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Pb Living - A daily book review

Pb Living - A daily book review

By Brian

WE ARE BACK AFTER NEW FUNDING WITH SEASON 3 FACT:-PB living is the only GLOBAL & DAILY book review podcast. TRUTH:-Everyday a new book is read for you. A review is made and you listen to it and gain the information from it, like you read the book yourself. A little bit off talk is in the mix to provide context . Regards
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A Book Review - 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World Novel by Elif Shafak

Pb Living - A daily book reviewMay 13, 2021

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A Book Review - Untraceable by Сергей Лебедев, Sergei Lebedev, Antonina W. Bouis (Translator)

A Book Review - Untraceable by Сергей Лебедев, Sergei Lebedev, Antonina W. Bouis (Translator)

"One of Russia's most interesting young novelists takes on Putin, poison and power in this unique novel; Lebedev provides a fascinating window on modern Russia."
―Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History and Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe

In 2018, a former Russian secret agent and his daughter were poisoned with a lethal neurotoxin that left them slumped over on a British park bench in critical condition. The story of who did it, and how these horrendous contaminants were developed, captivates and terrifies in equal measure. It has inspired acclaimed author Sergei Lebedev’s latest page-turning novel. At its center is a scheming chemist named Professor Kalitin, obsessed with developing an absolutely deadly, undetectable and untraceable poison for which there is no antidote. He becomes consumed by guilt over the death of his wife, the first accidental victim of his Faustian pact to create the ultimate venom, and the deaths of hundreds of test subjects. After he defects from the Soviet Union to spend his “retirement” years in the West, two Russian secret agents are dispatched to assassinate him. In this fast-paced, genre-bending novel, Lebedev weaves tension-filled pages of stunningly beautiful prose exploring the historical trajectories of evil. From Nazi labs, Stalinist plots, the Chechen Wars, to present-day Russia, Lebedev probes the ethical responsibilities of scientists supplying modern tyrants and autocrats with ever newer instruments of retribution, destruction and control. Lebedev, one of Russia’s most important and exciting writers, has never been better.

Jan 22, 202203:48
A Book Review - A Coup in Turkey: A Tale of Democracy, Despotism and Vengeance in a Divided Land by Jeremy Seal

A Book Review - A Coup in Turkey: A Tale of Democracy, Despotism and Vengeance in a Divided Land by Jeremy Seal

In the spring of 2016 travel writer Jeremy Seal went to Turkey to investigate perhaps the most dramatic, revealing and little-known episode in the country's history - the 'original' coup of 1960, which deposed the traditionalist Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. The story of Menderes - to his adoring supporters the country's founding democrat; to his sworn enemies its most infamous traitor - goes to the heart of the feud that continues to rage between the Western and secular ambitions of a minority elite and the religious and conservative instincts of the small-town majority. A Coup in Turkey is a thrilling account of the events leading up to the coup and the trials and executions that followed, a story of political subterfuge and score-settling, courtroom drama, state execution, authoritarian intolerance and ideological division.

Seal travels through President Erdogan's Turkey, tracking down eye-witness accounts from survivors of the Menderes era in Istanbul, the historic metropolis, and the new capital at Ankara. As he expertly guides us through this extraordinary story, so the compelling parallels between past and present become strikingly clear, and he illuminates this troubled nation with a deep sympathy and love for the people and places he writes about. By focussing on one key event - one which many Turks regard with shame - this evocative, gripping portrait of Turkey recentres our understanding of the past and makes sense of one of Europe's most bewildering yet intriguing neighbours.

Jan 21, 202208:10
A Book Review - The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing by Sonia Faleiro

A Book Review - The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing by Sonia Faleiro

By the award-winning writer of Beautiful Thing, a masterly inquest into how the mysterious deaths of two teenage girls shone a light into the darkest corners of a nation.

The girls' names were Padma and Lalli, but they were so inseparable that people in the village called them Padma Lalli. Sixteen-year-old Padma sparked and burned. Fourteen-year-old Lalli was an incorrigible romantic.

They grew up in Katra Sadatganj, an eye-blink of a village in western Uttar Pradesh crammed into less than one square mile of land. It was out in the fields, in the middle of mango season, that the rumors started.

Then one night in the summer of 2014 the girls went missing; and hours later they were found hanging in the orchard. Who they were, and what had happened to them, was already less important than what their disappearance meant to the people left behind.

In the ensuing months, the investigation into their deaths would implode everything that their small community held to be true, and instigate a national conversation about sex and violence. Slipping deftly behind political maneuvering, caste systems and codes of honor in a village in northern India, The Good Girls returns to the scene of Padma and Lalli's short lives and shameful deaths, and dares to ask: what is the human cost of shame?

Jan 20, 202204:27
A Book Review - Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell by John Preston

A Book Review - Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell by John Preston

A dramatic, gripping account of the rise and fall of the notorious business tycoon Robert Maxwell from the acclaimed author of A Very English Scandal - available for pre-order now

In February 1991, Robert Maxwell made a triumphant entrance into Manhattan harbour on board his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine. He had come to complete his purchase of the ailing New York Daily News. Crowds lined the quayside to watch his arrival. Taxi drivers stopped their cabs to shake his hand, children asked for his autograph and when Maxwell went to dine in the most fashionable Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, all the diners gave him a standing ovation.

10 months later, he disappeared off the same yacht and was found dead in the water. Within a few days, Maxwell was being reviled as the embodiment of greed and unscrupulousness. No one had ever fallen so far and so quickly.

What went so wrong? How did a man who had once laid such store on the importance of ethics and good behaviour become reduced to a bloated, amoral wreck?

Jan 19, 202205:42
A Book Review - America and Iran: A History 1720 to the Present by John Ghazvinian

A Book Review - America and Iran: A History 1720 to the Present by John Ghazvinian

An important, urgently needed book--a hugely ambitious, illuminating portrait of the two-century long entwined history of Iran and America, the first book to examine in all its aspects, the rich and fraught relations between these two powers, once allies, now adversaries. By admired historian, author of Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil ("he would do Graham Greene proud" --Kirkus Reviews). In this rich, fascinating history, John Ghazvinian traces the complex story of the relations of these two powers back to the eighteenth-century's Persian Empire, the subject of great admiration of Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams and for the Iranians, an America seen as an ideal to emulate for its own government. Drawing on years of archival research both in the US and Iran--including access to Iranian government archives rarely available to western scholars--the Iranian-born, Oxford-educated historian leads us through the four seasons of US-Iran relations: the 'spring' of mutual fascination; the 'summer' of early interactions; the 'autumn' of close strategic ties; and the long, dark 'winter' of mutual hatred. Ghazvinian, with grasp and a storyteller's ability, makes clear where, how, and when it all went wrong. And shows why two countries that once had such heartfelt admiration for each other became such committed enemies; showing us, as well, how it didn't have to turn out this way.

Jan 18, 202206:27
A Book Review - Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise by Scott Rozelle, Natalie Hell

A Book Review - Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise by Scott Rozelle, Natalie Hell

As the glittering skyline in Shanghai seemingly attests, China has quickly transformed itself from a place of stark poverty into a modern, urban, technologically savvy economic powerhouse. But as Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell show in Invisible China, the truth is much more complicated and might be a serious cause for concern.

China’s growth has relied heavily on unskilled labor. Most of the workers who have fueled the country’s rise come from rural villages and have never been to high school. While this national growth strategy has been effective for three decades, the unskilled wage rate is finally rising, inducing companies inside China to automate at an unprecedented rate and triggering an exodus of companies seeking cheaper labor in other countries. Ten years ago, almost every product for sale in an American Walmart was made in China. Today, that is no longer the case. With the changing demand for labor, China seems to have no good back-up plan. For all of its investment in physical infrastructure, for decades China failed to invest enough in its people. Recent progress may come too late. Drawing on extensive surveys on the ground in China, Rozelle and Hell reveal that while China may be the second-largest economy in the world, its labor force has one of the lowest levels of education of any comparable country. Over half of China’s population—as well as a vast majority of its children—are from rural areas. Their low levels of basic education may leave many unable to find work in the formal workplace as China’s economy changes and manufacturing jobs move elsewhere.

In Invisible China, Rozelle and Hell speak not only to an urgent humanitarian concern but also a potential economic crisis that could upend economies and foreign relations around the globe. If too many are left structurally unemployable, the implications both inside and outside of China could be serious. Understanding the situation in the China today is essential if we are to avoid a potential crisis of international proportions. This book is an urgent and timely call to action that should be read by economists, policymakers, the business community, and general readers alike.

Jan 17, 202208:23
A Book Review - Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism by Mariana Mazzucato

A Book Review - Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism by Mariana Mazzucato


The extraordinary efforts that took mankind to the moon 50 years ago were more than a scientific feat of aeronautics. They required new forms of collaboration between the public sector (notably, NASA) and private companies. This book asks: what if the same level of boldness - the boldness that set inspirational goals, took risks and explicitly recognized that this requires large spending but will be worthwhile in terms of long-term growth - was applied to the biggest problems of our time, climate change, disease and inequality, to name only a few? Mariana Mazzucato argues that applying innovation to societal goals and structuring government budgets more explicitly to the long-term, as the moon programme did, we can do government differently.

Jan 16, 202206:52
A Book Review - In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu #1-7) by Marcel Proust, C.K. Scott Moncrieff (Translator), Andreas Mayor (Translator), Terence Kilmartin (Translator), D.J. Enrigh

A Book Review - In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu #1-7) by Marcel Proust, C.K. Scott Moncrieff (Translator), Andreas Mayor (Translator), Terence Kilmartin (Translator), D.J. Enrigh

On the surface a traditional "Bildungsroman" describing the narrator’s journey of self-discovery, this huge and complex book is also a panoramic and richly comic portrait of France in the author’s lifetime, and a profound meditation on the nature of art, love, time, memory and death. But for most readers it is the characters of the novel who loom the largest: Swann and Odette, Monsieur de Charlus, Morel, the Duchesse de Guermantes, Françoise, Saint-Loup and so many others — Giants, as the author calls them, immersed in Time.

"In Search of Lost Time" is a novel in seven volumes. The novel began to take shape in 1909. Proust continued to work on it until his final illness in the autumn of 1922 forced him to break off. Proust established the structure early on, but even after volumes were initially finished he kept adding new material, and edited one volume after another for publication. The last three of the seven volumes contain oversights and fragmentary or unpolished passages as they existed in draft form at the death of the author; the publication of these parts was overseen by his brother Robert.

Jan 15, 202206:02
A Book Review - The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness 1680-1790 by Ritchie Robertson

A Book Review - The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness 1680-1790 by Ritchie Robertson

This magisterial history—sure to become the definitive work on the subject—recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness.

One of the formative periods of European and world history, the Enlightenment is the fountainhead of modern secular Western values: religious tolerance, freedom of thought, speech and the press, of rationality and evidence-based argument. Yet why, over three hundred years after it began, is the Enlightenment so profoundly misunderstood as controversial, the expression of soulless calculation? The answer may be that, to an extraordinary extent, we have accepted the account of the Enlightenment given by its conservative enemies. Ritchie Robertson goes back into the “long eighteenth century,” from approximately 1680 to 1790, to reveal what this much-debated period was really about.

Any account of the Enlightenment must be in large part a history of ideas. But Robertson argues that it is not solely a philosophical movement; the Enlightenment saw the publication of the Encyclopédie, which is not only a historical and philosophical compendium, but also an illustrated guide to all sorts of contemporary machinery, handicrafts, and trades aimed to improve people’s lives in immediate and practical ways. Robertson chronicles the campaigns mounted by some Enlightened figures against specific evils such as capital punishment, judicial torture, serfdom and witchcraft trials, featuring the experiences of major figures like Voltaire and Diderot with ordinary people who lived through this extraordinary moment. Robertson gives due attention to philosophical and theological debates, but also looks to literature, music, and the visual arts as prominent means of conveying enlightenment ideas.

In seeking to correct one-sided views of the Enlightenment, Robertson ultimately puts forward his own. He does not reduce this transformative period to a formula, but instead makes the claim that indeed the Enlightenment was an attempt to increase human happiness, and to claim that happiness was possible in this world, without needing any compensatory belief in a better one beyond the grave

Jan 14, 202206:07
A Book Review - Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

A Book Review - Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

From the best-selling author of Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day, a stunning new novel—his first since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature—about the wondrous, mysterious nature of the human heart. From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

Jan 13, 202203:52
A Book Review - Hades, Argentina Novel by Daniel Loede

A Book Review - Hades, Argentina Novel by Daniel Loede

In 1976, Tomás Oriilla is a medical student in Buenos Aires, where he's moved in hopes of reuniting with Isabel, a childhood crush. But the reckless passion that has always drawn him is leading Isabel ever deeper into the ranks of young insurgents fighting an increasingly oppressive regime. As its thuggish milicos begin to disappear more and more people like her, she presents Tomás with a way to prove himself. As always, he'll do anything for Isabel. But what exactly is he proving, and at what cost to them both?

It will be years before a summons back arrives for Tomás, now living as Thomas Shore in New York. But it isn't a homecoming that awaits him so much as an odyssey into the past, an encounter with the ghosts that lurk there, and a reckoning with the fatal gap between who he's become and who he once aspired to be. Raising profound questions about the sometimes impossible choices we make in the name of love, Hades, Argentina is a gripping, brilliantly narrated literary debut.

Jan 12, 202203:41
A Book Review - Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old by Andrew Steele

A Book Review - Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old by Andrew Steele

With the help of science, could humans find a way to become old without getting elderly, a phenomenon otherwise known as "biological immortality"? In Ageless, Andrew Steele, research fellow at Britain's new and largest biomedical laboratory, the Francis Crick Institute, shows us that the answer lies at the cellular level. He takes us on a journey through the laboratories where scientists are studying every aspect of the cell--DNA, mitochondria, stem cells, our immune systems, even age genes that can lead to a tenfold increase in life span (in worms, anyway)--all in an effort to forestall or reverse the body's (currently!) inevitable decline. With clear writing and intellectual passion, Steele shines a spotlight on a revolution already under way and offers reality-based hope.

Jan 11, 202204:37
A Book Review - The Volga: A History by Janet M. Hartley

A Book Review - The Volga: A History by Janet M. Hartley

A rich and fascinating exploration of the Volga River and its vital place in Russian history—named a Best Book of 2021 by the Financial Times “A memorable journey into the heart of Russian social, political, and cultural history.”—Jennifer Eremeeva, Moscow Times “'Without the Volga, there would be no Russia.' The final words of Janet Hartley's book sound sweeping. But its 400 pages make the case powerfully.”—The Economist The longest river in Europe, the Volga stretches over three and a half thousand km from the heart of Russia to the Caspian Sea, separating west from east. The river has played a crucial role in the history of the peoples who are now a part of the Russian Federation—and has united and divided the land through which it flows. Janet Hartley explores the history of Russia through the Volga from the seventh century to the present day. She looks at it as an artery for trade and as a testing ground for the Russian Empire’s control of the borderlands, at how it featured in Russian literature and art, and how it was crucial for the outcome of the Second World War at Stalingrad. This vibrant account unearths what life on the river was really like, telling the story of its diverse people and its vital place in Russian history.

Jan 10, 202204:57
A Book Review - This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race by Nicole Perlroth

A Book Review - This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race by Nicole Perlroth

From The New York Times cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth, the untold story of the cyberweapons market-the most secretive, invisible, government-backed market on earth-and a terrifying first look at a new kind of global warfare. Zero day: a software bug that allows a hacker to break into your devices and move around undetected. One of the most coveted tools in a spy's arsenal, a zero day has the power to silently spy on your iPhone, dismantle the safety controls at a chemical plant, alter an election, and shut down the electric grid (just ask Ukraine). For decades, under cover of classification levels and non-disclosure agreements, the United States government became the world's dominant hoarder of zero days. U.S. government agents paid top dollar-first thousands, and later millions of dollars- to hackers willing to sell their lock-picking code and their silence. Then the United States lost control of its hoard and the market. Now those zero days are in the hands of hostile nations and mercenaries who do not care if your vote goes missing, your clean water is contaminated, or our nuclear plants melt down. Filled with spies, hackers, arms dealers, and a few unsung heroes, written like a thriller and a reference, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends is an astonishing feat of journalism. Based on years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, The New York Times reporter Nicole Perlroth lifts the curtain on a market in shadow, revealing the urgent threat faced by us all if we cannot bring the global cyber arms race to heel.

Jan 09, 202205:12
A Book Review - Unquiet Ghosts by Daniel Kawer's Reviews

A Book Review - Unquiet Ghosts by Daniel Kawer's Reviews

I was excited to see a new Meade book how ever is not my favorite. I liked his older works better. It still is a good book, but now as exciting

Jan 08, 202203:41
A Book Review - CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans Book by Henry Greely

A Book Review - CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans Book by Henry Greely

What does the birth of babies whose embryos had gone through genome editing mean--for science and for all of us? In November 2018, the world was shocked to learn that two babies had been born in China with DNA edited while they were embryos--as dramatic a development in genetics as the cloning of Dolly the sheep was in 1996. In this book, Hank Greely, a leading authority on law and genetics, tells the fascinating story of this human experiment and its consequences. Greely explains what Chinese scientist He Jiankui did, how he did it, and how the public and other scientists learned about and reacted to this unprecedented genetic intervention.

Jan 07, 202209:28
A Book Review - Snow: A History of the World’s Most Fascinating Flake by Anthony R. Wood

A Book Review - Snow: A History of the World’s Most Fascinating Flake by Anthony R. Wood

The complete story of snow, this is the first book to fully examine snow as a historical, cultural, and scientific phenomenon.

From "Winter Wonderland" to "Snowmageddon," we've had a long, love-hate relationship with snow. This entertaining look at snow in all its delightful and fearsome manifestations delves into science, history, economics, and popular culture to examine snow's enduring hold on the imagination.

Through profiles and anecdotes, the author discusses the reactions throughout history to snowfall. Snow, beautiful and magical, was sometimes considered one of nature's blessings. But then it was also a nuisance needing to be managed and moved, and worse, a terrifying, sometimes-crippling catastrophe to be battled. Blizzards and high-volume snowfall presented a serious obstacle to progress, travel, growth, and industry.

Readers will learn about the making and removing of snow, the psychology of winter, and the history of snow in literature, art, and popular culture. The author also summarizes the current scientific understanding of major winter weather events and what is known about the complex interplay between the jet stream and the Gulf Stream. Despite sophisticated computer modeling, accurate forecasting is still a challenge.

Finally, the book considers the impact of global warming on snowfall and the potential for causing a water crisis in the West and major losses in the winter recreation industry.

Whether you look forward to months on the ski slopes or loathe the effects of winter on your daily commute, you'll come away from this book with a new appreciation for this amazing and important natural phenomenon

Jan 05, 202204:03
A Book Review - Them and Us: How Immigrants and Locals Can Thrive Together Book by Philippe Legrain

A Book Review - Them and Us: How Immigrants and Locals Can Thrive Together Book by Philippe Legrain

‘The beauty of diversity is that innovation often comes about by serendipity. One day in 1904, at the World Fair in St Louis, the ice cream vendor ran out of cups. Ernest Hami, a Syrian waffle vendor in the booth next door, rolled up some waffles to make cones – and the rest is history.’
Filled with data, anecdotes and optimism, Them and Us is an endorsement of cultural differences at a time of acute national introspection. By every measure, from productivity to new perspectives, immigrants bring something beneficial to society. If patriotism means wanting the best for your country, we should be welcoming immigrants with open arms.

Dec 20, 202109:01
A Book Review - Migrations Book by Charlotte McConaghy

A Book Review - Migrations Book by Charlotte McConaghy

Franny Stone has always been the kind of woman who is able to love but unable to stay. Leaving behind everything but her research gear, she arrives in Greenland with a singular purpose: to follow the last Arctic terns in the world on what might be their final migration to Antarctica. Franny talks her way onto a fishing boat, and she and the crew set sail, traveling ever further from shore and safety. But as Franny’s history begins to unspool—a passionate love affair, an absent family, a devastating crime—it becomes clear that she is chasing more than just the birds. When Franny's dark secrets catch up with her, how much is she willing to risk for one more chance at redemption?

Epic and intimate, heartbreaking and galvanizing, Charlotte McConaghy's Migrations is an ode to a disappearing world and a breathtaking page-turner about the possibility of hope against all odds.

Dec 19, 202103:40
A Book Review - Karachi Vice: Life and Death in a Contested City Book by Samira Shackle

A Book Review - Karachi Vice: Life and Death in a Contested City Book by Samira Shackle

Karachi. The capital of Pakistan is a sprawling mega-city of 20 million people. It is a place of political turbulence in which those who have power wield it with brutal and partisan force, a place in which it pays to have friends in the right places and to avoid making deadly enemies. It is a society where lavish wealth and absolute poverty live side by side, and where the lines between idealism and corruption can quickly blur. It takes an insider to know where is safe, who to trust, and what makes Karachi tick, and in this powerful debut, Samira Shackle explores the city of her mother's birth in the company of a handful of Karachiites. Among them is Safdar the ambulance driver, who knows the city's streets and shortcuts intimately and will stop at nothing to help his fellow citizens. There is Parveen, the activist whose outspoken views on injustice corruption repeatedly lead her towards danger. And there is Zille, the hardened journalist whose commitment to getting the best scoops puts him at increasing risk. As their individual experiences unfold, so Shackle tells the bigger story of Karachi over the past decade: a period in which the Taliban arrive in Pakistan, adding to the daily perils for its residents and pushing their city into the international spotlight. Writing with intimate local knowledge and a global perspective, Shackle paints a nuanced and vivid portrait of one of the most complex, most compelling cities in the world.

Dec 18, 202105:13
A Book Review - ALL ON THE BOARD by All on the Board

A Book Review - ALL ON THE BOARD by All on the Board

THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS PRESENT!

A BOOK TO BRIGHTEN YOUR DAY – A GIFT OF HOPE, COMFORT, POSITIVITY, OPENNESS AND LOVE FOR ANY OCCASION – INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND DUO

Transport for London employees and dynamic masked duo, All on the Board (aka Jeremy and Ian), made it their mission to bring smiles to the faces of London commuters through writing creative messages, quotes and poems on the underground’s service information boards. ‘We were tired of looking at a board that just said “keep right” and thought can’t we do something a bit more fun?’.

Fast-forward 3 years, they’ve grown a community of 750,000+ online fans and have a plethora of celebrity supporters. Through their magical words, they’ve marked momentous occasions, celebrated countless artists, legends and heroes, raised awareness of mental health and hidden illnesses and sprinkled thousands of our daily journeys with positivity, humor and love. Their kind messages remind us all that we’re in it together and now, with their beautiful, colorful collection of quotes, stories and drawings you can add joy to your day wherever you are and however you’re feeling.

CHAPTERS INCLUDE: Positively Positive, Raising Awareness, Love, Always Remembered, Random Pleasures & Simple Treasures, Mental Health, Legends, Real Life Heroes, Occasions & Celebrations, London, In It Together

‘During the darkest days of lock down your positively uplifting words never failed to put a smile on my face. Thank you for the inspiration and love that you spread. Don’t ever stop lifting us with your unique brand of joy and humor.’ – TESS DALY

‘All On The Board just show how much we need to feel connected… you often say exactly what we need to hear at exactly the right time. Always positive, always kind. You make me smile. Sometimes you’ve made me cry. Keep doing what you are doing . . . we are so very grateful for you.’ – DAVINA MCCALL

Dec 17, 202106:56
A Book Review - The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources by Javier Blas, Jack Farchy

A Book Review - The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources by Javier Blas, Jack Farchy

The modern world is built on commodities - from the oil that fuels our cars to the metals that power our smartphones.

We rarely stop to consider where they come from. But we should.

In The World for Sale, two leading journalists lift the lid on one of the least scrutinised corners of the economy: the workings of the billionaire commodity traders who buy, hoard and sell the earth's resources.

It is the story of how a handful of swashbuckling businessmen became indispensable cogs in global markets: enabling an enormous expansion in international trade, and connecting resource-rich countries - no matter how corrupt or war-torn - with the world's financial centres.

And it is the story of how some traders acquired untold political power, right under the noses of Western regulators and politicians - helping Saddam Hussein to sell his oil, fuelling the Libyan rebel army during the Arab Spring, and funnelling cash to Vladimir Putin's Kremlin in spite of strict sanctions.

The result is an eye-opening tour through the wildest frontiers of the global economy, as well as a revelatory guide to how capitalism really works.

Dec 16, 202105:26
A Book Review - The Happy Traitor Spies, Lies and Exile in Russia: The Extraordinary Story of George Blake Simon Kuper

A Book Review - The Happy Traitor Spies, Lies and Exile in Russia: The Extraordinary Story of George Blake Simon Kuper

'A deeply human read, wonderfully written, on the foibles of a fascinating, flawed, treacherous and sort of likeable character.'

 Philippe Sands Those people who were betrayed were not innocent people. They were no better nor worse than I am. It's all part of the intelligence world. If the man who turned me in came to my house today, I'd invite him to sit down and have a cup of tea. George Blake was the last remaining Cold War spy. As a Senior Officer in the British Intelligence Service who was double agent for the Soviet Union, his actions had devastating consequences for Britain. Yet he was also one of the least known double agents, and remained unrepentant. In 1961, Blake was sentenced to forty-two years imprisonment for betraying to the KGB all of the Western operations in which he was involved, and the names of hundreds of British agents working behind the Iron Curtain. 

This was the longest sentence for espionage ever to have been handed down by a British court. On the surface, Blake was a charming, intelligent and engaging man, and most importantly, a seemingly committed patriot. Underneath, a ruthlessly efficient mole and key player in the infamous 'Berlin Tunnel' operation. This illuminating biography tracks Blake from humble beginnings as a teenage courier for the Dutch underground during the Second World War, to the sensational prison-break from Wormwood Scrubs that inspired Hitchcock to write screenplay. Through a combination of personal interviews, research and unique access to Stasi records, journalist Simon Kuper unravels who Blake truly was, what he was capable of, and why he did it.

Dec 15, 202104:31
A Book Review - La familia grande by Camille Kouchner

A Book Review - La familia grande by Camille Kouchner

« Souviens-toi, maman : nous étions tes enfants. »
C.K.

C’est l’histoire d’une grande famille qui aime débattre, rire et danser, qui aime le soleil et l’été.

C’est le récit incandescent d’une femme qui ose enfin raconter ce qui a longtemps fait taire la familia grande.

Aug 03, 202109:17
A Book Review - No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

A Book Review - No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?"

Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.

Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature.

Aug 02, 202102:60
A Book Review - Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live by Nicholas A. Christakis

A Book Review - Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live by Nicholas A. Christakis

A piercing and scientifically grounded look at the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic and how it will change the way we live—"excellent and timely." (The New Yorker)

Apollo's Arrow offers a riveting account of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic as it swept through American society in 2020, and of how the recovery will unfold in the coming years. Drawing on momentous (yet dimly remembered) historical epidemics, contemporary analyses, and cutting-edge research from a range of scientific disciplines, bestselling author, physician, sociologist, and public health expert Nicholas A. Christakis explores what it means to live in a time of plague—an experience that is paradoxically uncommon to the vast majority of humans who are alive, yet deeply fundamental to our species.

Unleashing new divisions in our society as well as opportunities for cooperation, this 21st-century pandemic has upended our lives in ways that will test, but not vanquish, our already frayed collective culture. Featuring new, provocative arguments and vivid examples ranging across medicine, history, sociology, epidemiology, data science, and genetics, Apollo's Arrow envisions what happens when the great force of a deadly germ meets the enduring reality of our evolved social nature

Aug 01, 202106:44
A Life Review - LaDonna Brave Bull Allard died on April 10th The historian and campaigner for Native-American rights was 64

A Life Review - LaDonna Brave Bull Allard died on April 10th The historian and campaigner for Native-American rights was 64

The first time they drove up to Whitestone Hill, in south North Dakota, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard had to ask her husband to stop. She could hear grief coming out of the ground, crying and screaming. She had to lay down food and water there, as well as prayer-ties of sweet willow-bark tobacco that could soothe and heal the spirits of the dead.

Whitestone Hill in 1863 had seen a terrible massacre, when hundreds of men, women and children had been herded into a ravine and shot by the United States Army. They had been members of a large camp of tribes, mainly Sioux, who had been meeting to prepare for winter by hunting buffalo and arranging marriages. Among them was her great great grandmother Mary Big Mocassin, then nine years old, who felt the sudden heat of a bullet tear into her hip. She survived, but had shivered in a field for hours crying for her mother. Her voice, too, called from the place.

Jul 31, 202108:39
A Life Review - Michael Collins Apollo 11 Astronaut 3rd Man on the moon

A Life Review - Michael Collins Apollo 11 Astronaut 3rd Man on the moon

An astronaut who flew on one of the most famous space missions of all time has died. Michael Collins, 90, was part of the three-member crew on Apollo 11, the first lunar landing mission in 1969. Unlike Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, he never walked on the moon. Collins stayed behind and piloted the command module as it circled above. Because of that, Collins is often called the "forgotten astronaut."

Collins had been battling cancer. A statement released by his family said, "He spent his final days peacefully, with his family by his side. Mike always faced the challenges of life with grace and humility, and faced this, his final challenge in the same way."

Jul 30, 202107:18
A Life Review - Yang Huaiding died on June 13th China’s “first shareholder”, known as “Yang Millions”, was 70

A Life Review - Yang Huaiding died on June 13th China’s “first shareholder”, known as “Yang Millions”, was 70

If you had been riding on one of China’s crammed, rickety green trains in 1989, bouncing in a hard-seat carriage, you might have noticed Yang Huaiding sitting nearby. Or you might not. He had taken pains not to stand out, wearing drab clothes and carrying a faded mock-leather travel bag. The black-rimmed glasses, messy hair and stained teeth were his customary look. If he was smoking more than usual, and wiping more sweat, it was because in the bag, layered in newspaper, he had thousands of yuan in ten-yuan notes. He needed a police escort and, at times, he hired one.

Jul 29, 202107:51
A Book Review - The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness 1680-1790 by Ritchie Robertson

A Book Review - The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness 1680-1790 by Ritchie Robertson

One of the formative periods of European and world history, the Enlightenment is the fountainhead of modern secular Western values: religious tolerance, freedom of thought, speech and the press, of rationality and evidence-based argument. Yet why, over three hundred years after it began, is the Enlightenment so profoundly misunderstood as controversial, the expression of soulless calculation? The answer may be that, to an extraordinary extent, we have accepted the account of the Enlightenment given by its conservative enemies. Ritchie Robertson goes back into the “long eighteenth century,” from approximately 1680 to 1790, to reveal what this much-debated period was really about.

Any account of the Enlightenment must be in large part a history of ideas. But Robertson argues that it is not solely a philosophical movement; the Enlightenment saw the publication of the Encyclopédie, which is not only a historical and philosophical compendium, but also an illustrated guide to all sorts of contemporary machinery, handicrafts, and trades aimed to improve people’s lives in immediate and practical ways. Robertson chronicles the campaigns mounted by some Enlightened figures against specific evils such as capital punishment, judicial torture, serfdom and witchcraft trials, featuring the experiences of major figures like Voltaire and Diderot with ordinary people who lived through this extraordinary moment. Robertson gives due attention to philosophical and theological debates, but also looks to literature, music, and the visual arts as prominent means of conveying enlightenment ideas.

In seeking to correct one-sided views of the Enlightenment, Robertson ultimately puts forward his own. He does not reduce this transformative period to a formula, but instead makes the claim that indeed the Enlightenment was an attempt to increase human happiness, and to claim that happiness was possible in this world, without needing any compensatory belief in a better one beyond the grave.

Jul 28, 202106:07
A Book Review - Weaponized Words: The Strategic Role of Persuasion in Violent Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization by Kurt Braddock

A Book Review - Weaponized Words: The Strategic Role of Persuasion in Violent Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization by Kurt Braddock

Strengthen your understanding of the persuasive mechanisms used by terrorist groups and how they are effective in order to defeat them. Weaponized Words applies existing theories of persuasion to domains unique to this digital era, such as social media, YouTube, websites, and message boards to name but a few. Terrorists deploy a range of communication methods and harness reliable communication theories to create strategic messages that persuade peaceful individuals to join their groups and engage in violence. While explaining how they accomplish this, the book lays out a blueprint for developing counter-messages perfectly designed to conquer such violent extremism and terrorism. Using this basis in persuasion theory, a socio-scientific approach is generated to fight terrorist propaganda and the damage it causes

Jul 27, 202110:02
A Book Review - Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game Book by Michael Lewis

A Book Review - Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game Book by Michael Lewis

Billy Beane, general manager of MLB's Oakland A's and protagonist of Michael Lewis's Moneyball, had a problem: how to win in the Major Leagues with a budget that's smaller than that of nearly every other team. Conventional wisdom long held that big name, highly athletic hitters and young pitchers with rocket arms were the ticket to success. But Beane and his staff, buoyed by massive amounts of carefully interpreted statistical data, believed that wins could be had by more affordable methods such as hitters with high on-base percentage and pitchers who get lots of ground outs. Given this information and a tight budget, Beane defied tradition and his own scouting department to build winning teams of young affordable players and inexpensive castoff veterans.

Lewis was in the room with the A's top management as they spent the summer of 2002 adding and subtracting players and he provides outstanding play-by-play. In the June player draft, Beane acquired nearly every prospect he coveted (few of whom were coveted by other teams) and at the July trading deadline he engaged in a tense battle of nerves to acquire a lefty reliever. Besides being one of the most insider accounts ever written about baseball, Moneyball is populated with fascinating characters. We meet Jeremy Brown, an overweight college catcher who most teams project to be a 15th round draft pick (Beane takes him in the first). Sidearm pitcher Chad Bradford is plucked from the White Sox triple-A club to be a key set-up man and catcher Scott Hatteberg is rebuilt as a first baseman. But the most interesting character is Beane himself. A speedy athletic can't-miss prospect who somehow missed, Beane reinvents himself as a front-office guru, relying on players completely unlike, say, Billy Beane. Lewis, one of the top nonfiction writers of his era (Liar's Poker, The New New Thing), offers highly accessible explanations of baseball stats and his roadmap of Beane's economic approach makes Moneyball an appealing reading experience for business people and sports fans alike. --John Moe

Jul 26, 202112:24
A Book Review - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking Book by Susan Cain

A Book Review - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking Book by Susan Cain

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society. 

In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.

Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content.

Jul 25, 202111:30
A Book Review - Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis Book by Serhii Plokhy

A Book Review - Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis Book by Serhii Plokhy

Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, today’s world leaders are abandoning disarmament treaties, building up their nuclear arsenals, and exchanging threats of nuclear strikes. To survive this new atomic age, we must relearn the lessons of the most dangerous moment of the Cold War: the Cuban missile crisis.

Serhii Plokhy’s Nuclear Folly offers an international perspective on the crisis, tracing the tortuous decision-making that produced and then resolved it, which involved John Kennedy and his advisers, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and their commanders on the ground. In breathtaking detail, Plokhy vividly recounts the young JFK being played by the canny Khrushchev; the hotheaded Castro willing to defy the USSR and threatening to align himself with China; the Soviet troops on the ground clearing jungle foliage in the tropical heat, and desperately trying to conceal nuclear installations on Cuba, which were nonetheless easily spotted by U-2 spy planes; and the hair-raising near misses at sea that nearly caused a Soviet nuclear-armed submarine to fire its weapons.

More often than not, the Americans and Soviets misread each other, operated under false information, and came perilously close to nuclear catastrophe. Despite these errors, nuclear war was ultimately avoided for one central reason: fear, and the realization that any escalation on either the Soviets’ or the Americans’ part would lead to mutual destruction.


Drawing on a range of Soviet archival sources, including previously classified KGB documents, as well as White House tapes, Plokhy masterfully illustrates the drama and anxiety of those tense days, and provides a way for us to grapple with the problems posed in our present day.

Jul 24, 202109:26
A Book Review - The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights Book by Dorothy Wickenden

A Book Review - The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights Book by Dorothy Wickenden

In Auburn, New York, in the mid-nineteenth century, Martha Wright and Frances Seward, inspired by Harriet Tubman’s rescues in the dangerous territory of Eastern Maryland, opened their basement kitchens as stations on the Underground Railroad.

Tubman was enslaved, Wright was a middle-class Quaker mother of seven, and Seward was the aristocratic wife and moral conscience of her husband, William H. Seward, who served as Lincoln’s Secretary of State. All three refused to abide by laws that denied them the rights granted to white men, and they supported each other as they worked to overturn slavery and achieve full citizenship for blacks and women.

The Agitators opens when Tubman is enslaved and Wright and Seward are young women bridling against their traditional roles. It ends decades later, after Wright’s and Seward’s sons—and Tubman herself—have taken part in three of the defining engagements of the Civil War. Through the sardonic and anguished accounts of the protagonists, reconstructed from their letters, diaries, and public appearances, we see the most explosive debates of the time, and portraits of the men and women whose paths they crossed: Lincoln, Seward, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others. Tubman, embraced by Seward and Wright and by the radical network of reformers in western New York State, settled in Auburn and spent the second half of her life there.

With extraordinarily compelling storytelling reminiscent of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s No Ordinary Time and David McCullough’s John Adams, The Agitators brings a vivid new perspective to the epic American stories of abolition, the Underground Railroad, women’s rights activism, and the Civil War.

Jul 23, 202105:20
A Book Review - Lean Fall Stand Novel by Jon McGregor

A Book Review - Lean Fall Stand Novel by Jon McGregor

Robert 'Doc' Wright, a veteran of Antarctic surveying, was there on the ice when the worst happened. He holds within him the complete story of that night--but depleted by the disaster, Wright is no longer able to communicate the truth. Instead, in the wake of the catastrophic expedition, he faces the most daunting adventure of his life: learning a whole new way to be in the world. Meanwhile Anna, his wife, must suddenly scramble to navigate the sharp and unexpected contours of life as a caregiver.

From the Booker Prize-longlisted, American Academy of Arts & Letters Award-winning author of Reservoir 13, this is a novel every bit as mesmerizing as its setting. Tenderly unraveling different notions of heroism through the rippling effects of one extraordinary expedition on an ordinary family, Lean, Fall, Stand explores the indomitable human impulse to turn our experiences into stories--even when the words may fail us.

Jul 22, 202103:18
A Book Review - On the Origin of Species Book by Charles Darwin

A Book Review - On the Origin of Species Book by Charles Darwin

Darwin's theory of natural selection issued a profound challenge to orthodox thought and belief: no being or species has been specifically created; all are locked into a pitiless struggle for existence, with extinction looming for those not fitted for the task.

Yet The Origin of Species (1859) is also a humane and inspirational vision of ecological interrelatedness, revealing the complex mutual interdependencies between animal and plant life, climate and physical environment, and—by implication—within the human world.

Written for the general reader, in a style which combines the rigour of science with the subtlety of literature, The Origin of Species remains one of the founding documents of the modern age.

Jul 21, 202109:20
A Book Review - Republic Book by Plato

A Book Review - Republic Book by Plato

Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, this classic text is an enquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation, other questions are raised: what is goodness?; what is reality?; and what is knowledge? The Republic also addresses the purpose of education and the role of both women and men as guardians of the people. With remarkable lucidity and deft use of allegory, Plato arrives at a depiction of a state bound by harmony and ruled by philosopher kings.

Jul 20, 202109:07
A Book Review - How to lie with maps Book by Mark Monmonier

A Book Review - How to lie with maps Book by Mark Monmonier

Originally published to wide acclaim, this lively, cleverly illustrated essay on the use and abuse of maps teaches us how to evaluate maps critically and promotes a healthy skepticism about these easy-to-manipulate models of reality. Monmonier shows that, despite their immense value, maps lie. In fact, they must.

The second edition is updated with the addition of two new chapters, 10 color plates, and a new foreword by renowned geographer H. J. de Blij. One new chapter examines the role of national interest and cultural values in national mapping organizations, including the United States Geological Survey, while the other explores the new breed of multimedia, computer-based maps.

To show how maps distort, Monmonier introduces basic principles of mapmaking, gives entertaining examples of the misuse of maps in situations from zoning disputes to census reports, and covers all the typical kinds of distortions from deliberate oversimplifications to the misleading use of color.

"Professor Monmonier himself knows how to gain our attention; it is not in fact the lies in maps but their truth, if always approximate and incomplete, that he wants us to admire and use, even to draw for ourselves on the facile screen. His is an artful and funny book, which like any good map, packs plenty in little space."—Scientific American

Jul 19, 202110:35
A Book Review - The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester

A Book Review - The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester

The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history. The compilation of the OED, begun in 1857, was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane

Jul 18, 202109:17
A Book Review - The Frontlines of Peace: An Insider's Guide to Changing the World Book by Séverine Autesserre

A Book Review - The Frontlines of Peace: An Insider's Guide to Changing the World Book by Séverine Autesserre

The word "peacebuilding" evokes a story we've all heard over and over: violence breaks out, foreign nations are scandalized, peacekeepers and million-dollar donors come rushing in, warring parties sign a peace agreement and, sadly, within months the situation is back to where it started--sometimes worse. But what strategies have worked to build lasting peace in conflict zones, particularly for ordinary citizens on the ground? And why should other ordinary citizens, thousands of miles away, care?

In The Frontlines of Peace, Severine Autesserre, award-winning researcher and peacebuilder, examines the well-intentioned but inherently flawed peace industry. With examples drawn from across the globe, she reveals that peace can grow in the most unlikely circumstances. Contrary to what most politicians preach, building peace doesn't require billions in aid or massive international interventions. Real, lasting peace requires giving power to local citizens.

The Frontlines of Peace tells the stories of the ordinary yet extraordinary individuals and organizations that are confronting violence in their communities effectively. One thing is clear: successful examples of peacebuilding around the world, in countries at war or at peace, have involved innovative grassroots initiatives led by local people, at times supported by foreigners, often employing methods shunned by the international elite. By narrating success stories of this kind, Autesserre shows the radical changes we must take in our approach if we hope to build lasting peace around us--whether we live in Congo, the United States, or elsewhere.

Jul 17, 202104:50
A Book Review - The Power of Creative Destruction: Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations Book by Céline Antonin, Philippe Aghion, and Simon Bunel

A Book Review - The Power of Creative Destruction: Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations Book by Céline Antonin, Philippe Aghion, and Simon Bunel

From one of the world’s leading economists and his coauthors, a cutting-edge analysis of what drives economic growth and a blueprint for prosperity under capitalism.

Crisis seems to follow crisis. Inequality is rising, growth is stagnant, the environment is suffering, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed every crack in the system. We hear more and more calls for radical change, even the overthrow of capitalism. But the answer to our problems is not revolution. The answer is to create a better capitalism by understanding and harnessing the power of creative destruction—innovation that disrupts, but that over the past two hundred years has also lifted societies to previously unimagined prosperity.

To explain, Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin, and Simon Bunel draw on cutting-edge theory and evidence to examine today’s most fundamental economic questions, including the roots of growth and inequality, competition and globalization, the determinants of health and happiness, technological revolutions, secular stagnation, middle-income traps, climate change, and how to recover from economic shocks. They show that we owe our modern standard of living to innovations enabled by free-market capitalism. But we also need state intervention with the appropriate checks and balances to simultaneously foster ongoing economic creativity, manage the social disruption that innovation leaves in its wake, and ensure that yesterday’s superstar innovators don’t pull the ladder up after them to thwart tomorrow’s. A powerful and ambitious reappraisal of the foundations of economic success and a blueprint for change, The Power of Creative Destruction shows that a fair and prosperous future is ultimately ours to make.

Jul 16, 202106:10
A Book Review - How Stella Learned to Talk: The Groundbreaking Story of the World's First Talking Dog (Signed B&N Exclusive Book)

A Book Review - How Stella Learned to Talk: The Groundbreaking Story of the World's First Talking Dog (Signed B&N Exclusive Book)

An incredible, revolutionary true story and surprisingly simple guide to teaching your dog to talk from speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger, who has taught her dog, Stella, to communicate using simple paw-sized buttons associated with different words.

When speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger first came home with her puppy, Stella, it didn’t take long for her to start drawing connections between her job and her new pet. During the day, she worked with toddlers with significant delays in language development and used Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices to help them communicate. At night, she wondered: If dogs can understand words we say to them, shouldn’t they be able to say words to us? Can dogs use AAC to communicate with humans?

Christina decided to put her theory to the test with Stella and started using a paw-sized button programmed with her voice to say the word “outside” when clicked, whenever she took Stella out of the house. A few years later, Stella now has a bank of more than thirty word buttons, and uses them daily either individually or together to create near-complete sentences.

How Stella Learned to Talk is part memoir and part how-to guide. It chronicles the journey Christina and Stella have taken together, from the day they met, to the day Stella “spoke” her first word, and the other breakthroughs they’ve had since. It also reveals the techniques Christina used to teach Stella, broken down into simple stages and actionable steps any dog owner can use to start communicating with their pets.

Jul 15, 202105:56
A Book Review - Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk

A Book Review - Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk

We have been keeping informing you for a long time about Turkish series, dramas, and more similar news. This is only because we know that you love those works and we also know that Turkey is satisfyingly good at it. However, we also know that you are familiar with Turkey’s Nobel-winning author Orhan Pamuk. So, here is his new shocking novel named “Nights of Plague” (Veba Geceleri) published on March 2021.

As soon as the novelist’s new book took its place on the shelves of the book markets, it went viral. What also makes this novel so special is that the timing of the book! Orhan Pamuk said, “I had been pondering about this novel for 40 years and have been writing it over the last four years.” It means that it is as if the great Turkish novelist has foreseen the Covid-19 is coming, —one of the worst things in history that has ever happened to humanity…

Jul 14, 202108:07
A Book Review - What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 by Tina Seelig

A Book Review - What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 by Tina Seelig

Major life transitions such as leaving the protected environment of school or starting a new career can be daunting. It is scary to face a wall of choices, knowing that no one is going to tell us whether or not we are making the right decision. There is no clearly delineated path or recipe for success. Even figuring out how and where to start can be a challenge. That is, until now.

As executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, Tina Seelig guides her students as they make the difficult transition from the academic environment to the professional world, providing tangible skills and insights that will last a lifetime. Seelig is an entrepreneur, neuroscientist, and popular teacher, and in What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 she shares with us what she offers her students—provocative stories, inspiring advice, and a big dose of humility and humor.

Jul 13, 202109:23
A Book Review - The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

A Book Review - The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, have fundamentally changed.

Marketers at Procter & Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern—and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year.

An untested CEO takes over one of the largest companies in America. His first order of business is attacking a single pattern among his employees—how they approach worker safety—and soon the firm, Alcoa, becomes the top performer in the Dow Jones.

What do all these people have in common? They achieved success by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives.

They succeeded by transforming habits.

Jul 12, 202110:22
A Book Review - So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport

A Book Review - So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport

In this eye-opening account, Cal Newport debunks the long-held belief that "follow your passion" is good advice.

Not only is the cliché flawed-preexisting passions are rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work-but it can also be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping.

After making his case against passion, Newport sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving what they do. Spending time with organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, freelance computer programmers, and others who admitted to deriving great satisfaction from their work, Newport uncovers the strategies they used and the pitfalls they avoided in developing their compelling careers.

Matching your job to a preexisting passion does not matter, he reveals. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.

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

So Good They Can't Ignore You will change the way we think about our careers, happiness, and the crafting of a remarkable life.

Jul 11, 202107:41
A Book Review - The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos by Judy Batalion

A Book Review - The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos by Judy Batalion

Witnesses to the brutal murder of their families and neighbors and the violent destruction of their communities, a cadre of Jewish women in Poland—some still in their teens—helped transform the Jewish youth groups into resistance cells to fight the Nazis. With courage, guile, and nerves of steel, these “ghetto girls” paid off Gestapo guards, hid revolvers in loaves of bread and jars of marmalade, and helped build systems of underground bunkers. They flirted with German soldiers, bribed them with wine, whiskey, and home cooking, used their Aryan looks to seduce them, and shot and killed them. They bombed German train lines and blew up a town’s water supply. They also nursed the sick and taught children.

Yet the exploits of these courageous resistance fighters have remained virtually unknown.

As propulsive and thrilling as Hidden Figures, In the Garden of Beasts, Band of Brothers, and A Train in Winter, The Light of Days at last tells the true story of these incredible women whose courageous yet little-known feats have been eclipsed by time. Judy Batalion—the granddaughter of Polish Holocaust survivors—takes us back to 1939 and introduces us to Renia Kukielka, a weapons smuggler and messenger who risked death traveling across occupied Poland on foot and by train. Joining Renia are other women who served as couriers, armed fighters, intelligence agents, and saboteurs, all who put their lives in mortal danger to carry out their missions. Batalion follows these women through the savage destruction of the ghettos, arrest and internment in Gestapo prisons and concentration camps, and for a lucky few—like Renia, who orchestrated her own audacious escape from a brutal Nazi jail—into the late 20th century and beyond.

Powerful and inspiring, featuring twenty black-and-white photographs, The Light of Days is an unforgettable true tale of war, the fight for freedom, exceptional bravery, female friendship, and survival in the face of staggering odd

Jul 10, 202105:48
A Book Review - Whereabouts Novel by Jhumpa Lahiri

A Book Review - Whereabouts Novel by Jhumpa Lahiri

A marvelous new novel from the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Lowland and Interpreter of Maladies--her first in nearly a decade.

Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. The woman at the center wavers between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. The city she calls home, an engaging backdrop to her days, acts as a confidant: the sidewalks around her house, parks, bridges, piazzas, streets, stores, coffee bars. We follow her to the pool she frequents and to the train station that sometimes leads her to her mother, mired in a desperate solitude after her father's untimely death. In addition to colleagues at work, where she never quite feels at ease, she has girl friends, guy friends, and "him," a shadow who both consoles and unsettles her. But in the arc of a year, as one season gives way to the next, transformation awaits. One day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun's vital heat, her perspective will change. This is the first novel she has written in Italian and translated into English. It brims with the impulse to cross barriers. By grafting herself onto a new literary language, Lahiri has pushed herself to a new level of artistic achievement.

Jul 09, 202103:36
A Book Review - How to Love Animals: In a Human-Shaped World Book by Henry Mance

A Book Review - How to Love Animals: In a Human-Shaped World Book by Henry Mance

We all love animals, but does that make their lives happier?
With factory farms, climate change and deforestation, this might be the worst time in history to be an animal. In an age of extinction and pandemics, our relationship with the other species on our planet has become unsustainable. What if we took animals' experiences seriously - how would we eat, think and live differently?

Henry Mance sets out on a personal quest to see if there is a fairer way to live alongside other species. He goes to work in an abattoir and on a farm to investigate the reality of eating meat and dairy. He explores our dilemmas around hunting wild animals, over-fishing the seas, visiting zoos, saving wild spaces and owning pets. He meets the chefs, farmers, activists, philosophers, scientists and tech visionaries who are redefining how we think about animals.

Jul 08, 202104:06