en-US Fri, 27 Sep 2019 08:44:44 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 25459906 The epic story of Jerusalem told through the lives of the men and women who created, ruled and inhabited it.

Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the prize of empires, the site of Judgement Day and the battlefield of today’s clash of civilizations. From King David to Barack Obama, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel-Palestine conflict, this is the epic history of 3,000 years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism and coexistence.

How did this small, remote town become the Holy City, the ‘centre of the worldâ€� and now the key to peace in the Middle East? In a gripping narrative, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city in its many incarnations, bringing every epoch and character blazingly to life. Jerusalem’s biography is told through the wars, love affairs and revelations of the men and women â€� kings, empresses, prophets, poets, saints, conquerors and whores â€� who created, destroyed, chronicled and believed in Jerusalem.

Drawing on new archives, current scholarship, his own family papers and a lifetime’s study, Montefiore illuminates the essence of sanctity and mysticism, identity and empire in a unique chronicle of the city that many believe will be the setting for the Apocalypse. This is how Jerusalem became Jerusalem, and the only city that exists twice â€� in heaven and on earth.]]> 768 Simon Sebag Montefiore 1780220251 Anjan 5 4.07 2011
author: Simon Sebag Montefiore
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2017/07/30
date added: 2019/09/27
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]]> 465365
He tried to write this book four times but was threatened or bribed each time to halt. The events of 9/11 - a direct result of the activities of EHMs in the 1970s - finally forced him to confront the role he played himself, and to reveal the truth to the rest of the world.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man has become a word-of-mouth bestseller in the US. It has been called the book that finally 'connects the dots, the book that best explains what is really going on in the world'.]]> 250 John Perkins 0091909104 Anjan 0 to-read 3.82 2004
author: John Perkins
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/08/23
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]]> 154126 In conjunction with the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund in New Delhi, Oxford proudly announces the reissue of Glimpses of World History and The Discovery of India, two famous works by Jawaharlal Nehru. One of modern day's most articulate statesmen, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote a on a wide variety of subjects. Describing himself as "a dabbler in many things," he committed his life not only to politics but also to nature and wild life, drama, poetry, history, and science, as well as many other fields. These two volumes help to illuminate the depth of his interests and knowledge and the skill and elegance with which he treated the written word!!

]]> 656 Jawaharlal Nehru 0143031031 Anjan 4 4.09 1946
author: Jawaharlal Nehru
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1946
rating: 4
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]]> 10406417 A magisterial account of the pains, the struggles, the humiliations, and the glories of the world's largest and least likely democracy, Ramachandra Guha's 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.

]]> 898 Ramachandra Guha 0330505548 Anjan 4 4.47 2007
author: Ramachandra Guha
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2007
rating: 4
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]]> 2223846 372 covey-stephen-r 1416502491 Anjan 4 4.10 1989
author: covey-stephen-r
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1989
rating: 4
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]]> 862403 In "The World Is Flat," Friedman at once shows "how and why globalization has now shifted into warp drive" (Robert Wright, Slate) and brilliantly demystifies the new flat world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, he explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; how governments and societies can, and must, adapt; and why terrorists want to stand in the way. More than ever, "The World Is Flat" is an essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.
(less)]]> 566 Thomas L. Friedman 0141022728 Anjan 4 3.58 2005
author: Thomas L. Friedman
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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date added: 2018/05/19
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]]> 13036196 504 Daniel Kahneman 1846146062 Anjan 4 4.27 2011
author: Daniel Kahneman
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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]]> 22466007 Poor Economics, Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two practical visionaries working toward ending world poverty, answer these questions from the ground. In a book the Wall Street Journal called “marvelous, rewarding,â€� the authors tell how the stress of living on less than 99 cents per day encourages the poor to make questionable decisions that feed—not fight—poverty. The result is a radical rethinking of the economics of poverty that offers a ringside view of the lives of the world’s poorest, and shows that creating a world without poverty begins with understanding the daily decisions facing the poor.]]> 464 Abhijit V. Banerjee 8184002807 Anjan 3 4.34 2011
author: Abhijit V. Banerjee
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2011
rating: 3
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]]> 12030438 The groundbreaking #1 New York Times bestseller that taught a generation how to transform their careers—now in a revised and updated edition   “A profound book about self-determination and self-realization.”—Senator Cory Booker  “The Startup of You is crammed with insights and strategies to help each of us create the work life we want.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project In this invaluable book, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Ben Casnocha show how to accelerate your career in today’s competitive world. The key is to manage your career as if it were a startup a living, breathing, growing startup of you.Why? Startups—and the entrepreneurs who run them—are nimble. They invest in themselves. They build their professional networks. They take intelligent risks. They make uncertainty and volatility work to their advantage.These are the very same skills professionals need to get ahead today.This book isn’t about cover letters or rĂ©sumĂ©s. Instead, you will learn the best practices of the most successful startups and how to apply these entrepreneurial strategies to your career. Whether you work for a giant multinational corporation, stitch together multiple gigs in a portfolio career, or are launching your own venture, you need to know how toâ€� adapt your career plans as pandemics rage and technologies upend industriesâ€� develop a competitive advantage so that you stand out from others at workâ€� strengthen your professional network by building powerful alliances and maintaining a diverse mix of relationshipsâ€� engineer serendipity that produces life-changing career opportunitiesâ€� take proactive risks to become more resilient to industry tsunamisâ€� tap your network for information and intelligence that help you make smarter decisions The career landscape has changed dramatically in the decade since Hoffman and Casnocha first published this guide. In an urgent update to the frameworks that have helped hundreds of thousands of people transform their careers, this new edition of The Startup of You will teach you how to achieve your boldest professional ambitions.]]> 252 Reid Hoffman 0307888924 Anjan 0 3.81 2012
author: Reid Hoffman
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2017/07/30
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]]> 6947702 496 Lynne Olson 1400067588 Anjan 4 4.21 2010
author: Lynne Olson
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2010
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/04/15
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]]> 13454654 608 William Dalrymple 1408818302 Anjan 5 4.33 2013
author: William Dalrymple
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2013
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/04/15
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]]> 8491860
In Gaza in Crisis, Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé, two of the issue's most insightful and prominent critical voices, survey the fallout from Israel's conduct in Gaza and place it into the context of Israel's longstanding occupation of Palestine.]]> 240 Noam Chomsky 1608460975 Anjan 0 to-read 4.17 2010
author: Noam Chomsky
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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]]> 23129811 On Palestine is the sequel to their acclaimed book Gaza in Crisis.]]> 220 Noam Chomsky 1608464709 Anjan 0 to-read 4.28 2015
author: Noam Chomsky
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> 5263037 From one of the world's foremost scholars on Hinduism, a vivid reinterpretation of its history

An engrossing and definitive narrative account of history and myth that offers a new way of understanding one of the world's oldest major religions, The Hindus elucidates the relationship between recorded history and imaginary worlds.

Hinduism does not lend itself easily to a strictly chronological account: many of its central texts cannot be reliably dated even within a century; its central tenets—karma, dharma, to name just two—arise at particular moments in Indian history and differ in each era, between genders, and caste to caste; and what is shared among Hindus is overwhelmingly outnumbered by the things that are unique to one group or another. Yet the greatness of Hinduism—its vitality, its earthiness, its vividness—lies precisely in many of those idiosyncratic qualities that continue to inspire debate today.

Wendy Doniger is one of the foremost scholars of Hinduism in the world. With her inimitable insight and expertise Doniger illuminates those moments within the tradition that resist forces that would standardize or establish a canon. Without reversing or misrepresenting the historical hierarchies, she reveals how Sanskrit and vernacular sources are rich in knowledge of and compassion toward women and lower castes; how they debate tensions surrounding religion, violence, and tolerance; and how animals are the key to important shifts in attitudes toward different social classes.

The Hindus brings a fascinating multiplicity of actors and stories to the stage to show how brilliant and creative thinkers—many of them far removed from Brahmin authors of Sanskrit texts—have kept Hinduism alive in ways that other scholars have not fully explored. In this unique and authoritative account, debates about Hindu traditions become platforms from which to consider the ironies, and overlooked epiphanies, of history.]]> 800 Wendy Doniger 1594202052 Anjan 0 currently-reading 3.64 2009
author: Wendy Doniger
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2014/02/18
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]]> 18588024
Over the past four years, Alex Ferguson has been reflecting on and jotting down the highlights of his extraordinary career, and here he reveals his amazing story as it unfolded, from his very early days in the tough shipyard areas of Govan. Sir Alex announced his retirement as manager of Manchester United after 27 years in the role.

He has gone out in a blaze of glory, with United winning the Premier League for the 13th time, and he is widely considered to be the greatest manager in the history of British soccer. Over the last quarter of a century there have been seismic changes at Manchester United, with the only constant element the quality of the manager's league-winning squad and United's run of success, which included winning the Champions League for a second time in 2008. Sir Alex created a purposeful, but welcoming, and much envied culture at the club which has lasted the test of time.

He discusses managing these seismic changes, and the growth of Man U as a global sports power. He shares the farewells to Roy Keane and David Beckham, describes the process of building a new Champions League side around Ronaldo and Rooney, and ruminates upon the great rivalries with Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, and City. He also shares his thoughts on the psychology of management, and his passions and interests outside the game.]]> 416 Alex Ferguson 0340919396 Anjan 0 currently-reading 3.92 2013
author: Alex Ferguson
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/11/27
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 13600813 ©2008 Arthur Herman; (P)2008 Recorded Books]]> Arthur Herman Anjan 0 currently-reading 4.00 2008
author: Arthur Herman
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/02/15
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 2627920 896 Robert H. Ferrell 0393093093 Anjan 4 4.27 1969
author: Robert H. Ferrell
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1969
rating: 4
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]]> 4746403 1062 Second Vatican Council 0891290184 Anjan 2 4.15 1965
author: Second Vatican Council
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1965
rating: 2
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]]> 164323 The Google Story takes you deep inside the company's wild ride from an idea that struggled for funding in 1998 to a firm that rakes in billions in profits, making Brin and Page the wealthiest young men in America. Based on scrupulous research and extraordinary access to Google, this fast-moving narrative reveals how an unorthodox management style and culture of innovation enabled a search engine to shake up Madison Avenue and Wall Street, scoop up YouTube, and battle Microsoft at every turn. Not afraid of controversy, Google is expanding in Communist China and quietly working on a searchable genetic database, initiatives that test the founders' guiding mantra: DON'T BE EVIL.]]> 336 David A. Vise 0553383663 Anjan 3 3.89 2005
author: David A. Vise
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2005
rating: 3
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]]> 211099 "Oh, screw it, let's do it."

That's the philosophy that has allowed Richard Branson, in slightly more than twenty-five years, to spawn so many successful ventures. From the airline business (Virgin Atlantic Airways), to music (Virgin Records and V2), to cola (Virgin Cola), to retail (Virgin Megastores), and nearly a hundred others, ranging from financial services to bridal wear, Branson has a track record second to none.

Losing My Virginity is the unusual, frequently outrageous autobiography of one of the great business geniuses of our time. When Richard Branson started his first business, he and his friends decided that "since we're complete virgins at business, let's call it just that: Virgin." Since then, Branson has written his own "rules" for success, creating a group of companies with a global presence, but no central headquarters, no management hierarchy, and minimal bureaucracy.

Many of Richard Branson's companies--airlines, retailing, and cola are good examples--were started in the face of entrenched competition. The experts said, "Don't do it." But Branson found golden opportunities in markets in which customers have been ripped off or underserved, where confusion reigns, and the competition is complacent.
And in this stressed-out, overworked age, Richard Branson gives us a new model: a dynamic, hardworking, successful entrepreneur who lives life to the fullest. Family, friends, fun, and adventure are equally important as business in Branson's life. Losing My Virginity is a portrait of a productive, sane, balanced life, filled with rich and colorful stories:

Crash-landing his hot-air balloon in the Algerian desert, yet remaining determined to have another go at being the first to circle the globe

Signing the Sex Pistols, Janet Jackson, the Rolling Stones, Boy George, and Phil Collins

Fighting back when British Airways took on Virgin Atlantic and successfully suing this pillar of the British business establishment

Swimming two miles to safety during a violent storm off the coast of Mexico

Selling Virgin Records to save Virgin Atlantic

Staging a rescue flight into Baghdad before the start of the Gulf War . . .

And much more. Losing My Virginity is the ultimate tale of personal and business survival from a man who combines the business prowess of Bill Gates and the promotional instincts of P. T. Barnum.]]> 416 Richard Branson 0812932293 Anjan 3 3.98 1998
author: Richard Branson
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1998
rating: 3
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]]> 2211931 The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century is the groundbreaking history of a family and its fortune. It chronicles a young illiterate Yemeni bricklayer, Mohamed Bin Laden, who went to the new, oil-rich country of Saudi Arabia and quickly became a vital figure in its development, building great mosques and highways and making himself and many of his children millionaires. It is also a story of the Saudi royal family, whom the Bin Ladens served loyally and without whose capricious favor they would have been nothing. And it is a story of tensions and contradictions in a country founded on extreme religious purity, which then became awash in oil money and dazzled by the temptations of the West. In only two generations the Bin Ladens moved from a famine-stricken desert canyon to luxury jets, yachts, and private compounds around the world, even going into business with Hollywood celebrities. These religious and cultural gyrations resulted in everything from enthusiasm for America—exemplified by Osama’s free-living pilot brother Salem—to an overwhelming determination to destroy it.

The Bin Ladens is a meticulously researched, colorful, shocking, entertaining, and disturbing narrative of global integration and its limitations. It encapsulates the unsettling contradictions of globalization in the story of a single family who has used money, mobility, and technology to dramatically varied ends.]]> 671 Steve Coll 1594201641 Anjan 4 4.01 2008
author: Steve Coll
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2008
rating: 4
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]]> 2258833
Among the British and Churchillian blunders

� The secret decision of a tiny cabal in the inner Cabinet in 1906 to take Britain straight to war against Germany, should she invade France
� The vengeful Treaty of Versailles that muti- lated Germany, leaving her bitter, betrayed, and receptive to the appeal of Adolf Hitler
â€� Britain’s capitulation, at Churchill’s urging, to American pressure to sever the Anglo- Japanese alliance, insulting and isolating Japan, pushing her onto the path of militarism and conquest
� The 1935 sanctions that drove Italy straight into the Axis with Hitler
â€� The greatest blunder in British the unsolicited war guarantee to Poland of March 1939—that guaranteed the Second World War
â€� Churchill’s astonishing blindness to Stalin’s true ambitions.

Certain to create controversy and spirited argument, Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary Warâ€� is a grand and bold insight into the historic failures of judgment that ended centuries of European rule and guaranteed a future no one who lived in that vanished world could ever have envisioned.]]> 544 Patrick J. Buchanan 030740515X Anjan 4 4.17 2008
author: Patrick J. Buchanan
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2008
rating: 4
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]]> 109234 304 Shashi Tharoor 1559707372 Anjan 3 3.85 2003
author: Shashi Tharoor
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2003
rating: 3
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]]> 9777
Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family—their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts).

When their English cousin, Sophie Mol, and her mother, Margaret Kochamma, arrive on a Christmas visit, Esthappen and Rahel learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river "graygreen." With fish in it. With the sky and trees in it. And at night, the broken yellow moon in it.

The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it.

The God of Small Things takes on the Big Themes—Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite Joy. Here is a writer who dares to break the rules. To dislocate received rhythms and create the language she requires, a language that is at once classical and unprecedented. Arundhati Roy has given us a book that is anchored to anguish, but fueled by wit and magic.]]> 321 Arundhati Roy 0679457313 Anjan 3 3.97 1997
author: Arundhati Roy
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1997
rating: 3
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]]> 7518289
In little more than half a decade, Facebook has gone from a dorm-room novelty to a company with 500 million users. It is one of the fastest growing companies in history, an essential part of the social life not only of teenagers but hundreds of millions of adults worldwide. As Facebook spreads around the globe, it creates surprising effects—even becoming instrumental in political protests from Colombia to Iran.

Veteran technology reporter David Kirkpatrick had the full cooperation of Facebook’s key executives in researching this fascinating history of the company and its impact on our lives. Kirkpatrick tells us how Facebook was created, why it has flourished, and where it is going next. He chronicles its successes and missteps, and gives readers the most complete assessment anywhere of founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the central figure in the company’s remarkable ascent. This is the Facebook story that can be found nowhere else.

How did a nineteen-year-old Harvard student create a company that has transformed the Internet and how did he grow it to its current enormous size? Kirkpatrick shows how Zuckerberg steadfastly refused to compromise his vision, insistently focusing on growth over profits and preaching that Facebook must dominate (his word) communication on the Internet. In the process, he and a small group of key executives have created a company that has changed social life in the United States and elsewhere, a company that has become a ubiquitous presence in marketing, altering politics, business, and even our sense of our own identity. This is the Facebook Effect.]]> 384 David Kirkpatrick 1439102112 Anjan 3 3.85 2010
author: David Kirkpatrick
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2010
rating: 3
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]]> 320 417 Gabriel GarcĂ­a MĂĄrquez Anjan 3 4.10 1967
author: Gabriel GarcĂ­a MĂĄrquez
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 3
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]]> 169487 Your life has a root core that, once understood, unlocks a powerful force to create your life the way it was meant to be, the way you want and need it to be. Key questions and an amazingly clear "map" are now at your fingertips to begin your journey to "Live by Design." These are questions that, with the help of this book, you can answer and bring into action-oriented focus:
What are the ten most defining moments of your life?
What are the seven most critical choices you have made to put you on your current path?
Who are the five most pivotal people in your world and how have they shaped you?

Identifying and working with these key elements are at the heart of Dr. Phillip C. McGraw's latest work, Self Matters, and soon they will be at the heart of your own new work: you.
Through his books, McGraw has changed the lives of millions. In introducing the world to his matter-of-fact, tell-it-like-it-is philosophy of life, Dr. Phil, as he is known to his legions of fans, has put an end to the "everyone's a victim" attitude that had taken hold of our culture. Published in over twenty-five countries, and with millions of books sold, his two number one bestsellers, Life Strategies and Relationship Rescue, forced readers to take a serious look at the excuses they had so long been clinging to as to why they were not happy, not successful, and not enjoying their one chance at living.
Now, Dr. Phil takes those lessons a great leap further and explores one of the most challenging questions facing us all: When you look in the mirror, who is truly hiding beneath that face? Instead of taking a surface look at the way we live our lives, Dr. Phil demystifies how your self-concept came to be and gives a nuts-and-bolts approach to creating a new plan for living and, in turn, for discovering the real you.
In this groundbreaking work, Dr. Phil challenges you to find your "authentic self" -- that person you once were before life took its toll. It is you at your greatest, most fulfilled, most real moment. It is the person you have always wanted to be, but were too distracted, busy, or scared to become. Instead, you have created a "fictional self" -- taking on the identity of who you believe you are supposed be, the person people tell you you are. The incongruence between these two selves is what leads you to feel that your life is incomplete, unbalanced, and altogether more difficult than it really should be.
The good news is it no longer needs to be that way. By using the plan set forth in Self Matters, Dr. Phil helps you to demystify your self-concept and learn how to reclaim your authentic self. In evaluating your life by only the facts, you can learn to think beyond the excuses and fears that have masked the person you have always wanted to be.
Self Matters is one of the most forward-thinking works on self-concept and self-esteem ever published. For the first time, an author tells it how it is and, in the process, teaches us all how to live the lives we have always wanted but prevented ourselves from living. We get only one chance in this world, and now, Dr. Phil shows all how to make the most of it.]]> 318 Phillip C. McGraw 074322423X Anjan 4 3.67 2001
author: Phillip C. McGraw
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2001
rating: 4
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]]> 5375814
In a riveting narrative, The Inheritance describes the huge costs of distraction and lost opportunities at home and abroad as Iraq soaked up manpower, money, and intelligence capabilities. The 2008 market collapse further undermined American leadership, leaving the new president with a set of challenges unparalleled since Franklin D. Roosevelt entered the Oval Office.

Sanger takes readers into the White House Situation Room to reveal how Washington penetrated Tehran’s nuclear secrets, leading President Bush, in his last year, to secretly step up covert actions in a desperate effort to delay an Iranian bomb. Meanwhile, his intelligence chiefs made repeated secret missions to Pakistan as they tried to stem a growing insurgency and cope with an ally who was also aiding the enemy–while receiving billions in American military aid. Now the new president faces critical Is it better to learn to live with a nuclear Iran or risk overt or covert confrontation? Is it worth sending U.S. forces deep into Pakistani territory at the risk of undermining an unstable Pakistani government sitting on a nuclear arsenal? It is a race against time and against a new effort by Islamic extremists–never before disclosed–to quietly infiltrate Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.

“Bush wrote a lot of checks,â€� one senior intelligence official told Sanger, “that the next president is going to have to cash.â€�

The Inheritance takes readers to Afghanistan, where Bush never delivered on his promises for a Marshall Plan to rebuild the country, paving the way for the Taliban’s return. It examines the chilling calculus of North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, who built actual weapons of mass destruction in the same months that the Bush administration pursued phantoms in Iraq, then sold his nuclear technology in the Middle East in an operation the American intelligence apparatus missed. And it explores how China became one of the real winners of the Iraq war, using the past eight years to expand its influence in Asia, and lock up oil supplies in Africa while Washington was bogged down in the Middle East. Yet Sanger, a former foreign correspondent in Asia, sees enormous potential for the next administration to forge a partnership with Beijing on energy and the environment.

At once a secret history of our foreign policy misadventures and a lucid explanation of the opportunities they create, The Inheritance is vital reading for anyone trying to understand the extraordinary challenges that lie ahead.]]> 498 David E. Sanger 0307407926 Anjan 4 3.86 2009
author: David E. Sanger
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2009
rating: 4
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]]> 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 Anjan 3 3.97 2005
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 3
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]]> 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 Anjan 3 4.01 2005
author: Steven D. Levitt
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2005
rating: 3
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]]> 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 Anjan 3 4.01 2000
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2000
rating: 3
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]]> 6411961
Washington DC: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned at the last minute to deliver an evening lecture in the Capitol Building. Within moments of his arrival, however, a disturbing object - gruesomely encoded with five symbols - is discovered at the epicentre of the Rotunda. It is, he recognises, an ancient invitation, meant to beckon its recipient towards a long-lost world of hidden esoteric wisdom.

When Langdon's revered mentor, Peter Solomon - philanthropist and prominent mason - is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes that his only hope of saving his friend's life is to accept this mysterious summons and follow wherever it leads him.

Langdon finds himself quickly swept behind the facade of America's most historic city into the unseen chambers, temples and tunnels which exist there. All that was familiar is transformed into a shadowy, clandestine world of an artfully concealed past in which Masonic secrets and never-before-seen revelations seem to be leading him to a single impossible and inconceivable truth.

A brilliantly composed tapestry of veiled histories, arcane icons and enigmatic codes, The Lost Symbol is an intelligent, lightning-paced thriller that offers surprises at every turn. For, as Robert Langdon will discover, there is nothing more extraordinary or shocking than the secret which hides in plain sight...]]> 509 Dan Brown 0385504225 Anjan 4 3.75 2009
author: Dan Brown
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2009
rating: 4
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]]> 960
A devastating new weapon of destruction.
When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol -- seared into the chest of a murdered physicist -- he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati...the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy -- the Catholic Church.

Langdon's worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the Vatican's holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.
Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair...a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.

An explosive international thriller, Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war.]]> 736 Dan Brown 1416524797 Anjan 4 3.95 2000
author: Dan Brown
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2000
rating: 4
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]]> 77203 371 Khaled Hosseini 159463193X Anjan 4 4.34 2003
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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]]> 11084145 630 Walter Isaacson 1451648537 Anjan 4 4.15 2011
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Anjan
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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]]> 13637470
Dawood Ibrahim was initiated into crime as a pawn in the hands of the Mumbai police and went on to wipe out the competition and eventually became the Mumbai police’s own nemesis.The narrative encompasses several milestones in the history of crime in India, from the rise of the Pathans, formation of the Dawood gang, the first ever supari, mafia’s nefarious role in Bollywood, Dawood’s move to Karachi, and Pakistan’s subsequent alleged role in sheltering one of the most wanted persons in the world.

This story is primarily about how a boy from Dongri became a don in Dubai, and captures his bravado, focus, ambition, and lust for power in a gripping narrative. The meticulously researched book provides an in-depth and comprehensive account of the mafia’s games of supremacy and internecine warfare.]]> 378 S. Hussain Zaidi 8174368949 Anjan 2 3.93 2012
author: S. Hussain Zaidi
name: Anjan
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2012
rating: 2
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