By Monica Mehta (March 1, 2013) - "More than half a million new businesses are launched annually, and the numbers rise each year. What does it take to launch a successful start-up? It's not a matter of education, IQ, money, or even a great business plan. The instincts that enable entrepreneurs to take risks for gain and profit from ideas -- without plans, pedigree or even formal business training -- are part of every individual's psychological makeup. The Entrepreneurial Instinct offers much-needed techniques for using our innate capabilities to make more with less. Now is the time to learn what you're made of. Now is the time to make your move. Now is the time to tap into your Entrepreneurial Instinct and create your own story of small business success. (McGraw-Hill Ryerson)
By Gavin Newsom (March 1, 2013) - "By integrating democratic government with cutting-edge American innovation, the lieutenant governor of California charts a bright future for open-source America. Citizenville is the story of how ordinary citizens can use new digital tools to dissolve political gridlock and transform American democracy. As social networking and smart phones have changed the way we communicate with one another, these technologies are also changing our relationship with government. In a world where people can do anything at the touch of a button-shop, communicate, do research, publish a blog, transfer money-government cannot keep functioning in a twentieth-century mind-set. Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom explores the many ways in which technology can transform government and empower citizens: Opening up vast troves of government data, then letting people create apps to use them wisely. Citizenville shows that the only way Americans can secure their future is by reinventing their relationship to government, just as they have countless times before. (Penguin)
By Jon Meacham (February 15, 2013) - "In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson's genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power. From the writing of the Declaration of Independence to elegant dinners in Paris and in the President's House; from political maneuverings in the boardinghouses and legislative halls of Philadelphia and New York to the infant capital on the Potomac; from his complicated life at Monticello, his breathtaking house and plantation in Virginia, to the creation of the University of Virginia, Jefferson was central to the age. Here too is the personal Jefferson, a man of appetite, sensuality, and passion. The Jefferson story resonates today not least because he led his nation through ferocious partisanship and cultural warfare amid economic change and external threats, and also because he embodies an eternal drama, the struggle of the leadership of a nation to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world." (Random House)
By Lawrence Krauss (February 8, 2013) - "Where did the universe come from? What was there before it? What will the future bring? And finally, why is there something rather than nothing?" Lawrence Krauss's provocative answers to these and other timeless questions in a wildly popular lecture now on YouTube have attracted almost a million viewers. With his characteristic wry humor and wonderfully clear explanations, Krauss takes us back to the beginning of the beginning, presenting the most recent evidence for how our universe evolved-and the implications for how it's going to end. It will provoke, challenge, and delight readers as it looks at the most basic underpinnings of existence in a whole new way. A fascinating antidote to outmoded philosophical and religious thinking, A Universe from Nothing is a provocative, game-changing entry into the debate about the existence of God and everything that exists. "Forget Jesus," Krauss has argued, "the stars died so you could be born." (Free Press, January 2012)
By Julian Assange (February 8, 2013) - In what is sure to be a wave-making new book, Assange brings together a small group of cutting-edge thinkers and activists from the front line of the battle for cyber-space to discuss whether electronic communications will emancipate or enslave us. Among the topics addressed are: Do Facebook and Google constitute "the greatest surveillance machine that ever existed," perpetually tracking our location, our contacts and our lives? Far from being victims of that surveillance, are most of us willing collaborators? Are there legitimate forms of surveillance, for instance in relation to the "Four Horsemen of the Infopocalypse" (money laundering, drugs, terrorism and pornography)? And do we have the ability, through conscious action and technological savvy, to resist this tide and secure a world where freedom is something which the Internet helps bring about? (OR Books, November 2012)
By Sam Harris (February 1, 2013) - "A BELIEF IN FREE WILL touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality-as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement-without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion. In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life." (Free Press)
By Alex Gibney (February 1, 2013) - "MEA MAXIMA CULPA: SILENCE IN THE HOUSE OF GOD investigates the secret crimes of Father Lawrence Murphy, a charismatic Milwaukee priest who abused more than 200 Deaf children in a school under his control. The film documents the first known public protest against clerical sex abuse in the U.S., which led to a case that spanned three decades and ultimately resulted in a lawsuit against the pontiff himself. The investigation helped uncover documents from the secret Vatican archives that show the Pope, who must operate within the mysterious rules of the Roman Curia, as both responsible and helpless in the face of evil. At the heart of the film is a small group of heroes - Terry Kohut, Gary Smith, Arthur Budzinksi and Bob Bolger. These courageous Deaf men set out to expose the priest who had abused them and sought to protect other children, making their voices heard. Gibney uses the voices of actors Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke, Jamey Sheridan and John Slattery to tell the stories of men abused by Murphy. However, it is the faces and expressions of the courageous Deaf men that illustrate the indelible effect Murphy continues to have on their lives." (HBO)
By Michelle Caruso-Cabrera (January 18, 2013) - "Straight-talking CNBC reporter Michelle Caruso-Cabrera demands a modern solution to our nation's social and economic woes -- a return to our political roots: fiscal conservatism, limited government, and personal accountability. Hypocrites and radicals on both sides of the political spectrum have left fiscally conservative, socially liberal Americans like CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera people without a party. In the smart, tell-it-like-it-is style that has made her popular with Democrats and Republicans alike, Caruso-Cabrera outlines forward-thinking free-market solutions for health care, education, and immigration. It's not too late to fix our nation, restore our credibility, and rebuild our political system with the tenets on which it was founded: fiscal conservatism and social liberty. Our future is counting on it." (Simon & Schuster)
By David Frum (November 16, 2012) - "In Why Romney Lost David Frum, a former George W. Bush speechwriter, delivers a forthright analysis that offers a bold, hopeful plan for Republican success in the years ahead. David Frum urges a Republican party that is culturally modern, economically inclusive, and environmentally responsible-a party that can meet the challenges of the Obama years and lead a diverse America to a new age of freedom and prosperity." (Newsweek ebook)
By Michael Moore (November 16, 2012) - "Smashing the autobiographical mold, Moore presents twenty-four far-ranging, irreverent, and stranger-than-fiction vignettes from his own early life. One moment he's an eleven-year-old boy lost in the U.S. Senate and found by Bobby Kennedy; and in the next, he's inside the Bitburg cemetery with a dazed and confused Ronald Reagan. Fast-forwarding to 2003, he stuns the world from the Oscar stage by uttering the words 'We live in fictitious times...with a fictitious president' in place of the usual 'I'd like to thank the Academy.' And none of that even comes close to the night the friendly priest at the seminary decides to show him how to perform his own exorcism. Capturing the zeitgeist of the past fifty years, yet deeply personal and unflinchingly honest, Here Comes Trouble takes readers on an unforgettable, take-no-prisoners ride through the life and times of Michael Moore. Alternately funny, eye-opening, and moving, it's the book he has been writing-and living-his entire life." (Grand Central Publishing)
By Eric Idle (November 16, 2012) - "Described by Idle as 'Oscar Wilde on acid, or like Downton Abbey, only even funnier,' What About Dick? begins with the birth of a sex toy invented in Shagistan in 1898, tells the story of the decline of the British Empire as seen through the eyes of a Piano, as well as the story of young Dick, his two cousins and their dipsomaniac Aunt Maggie, who all live together in Kensington in a large, rambling, Edwardian novel. There's Reverend Whoopsie, a private Dick, the incomprehensible Scottish Inspector McGuffin and the case of the Houndsditch Mutilator. What else do you need to know for six bucks?
By Chrystia Freeland (October 26, 2012) - "There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but in the last few decades what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Alarmingly, the greatest income gap is not between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, but within the wealthiest 1 percent of our nation--as the merely wealthy are left behind by the rapidly expanding fortunes of the new global super-rich. Forget the 1 percent; Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at break-neck speed. Though the results can be shocking, Freeland dissects the lives of the world's wealthiest individuals with empathy, intelligence, and deep insight. Brightly written, powerfully researched, and propelled by fascinating original interviews with the plutocrats themselves, Plutocrats is a tour-de-force of social and economic history, and the definitive examination of inequality in our time." (Penguin Press)
By Nate Silver (October 26, 2012) - "Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair's breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger-all by the time he was thirty. The New York Times now publishes FiveThirtyEight.com, where Silver is one of the nation's most influential political forecasters. 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? With everything from the health of the global economy to our ability to fight terrorism dependent on the quality of our predictions, Nate Silver's insights are an essential read." (Penguin Press)
By Gary Hirshberg (October 19, 2012) "This book cuts through the complicated scientific debate about genetically modified food to put forth a simple premise: We all have a right to know what's in our food. Genetically engineered foods have rapidly become a part of our food supply, with little oversight or scrutiny. Without a requirement to label foods containing these ingredients, we are forced to be guinea pigs in a giant experiment involving our health and environment. Co-author Gary Hirshberg, CE-Yo of organic leader Stonyfield says 'I have witnessed too much carelessness to remain silent. For the sake of our children, our behavior must change.'"(New World City)
By John Fund (October 19, 2012) "The 2012 election will be one of the hardest-fought in U.S. history. It is also likely to be one of the closest, a fact that highlights serious concerns about voter fraud and bureaucratic incompetence in the conduct of elections. If we don't take notice, we could see another debacle like the Bush-Gore Florida recount of 2000. Who's Counting? recounts recent cases like a 2010 state representative race in Kansas City, Mo. that was stolen when one candidate received illegally cast votes by citizens of Somalia who did not speak English and were coached at the polls. The margin of victory? One vote. While Americans frequently demand observers and best practices in the elections of other countries, we are often blind to the need to scrutinize our own elections. We will pay the consequences in 2012 if a close election leads us into partisan battles and court fights that will dwarf the Bush-Gore recount wars." (Encounter Books)
By Matt Taibbi (October 19, 2012) "A brilliantly illuminating and darkly comic take of the ongoing financial and political crisis in America. The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn't past but prologue. The grifter class- made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding- has been growing in power, and the crisis was only one terrifying manifestation of how they've hijacked America's political and economic life. Matt Taibbi has combined deep sources, trailblazing reportage, and provocative analysis to create the most lucid, emotionally galvanizing account yet written of the ongoing American crisis. He offers fresh reporting on the backroom deals of the bailout; tells the story of Golman Sachs, the "vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity"; and uncovers the hidden commodities bubble that transferred billions of dollars to Wall Street while creating food shortages around the world. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the labyrinthine inner workings of this country, and the profound consequences for us all." (Spiegel & Grau)
By Sheila Bair (October 12, 2012) - "Sheila Bair is widely acknowledged in government circles and the media as one of the first people to identify and accurately assess the subprime crisis. Appointed by George W. Bush as the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 2006, she witnessed the origins of the financial crisis and in 2008 became--along with Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner--one of the key players trying to repair the damage to our economy. Bull by the Horns is her remarkable and refreshingly honest account of that contentious time and the struggle for reform that followed and continues to this day." (Simon & Schuster)
By Ann Coulter (October 12, 2012) "The Obama candidacy allowed liberals to engage in self-righteousness about race and get a hard-core Leftie in the White House at the same time. In 2008, we were told the only way for the nation to move past race was to elect him as president. And 53 percent of voters fell for it. Now, Ann Coulter fearlessly explains the real history of race relations in this country, including how white liberals twist that history to spring the guilty, accuse the innocent, and engender racial hatreds, all in order to win politically. Going where few authors would dare, Coulter explores the racial demagoguery that has mugged America since the early seventies. She shines the light of truth on cases ranging from Tawana Brawley, Lemrick Nelson, and Howard Beach, NY, to the LA riots and the Duke lacrosse scandal. And she shows how the 2012 Obama campaign is going to inspire the greatest racial guilt mongering of all time." (Sentinal HC)
By Ben Affleck (October 12, 2012) "On November 4, 1979, as the Iranian revolution reaches its boiling point, militants storm the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. But, in the midst of the chaos, six Americans manage to slip away and find refuge in the home of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor. Knowing it is only a matter of time before the six are found out and likely killed, the Canadian and American governments ask the CIA to intervene. The CIA turns to their top "exfiltration" specialist, Tony Mendez, to come up with a plan to get the six Americans safely out of the country. A plan so incredible, it could only happen in the movies. Based on real events, the dramatic thriller "Argo" chronicles the life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans, which unfolded behind the scenes of the Iran hostage crisis, focusing on the little-known role that the CIA and Hollywood played- information that was not declassified until many years after the event. Academy Award winner Ben Affleck directs and stars in the film." (Warner Brothers)
By Frank Luntz - (October 5, 2012) "From the New York Times bestselling author and top pollster Dr. Frank Luntz comes an unprecedented examination of communication excellence and how top performers win in all areas of human endeavor by utilizing superb communication skills. From Mike Bloomberg and Arnold Schwarzenegger to business icons Rupert Murdoch, Steve Wynn, and Fred Smith; to the CEOs of MGM Resorts, J. Crew, and Gibson Guitar; to legendary sports superstars like Larry Bird, Jimmy Connors, and Mike Richter; to media legends Roger Ailes, Don Imus, and dozens more, Luntz tells their stories-in their own words--and demonstrates how their style of operation and communication is absolutely essential to their success. Luntz makes it clear that following the rules of effective communication is indispensable in any successful human endeavor." (Hyperion, 2011)
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