Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't by Ram Charan (Hardcover - Jan 2, 2007)

The Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort

 

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel (Oct 30, 2007)

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Reprint edition (October 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140258795
• ISBN-13: 978-0140258790
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces

Amazon.com Review

The thorniest scientific problem of the eighteenth century was how to determine longitude. Many thousands of lives had been lost at sea over the centuries due to the inability to determine an east-west position. This is the engrossing story of the clockmaker, John "Longitude" Harrison, who solved the problem that Newton and Galileo had failed to conquer, yet claimed only half the promised rich reward.

From Publishers Weekly

This look at the scientific quest to find a way for ships at sea to determine their longitude was a PW bestseller for eight weeks.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA?Opening with a chapter that outlines what follows, Sobel whets readers' appetites for hearing the colorful details of the search for a way for mariners to determine longitude. In an age when ships' stores were limited and scurvy killed many a seaman, missing a landfall often meant death?as, of course, did running aground. Sobel provides a lively treatment of the search through the centuries for a ready answer to the longitude problem, either through using lunar tables or through making an accurate clock not subject to the vicissitudes of weather and ocean conditions. Her account includes not only scientific advances, but also the perseverance, pettiness, politics, and interesting anecdotes that figured in along the way (it wasn't limes, for example, that first prevented scurvy on English ships, but sauerkraut). A pleasing mixture of basic science, cultural history, and personality conflicts makes this slim volume a winner.?Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

If you've grown up at a time when orbiting satellites were taken for granted, you'd probably not find reading a book about longitude an enticing prospect. But Sobel, an award-winning former science reporter for the New York Times who writes frequently for Audubon, Discover, LIFE, and Omni magazines, has transformed what could have been a dry subject into an interesting tale of scientific discovery. It is difficult to realize that a problem that can now be solved with a couple of cheap watches and a few simple calculations at one time appeared insurmountable. In 1714, the British Parliament offered a king's ransom of #20 million ($12 million in today's currency) to anyone who could solve the problem of how to measure longitude at sea. Sobel recounts clockmaker John Harrison's lifelong struggle to win this prize by developing a timepiece impervious to the pitch and roll of the sea. His clock, known today as the chronometer, was rejected by the Longitude Board, which favored a celestial solution. Despite some awkward writing, this brief, if at times sketchy, book is recommended for popular science collections.?James Olson, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

In the 1700s navigators could easily compute latitude, but finding longitude was nigh impossible. So valuable was a solution in terms of saving ships from fetching on rocks that England offered a munificent prize for a practicable method, and soon two avenues offered themselves. An accurate chronometer occupied the thoughts of clockmaker John Harrison, and a tediously compiled catalog of the stars, against which the moon could be used as a "clock," was pursued by astronomers. Sobel presents the contest's course with a stylish mix of technical and human insight that emphasizes Harrison's life and dealings with the stingy Board of Longitude, custodian of the prize. When his contraption, the fruit of decades of solitary labor, went to sea and seemingly met the requirements, the Board balked, not least because one of its members was the very astronomer working on the celestial method. His glory dimmed by raw rivalry, Harrison fell into obscurity, and his chronometers into disrepair until restored 60 years ago. Completing the rehabilitation, Sobel's is an exquisitely told tale of perseverance, disappointment, and vindication. Gilbert Taylor --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

'Fascinating, startling and beautifully written, Longitude is read in a creamy stout-flavoured baritone by David Rintoul.' Irish Times 3/5/97 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

During the great ages of exploration, "the longitude problem" was the gravest of all scientific challenges. Lacking the ability to determine their longitude, sailors were literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Ships ran aground on rocky shores; those traveling well-known routes were easy prey to pirates.

In 1714, England's Parliament offered a huge reward to anyone whose method of measuring longitude could be proven successful. The scientific establishment--from Galileo to Sir Isaac Newton--had mapped the heavens in its certainty of a celestial answer. In stark contrast, one man, John Harrison, dared to imagine a mechanical solution--a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had been able to do on land. And the race was on....

About the Author

Dava Sobel is an award-winning former science reporter for the New York Times, whose work has appeared in Audubon, Discover, Life, and the New Yorker. She lives in East Hampton, New York.

Your Management Sucks by Mark Stevens

Your Management Sucks: Why You Have to Declare War on Yourself and Your Business by Mark Stevens



About the Book:-
Hardcover, 304 pages
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group, May 2006
ISBN-13: 9781400054930
ISBN: 1400054931


Firnando Chau Review


Table of Contents
Introduction: A work in progress: why you must take a hike from the land of business as usual
1 Unleashing the power of a personal philosophy
2 Challenging the oxymoron of conventional wisdom
3 Take a good look in the mirror ... do you see a leader?
4 Develop your personal killer app
5 Unleashing your Manhattan project : the plan that will change your world ... and your life
6 Capturing ideas with a butterfly net
7 Applying C+A+M : the universal equation for perpetual growth
8 The journey within
8 The Third Path: Design for Instant Action
9 The Fourth Path: Ignite Customer Events
10 The Fifth Path: Ignite Market Events
Epilogue
References
Index
---


About the Book (2006)
Like a mirror, Your Management Sucks reveals important truths that you may deal with . . . or choose to ignore or put on the back burner.
Everyone manages someone or something . . . your own life and career, an administrative assistant, hundreds or thousands of people. How well or poorly you manage has a profound impact on your personal success.
Mark Stevens makes the compelling point that at any given time everyone’s management sucks. It can, however, be improved and rethought so you can move away from patterns and habits that you can easily fall victim to.
Start by declaring constructive war on yourself. Look in the mirror and identify those invisible traps and barriers. Then leave the land of business-as-usual with the seven-point plan Stevens has used to build both his own extraordinary career and his marketing and strategy consulting firm. You’ll soon find that you’re in the fast lane, easily outpacing your passive peers who rarely, if ever, challenge the how and why of what they do.
Mark Stevens—a street-smart kid from Queens, New York, who has gone on to phenomenal success—not only gives advice to Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups, he takes his own. Concerned that his business, MSCO, would continue its steady but limited growth, he announced one morning during breakfast with his wife, “Honey, I’m going to fire everyone.” That intention, while actually carried out over a lengthy period of time, was based on one simple insight—that his team of good people wouldn’t be able to put MSCO over the top to make it the best. From that episode came the ideas that form the core of YourManagement Sucks:
• Developing your own personal killer app—the “differentiator” that will make you more than the sum of your parts
• Unleashing your virtual Manhattan Project: the plan that will change your life, your business, and the world
• Challenging the oxymoron of conventional wisdom
• Applying C+A+M: The universal equation for perpetual growth
In the same straight-talking, no-BS style of his last book, Your Marketing Sucks, Stevens offers brass-tacks examples of management approaches that do—and don’t—work and inspires people to ask themselves the tough questions they need to answer in order to become true leaders.
Your Seven-Point Declaration of War on Management That Sucks
1. Unleash the Power of a Personal Philosophy: Don’t just rock the boat of your business, be prepared to capsize it.
2. Challenge the Oxymoron of Conventional Wisdom: The so-called smart thing is all too often stale thinking masquerading as truth.
3. Take a Good Look in the Mirror . . . Do You See a Leader? The worst damn thing in the world you can do is copy success. Be an original.
4. Develop Your Personal Killer App: Become greater than the sum of your parts.
5. Unleash Your Manhattan Project: Implement the plan that will change your world and your life.
6. Capture Ideas with a Butterfly Net: Seek out what you need to know and use it for personal growth.
7. Apply C+A+M, the Universal Equation for Perpetual Growth: Win customers and make them deliriously happy.


About the Author


Mark Stevens is a bestselling author, prominent CEO, one of the most famous marketers in the world, and a popular philosopher on the intersection of business and private life. His company's Web site is www.msco.com.

The Joy of Working

For One More Day by Mitch Albom

Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: Hyperion; 1st edition (September 26, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1401303277
ISBN-13: 978-1401303273

From Publishers Weekly

In this second novel from Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven author Albom, grief-stricken Charles "Chick" Benetto goes into an alcoholic tailspin when his always-attentive mother, Pauline, dies. Framed as an "as told to" story, Chick quickly narrates her funeral; his drink-fueled loss of savings, job ("sales") and family; and his descent into loneliness and isolation. After a suicide attempt, Chick encounters Pauline's ghost. Together, the two revisit Pauline's travails raising her children alone after his father abandons them: she braves the town's disapproval of her divorce and works at a beauty parlor, taking an extra job to put money aside for the children's education. Pauline cringes at the heartache Chick inflicted as a demanding child, obnoxious teen and brusque, oblivious adult chasing the will-o'-the-wisp of a baseball career. Through their story, Albom foregrounds family sanctity, maternal self-sacrifice and the destructive power of personal ambition and male self-involvement. He wields pathos as if it were a Louisville Slugger—shoveling dirt into Pauline's grave, Chick hears her spirit cry out, " 'Oh, Charley. How could you?' "—but Albom often strikes a nerve on his way to the heart. (Sept. 26)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

From the author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays with Morrie, a new novel that millions of fans have been waiting for."Every family is a ghost story . . ."
Mitch Albom mesmerized readers around the world with his number one New York Times bestsellers, The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays with Morrie. Now he returns with a beautiful, haunting novel about the family we love and the chances we miss.
For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one?
As a child, Charley "Chick" Benetto was told by his father, "You can be a mama's boy or a daddy's boy, but you can't be both." So he chooses his father, only to see the man disappear when Charley is on the verge of adolescence.
Decades later, Charley is a broken man. His life has been crumbled by alcohol and regret. He loses his job. He leaves his family. He hits bottom after discovering his only daughter has shut him out of her wedding. And he decides to take his own life.
He makes a midnight ride to his small hometown, with plans to do himself in. But upon failing even to do that, he staggers back to his old house, only to make an astonishing discovery. His mother--who died eight years earlier–-is still living there, and welcomes him home as if nothing ever happened.
What follows is the one "ordinary" day so many of us yearn for, a chance to make good with a lost parent, to explain the family secrets, and to seek forgiveness. Somewhere between this life and the next, Charley learns the astonishing things he never knew about his mother and her sacrifices. And he tries, with her tender guidance, to put the crumbled pieces of his life back together.
Through Albom's inspiring characters and masterful storytelling, readers will newly appreciate those whom they love--and may have thought they'd lost--in their own lives. For One More Day is a book for anyone in a family, and will be cherished by Albom's millions of fans worldwide.

About the Author

Mitch Albom is the author of the international bestsellers The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays with Morrie, as well as six other books. He also writes screenplays and stage plays. Albom servers on numerous charitable boards and has funded three charities in the Detroit area. He lives with his wife, Janine, in Michigan. --This text refers to theHardcover edition.

From AudioFile

Charlie's been drunk so often and disappointed his daughter so many times that she doesn't invite him to her wedding. He even fails at his suicide. Or does he? When his deceased mother returns to love him unconditionally for one more day, he's not quite sure what's going on. The author reads his book with a deep, resonant voice that matches the sentimental sermonizing in the story. Albom's narration singsongs as Charlie reflects on his mother's past support, his own failings, and the events of a confusing present in which he relishes his mother's care and sees his own life clearly for the first time. S.W. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CDedition.