Michael's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 10 Sep 2026 15:06:07 -0700 60 Michael's bookshelf: all 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World]]> 60058350 “As David Robson makes plain in this compelling book, the way we think about the world can profoundly shape how we navigate it. Based in science and packed with smart advice, The Expectation Effect will expand your mind—and maybe even extend your life.”
—Daniel Pink, New York Times bestselling author of When, Drive, and To Sell Is Human

A journey through the cutting-edge science of how our mindset shapes every facet of our lives, revealing how your brain holds the keys to unlocking a better you

What you believe can make it so.

You’ve heard of the placebo effect and how sugar pills can accelerate healing. But did you know that sham heart surgeries often work just as well as placing real stents? Or that people who think they’re particularly prone to cardiovascular disease are four times as likely to die from cardiac arrest? Such is the power and deadly importance of the expectation effect—how what we think will happen changes what does happen.

Melding neuroscience with narrative, science journalist David Robson takes readers on a deep dive into the many life zones the expectation effect permeates. We see how people who believe stress is beneficial become more creative when placed under strain. We see how associating aging with wisdom can add seven plus years to your life. People say seeing is believing but, over and over, Robson proves that the converse is believing is seeing.

The Expectation Effect is not woo-woo. You cannot think your way into a pile of money or out of a cancer diagnosis. But just because magical thinking is nonsense doesn’t mean rational magic doesn’t exist. Pointing to accepted psychology and objective physiology, Robson gives us the practical takeaways we need to improve our fitness, productivity, intelligence, and happiness. Any reader who wants to take their fate into their own hands need only pick up this book.]]> 323 David Robson 1250827647 Michael 0 4.32 2022 The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World
author: David Robson
name: Michael
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Stories from a Moron: Real Stories Rejected by Real Magazines]]> 19936034 - Plumpers Magazine

"As a word of advice, it always helps for writers to be familiar with the publications they submit material to."
- Fencers Quarterly Magazin e

Ed writes short stories. He's prolific. And desperate to get published. But he sends his stories to the wrong magazines. As for the magazines? Well, they don't mind telling him

"Dear I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry..."

"Dear Thank you for your recent submission to Steamboat Magazine ; it was wonderful to hear how much our magazine has touched you..."

"Dear We do not publish stories about individuals like Conugal Cal, or about underwear-no matter how often references are made to fencing."

"Dear Mr. Thank you for providing the editors with an opportunity to review your manuscript, 'Luau Lester'..."

"Dear Mr. Thank you for the opportunity to review your article, 'My Car Ride with Daddy,' for possible publication in Mushing ..."

With this book, Ed Broth finally sees his work published. His "Stories of Hope & Inspiration" and his "Stories of Meaning & Sacrament" plus his passionate pitches to place his writing in our nation's premier publications-from Pest Control Magazine to Arthritis Today -are all to be found in the book you hold in your hands.

Some might have advised Ed not to send his story "I Love Dogs" to I Love Cats Magazine or to stop submitting revised stories to editors who have already turned them down. But, well, that's just not the way Ed's mind works. Studded like a rich cranberry strudel with nuggets of genius -from cartoons and advertisements to Ed's newspaper articles from across the country - Stories From a Moron is an addictive journey into the mind of a great talent.]]> 252 Ed Broth Michael 0 currently-reading 2.73 2005 Stories from a Moron: Real Stories Rejected by Real Magazines
author: Ed Broth
name: Michael
average rating: 2.73
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Reality Dysfunction (Night's Dawn, #1)]]> 11281977
In AD 2600 the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems. And throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace. A true golden age is within our grasp.

But now something has gone catastrophically wrong. On a primitive colony planet a renegade criminal's chance encounter with an utterly alien entity unleashes the most primal of all our fears. An extinct race which inhabited the galaxy aeons ago called it "The Reality Dysfunction." It is the nightmare which has prowled beside us since the beginning of history.

THE REALITY DYSFUNCTION is a modern classic of science fiction, an extraordinary feat of storytelling on a truly epic scale.]]> 1121 Peter F. Hamilton Michael 0 currently-reading 4.11 1996 The Reality Dysfunction (Night's Dawn, #1)
author: Peter F. Hamilton
name: Michael
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/09/01
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]]> This Is Me: A Reckoning 246764742 Heroes and Nashville star Hayden Panettiere reclaims her story in a remarkably candid memoir.

Hayden Panettiere’s career in entertainment began before she could talk. From her first gig as a Michelin baby to roles in cult classics like Remember the Titans and Raising Helen, as well as popular soap operas Guiding Light and One Life to Live, Hayden built an impressive resume by the time she entered middle school. Throughout the early 2000s, she starred in millennial favorites like Racing Stripes, Heroes, and Scream 4 & VI and earned two Golden Globe nominations for her starring role of Juliette Barnes in Nashville. The squeaky-clean face of Neutrogena, she was Hollywood’s girl next door and subjected to all the fame, attention, and expectations that came with it. In an era of relentless paparazzi with an appetite for celebrity breakdowns, naysayers were certain this young starlet would crash and burn. Not one to disappoint, she did.

In this irreverent, intimate, and inspiring memoir, Hayden holds nothing back. What started as a fun job for a child took a decidedly darker turn as she came of age. She exposes the pressure and exploitation young stars face before they’re old enough to know themselves, and how easy it is for them to lose control of their own narrative and, ultimately, their lives. Hayden was the target of brutal tabloid headlines picking apart her body, and she performed storylines onscreen that mirrored her real-life trauma. She suffered post-partum depression, addiction and recovery, domestic abuse, and the loss of her beloved little brother. Despite everything, Hayden managed to take these experiences, which she calls “lifequakes,” and emerge from them stronger, no longer afraid to use her voice or show her true self. She’s played the part of a misfit hero, a superstar, a survivor, a cheerleader, and an all-American fresh face. In This Is Me: A Reckoning, Hayden stars in her most heart-wrenching and unforgettable role herself. This is her story, on her terms.]]> 315 Hayden Panettiere 1538773449 Michael 0 4.35 2026 This Is Me: A Reckoning
author: Hayden Panettiere
name: Michael
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Conclave 1559: Ippolito d'Este and the Papal Election of 1559]]> 60294051 'A fascinating narrative of the intermingling of secular and religious power' New Statesman

'A highly enjoyable and thrilling read... Hollingsworth has peeled back the veil of secrecy surrounding papal conclaves' History Today

'Full of lively detail and colour' Literary Review

August 1559. As the long hot Italian summer draws to its close, so does the life of a rigidly orthodox and profoundly unpopular pope. The papacy of Paul IV has seen the establishing of the Roman Inquisition and the Index of Prohibited Books, an unbending refusal to open dialogue with Protestants, and the ghettoization of Rome's Jews. On 5 September 1559, as the great doors of the Vatican's Sala Regia are ceremonially locked, the future of the Catholic Church hangs in the balance.

Mary Hollingsworth offers a compelling and sedulously crafted reconstruction of the longest and most taxing of sixteenth-century papal elections. Its crisscrossing fault lines divided not only moderates from conservatives, but also the adherents of three national 'factions' with mutually incompatible interests. France and Spain were both looking to extend their power in Italy and beyond and had very different ideas of who the new pope should be – as did the Italian cardinals. Drawing on the detailed account books left by Ippolito d'Este, one of the participating cardinals, Conclave 1559 provides remarkable insights into the daily lives and concerns of the forty-seven men locked up for some four months in the Vatican.]]> 327 Mary Hollingsworth Michael 0 4.00 2013 Conclave 1559: Ippolito d'Este and the Papal Election of 1559
author: Mary Hollingsworth
name: Michael
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2026/08/23
date added: 2026/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival]]> 20971584 The Lost City of Z and Skeleton in the Zahara, Astoria is the thrilling, true-adventure tale of the 1810 Astor Expedition, an epic, now forgotten, three-year journey to forge an American empire on the Pacific Coast. Pegter Stark offers a harrowing saga in which a band of explorers battled nature, starvation, and madness to establish the first American settlement in the Pacific Northwest and opened up what would become the Oregon trail, permanently altering the nation's landscape and its global standing.

Six years after Lewis and Clark's began their journey to the Pacific Northwest, two of the Eastern establishment's leading figures, John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson, turned their sights to founding a colony akin to Jamestown on the West Coast and transforming the nation into a Pacific trading power. Author and correspondent for Outside magazine Peter Stark recreates this pivotal moment in American history for the first time for modern readers, drawing on original source material to tell the amazing true story of the Astor Expedition.

Unfolding over the course of three years, from 1810 to 1813, Astoria is a tale of high adventure and incredible hardship in the wilderness and at sea. Of the more than one hundred-forty members of the two advance parties that reached the West Coast—one crossing the Rockies, the other rounding Cape Horn—nearly half perished by violence. Others went mad. Within one year, the expedition successfully established Fort Astoria, a trading post on the Columbia River. Though the colony would be short-lived, it opened provincial American eyes to the potential of the Western coast and its founders helped blaze the Oregon Trail.]]> 403 Peter Stark 006221831X Michael 0 4.18 2014 Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival
author: Peter Stark
name: Michael
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2026/08/19
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]]> All the President's Men 59234942 In the most devastating political detective story of the century, two Washington Post reporters, whose brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation smashed the Watergate scandal wide open, tell the behind-the-scenes drama the way it really happened.
Beginning with the story of a simple burglary at Democratic headquarters and then continuing with headline after headline, Bernstein and Woodward kept the tale of conspiracy and the trail of dirty tricks coming -- delivering the stunning revelations and pieces in the Watergate puzzle that brought about Nixon's scandalous downfall. Their explosive reports won a Pulitzer Prize for The Washington Post and toppled the President. This is the book that changed America.]]> 371 Carl Bernstein Michael 0 4.49 1974 All the President's Men
author: Carl Bernstein
name: Michael
average rating: 4.49
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at: 2026/08/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Jimmy Breslin: The Man Who Told the Truth]]> 209569441 “Do not. Confuse me. With. The facts. I tell the truth.”

—Jimmy Breslin



The first-ever biography of America’s greatest crime reporter


In a newspaper career spanning decades, Jimmy Breslin covered the stories that he knew mattered the human stories beyond the front page. From the JFK assassination, to the Son of Sam killings, mafia heists, the Crown Heights riots, and the Occupy movement, Breslin’s influential columns captured the lifebeat of the second half of the 20th century. A quintessential New Yorker, Breslin rubbed shoulders with world leaders and neighborhood arsonists, profiled JFK’s gravedigger, and elicited letters from the Son of Sam killer during his reign of terror, all recounted in columns that were personal, blunt, and the truth—at least Jimmy’s version of it.



Jimmy The Man Who Told the Truth is the first biography of the legendary writer, vividly portrayed by Richard Esposito, a former colleague of the Big Man. From Breslin’s humble beginnings as a copy boy, to winning the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, the writer’s life was as fascinating as any of his subjects. With the full cooperation of Breslin’s estate, and interviews with countless of Breslin’s former coworkers, friends, and enemies, Esposito has crafted a meticulous and revealing portrait of a complex man who bared his soul to the world in column inches.]]> 423 Richard Esposito 1613165781 Michael 0 4.42 Jimmy Breslin: The Man Who Told the Truth
author: Richard Esposito
name: Michael
average rating: 4.42
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]]> Joan of Arc: A History 24423805
Helen Castor tells afresh the gripping story of the peasant girl from Domremy who hears voices from God, leads the French army to victory, is burned at the stake for heresy, and eventually becomes a saint. But unlike the traditional narrative, a story already shaped by the knowledge of what Joan would become and told in hindsight, Castor’s Joan of A History takes us back to fifteenth century France and tells the story forwards. Instead of an icon, she gives us a living, breathing woman confronting the challenges of faith and doubt, a roaring girl who, in fighting the English, was also taking sides in a bloody civil war. We meet this extraordinary girl amid the tumultuous events of her extraordinary world where no one—not Joan herself, nor the people around her—princes, bishops, soldiers, or peasants—knew what would happen next.

Adding complexity, depth, and fresh insight into Joan’s life, and placing her actions in the context of the larger political and religious conflicts of fifteenth century France, Joan of A History is history at its finest and a surprising new portrait of this remarkable woman.

Joan of A History features an 8-page color insert.]]> 352 Helen Castor 0062384414 Michael 0 3.90 2014 Joan of Arc: A History
author: Helen Castor
name: Michael
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2026/07/29
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]]> <![CDATA[A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century]]> 57131890 1018 Barbara W. Tuchman Michael 0 4.37 1978 A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
author: Barbara W. Tuchman
name: Michael
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at: 2026/07/23
date added: 2026/07/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Three Roads Back: How Emerson, Thoreau, and William James Responded to the Greatest Losses of Their Lives]]> 62683900 From their acclaimed biographer, a final, powerful book about how Emerson, Thoreau, and William James forged resilience from devastating loss, changing the course of American thought

In Three Roads Back, Robert Richardson, the author of magisterial biographies of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James, tells the connected stories of how these foundational American writers and thinkers dealt with personal tragedies early in their careers. For Emerson, it was the death of his young wife and, eleven years later, his five-year-old son; for Thoreau, it was the death of his brother; and for James, it was the death of his beloved cousin Minnie Temple. Filled with rich biographical detail and unforgettable passages from the journals and letters of Emerson, Thoreau, and James, these vivid and moving stories of loss and hard-fought resilience show how the writers’ responses to these deaths helped spur them on to their greatest work, influencing the birth and course of American literature and philosophy.

In reaction to his traumatic loss, Emerson lost his Unitarian faith and found solace in nature. Thoreau, too, leaned on nature and its regenerative power, discovering that “death is the law of new life,” an insight that would find expression in Walden. And James, following a period of panic and despair, experienced a redemptive conversion and new ideas that would drive his work as a psychologist and philosopher. As Richardson shows, all three emerged from their grief with a new way of seeing, one shaped by a belief in what Emerson called “the deep remedial force that underlies all facts.”

An inspiring book about resilience and the new growth and creativity that can stem from devastating loss, Three Roads Back is also an extraordinary account of the hidden wellsprings of American thought.]]> 124 Robert D Richardson 0691224315 Michael 0 currently-reading 3.97 Three Roads Back: How Emerson, Thoreau, and William James Responded to the Greatest Losses of Their Lives
author: Robert D Richardson
name: Michael
average rating: 3.97
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date added: 2026/07/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World]]> 6585036 “A charming fish tale and a pretty gift for your favorite seafood cook or fishing monomaniac. But in the last analysis, it’s a bitter ecological fable for our time.” –Los Angeles TimesAn unexpected, energetic look at world history via the humble cod fish from the bestselling author of Salt and The Basque History of the WorldCod is the biography of a single species of fish, but it may as well be a world history with this humble fish as its recurring main character. Cod, it turns out, is the reason Europeans set sail across the Atlantic, and it is the only reason they could. What did the Vikings eat in icy Greenland and on the five expeditions to America recorded in the Icelandic sagas? Cod, frozen and dried in the frosty air, then broken into pieces and eaten like hardtack. What was the staple of the medieval diet? Cod again, sold salted by the Basques, an enigmatic people with a mysterious, unlimited supply of cod. As we make our way through the centuries of cod history, we also find a delicious legacy of recipes, and the tragic story of environmental failure, of depleted fishing stocks where once their numbers were legendary. In this lovely, thoughtful history, Mark Kurlansky ponders the Is the fish that changed the world forever changed by the world's folly?“Every once in a while a writer of particular skill takes a fresh, seemingly improbable idea and turns out a book of pure delight. Such is the case of Mark Kurlansky and the codfish.” –David McCullough]]> 306 Mark Kurlansky 1440672873 Michael 0 3.95 1997 Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
author: Mark Kurlansky
name: Michael
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at: 2026/07/10
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]]> Rogue Male 10836817 182 Geoffrey Household 1590174755 Michael 0 4.05 1939 Rogue Male
author: Geoffrey Household
name: Michael
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1939
rating: 0
read at: 2026/07/06
date added: 2026/07/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl]]> 245444672
In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is “arguably the best nonfiction book yet” (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling with nature.]]> Timothy Egan Michael 0 4.37 2005 The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
author: Timothy Egan
name: Michael
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2026/07/01
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]]> The Order of Time 36500398
With his extraordinary charm and sense of wonder, bringing together science, art and philosophy, Carlo Rovelli unravels this mystery, inviting us to imagine a world where time is in us and we are not in time.]]> 252 Carlo Rovelli 0735216126 Michael 0 4.17 2017 The Order of Time
author: Carlo Rovelli
name: Michael
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2026/06/25
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]]> The Ministry of Time 199897956
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machine,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But he adjusts quickly; he is, after all, an explorer by trade. Soon, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a seriously uncomfortable housemate dynamic, evolves into something much more. Over the course of an unprecedented year, Gore and the bridge fall haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences they never could have imagined.

Supported by a chaotic and charming cast of characters—including a 17th-century cinephile who can’t get enough of Tinder, a painfully shy World War I captain, and a former spy with an ever-changing series of cosmetic surgery alterations and a belligerent attitude to HR—the bridge will be forced to confront the past that shaped her choices, and the choices that will shape the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks the universal What happens if you put a disaffected millennial and a Victorian polar explorer in a house together?]]> 344 Kaliane Bradley Michael 0 3.82 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Michael
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2026/06/23
date added: 2026/06/23
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]]> The Feather Thief 35901186
On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London’s Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin’s obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins–some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin’s, Alfred Russel Wallace, who’d risked everything to gather them–and escaped into the darkness.

Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man’s relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man’s destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.]]> 320 Kirk Wallace Johnson Michael 0 4.03 2018 The Feather Thief
author: Kirk Wallace Johnson
name: Michael
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life]]> 30814913 #1 Wall Street Journal Best Seller Winner of the Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award Amazon Best Book of the Year Forbes Recommended Books for Leaders TED Talk sensation—over 12 million views! The counterintuitive approach to achieving your true potential, heralded by the Harvard Business Review as a groundbreaking idea of the year.   The path to personal and professional fulfillment is rarely straight. Ask anyone who has achieved his or her biggest goals or whose relationships thrive and you’ll hear stories of many unexpected detours along the way. What separates those who master these challenges and those who get derailed? The answer is agility—emotional agility.   Emotional agility is a revolutionary, science-based approach that allows us to navigate life’s twists and turns with self-acceptance, clear-sightedness, and an open mind. Renowned psychologist Susan David developed this concept after studying emotions, happiness, and achievement for more than twenty years. She found that no matter how intelligent or creative people are, or what type of personality they have, it is how they navigate their inner world—their thoughts, feelings, and self-talk—that ultimately determines how successful they will become.   The way we respond to these internal experiences drives our actions, careers, relationships, happiness, health—everything that matters in our lives. As humans, we are all prone to common hooks—things like self-doubt, shame, sadness, fear, or anger—that can too easily steer us in the wrong direction. Emotionally agile people are not immune to stresses and setbacks. The key difference is that they know how to adapt, aligning their actions with their values and making small but powerful changes that lead to a lifetime of growth. Emotional agility is not about ignoring difficult emotions and thoughts; it’s about holding them loosely, facing them courageously and compassionately, and then moving past them to bring the best of yourself forward.   Drawing on her deep research, decades of international consulting, and her own experience overcoming adversity after losing her father at a young age, David shows how anyone can thrive in an uncertain world by becoming more emotionally agile. To guide us, she shares four key concepts that allow us to acknowledge uncomfortable experiences while simultaneously detaching from them, thereby allowing us to embrace our core values and adjust our actions so they can move us where we truly want to go.   Written with authority, wit, and empathy, Emotional Agility serves as a road map for real behavioral change—a new way of acting that will help you reach your full potential, whoever you are and whatever you face.]]> 281 Susan David 0698404122 Michael 0 4.20 2016 Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life
author: Susan David
name: Michael
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2026/06/12
date added: 2026/06/12
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]]> Ghosted: An American Story 195046364
New York Times bestselling ghostwriter Nancy French is coming out of the shadows to tell her own incredible story.

Nancy's family hails from the foothills of the Appalachians, where life was dominated by coal mining, violence, abuse, and poverty. Longing for an adventure, she married a stranger, moved to New York, and dropped out of college. In spite of her lack of education, she found success as a ghostwriter for conservative political leaders. However, when she was unwilling to endorse an unsuitable president, her allies turned on her and she found herself spiritually adrift, politically confused, and occupationally unemployable.

Republicans mocked her, white nationalists targeted her, and her church community alienated her. But in spite of death threats, sexual humiliation, and political ostracization, she learned the importance of finding her own voice--and that the people she thought were her enemies could be her closest friends.

A poignant and engrossing memoir filled with humor and personal insights, Ghosted is a deeply American story of change, loss, and ultimately love.]]> 281 Nancy French 031036745X Michael 0 4.49 2024 Ghosted: An American Story
author: Nancy French
name: Michael
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2026/06/07
date added: 2026/06/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind]]> 10365342
In this pioneering, practical book, Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author of the bestselling Mindsight, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson demystify the meltdowns and aggravation, explaining the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures. The “upstairs brain,” which makes decisions and balances emotions, is under construction until the mid-twenties. And especially in young children, the right brain and its emotions tend to rule over the logic of the left brain. No wonder kids can seem—and feel—so out of control. By applying these discoveries to everyday parenting, you can turn any outburst, argument, or fear into a chance to integrate your child’s brain and foster vital growth. Raise calmer, happier children using twelve key strategies, including
 
• Name It to Tame It: Corral raging right-brain behavior through left-brain storytelling, appealing to the left brain’s affinity for words and reasoning to calm emotional storms and bodily tension.
• Engage, Don’t Enrage: Keep your child thinking and listening, instead of purely reacting.
• Move It or Lose It: Use physical activities to shift your child’s emotional state.
• Let the Clouds of Emotion Roll By: Guide your children when they are stuck on a negative emotion, and help them understand that feelings come and go.
• SIFT: Help children pay attention to the Sensations, Images, Feelings, and Thoughts within them so that they can make better decisions and be more flexible.
• Connect Through Conflict: Use discord to encourage empathy and greater social success.
 
Complete with clear explanations, age-appropriate strategies for dealing with day-to-day struggles, and illustrations that will help you explain these concepts to your child, The Whole-Brain Child shows you how to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development so that your children can lead balanced, meaningful, and connected lives.]]> 192 Daniel J. Siegel Michael 0 4.29 2011 The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind
author: Daniel J. Siegel
name: Michael
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2026/06/05
date added: 2026/06/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail]]> 53521913
A few years ago, Ray Dalio noticed a confluence of political and economic conditions he hadn’t encountered before. They included huge debts and zero or near-zero interest rates that led to massive printing of money in the world’s three major reserve currencies; big political and social conflicts within countries, especially the US, due to the largest wealth, political, and values disparities in more than 100 years; and the rising of a world power (China) to challenge the existing world power (US) and the existing world order. The last time that this confluence occurred was between 1930 and 1945. This realization sent Dalio on a search for the repeating patterns and cause/effect relationships underlying all major changes in wealth and power over the last 500 years.

In this remarkable and timely addition to his Principles series, Dalio brings readers along for his study of the major empires—including the Dutch, the British, and the American—putting into perspective the “Big Cycle” that has driven the successes and failures of all the world’s major countries throughout history. He reveals the timeless and universal forces behind these shifts and uses them to look into the future, offering practical principles for positioning oneself for what’s ahead.]]> 576 Ray Dalio Michael 5 4.40 2021 Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail
author: Ray Dalio
name: Michael
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2026/06/01
date added: 2026/06/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Buried Treasures: The Power of Political Fairy Tales]]> 74875323 Fascinating profiles of modern writers and artists who tapped the political potential of fairy tales

Jack Zipes has spent decades as a “scholarly scavenger,” discovering forgotten fairy tales in libraries, flea markets, used bookstores, and internet searches, and he has introduced countless readers to these remarkable works and their authors. In Buried Treasures, Zipes describes his special passion for uncovering political fairy tales of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, offers fascinating profiles of more than a dozen of their writers and illustrators, and shows why they deserve greater attention and appreciation.

These writers and artists used their remarkable talents to confront political oppression and economic exploitation by creating alternative, imaginative worlds that test the ethics and morals of the real world and expose hidden truths. Among the figures we meet here are Édouard Laboulaye, a jurist who wrote acute fairy tales about justice; Charles Godfrey Leland, a folklorist who found other worlds in tales of Native Americans, witches, and Roma; Kurt Schwitters, an artist who wrote satirical, antiauthoritarian stories; Mariette Lydis, a painter who depicted lost-and-found souls; Lisa Tetzner, who dramatized exploitation by elites; Felix Salten, who unveiled the real meaning of Bambi’s dangerous life in the forest; and Gianni Rodari, whose work showed just how political and insightful fantasy stories can be.

Demonstrating the uncanny power of political fairy tales, Buried Treasures also shows how their fictional realities not only enrich our understanding of the world but even give us tools to help us survive.]]> 262 Jack D. Zipes 069124474X Michael 0 currently-reading 3.50 2023 Buried Treasures: The Power of Political Fairy Tales
author: Jack D. Zipes
name: Michael
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/05/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus]]> 18880869 705 Rick Perlstein Michael 0 currently-reading 4.31 2001 Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
author: Rick Perlstein
name: Michael
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/04/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future]]> 228185703 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER



Shortlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award

An August 2025 Next Big Idea Club Must-Read Book



A riveting, firsthand investigation of China’s seismic progress, its human costs, and what it means for America.


For close to a decade, technology analyst Dan Wang—“a gifted observer of contemporary China” (Ross Douthat)—has been living through the country’s astonishing, messy progress. China’s towering bridges, gleaming railways, and sprawling factories have improved economic outcomes in record time. But rapid change has also sent ripples of pain throughout the society. This reality—political repression and astonishing growth—is not a paradox, but rather a feature of China’s engineering mindset.


In Breakneck, Wang blends political, economic, and philosophical analysis with reportage to reveal a provocative new framework for understanding China—one that helps us see America more clearly, too. While China is an engineering state, relentlessly pursuing megaprojects, the United States has stalled. America has transformed into a lawyerly society, reflexively blocking everything, good and bad


Blending razor-sharp analysis with immersive storytelling, Wang offers a gripping portrait of a nation in flux. Breakneck traverses metropolises like Shanghai, Chongqing, and Shenzhen, where the engineering state has created not only dazzling infrastructure but also a sense of optimism. The book also exposes the downsides of social engineering, including the surveillance of ethnic minorities, political suppression, and the traumas of the one-child policy and zero-Covid.


In an era of animosity and mistrust, Wang unmasks the shocking similarities between the United States and China. Breakneck reveals how each country points toward a better path for the Chinese citizens would be better off if their government could learn to value individual liberties, while Americans would be better off if their government could learn to embrace engineering—and to produce better outcomes for the many, not just the few.]]> 275 Dan Wang 1324106042 Michael 0 4.36 2025 Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future
author: Dan Wang
name: Michael
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2026/04/26
date added: 2026/04/26
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]]> Baldwin: A Love Story 217936838 A TIME TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025
AN ATLANTIC TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2025
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Drawing on new archival material, original research, and interviews, this spellbinding book is the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, revealing how profoundly his personal relationships shaped his life and work.

A Love Story, the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, reveals how profoundly the writer’s personal relationships shaped his life and work. Drawing on newly uncovered archival material and original research and interviews, this spellbinding book tells the overlapping stories of Baldwin’s most sustaining intimate and artistic with his mentor, the Black American painter Beauford Delaney; with his lover and muse, the Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger; and with his collaborators, the famed Turkish actor Engin Cezzar and the iconoclastic French artist Yoran Cazac, whose long-overlooked significance as Baldwin’s last great love is explored in these pages for the first time.

Nicholas Boggs shows how Baldwin drew on all the complex forces within these relationships—geographical, cultural, political, artistic, and erotic—and alchemized them into novels, essays, and plays that speak truth to power and had an indelible impact on the civil rights movement and on Black and queer literary history. Richly immersive, A Love Story follows the writer’s creative journey between Harlem, Paris, Switzerland, the southern United States, Istanbul, Africa, the South of France, and beyond. In so doing, it magnifies our understanding of the public and private lives of one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century, whose contributions only continue to grow in influence.]]> 706 Nicholas Boggs 0374721343 Michael 0 currently-reading 4.40 Baldwin: A Love Story
author: Nicholas Boggs
name: Michael
average rating: 4.40
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]]> <![CDATA[Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan]]> 38105919 640 Danny Chaplin Michael 0 4.40 Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan
author: Danny Chaplin
name: Michael
average rating: 4.40
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rating: 0
read at: 2026/03/23
date added: 2026/03/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Humor Me: How Laughing More Can Make You Present, Creative, Connected, and Happy]]> 232124338 From a comedian and host of hit TED podcast, How to Be a Better Human, a hilarious and enlightening guide to laughing your way into a fuller life

“ this book may cause repeated smiling. It’s a delightful read about how we can bring more levity into our lives.”
—Adam Grant, author of Hidden Potential and Think Again

In his days as an exhausted fifth grade teacher, Chris Duffy taught the funniest person he’s ever eleven-year-old Gary. Gary was the school newspaper’s official food critic, blasting cafeteria pizza for looking like cardboard and opining that the baked beans weren’t “beany” enough. These days, Duffy is a professional comedy writer and the host of a podcast with millions of listeners, but he’s never forgotten the transformative joy of laughing with Gary during a bleak Boston winter. In Humor Me, he shares a road map for how to cultivate and strengthen a sense of humor in a challenging world.

Duffy embarks on a journey that takes him from comedy clubs to emergency rooms to a helicopter full of Navy SEALs and back to his own keyboard to reveal how—and why—a good laugh can bring us closer to the good life. Drawing on personal stories, insights from the social sciences, and the wisdom of comedians, Duffy offers practical strategies, to hone the art of noticing, finding humor in the most unlikely placesWhy you should take social risks (to build connection through humor!)How to apply the comedy secret that laughs come in threes.
Humor Me promises to deepen your friendships, enhance your creativity, and lighten life’s burdens, and is a genuinely funny read along the way.]]> 261 Christopher Duffy 0385550693 Michael 0 3.81 2026 Humor Me: How Laughing More Can Make You Present, Creative, Connected, and Happy
author: Christopher Duffy
name: Michael
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at: 2026/02/23
date added: 2026/02/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Kamogawa Food Detectives (Kamogawa Food Detectives, #1)]]> 157985406 The Kamogawa Food Detectives, translated from Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood, is the first book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese sleuthing series for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?

Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner treats its customers to wonderfully extravagant meals. But that's not the main reason to stop by . . .

The father-daughter duo have started advertising their services as 'food detectives'. Through ingenious investigations, they are capable of recreating a dish from their customers' pasts – dishes that may well hold the keys to forgotten memories and future happiness.

From the widower looking for a specific noodle dish that his wife used to cook, to a first love's beef stew, the restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to the past – and a way to a more contented future.

A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal.]]> 207 Hisashi Kashiwai 0593717724 Michael 0 3.91 2013 The Kamogawa Food Detectives (Kamogawa Food Detectives, #1)
author: Hisashi Kashiwai
name: Michael
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2026/02/03
date added: 2026/02/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism]]> 228578720 An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them.

From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite.

Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.”

Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.]]> 382 Sarah Wynn-Williams 1250391245 Michael 0 4.24 2025 Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
author: Sarah Wynn-Williams
name: Michael
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2026/01/30
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]]> Thinking in Systems: A Primer 18891716 "Dana Meadows' exposition in this book exhibits a degree of clarity and simplicity that can only be attained by one who profoundly and honestly understands the subject at hand--in this case systems modeling. Many thanks to Diana Wright for bringing this extra legacy from Dana to us."

—Herman Daly, Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland at College Park

In the years following her role as the lead author of the international bestseller, Limits to Growth—the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet— Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001.


Meadows’ newly released manuscript, Thinking in Systems, is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life.


Some of the biggest problems facing the world—war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation—are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking.


While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner.

]]> 243 Donella H. Meadows Michael 0 4.35 2008 Thinking in Systems: A Primer
author: Donella H. Meadows
name: Michael
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness]]> 61057016
"In Do Hard Things, Steve Magness beautifully and persuasively reimagines our understanding of toughness. This is a must-read for parents and coaches and anyone else looking to prepare for life's biggest challenges." -- Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and Talking to Strangers and host of the Revisionist History podcast

From beloved performance expert, executive coach, and coauthor of Peak Performance Steve Magness comes a radical rethinking of how we perceive toughness and what it means to achieve our high ambitions in the face of hard things.

Toughness has long been held as the key to overcoming a challenge and achieving greatness, whether it is on the sports field, at a boardroom, or at the dining room table. Yet, the prevailing model has promoted a mentality based on fear, false bravado, and hiding any sign of weakness. In other words, the old model of toughness has failed us.

Steve Magness, a performance scientist who coaches Olympic athletes, rebuilds our broken model of resilience with one grounded in the latest science and psychology. In Do Hard Things, Magness teaches us how we can work with our body – how experiencing discomfort, leaning in, paying attention, and creating space to take thoughtful action can be the true indications of cultivating inner strength. He offers four core pillars to cultivate such  

Pillar 1- Ditch the Façade, Embrace RealityPillar 2- Listen to Your BodyPillar 3- Respond, Instead of React Pillar 4- Transcend Discomfort   Smart and wise all at once, Magness flips the script on what it means to be resilient. Drawing from mindfulness, military case studies, sports psychology, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, he provides a roadmap for navigating life’s challenges and achieving high performance that makes us happier, more successful, and, ultimately, better people.]]> 320 Steve Magness 0063098636 Michael 0 4.13 2022 Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness
author: Steve Magness
name: Michael
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2026/01/14
date added: 2026/01/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America]]> 60392135 607 Maggie Haberman 0593297350 Michael 0 4.25 2022 Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America
author: Maggie Haberman
name: Michael
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2026/01/02
date added: 2026/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance]]> 8216968 In his riveting new book, The Art of Learning, Waitzkin tells his remarkable story of personal achievement and shares the principles of learning and performance that have propelled him to the top—twice.Josh Waitzkin knows what it means to be at the top of his game. A public figure since winning his first National Chess Championship at the age of nine, Waitzkin was catapulted into a media whirlwind as a teenager when his father’s book Searching for Bobby Fischer was made into a major motion picture. After dominating the scholastic chess world for ten years, Waitzkin expanded his horizons, taking on the martial art Tai Chi Chuan and ultimately earning the title of World Champion. How was he able to reach the pinnacle of two disciplines that on the surface seem so different? “I’ve come to realize that what I am best at is not Tai Chi, and it is not chess,” he says. “What I am best at is the art of learning.” With a narrative that combines heart-stopping martial arts wars and tense chess face-offs with life lessons that speak to all of us, The Art of Learning takes readers through Waitzkin’s unique journey to excellence. He explains in clear detail how a well-thought-out, principled approach to learning is what separates success from failure. Waitzkin believes that achievement, even at the championship level, is a function of a lifestyle that fuels a creative, resilient growth process. Rather than focusing on climactic wins, Waitzkin reveals the inner workings of his everyday method, from systematically triggering intuitive breakthroughs, to honing techniques into states of remarkable potency, to mastering the art of performance psychology. Through his own example, Waitzkin explains how to embrace defeat and make mistakes work for you. Does your opponent make you angry? Waitzkin describes how to channel emotions into creative fuel. As he explains it, obstacles are not obstacles but challenges to overcome, to spur the growth process by turning weaknesses into strengths. He illustrates the exact routines that he has used in all of his competitions, whether mental or physical, so that you too can achieve your peak performance zone in any competitive or professional circumstance. In stories ranging from his early years taking on chess hustlers as a seven year old in New York City’s Washington Square Park, to dealing with the pressures of having a film made about his life, to International Chess Championships in India, Hungary, and Brazil, to gripping battles against powerhouse fighters in Taiwan in the Push Hands World Championships, The Art of Learning encapsulates an extraordinary competitor’s life lessons in a page-turning narrative.]]> 292 Josh Waitzkin Michael 0 4.22 2007 The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance
author: Josh Waitzkin
name: Michael
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Daily Rituals: How Artists Work]]> 18744226 More than 150 inspired—and inspiring—novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians on how they subtly maneuver the many (self-inflicted) obstacles and (self-imposed) daily rituals to get done the work they love to do.Franz Kafka, frustrated with his living quarters and day job, wrote in a letter to Felice Bauer in 1912, “time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.”   Kafka is one of 161 minds who describe their daily rituals to get their work done, whether by waking early or staying up late; whether by self-medicating with doughnuts or bathing, drinking vast quantities of coffee, or taking long daily walks. Thomas Wolfe wrote standing up in the kitchen, the top of the refrigerator as his desk, dreamily fondling his “male configurations”.... Jean-Paul Sartre chewed on Corydrane tablets (a mix of amphetamine and aspirin), ingesting ten times the recommended dose each day ... Descartes liked to linger in bed, his mind wandering in sleep through woods, gardens, and enchanted palaces where he experienced “every pleasure imaginable.” Here Anthony Trollope, who demanded of himself that each morning he write three thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three hours) before going off to his job at the postal service, which he kept for thirty-three years during the writing of more than two dozen books ... Karl Marx ... Woody Allen ... Agatha Christie ... George Balanchine, who did most of his work while ironing ... Leo Tolstoy ... Charles Dickens ... Pablo Picasso ... George Gershwin, who, said his brother Ira, worked for twelve hours a day from late morning to midnight, composing at the piano in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers.... Here also are the daily rituals of Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol, John Updike, Twyla Tharp, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, and Igor Stravinsky (he was never able to compose unless he was sure no one could hear him and, when blocked, stood on his head to “clear the brain”).]]> 305 Mason Currey 0307962377 Michael 0 3.77 2013 Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
author: Mason Currey
name: Michael
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2026/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward]]> 59463541 “The world needs this book.” —Brené Brown, Ph.D., New York Times bestselling author of Dare to Lead and Atlas of the HeartAn instant New York Times bestsellerAs featured in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post Named a Best Book of 2022 by NPR and Financial Times From the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of When and Drive, a new book about the transforming power of our most misunderstood yet potentially most valuable regret.Everybody has regrets, Daniel H. Pink explains in The Power of Regret. They’re a universal and healthy part of being human. And understanding how regret works can help us make smarter decisions, perform better at work and school, and bring greater meaning to our lives.   Drawing on research in social psychology, neuroscience, and biology, Pink debunks the myth of the “no regrets” philosophy of life. And using the largest sampling of American attitudes about regret ever conducted as well as his own World Regret Survey—which has collected regrets from more than 15,000 people in 105 countries—he lays out the four core regrets that each of us has. These deep regrets offer compelling insights into how we live and how we can find a better path forward.   As he did in his bestsellers Drive, When, and A Whole New Mind, Pink lays out a dynamic new way of thinking about regret and frames his ideas in ways that are clear, accessible, and pragmatic. Packed with true stories of people's regrets as well as practical takeaways for reimagining regret as a positive force, The Power of Regret shows how we can live richer, more engaged lives.]]> 256 Daniel H. Pink 0735210675 Michael 0 4.14 2022 The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward
author: Daniel H. Pink
name: Michael
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Unlearning Shame: How We Can Reject Self-Blame Culture and Reclaim Our Power]]> 150249975
Systemic Shame is the socially engineered self-loathing that says we are solely to blame for our circumstances. It tells us that poverty is remedied by hard-working people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, that marginalized people are personally responsible for solving the problem of their own oppression, and that massive global crises like climate change can be solved with individual action. Feeling overwhelmed? That’s your problem, too. The more we try and ultimately fail to live up to impossible societal standards of moral goodness, the more shame we feel—and the more we retreat into isolation and despair.

Social psychologist Dr. Devon Price knows firsthand the destructive effects of Systemic Shame; he experienced shame and self-hatred as he grappled with his transgender identity, feeling as if his suffering was caused by his own actions rather than systems like cissexism. And it doesn’t just end with internal feelings of anguish. It causes us to judge other people the same way we fear being judged, which blocks us from seeking out the acceptance and support we need and discourages us from trying to improve our communities and our relationships.

In Unlearning Shame , Dr. Price explores how we can deal with those hard emotions more effectively, tackling the societal shame we’ve absorbed and directed at ourselves. He introduces the antidote to Systemic expansive recognition, an awareness of one’s position in the larger social world and the knowledge that our battles are only won when they are shared. He provides a suite of exercises and resources designed to combat Systemic Shame on a personal, interpersonal, and global level through rebuilding trust in yourself, in others, and in our shared future.

By offering a roadmap to healing and a toolkit of actionable items, Unlearning Shame helps us reject hopelessness and achieve sustainable change and personal growth.]]> 354 Devon Price 0593581229 Michael 0 4.40 Unlearning Shame: How We Can Reject Self-Blame Culture and Reclaim Our Power
author: Devon Price
name: Michael
average rating: 4.40
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ideological Brain: The Radical Science of Flexible Thinking]]> 213632679 Why do some people become radicalized?
How do ideologies shape the human brain?
And how can we unchain our minds from toxic dogmas?

In The Ideological Brain, Leor Zmigrod reveals the deep connection between political beliefs and the biology of the brain. Drawing on her own pioneering research, she uncovers the complex interplay between biology and environment that predisposes some individuals to rigid ways of thinking, and explains how ideologies take hold of our brains, fundamentally changing the way we think, act and interact with others. She shows how ideologues of all types struggle to change their thought patterns when faced with new information, culminating in the radical message that our politics are not superficial but are woven into the fabric of our minds.

This authoritative, accessible and playful blend of psychology, politics and philosophy explores the cutting-edge of the emerging field of political neuroscience. Zmigrod examines its historical roots before she looks to the future, considering the broader social and political implications of her groundbreaking research. Guiding readers through her experiments, she eventually describes what a free, authentic, and tolerant brain looks like, and explains how anyone can keep their mind open and flexible in the face of extremist ideologies.]]> 282 Leor Zmigrod 1250344581 Michael 0 4.07 2025 The Ideological Brain: The Radical Science of Flexible Thinking
author: Leor Zmigrod
name: Michael
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us]]> 61368281 New York Times bestseller

One of the top ten books of the year at The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, Vulture/New York magazine
A best book of the year at Los Angeles Times, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Bookforum, The New Yorker, Vogue, Kirkus

The acclaimed, award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv offers a groundbreaking exploration of mental illness and the mind, and illuminates the startling connections between diagnosis and identity.

Strangers to Ourselves poses fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Rachel Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman celebrated as a saint who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children’s forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who, after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis, decides to go off her meds because she doesn’t know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv’s gripping exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel—until it no longer does.

Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives—and our identities, too. Challenging the way we understand and talk about illness, her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind.]]> 290 Rachel Aviv 0374600856 Michael 0 4.20 2022 Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
author: Rachel Aviv
name: Michael
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/12/26
date added: 2025/12/26
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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 4 4.42 2012 The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
author: William N. Thorndike Jr.
name: Michael
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2025/12/23
date added: 2025/12/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Learned Excellence: Mental Disciplines for Leading and Winning from the World’s Top Performers]]> 159301821 Learn how to perform at your very best, from the psychologist who has advised elite military operators, Olympic medalists, big wave surfers, neurosurgeons, cliff divers, first responders, Cirque du Soleil acrobats, professional athletes and coaches, Fortune 500 business executives, and CIA analysts.  

Learned Excellence is a comprehensive and practical guide to the mental disciplines of high performance, from the expert who developed the US Navy SEALs mental toughness curriculum and has worked with thousands of top athletes, elite military personnel, business executives, and first responders. 

These stars perform across a wide variety of fields, but they all have something in when they are at work they know how to think clearly, stay focused, and shrug off setbacks under very high levels of stress. They may have superb physical and intellectual traits, but it is the stuff going on above the neck and between the ears that makes them excellent. The difference between settling and achieving, between good and great, between contentment and fulfillment, is based entirely on their mental approach. 

This approach isn’t innate; it is 100% learned. The world’s top performers aren’t born that way, they learn excellence. So can everyone else, and Dr. Eric Potterat can teach us. 

One of the world’s leading performance psychologists and a retired US Navy Commander, Dr. Potterat has spent over three decades helping thousands of top performers from the military, sports, first responder, and business worlds improve. He served as the lead psychologist for the US Navy SEALs and the Los Angeles Dodgers, and has consulted with the US Women’s National Soccer team, the Miami Heat, Red Bull athletes, NASA astronauts, and dozens of Olympic medalists.

In Learned Excellence, Eric distills the insights he’s learned into five mental disciplines for high performance—Values & Goals, Mindset, Process, Adversity Tolerance, and Balance & Recovery. Illustrated with numerous stories and quotes, Learned Excellence features clear principles and practices that anyone can use to raise their game. 

We are all performers, at work, at school, at home, and at life. Learned Excellence provides the roadmap to help each of us perform at our very best.]]> 251 Eric Potterat 006331617X Michael 0 4.35 Learned Excellence: Mental Disciplines for Leading and Winning from the World’s Top Performers
author: Eric Potterat
name: Michael
average rating: 4.35
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]]> <![CDATA[Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World]]> 44000528
Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you'll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But if you take a closer look at the world's top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, you'll find that early specialisation is the exception, not the rule.

David Epstein, author of the New York Times bestseller The Sports Gene, studied the world's most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters and scientists. He discovered that in most fields--especially those that are complex and unpredictable--generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They're also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can't spy from deep in their hyperfocused trenches. As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive.

Our obsession with getting a head start is understandable; early specialization feels efficient. But Epstein marshals an enormous body of scientific research to argue that we should all actively cultivate inefficiency. Failing a test is the best way to learn. Frequent quitters end up with the most fulfilling careers. The most impactful inventors cross domains rather than deepening their knowledge in a single area. Provocative, rigorous, and engrossing, Range explains how to maintain the benefits of breadth, diverse experience, interdisciplinary thinking, and delayed concentration in a world that increasingly incentivizes, even demands, hyperspecialization.]]> 339 David Epstein Michael 4 4.28 2019 Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
author: David Epstein
name: Michael
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/12/07
date added: 2025/12/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success]]> 34732438 "It's about time a book was written that looks across disciplines, domains, and capabilities to uncover powerful pearls of wisdom applicable across all walks of life. Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness are a strong team to uncover the principles of Peak Performance - they're immersed in the science of success, and they draw upon their own experiences working with the best." - Adam Grant, Wharton Professor and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals

"Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness have written an essential playbook for success, happiness, and getting the most out of ourselves and our lives. - Arianna Huffington, author of Thrive and The Sleep Revolution 

"Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness are one-percenters when it comes to skill in translating high performance science for the public. It's long past time for someone to distill principles of high-performance - in all disciplines, as diverse as running and painting - and present a coherent picture to everyone who wants to be better at absolutely whatever it is they do. I'm going to be one of the first in line for this book." - David Epstein, New York Times bestselling author of The Sports Gene

A few common principles drive performance, regardless of the field or the task at hand. Whether someone is trying to qualify for the Olympics, break ground in mathematical theory or craft an artistic masterpiece, many of the practices that lead to great success are the same. In Peak Performance, Brad Stulberg, a former McKinsey and Company consultant and writer who covers health and the science of human performance, and Steve Magness, a performance scientist and coach of Olympic athletes, team up to demystify these practices and demonstrate how everyone can achieve their best.

The first book of its kind, Peak Performance combines the inspiring stories of top performers across a range of capabilities - from athletic, to intellectual, to artistic - with the latest scientific insights into the cognitive and neurochemical factors that drive performance in all domains. In doing so, Peak Performance uncovers new linkages that hold promise as performance enhancers but have been overlooked in our traditionally-siloed ways of thinking. The result is a life-changing book in which readers learn how to enhance their performance via myriad ways including: optimally alternating between periods of intense work and rest; priming the body and mind for enhanced productivity; and developing and harnessing the power of a self-transcending purpose.

In revealing the science of great performance and the stories of great performers across a wide range of capabilities, Peak Performance uncovers the secrets of success, and coaches readers on how to use them. If you want to take your game to the next level, whatever "your game" may be, Peak Performance will teach you how.]]> 268 Brad Stulberg 1623367948 Michael 0 4.28 2017 Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success
author: Brad Stulberg
name: Michael
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/12/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters]]> 222683600 A New York Times’s Notable Book of 2025

An impassioned celebration of humility before the living world that leads us to a new understanding of other species—and ourselves

Darwin considered humans one part of the web of life, not the apex of a natural hierarchy. Yet today many maintain that we are the most intelligent, virtuous, successful species that ever lived. This flawed thinking enables us to exploit the earth towards our own exclusive ends, throwing us into a perilous planetary imbalance. But is this view and way of life inevitable? The Arrogant Ape shows that human exceptionalism is an ideology that relies more on human culture than our biology, more on delusion and faith than on evidence.

Harvard primatologist Christine Webb has spent years researching the rich social, emotional, and cognitive lives of our closest living relatives. She exposes the ways that many scientific studies are biased against other species and reveals underappreciated complexities of nonhuman life—from the language of songbirds and prairie dogs, to the cultures of chimpanzees and reef fishes, to the acumen of plants and fungi. With compelling stories and fresh research she gives us a paradigm-shifting way of looking at other organisms on their own terms, one that is revolutionizing our perception both of them and of ourselves.

Critiques of human exceptionalism tend to focus on our moral obligation towards other species. They overlook what humanity also stands to gain by dismantling its illusions of uniqueness and superiority. This shift in perspective fills us with a sense of awe and satisfies one of our oldest and deepest desires to belong to the larger whole we inhabit. What’s at stake is a better, sustainable way of life with the potential to heal and rejuvenate our shared planet.]]> 336 Christine E. Webb 0593543157 Michael 0 4.13 2025 The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters
author: Christine E. Webb
name: Michael
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else]]> 6563382 What is the secret of talent? How do we unlock it? This groundbreaking work provides readers with tools they can use to maximize potential in themselves and others.Whether you’re coaching soccer or teaching a child to play the piano, writing a novel or trying to improve your golf swing, this revolutionary book shows you how to grow talent by tapping into a newly discovered brain mechanism.

Drawing on cutting-edge neurology and firsthand research gathered on journeys to nine of the world’s talent hotbeds—from the baseball fields of the Caribbean to a classical-music academy in upstate New York—Coyle identifies the three key elements that will allow you to develop your gifts and optimize your performance in sports, art, music, math, or just about anything.

• Deep Practice Everyone knows that practice is a key to success. What everyone doesn’t know is that specific kinds of practice can increase skill up to ten times faster than conventional practice.

• Ignition We all need a little motivation to get started. But what separates truly high achievers from the rest of the pack? A higher level of commitment—call it passion—born out of our deepest unconscious desires and triggered by certain primal cues. Understanding how these signals work can help you ignite passion and catalyze skill development.

• Master Coaching What are the secrets of the world’s most effective teachers, trainers, and coaches? Discover the four virtues that enable these “talent whisperers” to fuel passion, inspire deep practice, and bring out the best in their students.

These three elements work together within your brain to form myelin, a microscopic neural substance that adds vast amounts of speed and accuracy to your movements and thoughts. Scientists have discovered that myelin might just be the holy the foundation of all forms of greatness, from Michelangelo’s to Michael Jordan’s. The good news about myelin is that it isn’t fixed at birth; to the contrary, it grows, and like anything that grows, it can be cultivated and nourished.

Combining revelatory analysis with illuminating examples of regular people who have achieved greatness, this book will not only change the way you think about talent, but equip you to reach your own highest potential.]]> 256 Daniel Coyle Michael 5 4.23 2009 The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else
author: Daniel Coyle
name: Michael
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2025/11/18
date added: 2025/11/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning]]> 21956680 Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners.

Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems never before encountered and drawing inferences from facts already known. New insights into how memory is encoded, consolidated, and later retrieved have led to a better understanding of how we learn. Grappling with the impediments that make learning challenging leads both to more complex mastery and better retention of what was learned.

Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly. More complex and durable learning come from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes, Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.]]> 293 Peter C. Brown Michael 0 4.41 2014 Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
author: Peter C. Brown
name: Michael
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2025/11/10
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]]> Where Good Ideas Come From 9366948 A fascinating deep dive on innovation from the New York Times bestselling author of How We Got To Now and Unexpected LifeThe printing press, the pencil, the flush toilet, the battery--these are all great ideas. But where do they come from? What kind of environment breeds them? What sparks the flash of brilliance? How do we generate the breakthrough technologies that push forward our lives, our society, our culture? Steven Johnson's answers are revelatory as he identifies the seven key patterns behind genuine innovation, and traces them across time and disciplines. From Darwin and Freud to the halls of Google and Apple, Johnson investigates the innovation hubs throughout modern time and pulls out the approaches and commonalities that seem to appear at moments of originality.]]> 340 Steven Johnson 1101444207 Michael 0 4.07 2010 Where Good Ideas Come From
author: Steven Johnson
name: Michael
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2025/11/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Peak: Unleashing Your Inner Champion Through Revolutionary Methods for Skill Acquisition and Performance Enhancement in Work, Sports, and Life]]> 29369213 339 K. Anders Ericsson Michael 0 4.32 2016 Peak: Unleashing Your Inner Champion Through Revolutionary Methods for Skill Acquisition and Performance Enhancement in Work, Sports, and Life
author: K. Anders Ericsson
name: Michael
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2025/11/02
date added: 2025/11/02
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]]> On Grand Strategy 37546802 “The best education in grand strategy available in a single volume . . . a book that should be read by every American leader or would-be leader.”—The Wall Street JournalA master class in strategic thinking, distilled from the legendary program the author has co-taught at Yale for decadesJohn Lewis Gaddis, the distinguished historian of the Cold War, has for almost two decades co-taught grand strategy at Yale University with his colleagues Charles Hill and Paul Kennedy.  Now, in On Grand Strategy, Gaddis reflects on what he has learned.  In chapters extending from the ancient world through World War II, Gaddis assesses grand strategic theory and practice in Herodotus, Thucydides, Sun Tzu, Octavian/Augustus, St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Elizabeth I, Philip II, the American Founding Fathers, Clausewitz, Tolstoy, Lincoln, Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Isaiah Berlin.  On Grand Strategy applies the sharp insights and wit readers have come to expect from Gaddis to times, places, and people he’s never written about before.  For anyone interested in the art of leadership, On Grand Strategy is, in every way, a master class.]]> 383 John Lewis Gaddis 0525557296 Michael 0 4.07 2018 On Grand Strategy
author: John Lewis Gaddis
name: Michael
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking]]> 60719873 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Audie Award Finalist
An Amazon best business and leadership book of 2023

Win Every Argument shows how anyone can communicate with confidence, rise above the tit for tats on social media, and triumph in a successful and productive debate in the real world.

MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan isn’t one to avoid arguments. He relishes them as the lifeblood of democracy and the only surefire way to establish the truth. Arguments help us solve problems, uncover new ideas we might not have considered, and nudge our disagreements toward mutual understanding. A good argument, made in good faith, has intrinsic value—and can also simply be fun.

Arguments are everywhere—and especially given the fierce debates we’re all embroiled in today, everyone wants to win. In this riveting guide to the art of argument and rhetoric, Hasan shows you how. As a journalist, anchor, and interviewer who has clashed with politicians, generals, spy chiefs, and celebrities from across the world, Hasan reveals his tricks of the trade for the first time.

Whether you are making a presentation at work or debating current political issues with a friend, Mehdi Hasan will teach you how to sharpen your speaking skills to make the winning case.]]> 325 Mehdi Hasan 1250853486 Michael 0 4.29 2023 Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking
author: Mehdi Hasan
name: Michael
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/10/15
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]]> <![CDATA[We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families]]> 6660760 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families is the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. An unforgettable firsthand account of a people's response to genocide and what it tells us about humanity.This remarkable debut book from Philip Gourevitch chronicles what has happened in Rwanda and neighboring states since 1994, when the Rwandan government called on everyone in the Hutu majority to murder everyone in the Tutsi minority. Though the killing was low-tech--largely by machete--it was carried out at shocking some 800,000 people were exterminated in a hundred days. A Tutsi pastor, in a letter to his church president, a Hutu, used the chilling phrase that gives Gourevitch his title.With keen dramatic intensity, Gourevitch frames the genesis and horror of Rwanda's "genocidal logic" in the anguish of its the mass displacements, the temptations of revenge and the quest for justice, the impossibly crowded prisons and refugee camps. Through intimate portraits of Rwandans in all walks of life, he focuses on the psychological and political challenges of survival and on how the new leaders of postcolonial Africa went to war in the Congo when resurgent genocidal forces threatened to overrun central Africa.Can a country composed largely of perpetrators and victims create a cohesive national society? This moving contribution to the literature of witness tells us much about the struggle everywhere to forge sane, habitable political orders, and about the stubbornness of the human spirit in a world of extremity.]]> 356 Philip Gourevitch Michael 0 4.37 1998 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families
author: Philip Gourevitch
name: Michael
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at: 2025/10/13
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]]> The Warren Buffett Way 18844019
New material

How to think like a long-term investor – just like Buffett Why "loss aversion", the tendency of most investors to overweight the pain of losing money, is one of the biggest obstacles that investors must overcome. Why behaving rationally in the face of the ups and downs of the market has been the key to Buffett's investing success Analysis of Buffett's recent acquisition of H.J. Heinz and his investment in IBM stock The greatest challenge to emulating Buffett is not in the selection of the right stocks, Hagstrom writes, but in having the fortitude to stick with sound investments in the face of economic and market uncertainty. The new edition explains the psychological foundations of Buffett's approach, thus giving readers the best roadmap yet for mastering both the principles and behaviors that have made Buffett the greatest investor of our generation.]]> 388 Robert G. Hagstrom Michael 4 4.41 1994 The Warren Buffett Way
author: Robert G. Hagstrom
name: Michael
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at: 2025/10/10
date added: 2025/10/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World]]> 214390561 A transformative guide to rethinking our approach to goals, creativity, and life itself from a neuroscientist and entrepreneur, and the creator of the popular Ness Labs newsletter

"I loved this profound, practical, and generous book."—Oliver Burkeman

"A thought-provoking guide to doing more trials and making fewer errors."—Adam Grant

"One of the best productivity books that I've read."—Ryder Carroll

"This book will change the way you design your goals and live your life."—Nir Eyal

Life isn’t linear, and yet we constantly try to mold it around linear four-year college degrees, ten-year career plans, thirty-year mortgages. What if instead we approached life as a giant playground for experimentation? Based on ancestral philosophy and the latest scientific research, Tiny Experiments provides a desperately needed Uncertainty can be a state of expanded possibility and a space for metamorphosis.

Neuroscientist and entrepreneur Anne-Laure Le Cunff reveals that all you need is an experimental mindset to turn challenges into self-discovery and doubt into opportunity. Readers will replace the old linear model of success with a circular model of growth in which goals are discovered, pursued, and adapted—not in a vacuum, but in conversation with the larger world.

Throughout the book, you will ask hard questions and design simple yet meaningful experiments to find the answers. You will learn how to break free from the invisible cognitive scripts that shape your life, how to harness the power of imperfection, and how to make smarter decisions when the path forward is unclear.

This is a guide
• Discover your true ambitions through conducting tiny personal experiments
• Dismantle harmful beliefs about success that have kept you stuck
• Dare to make decisions true to your own aspirations
• Stop trying to find your purpose and start living instead

Tiny Experiments offers not just practical tools to make sure our most vital work gets done, but a guide to reawakening our curiosity and drive in a noisy, busy, disaffected world, so that we can discover and pursue our most authentic ambitions while making a meaningful contribution.]]> 299 Anne-Laure Le Cunff 0593715144 Michael 0 4.18 2025 Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World
author: Anne-Laure Le Cunff
name: Michael
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/10/05
date added: 2025/10/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die]]> 36692830 306 Chip Heath Michael 0 4.23 2006 Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
author: Chip Heath
name: Michael
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking]]> 17207044 Featuring a foreword by David Brooks, This Will Make You Smarter presents brilliant—but accessible—ideas to expand every mind.

What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to the world’s most influential thinkers. Their visionary answers flow from the frontiers of psychology, philosophy, economics, physics, sociology, and more. Surprising and enlightening, these insights will revolutionize the way you think about yourself and the world.

Contributors

Daniel Kahneman on the “focusing illusion”
Jonah Lehrer on controlling attention
Richard Dawkins on experimentation
Aubrey De Grey on conquering our fear of the unknown
Martin Seligman on the ingredients of well-being
Nicholas Carr on managing “cognitive load”
Steven Pinker on win-win negotiating
Daniel Goleman on understanding our connection to the natural world
Matt Ridley on tapping collective intelligence
Lisa Randall on effective theorizing
Brian Eno on “ecological vision”
J. Craig Venter on the multiple possible origins of life  
Helen Fisher on temperament
Sam Harris on the flow of thought
Lawrence Krauss on living with uncertainty]]> 399 John Brockman 0062109405 Michael 0 3.66 2012 This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking
author: John Brockman
name: Michael
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2025/09/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative]]> 16160706
When Mr. Kleon was asked to address college students in upstate New York, he shaped his speech around the ten things he wished someone had told him when he was starting out. The talk went viral, and its author dug deeper into his own ideas to create Steal Like an Artist, the book. The result is inspiring, hip, original, practical, and entertaining. And filled with new truths about creativity: Nothing is original, so embrace influence, col- lect ideas, and remix and re-imagine to discover your own path. Follow your interests wherever they take you. Stay smart, stay out of debt, and risk being boring—the creative you will need to make room to be wild and daring in your imagination.]]> 160 Austin Kleon Michael 0 4.30 2012 Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
author: Austin Kleon
name: Michael
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2025/09/22
date added: 2025/09/22
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]]> <![CDATA[To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others]]> 18652364 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in nine Americans works in sales. Every day more than fifteen million people earn their keep by persuading someone else to make a purchase.
But dig deeper and a startling truth
Yes, one in nine Americans works in sales. "B""ut so" "do the other eight."
Whether we're employees pitching colleagues on a new idea, entrepreneurs enticing funders to invest, or parents and teachers cajoling children to study, we spend our days trying to move others. Like it or not, we're all in sales now.
"To Sell Is Human" offers a fresh look at the art and science of selling. As he did in "Drive "and "A Whole New Mind," Daniel H. Pink draws on a rich trove of social science for his counterintuitive insights. He reveals the new ABCs of moving others (it's no longer "Always Be Closing"), explains why extraverts don't make the best salespeople, and shows how giving people an "off-ramp" for their actions can matter more than actually changing their minds.
Along the way, Pink describes the six successors to the elevator pitch, the three rules for understanding another's perspective, the five frames that can make your message clearer and more persuasive, and much more. The result is a perceptive and practical book--one that will change how you see the world and transform what you do at work, at school, and at home.
]]> 265 Daniel H. Pink 1101597070 Michael 0 4.06 2012 To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
author: Daniel H. Pink
name: Michael
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2025/09/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us]]> 12199967 The New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation from the author of The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.]]> 257 Daniel H. Pink Michael 0 4.10 2009 Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
author: Daniel H. Pink
name: Michael
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2025/09/18
date added: 2025/09/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins]]> 217963850 NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • The heartrending story of twin sisters torn apart by China’s one-child policy and the rise of international adoption—from the author of the National Book Award finalist Nothing to Envy

“Remarkable . . . Barbara Demick movingly traces this history of overseas Chinese adoptions and their ripple effects on both sides of the Pacific.”—The Wall Street Journal

WINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER J. WELLES MEMORIAL PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • A BEST BOOK OF THE The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The New Yorker, The Economist

On a warm day in September 2000, a woman named Zanhua gave birth to twin girls in a small hut behind her brother’s home in China’s Hunan province. The twins, Fangfang and Shuangjie, were welcome additions to her family but also not her first children. Living under the shadow of China’s notorious one-child policy, Zanhua and her husband decided to leave one twin in the care of relatives, hoping each toddler on their own might stay under the radar. But, in 2002, Fangfang was violently snatched away. The family worried they would never see her again, but they didn’t imagine she could be sent as far as the United States. She might as well have been sent to another world.

Following stories she wrote as the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, Barbara Demick embarks on a journey that encompasses the origins, shocking cruelty, and long-term impact of China’s one-child rule; the rise of international adoption and the religious currents that buoyed it; and the exceedingly rare phenomenon of twin separation. Today, Esther—formerly Fangfang—lives in Texas, and Demick brings to vivid life the Christian family that felt called to adopt her, unaware that she had been kidnapped. Through Demick’s indefatigable reporting, will the long-lost sisters finally reunite—and will they feel whole again?

A remarkable window into the volatile, constantly changing China of the last half century and the long-reaching legacy of the country’s most infamous law, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is also the moving story of two sisters torn apart by the forces of history and brought together again by their families’ determination and one reporter’s dogged work.

“Excellent . . . entrancing and disturbing . . . [Demick] is one of our finest chroniclers of East Asia. . . . [Her] characters are richly drawn, and her stories, often reported over a span of years, deliver a rare emotional wallop.”—The New York Times]]> 337 Barbara Demick 0593132750 Michael 0 4.28 2025 Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins
author: Barbara Demick
name: Michael
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> Project Hail Mary 222697645 A LONE ASTRONAUT.
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 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?

An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could imagine it, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.]]> 482 Andy Weir 0593135210 Michael 0 4.59 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Michael
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/09/13
date added: 2025/09/13
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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 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
rating: 0
read at: 2025/09/10
date added: 2025/09/10
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]]> <![CDATA[So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love]]> 18624272
After making his case against passion, Newport sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving what they do. Spending time with organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, freelance computer programmers, and others who admitted to deriving great satisfaction from their work, Newport uncovers the strategies they used and the pitfalls they avoided in developing their compelling careers.

Matching your job to a preexisting passion does not matter, he reveals. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before.

In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.

With a title taken from the comedian Steve Martin, who once said his advice for aspiring entertainers was to "be so good they can't ignore you," Cal Newport's clearly written manifesto is mandatory reading for anyone fretting about what to do with their life, or frustrated by their current job situation and eager to find a fresh new way to take control of their livelihood. He provides an evidence-based blueprint for creating work you love.

SO GOOD THEY CAN'T IGNORE YOU will change the way we think about our careers, happiness, and the crafting of a remarkable life.]]> 232 Cal Newport Michael 0 4.22 2012 So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love
author: Cal Newport
name: Michael
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2025/09/07
date added: 2025/09/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Grokking Algorithms An Illustrated Guide For Programmers and Other Curious People]]> 22847284
Grokking Algorithms is a disarming take on a core computer science topic. In it, you'll learn how to apply common algorithms to the practical problems you face in day-to-day life as a programmer. You'll start with problems like sorting and searching. As you build up your skills in thinking algorithmically, you'll tackle more complex concerns such as data compression or artificial intelligence. Whether you're writing business software, video games, mobile apps, or system utilities, you'll learn algorithmic techniques for solving problems that you thought were out of your grasp. For example, you'll be able to:
Write a spell checker using graph algorithms
Understand how data compression works using Huffman coding
Identify problems that take too long to solve with naive algorithms, and attack them with algorithms that give you an approximate answer instead
Each carefully-presented example includes helpful diagrams and fully-annotated code samples in Python. By the end of this book, you will know some of the most widely applicable algorithms as well as how and when to use them.]]> 256 Aditya Y. Bhargava 1617292230 Michael 3 4.41 2015 Grokking Algorithms An Illustrated Guide For Programmers and Other Curious People
author: Aditya Y. Bhargava
name: Michael
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2025/09/07
date added: 2025/09/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck]]> 216003775 From our “greatest living statistical communicator” (Tim Harford) comes an invaluable, data-driven guide for understanding—and learning to embrace—risk and uncertainty in our daily lives.


How dangerous is our diet? How much in sports comes down to luck? When authorities pronounce that a given event is “highly likely”—well, how likely is that, really? Our lives are riddled with risk and uncertainty, and renowned statistician David Spiegelhalter has spent his career crunching data to decode the seemingly random events that define our experiences, as well as the numerous decisions we each make in the face of imperfect knowledge. In The Art of Uncertainty, he illuminates how all of us can do this better. Revealing the principles of probability—a field that informs everything from annuities to pandemics and climate change—he shows how we can measure our confidence, better evaluate cause and effect, and update our beliefs about the future in the face of constantly changing experience. Drawing on fascinating real-world examples, this is an essential guide to navigating uncertainty in a world that makes it inevitable.]]> 335 David Spiegelhalter 1324106123 Michael 2 4.11 2024 The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck
author: David Spiegelhalter
name: Michael
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/09/07
date added: 2025/09/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change)]]> 18750852
Focusing on "disruptive technology" -- the Honda Super Cub, Intel's 8088 processor, or the hydraulic excavator, for example -- Christensen shows why most companies miss "the next great wave." Whether in electronics or retailing, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know when to abandon traditional business practices. Using the lessons of successes and failures from leading companies, "The Innovator's Dilemma" presents a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.]]> 355 Clayton M. Christensen 1422197581 Michael 4 4.22 1997 The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change)
author: Clayton M. Christensen
name: Michael
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2025/09/07
date added: 2025/09/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness]]> 30844156 Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction * New York Times Bestseller * A Huffington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year * One of the Best Books of the Month on Goodreads * Library Journal Best Sci-Tech Book of the Year * An American Library Association Notable Book of the Year “Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk did for raptors.” —New Statesman, UK “One of the best science books of the year.” —Science Friday, NPR Another New York Times bestseller from the author of The Good Good Pig, this “fascinating…touching…informative…entertaining” (The Daily Beast) book explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus—a surprisingly complex, intelligent, and spirited creature—and the remarkable connections it makes with humans.In pursuit of the wild, solitary, predatory octopus, popular naturalist Sy Montgomery has practiced true immersion journalism. From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities—gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food. Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s color-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” (Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.]]> 272 Sy Montgomery 1501161148 Michael 0 4.21 2015 The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
author: Sy Montgomery
name: Michael
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> Emotional Intelligence 18899874 Emotional Intelligence, we could only guess why. Daniel Goleman's brilliant report from the frontiers of psychology and neuroscience offers startling new insight into our "two minds"—the rational and the emotional—and how they together shape our destiny.

Through vivid examples, Goleman delineates the five crucial skills of emotional intelligence, and shows how they determine our success in relationships, work, and even our physical well-being. What emerges is an entirely new way to talk about being smart.

The best news is that "emotional literacy" is not fixed early in life. Every parent, every teacher, every business leader, and everyone interested in a more civil society, has a stake in this compelling vision of human possibility.]]> 384 Daniel Goleman 0553903209 Michael 0 4.11 1995 Emotional Intelligence
author: Daniel Goleman
name: Michael
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at: 2025/08/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life]]> 56082939 * Financial Times Business Book of the Month * Next Big Idea Club Nominee * One of Bloomberg's "52 New Books That Top Business Leaders Are Recommending" * Aleo Review of Books 2022 Book of the Year *A groundbreaking exploration of why we want what we want, and a toolkit for freeing ourselves from chasing unfulfilling desires.Gravity affects every aspect of our physical being, but there’s a psychological force just as powerful—yet almost nobody has heard of it. It’s responsible for bringing groups of people together and pulling them apart, making certain goals attractive to some and not to others, and fueling cycles of anxiety and conflict. In Wanting, Luke Burgis draws on the work of French polymath René Girard to bring this hidden force to light and reveals how it shapes our lives and societies. According to Girard, humans don’t desire anything independently. Human desire is mimetic—we imitate what other people want. This affects the way we choose partners, friends, careers, clothes, and vacation destinations. Mimetic desire is responsible for the formation of our very identities. It explains the enduring relevancy of Shakespeare’s plays, why Peter Thiel decided to be the first investor in Facebook, and why our world is growing more divided as it becomes more connected.Wanting also shows that conflict does not arise because of our differences—it comes from our sameness. Because we learn to want what other people want, we often end up competing for the same things. Ignoring our large similarities, we cling to our perceived differences.Drawing on his experience as an entrepreneur, teacher, and student of classical philosophy and theology, Burgis shares tactics that help turn blind wanting into intentional wanting--not by trying to rid ourselves of desire, but by desiring differently. It’s possible to be more in control of the things we want, to achieve more independence from trends and bubbles, and to find more meaning in our work and lives.The future will be shaped by our desires. Wanting shows us how to desire a better one.]]> 282 Luke Burgis 1250262496 Michael 0 4.05 2021 Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
author: Luke Burgis
name: Michael
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self]]> 24204222 The Drama of the Gifted Child helps us to reclaim our life by discovering our own crucial needs and our own truth.]]> 133 Alice Miller Michael 4 4.05 1979 The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
author: Alice Miller
name: Michael
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1979
rating: 4
read at: 2025/08/20
date added: 2025/08/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers—Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship]]> 20657434 Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup—practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog.

While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. Ben Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies. A lifelong rap fanatic, he amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs, telling it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.

Filled with his trademark humor and straight talk, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures, drawing from Horowitz's personal and often humbling experiences.

]]> 308 Ben Horowitz Michael 0 4.37 2014 The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers—Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship
author: Ben Horowitz
name: Michael
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2025/08/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Never Enough: Why You Don't Want to Be a Billionaire]]> 199600651
Readers will get fresh insights into building a successful business and a surprising, first-person account of what it’s actually like to become a billionaire.

By the age of thirty-five, Andrew Wilkinson had built a business worth over a billion dollars, but his path to success was anything but a straight line. Never Enough shares both the lessons Wilkinson has learned as well as the many mistakes made on the road to wealth—some of which cost him money, happiness, and important relationships. 

Taking a “no secrets” approach to the story billionaires rarely tell, Wilkinson is unwaveringly honest about some of the unexpected downsides of wealth. Money’s toxic effect on personal relationships, how the lifestyles of the rich and famous aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, and how competition with peers leaves everyone—even billionaires—feeling like they never have enough. 

In this rare and deeply honest glimpse into the life of a billionaire, Wilkinson examines not only his journey to nine zeros but also what comes after that pinnacled number—something, as Wilkinson has come to realize, that money can’t buy.]]> 288 Andrew Wilkinson 1637744773 Michael 4 4.55 Never Enough: Why You Don't Want to Be a Billionaire
author: Andrew Wilkinson
name: Michael
average rating: 4.55
book published:
rating: 4
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]]> The Grapes of Wrath 6055617 The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.

First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.

This Centennial edition, specially designed to commemorate one hundred years of Steinbeck, features french flaps and deckle-edged pages.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 468 John Steinbeck 1440637121 Michael 4 4.44 1939 The Grapes of Wrath
author: John Steinbeck
name: Michael
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1939
rating: 4
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]]> Men Explain Things to Me 219808826
She ends on a serious note— because the ultimate problem is the silencing of women who have something to say, including those saying things like, “He’s trying to kill me!”

This book features that now-classic essay with six perfect complements, including an examination of the writer Virginia Woolf ’s embrace of mystery, of not knowing, of doubt and ambiguity, a highly original inquiry into marriage equality, and a terrifying survey of the scope of contemporary violence against women.]]> 146 Rebecca Solnit Michael 0 3.90 2014 Men Explain Things to Me
author: Rebecca Solnit
name: Michael
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2025/08/08
date added: 2025/08/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism]]> 18850142 What if charisma could be taught?
 
The charisma myth is the idea that charisma is a fundamental, inborn quality—you either have it (Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs, Oprah) or you don’t. But that’s simply not true, as Olivia Fox Cabane reveals. Charismatic behaviors can be learned and perfected by anyone.
 
Drawing on techniques she originally developed for Harvard and MIT, Cabane breaks charisma down into its components. Becoming more charismatic doesn’t mean transforming your fundamental personality. It’s about adopting a series of specific practices that fit in with the personality you already have.
 
The Charisma Myth shows you how to become more influential, more persuasive, and more inspiring.

]]> 320 Olivia Fox Cabane 1101560304 Michael 0 4.07 2012 The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism
author: Olivia Fox Cabane
name: Michael
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2025/08/06
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]]> <![CDATA[G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century]]> 61182423 Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Biography

Winner of the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, the 2023 Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy, and the 43rd LA Times Book Prize in Biography | Finalist for the 2023 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography

Named a Best Book of 2022 by The Atlantic, The Washington Post and Smithsonian Magazine and a New York Times Top 100 Notable Books of 2022


“Masterful…This book is an enduring, formidable accomplishment, a monument to the power of biography [that] now becomes the definitive work”—The Washington Post

“A nuanced portrait in a league with the best of Ron Chernow and David McCullough.”—The Wall Street Journal

A major new biography of J Edgar Hoover that draws from never-before-seen sources to create a groundbreaking portrait of a colossus who dominated half a century of American history and planted the seeds for much of today's conservative political landscape.

We remember him as a bulldog--squat frame, bulging wide-set eyes, fearsome jowls--but in 1924, when he became director of the FBI, he had been the trim, dazzling wunderkind of the administrative state, buzzing with energy and big ideas for reform. He transformed a failing law-enforcement backwater, riddled with scandal, into a modern machine. He believed in the power of the federal government to do great things for the nation and its citizens. He also believed that certain people--many of them communists or racial minorities or both-- did not deserve to be included in that American project. Hoover rose to power and then stayed there, decade after decade, using the tools of state to create a personal fiefdom unrivaled in U.S. history.  

Beverly Gage’s monumental work  explores the full sweep of Hoover’s life and career, from his birth in 1895 to a modest Washington civil-service family through his death in 1972. In her  nuanced and definitive portrait, Gage shows how Hoover was more than a one-dimensional tyrant and schemer who strong-armed the rest of the country into submission. As FBI director from 1924 through his death in 1972, he was a confidant, counselor, and adversary to eight U.S. presidents, four Republicans and four Democrats.  Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson did the most to empower   him, yet his closest friend among the eight was fellow anticommunist warrior Richard Nixon.  Hoover was not above blackmail and intimidation, but he also embodied conservative values ranging from anticommunism to white supremacy to a crusading and politicized interpretation of Christianity. This garnered him the admiration of millions of Americans. He stayed in office for so long because many people, from the highest reaches of government down to the grassroots, wanted him there and supported what he was doing, thus creating the template that the political right has followed to transform its party.

G-Man places Hoover back where he once stood in American political history--not at the fringes, but at the center--and uses his story to explain the trajectories of governance, policing, race, ideology, political culture, and federal power as they evolved over the course of the 20th century.]]> 858 Beverly Gage 0593492617 Michael 0 4.48 2022 G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
author: Beverly Gage
name: Michael
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/08/04
date added: 2025/08/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Hall of Smoke (The Four Pillars)]]> 56233328 Epic fantasy featuring warrior priestesses, and fickle gods at war, for readers of Brian Staveley's Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne.Epic fantasy featuring warrior priestesses and fickle gods at war, for readers of Brian Staveley's Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne. Hessa is an a warrior priestess of the Goddess of War, with the power to turn an enemy's bones to dust with a scream. Banished for disobeying her goddess's command to murder a traveller, she prays for forgiveness alone on a mountainside. While she is gone, raiders raze her village and obliterate the Eangi priesthood. Grieving and alone, Hessa - the last Eangi - must find the traveller and atone for her weakness and secure her place with her loved ones in the High Halls. As clans from the north and legionaries from the south tear through her homeland, slaughtering everyone in their path Hessa strives to win back her goddess' favour. Beset by zealot soldiers, deceitful gods, and newly-awakened demons at every turn, Hessa burns her path towards redemption and revenge. But her journey reveals a harrowing the gods are dying and the High Halls of the afterlife are fading. Soon Hessa's trust in her goddess weakens with every unheeded prayer. Thrust into a battle between the gods of the Old World and the New, Hessa realizes there is far more on the line than securing a life beyond her own death. Bigger, older powers slumber beneath the surface of her world. And they're about to wake up.]]> 491 H.M. Long Michael 4 3.95 2021 Hall of Smoke (The Four Pillars)
author: H.M. Long
name: Michael
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/07/22
date added: 2025/07/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness]]> 32791963
In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how subjective experience crept into being—how nature became aware of itself. As Godfrey-Smith stresses, it is a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind’s fitful development, Godfrey-Smith shows how unruly clumps of seaborne cells began living together and became capable of sensing, acting, and signaling. As these primitive organisms became more entangled with others, they grew more complicated. The first nervous systems evolved, probably in ancient relatives of jellyfish; later on, the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous mollusks, abandoned their shells and rose above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so. Taking an independent route, mammals and birds later began their own evolutionary journeys.

But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? Drawing on the latest scientific research and his own scuba-diving adventures, Godfrey-Smith probes the many mysteries that surround the lineage. How did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life, become so smart? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are so packed with neurons that they virtually “think for themselves”? What happens when some octopuses abandon their hermit-like ways and congregate, as they do in a unique location off the coast of Australia?

By tracing the question of inner life back to its roots and comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives, Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light on the octopus mind—and on our own.]]> 273 Peter Godfrey-Smith Michael 0 4.00 2016 Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
author: Peter Godfrey-Smith
name: Michael
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2025/07/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again]]> 58597190 Our ability to pay attention is collapsing. From the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections comes a groundbreaking examination of why this is happening—and how to get our attention back.

Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding it much harder to focus than he used to. He found that a life of constantly switching from device to device, from tab to tab, is diminishing and depressing. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions—even abandoning his phone for three months—but in the long-term, nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention and to study their scientific findings—and learned that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.

In the U.S., teenagers now focus on a task for only sixty-five seconds on average, and office workers manage only three minutes. We think this inability to focus is a personal flaw, an individual failure to exert enough willpower over our devices. The truth is even more Our focus has been stolen by powerful external forces, and the science shows that these forces have been ramping up for decades—leaving us uniquely vulnerable, when social media arrived, to corporations determined to raid our attention for profit. These forces have been so successful that our collapse in attention is behind many of the wider problems society faces.

In Stolen Focus, Hari embarks on a thrilling journey, taking readers from veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD, to Silicon Valley dissidents who exposed social media companies' furtive attempts to hack our focus; from a favela in Rio where everyone lost their attention in a particularly catastrophic way, to an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore their workers' attention.

In this urgent, deeply researched book, Hari shows that if we understand the twelve true causes of this crisis—from the collapse of sustained reading to the disruption of boredom to rising pollution—we, as individuals and as a society, can finally begin to solve it by staging an attention rebellion. Finally, we have a way to get our focus back.
]]> 348 Johann Hari 059313852X Michael 4 4.22 2022 Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again
author: Johann Hari
name: Michael
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/07/18
date added: 2025/07/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthough Program to End Negative Behavior...and Feel Great Again]]> 37485950 Jeffrey E. Young, Ph.D., and Janet S. Klosko, Ph.D., show readers how to free themselves from negative life patterns. Written with compassion as well as clinical insight, this thought-provoking book guides readers through the process of identifying "life traps." For example, "Do you put the needs of others before your own? Are you drawn into relationships with people who are self-centered, cold to you, misunderstand you, or use you? Do you feel inadequate compared to people around you?" Followed by an engaging discussion that makes use of case studies, this book can help people change their lives by stopping the cycle of self-destruction.]]> 380 Jeffrey E. Young 1101667095 Michael 0 4.46 1993 Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthough Program to End Negative Behavior...and Feel Great Again
author: Jeffrey E. Young
name: Michael
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at: 2025/07/14
date added: 2025/07/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties]]> 43015073
Twenty years ago, when journalist Tom O'Neill was reporting a magazine piece about the murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Then he unearthed shocking evidence of a cover-up behind the "official" story, including police carelessness, legal misconduct, and potential surveillance by intelligence agents. When a tense interview with Vincent Bugliosi -- prosecutor of the Manson Family and author of Helter Skelter -- turned a friendly source into a nemesis, O'Neill knew he was onto something. But every discovery brought more questions:

Who were Manson's real friends in Hollywood, and how far would they go to hide their ties?
Why didn't law enforcement, including Manson's own parole officer, act on their many chances to stop him?
And how did Manson -- an illiterate ex-con -- turn a group of peaceful hippies into remorseless killers?

O'Neill's quest for the truth led him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from San Francisco's summer of love to the shadowy sites of the CIA's mind-control experiments, on a trail rife with shady cover-ups and suspicious coincidences. The product of two decades of reporting, hundreds of new interviews, and dozens of never-before-seen documents from the LAPD, the FBI, and the CIA, Chaos mounts an argument that could be, according to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Steven Kay, strong enough to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders. This is a book that overturns our understanding of a pivotal time in American history.]]> 504 Tom O'Neill 0316477575 Michael 4 4.03 2019 Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties
author: Tom O'Neill
name: Michael
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/07/12
date added: 2025/07/12
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]]> Status Anxiety 6054800 “There's no writer alive like de Botton” (Chicago Tribune), and now this internationally heralded author turns his attention to the insatiable human quest for status—a quest that has less to do with material comfort than love. Anyone who’s ever lost sleep over an unreturned phone call or the neighbor’s Lexus had better read Alain de Botton’s irresistibly clear-headed new book, immediately. For in its pages, a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents explores the notion that our pursuit of status is actually a pursuit of love, ranging through Western history and thought from St. Augustine to Andrew Carnegie and Machiavelli to Anthony Robbins. Whether it’s assessing the class-consciousness of Christianity or the convulsions of consumer capitalism, dueling or home-furnishing, Status Anxiety is infallibly entertaining. And when it examines the virtues of informed misanthropy, art appreciation, or walking a lobster on a leash, it is not only wise but helpful.]]> 270 Alain de Botton 0307491331 Michael 3 4.03 2004 Status Anxiety
author: Alain de Botton
name: Michael
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2025/07/08
date added: 2025/07/08
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]]> Touch and Go: A Memoir 21291355 This memoir by the oral historian and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Good War is “a masterpiece about a life which itself is a sort of masterpiece” (Oliver Sacks).   Chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2007 by the Chicago Tribune, Publishers Weekly, and Playboy, Studs Terkel’s memoir Touch and Go is “history from a highly personal point of view, by one who has helped make it” (Kirkus Reviews).   Terkel takes us through his childhood and into his early experiences—as a law student during the Depression, and later as an actor on both radio and the stage—offering a brilliant and often hilarious portrait of Chicago in the 1920s and ’30s. Describing his beginnings as a disc jockey after World War II, his involvement with progressive politics during the McCarthy era, as well as his career as an interviewer and oral historian, Touch and Go is a testament to Terkel’s “generosity of spirit, sense of social justice and commitment to capture on his ever present tape recorder the voices of those who otherwise would not be heard” (The New York Times Book Review).   It is a brilliant lifetime achievement from the man the Washington Post has called “the most distinguished oral historian of our time.”   “The master storyteller tells his own story, as no one else can, irresistibly.” —Garry Wills]]> 288 Studs Terkel Michael 4 4.24 2007 Touch and Go: A Memoir
author: Studs Terkel
name: Michael
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/07/06
date added: 2025/07/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea]]> 40604846
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST

In this landmark addition to the literature of totalitarianism, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick follows the lives of six North Korean citizens over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il (the father of Kim Jong-un), and a devastating famine that killed one-fifth of the population.

Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive regime today—an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, where displays of affection are punished, informants are rewarded, and an offhand remark can send a person to the gulag for life. She takes us deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors, and through meticulous and sensitive reporting we see her subjects fall in love, raise families, nurture ambitions, and struggle for survival. One by one, we witness their profound, life-altering disillusionment with the government and their realization that, rather than providing them with lives of abundance, their country has betrayed them.]]> 338 Barbara Demick Michael 4 4.48 2009 Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
author: Barbara Demick
name: Michael
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2025/07/03
date added: 2025/07/03
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]]> Life Itself 58247172
Roger Ebert is the best-known film critic of our time. He has been reviewing films for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and was the first film critic ever to win a Pulitzer Prize. He has appeared on television for four decades.

In 2006, complications from thyroid cancer treatment resulted in the loss of his ability to eat, drink, or speak. But with the loss of his voice, Ebert has only become a more prolific and influential writer. And now, for the first time, he tells the full, dramatic story of his life and career.

In this candid, personal history, Ebert chronicles it all: his loves, losses, and obsessions; his struggle and recovery from alcoholism; his marriage; his politics; and his spiritual beliefs. He writes about his years at the Sun-Times, his colorful newspaper friends, and his life-changing collaboration with Gene Siskel. He shares his insights into movie stars and directors like John Wayne and Martin Scorsese.

This is a story that only Roger Ebert could tell. Filled with the same deep insight, dry wit, and sharp observations that his readers have long cherished, this is more than a memoir -- it is a singular, warm-hearted, inspiring look at life itself.]]> 427 Roger Ebert Michael 0 4.18 2011 Life Itself
author: Roger Ebert
name: Michael
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2025/07/01
date added: 2025/07/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The House Of Medici: Its Rise and Fall]]> 16301125
The House of Medici picks up where Barbara Tuchman's Hibbert delves into the lives of the Medici family, whose legacy of increasing self-indulgence and sexual dalliance eventually led to its self-destruction. With twenty-four pages of black-and-white illustrations, this timeless saga is one of Quill's strongest-selling paperbacks.]]> 364 Christopher Hibbert Michael 0 3.84 1975 The House Of Medici: Its Rise and Fall
author: Christopher Hibbert
name: Michael
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at: 2025/06/25
date added: 2025/06/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less]]> 30325567 In these accelerated times, our decisive and businesslike ways of thinking are unprepared for ambiguity, paradox, and sleeping on it." We assume that the quick-thinking "hare brain" will beat out the slower Intuition of the "tortoise mind." However, now research in cognitive science is changing this understanding of the human mind. It suggests that patience and confusion--rather than rigor and certainty--are the essential precursors of wisdom.

With a compelling argument that the mind works best when we trust our unconscious, or "undermind," psychologist Guy Claxton makes an appeal that we be less analytical and let our creativity have free rein. He also encourages reevaluation of society's obsession with results-oriented thinking and problem-solving under pressure. Packed with Interesting anecdotes, a dozen puzzles to test your reasoning, and the latest related research, Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind is an Illuminating, uplifting, stimulating read that focuses on a new kind of well-being and cognition.

]]> 265 Guy Claxton Michael 3 4.09 1997 Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less
author: Guy Claxton
name: Michael
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/22
date added: 2025/06/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide]]> 53915075
“Many people have written about creativity, but although they were very, very clever, they weren't actually creative. I like to think I'm writing about it from the inside.”—John Cleese

You might think that creativity is some mysterious, rare gift—one that only a few possess. But you’d be wrong. As John Cleese shows in this short, practical, and often amusing guide, creativity is a skill that anyone can acquire.

Drawing on his lifelong experience as a writer, Cleese shares his insights into the nature of creativity and offers advice on how to get your own inventive juices flowing. What do you need to do to get yourself in the right frame of mind? When do you know that you’ve come up with an idea that might be worth pursuing? What should you do if you think you’ve hit a brick wall?

We can all be more creative.

John Cleese shows us how.]]> 96 John Cleese 0385348282 Michael 0 4.21 2020 Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide
author: John Cleese
name: Michael
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/06/17
date added: 2025/06/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights]]> 11179419 Daniel Goleman explains what we now know about the brain basis of emotional intelligence, in clear and simple terms.

This eBook will deepen your understanding of emotional intelligence and enhance your ability for its application. You will learn the most recent brain findings that

• The Big Question being asked, particularly in academic “Is there such an entity as ‘emotional intelligence’ that differs from IQ?”
• The brain’s ethical radar
• The neural dynamics of creativity
• The brain circuitry for drive, persistence, and motivation
• The brain states underlying optimal performance, and how to enhance them
• The social rapport, resonance, and interpersonal chemistry
• Brain 2.0: our brain on the web
• The varieties of empathy and key gender differences
• The dark sociopathy at work
• Neural lessons for coaching and enhancing emotional intelligence abilities]]> 72 Daniel Goleman 1934441112 Michael 0 3.90 2011 The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights
author: Daniel Goleman
name: Michael
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2025/06/17
date added: 2025/06/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Science of Rapid Skill Acquisition: Advanced Methods to Learn, Remember, and Master New Skills and Information]]> 44058556 get from Point A to Point B at the speed of light.
Learning is the key to bettering your circumstances and becoming the person you want to be. Skills, information, and abilities will never come to you - it’s up to you to seek them out, and this book shows you how to do so in the most effective and efficient manner.

Applicable and actionable advice - not just theory and description. Work smarter, not harder.
The Science of Rapid Skill Acquisition is the definitive resource to get you where you want to be in terms of a new talent, skill, or ability. You may not realize it, but each day is a set of skills and tasks that we repeat. Each hobby and interest is also a set of skills and tasks. This book focuses on what matters in processing information and being able to use it effectively to your advantage.

Rapid skill acquisition is how you get ahead in life professionally and personally.

Learn to rapidly train your brain and develop muscle memory. Understand the underlying psychology and biology.
Peter Hollins has studied psychology and peak human performance for over a dozen years and is a bestselling author. He has worked with a multitude of individuals to unlock their potential and path towards success. His writing draws on his academic, coaching, and research experience.

Tactics that top 1% performers and competitors use.
• Theories and principles of learning and what we are doing wrong.
• How your expectations matter more than your amount of talent.
• How to make a plan to strategically deconstruct and analyze information and skills.

How to get better results while working less.
• Surprising methods to utilize the people and environment around you.
• The art of practicing, pivoting, and correcting yourself.
• How to stack your skills and become a unique resource.
• Take advantage of learning science to best absorb info.

Learning slowly and inefficiently will lead to your downfall -- or even worse, being average.
We live in a fast-paced world. Will you fall behind or take the lead? The choice is yours -- learning unlocks the doors to everything we want in life. Accelerating that process makes your life easier and more fulfilled. Personally, your intersts and hobbies will grow at a quick pace for more enjoyment. Professionally, your career opportunities will skyrocket because of your newfound proficiencies.

Start your journey rapidly by clicking the BUY NOW BUTTON at the top of this page!
]]> 149 Peter Hollins Michael 0 4.05 2019 The Science of Rapid Skill Acquisition: Advanced Methods to Learn, Remember, and Master New Skills and Information
author: Peter Hollins
name: Michael
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/06/16
date added: 2025/06/16
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]]> <![CDATA[How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America]]> 59593499 This important book “weaves lyrical storytelling and fascinating research into a compelling narrative” (San Francisco Chronicle) to look at dietary differences along class lines and nutritional disparities in America, illuminating exactly how inequality starts on the dinner plate. Inequality in America manifests in many ways, but perhaps nowhere more than in how we eat. From her years of field research, sociologist and ethnographer Priya Fielding-Singh brings us into the kitchens of dozens of families from varied educational, economic, and ethnoracial backgrounds to explore how—and why—we eat the way we do. We get to know four families the Bakers, a Black family living below the federal poverty line; the Williamses, a working-class white family just above it; the Ortegas, a middle-class Latinx family; and the Cains, an affluent white family. ​ Whether it's worrying about how far pantry provisions can stretch or whether there's enough time to get dinner on the table before soccer practice, all families have unique experiences that reveal their particular dietary constraints and challenges. By diving into the nuances of these families’ lives, Fielding-Singh lays bare the limits of efforts narrowly focused on improving families’ food access. Instead, she reveals how being rich or poor in America impacts something even more fundamental than the food families can these experiences impact the very meaning of food itself. Packed with lyrical storytelling and groundbreaking research, as well as Fielding-Singh’s personal experiences with food as a biracial, South Asian American woman, How the Other Half Eats illuminates exactly how inequality starts on the dinner plate. Once you’ve taken a seat at tables across America, you’ll never think about class, food, and public health the same way again.]]> 353 Priya Fielding-Singh 0316427276 Michael 0 4.04 2021 How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America
author: Priya Fielding-Singh
name: Michael
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/06/15
date added: 2025/06/15
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]]> <![CDATA[All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World]]> 160830 208 Seth Godin 1591841003 Michael 0 3.88 2005 All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World
author: Seth Godin
name: Michael
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2025/06/11
date added: 2025/06/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Insight: Why We Are Less Self-Aware Than We Think—and What to Do About It]]> 34444331 The first definitive book exploring the science of self-awareness, the meta-skill of the 21st century, Insight is a fascinating journey into everyone's favorite topic: themselves.

Do you know who you really are? Do you ever wonder how other people really see you? Though we are usually confident that we do, we are wrong more often than we think. And if we could see ourselves through others’ eyes, we might be really surprised.

Yet regardless of our line of work or stage of life, success depends on understanding who we are and how we come across. Research shows that self-awareness means better work performance, smarter life choices, deeper, more meaningful relationships, and a more fulfilling career. There’s just one problem: people can be remarkably poor judges of their behavior, performance, and impact on others. And despite the lip service given today to “feedback,” in the business world and beyond, it’s rare to get candid, objective data on what we’re doing well, and where we could stand to improve.

Of course, at work and in life, we’ve all come across people with a stunning lack of self-awareness—but how often do we consider whether we might have the same problem? And if we did, how would we even know it?

Drawing on her three-year, first-of-its-kind study of people who have dramatically improved their self-awareness, organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich reveals why we don’t know ourselves as well as we think—and what to do about it. Alongside her research, she integrates hundreds of academic studies and her 15 years of work with Fortune 500 clients, challenging conventional “wisdom” to reveal many surprising truths—like why introspection is the enemy of insight, how experience isn’t a bullet train to self-knowledge, and just how far others will go to avoid telling us the truth about ourselves.

Readers will learn battle-tested techniques and tools to improve self-awareness and thus their work performance, leadership skills, interpersonal relationships, and more. Insight is a guide surviving and thriving in an unaware world.]]> 401 Tasha Eurich 0451496825 Michael 0 4.00 2017 Insight: Why We Are Less Self-Aware Than We Think—and What to Do About It
author: Tasha Eurich
name: Michael
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2025/06/09
date added: 2025/06/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-4)]]> 17264061 T. H. White’s masterful retelling of the saga of King Arthur is a fantasy classic as legendary as Excalibur and Camelot, and a poignant story of adventure, romance, and magic that has enchanted readers for generations.
 
Once upon a time, a young boy called “Wart” was tutored by a magician named Merlyn in preparation for a future he couldn’t possibly imagine. A future in which he would ally himself with the greatest knights, love a legendary queen and unite a country dedicated to chivalrous values. A future that would see him crowned and known for all time as Arthur, King of the Britons.
 
During Arthur’s reign, the kingdom of Camelot was founded to cast enlightenment on the Dark Ages, while the knights of the Round Table embarked on many a noble quest. But Merlyn foresaw the treachery that awaited his liege: the forbidden love between Queen Guenever and Lancelot, the wicked plots of Arthur’s half-sister Morgause and the hatred she fostered in Mordred that would bring an end to the king’s dreams for Britain—and to the king himself.]]> 654 T.H. White 1101657545 Michael 0 to-read 4.11 1958 The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-4)
author: T.H. White
name: Michael
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1958
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly]]> 8161568 Anthony Bourdain, host of Parts Unknown, reveals "twenty-five years of sex, drugs, bad behavior and haute cuisine" in his breakout New York Times bestseller Kitchen Confidential.Bourdain spares no one's appetite when he told all about what happens behind the kitchen door. Bourdain uses the same "take-no-prisoners" attitude in his deliciously funny and shockingly delectable book, sure to delight gourmands and philistines alike. From Bourdain's first oyster in the Gironde, to his lowly position as dishwasher in a honky tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown (where he witnesses for the first time the real delights of being a chef); from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, to drug dealers in the east village, from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again, Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable.Kitchen Confidential will make your mouth water while your belly aches with laughter. You'll beg the chef for more, please.]]> 321 Anthony Bourdain 1596917245 Michael 0 4.27 2000 Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: Michael
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2025/06/05
date added: 2025/06/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service]]> 219728281 “Perhaps never before has there been a book better timed or more urgent.” —Washington Post

One of President Obama's 2025 Summer Reads

As seen on CBS Mornings, CNN Anderson Cooper, ABC News Live, MSNBC Morning Joe, and many more

Who works for the government and why does their work matter? An urgent and absorbing civics lesson from an all-star team of writers and storytellers.

The government is a vast, complex system that Americans pay for, rebel against, rely upon, dismiss, and celebrate. It’s also our shared resource for addressing the biggest problems of society. And it’s made up of people, mostly unrecognized and uncelebrated, doing work that can be deeply consequential and beneficial to everyone.

Michael Lewis invited his favorite writers, including Casey Cep, Dave Eggers, John Lanchester, Geraldine Brooks, Sarah Vowell, and W. Kamau Bell, to join him in finding someone doing an interesting job for the government and writing about them. The stories they found are unexpected, riveting, and inspiring, including a former coal miner devoted to making mine roofs less likely to collapse, saving thousands of lives; an IRS agent straight out of a crime thriller; and the manager who made the National Cemetery Administration the best-run organization, public or private, in the entire country. Each essay shines a spotlight on the essential behind-the-scenes work of exemplary federal employees.

Whether they’re digitizing archives, chasing down cybercriminals, or discovering new planets, these public servants are committed to their work and universally reluctant to take credit. Expanding on the Washington Post series, the vivid profiles in Who Is Government? blow up the stereotype of the irrelevant bureaucrat. They show how the essential business of government makes our lives possible, and how much it matters.]]> 290 Michael Lewis Michael 0 4.43 2025 Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service
author: Michael Lewis
name: Michael
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/31
date added: 2025/05/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World]]> 6298372
“Erudite, entertaining macroeconomic history of the lead-up to the Great Depression as seen through the careers of the West’s principal bankers . . . Spellbinding, insightful and, perhaps most important, timely.”  — Kirkus Reviews  (starred)

“There is terrific prescience to be found in [ Lords of Finance’s ] portrait of times past . . . [A] writer of great verve and erudition, [Ahamed] easily connects the dots between the economic crises that rocked the world during the years his book covers and the fiscal emergencies that beset us today." — The New York Times

It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of that economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades. As we continue to grapple with economic turmoil,  Lords of Finance is a potent reminder of the enormous impact that the decisions of central bankers can have, their fallibility, and the terrible human consequences that can result when they are wrong.]]> 576 Liaquat Ahamed 1440697965 Michael 0 4.25 2009 Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World
author: Liaquat Ahamed
name: Michael
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/28
date added: 2025/05/28
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]]> Poverty, by America 74852010 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a “provocative and compelling” (NPR) argument about why it persists in because the rest of us benefit from it.

A BEST BOOK OF THE The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Oprah Daily, Time, The Star Tribune, Vulture, The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Public Library, Esquire, California Review of Books, She Reads, Library Journal

“Urgent and accessible . . . Its moral force is a gut punch.”—The New Yorker

Longlisted for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award • Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages? 
 
In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.
 
Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.]]> 287 Matthew Desmond 059323992X Michael 0 4.28 2023 Poverty, by America
author: Matthew Desmond
name: Michael
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/18
date added: 2025/05/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul]]> 6586145 252 Stuart M. Brown Jr. 110101623X Michael 0 4.19 2009 Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul
author: Stuart M. Brown Jr.
name: Michael
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/16
date added: 2025/05/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East]]> 17262206 A thrilling and revelatory narrative of one of the most epic and consequential periods in 20th century history – the Arab Revolt and the secret “great game” to control the Middle East

The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War One was, in the words of T.E. Lawrence, “a sideshow of a sideshow.”  Amidst the slaughter in European trenches, the Western combatants paid scant attention to the Middle Eastern theater.  As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power.

Curt Prüfer was an effete academic attached to the German embassy in Cairo, whose clandestine role was to foment Islamic jihad against British rule.  Aaron Aaronsohn was a renowned agronomist and committed Zionist who gained the trust of the Ottoman governor of Syria. William Yale was the fallen scion of the American aristocracy, who traveled the Ottoman Empire on behalf of Standard Oil, dissembling to the Turks in order gain valuable oil concessions.  At the center of it all was Lawrence.  In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in the sands of Syria; by 1917 he was the most romantic figure of World War One, battling both the enemy and his own government to bring about the vision he had for the Arab people.

The intertwined paths of these four men – the schemes they put in place, the battles they fought, the betrayals they endured and committed – mirror the grandeur, intrigue and tragedy of the war in the desert.  Prüfer became Germany’s grand spymaster in the Middle East.  Aaronsohn constructed an elaborate Jewish spy-ring in Palestine, only to have the anti-Semitic and bureaucratically-inept British first ignore and then misuse his organization, at tragic personal cost.  Yale would become the only American intelligence agent in the entire Middle East – while still secretly on the payroll of Standard Oil.  And the enigmatic Lawrence rode into legend at the head of an Arab army, even as he waged secret war against his own nation’s imperial ambitions.

Based on years of intensive primary document research, Lawrence in Arabia definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed.  Sweeping in its action, keen in its portraiture, acid in its condemnation of the destruction wrought by European colonial plots, this is a book that brilliantly captures the way in which the folly of the past creates the anguish of the present.]]> 577 Scott Anderson 038553292X Michael 0 4.06 2013 Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East
author: Scott Anderson
name: Michael
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/13
date added: 2025/05/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling]]> 40042453 368 Matthew Dicks 1608685497 Michael 0 4.43 2018 Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling
author: Matthew Dicks
name: Michael
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/05
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]]> Deep Learning 54375811
Kelleher explains some of the basic concepts in deep learning, presents a history of advances in the field, and discusses the current state of the art. He describes the most important deep learning architectures, including autoencoders, recurrent neural networks, and long short-term networks, as well as such recent developments as Generative Adversarial Networks and capsule networks. He also provides a comprehensive introduction to the two fundamental algorithms in deep gradient descent and backpropagation. Finally, Kelleher considers the future of deep learning—major trends, possible developments, and significant challenges.]]> 295 John D. Kelleher 026235490X Michael 0 3.93 2019 Deep Learning
author: John D. Kelleher
name: Michael
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/02
date added: 2025/05/02
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]]>