Iulian's bookshelf: read en-US Sat, 29 Mar 2025 13:27:32 -0700 60 Iulian's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Yellowface 62047984
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 319 R.F. Kuang 000853277X Iulian 0 3.69 2023 Yellowface
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves:
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]]> The Idiot 30962053 A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself.

The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings.

At the end of the school year, Ivan goes to Budapest for the summer, and Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside, to teach English in a program run by one of Ivan's friends. On the way, she spends two weeks visiting Paris with Svetlana. Selin's summer in Europe does not resonate with anything she has previously heard about the typical experiences of American college students, or indeed of any other kinds of people. For Selin, this is a journey further inside herself: a coming to grips with the ineffable and exhilarating confusion of first love, and with the growing consciousness that she is doomed to become a writer.]]> 423 Elif Batuman 1594205612 Iulian 0 to-read 3.67 2017 The Idiot
author: Elif Batuman
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Artemis 34928122
Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.

Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.]]> 305 Andy Weir 0553448129 Iulian 4 audiobooks 3.66 2017 Artemis
author: Andy Weir
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/24
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: audiobooks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Infectious: Pathogens and How We Fight Them]]> 56897452 The human body is a marvel � but what happens when it comes under attack? A fascinating guide to why we get sick and how we get better.
Nature wants you dead.

Not just you, but your children and everyone you have ever met and everyone they have ever met; in fact, everyone. It wants you to cough and sneeze and poop yourself into an early grave. It wants your blood vessels to burst and pustules to explode all over your body. And � until recently � it was really good at doing this�

Covid-19 may be only the first of many modern pandemics. The subject of infection and how to fight it grows more urgent every day. How do pathogens cause disease? And what tools can we give our bodies to do battle?

Dr John S. Tregoning has dedicated his career to answering these questions. Infectious uncovers fascinating success stories in immunology and virology, making this book not only a vital overview of infection, but also a hopeful story of ongoing human ingenuity.]]> 384 John S. Tregoning 0861541227 Iulian 0 to-read 4.14 Infectious: Pathogens and How We Fight Them
author: John S. Tregoning
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Live Forever?: A Curious Scientist's Guide to Wellness, Ageing and Death]]> 214151194 Time wants you dead. Not just you, but your friends, family, pets � everyone you’ve ever met�

'A beautifully written book about life and busts myths, explores the stories of science and history, and ultimately is rich and uplifting.' Dr Adam Rutherford

With over 17,000 known diseases affecting humans, and countless poisons, carcinogens and toxins in our environment, it’s a miracle that our bodies manage to keep us alive. And that is, of course, if they don’t betray us themselves, whether through cancers or autoimmune conditions.

Biomedical researcher Professor John Tregoning tells the unlikely story of how, against all odds, we manage to stay alive. Taking an organ-by-organ tour of the human body, Tregoning embarks on his own experimental quest, testing 'life-extending' diets and exercise regimes to separate fact from fad. Exploring the multitude of ways our bodies can kill us, from inherited genetic conditions, through heart attacks, arrythmias and angina, onto the delicate workings of the brain, Live Forever? offers compelling insight into how our bodies work, how we can best look after them � and ultimately live longer, healthier lives.

***

'I heartily recommend this deep dive into wellness... It turns out that none of us are getting out of here alive, but John has bravely put his mind and body on the line to discover the secrets of staying healthy and happy as we get older. A funny, fascinating and educative book.' Ben Willbond, co-creator of Ghosts

'The idea that a book about death and dying could be a delightful read seems ridiculous, and yet John Tregoning has pulled off this trick with humour, flair and elegance.' Nessa Carey, author of The Epigenetics Revolution

'An enjoyable and entertaining mixture of scientific facts about ageing and completely unscientific self-experimentation... recognizing that although none of us will live forever, there are ways we can improve our chances of living well while we are still around.' Dame Sarah Gilbert]]> 432 John S. Tregoning 0861549384 Iulian 0 to-read 3.81 Live Forever?: A Curious Scientist's Guide to Wellness, Ageing and Death
author: John S. Tregoning
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.81
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Elefantul care nu respecta nimic (Poveștile bufniței #3)]]> 202334249

La mijloc de drum între literatură și filozofie, minunatele cărți din seria „Poveștile bufniței� sunt grăunțe de înțelepciune atent distilate de Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt pentru a le explica celor mai tineri cititori concepte-cheie precum curajul, libertatea, respectul, și pentru a-i ajuta să crească frumos.]]> 32 Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt 9735080826 Iulian 5 4.56 2022 Elefantul care nu respecta nimic (Poveștile bufniței #3)
author: Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire]]> 199348906 Andrew Wilkinson, touted as the Warren Buffett of tech, pulls back the curtain on the lives of the ultra-rich in this memoir outlining Wilkinson’s rapid rise from barista to successful entrepreneur.

Readers will get fresh insights into building a successful business and a surprising, first-person account of what it’s actually like to become a billionaire.

By the age of thirty-five, Andrew Wilkinson had built a business worth over a billion dollars, but his path to success was anything but a straight line. Never Enough shares both the lessons Wilkinson has learned as well as the many mistakes made on the road to wealth—some of which cost him money, happiness, and important relationships.

Taking a “no secrets� approach to the story billionaires rarely tell, Wilkinson is unwaveringly honest about some of the unexpected downsides of wealth. Money’s toxic effect on personal relationships, how the lifestyles of the rich and famous aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, and how competition with peers leaves everyone—even billionaires—feeling like they never have enough.

In this rare and deeply honest glimpse into the life of a billionaire, Wilkinson examines not only his journey to nine zeros but also what comes after that pinnacled number—something, as Wilkinson has come to realize, that money can’t buy.]]> 288 Andrew Wilkinson 1637744765 Iulian 0 to-read 4.35 Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire
author: Andrew Wilkinson
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.35
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)]]> 58416952 At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

The Catenan Republic � the Hierarchy � may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus � what they call Will � to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.]]> 639 James Islington 1982141190 Iulian 0 to-read 4.60 2023 The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)
author: James Islington
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> Шоколадный дедушка 36501614
В семье Сьюрсенов всё шло своим чередом, пока однажды на пороге не появился дедушка Оскар. Что же в нём такого особенного, спросите вы? А то, что с его приездом начались самые настоящие сладкие приключения! Отчего дедушку называют Шоколадным, как ему удается висеть на потолке и не падать, а также благодаря чему он смог отыскать целый грузовик конфет, украденный таинственными сестрами Паульсен, - обо всём этом и многом другом расскажет эта сказочная повесть для настоящих сластён!]]> 128 Narine Abgaryan 5926816793 Iulian 4 4.27 Шоколадный дедушка
author: Narine Abgaryan
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> How to Read a Book 62365896 A charming, deeply moving novel about second chances, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.

Our Reasons meet us in the morning and whisper to us at night. Mine is an innocent, unsuspecting, eternally sixty-one-year-old woman named Lorraine Daigle�

Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn’t yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed.

When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland—Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman—their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways.

How to Read a Book is an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living. .]]> 288 Monica Wood 0063243679 Iulian 0 to-read 4.21 2024 How to Read a Book
author: Monica Wood
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> Principles: Life and Work 34536488 Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he’s developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to create unique results in both life and business—and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals.

In 1975, Ray Dalio founded an investment firm, Bridgewater Associates, out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York City. Forty years later, Bridgewater has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history and grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States, according to Fortune magazine. Dalio himself has been named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Along the way, Dalio discovered a set of unique principles that have led to Bridgewater’s exceptionally effective culture, which he describes as “an idea meritocracy that strives to achieve meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical transparency.� It is these principles, and not anything special about Dalio—who grew up an ordinary kid in a middle-class Long Island neighborhood—that he believes are the reason behind his success.

In Principles, Dalio shares what he’s learned over the course of his remarkable career. He argues that life, management, economics, and investing can all be systemized into rules and understood like machines. The book’s hundreds of practical lessons, which are built around his cornerstones of “radical truth� and “radical transparency,� include Dalio laying out the most effective ways for individuals and organizations to make decisions, approach challenges, and build strong teams. He also describes the innovative tools the firm uses to bring an idea meritocracy to life, such as creating “baseball cards� for all employees that distill their strengths and weaknesses, and employing computerized decision-making systems to make believability-weighted decisions. While the book brims with novel ideas for organizations and institutions, Principles also offers a clear, straightforward approach to decision-making that Dalio believes anyone can apply, no matter what they’re seeking to achieve.

Here is a rare opportunity to gain proven advice unlike anything you’ll find in the conventional business press.]]> 16 Ray Dalio 1508243247 Iulian 0 4.09 2017 Principles: Life and Work
author: Ray Dalio
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2018/03/11
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: non-fiction, currently-reading
review:

]]> James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Iulian 4 fiction 4.46 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why We Eat (Too Much): The New Science of Appetite]]> 50240671 THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A PRACTICAL, ACCESSIBLE GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING THE SECRET TO LASTING WEIGHT LOSS AND HOW YOU CAN GET IN SHAPE WITHOUT COUNTING CALORIES 'A compelling look at the science of appetite and metabolism' Vogue'Fascinating science' ITV _______________What we've been told about our diet has been all wrong. In fact, diet culture can actually drive up your weight in the long-term. For over two decades, weight loss surgeon Dr Andrew Jenkinson has treated thousands of people who have become trapped in the endless cycle of dieting. Combining case studies from his practice and the new science of metabolism, Why We Eat (Too Much) debunks the great myths of the body, and systematically explains why dieting is counter-productive. An unflinching book, it investigates every aspect of nutrition, 1. The difference between good and bad fats 2. 'Set weight points' that are unique to everyone3. The impact of genes and genetic mutation on our weight 4. What happens to our hormones long after a diet ends It's time to put an end to the confusion and understand our bodies better than ever before. _______________'Articulate, clear, a joy to read, this is a book that really needed written' Joanna Blythman, author of Swallow This 'Highly persuasive . . . a radical approach to weight loss' Sunday Times'Debunks the myths around dieting and weight-loss' Telegraph]]> 338 Andrew Jenkinson Iulian 0 to-read 4.35 2020 Why We Eat (Too Much): The New Science of Appetite
author: Andrew Jenkinson
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Principles: Your Guided Journal (Create Your Own Principles to Get the Work and Life You Want)]]> 60785868
“Principles are fundamental truths that serve as the foundations for behavior that gets you what you want out of life.� —Ray Dalio

In his #1 New York Times bestseller Principles , legendary investor Ray Dalio introduced millions of readers around the world to the unconventional approach he developed as the founder and builder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest and most successful hedge fund in the world. Dalio attributes his unique success to his process of recording, refining, and acting on a set of well-defined principles, which are effectively decision-rules for getting what you want out of life and work. His goal in publishing the book was to show readers the value of principle-based thinking so that they could develop their own principles, aligned with their own values, for getting whatever they wanted out of life.

With this new journal, Dalio takes his goal one step further to help readers reflect on and record their own principles. He does that by providing a series of guided exercises and questions for reflecting on what you’re like, what you value, and what principles will best help you achieve your goals. These exercises draw from key concepts in the original Principles book,

1. How to identify your strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and preferences
2. How to use the “five-step process� to achieve your goals
3. How to become both “assertive and open-minded at the same time�
4. How to maximize your learning from your mistakes (which are inevitable)

All of these exercises can optionally be enhanced using the free Principles in Action iOS and Android app (currently available in the United States, UK, Germany, Spain, and India with more countries to come), which provides an even more interactive, multimedia experience, and they are followed by a number of blank journal pages containing thought-provoking and unconventional prompts from Principles aimed at helping you formulate your own principles . The experience concludes with a structured reflection on where you and your loved ones are along life’s journey, leaving you with a highly personalized, practical playbook for achieving success in the years ahead.]]> 256 Ray Dalio 1668010194 Iulian 0 to-read 4.25 Principles: Your Guided Journal (Create Your Own Principles to Get the Work and Life You Want)
author: Ray Dalio
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail]]> 52962238
A few years ago, Ray Dalio noticed a confluence of political and economic conditions he hadn’t encountered before. They included huge debts and zero or near-zero interest rates that led to massive printing of money in the world’s three major reserve currencies; big political and social conflicts within countries, especially the US, due to the largest wealth, political, and values disparities in more than 100 years; and the rising of a world power (China) to challenge the existing world power (US) and the existing world order. The last time that this confluence occurred was between 1930 and 1945. This realization sent Dalio on a search for the repeating patterns and cause/effect relationships underlying all major changes in wealth and power over the last 500 years.

In this remarkable and timely addition to his Principles series, Dalio brings readers along for his study of the major empires—including the Dutch, the British, and the American—putting into perspective the “Big Cycle� that has driven the successes and failures of all the world’s major countries throughout history. He reveals the timeless and universal forces behind these shifts and uses them to look into the future, offering practical principles for positioning oneself for what’s ahead.]]> 576 Ray Dalio 1982160276 Iulian 0 to-read 4.26 2021 Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail
author: Ray Dalio
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]> 2956 327 Mark Twain 0142437174 Iulian 0 to-read 3.82 1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
author: Mark Twain
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1884
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
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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 Iulian 0 4.39 1946 Man’s Search for Meaning
author: Viktor E. Frankl
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1946
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: audiobooks, autobiography, psychotherapy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence]]> 55723020
In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain...and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery.

"Brilliant... riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued."--Beth Macy, author of Dopesick


INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES and LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER
“Brilliant� riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued.”—Beth Macy, author of Dopesick
As heard on Fresh Air]]> 304 Anna Lembke 1524746738 Iulian 0 to-read 3.88 2021 Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
author: Anna Lembke
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[You Didn't Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip]]> 212426504 A delightfully insightful exploration of our obsession with gossip that weaves together journalism, cultural criticism, and memoir, from the host of the massively popular Normal Gossip podcast.

Can you keep a secret? As the pandemic forced us to socialize at a distance, Kelsey McKinney was mourning the juicy updates, jaw-dropping stories, and idle chatter that she’d typically collect over drinks with friends.She realized she wasn’t the only one missing these little morsels and her hunger for this aspect of normalcy took on a life of its ownandthe blockbuster Normal Gossip podcast was born.With listenership in the millions and gossip quickly becoming her day job, Kelsey found herself with the urge to think more critically about gossip as a form, to better understand the role that it plays in our culture.

In YOU DIDN'T HEAR THIS FROM ME, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling. Why is gossip considered a sin and how can we better recognize when gossip is being weaponized against the oppressed? Why do we think we’re entitled to every detail of a celebrity’s personal life because they are a public figure? And how do we even define “gossip,� anyway? She dishes on the art of eavesdropping and dives deep into how pop culture has changed the way that we look at hearsay. But as much as the book aims to treat gossip as a subject worthy of rigor, it also hopes to capture the heart of how enchanting and fun it can be to lean over and whisper something a little salacious into your friend’s ear. With wit and honesty, McKinney unmasks what we're actually searching for when we demand to know the truth � and how much the truth really matters in the first place. ]]> 288 Kelsey McKinney 1538757400 Iulian 0 to-read 3.85 2025 You Didn't Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip
author: Kelsey McKinney
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Secret History 70897
Truly deserving of the accolade Modern Classic, Donna Tartt's cult bestseller The Secret History is a remarkable achievement - both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful.]]> 629 Donna Tartt 0140167773 Iulian 0 to-read 4.25 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night]]> 54900051
But de Gerlache’s plans to be first to the magnetic South Pole would swiftly go awry. After a series of costly setbacks, the commandant faced two bad turn back in defeat and spare his men the devastating Antarctic winter, or recklessly chase fame by sailing deeper into the freezing waters. De Gerlache sailed on, and soon the Belgica was stuck fast in the icy hold of the Bellingshausen Sea. When the sun set on the magnificent polar landscape one last time, the ship’s occupants were condemned to months of endless night. In the darkness, plagued by a mysterious illness and besieged by monotony, they descended into madness.

In Madhouse at the End of the Earth, Julian Sancton unfolds an epic story of adventure and horror for the ages. As the Belgica’s men teetered on the brink, de Gerlache relied increasingly on two young officers whose friendship had blossomed in the expedition’s lone American, Dr. Frederick Cook—half genius, half con man—whose later infamy would overshadow his brilliance on the Belgica; and the ship’s first mate, soon-to-be legendary Roald Amundsen, even in his youth the storybook picture of a sailor. Together, they would plan a last-ditch, nearly certain-to-fail escape from the ice—one that would either etch their names in history or doom them to a terrible fate at the ocean’s bottom.

Drawing on the diaries and journals of the Belgica’s crew and with exclusive access to the ship’s logbook, Sancton brings novelistic flair to a story of human extremes, one so remarkable that even today NASA studies it for research on isolation for future missions to Mars. Equal parts maritime thriller and gothic horror, Madhouse at the End of the Earth is an unforgettable journey into the deep.]]> 354 Julian Sancton 1984824333 Iulian 0 to-read 4.24 2021 Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night
author: Julian Sancton
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product]]> 22221112
You and your team will learn that user stories aren't a way to write better specifications, but a way to organize and have better conversations. This book will help you understand what kinds of conversations you should be having, when to have them, and what to keep track of when you do. Learn the key concepts used to create a great story map. Understand how user stories really work, and how to make good use of them in agile and lean projects. Examine the nuts and bolts of managing stories through the development cycle. Use strategies that help you continue to learn before and after the product's release to customers and users

User Story Mapping is ideal for agile and lean software development team members, product managers and UX practitioners in commercial product companies, and business analysts and project managers in IT organizations—whether you're new to this approach or want to understand more about it.]]> 324 Jeff Patton 1491904909 Iulian 0 to-read 4.18 2012 User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product
author: Jeff Patton
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Mândrie și prejudecată 51938468 512 Jane Austen 6063336435 Iulian 4 classics, fiction 4.42 1813 Mândrie și prejudecată
author: Jane Austen
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1813
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: classics, fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action]]> 7108725 Why do you do what you do?

Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over?

People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers might have little in common, but they all started with why. It was their natural ability to start with why that enabled them to inspire those around them and to achieve remarkable things.

In studying the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that they all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way—and it's the complete opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be lead, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.

Any organization can explain what it does; some can explain how they do it; but very few can clearly articulate why. WHY is not money or profit—those are always results. WHY does your organization exist? WHY does it do the things it does? WHY do customers really buy from one company or another? WHY are people loyal to some leaders, but not others?

Starting with WHY works in big business and small business, in the nonprofit world and in politics. Those who start with WHY never manipulate, they inspire. And the people who follow them don't do so because they have to; they follow because they want to.

Drawing on a wide range of real-life stories, Sinek weaves together a clear vision of what it truly takes to lead and inspire. This book is for anyone who wants to inspire others or who wants to find someone to inspire them.]]> 256 Simon Sinek 1591842808 Iulian 0 to-read 4.10 2009 Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
author: Simon Sinek
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2009
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]]> <![CDATA[Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World]]> 40672036
In this timely and enlightening book, the bestselling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives.

Digital minimalists are all around us. They're the calm, happy people who can hold long conversations without furtive glances at their phones. They can get lost in a good book, a woodworking project, or a leisurely morning run. They can have fun with friends and family without the obsessive urge to document the experience. They stay informed about the news of the day, but don't feel overwhelmed by it. They don't experience "fear of missing out" because they already know which activities provide them meaning and satisfaction.

Now, Newport gives us a name for this quiet movement, and makes a persuasive case for its urgency in our tech-saturated world. Common sense tips, like turning off notifications, or occasional rituals like observing a digital sabbath, don't go far enough in helping us take back control of our technological lives, and attempts to unplug completely are complicated by the demands of family, friends and work. What we need instead is a thoughtful method to decide what tools to use, for what purposes, and under what conditions.

Drawing on a diverse array of real-life examples, from Amish farmers to harried parents to Silicon Valley programmers, Newport identifies the common practices of digital minimalists and the ideas that underpin them. He shows how digital minimalists are rethinking their relationship to social media, rediscovering the pleasures of the offline world, and reconnecting with their inner selves through regular periods of solitude. He then shares strategies for integrating these practices into your life, starting with a thirty-day "digital declutter" process that has already helped thousands feel less overwhelmed and more in control.

Technology is intrinsically neither good nor bad. The key is using it to support your goals and values, rather than letting it use you. This book shows the way.]]> 302 Cal Newport 052553654X Iulian 0 kindle, to-read 4.06 2019 Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
author: Cal Newport
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
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]]> Infinite Jest 6759
Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.

Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human—and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.]]> 1088 David Foster Wallace Iulian 0 to-read 4.26 1996 Infinite Jest
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.26
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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,� 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 Iulian 0 to-read 3.99 2006 The Road
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
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]]> A House of Mr Biswas 81351424 Dinesh Rajput 8191005816 Iulian 0 to-read 3.33 1961 A House of Mr Biswas
author: Dinesh Rajput
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1961
rating: 0
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]]> The Iliad 77265004 848 Homer 1324001801 Iulian 0 to-read 4.09 -800 The Iliad
author: Homer
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.09
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]]> The Odyssey 1381 Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

So begins Robert Fagles' magnificent translation of the Odyssey.

If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey though life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.

In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.

Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' translation.

This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students.

--

Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, presents us with Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning new modern-verse translation.]]> 541 Homer 0143039954 Iulian 0 to-read 3.79 -700 The Odyssey
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name: Iulian
average rating: 3.79
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]]> Jane Eyre 10210 Alternate editions can be found here and here.

A gothic masterpiece of tempestuous passions and dark secrets, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis in Penguin Classics.

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.]]> 532 Charlotte Brontë 0142437204 Iulian 0 to-read 4.14 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1847
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]]> Wuthering Heights 32929156 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Emily Brontë's only novel, a work of tremendous and far-reaching influence, the Penguin Classics edition of Wuthering Heights is the definitive edition of the text, edited with an introduction by Pauline Nestor. Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before; of the intense relationship between the gypsy foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw; and how Catherine, forced to choose between passionate, tortured Heathcliff and gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton, surrendered to the expectations of her class. As Heathcliff's bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.]]> 359 Emily Brontë 0141439556 Iulian 0 to-read 4.04 1847 Wuthering Heights
author: Emily Brontë
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1847
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]]> A fost doar ciumă 57598184
Un cercetător care lucrează la crearea unui vaccin împotriva ciumei se infectează accidental, fără să-și dea seama. În aceeași zi, este chemat la Moscova, pentru a-și prezenta rezultatele. Încep să apară simptomele, autoritățile se pun în mișcare pentru a depista toate persoanele cu care a fost în contact și a le izola, și de aici începe un tăvălug care amintește de introspecția, căldura și umorul din scrierile lui Bulgakov sau Gogol.]]> 120 Lyudmila Ulitskaya 6067797860 Iulian 0 to-read 3.52 2020 A fost doar ciumă
author: Lyudmila Ulitskaya
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals]]> 54785515 The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.

Nobody needs to be told there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and ceaseless battle against distraction; we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient and life hacks to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern obsession with “getting everything done,� Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing that many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.]]> 271 Oliver Burkeman 0374159122 Iulian 0 to-read 4.20 2021 Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
author: Oliver Burkeman
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
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]]> <![CDATA[What the Body Knows: A Guide to the New Science of Our Immune System]]> 210129433 A leading scientist’s guide to the way our immune system protects us—but only most of the time

What is our immune system, and how does it work? A vast array of cells, proteins and chemicals spring into action whenever our bodies are damaged, but immunity is not something you can see, touch or feel. It can fight off malicious bacteria and viruses, locate cancerous growths, and even re-wire our brains � but sometimes our own tissues can get caught in its crossfire, with catastrophic consequences.

Humans may be the most disease-ridden animals on the planet. Professor John Trowsdale shows how the immune system protects us, and how our bodies invest huge resources to keep it running. Immunity influences how we age, and controls how we learn to fight off recurring diseases, and how our bodies respond to chronic conditions such as heart disease and dementia. But, in the case of allergies and autoimmune conditions, it can also easily get things wrong.

What the Body Knows is a hugely readable account of a fascinating phenomenon—one which, for good or for ill, impacts every aspect of our lives.
]]> 400 John Trowsdale 0300277059 Iulian 0 to-read 4.17 What the Body Knows: A Guide to the New Science of Our Immune System
author: John Trowsdale
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]]> <![CDATA[Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts]]> 205363955 Meditations for Mortals takes us on a liberating journey towards a more meaningful life � one that begins not with fantasies of the ideal existence, but with the reality in which we actually find ourselves.

Addressing the fundamental questions about how to live, it offers a powerful new way to take action on what counts: a guiding philosophy of life Oliver Burkeman calls ‘imperfectionism�. How can we embrace our non-negotiable limitations? Or make good decisions when there’s always too much to do? What if purposeful productivity were often about letting things happen, not making them happen?

Reflecting on ideas drawn from philosophy, religion, literature, psychology, and self-help, Burkeman explores practical tools and shifts in perspective. The result is a bracing challenge to much familiar advice, and a profound yet entertaining crash course in living more fully.

To be read either as a four-week ‘retreat of the mind� or devoured in one or two sittings, Meditations for Mortals will be a source of solace and inspiration, and an aid to a saner, freer, and more enchantment-filled life. In anxiety-inducing times, it is rich in truths we have never needed more.]]> 208 Oliver Burkeman 0374611998 Iulian 0 to-read 4.26 2024 Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts
author: Oliver Burkeman
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
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]]> <![CDATA[A Brief History of Japan: Samurai, Shogun and Zen: The Extraordinary Story of the Land of the Rising Sun]]> 34083601 This fascinating history tells the story of the people of Japan, from ancient teenage priest-queens to teeming hordes of salarymen, a nation that once sought to conquer China, yet also shut itself away for two centuries in self-imposed seclusion.

First revealed to Westerners in the chronicles of Marco Polo, Japan was a legendary faraway land defended by a fearsome Kamikaze storm and ruled by a divine sovereign. It was the terminus of the Silk Road, the furthest end of the known world, a fertile source of inspiration for European artists, and an enduring symbol of the mysterious East. In recent times, it has become a powerhouse of global industry, a nexus of popular culture, and a harbinger of postindustrial decline.

With intelligence and wit, author Jonathan Clements blends documentary and storytelling styles to connect the past, present and future of Japan, and in broad yet detailed strokes reveals a country of paradoxes: a modern nation steeped in ancient traditions; a democracy with an emperor as head of state; a famously safe society built on 108 volcanoes resting on the world's most active earthquake zone; a fast-paced urban and technologically advanced country whose land consists predominantly of mountains and forests.

Among the chapters in this Japanese history book are:
� The Way of the Gods: Prehistoric and Mythical Japan
� A Game of Thrones: Minamoto vs. Taira
� Time Warp: 200 Years of Isolation
� The Stench of Butter: Restoration and Modernization
� The New Breed: The Japanese Miracle]]> 304 Jonathan Clements 4805313897 Iulian 0 to-read, audiobooks 3.72 2017 A Brief History of Japan: Samurai, Shogun and Zen: The Extraordinary Story of the Land of the Rising Sun
author: Jonathan Clements
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2017
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]]> <![CDATA[Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life]]> 44595007
What would be possible if you followed through on your best intentions? What could you accomplish if you could stay focused and overcome distractions? What if you had the power to become "indistractable"?

International best-selling author, former Stanford lecturer, and behavioral design expert, Nir Eyal, wrote Silicon Valley's handbook for making technology habit-forming. Five years after publishing Hooked, Eyal reveals distraction's Achilles' heel in his groundbreaking new book.

In Indistractable, Eyal reveals the hidden psychology driving us to distraction. He describes why solving the problem is not as simple as swearing off our devices: Abstinence is impractical and often makes us want more.

Eyal lays bare the secret of finally doing what you say you will do with a four-step, research-backed model. Indistractable reveals the key to getting the best out of technology, without letting it get the best of us.

Inside, Eyal overturns conventional wisdom and reveals:


Why distraction at work is a symptom of a dysfunctional company culture - and how to fix it
What really drives human behavior and why "time management is pain management"
Why your relationships (and your sex life) depend on you becoming indistractable
How to raise indistractable children in an increasingly distracting world
Empowering and optimistic, Indistractable provides practical, novel techniques to control your time and attention - helping you live the life you really want.]]> 290 Nir Eyal 194883653X Iulian 0 audiobooks, currently-reading 3.71 2019 Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life
author: Nir Eyal
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2019
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]]> <![CDATA[Into the Woods: A Five Act Journey Into Story]]> 17593915 We all love stories. Many of us love to tell them, and even dream of making a living from it too. But what is a story? Hundreds of books about screenwriting and storytelling have been written, but none of them ask 'Why?' Why do we tell stories? And why do all stories function in an eerily similar way?
John Yorke has been telling stories almost his entire adult life, and the more he has done it, the more he has asked himself why? Every great thinker or writer has their theories: Aristotle, David Hare, Lajos Egri, Robert McKee, Gustav Freytag, David Mamet, Christopher Booker, Charlie Kaufman, William Goldman and Aaron Sorkin - all have offered insightful and illuminating answers. Here, John Yorke draws on these figures and more as he takes us on a historical, philosophical, scientific and psychological journey to the heart of all storytelling.
What he reveals is that there truly is a unifying shape to narrative - one that echoes the great fairytale journey into the woods, and one, like any great art, that comes from deep within. Much more than a 'how to write' book, Into the Woods is an exploration of this fundamental structure underneath all narrative forms, from film and television to theatre and novel-writing. With astonishing detail and wisdom, John Yorke explains to us a phenomenon that, whether it is as a simple fable, or a big-budget 3D blockbuster, most of us experience almost every day of our lives.]]> 256 John Yorke 1846146437 Iulian 0 currently-reading 4.19 2013 Into the Woods: A Five Act Journey Into Story
author: John Yorke
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2013
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]]> <![CDATA[Viața e mai dreaptă decât moartea]]> 220544072 Aici, oamenii încă mai pun carne la garniţă, adună fructele, coc pâine și ţes covoare, dar viaţa fiecăruia se împarte în „înainte� și „după�. Aproape fiecare dintre ei a pierdut pe cineva drag. Dar învață să trăiască mai departe și sunt încredinţaţi că, atâta timp cât mai ai un strop de putere, trebuie să-i ajuţi pe cei aflaţi în impas. Uneori, chiar pe un inamic. Astăzi, orașul e același � cu ninsori în februarie și aromă de miere pe câmpurile din împrejurimi în septembrie, cu bătrâni buni la suflet și încăpăţânaţi. Numai viaţa e altfel.]]> 264 Narine Abgaryan 6060974791 Iulian 0 to-read 4.31 2018 Viața e mai dreaptă decât moartea
author: Narine Abgaryan
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels]]> 15824358 The First 90 Days has become the bestselling globally acknowledged bible of leadership and career transitions. In this updated and expanded 10th anniversary edition, internationally known leadership transition expert Michael D. Watkins gives you the keys to successfully negotiating your next move—whether you’re onboarding into a new company, being promoted internally, or embarking on an international assignment.

In The First 90 Days, Watkins outlines proven strategies that will dramatically shorten the time it takes to reach what he calls the "breakeven point" when your organization needs you as much as you need the job. This new edition includes a substantial new preface by the author on the new definition of a career as a series of transitions; and notes the growing need for effective and repeatable skills for moving through these changes. As well, updated statistics and new tools make this book more reader-friendly and useful than ever.

As hundreds of thousands of readers already know, The First 90 Days is a road map for taking charge quickly and effectively during critical career transition periods—whether you are a first-time manager, a mid-career professional on your way up, or a newly minted CEO.]]> 304 Michael D. Watkins 1422188612 Iulian 0 to-read 3.84 2003 The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels
author: Michael D. Watkins
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self]]> 50997029
Now, Dr. LePera is ready to share her much-requested protocol with the world. In How to Do the Work, she offers both a manifesto for SelfHealing as well as an essential guide to creating a more vibrant, authentic, and joyful life. Drawing on the latest research from a diversity of scientific fields and healing modalities, Dr. LePera helps us recognize how adverse experiences and trauma in childhood live with us, resulting in whole body dysfunction—activating harmful stress responses that keep us stuck engaging in patterns of codependency, emotional immaturity, and trauma bonds. Unless addressed, these self-sabotaging behaviors can quickly become cyclical, leaving people feeling unhappy, unfulfilled, and unwell.]]> 320 Nicole LePera 0063012103 Iulian 0 to-read 4.11 2021 How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self
author: Nicole LePera
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
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]]> The Reader 101299
When he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover—then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.]]> 216 Bernhard Schlink 0375408266 Iulian 0 to-read 3.78 1995 The Reader
author: Bernhard Schlink
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Chipuri ale răului în lumea de astăzi. Ficţiunea ca necesitate vitală: Mario Vargas Llosa în dialog cu Gabriel Liiceanu]]> 221529858
„Ce m-a tulburat cu adevărat pe parcursul dialogurilor mele cu Mario Vargas Llosa a fost gândul că aveam în față pe unul dintre semizeii tradiționali pe care îi numeam «clasici». Straniu era să descopăr că un asemenea personaj, făcut pe alt tipar decât al nostru, putea să aibă calitatea cu totul nedivină de a fi contemporanul meu. Putea fi zărit la o adică undeva, pe o stradă din Paris sau Londra, asemeni unui Cervantes sau Tolstoi rătăciți în secolul meu, deposedați de rama temporală a geniului și speriindu-mă asemeni unei năluci care schimbase dimensiunea lui illo tempore cu aceea profană a timpului meu... și, apoi, Vargas Llosa sosise pe neașteptate, părând că se întruchipase din însăși neliniștea primei mele lecturi. Apariția lui avea ceva din frumusețea unui dieu en crépuscule...� � GABRIEL LIICEANU]]> 120 Mario Vargas Llosa 6060974953 Iulian 0 to-read, politics 3.92 2006 Chipuri ale răului în lumea de astăzi. Ficţiunea ca necesitate vitală: Mario Vargas Llosa în dialog cu Gabriel Liiceanu
author: Mario Vargas Llosa
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Ce vrem de la președintele țării? : Ghid civic pentru alegătorii români]]> 214035041 120 Cristian Preda 9735084716 Iulian 3 politics 3.92 Ce vrem de la președintele țării? : Ghid civic pentru alegătorii români
author: Cristian Preda
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: politics
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]]> <![CDATA[The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business]]> 12609433
Marketers at Procter & Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern—and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year.

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

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

They succeeded by transforming habits.

In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.

Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.

At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.

Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.]]> 375 Charles Duhigg 1400069289 Iulian 0 to-read 4.13 2012 The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
author: Charles Duhigg
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
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]]> Thinking, Fast and Slow 11468377 Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.

Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will transform the way you think about thinking.]]> 499 Daniel Kahneman 0374275637 Iulian 0 to-read 4.17 2011 Thinking, Fast and Slow
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]]> <![CDATA[The Purpose Factor: Extreme Clarity for Why You're Here and What to Do About It]]> 52854178 The Purpose Factor is the clearest, most actionable process ever developed for discovering purpose--period.

YOU WANT CLARITY. You are tired of wondering, "What's next?" You want to know if you are making the right decision. You are ready for fewer distractions, more direction, and a clear idea of where you want to go.

AND YOU WANT IT NOW. You would take the initiative, if you only knew what steps to take. You don't want life to happen to you. You are ready for life to start happening because of you.

PURPOSE IS THE FACTOR. In The Purpose Factor , you will discover the most practical and effective process ever developed for finding and living out your purpose. Purpose is the single difference between simply existing and really living. It is what separates the successful from the standard, divides the top earners from the just-get-byers, and determines whether a company will grow and thrive or just barely survive. Your purpose will unlock the secret to living a meaningful life, building a successful career, and making a difference in the world. Knowing your purpose will determine how well you do and how far you go.]]> 304 Brian Bosché 1642934933 Iulian 0 to-read 3.78 The Purpose Factor: Extreme Clarity for Why You're Here and What to Do About It
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]]> <![CDATA[Digital Kids: How to Balance Screen Time, and Why it Matters]]> 29980764

Martin L. Kutscher, MD analyses neurological, psychological and educational research and draws on his own experience to show when Internet use stops being a good thing and starts to become excessive. He shows how to spot digital addictions, and offers whole family approaches for limiting the harmful effects of too much screen time, such as helping kids to learn to control their own Internet use. He tackles diverse questions ranging from the effects of laptops in the classroom and reading on a digital screen, to whether violent videogames lead to aggression. The author also explains how ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can make you more susceptible to Internet addiction, suggesting practical strategies to suit these specific needs. Discussing both the good and bad aspects of the internet, this book tells you everything you need to know to help children and young people use the internet in a healthy, balanced way.]]> 128 Martin L. Kutscher 1784502960 Iulian 0 to-read 3.23 Digital Kids: How to Balance Screen Time, and Why it Matters
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]]> <![CDATA[Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art]]> 48890486
There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.

Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren't found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of Sao Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe.

Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is.

Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.]]> 280 James Nestor 0735213615 Iulian 0 to-read 4.13 2020 Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
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]]> 10% Happier 18505796
Eventually Harris stumbled upon an effective way to rein in that voice, something he always assumed to be either impossible or useless: meditation, a tool that research suggests can do everything from lower your blood pressure to essentially rewire your brain. "10% Happier" takes readers on a ride from the outer reaches of neuroscience to the inner sanctum of network news to the bizarre fringes of America's spiritual scene, and leaves them with a takeaway that could actually change their lives.]]> 256 Dan Harris 0062265423 Iulian 0 to-read 3.87 2014 10% Happier
author: Dan Harris
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average rating: 3.87
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]]> <![CDATA[Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us]]> 56898187 A look at what power is, who gets it, and what happens when they do, based on over 500 interviews with those who (temporarily, at least) have had the upper hand—from the creator of the Power Corrupts podcast and Washington Post columnist Brian Klaas.

Does power corrupt, or are corrupt people drawn to power? Are tyrants made or born? Are entrepreneurs who embezzle and cops who kill the result of poorly designed systems or are they just bad people? If you were suddenly thrust into a position of power, would you be able to resist the temptation to line your pockets or seek revenge against your enemies?

To answer these questions, Corruptible draws on over 500 interviews with some of the world’s top leaders—from the noblest to the dirtiest—including presidents and philanthropists as well as rebels, cultists, and dictators. Some of the fascinating insights include: how facial appearance determines who we pick as leaders, why narcissists make more money, why some people don’t want power at all and others are drawn to it out of a psychopathic impulse, and why being the “beta� (second in command) may actually be the optimal place for health and well-being.

Corruptible also features a wealth of counterintuitive examples from history and social science: you’ll meet the worst bioterrorist in American history, hit the slopes with a ski instructor who once ruled Iraq, and learn why the inability of chimpanzees to play baseball is central to the development of human hierarchies.
]]> 320 Brian Klaas 1982154098 Iulian 0 to-read 4.17 2021 Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us
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]]> <![CDATA[She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity]]> 36391536
She Has Her Mother's Laugh presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities. . . .

But, Zimmer writes, "Each of us carries an amalgam of fragments of DNA, stitched together from some of our many ancestors. Each piece has its own ancestry, traveling a different path back through human history. A particular fragment may sometimes be cause for worry, but most of our DNA influences who we are--our appearance, our height, our penchants--in inconceivably subtle ways." Heredity isn't just about genes that pass from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies. We say we inherit genes from our ancestors--using a word that once referred to kingdoms and estates--but we inherit other things that matter as much or more to our lives, from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer's lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it.

Weaving historical and current scientific research, his own experience with his two daughters, and the kind of original reporting expected of one of the world's best science journalists, Zimmer ultimately unpacks urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies, but also long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations.]]> 657 Carl Zimmer 1101984597 Iulian 0 to-read 4.15 2018 She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity
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name: Iulian
average rating: 4.15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy]]> 60372348 An insider account of activists, politicians, educators, and everyday citizens working to change minds, bridge divisions, and save democracy

The lifeblood of any free society is persuasion: changing other people's minds to enable real change. But America is suffering a crisis of faith in persuasion that is putting its democracy and the planet itself at risk. Americans increasingly write each other off instead of seeking to win each other over. Debates are framed in moralistic terms, with enemies battling the righteous. Movements for justice build barriers to entry, instead of on-ramps. Political parties focus on mobilizing the faithful rather than wooing the skeptical. And leaders who seek to forge coalition are labeled sellouts.

In Persuasion Anand Giridharadas takes us inside these movements and battles, seeking out the dissenters who continue to champion persuasion in an age of polarization. We meet a co-founder of Black Lives Matter; a leader of the feminist resistance to Trumpism; white parents at a seminar on raising adopted children of color; Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; a team of door knockers with an uncanny formula for changing minds on immigration; an ex-cult member turned QAnon deprogrammer; and, hovering menacingly offstage, Russian operatives clandestinely stoking Americans' fatalism about each other. As the book's subjects grapple with how to "call out" threats and injustices while "calling in" those who don't agree with them but just might one day, they point a way to healing, and changing, a broken country.]]> 352 Anand Giridharadas 0593318994 Iulian 0 to-read 4.08 2022 The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy
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]]> <![CDATA[The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don't]]> 13588394
Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the "prediction paradox": The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future.

In keeping with his own aim to seek truth from data, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He explains and evaluates how these forecasters think and what bonds they share. What lies behind their success? Are they good-or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really right? He explores unanticipated commonalities and exposes unexpected juxtapositions. And sometimes, it is not so much how good a prediction is in an absolute sense that matters but how good it is relative to the competition. In other cases, prediction is still a very rudimentary-and dangerous-science.

Silver observes that the most accurate forecasters tend to have a superior command of probability, and they tend to be both humble and hardworking. They distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable, and they notice a thousand little details that lead them closer to the truth. Because of their appreciation of probability, they can distinguish the signal from the noise.]]> 544 Nate Silver 159420411X Iulian 0 to-read 3.95 2012 The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don't
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]]> <![CDATA[Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking]]> 58154664
You make hundreds of decisions every day, from what to eat for breakfast to how you should invest, and not one of those decisions would be possible without emotion. It has long been said that thinking and feeling are separate and opposing forces in our behavior. But as Leonard Mlodinow, the best-selling author of Subliminal, tells us, extraordinary advances in psychology and neuroscience have proven that emotions are as critical to our well-being as thinking.

How can you connect better with others? How can you make sense of your frustration, fear, and anxiety? What can you do to live a happier life? The answers lie in understanding your emotions. Journeying from the labs of pioneering scientists to real-world scenarios that have flirted with disaster, Mlodinow shows us how our emotions can help, why they sometimes hurt, and what we can learn in both instances.

Using deep insights into our evolution and biology, Mlodinow gives us the tools to understand our emotions better and to maximize their benefits. Told with his characteristic clarity and fascinating stories, Emotional explores the new science of feelings and offers us an essential guide to making the most of one of nature’s greatest gifts.]]> 272 Leonard Mlodinow 1524747599 Iulian 0 to-read 3.80 2022 Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking
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]]> <![CDATA[Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture]]> 134119018 A history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself.

From trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and exposed brick of Internet cafes, be it in Nairobi or Portland, and the skeletal, modern furniture of Airbnbs in cities big and small. Over the last decade, this network of mathematically determined decisions has taken over, almost unnoticed—informing the songs we listen to, the friends with whom we stay in touch—as we’ve grown increasingly accustomed to our insipid new normal.

This ever-tightening web woven by algorithms is called “Filterworld.� Kyle Chayka shows us how online and offline spaces alike have been engineered for seamless consumption, becoming a source of pervasive anxiety in the process. Users of technology have been forced to contend with data-driven equations that try to anticipate their desires—and often get them wrong. What results is a state of docility that allows tech companies to curtail human experiences—human lives—for profit. But to have our tastes, behaviors, and emotions governed by computers, while convenient, does nothing short of call the very notion of free will into question.

In Filterworld, Chayka traces this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrates the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. With algorithms increasingly influencing not just what culture we consume, but what culture is produced, urgent questions What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativity—the qualities that make us human? What does it mean to make a choice when the options have been so carefully arranged for us? Is personal freedom possible on the Internet?

To the last question, Filterworld argues yes—but to escape Filterworld, and even transcend it, we must first understand it.]]> 290 Kyle Chayka Iulian 0 to-read 3.66 2024 Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture
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]]> Cartea gâștei 213712609
După publicare, în 2022, a fost considerată cartea anului de către The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Los Angeles Review of Books, Financial Times, Buzzfeed.

Un Saint-Rémy răscolit de război dă la iveală o prietenie remarcabilă între două tinere fete: Fabienne și Agnès, două jumătăți ale aceleiași portocale. Împreună pun la cale păcăleala secolului în lumea literară, o aventură care va separa cele două destine printr-un salt spectaculos în mijlocul faimei, mai întâi la Paris, apoi într-un pension englezesc de fete. Morala lui Yiyun Li din acest roman este tulburătoare, iar construcția universului în care ne invită este magistrală.]]> 328 Yiyun Li 6060974074 Iulian 0 to-read 3.55 2022 Cartea gâștei
author: Yiyun Li
name: Iulian
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]]> <![CDATA[Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers]]> 41436213
In 2014, the world witnessed the start of an escalating series of cyberattacks. Targeting American utility companies, NATO, and electric grids in Eastern Europe, the strikes became ever more brazen, eventually leading to the first-ever blackouts triggered by hackers. They culminated in the summer of 2017 when malware known as NotPetya was unleashed, compromising, disrupting, and paralyzing some of the world's largest companies. At the attack's epicenter in Ukraine, ATMs froze. The railway and postal systems shut down. NotPetya spread around the world, inflicting an unprecedented ten billions of dollars in damage--the largest, most penetrating cyberattack the world had ever seen.

The hackers behind these attacks are quickly gaining a reputation as the most dangerous team of cyberwarriors in the internet's history: Sandworm. Believed to be working in the service of Russia's military intelligence agency, they represent a persistent, highly skilled, state-sponsored hacking force, one whose talents are matched by their willingness to launch broad, unrestrained attacks on the most critical infrastructure of their adversaries. They target government and private sector, military and civilians alike.

From WIRED senior writer Andy Greenberg comes Sandworm, the true story of the desperate hunt to identify and track those attackers. It considers the danger this force poses to our national stability and security. And as the Kremlin's role in manipulating foreign governments and sparking chaos globally comes into greater focus, Sandworm reveals the realities not just of Russia's global digital offensive, but of an era where warfare ceases to be waged on the battlefield--where the line between digital and physical conflict begins to blur, with world-shaking implications.]]> 368 Andy Greenberg 0385544413 Iulian 0 to-read 4.36 2019 Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers
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]]> <![CDATA[Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential]]> 59660671 “One of my favorite books of the year. It completely reshaped how I think about information and how and why I take notes.� —Daniel Pink, bestselling author of Drive

A revolutionary approach to enhancing productivity, creating flow, and vastly increasing your ability to capture, remember, and benefit from the unprecedented amount of information all around us.

For the first time in history, we have instantaneous access to the world’s knowledge. There has never been a better time to learn, to contribute, and to improve ourselves. Yet, rather than feeling empowered, we are often left feeling overwhelmed by this constant influx of information. The very knowledge that was supposed to set us free has instead led to the paralyzing stress of believing we’ll never know or remember enough.

Now, this eye-opening and accessible guide shows how you can easily create your own personal system for knowledge management, otherwise known as a Second Brain. As a trusted and organized digital repository of your most valued ideas, notes, and creative work synced across all your devices and platforms, a Second Brain gives you the confidence to tackle your most important projects and ambitious goals.

Discover the full potential of your ideas and translate what you know into more powerful, more meaningful improvements in your work and life by Building a Second Brain.]]> 269 Tiago Forte 1982167408 Iulian 0 to-read 4.30 2022 Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential
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average rating: 4.30
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]]> <![CDATA[Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It]]> 45166937 204 April Dunford 1999023013 Iulian 0 to-read 4.26 Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It
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]]> <![CDATA[The PARA Method: Simplify, Organize, and Master Your Digital Life]]> 134634583 This accessible guide expands upon the “well-written, cogent, and useful� (David Allen, author of Getting Things Done) bestselling Building a Second Brain with actionable advice on how to improve your digital life in just a few minutes.

Living a modern life requires juggling a ton of information. But we were never taught how to manage this information effectively so that we can find what we need when we need it. In The PARA Method, Tiago Forte outlines a simple and intuitive four-step system that will help us sort all the information flooding our brains into four major categories—Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives—allowing us to manage our commitments while achieving our goals and dreams.

-Projects are specific, short-term efforts that you are actively working on with a certain goal in mind, such as completing a website or renovating your bathroom.
-Areas are the larger, ongoing areas of responsibility (health, finances, etc.) that encompass those specific projects.
-Resources include content on a range of topics you’re interested in or that could be useful for your projects and areas.
-Archives include anything from the previous three categories that is now inactive, but you want to save for future reference.

With his easy-to-understand and engaging voice, Forte outlines his best practices and tips on how to successfully implement PARA, along with deep dives on everything from how to adopt habits to stay organized to how to use this system to enhance your focus. The PARA Method can be implemented in just seconds but has the power to transform the trajectory of your work and life using the power of digital organization.]]> 203 Tiago Forte 1668045575 Iulian 0 to-read 4.09 The PARA Method: Simplify, Organize, and Master Your Digital Life
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]]> <![CDATA[The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich]]> 18951183 Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan - there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, this book is the blueprint.



This step-by step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:



* How Tim went from $40,000 dollars per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per MONTH and 4 hours per week * 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 frequent 'mini-retirements'.



This new updated and expanded edition includes:



More than 50 practical tips and case studies from readers (including families) who have doubled their income, overcome common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the original book as a starting point * Real-world templates you can copy for eliminating email, negotiating with bosses and clients, or getting a private chef for less than £5 a meal * How lifestyle design principles can be suited to unpredictable economic times * The latest tools and tricks, as well as high-tech shortcuts, for living like a diplomat or millionaire without being either.

]]> 398 Timothy Ferriss Iulian 0 to-read 3.98 2007 The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich
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]]> <![CDATA[The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right]]> 7796228 The New York Times bestselling author of Better and Complications reveals the surprising power of the ordinary checklist

We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies‚neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist.

First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third.

In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from homeland security to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds.

An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.

]]> 225 Atul Gawande 1429953381 Iulian 0 to-read 4.25 2009 The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
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]]> <![CDATA[Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value]]> 58093580
How do you know that you are making a product or service that your customers want? How do you ensure that you are improving it over time? How do you guarantee that your team is creating value for your customers in a way that creates value for your business?

In this book, you'll learn a structured and sustainable approach to continuous discovery that will help you answer each of these questions, giving you the confidence to act while also preparing you to be wrong. You'll learn to balance action with doubt so that you can get started without being blindsided by what you don't get right.

If you want to discover products that customers love-that also deliver business results-this book is for you.

About the AuthorTeresa Torres is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and coach. She teaches a structured and sustainable approach to continuous discovery that helps product teams infuse their daily product decisions with customer input. She’s coached hundreds of teams at companies of all sizes, from early-stage start-ups to global enterprises, in a variety of industries. She has taught over 8,500 product people discovery skills through the Product Talk Academy. What People Are Saying

“Teresa Torres shows how to truly � and continuously � include customers. This is a must read for every CEO and product team out there.� - Phil Terry, Founder, Collaborative Gain; co-author, Customers Included

“Teresa's work in product discovery is a constant and critical reminder that job number one for a product team is to understand who you are building for and what value you can create for them. Her methods inspire rigor similar to a workout coach - product discovery is a regular, consistent practice, that's measurable and impactful.� - Jocelyn Mangan, CEO, HimForHer

“It’s no secret that regularly engaging with customers helps you discover better opportunities to serve them - yet we all struggle to do it well. This book is an indispensable guide to making this critical activity a continuous habit.� - Martin Eriksson, Co-Founder & Chairman, Mind the Product

“Teresa has helped our product teams shift from a focus on outputs to delivering outcomes by helping us understand our customers better. We are building better solutions that get used more often and provide more value for our customers.� - Mike Herrick, SVP Technology, Airship

“Teresa has mastered the art of helping product teams adopt a continuous cadence to their discovery work. Reading this book is like having her by your side, guiding your work, helping you find success, while developing your expertise.� - Hope Gurion, Product Leader & Team Coach, Fearless Product]]> 218 Teresa Torres 1736633317 Iulian 0 to-read 4.54 2021 Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value
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]]> <![CDATA[The Headspace Guide to... Mindfulness & Meditation: As Seen on Netflix]]> 18868569 225 Andy Puddicombe Iulian 0 to-read 4.17 2011 The Headspace Guide to... Mindfulness & Meditation: As Seen on Netflix
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average rating: 4.17
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]]> <![CDATA[Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking]]> 35155429 472 Samin Nosrat Iulian 0 to-read 4.58 2017 Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking
author: Samin Nosrat
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average rating: 4.58
book published: 2017
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]]> <![CDATA[Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect]]> 62323272 The must-read national bestseller that's redefining hospitality and inspiring readers in every industry.

- JP Morgan NextList Pick
- Featured in FX's The Bear and Showtime's Billions

Will Guidara was twenty-six when he took the helm of Eleven Madison Park, a struggling two-star brasserie that had never quite lived up to its majestic room. Eleven years later, EMP was named the best restaurant in the world.

How did Guidara pull off this unprecedented transformation? Radical reinvention, a true partnership between the kitchen and the dining room—and memorable, over-the-top, bespoke hospitality. Guidara’s team surprised a family who had never seen snow with a magical sledding trip to Central Park after their dinner; they filled a private dining room with sand, complete with mai-tais and beach chairs, to console a couple with a cancelled vacation. And his hospitality extended beyond those dining at the restaurant to his own team, who learned to deliver praise and criticism with intention; why the answer to some of the most pernicious business dilemmas is to give more—not less; and the magic that can happen when a busser starts thinking like an owner.

Today, every business can choose to be a hospitality business—and we can all transform ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences. Featuring sparkling stories of his journey through restaurants, with the industry’s most famous players like Daniel Boulud and Danny Meyer, Guidara urges us all to find the magic in what we do—for ourselves, the people we work with, and the people we serve.]]> 284 Will Guidara Iulian 0 to-read 4.58 Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect
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]]> Taste: My Life Through Food 58845067 THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERFrom award-winning actor and food obsessive Stanley Tucci comes an intimate and charming memoir of life in and out of the kitchen. For Stanley and foodie fans, this is the perfect, irresistible gift.Before Stanley Tucci became a household name with The Devil Wears Prada, The Hunger Games, and his legendary Negronis, he grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around he table. In Searching For Italy, he revealed his passion for the secrets and delights of the country's many cuisines. Now, he shares the magic of a lifetime of meals, and the stories behind them.Filled with anecdotes about growing up, shooting foodie films like Julie & Julia, falling in love across the table, and making dinner for his family, Taste is a reflection on the joys of food and life itself. Through five-star meals and burnt dishes, and from the good times to the bad, each morsel of this gastronomic journey is as heartfelt and delicious as the last.'It's impossible to read this without becoming ravenous!' Nigella Lawson'Superb ... Establishes Tucci as one of the wisest and most generous personalities of our time' Daily Mail'The man, the myth, The Devil Wears Prada legend Stanley Tucci has blessed our hungry souls with a food memoir ... Prepare to feel bereaved when it's over' Evening StandardNumber 1 Sunday Times bestseller, December 2022]]> 296 Stanley Tucci Iulian 0 to-read 4.41 2021 Taste: My Life Through Food
author: Stanley Tucci
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.41
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]]> <![CDATA[What I Ate in One Year: (and related thoughts)]]> 207617677
“Sharing food is one of the purest human acts.�

Food has always been an integral part of Stanley Tucci’s life: from stracciatella soup served in the shadow of the Pantheon, to marinara sauce cooked between scene rehearsals and costume fittings, to home-made pizza eaten with his children before bedtime.

Now, in What I Ate in One Year Tucci records twelve months of eating—in restaurants, kitchens, film sets, press junkets, at home and abroad, with friends, with family, with strangers, and occasionally just by himself.

Ranging from the mouth-wateringly memorable to the comfortingly domestic and to the infuriatingly inedible, the meals memorialised in this diary are a prism for him to reflect on the ways his life, and his family, are constantly evolving. Through food he marks—and mourns—the passing of time, the loss of loved ones, and steels himself for what is to come.

Whether it’s duck a l’orange eaten with fellow actors and cooked by singing Carmelite nuns, steaks barbequed at a gathering with friends, or meatballs made by his mother and son and shared at the table with three generations of his family, these meals give shape and add emotional richness to his days.

What I Ate in One Year is a funny, poignant, heartfelt, and deeply satisfying serving of memories and meals and an irresistible celebration of the profound role that food plays in all our lives.]]> 365 Stanley Tucci 1668055708 Iulian 0 to-read 4.09 2024 What I Ate in One Year: (and related thoughts)
author: Stanley Tucci
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.09
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]]> <![CDATA[Product Demos That Sell: How to Deliver Winning SaaS Demos]]> 29386834
If you're a SaaS startup founder or sales rep, you'll learn

Ensure prospects attend your demosDiscover why your demos fail to close the dealBetter differentiate yourself from competitorsCustomize your demo to your prospects' needsImprove your demo-win ratesDeal with questions and objections during the demoExpertly handle bugs and demo failsGiving successful product demos is not rocket science. Anybody can do it—if you've got the right blueprint.]]> 87 Steli Efti Iulian 0 to-read 3.91 Product Demos That Sell: How to Deliver Winning SaaS Demos
author: Steli Efti
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]]> Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 14201
Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange.

Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very antithesis of Norrell. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms that between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.]]> 1006 Susanna Clarke Iulian 0 to-read 3.84 2004 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.84
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]]> <![CDATA[The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life]]> 994560 320 Robert Fritz 0449903370 Iulian 0 to-read 4.04 1984 The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life
author: Robert Fritz
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average rating: 4.04
book published: 1984
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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.

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 Iulian 0 to-read 4.07 2012 Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
author: Susan Cain
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average rating: 4.07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life]]> 28257707 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062457738

In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people.

For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.

Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited�"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek.

There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.]]> 212 Mark Manson Iulian 5 audiobooks 3.87 2016 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
author: Mark Manson
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2016
rating: 5
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shelves: audiobooks
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]]> The Trial 17690 The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.]]> 255 Franz Kafka Iulian 3 audiobooks 4.00 1925 The Trial
author: Franz Kafka
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1925
rating: 3
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]]> How to stand Up to a Dictator 58297471
Maria Ressa has spent decades speaking truth to power. But her work tracking disinformation networks seeded by her own government, spreading lies to its own citizens laced with anger and hate, has landed her in trouble with the most powerful man in the country: President Duterte.

Now, hounded by the state, she has multiple arrest warrants against her name, and a potential 100+ years behind bars to prepare for—while she stands trial for speaking the truth.

How to Stand Up to a Dictator is the story of how democracy dies by a thousand cuts, and how an invisible atom bomb has exploded online that is killing our freedoms. It maps a network of disinformation—a heinous web of cause and effect—that has netted the globe: from Duterte's drug wars, to America's Capitol Hill, to Britain's Brexit, to Russian and Chinese cyber-warfare, to Facebook and Silicon Valley, to our own clicks and our own votes.

Told from the frontline of the digital war, this is Maria Ressa's urgent cry for us to wake up and hold the line, before it is too late.]]> 288 Maria Ressa 0753559218 Iulian 5 audiobooks 4.34 2022 How to stand Up to a Dictator
author: Maria Ressa
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure]]> 2359624 Global Change and the Earth System describes what is known about the Earth system and the impact of changes caused by humans. It considers the consequences of these changes with respect to the stability of the Earth system and the well-being of humankind; as well as exploring future paths towards Earth-system science in support of global sustainability. The results presented here are based on 10 years of research on global change by many of the world's most eminent scholars. This valuable volume achieves a new level of integration and interdisciplinarity in treating global change.]]> 348 Will Steffen 3540265945 Iulian 0 to-read 4.00 2004 Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure
author: Will Steffen
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2004
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]]> <![CDATA[The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies]]> 23316526 Jeopardy! players. Digital technologies—with hardware, software, and networks at their core—will in the near future diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors can, apply enormous data sets to transform retailing, and accomplish many tasks once considered uniquely human.
In The Second Machine Age MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives.


Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Professions of all kinds—from lawyers to truck drivers—will be forever upended. Companies will be forced to transform or die. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.


Drawing on years of research and up-to-the-minute trends, Brynjolfsson and McAfee identify the best strategies for survival and offer a new path to prosperity. These include revamping education so that it prepares people for the next economy instead of the last one, designing new collaborations that pair brute processing power with human ingenuity, and embracing policies that make sense in a radically transformed landscape.


A fundamentally optimistic book, The Second Machine Age alters how we think about issues of technological, societal, and economic progress.]]> 336 Erik Brynjolfsson 0393350649 Iulian 0 to-read 3.87 2014 The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
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name: Iulian
average rating: 3.87
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]]> <![CDATA[Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations]]> 26114127 A field guide to the twenty-first century, written by one of its most celebrated observers

In his most ambitious work to date, Thomas L. Friedman shows that we have entered an age of dizzying acceleration--and explains how to live in it. Due to an exponential increase in computing power, climbers atop Mount Everest enjoy excellent cell-phone service and self-driving cars are taking to the roads. A parallel explosion of economic interdependency has created new riches as well as spiraling debt burdens. Meanwhile, Mother Nature is also seeing dramatic changes as carbon levels rise and species go extinct, with compounding results.

How do these changes interact, and how can we cope with them? To get a better purchase on the present, Friedman returns to his Minnesota childhood and sketches a world where politics worked and joining the middle class was an achievable goal. Today, by contrast, it is easier than ever to be a maker (try 3-D printing) or a breaker (the Islamic State excels at using Twitter), but harder than ever to be a leader or merely "average." Friedman concludes that nations and individuals must learn to be fast (innovative and quick to adapt), fair (prepared to help the casualties of change), and slow (adept at shutting out the noise and accessing their deepest values). With vision, authority, and wit, Thank You for Being Late establishes a blueprint for how to think about our times.]]> 486 Thomas L. Friedman Iulian 0 3.81 2016 Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations
author: Thomas L. Friedman
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
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]]> <![CDATA[The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power]]> 26195941 The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior.

In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth.

Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification."

The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit--at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future.

With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future--if we let it.

Table of contents

INTRODUCTION
1. Home or exile in the digital future

I. THE FOUNDATIONS OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM
2. August 9, 2011: Setting the stage for Surveillance Capitalism
3. The discovery of behavioral surplus
4. The moat around the castle
5. The elaboration of Surveillance Capitalism: Kidnap, corner, compete
6. Hijacked: The division of learning in society

II. THE ADVANCE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM
7. The reality business
8. Rendition: From experience to data
9. Rendition from the depths
10. Make them dance
11. The right to the future tense

III. INSTRUMENTARIAN POWER FOR A THIRD MODERNITY
12. Two species of power
13. Big Other and the rise of instrumentarian power
14. A utopia of certainty
15, The instrumentarian collective
16. Of life in the hive
17. The right to sanctuary

CONCLUSION
18. A coup from above

Acknowledgements
About the author
Detailed table of contents
Notes
Index]]> 691 Shoshana Zuboff 1610395697 Iulian 0 to-read 4.05 2018 The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
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]]> <![CDATA[Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away]]> 60097435 From the bestselling author of Thinking in Bets comes a toolkit for mastering the skill of quitting to achieve greater success

Business leaders, with millions of dollars down the drain, struggle to abandon a new app or product that just isn't working. Governments, caught in a hopeless conflict, believe that the next tactic will finally be the one that wins the war. And in our own lives, we persist in relationships or careers that no longer serve us. Why? According to Annie Duke, in the face of tough decisions, we're terrible quitters. And that is significantly holding us back.

In Quit, Duke teaches you how to get good at quitting. Drawing on stories from elite athletes like Mount Everest climbers, founders of leading companies like Stewart Butterfield, the CEO of Slack, and top entertainers like Dave Chappelle, Duke explains why quitting is integral to success, as well as strategies for determining when to hold em, and when to fold em, that will save you time, energy, and money. You'll learn:
How the paradox of quitting influences decision making: If you quit on time, you will feel you quit early
What forces work against good quitting behavior, such as escalation commitment, desire for certainty, and status quo biasHow to think in expected value in order to make better decisions, as well as other best practices, such as increasing flexibility in goal-setting, establishing "quitting contracts," anticipating optionality, and conducting premortems and backcasts
Whether you're facing a make-or-break business decision or life-altering personal choice, mastering the skill of quitting will help you make the best next move.]]> 336 Annie Duke 0593422996 Iulian 0 to-read 4.14 2022 Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away
author: Annie Duke
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.14
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]]> <![CDATA[How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking]]> 18693884 The Freakonomics of math�a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hands

The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it.

Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion� really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer?

How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God.

Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.� With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.]]> 480 Jordan Ellenberg 1594205221 Iulian 0 to-read 3.95 2014 How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking
author: Jordan Ellenberg
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average rating: 3.95
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]]> Meditations 30659 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and readers throughout the centuries.]]> 254 Marcus Aurelius 0140449337 Iulian 4 4.29 180 Meditations
author: Marcus Aurelius
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.29
book published: 180
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Romania 1944: The Turning of Arms against Nazi Germany (Campaign Book 404)]]> 203877162 The complex and fascinating story of Romania's 'turning of arms' against Nazi Germany, and the battle for Romania - an important but overlooked and misunderstood episode of World War II.

The battle for Romania from March to September 1944 is a multifaceted story involving German, Romanian, Soviet, American, and British forces. Romania's defection from the Axis denied Nazi Germany not just resources (especially oil) but also turned the Romanian Army, formerly its most important support on the Eastern Front, from friend to foe. The fighting witnessed the German Sixth Army being destroyed for a second time (after Stalingrad).

This in-depth work explores the strategic struggle within German-Romanian relations and the tactical development of the Battle of Romania. The detailed 2D maps and 3D diagrams guide you step-by-step through the Axis defence of Romania in March-May during the first Iasi-Chisinau offensive, the Allied campaign in April-August to assist the Soviets, the Axis collapse in August during the second Iasi-Chisinau offensive, the Romanian defeat of the attempted German counter-coup, and the final Soviet occupation of Romania. Period photographs from the Romanian archives and private collections, many never before seen, and stunning battlescene artworks bring to life the soldiers and materiel of the wide range of forces involved in this rarely explored Eastern Front campaign.]]> 180 Grant T. Harward 1472861612 Iulian 0 to-read 4.12 Romania 1944: The Turning of Arms against Nazi Germany (Campaign Book 404)
author: Grant T. Harward
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]]> <![CDATA[Romania's Holy War: Soldiers, Motivation, and the Holocaust (Battlegrounds: Cornell Studies in Military History)]]> 56753190 Romania's Holy War rights the widespread myth that Romania was a reluctant member of the Axis during World War II. In correcting this fallacy, Grant T. Harward shows that, of an estimated 300,000 Jews who perished in Romania and Romanian-occupied Ukraine, more than 64,000 were, in fact, killed by Romanian soldiers. Moreover, the Romanian Army conducted a brutal campaign in German-occupied Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Soviet prisoners of war, partisans, and civilians. Investigating why Romanian soldiers fought and committed such atrocities, Harward argues that strong ideology � a cocktail of nationalism, religion, antisemitism, and anticommunism � undergirded their motivation.

Romania's Holy War draws on official military records, wartime periodicals, soldiers' diaries and memoirs, subsequent war crimes' investigations, and recent interviews with veterans to tell the full story. Harward integrates the Holocaust into the narrative of military operations to show that most soldiers fully supported the wartime dictator, General Ion Antonescu, and his regime's holy war against "Judeo-Bolshevism." The army perpetrated mass reprisals, targeting Jews in liberated Romanian territory; supported the deportation and concentration of Jews in camps or ghettos in Romanian-occupied Soviet territory; and played a key supporting role in SS efforts to exterminate Jews in German-occupied Soviet territory.

Harward proves that Romania became Nazi Germany's most important ally in the war against the USSR because its soldiers were highly motivated, thus overturning much of what we thought we knew about this theater of war. Romania's Holy War provides the first complete history of why Romanian soldiers fought on the Eastern Front.]]> 340 Grant T. Harward 1501759965 Iulian 0 to-read 3.88 2021 Romania's Holy War: Soldiers, Motivation, and the Holocaust (Battlegrounds: Cornell Studies in Military History)
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name: Iulian
average rating: 3.88
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]]> <![CDATA[Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth]]> 141310682 ‘The best case I've read for putting an upper limit on the accumulation of wealth� Richard WilkinsonNo-one deserves to be a millionaire. Not even you. We all notice when the poor get when there are more rough sleepers and food bank queues start to grow. But if the rich become richer, there is nothing much to see in public and, for most of us, daily life doesn't change. Or at least, not immediately.In this astonishing, eye-opening intervention, world-leading philosopher and economist Ingrid Robeyns exposes the true extent of our wealth problem, which has spent the past fifty years silently spiralling out of control. In moral, political, economic, social, environmental and psychological terms, she shows, extreme wealth is not only unjustifiable but harmful to us all - the rich included.In place of our current system, Robeyns offers a breathtakingly clear limitarianism. The answer to so many of the problems posed by neoliberal capitalism - and the opportunity for a vastly better world - lies in placing a hard limit on the wealth that any one person can accumulate. Because nobody deserves to be a millionaire. Not even you.]]> 336 Ingrid Robeyns 0241578191 Iulian 0 to-read 4.04 2023 Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
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]]> Obedience to Authority 676723
Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose. It is the dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority. Facts of recent history and observation in daily life suggest that for many people obedience may be a deeply ingrained behavior tendency, indeed, a prepotent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct. C. P. Snow (1961) points to its importance when he

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion. If you doubt that, read William Sbirer's 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.' The German Officer Corps were brought up in the most rigorous code of obedience . . . in the name of obedience they were party to, andassisted in, the most wicked large scale actions in the history of the world. (p. 24)

The Nazi extermination of European Jews is the most extremeinstance of abhorrent immoral acts carried out by thousands ofpeople in the name of obedience. Yet in lesser degree this type ofthing is constantly ordinary citizens are ordered todestroy other people, and they do so because they consider ittheir duty to obey orders. Thus, obedience to authority, longpraised as a virtue, takes on a new aspect when it serves amalevolent cause; far from appearing as a virtue, it is transformedinto a heinous sin. Or is it?

The moral question of whether one should obey when commands conflict with conscience was argued by Plato, dramatized in "Antigone," and treated to philosophic analysis in every historical epoch Conservative philosophers argue that the very fabric of society is threatened by disobedience, and even when the act prescribed by an authority is an evil one, it is better to carry out the act than to wrench at the structure of authority. Hobbes stated further that an act so executed is in no sense the responsibility of the person who carries it out but only of the authority that orders it. But humanists argue for the primacy of individual conscience in such matters, insisting that the moral judgments of the individual must override authority when the two are in conflict.

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but an empirically grounded scientist eventually comes to the point where he wishes to move from abstract discourse to the careful observation of concrete instances. In order to take a close look at the act of obeying, I set up a simple experimentat Yale University. Eventually, the experiment was to involve more than a thousand participants and would be repeated at several universities, but at the beginning, the conception was simple. A person comes to a psychological laboratory and is told to carry out a series of acts that come increasingly into conflict with conscience. The main question is how far the participant will comply with the experimenter's instructions before refusing to carry out the actions required of him.

But the reader needs to know a little more detail about the experiment. Two people come to a psychology laboratory to take part in a study of memory and learning. One of them is designated as a "teacher" and the other a "learner." The experimenter explains that the study is concerned with the effects of punishment on learning. The learner is conducted into a room, seated in a chair, his arms strapped to prevent excessive movement, and an electrode attached to his wrist. He is told that he is to learn a list of word pairs; whenever he makes an error, be will receive electric shocks of increasing intensity.

The real focus of the experiment is the teacher. After watching the learner being strapped into place, he is taken into the main experimental room and seated before an impressive shock generator. Its main feature is a horizontal line of thirty switches, ranging from 15 volts to 450 volts, in 15-volt increments. There are also verbal designations which range from Slight SHOCK to Danger--Severe SHOCK. The teacher is told that he is to administer the learning test to the man in the other room. W...]]> 256 Stanley Milgram 006131983X Iulian 0 to-read 4.18 1974 Obedience to Authority
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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.� 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 “guards� and “inmates� 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 apple� 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 Iulian 0 to-read 3.91 2007 The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
author: Philip G. Zimbardo
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]]> <![CDATA[The Revenge Of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate]]> 13330422 In this provocative, startling book, Robert D. Kaplan, the bestselling author of Monsoon and Balkan Ghosts, offers a revelatory new prism through which to view global upheavals and to understand what lies ahead for continents and countries around the world.

In The Revenge of Geography, Kaplan builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the near and distant past to look back at critical pivots in history and then to look forward at the evolving global scene. Kaplan traces the history of the world’s hot spots by examining their climates, topographies, and proximities to other embattled lands. The Russian steppe’s pitiless climate and limited vegetation bred hard and cruel men bent on destruction, for example, while Nazi geopoliticians distorted geopolitics entirely, calculating that space on the globe used by the British Empire and the Soviet Union could be swallowed by a greater German homeland.

Kaplan then applies the lessons learned to the present crises in Europe, Russia, China, the Indian subcontinent, Turkey, Iran, and the Arab Middle East. The result is a holistic interpretation of the next cycle of conflict throughout Eurasia. Remarkably, the future can be understood in the context of temperature, land allotment, and other physical certainties: China, able to feed only 23 percent of its people from land that is only 7 percent arable, has sought energy, minerals, and metals from such brutal regimes as Burma, Iran, and Zimbabwe, putting it in moral conflict with the United States. Afghanistan’s porous borders will keep it the principal invasion route into India, and a vital rear base for Pakistan, India’s main enemy. Iran will exploit the advantage of being the only country that straddles both energy-producing areas of the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. Finally, Kaplan posits that the United States might rue engaging in far-flung conflicts with Iraq and Afghanistan rather than tending to its direct neighbor Mexico, which is on the verge of becoming a semifailed state due to drug cartel carnage.

A brilliant rebuttal to thinkers who suggest that globalism will trump geography, this indispensable work shows how timeless truths and natural facts can help prevent this century’s looming cataclysms.
]]> 432 Robert D. Kaplan 1400069831 Iulian 0 to-read 3.76 2012 The Revenge Of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate
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]]> The Game 42098125 Calciobalilla, flipper, videogioco. Prendetevi mezz'ora e passate dall'uno all'altro, in quest'ordine. Pensavate di giocare, invece avete attraversato lo spazio che separa una civiltà, quella analogica, da un'altra, quella digitale. Siete migrati in un mondo nuovo: leggero, veloce, immateriale.

Seconda scena.
Prendete l'icona che per secoli ha racchiuso in sé il senso della nostra civiltà: uomo-spada-cavallo. Confrontatela con questa: uomo-tastiera-schermo. E avrete di fronte agli occhi la mutazione in atto. Un sisma che ha ridisegnato la postura di noi umani in modo spettacolare.

«Qualsiasi cosa si pensi del Game, è un pensiero inutile se non parte dalla premessa che il Game è la nostra assicurazione contro l'incubo del Novecento. La sua strategia ha funzionato, oggi le condizioni perché una tragedia come quella si ripeta sono state smantellate. Ormai ci siamo abituati, ma non va mai dimenticato che c'è stato un tempo in cui, per un risultato del genere, avremmo dato qualsiasi cosa. Oggi, se ci chiedono in cambio di lasciare la nostra mail ci innervosiamo».]]> 336 Alessandro Baricco 885842977X Iulian 0 to-read 3.72 2018 The Game
author: Alessandro Baricco
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.72
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]]> Our Country Friends 57408095 Eight friends, one country house, four romances, and six months in isolation -- a powerful, emotionally rich novel about love, friendship, and betrayal, a book that reads like a great Russian novel, or Chekhov on the Hudson, by a novelist The New York Times calls "one of his generation's most original and exhilarating writers".

It's March 2020 and a calamity is unfolding. A group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing each character to reevaulate whom they love and what matters most. The unlikely cast of characters include: a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a global dandy with three passports; a young flame-thrower of an essayist, originally from the Carolinas; and a movie star, The Actor, whose arrival upsets the equilibrium of this chosen family.

In a remarkable literary feat, Gary Shteyngart has documented through fiction the emotional toll of our recent times: a story of love and friendship that reads like a great Russian novel set in upstate New York. Both elegiac and very, very funny, Our Country Friends is the most ambitious book yet by the author of the beloved bestseller, Super Sad True Love Story.]]> 317 Gary Shteyngart 1984855123 Iulian 0 to-read 3.15 2021 Our Country Friends
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]]> The House of Doors 65215270
The year is 1921. Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, a lawyer and war veteran, are living at Cassowary House on the Straits Settlement of Penang. When “Willie� Somerset Maugham, a famed writer and old friend of Robert's, arrives for an extended visit with his secretary Gerald, the pair threatens a rift that could alter more lives than one.

Maugham, one of the great novelists of his day, is beleaguered: Having long hidden his homosexuality, his unhappy and expensive marriage of convenience becomes unbearable after he loses his savings-and the freedom to travel with Gerald. His career deflating, his health failing, Maugham arrives at Cassowary House in desperate need of a subject for his next book. Lesley, too, is enduring a marriage more duplicitous than it first appears. Maugham suspects an affair, and, learning of Lesley's past connection to the Chinese revolutionary, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, decides to probe deeper. But as their friendship grows and Lesley confides in him about life in the Straits, Maugham discovers a far more surprising tale than he imagined, one that involves not only war and scandal but the trial of an Englishwoman charged with murder. It is, to Maugham, a story worthy of fiction.

A mesmerizingly beautiful novel based on real events, The House of Doors traces the fault lines of race, gender, sexuality, and power under empire, and dives deep into the complicated nature of love and friendship in its shadow.]]> 306 Tan Twan Eng 1639731938 Iulian 0 to-read 3.98 2023 The House of Doors
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]]> The Seven Good Years 23399025
The seven years between the birth of Etgar Keret’s son and the death of his father were good years, though still full of reasons to worry. Lev is born in the midst of a terrorist attack. Etgar’s father gets cancer. The threat of constant war looms over their home and permeates daily life.

What emerges from this dark reality is a series of sublimely absurd ruminations on everything from Etgar’s three-year-old son’s impending military service to the terrorist mind-set behind Angry Birds. There’s Lev’s insistence that he is a cat, releasing him from any human responsibilities or rules. Etgar’s siblings, both very different people who have chosen radically divergent paths in life, come together after his father’s shivah to experience the grief and love that tie a family together forever. This wise, witty memoir—Etgar’s first non-fiction book, and told in his inimitable style—is full of wonder and life and love, poignant insights, and irrepressible humor.]]> 173 Etgar Keret 1594633266 Iulian 0 to-read 4.15 2013 The Seven Good Years
author: Etgar Keret
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]]> <![CDATA[Moartea și busola. Proză completă #1]]> 7709634 Borges cultiva genul fantastic fara a recurge la truculenta vampirilor ori la feericul basmelor, pentru ca povestirile lui cu tilc sint „fantezii metafizice� si se realizeaza prin intermediul simbolului.
Volumul se deschide cu problematica argentiniana din Evaristo Carriego (1930), pentru a se extinde curind la universalitatea unor teme ale conditiei umane dintotdeauna si de pretutindeni, prezentate, desigur, de cele mai multe ori, cu intensitatea si concretetea senzoriala a variantei lor latino-americane din volumele Istoria universala a infamiei (1930), Istoria eternitatii (1935) si Fictiuni (1944).]]> 520 Jorge Luis Borges Iulian 0 to-read 4.30 1974 Moartea și busola. Proză completă #1
author: Jorge Luis Borges
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1974
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]]> ٱăăԲ 60715678
Cartea aceasta curajoasă are un potențial infinit de extindere. Ea aruncă neconvențional, atât în aer, cât și în text, ba prin Sașa-personaja, ba prin Sașa-autoarea, toate ingredientele: feminitate, queerness, raport de putere patrilocal și migrație, vocație, relație � cu scrisul, cu literatura, cu limba și limbajul, dar și cu familia; în special cu mama. (Raluca Nagy)

Sașa Zare a scris o superbă carte-matrioșca, unde fiecare întâlnire cu un alt miez al poveștii devine o experiență transformatoare. ٱăăԲ este, în același timp și pe rând: roman al scrierii unui roman, roman al căutărilor și al vindecărilor sinelui, roman al formării unei tinere queer, Sașa, al peregrinărilor ei prin Republica Moldova și prin România, roman al iubirii și al prieteniilor calde. Foarte important, ٱăăԲ este și una dintre acele povești rare, care arată travaliul descoperirii unui limbaj adaptat pentru sine, capabil să exprime, fără să trădeze, experiențe esențiale, oricât de neasemănătoare, oricât de dureroase. Rar am citit o carte în care încercări dure, anihilante aproape, să fie constant mângâiate de balsamul înțelegerii și al speranței. ٱăăԲ, cu energia ei flamboaiantă, extravagantă și nesupusă, cu astfel de efecte operează. (Alina Purcaru)]]> 420 Sașa Zare 6069028597 Iulian 0 to-read 4.48 ٱăăԲ
author: Sașa Zare
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]]> <![CDATA[Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity]]> 61153739 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � A groundbreaking manifesto on living better and longer that challenges the conventional medical thinking on aging and reveals a new approach to preventing chronic disease and extending long-term health, from a visionary physician and leading longevity expert

Wouldn’t you like to live longer? And better? In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health.

For all its successes, mainstream medicine has failed to make much progress against the diseases of aging that kill most people: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and type 2 diabetes. Too often, it intervenes with treatments too late to help, prolonging lifespan at the expense of healthspan, or quality of life. Dr. Attia believes we must replace this outdated framework with a personalized, proactive strategy for longevity, one where we take action now, rather than waiting.

This is not “biohacking,� it’s science: a well-founded strategic and tactical approach to extending lifespan while also improving our physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Dr. Attia’s aim is less to tell you what to do and more to help you learn how to think about long-term health, in order to create the best plan for you as an individual. In Outlive, readers will discover:

� Why the cholesterol test at your annual physical doesn’t tell you enough about your actual risk of dying from a heart attack.
� That you may already suffer from an extremely common yet underdiagnosed liver condition that could be a precursor to the chronic diseases of aging.
� Why exercise is the most potent pro-longevity “drug”—and how to begin training for the “Centenarian Decathlon.�
� Why you should forget about diets, and focus instead on nutritional biochemistry, using technology and data to personalize your eating pattern.
� Why striving for physical health and longevity, but ignoring emotional health, could be the ultimate curse of all.

Aging and longevity are far more malleable than we think; our fate is not set in stone. With the right roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before.]]> 496 Peter Attia 0593236599 Iulian 0 to-read 4.33 2023 Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity
author: Peter Attia
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]]> <![CDATA[The Storyteller's Secret: How the World's Most Inspiring Leaders Turn Their Passion Into Performance]]> 25663767
They told brilliant stories.

In The Storyteller's Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch on and Others Don't, keynote speaker, bestselling author, and communication expert Carmine Gallo reveals the keys to telling powerful stories that inspire, motivate, educate, build brands, launch movements, and change lives. The New York Times has called a well-told story "a strategic tool with irresistible power" - the proof lies in the success stories of 50 icons, leaders, and legends featured in The Storyteller's Secret: entrepreneurs like Richard Branson, Sara Blakely, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Sheryl Sandberg; spellbinding speakers like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Bryan Stevenson, and Malala Yousafzai; and business leaders behind famous brands such as Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Wynn Resorts, Whole Foods, and Pixar. Whether your goal is to educate, fundraise, inspire teams, build an award-winning culture, or to deliver memorable presentations, a story is your most valuable asset and your competitive advantage.

In The Storyteller's Secret, Gallo explains why the brain is hardwired to love stories - especially rags-to-riches stories - and how the latest science can help you craft a persuasive narrative that wins hearts and minds. "The art of storytelling can be used to drive change," says billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson. And since the next decade will see the most change our civilization has ever known, your story will radically transform your business, your life, and the lives of those you touch. Ideas that catch on are wrapped in story. Your story can change the world. Isn't it time you shared yours?]]> 288 Carmine Gallo 1250071550 Iulian 0 to-read 3.84 2016 The Storyteller's Secret: How the World's Most Inspiring Leaders Turn Their Passion Into Performance
author: Carmine Gallo
name: Iulian
average rating: 3.84
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]]> <![CDATA[The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller]]> 1383168 Sleepless in Seattle, Scream, and Shrek.The Anatomy of Story is his long-awaited first book, and it shares all of his secrets for writing a compelling script.Based on the lessons in his award-winning class, Great Screenwriting, The Anatomy of Storydraws on a broad range of philosophy and mythology, offering fresh techniques and insightful anecdotes alongside Truby's own uniqueapproach for how to build an effective, multifaceted narrative.Truby's method for constructing a story is at onceinsightful and practical, focusing on the hero's moral and emotional growth. As a result, writers will dig deep within and explore their own values and worldviews in order to create an effectivestory. Writers willcome away with an extremely precise set of tools to work with--specific, useful techniques to make the audience care about their characters, and that make their characters grow in meaningful ways. Theywill construct a surprising plot that is unique to their particular concept, and they will learn how to express a moral vision that can genuinely move an audience.


The foundations of story that Truby lays out are so fundamental they are applicable--and essential--to all writers, from novelists and short-story writers to journalists, memoirists, and writers of narrative non-fiction.]]> 445 John Truby 0865479518 Iulian 0 to-read 4.22 2007 The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller
author: John Truby
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.22
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]]> <![CDATA[Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence]]> 13126099 Wired for Story reveals these cognitive secrets--and it's a game-changer for anyone who has ever set pen to paper. The vast majority of writing advice focuses on writing well as if it were the same as telling a great story. This is exactly where many aspiring writers fail--they strive for beautiful metaphors, authentic dialogue, and interesting characters, losing sight of the one thing that every engaging story must do: ignite the brain's hardwired desire to learn what happens next. When writers tap into the evolutionary purpose of story and electrify our curiosity, it triggers a delicious dopamine rush that tells us to pay attention. Without it, even the most perfect prose won't hold anyone's interest. Backed by recent breakthroughs in neuroscience as well as examples from novels, screenplays, and short stories, Wired for Story offers a revolutionary look at story as the brain experiences it. Each chapter zeroes in on an aspect of the brain, its corresponding revelation about story, and the way to apply it to your storytelling right now.]]> 262 Lisa Cron 1607742454 Iulian 0 to-read 4.19 2012 Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence
author: Lisa Cron
name: Iulian
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2012
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]]>