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FINTAN O' TOOLE-SHIPE OF FOOLS
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THE NEW SOFT WAR ON WOMEN
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THE EXTRA 2%-JONAH KERI
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“What happens when three financial industry whiz kids and certified baseball nuts take over an ailing major league franchise and implement the same strategies that fueled their success on Wall Street? In the case of the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, an American League championship happens–the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history. In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team’s Cinderella journey from divisional doormat to World Series contender. When former Goldman Sachs partners Stuart Sternberg and Matthew Silverman assumed control of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2005, it looked as if they were buying the baseball equivalent of a penny stock. But the incoming regime came armed with a master plan: to leverage their skill at trading, valuation, and management to build a model twenty-first-century franchise that could compete with their bigger, stronger, richer rivals–and prevail. Together with “boy genius” general manager Andrew Friedman, the new Rays owners jettisoned the old ways of doing things, substituting their own innovative ideas about employee development, marketing and public relations, and personnel management. They exorcized the “devil” from the team’s nickname, developed metrics that let them take advantage of undervalued aspects of the game, like defense, and hired a forward-thinking field manager as dedicated to unconventional strategy as they were. By quantifying the game’s intangibles–that extra 2% that separates a winning organization from a losing one–they were able to deliver to Tampa something that Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” had never brought to Oakland: an American League pennant. A book about what happens when you apply your business skills to your life’s passion, The Extra 2% is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first”–
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SKU: 9780345517654
Categories: Non Fiction, Others, Trade & Hard-back
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| Weight | 0.6 kg |
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| Dimensions | 24 x 16 x 2.5 cm |
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For an accident-prone "normal girl from Norfolk" who didn't run a serious race until she was 25, Chrissie Wellington has done pretty well for herself. A multiple world champion and record-holder, she remained unbeaten in 13 straight races at her chosen event, the Ironman triathlon, before her retirement in December.
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Baking is a rewarding experience for home cooks of all abilities. Create comforting treats that your friends and family will find irresistible. With some simple cupboard ingredients you can bake delicious sweet and savoury creations.
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For years I was your basic dating nightmare. And then, under the influence of one magical woman my readers came to know as Orange Blossoms, I changed. Now I’m here to blow the lid off what you think you know about the way guys think. Because here’s the big secret I learned from being slayed by Blossoms: Women already have what it takes to get what they want from men; they just need to know how to use that power.
When beach-volleyball star and fashion model Reece (Big Girl in the Middle, 1998) became a mother, she tackled it just like she did everything else in her life: head-on and with no baloney. With the assistance of Karbo (How Georgia Became O'Keeffe, 2011, etc.), Reece blends simple wisdom on being a mom, wife and friend with personal anecdotes. The end result is mostly a series of platitudes on life—"exercise is the key to everything," "spending time with couples who are making their marriages work ups the odds that you'll make yours work, too," "eating well is not complicated," "if you want your partnership to last, you better plan on being naked and smiling”—with humorous comments on being a new mom and wife. Reece covers birthing, exercise, diet, sex, commitment and the need for community service, but most of the information is similar to what can be found in many women’s magazines. Reece advocates for less computer and electronic-gadget time—get outdoors and enjoy the scenery, she writes—stresses the importance of children knowing who's in charge while allowing them time to become their own independent selves, and encourages women to take time for themselves, even for an hour. The end result is not that women have it all, but that they are the queens of their domains; if they have the kindness, generosity and work ethic to reach for that goal, then they “will live interestingly ever after."
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Many of us assume that our creative process is beyond our ability to influence, and pay attention to it only when it isn't working properly. For the most part, we go about our daily tasks and everything just "works." Until it doesn't. Adding to this lack of understanding is the rapidly accelerating pace of work. Each day we are face escalating expectations and a continual squeeze to do more with less. We are asked to produce an ever-increasing amount of brilliance in an ever-shrinking amount of time. There is an unspoken (or spoken!) expectation that we'll be accessible 24/7, and as a result we frequently feel like we're "always on." Now business creativity expert Todd Henry explains how to unleash your creative potential. Whether you're a creative by trade or an "accidental creative," this book will help you quickly and effectively integrate new ideas into your daily life.
With more than half of Americans now overweight, this country is in the throes of an epidemic. But addiction expert Tennie McCarty says the problem isn’t what we’re eating, it’s what’s eating us. This epidemic isn’t simply about calories or food choices or portion control. It’s about having a tortured relationship with food and weight, and it’s all rooted in the unprocessed emotions of an unexamined life.
McCarty ought to know. She has spent a lifetime of dealing with addictions: her parents’, her husband’s, her daughter’s and her own, including a battle with bulimia that nearly killed her. In the bruising aftermath, she tackled a forty-year food addiction, lost 150 pounds, and has kept it off for more than fifteen years.
Back in 1998, Dr. Life was sixty years old and a stereotype of the aging man: he was overweight with a noticeable gut and little muscle tone. Even though his own medical practice was thriving, and he thought he knew everything about men's health, the facts proved differently. His libido was low, which was ruining his self-esteem. He felt tired all the time, yet no amount of sleep made him feel well rested. It wasn't until a cardiologist read him the riot act that he even considered that change was possible. He then decided to make critical adjustments to his diet and lifestyle, and the results have been nothing short of astounding.
More than a decade later, Dr. Life continues to look and feel younger than ever. He knows that if he can make these changes to his body, his sex life, and his health, any man can. In this revolutionary book, he'll show how you can turn around your health by using the same program he successfully created and follows to this day.
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As the Post War generation entered adulthood, they saw three models of what an adult could be: hippies, activists, and squares—the “square” model becoming the dominant model. Now, many Boomers now feel “stuck” inside the frenzied, performance-based, money-driven world that no longer suits them. But if they can learn to go slower, go deeper, and be more connected to themselves, their loved ones, and other members of their community, they can find the wisdom, happiness, and fulfillment that comes with a life that is in balance.
Marilyn & Me, a memoir in words and photographs, is an intimate story of Monroe before her fall and a young photographer on his way to the top. Schiller’s original text and extraordinary photography is a story that has never been told before, and he tells it with tact, humor and compassion. What emerges during the final months of her life is a portrait of an artist self-aware, in control of her image, yet fragile and vulnerable, and uniquely touching.
‘China is not a superpower, nor will she ever seek to be one,” said Deng Xiaoping to the United Nations in 1974. If China should ever “subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation,” continued Deng, “the people of the world should identify her social- imperialism, expose it, oppose it, and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.”
To be fair, in 1974 Deng was not yet the Little Helmsman who would dismantle Maoism and introduce the market systems that within three decades turned China into a superpower with a growing appetite for social-imperialism. He was still lurking beneath the shadows of the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four.
His words remind us nonetheless of how much has changed since the East was Red. They cannot come back now to embarrass Deng Xiaoping, who died in 1997 at 92 years. His successors are doubtless grateful that the people of China and the rest of the world failed to take them to heart.
Deng’s protestations to the UN are quoted towards the end of China’s Silent Army. The thesis developed by Spanish journalists Juan Pablo Cardenal and Heriberto Araujo in the course of their extraordinary international investigations is that China is creating “a new, informal empire”, and not only in the developing world.
In her charming and self-effacing voice, Jenifer Ringer covers the highs and lows of what it’s like to make it to the top in the exclusive, competitive ballet world. From the heart-pounding moments waiting in the wings before a performance to appearing on Oprah to discuss weight and body image among dancers, Dancing Through It is moving and revelatory.
Raised in South Carolina, Ringer led a typical kid’s life until she sat in on a friend’s ballet class, an experience that would change her life forever. By the age of twelve she was enrolled at the elite Washington School of Ballet and soon moved to the School of American Ballet. At sixteen she was a professional dancer at the New York City Ballet in Manhattan, home of the legendary George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins.
Ringer takes us inside the dancer’s world, detailing a typical day, performance preparation, and the extraordinary pressures that these athletes face. Ringer shares exhilarating stories of starring in Balanchine productions, working with the famous Peter Martins, and of meeting her husband and falling in love at the New York City Ballet. Ringer also talks candidly of Alistair Macauley’s stinging critique of her weight in his 2010 New York Times review of The Nutcracker that ignited a public dialogue about ballet and weight. She unflinchingly describes her personal struggles with eating disorders and body image, and shares how her faith helped her to heal and triumph over these challenges.
The Cosmo Bikini Diet is a weight-loss plan designed to get you slim and sexy all over without leaving you feeling unsatisfied, moody, and hungry. It makes eating well and working out actually feel enjoyable.
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Author Phillip Norman, whose previous bestseller, John Lennon: The Life, was praised as a “haunting, mammoth, terrific piece of work” (New York Times Book Review) and whose classic Shout! is widely considered to be the definitive biography of the Beatles, now turns his attention to the iconic front man of the Rolling Stones, “the greatest rock ’n’ roll band in the world.” Norman’s Mick Jagger is an extraordinarily detailed and vibrantly written in-depth account of the life and half-century-long career of one of the most fascinating and complex superstars of rock music—the most comprehensive biography to date of the famously enigmatic musician. Keith Richards had his say in Life. Now it’s time to get to know intimately the other half of the duo responsible for such enduring hits as “Paint It Black,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Gimme Shelter,” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Mick Jagger is a must read for Stones fans, and everyone who can’t get enough of the serious memoirs and biographies of popular musicians, like Patti Smith’s Just Kids, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? by Steven Tyler, and the Warren Zevon story, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.
Examines the rise and fall of Ireland's economy due to the global financial crisis of 2008, incompetence, and political corruption.
The death of the Celtic tiger is not an extinction event to trouble naturalists. There was, in fact nothing natural about this tiger, if it ever really existed. The "Irish Economic miracle" was built on good old-fashioned subsidies (from the European Union) and the simple fact that until the 1980s Ireland was by the standards of the developed world so economically backward that the only way was up. And as it began to catch up to European and American averages, the Irish economy could boast some seemingly remarkable statistics. These lured in investors, the Irish deregulated and all but abandoned financial oversight, and a great Irish financial ceilidh began. It would last for a decade. When the global financial crash of 2008 arrived it struck Ireland harder than anywhere - even Iceland looked like a model of rectitude compared to the fiasco that stretched from Cork to Dublin. There was an avalanche of statistics as toxic as the property-based assets that lay beneath many of them: * The International Monetary Fund was predicting that Ireland's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would shrink by 13.5 per cent in 2009 and 2010 - the worst performance among all the advanced economies and one of the worst ever recorded in peacetime in the developed world. * Government debt almost doubled in a year. * In May 2008, EURO13.5 million was paid for a 450-acre farm in Warrenstown, County Meath - one of the highest prices ever paid for agricultural land anywhere in the world. By 2009 the level of debt among Irish households and companies was the highest in the European Union. * The country's gross indebtedness was larger than Japan's, which has thirty times the population. * Between 1994 and 2006, the average second-hand house price in Dublin increased from EURO82,772 to EURO512,461 - a rise of 519 per cent. By 2009 Irish house prices had fallen more rapidly than any others in Europe. * With a fifth of its office spaces empty, Dublin had the highest vacancy rate of any European capital and was rated as having the worst development and investment potential of twenty-seven European cities. * The Irish stock exchange fell by 68 per cent in 2008 * The average Irish family had lost almost half its financial assets * Unemployment rose faster than in any other Western European country, increasing by 85 per cent in a year. * Ireland's bad bank, the National Assets Management Agency (Nama), which had to take over EURO90 billion in loans to developers from banks that would otherwise be insolvent holds more assets [sic] than any publicly quoted property company in the world, dwarfing giants such as GE Capital Real Estate and Morgan Stanley Real Estate, which own assets of EURO60 billion and EURO48 billion respectively. And under all this rubble lay the corpse of the Celtic Tiger. How Ireland managed to achieve such a spectacular implosion is a stunning story of corruption, carelessness and venality, told with passion and fury by one of Ireland's most respected journalists and commentators.
Unlike the protagonists of Paulsen’s adventure novels, Lawn Boy faces complications that are chaotic rather than life-threatening. Picking up where the 2007 Lawn Boy left off, Lawn Boy Returns follows the eponymous main character’s adventures in corporate intrigue. Lawn Boy had inherited his grandfather’s riding mower, and, seeking to buy a new inner tube for his bicycle, started a lawn mowing service. With the help of Arnold, an aging hippie stockbroker, Lawn Boy turned his mowing earnings into a corporate empire with landscaping and cleaning franchises and the sponsorship of a prize-fighter named Joey Pow.
Tana Amen, creator of the Omni diet, is a nationally recognized speaker and nutrition consultant. She's also a registered nurse and heath expert. The Omni diet is a program that Amen used to help treat her own digestive troubles, infections and thyroid cancer. With this program, you'll eat healthy foods in a specific ratio to keep yourself healthy as well as controlling your weight. As with any new diet, it's important to talk to your doctor before getting started.
FEATURES INCLUDE
- Fun, easy-to-understand definitions for words in every letter of the alphabet.
- Silly cartoons make definitions really stick.
- A humorous approach encourages kids to let loose with language, experiment and have fun.
- 384 pages of laughter & learning.
- And more! There are hours of fun words and their meanings to explore with your kids.
The way Nolan speaks about gardening might give the impression that she was raised on a farm. That’s hardly the case, and the book recounts her story of growing up in Winnetka and leaving home soon after she graduated from New Trier High School in search of an opportunity to get closer to nature. Through her experiences, she learned which crops play well together, which ones don’t and why good sunlight and soil are integral to the growing cycle.
Nolan feels that she is living proof that anyone can learn to garden. “Just about anybody, anywhere, can garden and grow several crops,” she notes. “Gardening is very forgiving. Something will always grow.”
"Gai See" is the Cantonese term for Chinese outdoor street markets. You never know just what you may find. Join a little boy as he shops with his family members throughout the seasons and discovers the many magical curiousities found there - from fresh noodles and velvety slippers in the springtime, to tofu and tanks of fish, exotic starfruits and lychees in the summer, and from incense, sweets and roasted duck in the autumn to herbs and vegetables and firecrackers for Chinese New Year in the winter! This cultural and multi-generational tour of "Chinatown" will delight readers with its rhyming text and lush, colourful illustrations. An author's note and glossary is also featured in the back.
Ralph Keyes begins his book, Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms, with a rather dull example from another author’s book. This is unfortunate because Euphemania, a fascinating and current treatise on what Keynes calls “the age-old challenge of finding respectable euphemisms for dubious terms,” deserves a better introduction.
Perhaps one of the best indications of a good book is that it seems as if it ended far too soon. Euphemania is bursting with fascinating examples of the rise and fall of the acceptability of various words and phrases in the English language, each of which reflect the mores of the time.
Alexander tries his hand at behaving in this hilarious companion to the bestselling classic Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
Last night somebody ate a whole box of jelly donuts. That somebody woke up with a terrible bellyache, and that somebody’s mom found the empty box and told that somebody that there are going to be consequences.
That somebody is Alexander, and Alexander really hates consequences.
So from now on, he is going to try his best to be the Best Boy Ever. For the complete and entire rest of his life. Starting right this very minute.
But there are all sorts of things that you can’t do when you’re being the Best Boy Ever. Fun things. Very important things. Things that Alexander might—just might—like a little bit more than he hates consequences.
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Art’s book, Smart Change: Five Tools to Create New and Sustainable Habits in Yourself and Others delves into how the motivational system works. Art explores how to utilize those brain mechanisms that affect behavior, either for good or for bad. Listen in for Art’s practical advice on how to make permanent changes in your life, and reach your business goals.
She’s a six-time Oscar nominee with forty years of films to her credit, but Sissy Spacek has always made it clear she’s never wanted to be queen of the Hollywood prom.
From her terrifying turn as Stephen King’s anti-heroine in 1976’s “Carrie“ to her down-to-the-mannerisms take on Loretta Lynn in 1980’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” Spacek’s quest for unconventionality has made her one of the most formidable actresses of a generation. As it turns out, that non-conformity extends to her personal life as well: at the height of her career, she and husband Jack Fisk fled Hollywood for a farmhouse in rural Virginia, where they raised daughters Schuyler Fisk, now 29, and Madison Fisk, 23.
Haiku for the Single Girl by Beth Griffenhagen and Illustrated by Cynthia Vehslage Meyers (review copy) - An uproarious, uplifting and brazenly honest gift book that celebrates the single girl's life in 72 haikus
I feel its approach,
Inevitable as death:
Internet dating.
Unsolicited relationship advice from relatives, disastrous dates, men who wear thumb rings, and the moments of deep satisfaction when a single girl realizes that (unlike her smug married friends) she can do whatever she wants with her time - it's all here in this brilliantly incisive and witty collection of haikus. Every woman - whether single or not - will laugh until she cries, and then start laughing all over again.
Pop stars will always have their die-hard fans, and superstar Lady Gaga (real name Stefani Germanotta) is no different. Lady Gaga calls her fans "little monsters," and in Monster Loyalty, marketing and social media author and speaker Jackie Huba shows why the singer known for her outrageous costumes and mega-hits can serve as a model for developing sustained customer loyalty. Huba, whose previous books are Creating Customer Evangelists and Citizen Marketers, draws seven key business lessons from Gaga’s career: focus on your one percenters, lead with values, build community, give fans a name, embrace shared symbols, make them feel like rock stars, and generate something to talk about.
Borg and McEnroe may have enjoyed breathtaking rallies in late ‘70s and early ‘80s tennis, but Tignor, Executive Editor of Tennis magazine, largely shanks his shot at capturing the era's excitement. Tignor offers extended looks at Borg and McEnroe, but also Jimmy Connors, who had epic clashes of his own with both the "Angelic Assassin" and the "Brat." Indeed, Tignor covers many players, including Vitas Gerulaitis, Ivan Lendl, and Ilie Nastase, or "Mr. Nasty" as the Romanian was known (in profiling him Rignor finds his sweet spot). The author also lobs in doubles tennis, the women's game, Renee Richards, and a smattering of off-the-court shenanigans (Borg was superstitions; Borg slept with lots of women) but fails to argue convincingly why this epic match-up signaled the end of an era. True, when Borg retired, McEnroe began to slide. But Connors staged a remarkable comeback in his later years, and while Lendl failed to spark much interest, newcomer Andre Agassi certainly did. Fans of today's superstars—Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic–enjoy fierce rivalries almost every year. In the end, Tignor is unable to suggest that anything was truly at stake in the Borg-McEnroe rivalry beyond the money and egos involved.
Birth School Metallica Death is the definitive story of the most significant rock band since Led Zeppelin. Volume 1 covers the band’s formation up to their breakthrough eponymous fifth album, aka “The Black Album.” The intense and sometimes fraught relationship between aloof-yet-simmering singer, chief lyricist, and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield and the outspoken and ambitious drummer Lars Ulrich is the saga’s emotional core. Their earliest years saw the release of three unimpeachable classics—Kill ’Em All, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets—genre-defining masterpieces that took hard rock to a new level, both artistically and commercially. During these tumultuous times, the band persevered through line-up changes when guitarist Dave Mustaine was replaced by Kirk Hammet, and their bass player, the beloved Cliff Burton, was tragically killed in a bus crash while on tour in Europe.
For the first time in history, women make up half the educated labor force and are earning the majority of advanced degrees. It should be the best time ever for women, and yet... it’s not. Storm clouds are gathering, and the worst thing is that most women don’t have a clue what could be coming. In large part this is because the message they’re being fed is that they now have it made. But do they?
In The New Soft War on Women, respected experts on gender issues and the psychology of women Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett argue that an insidious war of subtle biases and barriers is being waged that continues to marginalize women. Although women have made huge strides in recent years, these gains have not translated into money and influence. Consider the following:
- Women with MBAs earn, on average, $4,600 less than their male counterparts in their first job out of business school.
- Female physicians earn, on average, 39 percent less than male physicians.
- Female financial analysts take in 35 percent less, and female chief executives one quarter less than men in similar positions.
In this eye-opening book, Rivers and Barnett offer women the real facts as well as tools for combating the “soft war” tactics that prevent them from advancing in their careers. With women now central to the economy, determining to a large degree whether it thrives or stagnates, this is one war no one can afford for them to lose.
Patty Chang Anker chronicled her quest to conquer her fears and embrace life—and to inspire others to do the same—in her book Some Nerve: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave. Drawing on interviews with teachers, therapists, coaches, and clergy, Anker imparts both practical advice and profound wisdom. Through her own journey and the stories of dozens of others who have triumphed over common fears, she conveys with humor and infectious exhilaration the most vital lesson of all: Fear isn’t an end point, but the point of entry to a life of incomparable joy.
A renowned authority on the secret world of opium recounts his descent into ruinous obsession with one of the world’s oldest and most seductive drugs, in this harrowing memoir of addiction and recovery.
A natural-born collector with a nose for exotic adventure, San Diego–born Steven Martin followed his bliss to Southeast Asia, where he found work as a freelance journalist. While researching an article about the vanishing culture of opium smoking, he was inspired to begin collecting rare nineteenth-century opium-smoking equipment. Over time, he amassed a valuable assortment of exquisite pipes, antique lamps, and other opium-related accessories—and began putting it all to use by smoking an extremely potent form of the drug called chandu. But what started out as recreational use grew into a thirty-pipe-a-day habit that consumed Martin’s every waking hour, left him incapable of work, and exacted a frightful physical and financial toll. In passages that will send a chill up the spine of anyone who has ever lived in the shadow of substance abuse, Martin chronicles his efforts to control and then conquer his addiction—from quitting cold turkey to taking “the cure” at a Buddhist monastery in the Thai countryside.
At once a powerful personal story and a fascinating historical survey, Opium Fiend brims with anecdotes and lore surrounding the drug that some have called the methamphetamine of the nineteenth-century. It recalls the heyday of opium smoking in the United States and Europe and takes us inside the befogged opium dens of China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. The drug’s beguiling effects are described in vivid detail—as are the excruciating pains of withdrawal—and there are intoxicating tales of pipes shared with an eclectic collection of opium aficionados, from Dutch dilettantes to hard-core addicts to world-weary foreign correspondents.
A compelling tale of one man’s transformation from respected scholar to hapless drug slave, Opium Fiend puts us under opium’s spell alongside its protagonist, allowing contemporary readers to experience anew the insidious allure of a diabolical vice that the world has all but forgotten.
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