The Compound Effect

The Compound Effect
by Darren Hardy
1 day in the top 100
(47)
Publication Date: November 1, 2011

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No gimmicks. No Hyperbole. No Magic Bullet. The Compound Effect is based on the principle that decisions shape your destiny. Little, everyday decisions will either take you to the life you desire or to disaster by default. Darren Hardy, publisher of Success Magazine, presents The Compound Effect, a distillation of the fundamental principles that have guided the most phenomenal achievements in business, relationships, and beyond. This easy-to-use, step-by-step operating system allows you to multiply your success, chart your progress, and achieve any desire. If you’re serious about living an extraordinary life, use the power of The Compound Effect to create the success you want.

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The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World

The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World
by Harvey Mackay
1 day in the top 100
Release Date: November 1, 2011

Buy new: $26.95 $17.25

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Review & Description

Mega-bestselling business guru Harvey Mackay shares his timesless sales advice.

The legendary Harvey Mackay is back with the sum total of decades of sales know-how-teaching go-getters how to make the sale and hit the numbers, day in and day out.

In his irrepressible and irreverent style, Mackay shares decades of solid-gold selling wisdom, with inspirational lessons such as:

• Big shots are just little shots who kept shooting
• Helping someone up won't pull you down-and could very easily pull them to your side
• Be like the turtle: If he didn't stick his neck out, he wouldn't get anywhere at all

Covering everything from how to find the right mentor to earning the loyalty of your customers to overcoming rejection, Mackay delivers road-tested, real-world selling advice that has stood the test of time.

In a digital world, the human touch has never been more decisive. And nobody connects with customers, readers, and audiences better than Harvey Mackay.

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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition
by M.S., R.D., C.P.T., Julieanna Hever
28 days in the top 100
(27)

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Review & Description

The healthy vegan diet-made easy.

Vegans face their own special challenges when it comes to nutrition and this book provides answers. There are about one million vegans in the U.S. and about 50,000 new ones every year. A growing number of physicians advocate a completely plant-based diet for many of their patients who suffer from diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. In The Complete Idiot's Guide(r) to Plant-Based Nutrition, readers will find:

• Where to get nutrients that others get from meat and dairy.

• How to avoid the vegan pitfall of overfed but undernourished.

• How to spot hidden animal ingredients in packaged foods.

• Tips for eating at restaurants.

• Special considerations for children and seniors.

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Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon

Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon
Gretchen Morgenson (Author), Joshua Rosner (Author)
101 days in the top 100
(155)

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Review & Description

The New York Times's Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist reveals how the financial meltdown emerged from the toxic interplay of Washington, Wall Street, and corrupt mortgage lenders

In Reckless Endangerment, Gretchen Morgenson, the star business columnist of The New York Times, exposes how the watchdogs who were supposed to protect the country from financial harm were actually complicit in the actions that finally blew up the American economy.

Drawing on previously untapped sources and building on original research from coauthor Joshua Rosner—who himself raised early warnings with the public and investors, and kept detailed records—Morgenson connects the dots that led to this fiasco.

Morgenson and Rosner draw back the curtain on Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance giant that grew, with the support of the Clinton administration, through the 1990s, becoming a major opponent of government oversight even as it was benefiting from public subsidies. They expose the role played not only by Fannie Mae executives but also by enablers at Countrywide Financial, Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve, HUD, Congress, the FDIC, and the biggest players on Wall Street, to show how greed, aggression, and fear led countless officials to ignore warning signs of an imminent disaster.

Character-rich and definitive in its analysis, this is the one account of the financial crisis you must read.

The New York Times's Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist reveals how the financial meltdown emerged from the toxic interplay of Washington, Wall Street, and corrupt mortgage lenders

In Reckless Endangerment, Gretchen Morgenson, the star business columnist of The New York Times, exposes how the watchdogs who were supposed to protect the country from financial harm were actually complicit in the actions that finally blew up the American economy.

Drawing on previously untapped sources and building on original research from coauthor Joshua Rosner—who himself raised early warnings with the public and investors, and kept detailed records—Morgenson connects the dots that led to this fiasco.

Morgenson and Rosner draw back the curtain on Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance giant that grew, with the support of the Clinton administration, through the 1990s, becoming a major opponent of government oversight even as it was benefiting from public subsidies. They expose the role played not only by Fannie Mae executives but also by enablers at Countrywide Financial, Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve, HUD, Congress, the FDIC, and the biggest players on Wall Street, to show how greed, aggression, and fear led countless officials to ignore warning signs of an imminent disaster.

Character-rich and definitive in its analysis, this is the one account of the financial crisis you must read.

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Effective Phrases for Performance Appraisals: A Guide to Successful Evaluations (Neal, Effective Phrases for Peformance Appraisals)

Effective Phrases for Performance Appraisals: A Guide to Successful Evaluations (Neal, Effective Phrases for Peformance Appraisals)
by James E., Jr. Neal
(70)

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Review & Description

Now in its ninth edition, the guide has been continuously revised to meet changing employment conditions. This widely acclaimed handbook is a practical and valuable aid to making the completion of performance appraisals fast, easy and accurate. Combed bound. Read more

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Goal Setting: 13 Secrets of World Class Achievers

Goal Setting: 13 Secrets of World Class Achievers
Vic Johnson (Author)
(15)

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Review & Description

Are you ready to achieve virtually anything you want, even if you’ve failed at every goal you’ve ever set?

These 13 “secrets” are the proven formula used by world-class achievers across the ages.

We live in a time where many people have lost touch with the qualities that produce extraordinary lives. Imagination, ingenuity, drive, and a no-fear, no-quitters allowed mentality often seem to be disappearing from our culture and our world.

This is a book for everyone who has ever had a dream. This book will teach you how to set goals and achieve that dream, step-by-step and day-by-day.
You’ll discover some great news! If you’ve been struggling, if you’ve ever felt like you were going “nowhere fast,” you’ll learn that it’s not because there’s something intrinsically wrong with you.

You’ll learn, instead, that it has a lot to do with ways of thinking that you’ve adopted in the past. This is great news because you can change the way you think, speak, and act.

Success isn’t the result of winning some sort of lottery. It’s the result of applying the right principles with the right action and the right mindset.
Do you feel like you’re stuck? Do you feel like you’ve been watching life pass you by? Then this book is written with you in mind.

About the Author

Despite being totally unknown in the personal development industry when he launched his first website in 2001, Vic Johnson has gone on to become an international expert in goal setting and host of the popular TSTN show Goals 2 Go. He is the Founder of Goals2Go.com .

Evicted from his home in 1996 and his last car lost to repossession a year later, his story has become an oft-quoted source of inspiration to the more than 300,000 subscribers he serves worldwide. He is the author of the bestselling book Day by Day with James Allen and has appeared in numerous video programs with Bob Proctor, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Denis Waitley and Mark Victor Hansen.

*** Includes an offer for a free goal setting worksheet and video ***
Are you ready to achieve virtually anything you want, even if you’ve failed at every goal you’ve ever set?

These 13 “secrets” are the proven formula used by world-class achievers across the ages.

We live in a time where many people have lost touch with the qualities that produce extraordinary lives. Imagination, ingenuity, drive, and a no-fear, no-quitters allowed mentality often seem to be disappearing from our culture and our world.

This is a book for everyone who has ever had a dream. This book will teach you how to set goals and achieve that dream, step-by-step and day-by-day.
You’ll discover some great news! If you’ve been struggling, if you’ve ever felt like you were going “nowhere fast,” you’ll learn that it’s not because there’s something intrinsically wrong with you.

You’ll learn, instead, that it has a lot to do with ways of thinking that you’ve adopted in the past. This is great news because you can change the way you think, speak, and act.

Success isn’t the result of winning some sort of lottery. It’s the result of applying the right principles with the right action and the right mindset.
Do you feel like you’re stuck? Do you feel like you’ve been watching life pass you by? Then this book is written with you in mind.

About the Author

Despite being totally unknown in the personal development industry when he launched his first website in 2001, Vic Johnson has gone on to become an international expert in goal setting and host of the popular TSTN show Goals 2 Go. He is the Founder of Goals2Go.com .

Evicted from his home in 1996 and his last car lost to repossession a year later, his story has become an oft-quoted source of inspiration to the more than 300,000 subscribers he serves worldwide. He is the author of the bestselling book Day by Day with James Allen and has appeared in numerous video programs with Bob Proctor, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Denis Waitley and Mark Victor Hansen.

*** Includes an offer for a free goal setting worksheet and video ***
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With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful

With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful
by Glenn Greenwald
Release Date: October 25, 2011

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Review & Description

From "the most important voice to have entered the political discourse in years" (Bill Moyers), a scathing critique of the two-tiered system of justice that has emerged in America

From the nation's beginnings, the law was to be the great equalizer in American life, the guarantor of a common set of rules for all. But over the past four decades, the principle of equality before the law has been effectively abolished. Instead, a two-tiered system of justice ensures that the country's political and financial class is virtually immune from prosecution, licensed to act without restraint, while the politically powerless are imprisoned with greater ease and in greater numbers than in any other country in the world.

Starting with Watergate, continuing on through the Iran-Contra scandal, and culminating with Obama's shielding of Bush-era officials from prosecution, Glenn Greenwald lays bare the mechanisms that have come to shield the elite from accountability. He shows how the media, both political parties, and the courts have abetted a process that has produced torture, war crimes, domestic spying, and financial fraud.

Cogent, sharp, and urgent, this is a no-holds-barred indictment of a profoundly un-American system that sanctions immunity at the top and mercilessness for everyone else.

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Emotional Intelligence 2.0

Emotional Intelligence 2.0
by Travis Bradberry, Jean Greaves, Patrick M. Lencioni
253 days in the top 100
(135)

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Review & Description

In today's fast-paced world of competitive workplaces and turbulent economic conditions, each of us is searching for effective tools that can help us to manage, adapt, and strike out ahead of the pack.

By now, emotional intelligence (EQ) needs little introduction—it’s no secret that EQ is critical to your success. But knowing what EQ is and knowing how to use it to improve your life are two very different things.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 delivers a step-by-step program for increasing your EQ via four, core EQ skills that enable you to achieve your fullest potential:

1) Self-Awareness
2) Self-Management
3) Social Awareness
4) Relationship Management

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is a book with a single purpose—increasing your EQ. Here’s what people are saying about it:

“Emotional Intelligence 2.0 succinctly explains how to deal with emotions creatively and employ our intelligence in a beneficial way.”
—The Dalai Lama

“A fast read with compelling anecdotes and good context in which to understand and improve.”
—Newsweek

“Gives abundant, practical findings and insights with emphasis on how to develop EQ.”
—Stephen R. Covey

“This book can drastically change the way you think about success…read it twice.”
—Patrick Lencioni

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The Power of LEO: The Revolutionary Process for Achieving Extraordinary Results

The Power of LEO: The Revolutionary Process for Achieving Extraordinary Results
by Subir Chowdhury
(1)

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Review & Description

Outperform the competition with Subir Chowdhury’s next-generation management system

“Nobody knows quality like Subir Chowdhury, and The Power of LEO reveals the elegant new approach he has pioneered with the world’s top companies. I couldn’t recommend this book more.”
—Marshall Goldsmith, author of the New York Times bestsellers MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

“The Power of LEO will be beneficial to any organization that utilizes its principles and incorporates them into their culture. Subir Chowdhury’s LEO is guaranteed to produce results.”
—Michael King, CEO and National President, Volunteers of America

“A no-nonsense book full of real-life case examples, practical tips, and proven strategies. If you’re looking to make quality a way of life, this is definitely the book for you.”
—Jim Kouzes, coauthor of the bestselling The Leadership Challenge

“We have applied LEO in my hospital and it works. Subir Chowdhury’s book will serve as a powerful reminder to the healthcare industry that its primary goal is to develop, enhance, and delight its most important customer: the patient.”
—Mark L. Rosenblum, M.D., Chair, Department of Neurosurgery, Henry Ford Health System, and Vice President of Clinical Programs, Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital

“Most management strategies are great in theory. But how does a line executive put it to use? The Power of LEO shows us how in practical, down-to-earth terms and anecdotes. A most useful read!”
—Jim Lawrence, CEO, Rothschild North America and former Vice Chairman and CFO, General Mills

About the Book:

Hailed as “the Quality Prophet” by BusinessWeek, Subir Chowdhury is the long-established global authority on the critical importance of quality and how to achieve it with Design for Six Sigma (DFSS). Now, he takes it to the next level by showing you how to build quality into the DNA of your entire organization.

In his bestselling book , Chowdhury introduced his next-generation management system—LEO. In The Power of LEO, he describes how continuous focus on quality improvement can revolutionize any process—from manufacturing operations to managerial decision making. The secret is to cease delegating the responsibility of quality to specific teams or departments and permanently lodge it within the core of an organization’s culture.

Chowdhury’s profoundly simple yet extraordinarily effective management system is based on three basic principles:

• Listen—Seek input from all stakeholders within your organization, from suppliers to employees to customers
• Enrich—Create new ideas for improvement and solutions for problems using simple techniques
• Optimize—Select the best improvement idea or solution, subject it to testing in the real world, and correct all shortcomings

Quality methodologies like Six Sigma and Lean can be highly effective but are used narrowly and by limited personnel within an organization. LEO is the encompassing strategy that can be easily embraced by everyone within an organization, resulting in measurable improvements in your operations, products, and bottom line.

If you’re serious about competing in the global marketplace, join Subir Chowdhury on his quest for overall quality and transform your organization from a company that does some things well into an established industry leader.

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The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood

The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood
by William J. Bennett
(40)
Publication Date: October 4, 2011

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Review & Description

New York Times best-selling author William J. Bennett uses stories, essays, historical vignettes, and contemporary profiles to explore and explain what it means to be a man. Fashioning men has never been easy, but today it seems particularly tough. Boys need heroes to embody the everlasting qualities of manhood: honor, duty, valor, and integrity. Without such role models, boys will naturally choose perpetual childhood over the rigors of becoming a man-as many women, teachers, coaches, employers, and adults in authority can quickly attest. Too many boys and men waste time in pointless and soulless activities, unmindful of their responsibilities, uncaring in their pursuits. Have we forgotten how to raise men, how to lead our boys into manhood?

In The Book of Man, Bennett charts a clearer course, offering a positive, encouraging, uplifting, realizable idea of manhood, redolent of history and human nature, and practical for contemporary life. Like his classic, The Book of Virtues, Bennett uses profiles, stories, letters, poems, and myths to bring his subject to life, defining what a man should be, how he should live, and to what he should aspire in several key areas of life.

Chapters include:

• Man in War
• Man at Work
• 





Man in Play, Competition, and Leisure





• 





Man in the Polis





• Man with Woman and Children





• Man in Prayer and Reflection

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Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy

Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy
Erik Brynjolfsson (Author), Andrew McAfee (Author)
(7)

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Review & Description

Why has median income stopped rising in the US?
Why is the share of population that is working falling so rapidly?
Why are our economy and society are becoming more unequal?

A popular explanation right now is that the root cause underlying these symptoms is technological stagnation-- a slowdown in the kinds of ideas and inventions that bring progress and prosperity.

In Race Against the Machine, MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee present a very different explanation. Drawing on research by their team at the Center for Digital Business, they show that there's been no stagnation in technology -- in fact, the digital revolution is accelerating. Recent advances are the stuff of science fiction: computers now drive cars in traffic, translate between human languages effectively, and beat the best human Jeopardy! players.

As these examples show, digital technologies are rapidly encroaching on skills that used to belong to humans alone. This phenomenon is both broad and deep, and has profound economic implications. Many of these implications are positive; digital innovation increases productivity, reduces prices (sometimes to zero), and grows the overall economic pie.

But digital innovation has also changed how the economic pie is distributed, and here the news is not good for the median worker. As technology races ahead, it can leave many people behind. Workers whose skills have been mastered by computers have less to offer the job market, and see their wages and prospects shrink. Entrepreneurial business models, new organizational structures and different institutions are needed to ensure that the average worker is not left behind by cutting-edge machines.

In Race Against the Machine Brynjolfsson and McAfee bring together a range of statistics, examples, and arguments to show that technological progress is accelerating, and that this trend has deep consequences for skills, wages, and jobs. The book makes the case that employment prospects are grim for many today not because there's been technology has stagnated, but instead because we humans and our organizations aren't keeping up. Why has median income stopped rising in the US?
Why is the share of population that is working falling so rapidly?
Why are our economy and society are becoming more unequal?

A popular explanation right now is that the root cause underlying these symptoms is technological stagnation-- a slowdown in the kinds of ideas and inventions that bring progress and prosperity.

In Race Against the Machine, MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee present a very different explanation. Drawing on research by their team at the Center for Digital Business, they show that there's been no stagnation in technology -- in fact, the digital revolution is accelerating. Recent advances are the stuff of science fiction: computers now drive cars in traffic, translate between human languages effectively, and beat the best human Jeopardy! players.

As these examples show, digital technologies are rapidly encroaching on skills that used to belong to humans alone. This phenomenon is both broad and deep, and has profound economic implications. Many of these implications are positive; digital innovation increases productivity, reduces prices (sometimes to zero), and grows the overall economic pie.

But digital innovation has also changed how the economic pie is distributed, and here the news is not good for the median worker. As technology races ahead, it can leave many people behind. Workers whose skills have been mastered by computers have less to offer the job market, and see their wages and prospects shrink. Entrepreneurial business models, new organizational structures and different institutions are needed to ensure that the average worker is not left behind by cutting-edge machines.

In Race Against the Machine Brynjolfsson and McAfee bring together a range of statistics, examples, and arguments to show that technological progress is accelerating, and that this trend has deep consequences for skills, wages, and jobs. The book makes the case that employment prospects are grim for many today not because there's been technology has stagnated, but instead because we humans and our organizations aren't keeping up. Read more

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Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics

Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics
by Nicholas Wapshott
(7)
Publication Date: October 11, 2011

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Can government fix a broken economy? Two great economists disagreed eighty years ago, and their debate dominates politics to this day.

As the stock market crash of 1929 plunged the world into turmoil, two men emerged with competing claims on how to restore balance to economies gone awry. John Maynard Keynes, the mercurial Cambridge economist, believed that government had a duty to spend when others would not. He met his opposite in a little-known Austrian economics professor, Freidrich Hayek, who considered attempts to intervene both pointless and potentially dangerous. The battle lines thus drawn, Keynesian economics would dominate for decades and coincide with an era of unprecedented prosperity, but conservative economists and political leaders would eventually embrace and execute Hayek's contrary vision.

From their first face-to-face encounter to the heated arguments between their ardent disciples, Nicholas Wapshott here unearths the contemporary relevance of Keynes and Hayek, as present-day arguments over the virtues of the free market and government intervention rage with the same ferocity as they did in the 1930s. Read more

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The Gerson Therapy: The Proven Nutritional Program for Cancer and Other Illnesses

The Gerson Therapy: The Proven Nutritional Program for Cancer and Other Illnesses
by Charlotte Gerson, D.P.M., Morton Walker
(70)

Buy new: $17.00 $9.76
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Cancer. Hepatitis. Migraines. Arthritis. Heart Disease. Emphysema. For years, the medical establishment has called these chronic or life- threatening diseases "incurable." But now, The Gerson Therapy offers hope for those seeking relief from hundreds of different diseases. Juice your way to wellness. One of the first alternative cancer therapies, The Gerson Therapy has successfully treated thousands of patients for over 60 years.

Now, in this authoritative revised and updated edition, alternative medicine therapist Charlotte Gerson and medical journalist Morton Walker reveal even more on the powerful healing effects of organic fruits and vegetables. Not only can juicing reverse the effects of many degenerative illnesses-it can save lives. The Gerson Therapy shows you:

• How to beat cancer by changing your body chemistry
• Special juicing techniques for maximum healing power
• How to combat allergies, obesity, high blood pressure, AIDS, lupus, and other diseases

This unique resource will help and inspire anyone who has ever said, "I want to get well. Just show me how." The Gerson Therapy offers a powerful, time-tested healing option that has worked for others - and can work for you! Read more

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LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedia

LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedia
by DK Publishing
(9)
Publication Date: September 19, 2011

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Review & Description

Includes exclusive LEGO® Star Wars® minifigure!

DK is bringing two of the world's most popular properties together again in a fun, chunky format that kids and adults are sure to love! This illustrated encyclopedia features in-depth profiles showing interesting and never-before-seen elements of all your favorite LEGO® Star Wars® minifigures.

With more than 400 captivating images and tons of fascinating facts, the LEGO® Star Wars® Character Encyclopedia is sure to keep both LEGO lovers and Star Wars fans reading for hours!

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Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
by Tony Hsieh
(305)

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Review & Description

The visionary CEO of Zappos explains how an emphasis on corporate culture can lead to unprecedented success.

Pay new employees $2000 to quit. Make customer service the entire company, not just a department. Focus on company culture as the #1 priority. Apply research from the science of happiness to running a business. Help employees grow both personally and professionally. Seek to change the world. Oh, and make money too.

Sound crazy? It's all standard operating procedure at Zappos.com, the online retailer that's doing over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales every year.

In 1999, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) sold LinkExchange, the company he co-founded, to Microsoft for $265 million. He then joined Zappos as an adviser and investor, and eventually became CEO.

In 2009, Zappos was listed as one of Fortune magazine's top 25 companies to work for, and was acquired by Amazon later that year in a deal valued at over $1.2 billion on the day of closing.

In his first book, Tony shares the different business lessons he learned in life, from a lemonade stand and pizza business through LinkExchange, Zappos, and more. Ultimately, he shows how using happiness as a framework can produce profits, passion, and purpose both in business and in life. (edited by author)

The visionary CEO of Zappos explains how an emphasis on corporate culture can lead to unprecedented success.

Pay new employees $2000 to quit. Make customer service the entire company, not just a department. Focus on company culture as the #1 priority. Apply research from the science of happiness to running a business. Help employees grow both personally and professionally. Seek to change the world. Oh, and make money too.

Sound crazy? It's all standard operating procedure at Zappos.com, the online retailer that's doing over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales every year.

In 1999, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) sold LinkExchange, the company he co-founded, to Microsoft for $265 million. He then joined Zappos as an adviser and investor, and eventually became CEO.

In 2009, Zappos was listed as one of Fortune magazine's top 25 companies to work for, and was acquired by Amazon later that year in a deal valued at over $1.2 billion on the day of closing.

In his first book, Tony shares the different business lessons he learned in life, from a lemonade stand and pizza business through LinkExchange, Zappos, and more. Ultimately, he shows how using happiness as a framework can produce profits, passion, and purpose both in business and in life. (edited by author)

Amazon Exclusive Author Q&A with Tony Hsieh, Author of Delivering Happiness

1. In the book you say, "I've been an entrepreneur for most of my life." Do you think people are born entrepreneurs or do they become them?

I think usually by the time you're 12 years old, you either have the entrepreneurial spirit or you don't. I would describe the entrepeneurial spirit as a combination of creativity and optimisim.

2. Could you name one particular experience that inspired you to create a company devoted to customer happiness?

For me, it's really been driven by daily examples of bad customer service in my everyday personal life.

3. Was the worm farm really the invaluable catalyst for forming your business and life philosophy?

My parents tell me that as a kid I was always trying to come up with different business ideas. The idea of starting a worm farm is my earliest memory of a business idea.

4. You say that you have always been an avid book reader. What are your favorite books? Which non-business book helped you grow professionally?

Business books: Good to Great, Peak, Tribal Leadership Made to Stick

Non-business books: The Happiness Hypothesis Comedy Writing Secrets The Game

5. What is the ratio between rebelling against conventional wisdom and sticking to the good old truths in building a successful business?

1:10

6. You describe your way to happiness starting with profits, then going through passion and finally getting to purpose. Is that the only path to business happiness?

No, that was just the path that I happened to take. Part of the purpose of the book is to help other entrepreneurs and business owners shortcut the process and encourage them to go straight to combining profits, passion, and purpose.

7. You seem to have taken risks with business ideas a lot while growing up. How do you recognize a risk that you shouldn't take?

I think it just comes down to really breaking down what the worst case scenario actually is. For most of us, we're lucky to live in a time and in a society where we aren't actually ever in danger of dying from starvation or lack of shelter. Most of us have friends whose couches we can crash on in the worst case scenario, so any "risk" we take in starting a company isn't actually that big a risk.

---

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The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age

The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age
by Nathan Wolfe
(1)
Release Date: October 11, 2011

Buy new: $26.00 $15.29
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Review & Description

Dynamic young Stanford biologist Nathan Wolfe reveals the surprising origins of the world's most deadly viruses, and how we can overcome catastrophic pandemics.

In The Viral Storm, award-winning biologist Nathan Wolfe tells the story of how viruses and human beings have evolved side by side through history; how deadly viruses like HIV, swine flu, and bird flu almost wiped us out in the past; and why modern life has made our species vulnerable to the threat of a global pandemic.

Wolfe's research missions to the jungles of Africa and the rain forests of Borneo have earned him the nickname "the Indiana Jones of virus hunters," and here Wolfe takes readers along on his groundbreaking and often dangerous research trips—to reveal the surprising origins of the most deadly diseases and to explain the role that viruses have played in human evolution.

In a world where each new outbreak seems worse than the one before, Wolfe points the way forward, as new technologies are brought to bear in the most remote areas of the world to neutralize these viruses and even harness their power for the good of humanity. His provocative vision of the future will change the way we think about viruses, and perhaps remove a potential threat to humanity's survival.

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Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers

Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers
by Ellen E. Schultz
7 days in the top 100
(11)

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"'As far as I can determine there is only one solution [to the CEO's demand to save more money]', the HR representative wrote to her superiors. 'That would be the death of all existing retirees.'"

It's no secret that hundreds of companies have been slashing pensions and health coverage earned by millions of retirees. Employers blame an aging workforce, stock market losses, and spiraling costs- what they call "a perfect storm" of external forces that has forced them to take drastic measures.

But this so-called retirement crisis is no accident. Ellen E. Schultz, award-winning investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, reveals how large companies and the retirement industry-benefits consultants, insurance companies, and banks-have all played a huge and hidden role in the death spiral of American pensions and benefits.
A little over a decade ago, most companies had more than enough set aside to pay the benefits earned by two generations of workers, no matter how long they lived. But by exploiting loopholes, ambiguous regulations, and new accounting rules, companies essentially turned their pension plans into piggy banks, tax shelters, and profit centers.

Drawing on original analysis of company data, government filings, internal corporate documents, and confidential memos, Schultz uncovers decades of widespread deception during which employers have exaggerated their retiree burdens while lobbying for government handouts, secretly cutting pensions, tricking employees, and misleading shareholders. She reveals how companies:
* Siphon billions of dollars from their pension plans to finance downsizings and sell the assets in merger deals
* Overstate the burden of rank-and-file retiree obligations to justify benefits cuts while simultaneously using the savings to inflate executive pay and pensions
* Hide their growing executive pension liabilities, which at some companies now exceed the liabilities for the regular pension plans
* Purchase billions of dollars of life insurance on workers and use the policies as informal executive pension funds. When the insured workers and retirees die, the company collects tax-free death benefits
*Preemptively sue retirees after cutting retiree health benefits and use other legal strategies to erode their legal protections.

Though the focus is on large companies-which drive the legislative agenda-the same games are being played at smaller companies, non-profits, public pensions plans and retirement systems overseas. Nor is this a partisan issue: employees of all political persuasions and income levels-from managers to miners, pro- football players to pilots-have been slammed.

Retirement Heist is a scathing and urgent expose of one of the most critical and least understood crises of our time.

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The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
Michael Lewis (Author)
454 days in the top 100
(681)

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The #1 New York Times bestseller: "It is the work of our greatest financial journalist, at the top of his game. And it's essential reading."—Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair

The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren't talking.

Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a handful of unlikely-really unlikely-heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.

The #1 New York Times bestseller: "It is the work of our greatest financial journalist, at the top of his game. And it's essential reading."—Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair

The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren't talking.

Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a handful of unlikely-really unlikely-heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time. Read more

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Let the Great Axe Fall (Kindle Single)

Let the Great Axe Fall (Kindle Single)
Robert Blecker (Author)
(1)

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What happens when a leading death penalty advocate comes face to face with those he wants dead?

For 12 years, Robert Blecker, a Harvard trained criminal law professor, wandered inside Lorton Central Prison, without guards, armed only with cigarettes, a tape recorder, and the assurance of leading convicts that “Slim Rob” was “alright.” After thousands of hours kicking back with convicted street criminals, mostly killers, probing their crimes and the meaning of their lives, Robert feels forced to morally refine his own views on the worst of the worst who deserve to die.

Through the voices of his teachers, including Plato and Kant, “Itchy”, Leo, and “Papa Bear”, take a journey through the mind of a famed retributivist who tests legal philosophy against the reality and wisdom of street criminals.

Robert Blecker’s debut Kindle Single “Let the Great Axe Fall” teaches us that justice is richer than the rule of law, that the past counts and we must keep our covenant with the dead -- but most of all that the answer to the excruciating question of capital punishment is vastly richer than a simple yes or no.

As a Tufts University undergraduate who knew that Hitler deserved to die, Robert Blecker fled the Philosophy Department chaired by America’s leading death penalty opponent. Scorned by his fellow anti-Vietnam war protesters for supporting capital punishment, he insisted we were killing the wrong people. Tufts produced his three one-act plays and created the Balch Travelling and Playwriting fellowship for him. After college, he taught American Culture and Creative Writing at the University of Vincennes. Harvard Law School awarded his thesis on Game and Sport the Oberman Prize as best of the 1974 graduates. He returned to Harvard for a year as a Fellow in Law and Humanities.

After a brief stint as a Special Prosecutor attacking corrupt NYC cops, lawyers, and judges, Robert became a New York Law School criminal law professor where he co-teaches death penalty law with leading opponents, as well as Constitutional History. His American history play, “Vote NO!”, premiered at the Kennedy Center and travelled to 16 states. Every audience but one -- including the ACLU, and cadets at West Point and Annapolis -- immediately after performance voted to reject the U.S. Constitution. For 12 years, he wandered freely inside Lorton, the Nation’s only all-Black prison system, interviewing convicted killers, no officers present. He has since documented daily life on death rows and maximum security prisons in seven states. Robert has long been a leading public voice appearing in national and international media and many documentaries urging a morally informed death penalty for those who deserve it. The feature and TV documentary "Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead" (available on Amazon) portrays his unusual relationship on Tennessee’s death row with condemned killer Daryl Holton. Robert is working on his own documentary, "The Death of Punishment." He hopes his stage play "Joseph Warren" will help bring America’s greatest forgotten Founding Father back to life.What happens when a leading death penalty advocate comes face to face with those he wants dead?

For 12 years, Robert Blecker, a Harvard trained criminal law professor, wandered inside Lorton Central Prison, without guards, armed only with cigarettes, a tape recorder, and the assurance of leading convicts that “Slim Rob” was “alright.” After thousands of hours kicking back with convicted street criminals, mostly killers, probing their crimes and the meaning of their lives, Robert feels forced to morally refine his own views on the worst of the worst who deserve to die.

Through the voices of his teachers, including Plato and Kant, “Itchy”, Leo, and “Papa Bear”, take a journey through the mind of a famed retributivist who tests legal philosophy against the reality and wisdom of street criminals.

Robert Blecker’s debut Kindle Single “Let the Great Axe Fall” teaches us that justice is richer than the rule of law, that the past counts and we must keep our covenant with the dead -- but most of all that the answer to the excruciating question of capital punishment is vastly richer than a simple yes or no.

As a Tufts University undergraduate who knew that Hitler deserved to die, Robert Blecker fled the Philosophy Department chaired by America’s leading death penalty opponent. Scorned by his fellow anti-Vietnam war protesters for supporting capital punishment, he insisted we were killing the wrong people. Tufts produced his three one-act plays and created the Balch Travelling and Playwriting fellowship for him. After college, he taught American Culture and Creative Writing at the University of Vincennes. Harvard Law School awarded his thesis on Game and Sport the Oberman Prize as best of the 1974 graduates. He returned to Harvard for a year as a Fellow in Law and Humanities.

After a brief stint as a Special Prosecutor attacking corrupt NYC cops, lawyers, and judges, Robert became a New York Law School criminal law professor where he co-teaches death penalty law with leading opponents, as well as Constitutional History. His American history play, “Vote NO!”, premiered at the Kennedy Center and travelled to 16 states. Every audience but one -- including the ACLU, and cadets at West Point and Annapolis -- immediately after performance voted to reject the U.S. Constitution. For 12 years, he wandered freely inside Lorton, the Nation’s only all-Black prison system, interviewing convicted killers, no officers present. He has since documented daily life on death rows and maximum security prisons in seven states. Robert has long been a leading public voice appearing in national and international media and many documentaries urging a morally informed death penalty for those who deserve it. The feature and TV documentary "Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead" (available on Amazon) portrays his unusual relationship on Tennessee’s death row with condemned killer Daryl Holton. Robert is working on his own documentary, "The Death of Punishment." He hopes his stage play "Joseph Warren" will help bring America’s greatest forgotten Founding Father back to life. Read more

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The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted And the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, And Long-term Health

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted And the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, And Long-term Health
by T. Colin Campbell, Thomas M. Campbell II, Howard Lyman, John Robbins
(1049)

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Referred to as the "Grand Prix of epidemiology" by The New York Times, this study examines more than 350 variables of health and nutrition with surveys from 6,500 adults in more than 2,500 counties across China and Taiwan, and conclusively demonstrates the link between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. While revealing that proper nutrition can have a dramatic effect on reducing and reversing these ailments as well as curbing obesity, this text calls into question the practices of many of the current dietary programs, such as the Atkins diet, that are widely popular in the West. The politics of nutrition and the impact of special interest groups in the creation and dissemination of public information are also discussed.
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