1.
Everything I know about Marketing I Learned from Google, Aaron
Goldman
2.
Presentation Zen Design, Simple Design Principles and Techniques to
Enhance Your Presentations, by Garr Reynolds.
Reynold's second book on design. "To change the world, you need to pitch.
To pitch, you need to design. To design, you need this book" - Guy Karasaki.
Pretty much everything Reynold's says NOT to do with Powerpoint describes
almost every Powerpoint I give!!
3.
Dealings, by Felix Rohatyn
How NY City was saved by a cigarette...following on the biography of
Rohatyn I read in 2009.
4.
Moneymakers, the Wicked Lives and Surprising Adventures of three
Notorious Counterfeiters, by Ben Tarnoff
5.
House of Lies, How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then
Tell You The Time, by Martin Kihn
The best book by a Michael Lewis wannabe, once you've read everything by
Michael Lewis.
6.
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
My Nora made me read this and I'm glad she did.
7.
Levittown: Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for Civil Rights in
America's Legendary Suburb, by David Kushner
From Publishers Weekly
Migration to suburbia has long been an American ambition, but its allure was
never stronger than in the post-WWII years, when the fantasy of a dream
house played to the imagination of millions of Americans, especially returning
veterans. Already waiting for many of them was a model community on the
North Shore of Long Island called Levittown, the brainchild of Abraham
Levitt and his sons, William and Alfred, the nations first real estate tycoons.
But Levittown came with its own set of requirements: perfectly manicured
lawns, no fences and no black families. In 1957, as the Levitts—by now
massively successful and nationally lauded—had already expanded to a
second model city, two families challenged the segregationist policy: one, a
white Jewish Communist family, secretly arranged for the other, a black
family, to buy the house next door. In an entertaining round-robin format,
Kushner relays each partys story in the leadup to a combustible summer when
the integration of Americas most famous suburb caused the downfall of a titan
and
transformed
the
nation.
(Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School—In 1957, Levittown, PA, was known as a remarkable
suburb. It was built by the innovative Abe Levitt & Sons, who used the new
mass-production techniques for a planned community that could be
constructed quickly, included comfortable homes with state-of-the-art
appliances, and was affordable for returning veterans. The covenants,
however, implied that the community was for whites only, and this policy was
backed up by Home Owners Loan Corporation. When Lew and Bea Wechsler,
disillusioned Communists and civil rights advocates, decided to challenge this
policy and help a black couple, Daisy and Bill Myers, move next door, mob
violence immediately occurred, some of which was instigated by outsiders
who were members of the KKK. This account centers on the background of
the two families and their growing friendship as they endured vicious attacks
by their neighbors and the apathetic protection of the police. It is also the story
of the Levitt family: Abe, the brilliant and enterprising father; Bill, the
egotistical, power-hungry, and controlling son; and his brother, Alfred, the
gifted and unconventional architect. This story of a conflicted, fearful
neighborhood is told against the wider background of the Civil Rights
Movement and the fallout from McCarthyism. Students may know of Rosa
Parks and Ruby Bridges and the students of Little Rock, AR. This courageous
story is also one that should be heard.—Jackie Gropman, formerly at Fairfax
County
Public
Library
System,
Fairfax,
VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
8.
All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, by
Bethany McLean
As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the
blame fall on Wall Street, Main Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue? On greedy
traders, misguided regulators, sleazy subprime companies, cowardly
legislators,
or
clueless
home
buyers?
According to Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, two of America's most
acclaimed business journalists, the real answer is all of the above-and more.
Many devils helped bring hell to the economy. And the full story, in all of its
complexity and detail, is like the legend of the blind men and the elephant.
Almost everyone has missed the big picture. Almost no one has put all the
pieces
together.
All the Devils Are Here goes back several decades to weave the hidden history
of the financial crisis in a way no previous book has done. It explores the
motivations of everyone from famous CEOs, cabinet secretaries, and
politicians to anonymous lenders, borrowers, analysts, and Wall Street traders.
It delves into the powerful American mythology of homeownership. And it
proves that the crisis ultimately wasn't about finance at all; it was about
human
nature.
Among
the
devils
you'll
meet
in
vivid
detail:
• Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide, who dreamed of spreading
homeownership to the masses, only to succumb to the peer pressure-and the
outsized
profits-of
the
sleaziest
subprime
lending.
• Roland Arnall, a respected philanthropist and diplomat, who made his
fortune building Ameriquest, a subprime lending empire that relied on
blatantly
deceptive
lending
practices.
• Hank Greenberg, who built AIG into a Rube Goldberg contraption with an
undeserved triple-A rating, and who ran it so tightly that he was the only one
who
knew
where
all
the
bodies
were
buried.
• Stan O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, aloof and suspicious, who suffered from
"Goldman envy" and drove a proud old firm into the ground by promoting
cronies
and
pushing
out
his
smartest
lieutenants.
• Lloyd Blankfein, who helped turn Goldman Sachs from a culture that
famously put clients first to one that made clients secondary to its own bottom
line.
• Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae, who (like his predecessors) bullied
regulators into submission and let his firm drift away from its original, noble
mission.
• Brian Clarkson of Moody's, who aggressively pushed to increase his rating
agency's market share and stock price, at the cost of its integrity.
• Alan Greenspan, the legendary maestro of the Federal Reserve, who ignored
the evidence of a growing housing bubble and turned a blind eye to the
lending practices that ultimately brought down Wall Street-and inflicted
enormous
pain
on
the
country.
Just as McLean's The Smartest Guys in the Room was hailed as the best Enron
book on a crowded shelf, so will All the Devils Are Here be remembered for
finally making sense of the meltdown and its consequences.
Amazon.Com Review
9.
Gold and Spices, The Rise of Commerce in the Middle Ages, Jean Favier
and Caroline Higgitt
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Favier (The World of Chartres, LJ 4/1/90), a medieval historian, examines
Europe's transformation from a feudal economy to a nascent form of
capitalism. He details the technological advances in shipbuilding and the
formation of large trading companies that made possible the success of
merchant entrepreneurs at the center of this story. These developments led to
an expansion in intellectual horizons as well. People became less bound to an
agricultural economy and were introduced to a range of exotic products,
which later helped to stimulate the Age of Discovery. Forms of speculation
appeared and reappeared: loans to rulers, leased monopolies, buying on credit,
fixed exchange rates, etc. The merchant entrepreneurs became major players
in European politics, and the owners of shipping fleets and banks produced
descendants who, like the Medici, could become secular rulers or even popes.
This work should appeal to interested lay readers as well as to students and
scholars. Highly recommended for academic and large public
libraries.?Robert
Andrews,
Duluth
P.L.,
MN
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A painstakingly detailed account of the development of capitalist institutions
and practices in Europe from the 11th to the 15th centuries by a French
historian. Favier's story is in many ways a heroic one. He praises those who in
any period are determined to extend the limits of what is imaginable. This
would seem to be his view of the great medieval trading families of Europe,
who over the course of several centuries transformed themselves from, as he
puts it, ``dusty-footed merchants'' to a dominant economic and political force.
At the same time, there is little that is heroic here; after all, the driving force
for most of the merchants was simply to make the most profit with the least
risk. To do so they had to be willing to confront, or manipulate, or coopt, both
religious and secular authorities. New ways of doing business had to be
imagined; new methods of exchange, accounting, payment, and raising capital
had to be devised. If at the end of the 15th century the capitalist class, as, say,
Ricardo or Marx had imagined it, had not yet emerged, the tools it would use
to rule and define the world were, Favier concludes, firmly in place. Favier's
work is most of value in the detail he provides. This is not grand narrative, but
a careful historical investigation of precisely how, for instance, the merchants
of Genoa kept their accounts or of how the credit systems they devised to
protect themselves from uncertain royal currency systems worked. This is not,
however, a work for the faint-hearted; a whole chapter on the various types of
coins in circulation in Europe, their comparative worth, and how this worth
fluctuated is not everyone's idea of fascinating reading. Still, with a bit of
forbearance, the details do accumulate into a worthwhile tale of the origins of
the modern economic world. Not for everyone, but an impressive historical
achievement. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
10.
High Financier, The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg, by Niall
Ferguson
This is a fabulous history of post WWII England, and the decline of their
manufacturing base. Everyone should read every book ever written by Niall
Ferguson.
From Publishers Weekly
Siegmund Warburg (1902–1982), scion of a Jewish banking dynasty, fled
Nazi Germany to London, where he became a leading banker and an informal
economic adviser to prime ministers—but his importance doesn't shine
through this unfocused biography. Financial historian Ferguson (The Ascent of
Money) styles him a financial innovator (he engineered Britain's first hostile
takeover), a pioneer of European economic integration (he helped invent the
Eurobond), a prophet of globalization, a paragon of fiscal rectitude whose
principles could have helped us avoid the current economic mess, and a deep
thinker about international affairs. Unfortunately, Ferguson doesn't make a
compelling argument for his subject's significance. Laymen will find his
sketchy treatment of Warburg's feats of high finance rather opaque and his
case for Warburg the humanist and intellectual weak (and undermined by his
subject's obsession with handwriting analysis). Ferguson uses Warburg's life
as a window onto European unification and Britain's postwar economic
malaise, but his account, which is constantly distracted by deal making and
office politics at Warburg's banking partnership, is too unsystematic to do
these topics justice. The view from Warburg's lofty perch doesn't make for a
discerning
perspective
on
the
world
around
him.
(July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved.
From Booklist
No longer the banking force it formerly was, the Warburg name belongs to
historians now. Ron Chernow chronicled the clan in The Warburgs (1993),
and here the notable economic historian Ferguson (The Ascent of Money,
2008) depicts Siegmund Warburg (1902–82), who in his prime was the most
important and influential member of the family. Verbose for someone trained
in accountancy, Warburg amassed written opinions about virtually everything,
furnishing Ferguson with an abundance of source material that he synthesizes
with a practiced hand. Throughout his life, Warburg was never passionately
interested in money. His early aspiration for an academic or political career
was thwarted by the Nazi ascendance in his native Germany. Warburg
immigrated to London, where, from the platform of his reestablished banking
business, he involved himself in intelligence during WWII and in proffering
advice to Labour Party politicians afterward. Sketching in the bibliophilic
Warburg's intellectual interests, Ferguson's comprehensive biography ably
integrates the private, public, financial, and philosophical facets of Siegmund
Warburg's character. --Gilbert Taylor
http://www.amazon.com/High-Financier-Lives-Siegmund
Warburg/dp/159420246X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1294529614
&sr=1-1
11.
The Poisoner’s Handbook, Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in
Jazz Age New York, by Deborah Blum
12.
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail,
by Bill Bryson
Amazon.com Review
Your initial reaction to Bill Bryson's reading of A Walk in the Woods may
well be "Egads! What a bore!" But by sentence three or four, his clearly
articulated, slightly adenoidal, British/American-accented speech pattern
begins to grow on you and becomes quite engaging. You immediately get a
hint of the humor that lies ahead, such as one of the innumerable reasons he
longed to walk as many of the 2,100 miles of the Appalachian Trail as he
could. "It would get me fit after years of waddlesome sloth" is delivered with
glorious deadpan flair. By the time our storyteller recounts his trip to the
Dartmouth Co-op, suffering serious sticker shock over equipment prices,
you'll be hooked.
When Bryson speaks for the many Americans he encounters along the way--in
various shops, restaurants, airports, and along the trail--he launches into his
American accent, which is whiny and full of hard r's. And his southern
intonations are a hoot. He's even got a special voice used exclusively when
speaking for his somewhat surprising trail partner, Katz. In the 25 years since
their school days together, Katz has put on quite a bit of weight. In fact, "he
brought to mind Orson Welles after a very bad night. He was limping a little
and breathing harder than one ought to after a walk of 20 yards." Katz often
speaks in monosyllables, and Bryson brings his limited vocabulary
humorously to life. One of Katz's more memorable utterings is "flung," as in
flung most of his provisions over the cliff because they were too heavy to
carry any farther.
The author has thoroughly researched the history and the making of the
Appalachian Trail. Bryson describes the destruction of many parts of the
forest and warns of the continuing perils (both natural and man-made) the
Trail faces. He speaks of the natural beauty and splendor as he and Katz pass
through, and he recalls clearly the serious dangers the two face during their
time together on the trail. So, A Walk in the Woods is not simply an out-ofshape, middle-aged man's desire to prove that he can still accomplish a major
physical task; it's also a plea for the conservation of America's last wilderness.
Bryson's telling is a knee-slapping, laugh-out-loud funny trek through the
woods, with a touch of science and history thrown in for good measure.
(Running time: 360 minutes, four cassettes) --Colleen Preston --This text
refers to the Audio Cassette edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Returning to the U.S. after 20 years in England, Iowa native Bryson decided
to reconnect with his mother country by hiking the length of the 2100-mile
Appalachian Trail. Awed by merely the camping section of his local sporting
goods store, he nevertheless plunges into the wilderness and emerges with a
consistently comical account of a neophyte woodsman learning hard lessons
about self-reliance. Bryson (The Lost Continent) carries himself in an
irresistibly bewildered manner, accepting each new calamity with wonder and
hilarity. He reviews the characters of the AT (as the trail is called), from a
pack of incompetent Boy Scouts to a perpetually lost geezer named Chicken
John. Most amusing is his cranky, crude and inestimable companion, Katz, a
reformed substance abuser who once had single-handedly "become, in effect,
Iowa's drug culture." The uneasy but always entertaining relationship between
Bryson and Katz keeps their walk interesting, even during the flat stretches.
Bryson completes the trail as planned, and he records the misadventure with
insight and elegance. He is a popular author in Britain and his impeccably
graceful and witty style deserves a large American audience as well.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of
print or unavailable edition of this title.
13.
In A Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson
Amazon.com Review
Bill Bryson follows his Appalachian amble, A Walk in the Woods, with the
story of his exploits in Australia, where A-bombs go off unnoticed, prime
ministers disappear into the surf, and cheery citizens coexist with the world's
deadliest creatures: toxic caterpillars, aggressive seashells, crocodiles, sharks,
snakes, and the deadliest of them all, the dreaded box jellyfish. And that's just
the beginning, as Bryson treks through sunbaked deserts and up endless
coastlines, crisscrossing the "under-discovered" Down Under in search of all
things interesting.
Bryson, who could make a pile of dirt compelling--and yes, Australia is
mostly dirt--finds no shortage of curiosities. When he isn't dodging
Portuguese man-of-wars or considering the virtues of the remarkable platypus,
he visits southwest Gippsland, home of the world's largest earthworms (up to
12 feet in length). He discovers that Australia, which began nationhood as a
prison, contains the longest straight stretch of railroad track in the world (297
miles), as well as the world's largest monolith (the majestic Uluru) and largest
living thing (the Great Barrier Reef). He finds ridiculous place names:
"Mullumbimby Ewylamartup, Jiggalong, and the supremely satisfying
Tittybong," and manages to catch a cricket game on the radio, which is like
listening to two men sitting in a rowboat on a large, placid lake on a day when
the fish aren't biting; it's like having a nap without losing consciousness. It
actually helps not to know quite what's going on. In such a rarefied world of
contentment and inactivity, comprehension would become a distraction.
"You see," Bryson observes, "Australia is an interesting place. It truly is. And
that really is all I'm saying." Of course, Bryson--who is as much a travel
writer here as a humorist, naturalist, and historian--says much more, and does
so with generous amounts of wit and hilarity. Australia may be "mostly empty
and a long way away," but it's a little closer now. --Rob McDonald --This text
refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
With the Olympics approaching, books on Australia abound. Still, Bryson's
lively take is a welcome recess from packaged, staid guides. The author of A
Walk in the Woods draws readers in campfire-style, relating wacky anecdotes
and random facts gathered on multiple trips down under, all the while
lightening the statistics with infusions of whimsical humor. Arranged loosely
by region, the book bounces between Canberra and Melbourne, the Outback
and the Gold Coast, showing Bryson alone and with partners in tow. His
unrelenting insistence that Australia is the most dangerous place on earth ("If
you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may
be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by
irresistible currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking
outback") spins off dozens of tales involving jellyfish, spiders and the world's
10 most poisonous snakes. Pitfalls aside, Bryson revels in the beauty of this
country, home to ravishing beaches and countless unique species ("80% of all
that lives in Australia, plant and animal, lives nowhere else"). He glorifies the
country, alternating between awe, reverence and fear, and he expresses these
sentiments with frankness and candor, via truly funny prose and a
conversational pace that is at once unhurried and captivating. Peppered with
seemingly irrelevant (albeit amusing) yarns, this work is a delight to read,
whether or not a trip to the continent is planned. First serial to Outside
magazine;
BOMC
selection.
(June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the
Hardcover edition.
14.
A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
Amazon.com Review
From primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short History of Nearly
Everything reports what happened and how humans figured it out. To
accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson uses hundreds of sources,
from popular science books to interviews with luminaries in various fields.
His aim is to help people like him, who rejected stale school textbooks and
dry explanations, to appreciate how we have used science to understand the
smallest particles and the unimaginably vast expanses of space. With his
distinctive prose style and wit, Bryson succeeds admirably. Though A Short
History clocks in at a daunting 500-plus pages and covers the same material as
every science book before it, it reads something like a particularly detailed
novel (albeit without a plot). Each longish chapter is devoted to a topic like
the age of our planet or how cells work, and these chapters are grouped into
larger sections such as "The Size of the Earth" and "Life Itself." Bryson chats
with experts like Richard Fortey (author of Life and Trilobite) and these
interviews are charming. But it's when Bryson dives into some of science's
best and most embarrassing fights--Cope vs. Marsh, Conway Morris vs.
Gould--that he finds literary gold. --Therese Littleton --This text refers to the
Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
As the title suggests, bestselling author Bryson (In a Sunburned Country) sets
out to put his irrepressible stamp on all things under the sun. As he states at
the outset, this is a book about life, the universe and everything, from the Big
Bang to the ascendancy of Homo sapiens. "This is a book about how it
happened," the author writes. "In particular how we went from there being
nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something
turned into us, and also what happened in between and since." What follows is
a brick of a volume summarizing moments both great and curious in the
history of science, covering already well-trod territory in the fields of
cosmology, astronomy, paleontology, geology, chemistry, physics and so on.
Bryson relies on some of the best material in the history of science to have
come out in recent years. This is great for Bryson fans, who can encounter this
material in its barest essence with the bonus of having it served up in Bryson's
distinctive voice. But readers in the field will already have studied this
information more in-depth in the originals and may find themselves
questioning the point of a breakneck tour of the sciences that contributes
nothing novel. Nevertheless, to read Bryson is to travel with a memoirist
gifted with wry observation and keen insight that shed new light on things we
mistake for commonplace. To accompany the author as he travels with the
likes of Charles Darwin on the Beagle, Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton is a
trip
worth
taking
for
most
readers.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the
Hardcover edition.
15.
At Home: A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson
Amazon.com Review: Amazon Best Books of the Month, October 2010: Bill
Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything) turns his attention from
science to society in his authoritative history of domesticity, At Home: A Short
History of Private Life. While walking through his own home, a former
Church of England rectory built in the 19th century, Bryson reconstructs the
fascinating history of the household, room by room. With waggish humor and
a knack for unearthing the extraordinary stories behind the seemingly
commonplace, he examines how everyday items--things like ice, cookbooks,
glass windows, and salt and pepper--transformed the way people lived, and
how houses evolved around these new commodities. "Houses are really quite
odd things," Bryson writes, and, luckily for us, he is a writer who thrives on
oddities. He gracefully draws connections between an eclectic array of events
that have affected home life, covering everything from the relationship
between cholera outbreaks and modern landscaping, to toxic makeup, highly
flammable hoopskirts, and other unexpected hazards of fashion. Fans of
Bryson's travel writing will find plenty to love here; his keen eye for detail
and delightfully wry wit emerge in the most unlikely places, making At Home
an engrossing journey through history, without ever leaving the house. -Lynette Mong
From Publishers Weekly: Starred Review. Bryson (A Short History of
Everything) takes readers on a tour of his house, a rural English parsonage,
and finds it crammed with 10,000 years of fascinating historical bric-a-brac.
Each room becomes a starting point for a free-ranging discussion of rarely
noticed but foundational aspects of social life. A visit to the kitchen prompts
disquisitions on food adulteration and gluttony; a peek into the bedroom
reveals nutty sex nostrums and the horrors of premodern surgery; in the study
we find rats and locusts; a stop in the scullery illuminates the put-upon lives of
servants. Bryson follows his inquisitiveness wherever it goes, from Darwinian
evolution to the invention of the lawnmower, while savoring eccentric
characters and untoward events (like Queen Elizabeth I's pilfering of a
subject's silverware). There are many guilty pleasures, from Bryson's droll
prose--"What really turned the Victorians to bathing, however, was the
realization that it could be gloriously punishing"--to the many tantalizing
glimpses behind closed doors at aristocratic English country houses. In
demonstrating how everything we take for granted, from comfortable furniture
to smoke-free air, went from unimaginable luxury to humdrum routine,
Bryson shows us how odd and improbable our own lives really are.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved.
16.
Shrimp: The Endless Quest for Pink Gold, by Jack Rudloe and Anne
Rudloe
It’s a common theme: a venerable American way of life is threatened by its
own success. Local practitioners face cheap competition from other countries.
Modern technologies make possible shortcuts that could ultimately spell
disaster. We could be talking about virtually anything, but right now we’re
talking about shrimp. This book, written by a veteran nature writer and a
marine biologist explores the the past, present, and (possible) future of the
shrimping industry. Shrimping dates back as far as 600 BCE; the modern
shrimping industry began early in the twentieth century, when—no surprise
here—technological advances enabled shrimpers to bring in mass quantities.
But, as with any similar industry, shrimping is now in decline, with shrimpers
facing stiff competition from companies shipping farmed shrimp to the U.S.
from overseas. And, as with many similar industries, its survival in the future
depends on a chancy mixture of government intervention, commercial
concessions, and scientific breakthroughs. Think of the book as a small-scale
reflection of a much larger reality. --David Pitt
17.
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean, by
Susan Casey
Casey, O magazine editor-in-chief, travels across the world and into the past
to confront the largest waves the oceans have to offer. This dangerous water
includes rogue waves south of Africa, storm-born giants near Hawaii, and the
biggest wave ever recorded, a 1,740 foot-high wall of wave (taller than one
and a third Empire State Buildings) that blasted the Alaska coastline in 1958.
Casey follows big-wave surfers in their often suicidal attempts to tackle
monsters made of H2O, and also interviews scientists exploring the danger
that global warning will bring us more and larger waves. Casey writes
compellingly of the threat and beauty of the ocean at its most dangerous. We
get vivid historical reconstructions and her firsthand account of being on a jetski watching surfers risk their lives. Casey also smoothly translates the science
of her subject into engaging prose. This book will fascinate anyone who has
even the slightest interest in the oceans that surround us.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine: Part science lesson and part adrenaline rush, The
Wave is an intense thrill ride that manages to take a broad look at oversized,
potentially devastating waves. The critics praised Casey's eloquent writing
and jaw-droppingly vivid descriptions of chasing--or trying desperately to
steer clear of--these aquatic behemoths. Although the Los Angeles Times
craved more technical information, and the New York Times Book Review
considered the combination of science and surfing a bit odd, most critics
brushed such concerns aside. Casey's entertaining and enlightening
exploration of the world's giant waves will leave readers with "a healthy
respect for the power of these waves" (Los Angeles Times) and a chilling
sense of how little we truly know about the oceans that surround us.
18.
Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is
Breaking America, by Matt Taibbi
The dramatic story behind the most audacious power grab in American
history
The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The
stunning rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street in the bubble-and-bailout era was
the coming-out party for the network of looters who sit at the nexus of
American political and economic power. The grifter class—made up of the
largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their
bidding—has been growing in power for a generation, transferring wealth
upward through increasingly complex financial mechanisms and political
maneuvers. The crisis was only one terrifying manifestation of how they’ve
hijacked
America’s
political
and
economic
life.
Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi here unravels the whole fiendish story, digging
beyond the headlines to get into the deeper roots and wider implications of the
rise of the grifters. He traces the movement’s origins to the cult of Ayn Rand
and her most influential—and possibly weirdest—acolyte, Alan Greenspan,
and offers fresh reporting on the backroom deals that decided the winners and
losers in the government bailouts. He uncovers the hidden commodities
bubble that transferred billions of dollars to Wall Street while creating food
shortages around the world, and he shows how finance dominates politics,
from the story of investment bankers auctioning off America’s infrastructure
to an inside account of the high-stakes battle for health-care reform—a battle
the true reformers lost. Finally, he tells the story of Goldman Sachs, the
“vampire
squid
wrapped
around
the
face
of
humanity.”
Taibbi has combined deep sources, trailblazing reportage, and provocative
analysis to create the most lucid, emotionally galvanizing, and scathingly
funny account yet written of the ongoing political and financial crisis in
America. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the
labyrinthine inner workings of politics and finance in this country, and the
profound consequences for us all.
19.
When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a
Persuasive Man, by Jerry Weintraub
Hollywood power player Weintraub, now 72, is always in control and goes to
great lengths to prove it: besides having managed musical legends like
Presley, Sinatra and John Denver ("I cooked him from scratch"), Weintraub
once closed a deal by faking a heart attack, and won the respect of one of
Chicago's most powerful men, Arthur Wirtz, when he cursed Wirtz out for
making him wait (Wirtz would go on to become one of Weintraub's mentors).
Weintraub's also produced plays, TV shows, movies (from Nashville to the
Ocean's 11 franchise), and more, summing up his talent simply: "When I
believe in something, it's going to get done." Edgy and honest but refreshingly
spare in his criticism of stars, colleagues and family, Weintraub can be
forgiven for glossing over speed bumps in his career (one failed business lost
$30 million before it closed in the mid-'80s) and occasionally showing his age
with wandering rumination. As Weintraub repeatedly states, he is not a star,
which perhaps that explains the disappointing omission of photos. Still, with a
bold voice, a storied career, and a cast of superstars, his memoir makes a
rousing insider tour of some five decades in the entertainment industry.
20.
The Money Culture, by Michael Lewis
Lewis wrote a very funny and trenchant book about life as a junior bond trader
on Wall Street in the mid-1980s and called it Liar's Poker ( LJ 9/1/89). In this
new book, he revisits familiar ground. In essays and pieces that originally
appeared in magazines and newspapers, he strolls down Wall Street and takes
aim at such targets as Michael Milken, the RJR Nabisco takeover, Louis
Rukeyser, the Savings & Loan crisis, the Japanese, etc., and dissects them.
There is not much in the way of true revelation here, but, with Lewis's puckish
humor and inimitable writing style, the stories are entertaining and thoughtprovoking. And he proves that "the raw itch for money is still with us as
surely as ever . . . and the money on Wall Street is better than elsewhere."
This should be a big hit with the readers of his previous book. For all popular
nonfiction
collections.
- Richard Drezen, Merrill Lynch Lib., New York
21.
FIASCO, Blood in the Water on Wall Street, The Inside Story of a Wall
Street Trader, by Frank Partnoy
FIASCO is the shocking story of one man's education in the jungles of Wall
Street. As a young derivatives salesman at Morgan Stanley, Frank Partnoy
learned to buy and sell billions of dollars worth of securities that were so
complex many traders themselves didn't understand them. In his behind-thescenes look at the trading floor and the offices of one of the world's top
investment firms, Partnoy recounts the macho attitudes and fiercely
competitive ploys of his office mates. And he takes us to the annual drunken
skeet-shooting competition, FIASCO, where he and his colleagues sharpen the
killer instincts they are encouraged to use against their competitiors, their
clients, and each other.
FIASCO is the first book to take on the derivatves trading industry--the most
highly charged and risky sector of the stock market. More importantly, it is a
blistering indictment of the largely unregulated market in derivatives and
serves as a warning to unwary investors about real fiascos, which have cost
billions of dollars.
22.
The Monster: How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers
Fleeced America--and Spawned a Global Crisis, by Michael W. Hudson
Hudson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who now covers business and
finance for the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity, delivers a chilling
account of the subprime-loan scandal, which nearly brought down the U.S.
and global economies. Starting at ground zero of the scandal—Orange
County, California (“Con men hate snow,” one Wall Street Journal reporter
put it)—Hudson runs his exposé through its principal players: big-time lenders
like Roland Arnall and Russ and Becky Jedinak, juiced-up salespeople who
worked for such dubious lenders, Wall Street brokerage houses that
supercharged the loans, politicians who weakened once-tough lending laws,
and finally, most tragically, the victims themselves. As appalling as it is
informative, Hudson’s tale, which hasn’t ended by a long shot, should find a
large readership. --Alan Moores
23.
24.
Strange Justice, the Selling of Clarence Thomas, by Jane Mayer and Jill
Abramson
Seeds of Terror, by Gretchen Peters
There is no way to stop a source of money that is said to be bigger than the
textile industry worldwide.
25.
26.
King of the Court, Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution, by Aram
Goudsouzian,
Oliver Wiswell, by Kenneth Roberts
The second of Roberts's epic novels of the American Revolution, Rabble in
Arms was hailed by one critic as the greatest historical novel written about
America upon its publication in 1933. Love, treachery, ambition, and idealism
motivate an unforgettable cast of characters in a magnificent novel renowned
not only for the beauty and horror of its story but also for its historical
accuracy.
27.
Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American
Journalism, by W. Joseph Campbell
Did the Washington Post bring down Richard Nixon by reporting on the
Watergate scandal? Did a cryptic remark by Walter Cronkite effectively end
the Vietnam War? Did William Randolph Hearst vow to "furnish the war" in
the 1898 conflict with Spain? In Getting It Wrong, W. Joseph Campbell
addresses and dismantles these and other prominent media-driven myths-stories about or by the news media that are widely believed but which, on
close examination, prove apocryphal. In a fascinating exploration of these and
other cases--including the supposedly outstanding coverage of New Orleans
during Hurricane Katrina--Campbell describes how myths like these can feed
stereotypes, deflect blame from policymakers, and overstate the power and
influence of the news media.
28.
The Disappearing Spoon and Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the
History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, by Sam Kean
Science magazine reporter Kean views the periodic table as one of the great
achievements of humankind, "an anthropological marvel," full of stories about
our connection with the physical world. Funny, even chilling tales are
associated with each element, and Kean relates many. The title refers to
gallium (Ga, 31), which melts at 84ËšF, prompting a practical joke among
"chemical cognoscenti": shape gallium into spoons, "serve them with tea, and
watch as your guests recoil when their Earl Grey ˜eats™ their utensils." Along
with Dmitri Mendeleyev, the father of the periodic table, Kean is in his
element as he presents a parade of entertaining anecdotes about scientists
(mad and otherwise) while covering such topics as thallium (Tl, 81)
poisoning, the invention of the silicon (Si, 14) transistor, and how the
ruthenium (Ru, 44) fountain pen point made million for the Parker company.
With a constant flow of fun facts bubbling to the surface, Kean writes with
wit, flair, and authority in a debut that will delight even general readers.
29.
Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race
of a Lifetime, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
Even before the book was out, its juiciest bits were everywhere: Sarah Palin
was serene when chosen for V.P. because it was “God’s plan.” Hillary didn’t
know if she could control Bill (duh). Elizabeth Edwards was a shrew, not a
saint. Overall, the men from the campaign garner less attention in these
anecdote wars than the women and tend to come off better—but only just:
Obama, the authors note, can be conceited and windy; McCain was
disengaged to the point of recklessness; and John Edwards is a cheating,
egotistical blowhard. But, hey, that’s politics, and it’s obvious that authors
Heilemann (New York Magazine) and Halperin (Time) worked their sources
well—all 200 of them. Some (including the sources themselves) will have
trouble with the book’s use of quotes (or lack thereof). The interviews,
according to the authors, were conducted “on deep background,” and dialogue
was “reconstructed extensively” and with “extreme care.” Sometimes the
source of a quote is clear, as when the book gets inside someone’s head, but
not always. Many of the book’s events were covered heavily at the time
(Hillary’s presumed juggernaut; Michelle Obama’s initial hostility to her
husband’s candidacy), but some of what this volume delivers is totally behindthe-scenes and genuinely jaw-dropping, including the revelation that senators
ostensibly for Clinton (New York’s Chuck Schumer) pushed hard for Obama.
Another? The McCain camp found Sarah Palin by doing computer searches of
female Republican officeholders. A sometimes superficial but intensely
readable account of a landmark campaign
30.
The Story of Sushi, by Trevor Corson:
I've been eating it all wrong!!
Trevor’s second book, The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and
Rice (originally titled The Zen of Fish in hardcover), was selected as an
Editors’ Choice by the New York Times Book Review; it also won “Best
American Food Literature Book” of 2007 in the Gourmand World Cookbook
Awards and was selected as a Best Food Book of the Year by Zagat. The book
led to Trevor becoming the only “Sushi Concierge” in the United States—a
role that he performs with regular events in several cities—and an occasional
guest judge on Food Network TV’s hit show Iron Chef America.
31.
Four Fish: the Future of the Last Wild Food, by Paul Greenberg:
Salmon, Bass, Cod, and Tuna
From Publishers Weekly: In this unusually entertaining and nuanced
investigation into global fisheries, New York Times seafood writer Greenberg
examines our historical relationship with wild fish. In the early 2000s,
Greenberg, reviving his childhood fishing habit, discovered that four fish-salmon, tuna, bass, and cod--"dominate the modern seafood market" and that
"each is an archive of a particular, epochal shift": e.g., cod, fished farther
offshore, "herald the era of industrial fishing"; and tuna, "the stateless fish,
difficult to regulate and subject to the last great gold rush of wild food...
challeng us to reevaluate whether fish are at their root expendable seafood or
wildlife desperately in need of our compassion." He found that as wild
fisheries are overexploited, prospective fish farmers are likely to ignore
practical criteria for domestication--hardiness, freely breeding, and needing
minimal care--instead picking traditionally eaten wild-caught species like sea
bass "a failure in every category." Greenberg contends that ocean life is
essential to feeding a growing human population and that rational humans
should seek to sustainably farm fish that can "stand up to industrial-sized
husbandry" while maintaining functioning wild food systems.
32.
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, by David
Grann
33.
Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy,
by Joseph E. Stiglitz the current global financial crisis carries a made-inAmerica label, in this forthright and incisive book, Nobel Laureate Stiglitz
explains how America exported bad economics, bad policies, and bad
behavior to the rest of the world, only to cobble together a haphazard and
ineffective response when the markets finally seized up. Drawing on his
academic expertise, his years spent shaping policy in the Clinton admin and at
the World bank, and his more recent role as head of a UN commission
charged with reforming the global financial system, Stiglitz outlines a way
forward building on ideas that he has championed his entire career: restoring
the balance between markets and government, addressing the inequalities of
the global financial system and demanding more good ideas and les ideology
from the economists. Freefall is an instant classic, combining an enthralling
whodunit account of the current crisis with a bracing discussion of the broader
economic issues at stake.
34.
The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story, by Michael Lewis
Jim Clark: founded 3 separate $B companies. Silicon Graphics, Netscape,
Healtheon...used 17 SGI computers to run his sailboat he built in the
Netherlands and sailed to the Caribbean.
35.
Losers, by Michael Lewis, A wickedly funny and astute chronicle of the
1996 presidential campaign.
36.
Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth, by
James Tabor.
Entertaining account of the expeditions of two world-renowned cavers (Bill
Stone, Alexander Klimchouk) that explored deep supercaves in Mexico
(Cheve, Huautla) and the Republic of Georgia (Krubera). Serious cavers will
likely be familiar with many of the discoveries recounted, but armchair cavers
will enjoy learning about the tremendous obstacles, common to supercaves
that must be traversed in deep cave exploration (e.g., vertical shafts of up to
500 feet, crashing waterfalls, boulders, seemingly impassable sumps,
extremely
tight
meanders).
The book goes into detail about caving techniques, the special dangers of cave
diving, and the development of the rebreathers that make extended
exploration by cave divers possible. There are vivid descriptions of actions
that proved fatal, or nearly fatal, to some cavers. There is also much
interesting biographical information about both Stone and Klimchouk. The
well-written, page-turning narrative is presented in a way that makes caving
accessible to non-cavers.
As a borderline claustophobe, I think these guys are nuts, and they should
have to post a bond before they enter these caves so tax dollars don't have to
be used on sending rescue teams in to haul out their decomposing asses.
I switched to a Kindle to finish Paper Fortunes!
37.
Paper Fortunes, by Roy C Smith.
Ex Goldman Sachs partner now professor at NYU. Excellent review of all
modern economic history, IMHO the best single book to understand the
Savings and Loan bail-out, the mortgage bubble and CDO/CDS bank bail-out,
the Russian default, hedge funds, the dot-bomb bust's impact, and other
current economic events.
38.
The Devil's Casino; Friendship, Betrayal, and the High-stakes Games
Played Inside Lehman Brothers, by Vicky Ward, Contributing Editor, Vanity
Fair. Chris Pettit, RIchard Fuld, Joe Gregory, Erin Callan
39.
False Economy, A Surprising Economic History of the World, by Alan
Beattie. An excellent book, but it started slowly.
40.
13 Bankers, The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown,
by Simon Johnson and James Kwak
41.
Moneyball, The Art of Winning an unfair Game, by Michael Lewis. I
decided to read all the books written by Michael Lewis. This is about how the
Oakland A's matched the NY Yankees, with 1/10th the payroll.
42.
The Blind Side, by Michael Lewis. I have not seen the movie and after
the book, am not in a hurry to see it.
43.
The Laws of Disruption, Harnessing the new forces that Govern Live and
Business in The Digital Age, by Larry Downes
44.
War at the Wall Street Journal, Inside the Struggle to Control An
American Business Empire, by Sarah Ellison: Bancrofts vs. Rupert Murdoch
45.
The Next Hundred Million, America in 2050, by Joel Kotkin.
46.
Tears of Mermaids, The Secret Story of Pearls, by Stephen G. Bloom
47.
48.
Behind the Cloud, the untold story of how salesforce.com went from idea
to billio-dollar company- and revolutionized an industry, by Marc Benioff,
Chairman and CEO of salesforce.com and Carlye Adler
The Big Short, by Michael Lewis; Inside the Doomsday Machine
49.
The Quants; How a New Breed of math Whizes Conquered Wall Street
and nearly Destroyed It, by Scott Patterson, staff reporter, the Wall Street
Journal; More John Meriwether , Bear Stearns
50.
Liar's Poker, Rising Through The Wreckage on Wall Street, by Michael
Lewis
The classic.
51.
The Politician, by Andrew Young. An Insider's Account of John
Edwards's Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal that Brought Him Down.
Wow, John Edwards and Elizabeth: mean!
52.
Tearing Down the Walls, How Sandy Weill Fought His Way to the Top of
the Financial World....and Then Nearly Lost it All, by Monica Langley
53.
When Genius Failed, The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital
Management, by Roger Lowenstein: The story of John Meriwether and
LTCM: Another view of Goldman, as liars , back-stabbers and doublecrossers
54.
The Partnership, The making of Goldman Sachs, by Charles D. Ellis
55.
The Predators’ Ball, The Junk Bond Raiders and The Man Who Staked
Them, by Connie Bruck.
I’m reading this classic for the second time.
56.
On The Brink: Insider the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global
Financial System, by Henry Paulson
I have rushed to the bookstore to buy this book, new, after reading the 3rd
review, and being #34 on the Wait List at Concord Public Library. From the
CEO of Goldman Sachs, who forced Microsoft to only hire the 2nd smartest
guys, to Treasury Secretary. How every bank in North America almost
stopped operating in late 2008. Even free-enterprise president George Bush
said “We’re not kidding. Give him the money…”
57.
Googled, by Ken Auletta
What would you do to save your newspaper, if you owned one?
58.
59.
The Last Man Standing, The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan
Chase, by Duff McDonald
Lords of Finance, by Liaquat Ahamed
The bankers, the gold standard, France, Germany, UK and US Central Banks,
currency and inflation, the Great Depression, failing banks.
60.
The Sellout, How Three Decades of Wall Street Greed and Government
Mismanagement Destroyed the Global Financial System, by Charles
Gasparino.
It is amazing any of us have a credit card or checking account that works. In
2008 and 2009, most of “Wall Street” vaporized, as the investment banks and
insurance firms all issued credit default swaps on tranches of their CDOs.
Everyone was leveraged, and secured with real estate. When the real estate
bubble went, they (Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros, AIG, CitiBank,
etc.) all busted too. American business is forever, permanently, changed
because of this episode. And, it’s not like this happened 50 years ago…This is
an amazing book.
61.
Mile High Fever, by Dennis Drabelle, Silver Mines, Boom Towns and
High Living on the Comstock Lode by Dennis Drabelle.
I want to go back to Nevada!
62.
63.
Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age, by Kurt W.
Beyer
Carl Sagan, A Life, by Keay Davidson
SETI, the “21 CM line”, 1420 megacycles per second, frequency of vibrations
of hydrogen gas atoms.
64.
The Art of the Heist, Confessions of a Master Art Thief, Rock-and-Roller,
and Prodigal Son, by Myles J Connor Jr. with Jenny Siler.
Loser Boston Irish art thief story.
65.
Plastic Fantastic, How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific
World, by Eugenie Samuel Reich
Sputterers, plastic transistors, buckey balls, and Bell Labs
66.
Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-Religions,
by Ronald Fritze
Atlantis, Noah’s Flood, perpetual motion, etc.
67.
Postcards from Tomorrow Square, Reports from China, by James Fallows
Atlantic Monthly’s national correspondent based in China since 2006.
68.
Jacques Cousteau, The Sea King, by Brad Matsen.
I didn’t know Air Liquide helped fund the AquaLung….
69.
The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins
In Iraq and Afghanistan…
70.
Harry Potter And the Sorcerer’s Stone, by JK Rowling
I’ve saved this for Nora and now she’s already ready for the 3rd book.
71.
Uranium, War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World, by Tom
Zoellner
Belgian Congo to Hiroshima, Utah, Areva in Africa, Paducah, 7 continents
72.
Cadillac Desert, The American West and Its Disappearing Water, by Marc
Reisner,
A Classic! Amazing! Everyone at EarthSoft, or in the environmental industry,
or who lives in California or the western US, or who drinks water in the
western US, should read this. Big Agriculture is some of the absolute worst
“White Collar Welfare”.
73.
The Match King, Ivar Krueger, the Financial Genius Behind a Century of
Wall Street Scandals, by Frank Partnoy
The original Bernie Madoff…
74.
Vodka King, The Story of Pyotr Smirnov and the Upheaval of an Empire,
by Linda Himelstein
An ok story of Russian history from 1850 to 1920.
75.
The Forge of Christendom, The End of Days and the Epic Rise of the
West, by Tom Holland.
The history of Europe, from the fall of the Roman Empire and Christianization
of the Franks, Slavs, Saxons, Pechenegs, Wends, Normans, British, Danes.
Charlemagne, Constantinople, the Normans invade Sicily (1061) and 1066
(Normans invade England) and 1099 (Normans capture Jerusalem).
76.
The Ascent of Money, A Financial History of The World, by Niall
Ferguson
77.
A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, The Inside Story of the Collapse of
Lehman Brothers, by Lawrence McDonald with Patrick Robinson
78.
In Fed We Trust, by David Wessel
79.
Hannibal, Enemy of Rome, by Leonard Cottrell
Scipio Africanus, Cannae, Sophonisba, and Rome
80.
Scar Tissue, Anthony Kiedis with Larry Sloman
My favorite band, but the guy’s a freak.
81.
Planet Google, One Company’s Audacious Plan to Organize Everything
We Know, by Randall Stross
Google Maps, YouTube, Yahoo, gMail, and more
82.
Election 2004: How BC04 Won and What you can Expect in the Future,
by Evan Thomas and the Staff of Newsweek.
83.
dot.bomb, my day and nights at an internet goliath. Optimism, Lunacy,
Panic, Crash, I survived to tell the tale, by j. david kuo ValueAmerica?
84.
Fordlandia, by Greg Grandin.
Henry Ford’s rubber plantation in Amazonia….history of latex plus history of
Ford
85.
Money, Whence it Came, Where it Went, by John Kenneth Gailbraith
The classic history of money…
86.
Fool’s Gold, How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe of JP Morgan was
Corrupted, by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe, Gillian Tett;
Hedge funds,
obligations…
mortgage
backed
securities
and
collatoralized
debt
87.
A Woman in Charge, by Carl Bernstein
A biography of Hillary Clinton
88.
Street Fighters, The Last 72 Hours of Bear Stearns, The Toughest Firm on
Wall Street, by Kate Kelly
89.
The Big Rich, The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes, by
Bryan Burrough
First McCarthy, then Cullen, Richardson, Murchison, Hunt…
90.
91.
The Snowball, Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, by Alice
Schroeder
Giant Bluefin, by Douglas Whynott
92.
Somebody, the reckless life and remarkable career of Marlon Brando, by
Stefan Kanfer
93.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buying Insurance and Annuities, by Brian
Breuel
94.
John Tyler, A Biography
95.
Burn Rate, How I survived the Gold Rush Years of the Internet, by
Michael Wolff
96.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, A Natural History of Four Meals, By Michael
Pollan
97.
The 10,000 Year Explosion, How civilization accelerated human
evolution, by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending.
If you don’t believe in evolution, then you are certainly not going to like this
book. How Ashkenaz Jews got so smart, indo-european languages took over
(lactose tolerance), when eyes got blue and hair red, malaria and smallpox
tolerance, sickle cell anemia and dry ear wax.
98.
The Man Who Owns the News, Inside the Secret World of Rupert
Murdoch, by Michael Wolff
Less power than William Randolph Hearst, but still scary.
99.
The Other Half, The Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant
America, by Tom Bug-Swienty, translated by Annette Buk-Swienty
100.
The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan
Apples, Tulips, Marijuana, and Potatoes. And boy, do I love a good Tulip...
101.
Burr, by Gore Vidal.
A fake Aaron Burr bio, with G. Washington as a hopelessly incompetent
pretentious king-god, and Thomas Jefferson is a lecherous old guy with
several kids with his slave-mama, which of course we know now is completely
true. Hilarious, and completely believable.
102. The Overflowing Brain, by Torkel Klingberg
About working memory, controlled attention, brain plasticity, phonological
loops, visuospatial sketch pads, and…some other kind of memory, I can
remember.
103.
Napolean in Egypt, by Paul Strathern
After pages and pages of disease, hardship, fighting, and death, the most
exciting thing is the discovery of the Rosetta Stone…
104. Restless Genuis, about Barney Kilgore, the editor who built the WSJ, by
Richard TOfel
The editor who built the WSJ, another MBWA manager. He went in to the
Great Depression making $180 a week and many years and several
promotions later, made about the same.
105. The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and
why Liberals Should Too, by James K. Galbraith.
John Kenneth’s son. Central Planning is not a bad thing, it’s required!
106.
Salt, by Mark Kurlansky
107.
The Puzzle Palace, by James Bamford
The 2nd from the definitive expert on the NSA, whose budget is not even
disclosed in the congressional budget.
108. Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Expensive
Mistakes Ever, by Paul B Carroll and Chunka Mui
109.
Island World: A History of Hawaii
More about Hawaiin religion than I cared to read. Need more history, less
polynesian religion here. I couldn’t finish this. In fact, I read about a third of
this book and skimmed the rest.
110.
The Wal Mart Effect, by Charles Fishman
How the World’s Most Powerful Company Really Works, and wow it’s
transforming the American Economy. Vlasic Pickles and lawn chairs, Levis
and you name it…
111.
Call Me Ted, by Ted Turner with Bill Burke
The largest private landowner in the US.
112. The Tapir’s Morning Bath: Solving the Mysteries of the Tropics, by
Elizabeth Royte
Another scientist-as-hero book by Elizabeth.
113. Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It, by
Elizabeth Royte
114.
Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, by Elizabeth ROyte
115. Tupperware Unsealed, by Brownie Wise, Earl Tupper and the Home Party
Pioneers
116.
Tom Cruise, An Unauthorized Biography, by Andrew Morton
117.
Audition, a Memoir, by Barbara Walters
118. My Genome, My Life, One Mans journey through his DNA, by Craig
Venter
119.
Roman Polanski, a biography, by Christopher Sandford
120.
PetroPower, Putin and Russia
121.
Alexander Hamilton: A Life, by Willard Sterne Randall
122.
The Real Story of Informix Software and Phil White, by Steve W. Martin
123. The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, by Bob
Woodward
124.
Willie Nelson, An Epic Life, by Joe Nick Patoski
125.
No Excuses, Concessions of a Serial Campaigner, by Robert Shrum
126. Running the Table: The Legend of Kid Delicious, the Last Great
American Pool Hustler (Houghton Mifflin), by L. Jon Wertheim
127. The Secret Man, The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat, by Bob Wooward
About Mark Felt and Watergate.
128.
Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin
129. Charlatan, America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, The Man Who Pursued
Him, and the Age of Flimflam, by Pope Brock
130. Virtuos War, Mapping the Military-industrial-Media-Entertainment
Network, by James Der Derian
131. 109 East Palace, Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos;
by Jennet Conant
132. A Social History of Madness, The World through the Eyes of the Insane,
by Roy Porter
133.
The Last Tycoons, the Secret History Lazard Freres & Co.
The tale of unrestrained ambition, billion-dollar fortunes, Byzantine power
struggles, and hidden scandal, by William d. Cohan
134. Sin in the Second City, Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for
America’s Soul, by Karen Abbott
135.
Luce and his Empire, by WA Swanberg (also wrote Citizen Hearst)
136.
Elmer Gantry, by Sinclair Lewis, the ultimate tale of hypocrisy
137.
The Pixar Touch, the Making of a Company, by David Bryce
138.
A Man in Full, by Tom Wolfe
139.
Gonzo, A Biography of Hunter S. Thompson
140.
The Basque History of the World, by Mark Kurlansky
141. Cod, A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, by Mark
Kurlansky
142.
Schulz and Peanuts a Biography, by David Michaelis
143. Wonderful Tonight, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and me, by Pattie
Boyd and Penny Junior.
144.
Hooked, Pirates, Poaching and the Perfect Fish, by G. Bruce Knecht
145. The Purple Shamrock, The Hon. James Michael Curley of Boston, by
Joseph F. Dinneen
146.
Guerrilla Marketing, by Jay Conrad Levinson
147.
Conservatives without Conscience, by John Dean
148. The Prince of Darkness, 50 Years Reporting in Washington, by Robert D.
Novak
149.
Boone, A Biography, by Robert Morgan
150.
Einstein, A Biography by Jurgen Neffe, translated by Shelley Frisch
151. Filthy Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s most outrageous sexual puns, by
Pauline Kiernan
152. The Bluest State, How Democrats Created the Massachusetts Blueprint for
American Political Disaster, by Jon Keller
153.
Legacy of Ashes, The History of the CIA, by Tim Weiner
154. Supreme Conflict, The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the US
Supreme Court, by Jan Crawford Greenburg
155.
Billy the Kid, the Endless Ride, by Michael Wallis
156. This Time, This Place, My life in War, the White House, and Hollywood,
by Jack Valenti
157.
Rickles Book, by Don Rickles w David Ritz
158. The Prince, The Secret Story of the World’s Most Intriguing Royal, Prince
Bandar Bin Sultan, by William Simpson
159. The Mormon Way of Doing Business, Leadership and Success Through
Faith and Family, by Jeff Benedict
160. The Wizard of Menlo Park, How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the
Modern World, by Randall Stross
161. Bill & Dave, How Hewlett and Packard Built the World;s Greatest
Company, by Michael Malone
162.
William Randolph Hearst, The Later Years 1911-1951, by Ben Brocter
163. Cheney, The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and Controversial
Vice President, by Stephen F. Hayes
164. American Spy, My secret history in the CIA, Watergate, and Beyond, by
E. Howard Hunt
165.
Dead Certain, The Presidency of George W. Bush, by Robert Draper
166. Henry Hudson, Dreams and Obsessions, The Tragic Legacy of the New
World’s Least Understood Explorer, by Corey Sandler
167. Spy Handler, Memoir of a KGB Officer, The True Story of the Man who
Recruited Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, by Victor Cherkashin with
Gregory Feifer
168. Catch A Wave, The Rise, Fall & Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian
Wilson, by Peter Carlin
169. I’ll Sleep When I;m Dead, the Dirty Life and Time fo Warren Zevon, by
Crystal Zevon
170. With God on Their Side George W. Bush and the Christian Right, by
Esther Kaplan
171. Pushing the Limits, New Adventures in Engineering, by Herny Petroski
(The Evolution of Useful Things)
172.
Everyman’s Eden, A History of California, by Ralph Roske
173. The Man Who Tried to Buy the World, Jean-Marie Messier and Vivendi
Universal, by Jo Johnson and Martine Orange
174.
Square Peg, Confessionals of a Citizen Senator, by Orrin Hatch
175.
The Lives of Norman Mailer, by Carl Rollyson
176. Hubris, The inside story of spin, scandal, and the selling of the Irag War,
by Michael Isikoff and David Corn
177.
The Commanders, by Bob Woodward
178.
The No Spin Zone, by Bill O’Reilly
179. What a Party! My life among democrats, presidents, candidates, donors,
activists, alligators, and other wild animals, by Terry McAuliffe
180. Supreme Discomfort, The divided Soul of Clarence Thomas, by Kevin
Merida and Michael Fletcher
181. The Storm: What went wrong and why during hurricane Katrina, the
inside story from one Louisiana Scientist Ivor Van Heerden and Mike Bryan
(See: Rising Tide, the great Mississippi flood of 1927 and How it Changed
America by John Barry)
182.
Guns Germs and Steel, The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond
183. Ghost Hunters: William James and the search for scientific proof of life
after death, by Deborah Blum
184.
Moral Minority, Our Skeptical Founding Fathers, by Brooke Allen
185. In Can Happen Here, Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush, by Joe
Conason
186.
Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris
187.
In Defense of The Religious Right, by Patrick Hynes
188.
The Republican War on Science, by Chris Mooney
189. The Old Iron Road An Epic of Rails, Roads, and the Urge to go West, by
David Bain (author of Empire Express)
190.
Computerworld
191.
Johnny Cash, The Biography, by Michael Streissguth
192. I Was There When It Happened, My Life With Johnny Cash, by Marshall
Grant with Chris Zar
193. The President’s Counselor, The Rise to Power of Alberto Gonzalez, by
Bill Minutaglio
194. The Candidate, Behind John Kerry’s remarkable run for the White House,
by Paul Alexander
195.
Soldier, The Life of Colin Power, by Karen DeYoung
196. Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfelt cut out the State Dept and NSC as they
pushed George Bush into war with Irag.
Totally usurped power….
197. The Brown Bros and the Slave Trade, and the story of Rhode Island in the
Revolutionary War
Connects a lot of dots about the causes of the Revolutionary War. These were
the first of the industry-military complex that too late Eisenhower warned us
about. They made a huge profit during the war, and then didn’t want to pay a
penny of the bill (taxes).
198.
Work Hard, Study and Stay out of Politics, by James Baker III
According to many, Baker was the brains behind Reagan and Bush.
199.
1776
George Washington lost every darn battle in here until the very end, in
Trenton and NJ.
200.
Vice
About Dick Cheney
201. The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts
Democracy, by David Brock
202. Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, by David
Brock
203.
John Adams
His kids didn’t see too much of him growing up, since it took weeks just to
travel back and forth from Boston to Philadelphia all the time. He was in
France with Ben Franklin for a long time.
204.
Citizen Hearst
I read this book again for the 6th time. This book got me started reading
biographies of newspaper publishers.
205.
Citizen Hughes
One of the best books I’ve ever read in my life is still one of the first
biographies I read in my adult life. Puts a lot in perspective. The margin of
error estimating the Hughes fortune was 3X the entire Kennedy family
fortune. I’ve read this book 12 times, I think.
206.
The Annenbergs
More bio of Publishers. From Gangster to Presidential aid, in 1
generation…Almost as good as the Kennedys: from Gangster to President in
1.
207.
Fools Rush In, by Nina Munk
About Time Warner, Steve Case and AOL, Huge egos and huge budgets.
208.
Plan of Attack, by Bob Woodward
I think I’ve read every Bob Woodward book he’s ever written. Rumsfeld
screwed it up, but it was probably an impossible task anyway.
209.
Cyanide Canary
210.
The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama
211.
Broken Genius, the Rise and Fall of William Shockley
212.
Heist, the story of Super Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, by Peter Stone