhu Srinivasan boldly takes on four centuries of American enterprise, revealing the unexpected connections that link them. We learn how Andrew Carnegie's early job as a telegraph messenger boy paved the way for his leadership of the steel empire that would make him one of the nation's richest men; how the gunmaker Remington reinvented itself in the postwar years to sell typewriters; how the inner workings of the Mafia mirrored the trend of consolidation and regulation in more traditional business; and how a 1950s infrastructure bill triggered a series of events that produced one of America's most enduring brands: KFC. Reliving the heady early days of Silicon Valley, we are reminded that the start-up is an idea as old as America itself.

Entertaining, eye-opening, and sweeping in its reach, Americana is an exhilarating new work of narrative history.]]>
575 Bhu Srinivasan 0399563806 Michael 5 4.56 2017 Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism
author: Bhu Srinivasan
name: Michael
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: An Essay]]> 14741928 David Foster Wallace Michael 0 currently-reading 4.22 1996 A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: An Essay
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Michael
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Birth Partner: A Complete Guide to Childbirth for Dads, Partners, Doulas, and All Other Labor Companions]]> 42400176

Since the original publication of The Birth Partner, partners, friends, relatives, and doulas have relied on Penny Simkin's guidance in caring for the new mother, from her last trimester through the early postpartum period.

Now fully revised in its fifth edition, The Birth Partner remains the definitive guide to helping a woman through labor and birth, and the essential manual to have at hand during the event.ĚýThe Birth Partner includes thorough information on:

Preparing for labor and knowing when it has begun Normal labor and how to help the woman every step of the way Epidurals and other medications for labor Pitocin and other means, including natural ones,Ěýto induce or speed up labor Non-drug techniques for easing labor pain Cesarean birth and complications that may require it Breastfeeding and newborn care and much more


For the partner who wishes to be truly helpful in the birthing room, this book is indispensable.

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448 Penny Simkin 1558329110 Michael 0 4.38 1989 The Birth Partner: A Complete Guide to Childbirth for Dads, Partners, Doulas, and All Other Labor Companions
author: Penny Simkin
name: Michael
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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The President's Daughter 53483903 There's a new administration in the White House. But it's the previous First Family who tops an international assassin's hit list.

Michael Keating is a former Navy SEAL -- and a former President of the United States, now relocated to rural New Hampshire after a brave but ill-fated military mission cost him his second term.

All he wants is to sink into anonymity with his family (and his Secret Service detail). But when he's briefed on an imminent threat against his daughter, Keating's SEAL training may prove more essential than all the power, connections, and political acumen he gained as President.]]>
609 Bill Clinton 0316540730 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.50 2021 The President's Daughter
author: Bill Clinton
name: Michael
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City]]> 58248174 The riveting, unforgettable story of a girl whose indomitable spirit is tested by homelessness, poverty, and racism in an unequal America—from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Andrea Elliott of The New York Times

Invisible Child follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child with an imagination as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn homeless shelter. Born at the turn of a new century, Dasani is named for the bottled water that comes to symbolize Brooklyn’s gentrification and the shared aspirations of a divided city. As Dasani grows up, moving with her tight-knit family from shelter to shelter, this story goes back to trace the passage of Dasani’s ancestors from slavery to the Great Migration north. By the time Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis is exploding as the chasm deepens between rich and poor.

In the shadows of this new Gilded Age, Dasani must lead her seven siblings through a thicket of problems: hunger, parental drug addiction, violence, housing instability, segregated schools, and the constant monitoring of the child-protection system. When, at age thirteen, Dasani enrolls at a boarding school in Pennsylvania, her loyalties are tested like never before. As she learns to “code switch� between the culture she left behind and the norms of her new town, Dasani starts to feel like a stranger in both places. Ultimately, she faces an impossible question: What if leaving poverty means abandoning the family you love?

By turns heartbreaking and revelatory, provocative and inspiring, Invisible Child tells an astonishing story about the power of resilience, the importance of family, and the cost of inequality. Based on nearly a decade of reporting, this book vividly illuminates some of the most critical issues in contemporary America through the life of one remarkable girl.]]>
578 Andrea Elliott Michael 0 currently-reading 4.74 2021 Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City
author: Andrea Elliott
name: Michael
average rating: 4.74
book published: 2021
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Project Hail Mary 54906250 An impossible mission.
An ally he never imagined.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it's up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery-and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he's got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]>
549 Andy Weir Michael 4 4.57 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Michael
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2021
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective]]> 25670869
Controversial at its heart, yet refreshingly provocative, this book challenges readers to consider life without a destination and discovery without a compass.]]>
154 Kenneth O. Stanley 3319155245 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.00 2015 Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective
author: Kenneth O. Stanley
name: Michael
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
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<![CDATA[Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art]]> 51202930 A New York Times BestsellerA Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020 Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR Ěý “A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.â€� —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray LoveNo matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly.There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of SĂŁo Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.]]> 301 James Nestor Michael 5 4.31 2020 Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
author: James Nestor
name: Michael
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2020
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World]]> 43907405 "a provocative new book" � The New York Times

AI-centric organizations exhibit a new operating architecture, redefining how they create, capture, share, and deliver value.

Now with a new preface that explores how the coronavirus crisis compelled organizations such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Verizon, and IKEA to transform themselves with remarkable speed, Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani show how reinventing the firm around data, analytics, and AI removes traditional constraints on scale, scope, and learning that have restricted business growth for hundreds of years. From Airbnb to Ant Financial, Microsoft to Amazon, research shows how AI-driven processes are vastly more scalable than traditional processes, allow massive scope increase, enabling companies to straddle industry boundaries, and create powerful opportunities for learning—to drive ever more accurate, complex, and sophisticated predictions.

When traditional operating constraints are removed, strategy becomes a whole new game, one whose rules and likely outcomes this book will make clear. Iansiti and

Present a framework for rethinking business and operating modelsExplain how "collisions" between AI-driven/digital and traditional/analog firms are reshaping competition, altering the structure of our economy, and forcing traditional companies to rearchitect their operating modelsExplain the opportunities and risks created by digital firmsDescribe the new challenges and responsibilities for the leaders of both digital and traditional firms

Packed with examples—including many from the most powerful and innovative global, AI-driven competitors—and based on research in hundreds of firms across many sectors, this is your essential guide for rethinking how your firm competes and operates in the era of AI.]]>
280 Marco Iansiti 1633697630 Michael 0 currently-reading 3.82 2020 Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World
author: Marco Iansiti
name: Michael
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
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<![CDATA[The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement]]> 8125726 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.]]>
362 Eliyahu M. Goldratt Michael 0 4.28 1984 The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
author: Eliyahu M. Goldratt
name: Michael
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1984
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<![CDATA[Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets]]> 30558094
Winning today isn’t about beating the competition at the old game. It’s about inventing a whole new game—defining a new market category, developing it, and dominating it over time. You can’t build a legendary company without building a legendary category. If you think that having the best product is all it takes to win, you’re going to lose.

In this farsighted, pioneering guide, the founders of Silicon Valley advisory firm Play Bigger rely on data analysis and interviews to understand the inner workings of “category kings”� companies such as Amazon, Salesforce, Uber, and IKEA—that give us new ways of living, thinking or doing business, often solving problems we didn’t know we had.

In Play Bigger, the authors assemble their findings to introduce the new discipline of category design. By applying category design, companies can create new demand where none existed, conditioning customers� brains so they change their expectations and buying habits. While this discipline defines the tech industry, it applies to every kind of industry and even to personal careers.

Crossing the Chasm revolutionized how we think about new products in an existing market. The Innovator’s Dilemma taught us about disrupting an aging market. Now, Play Bigger is transforming business once again, showing us how to create the market itself.]]>
250 Al Ramadan 0062407627 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.04 2016 Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets
author: Al Ramadan
name: Michael
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
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<![CDATA[All Things Being Equal: Why Math Is the Key to a Better World]]> 50612894 NATIONAL BESTSELLERFrom the award-winning founder of JUMP Math, All Things Being Equal is a proven guide to succeeding in math, and a passionate argument for why this success can and must be available to the majority instead of the privileged few. For two decades, John Mighton has developed strategies for fostering intellectual potential in all children through learning math. Math, Mighton says, provides us with mental tools of incredible power. When we learn math we learn to see patterns, to think logically and systematically, to draw analogies, to perceive risk, to understand cause and effect--among many other critical skills. Yet we tolerate and in fact expect a vast performance gap in math among students, and live in a world where many adults aren't equipped with these crucial tools. This learning gap is unnecessary, dangerous and tragic, he cautions, and it has led us to a problem of intellectual poverty which is apparent everywhere--in fake news, political turmoil, floundering economies, even in erroneous medical diagnoses. ĚýĚýĚýĚý In All Things Being Equal, Mighton argues that math study is an ideal starting point to break down social inequality and empower individuals to build a smarter, kinder, more equitable world. Bringing together the latest cognitive research and incremental learning strategies, Mighton goes deep into the classroom and beyond to offer a hopeful--and urgent--vision for a numerate society.]]> 284 John Mighton 0735272913 Michael 0 currently-reading 3.40 2020 All Things Being Equal: Why Math Is the Key to a Better World
author: John Mighton
name: Michael
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2020
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<![CDATA[Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History]]> 20623134
Ever Since Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould's first book, has sold more than a quarter of a million copies. Like all succeeding collections by this unique writer, it brings the art of the scientific essay to unparalleled heights.]]>
286 Stephen Jay Gould 0393340414 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.28 1977 Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History
author: Stephen Jay Gould
name: Michael
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1977
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<![CDATA[The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness]]> 53498439 A tenth-anniversary edition of the iconic bestseller, with a new introduction by the author

Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Now, ten years after it was first published, The New Press is proud to issue a tenth-anniversary edition with a new introduction by Michelle Alexander that discusses the impact the book has had and the state of the criminal justice reform movement today.]]>
421 Michelle Alexander 1620971941 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.51 2010 The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
author: Michelle Alexander
name: Michael
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2010
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Humankind: A Hopeful History 49048061 From New York Times bestselling author of Utopia for Realists comes a "bold" (Daniel H. Pink) and "extraordinary" (Susan Cain) argument that humans thrive in a crisis and that our innate kindness and cooperation have been the greatest factors in our long-term success on the planet.

If there is one belief that has united the left and the right, psychologists and philosophers, ancient thinkers and modern ones, it is the tacit assumption that humans are bad. It's a notion that drives newspaper headlines and guides the laws that shape our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest.

But what if it isn't true? International bestseller Rutger Bregman provides new perspective on the past 200,000 years of human history, setting out to prove that we are hardwired for kindness, geared toward cooperation rather than competition, and more inclined to trust rather than distrust one another. In fact this instinct has a firm evolutionary basis going back to the beginning of Homo sapiens.

From the real-life Lord of the Flies to the solidarity in the aftermath of the Blitz, the hidden flaws in the Stanford prison experiment to the true story of twin brothers on opposite sides who helped Mandela end apartheid, Bregman shows us that believing in human generosity and collaboration isn't merely optimistic—it's realistic. Moreover, it has huge implications for how society functions. When we think the worst of people, it brings out the worst in our politics and economics. But if we believe in the reality of humanity's kindness and altruism, it will form the foundation for achieving true change in society, a case that Bregman makes convincingly with his signature wit, refreshing frankness, and memorable storytelling.]]>
400 Rutger Bregman 0316418552 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.39 2019 Humankind: A Hopeful History
author: Rutger Bregman
name: Michael
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2019
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<![CDATA[Storynomics: Story-Driven Marketing in the Post-Advertising World]]> 37539928 Based on the hottest, most in-demand seminar offered by the legendary story master Robert McKee -- Storynomics translates the lessons of storytelling in business into economic and leadership success. Robert McKee's popular writing workshops have earned him an international reputation. The list of alumni with Academy Awards and Emmy Awards runs off the page. The cornerstone of his program is his singular book, Story, which has defined how we talk about the art of story creation. Now in Storynomics, McKee partners with digital marketing expert and Skyword CEO Tom Gerace to map a path for brands seeking to navigate the rapid decline of interrupt advertising. After successfully guiding organizations as diverse as Samsung, Marriott International, Philips, Microsoft, Nike, IBM, and Siemens to transform their marketing from an ad-centric to story-centric approach, McKee and Gerace now bring this knowledge to business leaders and entrepreneurs alike. Drawing from dozens of story-driven strategies and case studies taken from leading B2B and B2C brands, Storynomics demonstrates how original storytelling delivers results that surpass traditional advertising. How will brands and their customers connect in the future? Storynomics provides the answer.]]> 232 Robert McKee 1455541974 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.15 2018 Storynomics: Story-Driven Marketing in the Post-Advertising World
author: Robert McKee
name: Michael
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2018
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<![CDATA[The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable]]> 18685328 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams.

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

Throughout the story, Lencioni reveals the five dysfunctions which go to the very heart of why teams even the best ones-often struggle. He outlines a powerful model and actionable steps that can be used to overcome these common hurdles and build a cohesive, effective team. Just as with his other books, Lencioni has written a compelling fable with a powerful yet deceptively simple message for all those who strive to be exceptional team leaders.]]>
242 Patrick Lencioni Michael 0 currently-reading 4.36 2002 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
author: Patrick Lencioni
name: Michael
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2002
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<![CDATA[That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea]]> 52117393 In the tradition of Phil Knight's Shoe Dog comes the incredible untold story of how Netflix went from concept to company-all revealed by co-founder and first CEO Marc Randolph.
Once upon a time, brick-and-mortar video stores were king. Late fees were ubiquitous, video-streaming unheard was of, and widespread DVD adoption seemed about as imminent as flying cars. Indeed, these were the widely accepted laws of the land in 1997, when Marc Randolph had an idea. It was a simple thought-leveraging the internet to rent movies-and was just one of many more and far worse proposals, like personalized baseball bats and a shampoo delivery service, that Randolph would pitch to his business partner, Reed Hastings, on their commute to work each morning.

But Hastings was intrigued, and the pair-with Hastings as the primary investor and Randolph as the CEO-founded a company. Now with over 150 million subscribers, Netflix's triumph feels inevitable, but the twenty first century's most disruptive start up began with few believers and calamity at every turn. From having to pitch his own mother on being an early investor, to the motel conference room that served as a first office, to server crashes on launch day, to the now-infamous meeting when Netflix brass pitched Blockbuster to acquire them, Marc Randolph's transformational journey exemplifies how anyone with grit, gut instincts and determination can change the world-even with an idea that many think will never work.

What emerges,though, isn't just the inside story of one of the world's most iconic companies. Full of counter-intuitive concepts and written in binge-worthy prose, it answers some of our most fundamental questions about taking that leap of faith in business or in life: How do you begin? How do you weather disappointment and failure? How do you deal with success? What even is success?

From idea generation to team building to knowing when it's time to let go, That Will Never Work is not only the ultimate follow-your-dreams parable, but also one of the most dramatic and insightful entrepreneurial stories of our time.]]>
337 Marc Randolph 0316530212 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.44 2019 That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea
author: Marc Randolph
name: Michael
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2019
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<![CDATA[Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built]]> 27404604 304 Duncan Clark Michael 0 currently-reading 4.05 2016 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built
author: Duncan Clark
name: Michael
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2016
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<![CDATA[The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business]]> 18892366 New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has little to do with what they know and how smart they are and more to do with how healthy they are. In this book, Lencioni brings together his vast experience and many of the themes cultivated in his other best-selling books and delivers a first: a cohesive and comprehensive exploration of the unique advantage organizational health provides.

Simply put, an organization is healthy when it is whole, consistent and complete, when its management, operations and culture are unified.Ěý Healthy organizations outperform their counterparts, are free of politics and confusion and provide an environment where star performers never want to leave. Lencioni’s first non-fiction book provides leaders with a groundbreaking, approachable model for achieving organizational health—complete with stories, tips and anecdotes from his experiences consulting to some of the nation’s leading organizations. In this age of informational ubiquity and nano-second change, it is no longer enough to build a competitive advantage based on intelligence alone. The Advantage provides a foundational construct for conducting business in a new way—one that maximizes human potential and aligns the organization around a common set of principles.

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224 Patrick Lencioni Michael 0 currently-reading 4.26 2012 The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business
author: Patrick Lencioni
name: Michael
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2012
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<![CDATA[The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon]]> 18887015 The definitive story of Amazon.com, one of the most successful companies in the world, and of its driven, brilliant founder, Jeff Bezos.

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

THE EVERYTHING STORE will be the revealing, definitive biography of the company that placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read.

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353 Brad Stone Michael 0 currently-reading 4.27 2013 The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
author: Brad Stone
name: Michael
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2013
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date added: 2020/01/30
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<![CDATA[What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions]]> 21463939 In the New York Times best-selling book from the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, Randall Munroe gives hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask.

Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last? What if everyone only had one soulmate? What would happen if the moon went away?

In pursuit of answers, Munroe ran computer simulations, pored over stacks of declassified military research memos, solved differential equations, and consulted with nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, complemented by signature xkcd comics. (They often predict the complete annihilation of humankind, or at least a really big explosion.)

Far more than a book for geeks, What If? explains the laws of science in operation in a way that every intelligent reader will enjoy and feel much smarter for having read.]]>
321 Randall Munroe Michael 0 4.24 2014 What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
author: Randall Munroe
name: Michael
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2014
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<![CDATA[The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness]]> 41641923 The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up for the mind, The Courage to Be Disliked is the Japanese phenomenon that shows you how to free yourself from the shackles of past experiences and others� expectations to achieve real happiness.

The Courage to Be Disliked, already an enormous bestseller in Asia with more than 3.5 million copies sold, demonstrates how to unlock the power within yourself to be the person you truly want to be.

Using the theories of Alfred Adler, one of the three giants of twentieth century psychology, this book follows an illuminating conversation between a philosopher and a young man. The philosopher explains to his pupil how each of us is able to determine our own life, free from the shackles of past experiences, doubts, and the expectations of others. It’s a way of thinking that is deeply liberating, allowing us to develop the courage to change, and to ignore the limitations that we and those around us have placed on ourselves. The result is a book that is both highly accessible and profound in its importance. Millions have already read and benefitted from its wisdom.

This is a truly special book in the vein of Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up but for the mind. Those ready to embrace the insights and liberation promised by The Courage to Be Disliked will come to a deeper understanding of themselves and others, and find the inspiration to take the reins of their own life.]]>
289 Ichiro Kishimi 1982107073 Michael 0 currently-reading 3.97 2013 The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
author: Ichiro Kishimi
name: Michael
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2013
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<![CDATA[What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture]]> 44797779 Ben Horowitz, a leading venture capitalist, modern management expert, and New York Times bestselling author, combines lessons both from history and from modern organizational practice with practical and often surprising advice to help executives build cultures that can weather both good and bad times.

Ben Horowitz has long been fascinated by history, and particularly by how people behave differently than you’d expect. The time and circumstances in which they were raised often shapes them—yet a few leaders have managed to shape their times. In What You Do Is Who You Are, he turns his attention to a question crucial to every how do you create and sustain the culture you want?

To Horowitz, culture is how a company makes decisions. It is the set of assumptions employees use to resolve everyday should I stay at the Red Roof Inn, or the Four Seasons? Should we discuss the color of this product for five minutes or thirty hours? If culture is not purposeful, it will be an accident or a mistake.

What You Do Is Who You Are explains how to make your culture purposeful by spotlighting four models of leadership and culture-building—the leader of the only successful slave revolt, Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture; the Samurai, who ruled Japan for seven hundred years and shaped modern Japanese culture; Genghis Khan, who built the world’s largest empire; and Shaka Senghor, a man convicted of murder who ran the most formidable prison gang in the yard and ultimately transformed prison culture.

Horowitz connects these leadership examples to modern case-studies, including how Louverture’s cultural techniques were applied (or should have been) by Reed Hastings at Netflix, Travis Kalanick at Uber, and Hillary Clinton, and how Genghis Khan’s vision of cultural inclusiveness has parallels in the work of Don Thompson, the first African-American CEO of McDonalds, and of Maggie Wilderotter, the CEO who led Frontier Communications. Horowitz then offers guidance to help any company understand its own strategy and build a successful culture.

What You Do Is Who You Are is a journey through culture, from ancient to modern. Along the way, it answers a question fundamental to any who are we? How do people talk about us when we’re not around? How do we treat our customers? Are we there for people in a pinch? Can we be trusted?

Who you are is not the values you list on the wall. It’s not what you say in company-wide meeting. It’s not your marketing campaign. It’s not even what you believe. Who you are is what you do. This book aims to help you do the things you need to become the kind of leader you want to be—and others want to follow.]]>
289 Ben Horowitz 006287134X Michael 0 4.25 2019 What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture
author: Ben Horowitz
name: Michael
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
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<![CDATA[Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds]]> 41721428 New York Times Best SellerOver 5 million copies soldFor David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare -- poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him "The Fittest (Real) Man in America."In Can't Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.]]> 366 David Goggins 1544512260 Michael 0 4.30 2018 Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
author: David Goggins
name: Michael
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2018
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<![CDATA[The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success]]> 18740705 “An outstanding book about CEOs who excelled at capital allocation.� - Warren Buffett#1 on Warren Buffett’s Recommended Reading List, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Letter, 2012Named one of �19 Books Billionaire Charlie Munger Thinks You Should Read� in Business Insider.“A book that details the extraordinary success of CEOs who took a radically different approach to corporate management.� - Charlie Munger, Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Corporation“Thorndike explores the importance of thoughtful capital allocation through the stories of eight successful CEOs. A good read for any business leader but especially those willing to chart their own course.� - Michael Dell, chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer of DellWhat makes a successful CEO? Most people call to mind a familiar “a seasoned manager with deep industry expertise.� Others might point to the qualities of today’s so-called celebrity CEOs-charisma, virtuoso communication skills, and a confident management style. But what really matters when you run an organization? What is the hallmark of exceptional CEO performance? Quite simply, it is the returns for the shareholders of that company over the long term.In this refreshing, counterintuitive book, author Will Thorndike brings to bear the analytical wisdom of a successful career in investing, closely evaluating the performance of companies and their leaders. You will meet eight individualistic CEOs whose firms� average returns outperformed the S&P 500 by a factor of twenty-in other words, an investment of $10,000 with each of these CEOs, on average, would have been worth over $1.5 million twenty-five years later. You may not know all their names, but you will recognize their General Cinema, Ralston Purina, The Washington Post Company, Berkshire Hathaway, General Dynamics, Capital Cities Broadcasting, TCI, and Teledyne. In The Outsiders, you’ll learn the traits and methods-striking for their consistency and relentless rationality-that helped these unique leaders achieve such exceptional performance.Humble, unassuming, and often frugal, these “outsiders� shunned Wall Street and the press, and shied away from the hottest new management trends. Instead, they shared specific traits that put them and the companies they led on winning a laser-sharp focus on per share value as opposed to earnings or sales growth; an exceptional talent for allocating capital and human resources; and the belief that cash flow, not reported earnings, determines a company’s long-term value.Drawing on years of research and experience, Thorndike tells eye-opening stories, extracting lessons and revealing a compelling alternative model for anyone interested in leading a company or investing in one-and reaping extraordinary returns.]]> 274 William N. Thorndike Jr. 1422187586 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.41 2012 The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
author: William N. Thorndike Jr.
name: Michael
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2012
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The Broom of the System 8714063 The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new talent. At the center of this outlandishly funny, fiercely intelligent novel is the bewitching heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman. The year is 1990 and the place is a slightly altered Cleveland, Ohio. Lenore’s great-grandmother has disappeared with twenty-five other inmates of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home. Her beau, and boss, Rick Vigorous, is insanely jealous, and her cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, has suddenly started spouting a mixture of psycho-babble, Auden, and the King James Bible. Ingenious and entertaining, this debut from one of the most innovative writers of his generation brilliantly explores the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality.]]> 481 David Foster Wallace 1101153539 Michael 0 currently-reading 3.71 1987 The Broom of the System
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Michael
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell]]> 42764751
Bill Campbell played an instrumental role in the growth of several prominent companies, such as Google, Apple, and Intuit, fostering deep relationships with Silicon Valley visionaries, including Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt. In addition, this business genius mentored dozens of other important leaders on both coasts, from entrepreneurs to venture capitalists to educators to football players, leaving behind a legacy of growing companies, successful people, respect, friendship, and love after his death in 2016.

Leaders at Google for over a decade, Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle experienced firsthand how the man fondly known as Coach Bill built trusting relationships, fostered personal growth—even in those at the pinnacle of their careers—inspired courage, and identified and resolved simmering tensions that inevitably arise in fast-moving environments. To honor their mentor and inspire and teach future generations, they have codified his wisdom in this essential guide.

Based on interviews with over eighty people who knew and loved Bill Campbell, Trillion Dollar Coach explains the Coach’s principles and illustrates them with stories from the many great people and companies with which he worked. The result is a blueprint for forward-thinking business leaders and managers that will help them create higher performing and faster moving cultures, teams, and companies.]]>
238 Eric Schmidt 006283925X Michael 0 currently-reading 4.18 2019 Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell
author: Eric Schmidt
name: Michael
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
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<![CDATA[Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries]]> 41946693 WSJ bestseller * Translated into 18 languages* #1 Most Recommended Book of the year (Bloomberg annual survey of CEOs and entrepreneurs)* An Amazon, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Forbes, Inc., Newsweek, Strategy + Business, Tech Crunch, Washington Post Best Business Book of the year* Recommended by Bill Gates, Daniel Kahneman, Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Pink, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, Sid Mukherjee, Tim FerrissWhy do good teams kill great ideas?Loonshots reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs.Bahcall, a physicist and entrepreneur, shows why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing new ideas to rejecting them, just as flowing water will suddenly change into brittle ice. Mountains of print have been written about culture. Loonshots identifies the small shifts in structure that control this transition, the same way that temperature controls the change from water to ice.Using examples that range from the spread of fires in forests to the hunt for terrorists online, and stories of thieves and geniuses and kings, Bahcall shows how a new kind of science can help us become the initiators, rather than the victims, of innovative surprise.Over the past decade, researchers have been applying the tools and techniques of this new science—the science of phase transitions—to understand how birds flock, fish swim, brains work, people vote, diseases erupt, and ecosystems collapse. Loonshots is the first to apply this science to the spread of breakthrough ideas. Bahcall distills these insights into practical lessons creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries can use to change our world.Along the way, readers will learn how chickens saved millions of lives, what James Bond and Lipitor have in common, what the movie Imitation Game got wrong about WWII, and what really killed Pan Am, Polaroid, and the Qing Dynasty.“If The Da Vinci Code and Freakonomics had a child together, it would be called Loonshots.� —Senator Bob Kerrey]]> 351 Safi Bahcall 1250185971 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.16 2019 Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries
author: Safi Bahcall
name: Michael
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2019
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Shoe Dog 4030991
In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed $8,000 his first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of startups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all startups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognizable symbols in the world today.

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

Knight details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream—along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls the formative relationships with his first partners and employees, a ragtag group of misfits and seekers who became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything.]]>
402 Phil Knight 1501135937 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.63 2016 Shoe Dog
author: Phil Knight
name: Michael
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2016
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<![CDATA[Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court]]> 19689405 NATIONAL BESTSELLER



"I am just a common man who is true to his beliefs."--John Wooden





Evoking days gone by when coaches were respected as much for their off-court performances as for their success on the court, Wooden presents the timeless wisdom of legendary basketball coach John Wooden.





In honest and telling passages about virtually every aspect of life, Coach shares his personal philosophy on family, achievement, success, and excellence. Raised on a small farm in south-central Indiana, he offers lessons and wisdom learned throughout his career at UCLA, and life as a dedicated husband, father, and teacher.





These lessons, along with personal letters from Bill Walton, Denny Crum, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bob Costas, among others, have made Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections on and off the Court an inspirational classic.

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238 John Wooden Michael 0 currently-reading 4.50 1997 Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court
author: John Wooden
name: Michael
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1997
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<![CDATA[Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup]]> 38799469 The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of a multibillion-dollar startup, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end in the face of pressure and threats from the CEO and her lawyers. In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup "unicorn" promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at $9 billion, putting Holmes's worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn't work. For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. When Carreyrou, working at The Wall Street Journal, got a tip from a former Theranos employee and started asking questions, both Carreyrou and the Journal were threatened with lawsuits. Undaunted, the newspaper ran the first of dozens of Theranos articles in late 2015. By early 2017, the company's value was zero and Holmes faced potential legal action from the government and her investors. Here is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley.]]> 353 John Carreyrou Michael 0 currently-reading 4.55 2018 Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
author: John Carreyrou
name: Michael
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2018
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<![CDATA[Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think]]> 36185940 Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.

When asked simple questions about global trends�what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers.

In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse).

Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases.

It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most.

Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. ]]>
341 Hans Rosling 125012381X Michael 0 currently-reading 4.48 2018 Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
author: Hans Rosling
name: Michael
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2018
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<![CDATA[Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs]]> 40501533 * WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER *An insider's account of Apple's creative process during the golden years of Steve Jobs.Hundreds of millions of people use Apple products every day; several thousand work on Apple's campus in Cupertino, California; but only a handful sit at the drawing board. Creative Selection recounts the life of one of the few who worked behind the scenes, a highly-respected software engineer who worked in the final years of the Steve Jobs era—the Golden Age of Apple. Ken Kocienda offers an inside look at Apple’s creative process. For fifteen years, he was on the ground floor of the company as a specialist, directly responsible for experimenting with novel user interface concepts and writing powerful, easy-to-use software for products including the iPhone, the iPad, and the Safari web browser. His stories explain the symbiotic relationship between software and product development for those who have never dreamed of programming a computer, and reveal what it was like to work on the cutting edge of technology at one of the world's most admired companies.Kocienda shares moments of struggle and success, crisis and collaboration, illuminating each with lessons learned over his Apple career. He introduces the essential elements of innovation—inspiration, collaboration, craft, diligence, decisiveness, taste, and empathy—and uses these as a lens through which to understand productive work culture.An insider's tale of creativity and innovation at Apple, Creative Selection shows readers how a small group of people developed an evolutionary design model, and how they used this methodology to make groundbreaking and intuitive software which countless millions use every day.]]> 306 Ken Kocienda 1250194474 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.15 2018 Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs
author: Ken Kocienda
name: Michael
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2018
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<![CDATA[Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It]]> 29555865 A former international hostage negotiator for the FBI offers a new, field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations—whether in the boardroom or at home.

After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never SplitĚýthe Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss’s head, revealing the skills that helped him and his colleagues succeed where it mattered most: saving lives. In this practical guide, he shares the nine effective principles—counterintuitive tactics and strategies—you too can use to become more persuasive in both your professional and personal life.

Life is a series of negotiations you should be prepared for: buying a car, negotiating a salary, buying a home, renegotiating rent, deliberating with your partner. Taking emotional intelligence and intuition to the next level, Never Split the Difference gives you the competitive edge in any discussion.

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285 Chris Voss 0062407813 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.49 2016 Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It
author: Chris Voss
name: Michael
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2016
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<![CDATA[Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams]]> 36294636 �Why We Sleep is an important and fascinating book…Walker taught me a lot about this basic activity that every person on Earth needs. I suspect his book will do the same for you.� —Bill Gates

A New York Times bestseller and international sensation, this “stimulating and important book� (Financial Times) is a fascinating dive into the purpose and power of slumber.

With two appearances on CBS This Morning and Fresh Air's most popular interview of 2017, Matthew Walker has made abundantly clear that sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when it is absent. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remains more elusive.

Within the brain, sleep enriches a diversity of functions, including our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge, inspiring creativity.

In this “compelling and utterly convincing� (The Sunday Times) book, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker provides a revolutionary exploration of sleep, examining how it affects every aspect of our physical and mental well-being. Charting the most cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and marshalling his decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, regulate hormones, prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes, slow the effects of aging, and increase longevity. He also provides actionable steps towards getting a better night’s sleep every night.

Clear-eyed, fascinating, and accessible, Why We Sleep is a crucial and illuminating book. Written with the precision of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Sherwin Nuland, it is “recommended for night-table reading in the most pragmatic sense� (The New York Times Book Review).]]>
360 Matthew Walker 1501144332 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.44 2017 Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
author: Matthew Walker
name: Michael
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2017
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<![CDATA[The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future]]> 28114110 From one of our leading technology thinkers and writers, a guide through the twelve technological imperatives that will shape the next thirty years and transform our lives

Much of what will happen in the next thirty years is inevitable, driven by technological trends that are already in motion. In this fascinating, provocative new book, Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes in our lives—from virtual reality in the home to an on-demand economy to artificial intelligence embedded in everything we manufacture—can be understood as the result of a few long-term, accelerating forces. Kelly both describes these deep trends—flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, tracking, and questioning—and demonstrates how they overlap and are codependent on one another. These larger forces will completely revolutionize the way we buy, work, learn, and communicate with each other. By understanding and embracing them, says Kelly, it will be easier for us to remain on top of the coming wave of changes and to arrange our day-to-day relationships with technology in ways that bring forth maximum benefits. Kelly’s bright, hopeful book will be indispensable to anyone who seeks guidance on where their business, industry, or life is heading—what to invent, where to work, in what to invest, how to better reach customers, and what to begin to put into place—as this new world emerges.]]>
312 Kevin Kelly 0698183657 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.06 2016 The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future
author: Kevin Kelly
name: Michael
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2016
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<![CDATA[Brief Interviews With Hideous Men]]> 8192660 In this thought-provoking and playful short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence.Wallace's stories present a world where the bizarre and the banal are interwoven and where hideous men appear in many guises. Among the stories are 'The Depressed Person,' a dazzling and blackly humorous portrayal of a woman's mental state; 'Adult World,' which reveals a woman's agonized consideration of her confusing sexual relationship with her husband; and 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,' a dark, hilarious series of imagined interviews with men on the subject of their relations with women.Wallace delights in leftfield observation, mining the absurd, the surprising, and the illuminating from every situation. This collection will enthrall DFW fans, and provides a perfect introduction for new readers.]]> 300 David Foster Wallace 0316086894 Michael 0 currently-reading 3.75 1999 Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Michael
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business]]> 25441776 Discover the vital relationship that will take your company from "What's next?" to "We have liftoff!"

Visionaries have groundbreaking ideas. Integrators make those ideas a reality. This explosive combination is the key to getting everything you want out of your business. It worked for Disney. It worked for McDonald's. It worked for Ford. It can work for you.

From the author of the bestselling Traction, Rocket Fuel details the integral roles of the Visionary and Integrator and explains how an effective relationship between the two can help your business thrive. Offering advice to help Visionary-minded and Integrator-minded individuals find one another, Rocket Fuel also features assessments so you're able to determine whether you're a Visionary or an Integrator.

Without an Integrator, a Visionary is far less likely to succeed long-term, and realize the company's ultimate goals--likewise, with no Visionary, an Integrator can't rise to his or her full potential. When these two people come together to share their natural talents and innate skill sets, it's like rocket fuel--they have the power to reach new heights for virtually any company or organization.]]>
184 Gino Wickman 1941631169 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.28 2015 Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business
author: Gino Wickman
name: Michael
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
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<![CDATA[Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business]]> 18886376
Don't let common problems and frustrations run you and your business. Get a grip and gain control with the Entrepreneurial Operating System.

Inside Traction, you'll learn the secrets of strengthening the Six Key Components of your business. You'll discover simple yet powerful ways to run your company that will give you and your leadership team more focus, more growth, and more enjoyment.

Based on years of real-world implementation in over 100 companies, the Entrepreneurial Operating System is a practical method for achieving the business success you have always envisioned. Successful organizations are applying it every day to run profitable, frustration-free businesses -- and you can too.]]>
246 Gino Wickman Michael 0 currently-reading 4.16 2007 Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business
author: Gino Wickman
name: Michael
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments]]> 9003323
A collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner.]]>
378 David Foster Wallace Michael 0 currently-reading 4.08 1996 A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Michael
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Consider the Lobster and Other Essays]]> 8192659 This celebrated collection of essays from the author ofĚýInfinite JestĚýis "brilliantly entertaining...Consider the LobsterĚýproves once more why Wallace should be regarded as this generation's best comic writer" (Cleveland Plain Dealer).Ěý Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of John McCain's 2000 presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters."Wallace can do sad, funny, silly, heartbreaking, and absurd with equal ease; he can even do them all at once." --Michiko Kakutani,ĚýNew York Times]]> 505 David Foster Wallace Michael 4 4.18 2005 Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Michael
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence]]> 35881748 New York TimesĚýBest SellerHow will Artificial Intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology—and there’s nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who’s helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial. Ěý How can we grow our prosperity through automation without leaving people lacking income or purpose? What career advice should we give today’s kids? How can we make future AI systems more robust, so that they do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked? Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, replacing humans on the job market and perhaps altogether? Will AI help life flourish like never before or give us more power than we can handle? Ěý What sort of future do you want? This book empowers you to join what may be the most important conversation of our time. It doesn’t shy away from the full range of viewpoints or from the most controversial issues—from superintelligence to meaning, consciousness and the ultimate physical limits on life in the cosmos.]]> 364 Max Tegmark 1101946601 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.08 2017 Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
author: Max Tegmark
name: Michael
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2017
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<![CDATA[The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined]]> 11107244 Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year. The author of The New York Times bestseller The Stuff of Thought offers a controversial history of violence.

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, pogroms, gruesome punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened?

This groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic motives- the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away-and how changing circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail. Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we think about our society.]]>
802 Steven Pinker 0670022950 Michael 5 4.17 2010 The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
author: Steven Pinker
name: Michael
average rating: 4.17
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Sophie’s World 10959 An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here

One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.]]>
403 Jostein Gaarder 1857993284 Michael 0 to-read 3.94 1991 Sophie’s World
author: Jostein Gaarder
name: Michael
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1991
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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,� 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 Michael 0 to-read 4.22 1988 A Brief History of Time
author: Stephen Hawking
name: Michael
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1988
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<![CDATA[The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman]]> 10260
El placer de descubrir permite acceder al mundo personal, social y cientíco de Richard Feynman, por ejemplo, a sus aventuras mientras participó en el Proyecto Manhattan, cuando se divertía —y escandalizaba� descifrando las claves de cajas fuertes, o a cómo se inició, siendo un niño, en el estudio de la naturaleza (en el «placer de descubrir»), que terminaría ocupando toda su vida. Podemos, asimismo, conocer sus pioneras ideas sobre las computadoras del futuro, su opinión acerca del valor de la ciencia o la explicación, tan sencilla como profunda, que dio al desastre de la lanzadera espacial Challenger. Es este, sin duda, un libro tan fascinante como su autor.]]>
270 Richard P. Feynman Michael 0 to-read 4.26 1999 The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
author: Richard P. Feynman
name: Michael
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1999
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<![CDATA[A Short History of Nearly Everything]]> 21 544 Bill Bryson 076790818X Michael 5 4.21 2003 A Short History of Nearly Everything
author: Bill Bryson
name: Michael
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain]]> 1297985 400 Oliver Sacks Michael 4 3.95 2007 Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Michael
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2007
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done (Harperbusiness Essentials)]]> 48019 208 Peter F. Drucker 0060833459 Michael 0 to-read 4.07 1966 The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done (Harperbusiness Essentials)
author: Peter F. Drucker
name: Michael
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil]]> 359194
Renowned social psychologist and creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo explores the mechanisms that make good people do bad things, how moral people can be seduced into acting immorally, and what this says about the line separating good from evil.

The Lucifer Effect explains how—and the myriad reasons why—we are all susceptible to the lure of “the dark side.� Drawing on examples from history as well as his own trailblazing research, Zimbardo details how situational forces and group dynamics can work in concert to make monsters out of decent men and women.

Here, for the first time and in detail, Zimbardo tells the full story of the Stanford Prison Experiment, the landmark study in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into “guards� and “inmates� and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners.

By illuminating the psychological causes behind such disturbing metamorphoses, Zimbardo enables us to better understand a variety of harrowing phenomena, from corporate malfeasance to organized genocide to how once upstanding American soldiers came to abuse and torture Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. He replaces the long-held notion of the “bad apple� with that of the “bad barrel”—the idea that the social setting and the system contaminate the individual, rather than the other way around.

This is a book that dares to hold a mirror up to mankind, showing us that we might not be who we think we are. While forcing us to reexamine what we are capable of doing when caught up in the crucible of behavioral dynamics, though, Zimbardo also offers hope. We are capable of resisting evil, he argues, and can even teach ourselves to act heroically. Like Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, The Lucifer Effect is a shocking, engrossing study that will change the way we view human behavior.]]>
551 Philip G. Zimbardo 1400064112 Michael 3 3.91 2007 The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
author: Philip G. Zimbardo
name: Michael
average rating: 3.91
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<![CDATA[Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion]]> 28815
You'll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader—and how to defend yourself against them. Perfect for people in all walks of life, the principles of Influence will move you toward profound personal change and act as a driving force for your success.]]>
320 Robert B. Cialdini 006124189X Michael 5 4.21 1984 Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
author: Robert B. Cialdini
name: Michael
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1984
rating: 5
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<![CDATA[Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience]]> 66354 303 Mihály Csíkszentmihályi 0060920432 Michael 0 to-read 4.11 1990 Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
author: Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
name: Michael
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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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 Michael 5 4.17 2011 Thinking, Fast and Slow
author: Daniel Kahneman
name: Michael
average rating: 4.17
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<![CDATA[SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance]]> 6402364
Four years in the making, SuperFreakonomics asks not only the tough questions, but the unexpected ones: What's more dangerous, driving drunk or walking drunk? Why is chemotherapy prescribed so often if it's so ineffective? Can a sex change boost your salary?

SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as:

How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?
Why are doctors so bad at washing their hands?
How much good do car seats do?
What's the best way to catch a terrorist?
Did TV cause a rise in crime?
What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common?
Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness?
Can eating kangaroo save the planet?
Which adds more value: a pimp or a Realtor?

Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else, whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically. By examining how people respond to incentives, they show the world for what it really is � good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky.

Freakonomics has been imitated many times over � but only now, with SuperFreakonomics, has it met its match.]]>
270 Steven D. Levitt 0060889578 Michael 2 4.00 2009 SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
author: Steven D. Levitt
name: Michael
average rating: 4.00
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Proust Was a Neuroscientist 822367 242 Jonah Lehrer 0618620109 Michael 0 to-read 3.83 2007 Proust Was a Neuroscientist
author: Jonah Lehrer
name: Michael
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2007
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<![CDATA[The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More]]> 2574 226 Chris Anderson 1401302378 Michael 0 to-read 3.83 2006 The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
author: Chris Anderson
name: Michael
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2006
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<![CDATA[The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)]]> 324748
In this iconic bestseller, popular business blogger and bestselling author Seth Godin proves that winners are really just the best quitters. Godin shows that winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt—until they commit to beating the right Dip.

Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out fun…then gets really hard, and not much fun at all. You might be in a Dip—a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it’s really a Cul-de-Sac—a total dead end. What really sets superstars apart is the ability to tell the two apart.

Winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it. If you can beat the Dip to be the best, you’ll earn profits, glory, and long-term security.
Whether you’re an intern or a CEO, this fun little book will help you figure out if you’re in a Dip that’s worthy of your time, effort, and talents. The old saying is wrong—winners do quit, and quitters do win.]]>
80 Seth Godin 1591841666 Michael 0 to-read 3.78 2007 The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
author: Seth Godin
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The Wisdom of Crowds 68143 306 James Surowiecki 0385721706 Michael 4 3.82 2004 The Wisdom of Crowds
author: James Surowiecki
name: Michael
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales]]> 63697 243 Oliver Sacks Michael 4 4.08 1985 The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Michael
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1985
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking]]> 40102 The Tipping Point a classic, Blink changes the way you'll understand every decision you make. Never again will you think about thinking the same way.

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

In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing" - filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.]]>
296 Malcolm Gladwell 0316010669 Michael 4 3.97 2005 Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Michael
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Outliers: The Story of Success]]> 3228917 Learn what sets high achievers apart � from Bill Gates to the Beatles � in this #1 bestseller from "a singular talent" (New York Times Book Review).

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

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

Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.]]>
309 Malcolm Gladwell 0316017922 Michael 4 4.19 2008 Outliers: The Story of Success
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Michael
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2008
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<![CDATA[The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference]]> 2612 The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.]]> 301 Malcolm Gladwell 0316346624 Michael 4 4.01 2002 The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Michael
average rating: 4.01
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<![CDATA[Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything]]> 1202
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
(front flap)]]>
268 Steven D. Levitt 0061234001 Michael 3 4.01 2005 Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
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average rating: 4.01
book published: 2005
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Steve Jobs 11084145 630 Walter Isaacson 1451648537 Michael 4 4.15 2011 Steve Jobs
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Michael
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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<![CDATA[Just My Type: A Book About Fonts]]> 10909804 384 Simon Garfield 1592406521 Michael 0 to-read 3.94 2010 Just My Type: A Book About Fonts
author: Simon Garfield
name: Michael
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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