Jasper's bookshelf: read en-US Wed, 07 Aug 2024 12:28:36 -0700 60 Jasper's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Call of Cthulhu 15730101 The Call of Cthulhu is a harrowing tale of the weakness of the human mind when confronted by powers and intelligences from beyond our world.]]> 43 H.P. Lovecraft Jasper 4 3.97 1928 The Call of Cthulhu
author: H.P. Lovecraft
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1928
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> Siddhartha 444555 156 Hermann Hesse 884590184X Jasper 5 3.98 1922 Siddhartha
author: Hermann Hesse
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1922
rating: 5
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date added: 2022/06/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Works of Edgar Allan Poe (The Works of Edgar Allan Poe in Five Volumes, #2)]]> 8862670 267 Edgar Allan Poe Jasper 0 to-read 4.43 Works of Edgar Allan Poe (The Works of Edgar Allan Poe in Five Volumes, #2)
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/04/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Road Less Stupid: Advice from the Chairman of the Board]]> 36653486 340 Keith J. Cunningham 0984659277 Jasper 0 to-read 4.33 The Road Less Stupid: Advice from the Chairman of the Board
author: Keith J. Cunningham
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.33
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rating: 0
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date added: 2020/02/08
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]]> Design Is a Job 13574985
If you are interested in using design as a tool for good, building a more sustainable and equitable society, creating workplaces where everyone is treated with respect, and doing all of these things while still making a living, this book is for you.]]> 135 Mike Monteiro 1937557049 Jasper 0 to-read 4.22 2012 Design Is a Job
author: Mike Monteiro
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/01/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Kushiel's Dart (Phèdre's Trilogy, #1)]]> 153008
Phèdre nó Delaunay is a young woman who was born with a scarlet mote in her left eye. Sold into indentured servitude as a child, her bond is purchased by Anafiel Delaunay, a nobleman with very a special mission... and the first one to recognize who and what she is: one pricked by Kushiel's Dart, chosen to forever experience pain and pleasure as one.

Phèdre is trained equally in the courtly arts and the talents of the bedchamber, but, above all, the ability to observe, remember, and analyze. Almost as talented a spy as she is courtesan, Phèdre stumbles upon a plot that threatens the very foundations of her homeland. Treachery sets her on her path; love and honor goad her further. And in the doing, it will take her to the edge of despair... and beyond. Hateful friend, loving enemy, beloved assassin; they can all wear the same glittering mask in this world, and Phèdre will get but one chance to save all that she holds dear.

Set in a world of cunning poets, deadly courtiers, heroic traitors, and a truly Machiavellian villainess, this is a novel of grandeur, luxuriance, sacrifice, betrayal, and deeply laid conspiracies. Not since Dune has there been an epic on the scale of Kushiel's Dart-a massive tale about the violent death of an old age, and the birth of a new.]]> 1040 Jacqueline Carey 0330493744 Jasper 4 4.01 2001 Kushiel's Dart (Phèdre's Trilogy, #1)
author: Jacqueline Carey
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2001
rating: 4
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date added: 2019/10/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tangled Mind: Unraveling the Origin of Human Nature]]> 45458064 312 Nick Kolenda 1733978917 Jasper 0 to-read 4.12 The Tangled Mind: Unraveling the Origin of Human Nature
author: Nick Kolenda
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.12
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rating: 0
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date added: 2019/05/20
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]]> The Raven and Other Poems 6330394 96 Edgar Allan Poe 1848372043 Jasper 0 to-read 4.23 1845 The Raven and Other Poems
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1845
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/02/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World]]> 11281104 288 J. Mark G. Williams 074995308X Jasper 0 4.21 2011 Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World
author: J. Mark G. Williams
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2018/11/30
date added: 2018/11/30
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]]> Selling For Dummies 639241

You're beginning a sales career, or just looking to brush up your skills. You're unemployed and want a job, or you're employed and want a promotion. You're a teen wanting to impress adults, or an adult wanting to succeed at negotiation. You're a teacher searching for better ways to get through to your students, or a parent wanting to communicate more effectively with your children. You've got an idea that can help others, or you want to improve your personal relationships. Selling For Dummies is divided into sections so you can easily turn to the part that interests you most. You'll find out how to


Define what sales is and what it isn't. Prepare for a sale - everything from knowing your clients to knowing your products - to set you apart from average persuaders and help you hear more yeses in your life. Say the right words - and avoid the wrong ones - in each stage of the selling process. Separate yourself from the average salesperson by staying in touch with your clients. Cope with rejection, a natural part of life, no matter how skilled you become. Whether you're starting out in sales or have been at it since the beginning of time, this guide offers great information to keep you upbeat and moving forward, allowing you to treat selling with the same joy as you treat your hobbies and pastimes.]]> 384 Tom Hopkins 0764553631 Jasper 0 3.58 1995 Selling For Dummies
author: Tom Hopkins
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Cultivating an Unshakable Character]]> 17605261 Jim Rohn Jasper 0 4.34 1996 Cultivating an Unshakable Character
author: Jim Rohn
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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]]> Lessons in Mastery 82063 If you're ready to take command of your future and achieve your dreams, then you're ready to experience Anthony Robbins' unparalleled Lessons in Mastery.

The time to take action is now. With Lessons in Mastery, you will learn how to:

Experience true happiness Harness your decision-making power Decode the language of emotion Anticipate and prepare for major life changes Commit yourself to daily improvement Replace dormant resources with new assets that will improve the quality of your life Empower Yourself to take the right moves at the right time

Once you realize that you can make a clean break with the past you can turn your weaknesses into strengths and transform even your wildest fantasies into exciting, new realities. You will wonder why you waited so long to experience the power of Lessons in Mastery.

]]> 6 Tony Robbins 0743525159 Jasper 0 to-read 4.29 1998 Lessons in Mastery
author: Tony Robbins
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class: The Thought Processes, Habits and Philosophies of the Great Ones]]> 2297678 282 Steve Siebold 0975500309 Jasper 0 to-read 4.31 2005 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class: The Thought Processes, Habits and Philosophies of the Great Ones
author: Steve Siebold
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> Law of Success 105232 Teaching, for the First Time in the History of the World, the True Philosophy upon which all Personal Success is Built.

“You Can Do It if You Believe You Can!â€�
THIS is a course on the fundamentals of Success.
Success is very largely a matter of adjusting one’s self to the ever-varying and changing environments of life, in a spirit of harmony and poise.

]]> 1035 Napoleon Hill 1932429247 Jasper 0 to-read 4.31 1925 Law of Success
author: Napoleon Hill
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1925
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3)]]> 31817749
The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.

Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe.

For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.

The remarkable conclusion to the post-apocalyptic and highly acclaimed trilogy that began with the multi-award-nominated The Fifth Season.]]> 416 N.K. Jemisin Jasper 5 4.32 2017 The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, #2)]]> 26228034 410 N.K. Jemisin Jasper 5 4.27 2016 The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, #2)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2016
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)]]> 19161852
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.]]> 468 N.K. Jemisin Jasper 4 4.29 2015 The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2015
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Gulag Archipelago 1918â€�1956 (Abridged)]]> 70561 The Gulag Archipelago 1918â€�1956—a grisly indictment of a regime, fashioned here into a veritable literary miracle—has now been updated with a new introduction that includes the fall of the Soviet Union and Solzhenitsyn's move back to Russia.]]> 512 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 0060007761 Jasper 0 4.31 1973 The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 (Abridged)
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1973
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/05/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress]]> 35696171
Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.

Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature–tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking–which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.

With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.]]> 576 Steven Pinker 0525427570 Jasper 0 to-read 4.18 2018 Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
author: Steven Pinker
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/04/14
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]]> <![CDATA[This is Service Design Thinking: Basics � Tools � Cases]]> 9840969
A set of 23 international authors and even more online contributors from the global service design community invested their knwoledge, experience and passion together to create this book. It introduces service design thinking in a manner accessible to beginners and students, it broadens the knowledge and can act as a resource for experienced design professionals.]]> 376 Marc Stickdorn 9063692560 Jasper 0 to-read 3.96 2010 This is Service Design Thinking: Basics – Tools – Cases
author: Marc Stickdorn
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/12/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty]]> 12158480 Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?

Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are?

Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence?

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.

Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including:

ĚýĚý - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed andĚýoverwhelm the West?
ĚýĚý - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority?
ĚýĚý - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More
philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions?

Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.]]> 529 Daron Acemoğlu 0307719219 Jasper 0 to-read 4.06 2012 Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
author: Daron Acemoğlu
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/09/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?]]> 6763725 81 Mark Fisher 1846943175 Jasper 0 to-read 4.20 2009 Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
author: Mark Fisher
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/09/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are]]> 28512671
Blending the informed analysis of The Signal and the Noise with the instructive iconoclasm of Think Like a Freak, a fascinating, illuminating, and witty look at what the vast amounts of information now instantly available to us reveals about ourselves and our world—provided we ask the right questions.

By the end of an average day in the early twenty-first century, human beings searching the internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data. This staggering amount of information—unprecedented in history—can tell us a great deal about who we are—the fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us, and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than twenty years ago, seemed unfathomable.

Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics to sports to race to sex, gender and more, all drawn from the world of big data. What percentage of white voters didn’t vote for Barack Obama because he’s black? Does where you go to school effect how successful you are in life? Do parents secretly favor boy children over girls? Do violent films affect the crime rate? Can you beat the stock market? How regularly do we lie about our sex lives and who’s more self-conscious about sex, men or women?

Investigating these questions and a host of others, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers revelations that can help us understand ourselves and our lives better. Drawing on studies and experiments on how we really live and think, he demonstrates in fascinating and often funny ways the extent to which all the world is indeed a lab. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential—revealing biases deeply embedded within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we’re afraid to ask that might be essential to our health—both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data everyday, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody Lies challenges us to think differently about how we see it and the world.]]> 338 Seth Stephens-Davidowitz 0062390856 Jasper 0 to-read 3.88 2017 Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are
author: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch]]> 12067
People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it’s only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. This time though, the armies of Good and Evil really do appear to be massing. The four Bikers of the Apocalypse are hitting the road. But both the angels and demons â€� well, one fast-living demon and a somewhat fussy angel â€� would quite like the Rapture not to happen.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist…]]> 491 Terry Pratchett Jasper 0 4.27 1990 Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/08/23
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]]> The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress 16690 288 Robert A. Heinlein 0340837942 Jasper 3 4.16 1966 The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
author: Robert A. Heinlein
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1966
rating: 3
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date added: 2017/08/17
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]]> <![CDATA[The Forever War (The Forever War, #1)]]> 21611 278 Joe Haldeman Jasper 4 4.14 1974 The Forever War (The Forever War, #1)
author: Joe Haldeman
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1974
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/06/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies]]> 20527133 Superintelligence asks the questions: what happens when machines surpass humans in general intelligence? Will artificial agents save or destroy us? Nick Bostrom lays the foundation for understanding the future of humanity and intelligent life.

The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. If machine brains surpassed human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become extremely powerful—possibly beyond our control. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on humans than on the species itself, so would the fate of humankind depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence.

But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed Artificial Intelligence, to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation?]]> 352 Nick Bostrom 0199678111 Jasper 5 3.85 2014 Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
author: Nick Bostrom
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2017/06/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion]]> 11324722 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780307377906 can be found here.

Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about the motives of their fellow citizens? In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding.
Ěý
His starting point is moral intuition—the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right. He blends his own research findings with those of anthropologists, historians, and other psychologists to draw a map of the moral domain. He then examines the origins of morality, overturning the view that evolution made us fundamentally selfish creatures. But rather than arguing that we are innately altruistic, he makes a more subtle claim—that we are fundamentally groupish. It is our groupishness, he explains, that leads to our greatest joys, our religious divisions, and our political affiliations. In a stunning final chapter on ideology and civility, Haidt shows what each side is right about, and why we need the insights of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians to flourish as a nation.]]> 419 Jonathan Haidt Jasper 0 to-read 4.18 2012 The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/05/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Stand By Your Manhood: An Essential Guide for Modern Men]]> 23837697
Fortunately, Peter Lloyd is here to tackle the controversial topics in this fearless - and frequently hilarious - bloke bible, which was a Daily Mail Book of the Week.

Part blistering polemic, part politically incorrect road map for the modern man, Stand By Your Manhood answers the burning questions facing the brotherhood today: Should we fund the first date? Are we sexist if we enjoy pornography? Is penis size a political issue? And do feminists secretly hate us? Frank, funny and long overdue, this is the book men everywhere have been waiting for.]]> 250 Peter Lloyd 1849548528 Jasper 0 to-read 3.96 2014 Stand By Your Manhood: An Essential Guide for Modern Men
author: Peter Lloyd
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/04/30
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]]> Reasons and Persons 327051 543 Derek Parfit 019824908X Jasper 0 to-read 4.29 1984 Reasons and Persons
author: Derek Parfit
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/04/24
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]]> <![CDATA[No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline]]> 8112865 No Excuses! shows you how you can achieve success in all three major areas of your life:

1. Your personal goals.
2. Your business and money goals.
3. Your overall happiness.

Each of the 21 chapters in this book shows you how to be more disciplined in one aspect of your life, with end-of-chapter exercises to help you apply the “no excusesâ€� approach to your own life. With these guidelines, you can learn how to be more successful in everything you do—instead of wistfully envying others who you think are just “luckierâ€� than you. A little self-discipline goes a long way...so stop making excuses and read this book!]]> 293 Brian Tracy 1593155824 Jasper 0 currently-reading 4.02 2010 No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline
author: Brian Tracy
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/04/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business]]> 12609433 375 Charles Duhigg 1400069289 Jasper 5 4.13 2012 The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
author: Charles Duhigg
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2017/04/04
date added: 2017/04/04
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]]> The 4-Hour Workweek 368593
Join Tim Ferriss as he teaches you:
- How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want?
- How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs?
- How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist?
- How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and freuent "mini-retirements"?
- What the crucial difference is between absolute and relative income?
- How to train your boss to value performance over presence, or kill your job (or company) if it's beyond repair?
- What automated cash-flow "muses" are and how to create one in 2 to 4 weeks?
- How to cultivate selective ignorance-and create time-with a low-information diet?
- What the management secrets of Remote Control CEOs are?
- How to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50-80% off?
- How to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office]]> 308 Timothy Ferriss 0307353133 Jasper 3 3.93 2007 The 4-Hour Workweek
author: Timothy Ferriss
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2017/04/04
date added: 2017/04/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In]]> 31741420 Bernie Sanders 1427287643 Jasper 5 4.23 2016 Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In
author: Bernie Sanders
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2017/04/04
date added: 2017/04/04
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The second part is an explanation of what Bernie Sanders' plans are. I hope that that will be the fture of America. I believe it would make a safer, more prosperous and happier America.
]]> <![CDATA[Creating Freedom: Power, Control and the Fight for Our Future]]> 32200983

We are far less free than we like to think.

In Creating Freedom, Raoul Martinez exposes the mechanisms of control that pervade our lives and the myths on which they depend. Exploring the lottery of our birth, the coercive influence of concentrated wealth, and the consent-manufacturing realities of undemocratic power, he shows that our faith in free media, free markets, free elections and free will is dangerously misplaced. Written with empathy and imagination, this scholarly, fierce and profoundly hopeful manifesto makes a dazzling case for creating freedom on our own terms.]]> 513 Raoul Martinez 1782111891 Jasper 0 to-read 4.29 2016 Creating Freedom: Power, Control and the Fight for Our Future
author: Raoul Martinez
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/04/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right]]> 27833494
The conventional answer is that a popular uprising against “big governmentâ€� led to the ascendancy of a broad-based conservative movement. But as Jane Mayer shows in this powerful, meticulously reported history, a network of exceedingly wealthy people with extreme libertarian views bankrolled a systematic, step-by-step plan to fundamentally alter the American political system.

The network has brought together some of the richest people on the planet. Their core beliefs—that taxes are a form of tyranny; that government oversight of business is an assault on freedom—are sincerely held. But these beliefs also advance their personal and corporate interests: Many of their companies have run afoul of federal pollution, worker safety, securities, and tax laws.

The chief figures in the network are Charles and David Koch, whose father made his fortune in part by building oil refineries in Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany. The patriarch later was a founding member of the John Birch Society, whose politics were so radical it believed Dwight Eisenhower was a communist. The brothers were schooled in a political philosophy that asserted the only role of government is to provide security and to enforce property rights.

When libertarian ideas proved decidedly unpopular with voters, the Koch brothers and their allies chose another path. If they pooled their vast resources, they could fund an interlocking array of organizations that could work in tandem to influence and ultimately control academic institutions, think tanks, the courts, statehouses, Congress, and, they hoped, the presidency. Richard Mellon Scaife, the mercurial heir to banking and oil fortunes, had the brilliant insight that most of their political activities could be written off as tax-deductible “philanthropy.â€�

These organizations were given innocuous names such as Americans for Prosperity. Funding sources were hidden whenever possible. This process reached its apotheosis with the allegedly populist Tea Party movement, abetted mightily by the Citizens United decision—a case conceived of by legal advocates funded by the network.

The political operatives the network employs are disciplined, smart, and at times ruthless. Mayer documents instances in which people affiliated with these groups hired private detectives to impugn whistle-blowers, journalists, and even government investigators. And their efforts have been remarkably successful. Libertarian views on taxes and regulation, once far outside the mainstream and still rejected by most Americans, are ascendant in the majority of state governments, the Supreme Court, and Congress. Meaningful environmental, labor, finance, and tax reforms have been stymied.

Jane Mayer spent five years conducting hundreds of interviews-including with several sources within the network-and scoured public records, private papers, and court proceedings in reporting this book. In a taut and utterly convincing narrative, she traces the byzantine trail of the billions of dollars spent by the network and provides vivid portraits of the colorful figures behind the new American oligarchy.

Dark Money is a book that must be read by anyone who cares about the future of American democracy.]]> 464 Jane Mayer Jasper 0 to-read 4.28 2016 Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
author: Jane Mayer
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2016
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date added: 2017/01/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Outliers: The Story of Success]]> 3228917 Learn what sets high achievers apart � from Bill Gates to the Beatles � in this #1 bestseller from "a singular talent" (New York Times Book Review).

In this stunning book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"—the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.]]> 309 Malcolm Gladwell 0316017922 Jasper 5 self-help 4.19 2008 Outliers: The Story of Success
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2017/01/04
date added: 2017/01/04
shelves: self-help
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]]> <![CDATA[Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics]]> 25135194 Geography shapes not only our history, but where we're headed...

All leaders are constrained by geography. Their choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Yes, to follow world events you need to understand people, ideas and movements - but if you don't know geography, you'll never have the full picture.

If you've ever wondered why Putin is so obsessed with Crimea, why the USA was destined to become a global superpower, or why China's power base continues to expand ever outwards, the answers are all here.

In ten chapters and ten maps, Prisoners of Geography looks at the past, present and future to offer an essential insight into one of the major factors that determines world history.

It's time to put the 'geo' back into geopolitics.

Ten maps; ten chapters:

Russia * China * United States of America * Latin America * the Middle East * Africa * India and Pakistan * Europe * Japan and Korea * the Arctic]]> 256 Tim Marshall 1783961414 Jasper 0 to-read 4.18 2015 Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics
author: Tim Marshall
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/11/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics]]> 11612989 321 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita 161039044X Jasper 0 to-read 4.25 2011 The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics
author: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/10/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #3)]]> 15985373
Jorg would be emperor. It is a position not to be gained by the sword but rather by vote. And never in living memory has anyone secured a majority of the vote, leaving the Broken Empire long without a leader. Jorg plans to change that. He’s uncovered the lost technology of the land, and he won’t hesitate to use it.

But he soon finds an adversary standing in his way, a necromancer unlike any he has ever faced—a figure hated and feared even more than himself: the Dead King.]]> 434 Mark Lawrence 0425256855 Jasper 5 4.21 2013 Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #3)
author: Mark Lawrence
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2013
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[King of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #2)]]> 12891107 The second book in the Broken Empire series, Lawrence takes his young anti-hero one step closer to his grand ambition.

To reach greatness you must step on bodies, and many brothers lie trodden in my wake. I’ve walked from pawn to player and I’ll win this game of ours, though the cost of it may drown the world in bloodâ€�

The land burns with the fires of a hundred battles as lords and petty kings fight for the Broken Empire. The long road to avenge the slaughter of his mother and brother has shown Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath the hidden hands behind this endless war. He saw the game and vowed to sweep the board. First though he must gather his own pieces, learn the rules of play, and discover how to break them.

A six nation army, twenty thousand strong, marches toward Jorg's gates, led by a champion beloved of the people. Every decent man prays this shining hero will unite the empire and heal its wounds. Every omen says he will. Every good king knows to bend the knee in the face of overwhelming odds, if only to save their people and their lands. But King Jorg is not a good king.

Faced by an enemy many times his strength Jorg knows that he cannot win a fair fight. But playing fair was never part of Jorg’s game plan.]]> 449 Mark Lawrence 1937007472 Jasper 5 4.18 2012 King of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #2)
author: Mark Lawrence
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2012
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Prince of Thorns (Broken Empire, #1)]]> 9579634
From being a privileged royal child, raised by a loving mother, Jorg Ancrath has become the Prince of Thorns, a charming, immoral boy leading a grim band of outlaws in a series of raids and atrocities. The world is in chaos: violence is rife, nightmares everywhere. Jorg has the ability to master the living and the dead, but there is still one thing that puts a chill in him. Returning to his father's castle Jorg must confront horrors from his childhood and carve himself a future with all hands turned against him.

Mark Lawrence's debut novel tells a tale of blood and treachery, magic and brotherhood and paints a compelling and brutal, and sometimes beautiful, picture of an exceptional boy on his journey toward manhood and the throne.]]> 373 Mark Lawrence 0007423292 Jasper 4 3.83 2011 Prince of Thorns (Broken Empire, #1)
author: Mark Lawrence
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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date added: 2016/09/22
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]]> <![CDATA[A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS]]> 29875848 The definitive work of literary journalism on the Arab Spring and its troubled aftermath

In 2011, a wave of revolution spread through the Middle East as protesters demanded an end to tyranny, corruption, and economic decay. From Egypt to Yemen, a generation of young Arabs insisted on a new ethos of common citizenship. Five years later, their utopian aspirations have taken on a darker cast as old divides reemerge and deepen. In one country after another, brutal terrorists and dictators have risen to the top.

A Rage for Order is the first work of literary journalism to track the tormented legacy of what was once called the Arab Spring. In the style of V. S. Naipaul and Lawrence Wright, the distinguished New York Times correspondent Robert F. Worth brings the history of the present to life through vivid stories and portraits. We meet a Libyan rebel who must decide whether to kill the Qaddafi-regime torturer who murdered his brother; a Yemeni farmer who lives in servitude to a poetry-writing, dungeon-operating chieftain; and an Egyptian doctor who is caught between his loyalty to the Muslim Brotherhood and his hopes for a new, tolerant democracy.

Combining dramatic storytelling with an original analysis of the Arab world today, A Rage for Order captures the psychic and actual civil wars raging throughout the Middle East, and explains how the dream of an Arab renaissance gave way to a new age of discord.]]> 272 Robert F. Worth 0374536791 Jasper 0 to-read 4.24 2015 A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS
author: Robert F. Worth
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/06/19
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]]> Motivation and Personality 1297177 336 Abraham H. Maslow 0060419873 Jasper 0 to-read 4.19 1954 Motivation and Personality
author: Abraham H. Maslow
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1954
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/06/09
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]]> <![CDATA[The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature]]> 5752 The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. He shows how many intellectuals have denied the existence of human nature by embracing three linked dogmas: the Blank Slate (the mind has no innate traits), the Noble Savage (people are born good and corrupted by society), and the Ghost in the Machine (each of us has a soul that makes choices free from biology). Each dogma carries a moral burden, so their defenders have engaged in desperate tactics to discredit the scientists who are now challenging them.

Pinker injects calm and rationality into these debates by showing that equality, progress, responsibility, and purpose have nothing to fear from discoveries about a rich human nature. He disarms even the most menacing threats with clear thinking, common sense, and pertinent facts from science and history.

Despite its popularity among intellectuals during much of the twentieth century, he argues, the doctrine of the Blank Slate may have done more harm than good. It denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces hardheaded analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of government, violence, parenting, and the arts.

Pinker shows that an acknowledgement of human nature that is grounded in science and common sense, far from being dangerous, can complement insights about the human condition made by millennia of artists and philosophers. All this is done in the style that earned his previous books many prizes and worldwide acclaim: wit, lucidity, and insight into matters great and small.]]> 560 Steven Pinker 0142003344 Jasper 0 to-read 4.08 2002 The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
author: Steven Pinker
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil]]> 359194
Renowned social psychologist and creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo explores the mechanisms that make good people do bad things, how moral people can be seduced into acting immorally, and what this says about the line separating good from evil.

The Lucifer Effect explains how—and the myriad reasons why—we are all susceptible to the lure of “the dark side.â€� Drawing on examples from history as well as his own trailblazing research, Zimbardo details how situational forces and group dynamics can work in concert to make monsters out of decent men and women.

Here, for the first time and in detail, Zimbardo tells the full story of the Stanford Prison Experiment, the landmark study in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into “guardsâ€� and “inmatesâ€� and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners.

By illuminating the psychological causes behind such disturbing metamorphoses, Zimbardo enables us to better understand a variety of harrowing phenomena, from corporate malfeasance to organized genocide to how once upstanding American soldiers came to abuse and torture Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. He replaces the long-held notion of the “bad appleâ€� with that of the “bad barrel”—the idea that the social setting and the system contaminate the individual, rather than the other way around.

This is a book that dares to hold a mirror up to mankind, showing us that we might not be who we think we are. While forcing us to reexamine what we are capable of doing when caught up in the crucible of behavioral dynamics, though, Zimbardo also offers hope. We are capable of resisting evil, he argues, and can even teach ourselves to act heroically. Like Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, The Lucifer Effect is a shocking, engrossing study that will change the way we view human behavior.]]> 551 Philip G. Zimbardo 1400064112 Jasper 0 to-read 3.91 2007 The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
author: Philip G. Zimbardo
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2007
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]]> <![CDATA[The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales]]> 63697 243 Oliver Sacks Jasper 0 to-read 4.08 1985 The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
author: Oliver Sacks
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts]]> 522525 Renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification.

Why is it so hard to say “I made a mistake”—and really believe it?

When we make mistakes, cling to outdated attitudes, or mistreat other people, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so, unconsciously, we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right—a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong. Backed by years of research, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-justification—how it works, the damage it can cause, and how we can overcome it.

This updated edition concludes with an extended discussion of how we can live with dissonance; learn from it; and perhaps, eventually, forgive ourselves.]]> 292 Carol Tavris 0151010986 Jasper 0 to-read 4.01 2007 Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
author: Carol Tavris
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/06/09
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]]> <![CDATA[SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance]]> 6402364
Four years in the making, SuperFreakonomics asks not only the tough questions, but the unexpected ones: What's more dangerous, driving drunk or walking drunk? Why is chemotherapy prescribed so often if it's so ineffective? Can a sex change boost your salary?

SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as:

How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?
Why are doctors so bad at washing their hands?
How much good do car seats do?
What's the best way to catch a terrorist?
Did TV cause a rise in crime?
What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common?
Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness?
Can eating kangaroo save the planet?
Which adds more value: a pimp or a Realtor?

Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else, whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically. By examining how people respond to incentives, they show the world for what it really is � good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky.

Freakonomics has been imitated many times over � but only now, with SuperFreakonomics, has it met its match.]]> 270 Steven D. Levitt 0060889578 Jasper 0 to-read 4.00 2009 SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
author: Steven D. Levitt
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ]]> 26329
Everyone knows that high IQ is no guarantee of success, happiness, or virtue, but until Emotional Intelligence, we could only guess why. Daniel Goleman's brilliant report from the frontiers of psychology and neuroscience offers startling new insight into our “two minds”—the rational and the emotional—and how they together shape our destiny.

Drawing on groundbreaking brain and behavioral research, Goleman shows the factors at work when people of high IQ flounder and those of modest IQ do surprisingly well. These factors, which include self-awareness, self-discipline, and empathy, add up to a different way of being smart—and they aren’t fixed at birth. Although shaped by childhood experiences, emotional intelligence can be nurtured and strengthened throughout our adulthood—with immediate benefits to our health, our relationships, and our work.Ěý
Ěý
The twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of Emotional Intelligence could not come at a better time—we spend so much of our time online, more and more jobs are becoming automated and digitized, and our children are picking up new technology faster than we ever imagined. With a new introduction from the author, the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition prepares readers, now more than ever, to reach their fullest potential and stand out from the pack with the help of EI.]]> 352 Daniel Goleman 055380491X Jasper 5 4.07 1995 Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
author: Daniel Goleman
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion]]> 28815
You'll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader—and how to defend yourself against them. Perfect for people in all walks of life, the principles of Influence will move you toward profound personal change and act as a driving force for your success.]]> 320 Robert B. Cialdini 006124189X Jasper 0 to-read 4.21 1984 Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
author: Robert B. Cialdini
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking]]> 8520610 The book that started the Quiet Revolution

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

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

Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content.]]> 333 Susan Cain 0307352145 Jasper 0 to-read 4.07 2012 Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
author: Susan Cain
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference]]> 2612 The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.]]> 301 Malcolm Gladwell 0316346624 Jasper 0 to-read 4.01 2002 The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions]]> 1713426
Why does recalling the Ten Commandments reduce our tendency to lie, even when we couldn't possibly be caught?

Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup?

Why do we go back for second helpings at the unlimited buffet, even when our stomachs are already full?

And how did we ever start spending $4.15 on a cup of coffee when, just a few years ago, we used to pay less than a dollar?

When it comes to making decisions in our lives, we think we're in control. We think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we?

In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.

Not only do we make astonishingly simple mistakes every day, but we make the same "types" of mistakes, Ariely discovers. We consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. We fail to understand the profound effects of our emotions on what we want, and we overvalue what we already own. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable--making us "predictably" irrational.

From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, Ariely explains how to break through these systematic patterns of thought to make better decisions. "Predictably Irrational" will change the way we interact with the world--one small decision at a time.]]> 247 Dan Ariely Jasper 0 to-read 4.12 2008 Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
author: Dan Ariely
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking]]> 40102 The Tipping Point a classic, Blink changes the way you'll understand every decision you make. Never again will you think about thinking the same way.

Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant - in the blink of an eye - that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work - in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?

In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing" - filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.]]> 296 Malcolm Gladwell 0316010669 Jasper 0 to-read 3.97 2005 Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less]]> 10639 Future Shock, a social critique of our obsession with choice, and how it contributes to anxiety, dissatisfaction and regret. Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401K, everyday decisions have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented.

In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains why too much of a good thing has proven detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz explains how a culture that thrives on the availability of constantly evolving options can also foster profound dissatisfaction and self-blame in individuals, which can lead to a paralysis in decision making and, in some cases, depression.

With the latest studies on how we make choices in our personal and professional lives, Schwartz offers practical advice on how to focus on the right choices, and how to derive greater satisfaction from choices that we do make.]]> 265 Barry Schwartz 0060005696 Jasper 0 to-read 3.83 2004 The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
author: Barry Schwartz
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World]]> 24612233 In the world's top research labs and universities, the race is on to invent the ultimate learning algorithm: one capable of discovering any knowledge from data, and doing anything we want, before we even ask. In The Master Algorithm , Pedro Domingos lifts the veil to give us a peek inside the learning machines that power Google, Amazon, and your smartphone. He assembles a blueprint for the future universal learner--the Master Algorithm--and discusses what it will mean for business, science, and society. If data-ism is today's philosophy, this book is its bible.]]> 352 Pedro Domingos 0465065708 Jasper 0 to-read 3.72 2015 The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World
author: Pedro Domingos
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/06/06
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]]> <![CDATA[On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy]]> 174879 420 Carl R. Rogers 039575531X Jasper 0 to-read 4.16 1961 On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy
author: Carl R. Rogers
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1961
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/05/31
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]]> The Invisibles 13227839 New York Times Best Seller!

Collecting for the first time ever all three volumes of controversial and fan-loved series THE INVISIBLES by Eisner Award winning writer Grant Morrison (ALL-STAR SUPERMAN, BATMAN)! Follow the adventures of The Invisibles, a secret organization out to battle against physical and psychic oppression brought upon humanity by the interdemsional alien gods of the Archons of Outer Church! This onmibus collects Invisibles Volume 1 #1-25 (1994-96), Invisibles Volume 2 #1-22 (1997-99), and Invisibles Volume 3 #12-1 (1999-2000).]]> 1480 Grant Morrison 1401234593 Jasper 0 to-read 4.38 2000 The Invisibles
author: Grant Morrison
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/05/24
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]]> The Complete Maus 15195
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaustâ€� (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.]]> 296 Art Spiegelman 0141014083 Jasper 4 4.57 1980 The Complete Maus
author: Art Spiegelman
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1980
rating: 4
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date added: 2016/05/03
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]]> Mere Christianity 11138 191 C.S. Lewis 0684823780 Jasper 0 to-read 4.32 1952 Mere Christianity
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/04/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence]]> 185540 752 Martin Meredith 1586483986 Jasper 0 to-read 4.13 2005 The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence
author: Martin Meredith
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/04/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> Economics: The User's Guide 20613671 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang brilliantly debunked many of the predominant myths of neoclassical economics. Now, in an entertaining and accessible primer, he explains how the global economy actually works—in real-world terms. Writing with irreverent wit, a deep knowledge of history, and a disregard for conventional economic pieties, Chang offers insights that will never be found in the textbooks.

Unlike many economists, who present only one view of their discipline,ĚýChang introduces a wide range of economic theories, from classical to Keynesian, revealing how each has its strengths and weaknesses, and whyĚý there is no one way to explain economic behavior. Instead, by ignoring the received wisdom and exposing the myriad forces that shape our financial world, Chang gives us the tools we need to understand our increasingly global and interconnected world often driven by economics. From the future of the Euro, inequality in China, or the condition of the American manufacturing industry here in the United Statesâ€�Economics: The User’s Guide is a concise and expertly crafted guide to economic fundamentals that offers a clear and accurate picture of the global economy and how and why it affects our daily lives.]]> 384 Ha-Joon Chang 1620408120 Jasper 5 4.16 2014 Economics: The User's Guide
author: Ha-Joon Chang
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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date added: 2016/04/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think (Exponential Technology Series)]]> 13187824 Providing abundance is humanity’s grandest challenge—this is a book about how we rise to meetĚýit.

We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies and three other powerful forces are conspiring to better the lives of billions. An antidote to pessimism by tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist, Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler.Ěý

Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—fast.ĚýThe authors document how four forces—exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion—are conspiring to solve our biggest problems. Abundance establishes hard targets for change andĚýlays out a strategic roadmap for governments, industry and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism.

Examining human need by category—water,Ěýfood,Ěýenergy,Ěýhealthcare, education, freedom—Diamandis and Kotler introduce dozens of innovators making great strides in each area: Larry Page, Steven Hawking, Dean Kamen, Daniel Kahneman, Elon Musk, Bill Joy, Stewart Brand, Jeff Skoll, Ray Kurzweil, Ratan Tata, Craig Venter, among many, many others.Ěý]]> 400 Peter H. Diamandis 1451614217 Jasper 5 4.03 2012 Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think (Exponential Technology Series)
author: Peter H. Diamandis
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2016/04/20
date added: 2016/04/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Partnership Way: New Tools for Living and Learning]]> 470370 The Chalice and the Blade, Eisler here teams up with another award-winning writer to apply her book's teachings in a guide to more satisfying, more meaningful options for ourselves and our planet.]]> 256 Riane Eisler 0062502905 Jasper 0 to-read 4.27 1990 The Partnership Way: New Tools for Living and Learning
author: Riane Eisler
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Power of Partnership: Seven Relationships that Will Change Your Life]]> 684255
The book is visionary yet practical, providing solutions that go beyond conservative or liberal, religious or secular, communist or capitalist, worker or employer, male or female. The Power of Partnership provides us with the necessary tools to make major changes in our lives, to break free of the old habits and patterns of domination with their tension, fear, and unhappiness, and to grow and thrive in partnership with all.]]> 304 Riane Eisler 1577314085 Jasper 0 to-read 4.08 2002 The Power of Partnership: Seven Relationships that Will Change Your Life
author: Riane Eisler
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth and the Politics of the Body]]> 817522 512 Riane Eisler 0062502832 Jasper 0 to-read 4.32 1995 Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth and the Politics of the Body
author: Riane Eisler
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future (Updated With a New Epilogue)]]> 470367
The Chalice and the Blade tells a new story of our cultural origins. It shows that warfare and the war of the sexes are neither divinely nor biologically ordained. It provides verification that a better future is possible—and is in fact firmly rooted in the haunting dramas of what happened in our past.]]> 304 Riane Eisler 0062502891 Jasper 0 to-read 4.18 1987 The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future (Updated With a New Epilogue)
author: Riane Eisler
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating A Caring Economics]]> 115600
Eisler proposes a new "caring economics" that takes into account the full spectrum of economic activities--from the life--sustaining activities of the household, to the life-enriching activities of caregivers and communities, to the life-supporting processes of nature. She shows how our values are distorted by the economic double standard that devalues anything stereotypically associated with women and femininity; reveals how current economic models are based on a deep-seated culture of domination; and shows how human needs would be better served by economic models based on caring. Most importantly, she provides practical proposals for new economic inventions--new measures, policies, rules, and practices--to bring about a caring economics that fulfills human needs.

Like her classic The Chalice and the Blade, The Real Wealth of Nations is a bold and insightful look at how to create a society in which each of us can achieve the full measure of our humanity.]]> 336 Riane Eisler 1576753883 Jasper 0 to-read 4.13 2007 The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating A Caring Economics
author: Riane Eisler
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings]]> 61001 307 Pyotr Kropotkin 048641955X Jasper 0 to-read 4.18 1927 Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings
author: Pyotr Kropotkin
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1927
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[You Can't Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom]]> 7954980 Winner of Polemic of the Year at the 2013 Political Book Awards.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Communism, and the advent of the Web which allowed for even the smallest voice to be heard, everywhere you turned you were told that we were living in an age of unparalleled freedom.

You Can't Read This Book argues that this view is dangerously naive. From the revolution in Iran that wasn't, to the Great Firewall of China and the imposition of super-injunctions from the filthy rich protecting their privacy, the traditional opponents of freedom of speech � religious fanaticism, plutocratic power and dictatorial states � are thriving, and in many respects finding the world a more comfortable place in the early 21st century than they did in the late 20th.

This is not an account of interesting but trivial disputes about freedom of speech: the rights and wrongs of shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre, of playing heavy metal at 3 a.m. in a built-up area or articulating extremist ideas in a school or university. Rather, this is a story that starts with the cataclysmic reaction of the Left and Right to the publication and denunciation of The Satanic Verses in 1988 that saw them jump into bed with radical extremists. It ends at the juncture where even in the transgressive, liberated West, where so much blood had been spilt for Freedom, where rebellion is the conformist style and playing the dissenter the smart career move in the arts and media, you can write a book and end up destroyed or dead.]]> 330 Nick Cohen 0007308906 Jasper 0 to-read 4.06 2012 You Can't Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom
author: Nick Cohen
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Shadows of Self (Mistborn, #5)]]> 16065004
Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is now on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds.

When family obligations forced Waxillium Ladrian to forsake the frontier lands and return to the metropolis of his birth to take his place as head of a noble House, he little imagined that the crime-fighting skills acquired during twenty years in the dusty plains would be just as applicable in the big city. He soon learned that there too, just being a talented Twinborn � one who can use both Allomancy and Feruchemy, the dominant magical modes on Scadrial � would not suffice.

This bustling, optimistic, but still shaky society will now face its first test by terrorism and assassination, crimes intended to stir up labor strife and religious conflict. Wax, his eccentric sidekick Wayne, and brilliant, beautiful young Marasi, now officially part of the constabulary, must unravel the conspiracy before civil strife can stop Scadrial’s progress in its tracks.]]> 376 Brandon Sanderson 0765378558 Jasper 5 4.26 2015 Shadows of Self (Mistborn, #5)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2015
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)]]> 9969571 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

IN THE YEAR 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.

But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.]]> 480 Ernest Cline 030788743X Jasper 5
Exctiting as hell. Funny and recongizable to any fiction nerd. Interesting in its perspective about the virtual worlds that we engulf ourselves in.

Just all in all 100%]]> 4.21 2011 Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)
author: Ernest Cline
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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Absolutely perfect.

Exctiting as hell. Funny and recongizable to any fiction nerd. Interesting in its perspective about the virtual worlds that we engulf ourselves in.

Just all in all 100%
]]> <![CDATA[Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1)]]> 8935689
Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.]]> 467 Iain M. Banks 1857231384 Jasper 0 to-read 3.86 1987 Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind]]> 23692271 512 Yuval Noah Harari Jasper 0 to-read 4.33 2011 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/02/24
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]]> Seveneves 22816087
A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . .

Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.]]> 872 Neal Stephenson Jasper 0 to-read 4.01 2015 Seveneves
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined]]> 11107244 Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year. The author of The New York Times bestseller The Stuff of Thought offers a controversial history of violence.

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, pogroms, gruesome punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened?

This groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic motives- the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away-and how changing circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail. Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we think about our society.]]> 802 Steven Pinker 0670022950 Jasper 0 to-read 4.17 2010 The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
author: Steven Pinker
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World (Exponential Technology Series)]]> 22609444 Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

From the coauthors of the New York Times bestseller Abundance comes their much anticipated follow-up: Bold—a radical, how-to guide for using exponential technologies, moonshot thinking, and crowd-powered tools to create extraordinary wealth while also positively impacting the lives of billions.

Bold unfolds in three parts. Part One focuses on the exponential technologies that are disrupting today’s Fortune 500 companies and enabling upstart entrepreneurs to go from "I’ve got an idea" to "I run a billion-dollar company" far faster than ever before. The authors provide exceptional insight into the power of 3D printing, artificial intelligence, robotics, networks and sensors, and synthetic biology. Part Two of the book focuses on the Psychology of Bold, drawing on insights from billionaire entrepreneurs Larry Page, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos. In addition, Diamandis reveals his entrepreneurial secrets garnered from building fifteen companies, including such audacious ventures as Singularity University, XPRIZE, Planetary Resources, and Human Longevity, Inc. Finally, Bold closes with a look at the best practices that allow anyone to leverage today’s hyper-connected crowd like never before. Here, the authors teach how to design and use incentive competitions, launch million-dollar crowdfunding campaigns to tap into ten’s of billions of dollars of capital, and finally how to build communities—armies of exponentially enabled individuals willing and able to help today’s entrepreneurs make their boldest dreams come true.

Bold is both a manifesto and a manual. It is today’s exponential entrepreneur’s go-to resource on the use of emerging technologies, thinking at scale, and the awesome power of crowd-powered tools.]]> 336 Peter H. Diamandis 1476709564 Jasper 5 Recommended for everyone! 3.97 2015 Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World (Exponential Technology Series)
author: Peter H. Diamandis
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2016/02/21
date added: 2016/02/21
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Recommended for everyone!
]]> The Martian 18007564
Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human errorâ€� are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills â€� and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit â€� he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

]]> 384 Andy Weir 0804139024 Jasper 3 4.41 2011 The Martian
author: Andy Weir
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2016/02/21
date added: 2016/02/21
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The main character is funny, the story is inspiring and very, very true-to-science, but I do walk away with the feeling that it's a little overrated.
]]> <![CDATA[Contemporary Political Philosophy]]> 31911 thought, as well as relevant journals and websites. Covering some of the most advanced contemporary thinking, Will Kymlicka writes in an engaging, accessible, and non-technical way to ensure the book is suitable for students approaching these difficult concepts for the first time. This second edition promises to build on the original edition's success as a key text in the teaching of modern political theory.]]> 512 Will Kymlicka 0198782748 Jasper 3 4.01 1991 Contemporary Political Philosophy
author: Will Kymlicka
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1991
rating: 3
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]]> A Tale of Two Cities 1953 A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.]]> 489 Charles Dickens 0141439602 Jasper 4 3.86 1859 A Tale of Two Cities
author: Charles Dickens
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1859
rating: 4
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]]> The Picture of Dorian Gray 5297 272 Oscar Wilde Jasper 4 4.13 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1890
rating: 4
read at: 2016/02/09
date added: 2016/02/09
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]]> Man's Search for Meaning 4069 Man's Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.]]> 165 Viktor E. Frankl 080701429X Jasper 5 4.38 1946 Man's Search for Meaning
author: Viktor E. Frankl
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1946
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead]]> 17876 Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead (150th Anniversary Edition)

The compelling works presented in this volume were written at distinct periods in Dostoyevsky's life, at decisive moments in his groping for a political philosophy and a religious answer. From the primitive peasant who kills without understanding that he is destroying life to the anxious antihero of Notes from Underground—who both craves and despises affection—the writer's often-tormented characters showcase his evolving outlook on our fate.

Thomas Mann described Dostoyevsky as "an author whose Christian sympathy is ordinarily devoted to human misery, sin, vice, the depths of lust and crime, rather than to nobility of body and soul" and Notes from Underground as "an awe- and terror- inspiring example of this sympathy."]]> 233 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0451529553 Jasper 5 4.19 1864 Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1864
rating: 5
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]]> The Road 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,â€� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Jasper 3 3.99 2006 The Road
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Skin Game (The Dresden Files, #15)]]> 19486421
Because as Winter Knight to the Queen of Air and Darkness, Harry never knows what the scheming Mab might want him to do. Usually, it’s something awful.

He doesn’t know the half of itâ€�

Mab has just traded Harry’s skills to pay off one of her debts. And now he must help a group of supernatural villains—led by one of Harry’s most dreaded and despised enemies, Nicodemus Archleone—to break into the highest-security vault in town, so that they can then access the highest-security vault in the Nevernever.

It's a smash and grab job to recover the literal Holy Grail from the vaults of the greatest treasure hoard in the supernatural world—which belongs to the one and only Hades, Lord of the freaking Underworld and generally unpleasant character. Worse, Dresden suspects that there is another game afoot that no one is talking about. And he's dead certain that Nicodemus has no intention of allowing any of his crew to survive the experience. Especially Harry.

Dresden's always been tricky, but he's going to have to up his backstabbing game to survive this mess—assuming his own allies don’t end up killing him before his enemies get the chance…]]> 464 Jim Butcher 0451464397 Jasper 5 4.54 2014 Skin Game (The Dresden Files, #15)
author: Jim Butcher
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, #8)]]> 91474
As Harry adjusts to his new role, another problem arrives in the form of the tattooed and pierced daughter of an old friend, all grown-up and already in trouble. Her boyfriend is the only suspect in what looks like a supernatural assault straight out of a horror film. Malevolent entities that feed on fear are loose in Chicago, but it's all in a day's work for a wizard, his faithful dog, and a talking skull named Bob....]]> 547 Jim Butcher 0451461037 Jasper 4 4.39 2006 Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, #8)
author: Jim Butcher
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2006
rating: 4
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]]> One Hundred Years of Solitude 320 417 Gabriel GarcĂ­a MĂĄrquez Jasper 3 4.10 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude
author: Gabriel GarcĂ­a MĂĄrquez
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[First Lord's Fury (Codex Alera, #6)]]> 6316821 465 Jim Butcher 044101769X Jasper 5 4.38 2009 First Lord's Fury (Codex Alera, #6)
author: Jim Butcher
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2009
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Princeps' Fury (Codex Alera, #5)]]> 2903736 From the New York Times bestselling author of Captain's Fury and the Dresden Files novels.

Tavi of Calderon, now recognized as Princeps Gaius Octavian and heir to the crown, has achieved a fragile alliance with Alera's oldest foes, the savage Canim. But when Tavi and his legions guide the Canim safely to their lands, his worst fears are realized.

The dreaded Vord - the enemy of Aleran and Cane alike - have spent the last three years laying waste to the Canim homeland. And when the Alerans are cut off from their ships, they find themselves with no choice but to fight shoulder to shoulder if they are to survive.

For a thousand years, Alera and her furies have withstood every enemy, and survived every foe.

The thousand years are over…]]> 386 Jim Butcher 0441016383 Jasper 5 4.37 2008 Princeps' Fury (Codex Alera, #5)
author: Jim Butcher
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2008
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Captain's Fury (Codex Alera, #4)]]> 346087 451 Jim Butcher 0441015271 Jasper 5 4.36 2007 Captain's Fury (Codex Alera, #4)
author: Jim Butcher
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera, #3)]]> 29394 442 Jim Butcher 0441014348 Jasper 5 4.35 2006 Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera, #3)
author: Jim Butcher
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Academ's Fury (Codex Alera, #2)]]> 133664
Tavi has escaped the Calderon Valley and the mysterious attack of the Marat on his homeland. But he is far from safe, as trying to keep up the illusion of being a student while secretly training as one of the First Lord's spies is a dangerous game. And he has not yet learned to use the furies, making him especially vulnerable.

When the attack comes it's on two fronts. A sudden strike threatens the First Lord's life and threatens to plunge the land into civil war. While in the Calderon Valley, the threat faced from the Marat is dwarfed by an ancient menace. And Tavi must learn to harness the furies if he has any chance of fighting the greatest threat Alera has ever known . . .]]> 702 Jim Butcher 0441013406 Jasper 5 4.26 2005 Academ's Fury (Codex Alera, #2)
author: Jim Butcher
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera, #1)]]> 29396 In this extraordinary fantasy epic, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Dresden Files leads readers into a world where the fate of the realm rests on the shoulders of a boy with no power to call his own ...

For a thousand years, the people of Alera have united against the aggressive and threatening races that inhabit the world, using their unique bonds with the furies - elementals of earth, air, fire, water, wood, and metal. But in the remote Calderon Valley, the boy Tavi struggles with his lack of furycrafting. At fifteen, he has no wind fury to help him fly, no fire fury to light the lamps. Yet as the Alerans' most savage enemy - the Marat horde - returns to the Valley, Tavi's courage and resourcefulness will be a power greater than any fury, one that could turn the tides of war ...

]]> 688 Jim Butcher 044101268X Jasper 5 4.12 2004 Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera, #1)
author: Jim Butcher
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2004
rating: 5
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]]> The Metamorphosis 485894 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 0553213695 / 9780553213690

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."

With it's startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first opening, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote, "Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man."]]> 201 Franz Kafka 0553213695 Jasper 3 3.90 1915 The Metamorphosis
author: Franz Kafka
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1915
rating: 3
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]]> The Old Man and the Sea 2165 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

This short novel, already a modern classic, is the superbly told, tragic story of a Cuban fisherman in the Gulf Stream and the giant Marlin he kills and loses—specifically referred to in the citation accompanying the author's Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.]]> 96 Ernest Hemingway 0684830493 Jasper 4 3.81 1952 The Old Man and the Sea
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Jasper
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1952
rating: 4
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]]> A Christmas Carol 5326
Introduction and Afterword by Joe Wheeler
To bitter, miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, Christmas is just another day. But all that changes when the ghost of his long-dead business partner appears, warning Scrooge to change his ways before it's too late.

Part of the Focus on the Family Great Stories collection, this abridged edition features an in-depth introduction and discussion questions by Joe Wheeler to provide greater understanding for today's reader. "A Christmas Carol" captures the heart of the holidays like no other novel.]]> 184 Charles Dickens 1561797464 Jasper 5 4.06 1843 A Christmas Carol
author: Charles Dickens
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1843
rating: 5
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]]> The Power of Myth 35519 293 Joseph Campbell 0385418868 Jasper 0 to-read, writing-stories 4.26 1988 The Power of Myth
author: Joseph Campbell
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hero With a Thousand Faces]]> 588138
Myth, according to Campbell, is the projection of a culture's dreams onto a large screen; Campbell's book, like Star Wars, the film it helped inspire, is an exploration of the big-picture moments from the stage that is our world. It is a must-have resource for both experienced students of mythology and the explorer just beginning to approach myth as a source of knowledge.]]> 416 Joseph Campbell 0691017840 Jasper 0 to-read, writing-stories 4.15 1949 The Hero With a Thousand Faces
author: Joseph Campbell
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 0
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]]> Myths to Live By 821380 Myths to Live By, Joseph Campbell explores the enduring power of the universal myths that influence our lives daily and examines the myth-making process from the primitive past to the immediate present, retuning always to the source from which all mythology springs: the creative imagination. Campbell stresses that the borders dividing the Earth have been shattered; that myths and religions have always followed the certain basic archetypes and are no longer exclusive to a single people, region, or religion. He shows how we must recognize their common denominators and allow this knowledge to be of use in fulfilling human potential everywhere.]]> 276 Joseph Campbell 0140194614 Jasper 0 to-read, writing-stories 4.16 1972 Myths to Live By
author: Joseph Campbell
name: Jasper
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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