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Phantom
Brief Summary
Following from Jo Nesbø's electrifying international best-sellers The Snowman and The Leopard, now comes Phantom, which plunges the brilliant, deeply troubled, now former police officer Harry Hole into a full-tilt investigation on which his own tenuous future will come to depend.
When Harry left Oslo again for Hong Kong—fleeing the traumas of life as a cop—he thought he was there for good. But then the unthinkable happened. The son of the woman he loved, lost, and still loves is arrested for murder: Oleg, the boy Harry helped raise but couldn't help deserting when he fled. Harry has come back to prove that Oleg is not a killer.
Barred from rejoining the police force, he sets out on a solitary, increasingly dangerous investigation that takes him deep into the world of the most virulent drug to ever hit the streets of Oslo (and the careers of some of the city's highest officials), and into the maze of his own past, where he will find the wrenching truth that finally matters to Oleg, and to himself.
ISBN:9780307960474
Author:Jo Nesbø
Inside Chinese Business
Brief Summary
Inside Chinese Business: A Guide for Managers Worldwide
"A guide for anyone who wants to engage the Chinese in cooperative endeavor." — "Foreign Affairs." Ming-Jer Chen takes readers "Inside Chinese Business" to reveal the social and cultural values that underpin Chinese business practices and influence day-to-day corporate decisions.
Drawing from his intimate knowledge of Chinese culture and history and from his extensive managerial work and international experience, Chen provides an unrivaled insider's perspective on how to work, compete, and cooperate successfully with Chinese companies around the globe. Ming-Jer Chen is the Bigelow Research Professor of Business Administration at the Darden School of the University of Virginia.
He is also Senior Fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Visiting Professor of Management at the Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, England. Dr. Chen was formerly Founder/Director of the Wharton School's Global Chinese Business Initiative.
ISBN:9781591393276
Author:Ming-Jer Chen
Leading Minds An Anatomy Of Leadership
Brief Summary
In Leading Minds, Gardner and his research associate at Harvard Project Zero, Emma Laskin, apply a cognitive lens to leadership, drawing on Gardner's groundbreaking work on intelligence and creativity to offer fascinating revelations about the minds of leaders and those who follow them.
This reissue includes a new introduction by the author.
"
ISBN:9780465082803
Author:Howard Gardner and Emma Laskin
Love Is Power Or Something Like That ...
Brief Summary
When it comes to love, things are not always what they seem. In contemporary Lagos, a young boy may pose as a woman online, and a maid may be suspected of sleeping with her employer and yet still become a young wife’s confidante. Men and women can be objects of fantasy, the subject of beery soliloquies. They can be trophies or status symbols. Or they can be overwhelming in their need.
In these wide-ranging stories, A. Igoni Barrett roams the streets with people from all stations of life. A man with acute halitosis navigates the chaos of the Lagos bus system. A minor policeman, full of the authority and corruption of his uniform, beats his wife. A family’s fortunes fall from love and wealth to infidelity and poverty as poor choices unfurl over three generations. With humor and tenderness, Barrett introduces us to an utterly modern Nigeria, where desire is a means to an end, and love is a power as real as money.
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ISBN:9781555976408
Author:A. Igoni Barrett
The Longer Long Tail
Brief Summary
The Longer Long Tail: How endless choice is creating unlimited demand
What happens when there is almost unlimited choice? When everything becomes available to everyone? And when the combined value of the millions of items that only sell in small quantities equals or even exceeds the value of a handful of best-sellers?
In this ground-breaking book, Chris Anderson shows that the future of business does not lie in hits - the high-volume end of a traditional demand curve - but in what used to be regarded as misses - the endlessly long tail of that same curve. As our world is transformed by the Internet and the near infinite choice it offers consumers, so traditional business models are being overturned and new truths revealed about what consumers want and how they want to get it.
Chris Anderson first explored the Long Tail in an article in Wired magazine that has become one of the most influential business essays of our time. Now, in this eagerly anticipated book, he takes a closer look at the new economics of the Internet age, showing where business is going and exploring the huge opportunities that exist: for new producers, new e-tailers, and new tastemakers. He demonstrates how long tail economics apply to industries ranging from the toy business to advertising to kitchen appliances. He sets down the rules for operating in a long tail economy. And he provides a glimpse of a future that's already here.
ISBN:9781847940360
Author:Chris Anderson
The Leopard
Brief Summary
In the depths of winter, a killer stalks the city streets. His victims are two young women, both found with twenty-four inexplicable puncture wounds, both drowned in their own blood. The crime scenes offer no clues, the media is reaching fever pitch, and the police are running out of options. There is only one man who can help them, and he doesn't want to be found.
Deeply traumatized by The Snowman investigation, which threatened the lives of those he holds most dear, Inspector Harry Hole has lost himself in the squalor of Hong Kong's opium dens. But with his father seriously ill in hospital, Harry reluctantly agrees to return to Oslo. He has no intention of working on the case, but his instinct takes over when a third victim is found brutally murdered in a city park.
The victims appear completely unconnected to one another, but it's not long before Harry makes a discovery: the women all spent the night in an isolated mountain hostel. And someone is picking off the guests one by one. A heart-stopping thriller from the bestselling author of the The Snowman, The Leopard is an international phenomenon that will grip you until the final page.
ISBN:9780099548973
Author:Jo Nesbø
Raising and Praising Girls
Brief Summary
One of the biggest lessons we have learnt in the last few decades is that it is valuable, important and effective to praise children. Children respond much better to encouragement than they do to punishment, which is why praising them is considered fundamental in helping them develop self-esteem and strong self-belief.
However, the wrong kind of praise can do more harm than good, creating children who lose all sense of rational judgment and are too readily wrong-footed when they meet difficulty. In this practical, common-sense guide, Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer reveals why understanding and acknowledging girls' unique sensibilities is the key to knowing how to award them with the right sort of praise.
Using insightful, accessible tips, she shows parents how to: - combat the perfectionism girls are often susceptible to and encourage them to be creative and take risks - boost girls' self-confidence and belief in themselves - be discriminating in their praise in order to maximize its effect - teach girls not to fear failure but to accept it and learn from it.
ISBN:9780091906733
Author:Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer
Raising and Praising Boys
Brief Summary
One of the biggest lessons we have learnt in the last few decades is that it is valuable, important and effective to praise children. Children respond much better to encouragement than they do to punishment, which is why praising them is considered fundamental in helping them develop self-esteem and strong self-belief.
However, the wrong kind of praise can do more harm than good, creating children who lose all sense of rational judgment and are too readily wrong-footed when they meet difficulty. In this practical, common-sense guide, Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer shows parents why understanding and acknowledging boys' sensibilities is the key to knowing how to award their sons with the right sort of praise.
Using insightful, accessible tips, she reveals: - why boys need regular but small doses of positive feedback to prevent them from becoming distracted or losing focus in their work - what makes the father/son relationship instrumental in ensuring boys receive the right praise - why female approval may have less value in the eyes of young boys than male approval.
ISBN:9780091906740
Author:Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer
The Process of Economic Development
Brief Summary
The fourth edition of The Process of Economic Development offers a thorough and up-to-date treatment of development economics. This landmark text will continue to be an invaluable resource for students, teachers and researchers in the fields of development economics and development studies.
The new edition has been revised and updated throughout, reflecting the most recent developments in research and incorporating the latest empirical data, as well as key theoretical advances. The period since the publication of the third edition of The Process of Economic Development has been a time of immense change in the developing world. The period has seen huge economic growth in China, economic restructuring in India and the continuing impact of environmental issues such as climate change. The fourth edition reflects these developments, as well as including numerous case studies and new material on the following:
• Transnational corporations and labor in export processing zones
• Industrial policy and structural change
• Gender inequality, income distribution and development
• Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals
• Technology and national innovation systems
• Aid and the least developed nations
• The post debt crisis era and debt relief for Africa.
Cypher’s comprehensive account remains the development economics text par excellence, as it takes a much more practical, hands-on view of the issues facing developing countries than other, overly mathematical texts. This book is unique in its scope and in the detailed attention it gives to the historical contexts that have influenced progress toward development. It is accessibly written both for students of economics and for those with an interest in the many aspects of development studies.
ISBN:9780415643283
Author:James Cypher
The Square and the Tower
Brief Summary
The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook
A brilliant recasting of the turning points in world history, including the one we're living through, as a collision between old power hierarchies and new social networks.
Most history is hierarchical: it's about emperors, presidents, prime ministers and field marshals. It's about states, armies and corporations. It's about orders from on high. Even history "from below" is often about trade unions and workers' parties. But what if that's simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on? What if we are missing the informal, less well documented social networks that are the true sources of power and drivers of change?
The 21st century has been hailed as the Age of Networks. However, in The Square and the Tower, Niall Ferguson argues that networks have always been with us, from the structure of the brain to the food chain, from the family tree to freemasonry. Throughout history, hierarchies housed in high towers have claimed to rule, but often real power has resided in the networks in the town square below. For it is networks that tend to innovate. And it is through networks that revolutionary ideas can contagiously spread. Just because conspiracy theorists like to fantasize about such networks doesn't mean they are not real.
From the cults of ancient Rome to the dynasties of the Renaissance, from the founding fathers to Facebook, The Square and the Tower tells the story of the rise, fall and rise of networks, and shows how network theory--concepts such as clustering, degrees of separation, weak ties, contagions and phase transitions--can transform our understanding of both the past and the present.
Just as The Ascent of Money put Wall Street into historical perspective, so The Square and the Towerdoes the same for Silicon Valley. And it offers a bold prediction about which hierarchies will withstand this latest wave of network disruption--and which will be toppled.
ISBN:9780735222915
Author:Niall Ferguson
Small Is the New Big
Brief Summary
Small Is the New Big: and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas
As one of today’s most influential business thinkers, Seth Godin helps his army of fans stay focused, stay connected, and stay dissatisfied with the status quo, the ordinary, the boring. His books, blog posts, magazine articles, and speeches have inspired countless entrepreneurs, marketing people, innovators, and managers around the world.
Now, for the first time, Godin has collected the most provocative short pieces from his pioneering blog ranked #70 by Feedster (out of millions published) in worldwide readership. This book also includes his most popular columns from Fast Company magazine, and several of the short e-books he has written in the last few years.
A sample:
Bon Jovi And The Pirates
Christmas Card Spam
Clinging To Your Job Title?
How Much Would You Pay to Be on Oprah’s Show?
The Persistence of Really Bad Ideas
The Seduction of "Good Enough”
What Happens When It's All on Tape?
Would You Buy Life Insurance at a Rock Concert?
Small is the New Big is a huge bowl of inspiration that you can gobble in one sitting or dip into at any time. As Godin writes in his introduction: "I guarantee that you'll find some ideas that don’t work for you. But I’m certain that you're smart enough to see the stuff you’ve always wanted to do, buried deep inside one of these riffs. And I’m betting that once inspired, you’ll actually make something happen.”
ISBN:9781591841265
Author:Seth Godin
Small Data The Tiny Clues that Uncove...
Brief Summary
Martin Lindstrom, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, harnesses the power of "small data” in his quest to discover the next big thing
Hired by the world's leading brands to find out what makes their customers tick, Martin Lindstrom spends 300 nights a year in strangers’ homes, carefully observing every detail in order to uncover their hidden desires, and, ultimately, the clues to a multi-million dollar product.
Lindstrom connects the dots in this globetrotting narrative that will enthrall enterprising marketers, as well as anyone with a curiosity about the endless variations of human behavior. You’ll learn…
1. How a noise reduction headset at 35,000 feet led to the creation of Pepsi’s new trademarked signature sound.
2. How a worn down sneaker discovered in the home of an 11-year-old German boy led to LEGO’s incredible turnaround.
3. How a magnet found on a fridge in Siberia resulted in a U.S. supermarket revolution.
4. How a toy stuffed bear in a girl’s bedroom helped revolutionize a fashion retailer’s 1,000 stores in 20 different countries.
5. How an ordinary bracelet helped Jenny Craig increase customer loyalty by 159% in less than a year.
6. How the ergonomic layout of a car dashboard led to the redesign of the Roomba vacuum.
ISBN:9781250080684
Author:Martin Lindstrom
The Boy Next Door
Brief Summary
Two days after I turned fourteen the son of our neighbor set his stepmother alight.
Or so Lindiwe Bishop believes, though eighteen months later the charges against Ian McKenzie are dropped and he returns home, full of charm and swagger.
Intrigued, Lindiwe strikes up a covert friendship with the mysterious white boy next door. As a bond grows between them, they cannot foresee how severely it will be tested in the years ahead - by secrets and by a world that wants nothing more than to divide them.
Vividly evoking Zimbabwe's slide from independence into chaos, THE BOY NEXT DOOR tells an engrossing tale about what it means to witness, change, love and remain whole when all around you is falling apart.
ISBN:9780340918838
Author:Irene Sabatini
The Way to Wealth
Brief Summary
The Way to Wealth is an essay written by Benjamin Franklin in 1758. It is a collection of adages and advice presented in Poor Richard's Almanac during its first 25 years of publication, organized into a speech given by "Father Abraham" to a group of people. Many of the phrases Father Abraham quotes continue to be familiar today. The essay's advice is based on the themes of work ethic and frugality. Some phrases from the almanac quoted in The Way to Wealth include: • "There are no gains, without pains"
1. "One today is worth two tomorrows"
2. "A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things" • "Get what you can, and what you get hold"
3. "Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright"
4. "Have you somewhat to do tomorrow, do it today"
5. "The eye of a master will do more work than both his hands"
6. "Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise"
A renowned polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity.
As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among other inventions. He facilitated many civic organizations, including Philadelphia's fire department and a university. Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, initially as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation. Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment.
In the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, "In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat." To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin "the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become."
ISBN:9780918222886
Author:Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Jefferson The Art of Power
Brief Summary
In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power.
Thomas Jefferson hated confrontation, and yet his understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and to marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes, and to prevail. Passionate about many things—women, his family, books, science, architecture, gardens, friends, Monticello, and Paris—Jefferson loved America most, and he strove over and over again, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America.
Jon Meacham lets us see Jefferson’s world as Jefferson himself saw it, and to appreciate how Jefferson found the means to endure and win in the face of rife partisan division, economic uncertainty, and external threat. Drawing on archives in the United States, England, and France, as well as unpublished Jefferson presidential papers, Meacham presents Jefferson as the most successful political leader of the early republic, and perhaps in all of American history.
The father of the ideal of individual liberty, of the Louisiana Purchase, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and of the settling of the West, Jefferson recognized that the genius of humanity—and the genius of the new nation—lay in the possibility of progress, of discovering the undiscovered and seeking the unknown. From the writing of the Declaration of Independence to elegant dinners in Paris and in the President’s House; from political maneuverings in the boardinghouses and legislative halls of Philadelphia and New York to the infant capital on the Potomac; from his complicated life at Monticello, his breathtaking house and plantation in Virginia, to the creation of the University of Virginia, Jefferson was central to the age. Here too is the personal Jefferson, a man of appetite, sensuality, and passion.
The Jefferson story resonates today not least because he led his nation through ferocious partisanship and cultural warfare amid economic change and external threats, and also because he embodies an eternal drama, the struggle of the leadership of a nation to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world.
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ISBN:9781400067664
Author:Jon Meacham
Thank You for Being Late by Thomas L....
Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations
The new international bestseller from the Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The World is flat - this is an essential and entertaining field guide to thriving in the twenty-first century.
'As a guide for perplexed Westerners, this book is very hard to beat . . . Thank You for Being Late is a master class in explaining. After your session with Dr. Friedman, you have a much better idea of the forces that are upending your world, how they work together - and what people, companies and governments can do to prosper' John Micklethwait, The New York Times Book Review
'The globe-trotting New York Times columnist's most famous book was about the world being flat. This one is all about the world being fast. His main piece of advice for individuals, corporations, and countries is clear: Take a deep breath and adapt. This world isn't going to wait for you' Fortune
We all sense it - something big is going on. You feel it in your workplace. You feel it when you talk to your children. You can't miss it when you read the newspapers or watch the news. Our lives are speeding up - and it is dizzying.
In Thank You for Being Late, a work unlike any he has attempted before, Thomas L. Friedman exposes the tectonic movements that are reshaping the world today and explains how to get the most out of them.
Friedman's thesis is that to understand the twenty-first century, you need to understand that the planet's three largest forces - Moore's law (technology), the market (globalization) and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loss) - are all accelerating at once, transforming the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics and community. An extraordinary release of energy is reshaping everything from how we hail a taxi to the fate of nations to our most intimate relationships. It is creating vast new opportunities for individuals and small groups to save the world - or perhaps to destroy it.
Thank You for Being Late is a work of contemporary history that serves as a field manual for how to think about this era of accelerations. It's also an argument for 'being late' - for pausing to appreciate this amazing historical epoch we're passing through and reflecting on its possibilities and dangers. He shows us how we can anchor ourselves as individuals in the eye of this storm, and how communities can create a 'topsoil of trust' to do the same for their increasingly diverse and digital populations.
Written with his trademark vitality, wit, and optimism, and with unequalled access to many of those at the forefront of the changes he is describing all over the world, Thank You for Being Late is Friedman's most ambitious book - and an essential guide to the present and the future.
The Truth About Markets
Brief Summary
Truth about Markets: Why Some Countries Are Rich and Others Remain Poor.
Capitalism faltered at the end of the 1990s as corporations were rocked by fraud, the stock-market bubble burst and the American business model – unfettered self-interest, privatization and low tax – faced a storm of protest.
But what are the alternatives to the mantras of market fundamentalism? Leading economist John Kay unravels the truth about markets, from Wall Street to Switzerland, from Russia to Mumbai, examining why some nations are rich and some poor, why ‘one-size-fits-all’ globalization hurts developing countries and why markets can work – but only in a humane social and cultural context. His answers offer a radical new blueprint for the future.
ISBN:9780140296723
Author:John Kay
Thus Bad Begins
Brief Summary
Standing in a corridor, watching a shadowy figure pleading with another through a closed door: Javier MarÃas’s novels are as intimate as they are weird and fascinating.
And Thus Bad Begins is an intimate book, based in a single Madrid apartment where Juan de Vere works for film director Eduardo Muriel as an assistant-dogsbody. Juan’s clear on his place in the pecking order: "There’s nothing original about me”, he says.
Juan is a very junior bystander, simply watching, as it becomes clear that something catastrophic has happened in his boss’s marriage to the beautiful Beatriz. But what?
MarÃas often makes use of an apparently dull narrator to tell an increasingly extraordinary story (from the race-track loiterer of the 1992 short "Broken Binoculars”, to the café-going voyeur of 2013’s The Infatuations).
ISBN:9781101946084
Author:Javier MarÃas
Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus
Brief Summary
Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity
Capital in the Twenty-First Century meets The Second Machine Age in this stunning and optimistic tour de force on the promise and peril of the digital economy, from one of the most brilliant social critics of our time.
Digital technology was supposed to usher in a new age of endless prosperity, but so far it has been used to put industrial capitalism on steroids, making it harder for people and businesses to keep up. Social networks surrender their original missions to more immediately profitable data mining, while brokerage houses abandon value investing for algorithms that drain markets and our 401ks alike--all tactics driven by the need to stoke growth by any means necessary. Instead of taking this opportunity to reprogram our economy for sustainability, we have doubled down on growth as its core command. We have reached the limits of this approach. We must escape the growth trap, once and for all.
Media scholar and technology author Douglas Rushkoff--one of today's most original and influential thinkers--argues for a new economic program that utilizes the unique distributive power of the internet while breaking free of the winner-take-all system the growth trap leaves in its wake. Drawing on sources both contemporary and historical, Rushkoff pioneers a new understanding of the old economic paradigm, from central currency to debt to corporations and labor.
Most importantly, he offers a series of practical steps for businesses, consumers, investors, and policymakers to remake the economic operating system from the inside out--and prosper along the way. Instead of boycotting Wal-Mart or overtaxing the wealthy, we simply implement strategies that foster the creation of value by stakeholders other than just ourselves. From our currency to our labor to the corporation, every aspect of the economy can be reprogrammed with minimal disruption to create a more equitably distributed prosperity for all.
Inspiring and challenging, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus provides a pragmatic, optimistic, and human-centered model for economic progress in the digital age.
ISBN:9781617230172
Author:Douglas Rushkoff
World Changers 25 Entrepreneurs Who C...
Brief Summary
What if you could sit down with some of the world's most influential entrepreneurs and gain their knowledge and insights on how to create a game changing business?
Imagine having the chance to listen to a John Mackey (Whole Foods) or a Fred Smith (FedEx) on the most important things they've learned from their experiences. Or having the benefit of the self-reflection of Howard Schultz of Starbucks, who had to come back to the company he originally built to reinvent it and himself?
Of course it's not possible to deliver these rock star entrepreneurs to your dinner table. But John A. Byrne offers the next best thing: he spoke with many who have changed the face of business. In World Changers he captures the most important lessons they've learned, the biggest challenges they've tackled, and the most valuable advice they can offer others who have an entrepreneurial dream.
You'll learn the inspiring stories of how these world changers discovered their disruptive ideas, then made them a reality; overcame a variety of obstacles; and created sustainable enterprises. You'll get the firsthand accounts of how:
• Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank got the confidence to start The Home Depot after being fired from their jobs.
• Reed Hastings turned a forty-dollar video late fee into a disruptive upstart called Netflix.
• Herb Kohler, the "reluctant prince of porcelain," came back to the family business and made it number one in its industry again.
• Narayana Murthy, after one fateful train ride and wrongful incarceration, converted from communist to capitalist and cofounded one of the most successful entrepreneurial ventures in India.
World Changers is an inspiration for those who want to create something meaningful on their own. It serves as both a celebration of entrepreneurial achievement as well as a practical handbook for everyone who dreams of starting his or her own world-changing business.
ISBN:9781591844501
Author:John A. Byrne