Staff Picks
Brave New World (of Business)
- Bland L.
- Friday, August 09, 2019
Collection
If you’re interested in recent trends in business, check out these new titles recently added to our collection. Several consider how the world of work has been radically transformed. Seasonal Associate is German novelist Heike Geissler’s account of her stint working at an Amazon fulfillment center in Leipzig. Philadelphia journalist Emily Guendelsberger writes of her experiences at a series of similarly stressful stopgap jobs in On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane. Andres Oppenheimer’s The Robots Are Coming! looks at how automation is transforming employment prospects worldwide.
Real Estate Investing 101
From Finding Properties and Securing Mortgage Terms to REITs and Flipping Houses, an Essential Primer on How to Make Money with Real Estate
Published in 2019
No Ordinary Disruption
The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends
Published in 2015
Offers an analysis of four forces that are transforming the global economy, including the rise of emerging markets, accelerating technological change, an aging world population, and increased global flows of trade, people, and capital.
The Algebra of Happiness
Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning
Published in 2019
"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Four, Scott Galloway, a provocative book of hard-won wisdom for achieving a fulfilling career and life, based on his viral video of the same name. Scott Galloway teaches brand strategy at NYU's Stern School of Business, but often his class veers to life strategy. His students are smart and hardworking, but they struggle with life's biggest questions, just like the rest of us. What's the formula for a life well lived? How can you have a meaningful career, not just a lucrative one? Is work/life balance really possible? What does it take to make a long-term relationship succeed? Galloway explores these and many other questions in the take-no-prisoners style that has made him a sought-after commentator and YouTube star. For example... If (Money In) - (Money Out) > 0, you're rich. The definition of "rich" is income greater than your burn rate. My dad and his wife receive about $50K/year and spend $40K. They are rich. I have friends who earn more than $1 million, but with several children in private schools, an ex-wife, a home in the Hamptons, and the lifestyle of a master of the universe, they spend nearly all of it. They are poor. Compound interest = the key to relationships. Most of us know how compound interest works with money, but don't recognize its power in other spheres. Make small investments in the people you care about, every day. Take a ton of pictures, text your friends stupid things, check in with old friends, express admiration to coworkers, and tell your loved ones that you love them. The payoff is small, until it becomes immense. Serendipity = a function of courage. My willingness to endure rejection from universities, peers, investors, and women has been hugely rewarding. Asking a VC for money is nothing compared to approaching a woman midday in a beach chair, sitting with another woman and a guy, and opening. Nothing wonderful will happen without taking a risk and subjecting yourself to rejection. Cool vacation > Cool car. Studies show people overestimate the happiness that things will bring them, and underestimate the long-term positive effect of experiences. Invest in experiences over things. Drive a Hyundai, and take your spouse to Australia. The Algebra of Happiness is perfect for any graduate, or for anyone who feels adrift"-- Provided by publisher.
Essential Retirement Planning for Solo Agers
A Retirement and Aging Roadmap for Single and Childless Adults
Published in 2018
"Essential Retirement Planning for Solo Agers explores the path ahead for solo agers and presents us with a comprehensive guide for retirement planning. Through stories and personal examples, retirement expert and founder of LifeEncore, Dr. Sara Zeff Geber, describes choices in housing, relationships, legal arrangements, finances, and more--and urges solo agers to plan for the future as though their life and well-being depend on it--because it will!"--Back cover.
Beaten Down, Worked Up
The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor
Published in 2019
Examines the income inequality and declining social mobility endured by today's workers, along with the decades of worker power reductions and the increasing political and economic control of the wealthy.
How to Win in a Winner-take-all World
The Definitive Guide to Adapting and Succeeding in High-performance Careers
Published in 2019
This Land
How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption Are Ruining the American West
Published in 2019
"The public lands of the western United States comprise some 450 million acres of grassland, steppe land, canyons, forests, and mountains. It's an American commons, and it is under assault as never before. Journalist Christopher Ketcham has been documenting the confluence of commercial exploitation and governmental misconduct in this region for over a decade. His revelatory book takes the reader on a journey across these last wild places, to see how capitalism is killing our great commons. Ketcham begins in Utah, revealing the environmental destruction caused by unregulated public lands livestock grazing, and exposing rampant malfeasance in the federal land management agencies, who have been compromised by the profit-driven livestock and energy interests they are supposed to regulate. He then turns to the broad effects of those corrupt politics on wildlife. He tracks the Department of Interior's failure to implement and enforce the Endangered Species Act--including its stark betrayal of protections for the grizzly bear and the sage grouse--and investigates the destructive behavior of U.S. Wildlife Services in their shocking mass slaughter of animals that threaten the livestock industry. Along the way, Ketcham talks with ecologists, biologists, botanists, former government employees, whistleblowers, grassroots environmentalists and other citizens who are fighting to protect the public domain for future generations. This Land is a colorful muckraking journey--part Edward Abbey, part Upton Sinclair--exposing the rot in American politics that is rapidly leading to the sell-out of our national heritage"-- Provided by publisher.
Great Leaders Have No Rules
Contrarian Leadership Principles to Transform Your Team and Business
Published in 2019
"As a serial entrepreneur, Kevin Kruse has seen time and again that the leadership practices that actually work are the opposite of what is commonly taught and implemented. Close Your Open Door Policy shows how a contrarian approach can be a better, faster, and easier way to succeed as a leader. Chapter by chapter, Kruse focuses on a piece of popular wisdom, then shows with real-world case studies and quantitative research that the opposite approach will lead to better results, encouraging leaders to play favorites, stay out of meetings, and, of course, close their open doors"-- Provided by publisher.
A Finer Future
Creating an Economy in Service to Life
Published in 2018
Humanity is in a race with catastrophe and charting the course to a regenerative economy is the most important work facing the world. A Finer Future gathers the evidence and delivers the essential blueprint for an economy that works for people and the planet.-- Provided by publisher.
From Monk to Money Manager
A Former Monk's Financial Guide to Becoming a Little Bit Wealthy -- and Why That's Okay
Published in 2019
Food Routes
Growing Bananas in Iceland and Other Tales from the Logistics of Eating
Published in 2019
"Media attention to food features inventive and charismatic chefs, the rise of farmer's markets and of food deserts, GMO controversies, the power of culture in cuisine, diet fads, and so on. But how does food, be it industrial or small scale, local or international, nutritious or unhealthy get to our plate? This book shows us how. Stories that inform us about how food moves from the producer to the consumer are only just appearing and are timely relative to the developments in food distribution. Without understanding the complex and adaptive global food supply chain, consumers, policy makers, and the food industry fail to appreciate the full range of opportunities for innovation. Farmers are increasingly engineers, farms are becoming enclosed vertical structures or laboratories with no plant or animal in sight. Food may arrive on our plates from food printers, lab dishes, or from our very own farms that produce personalized food in our homes. The possibilities and consequences are only now becoming visible. No more an invisible supply chain, the future food system will operate transparently and faster. This is a global story, one that centers on urban centers, connected by a network and infrastructure that includes roads, storage facilities, waterways, ports, highways, and airfreight hubs. These stories also reveal a shift in the way we can think about supplying the global population with food in the future. Could it be that the world already produces enough food for the world now and will continue to do so in the future ... and that the critical problem to solve is one of distribution? Could it be that our food will become information, data that will uproot our food system and transplant it into a faster, fresher supply chain that feeds our growing urban populations?"-- Provided by publisher.
Bitcoin Billionaires
A True Story of Genius, Betrayal, and Redemption
Published in 2019
Ben Mezrich's 2009 bestseller The Accidental Billionaires is the definitive account of Facebook's founding and the basis for the Academy Award-winning film The Social Network. Two of the story's iconic characters are Harvard students Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss: identical twins, Olympic rowers, and foils to Mark Zuckerberg. Bitcoin Billionaires is the story of the brothers' redemption and revenge in the wake of their epic legal battle with Facebook. Planning to start careers as venture capitalists, the brothers quickly discover that no one will take their money after their fight with Zuckerberg. While nursing their wounds in Ibiza, they accidentally run into an eccentric character who tells them about a brand-new idea: cryptocurrency. Immersing themselves in what is then an obscure and sometimes sinister world, they begin to realize "crypto" is, in their own words, "either the next big thing or total bulls--t." There's nothing left to do but make a bet. From the Silk Road to the halls of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bitcoin Billionaires will take us on a wild and surprising ride while illuminating a tantalizing economic future. On November 26, 2017, the Winklevoss brothers became the first bitcoin billionaires. Here's the story of how they got there -- as only Ben Mezrich could tell it.
The Public Option
How to Expand Freedom, Increase Opportunity, and Promote Equality
Published in 2019
Whenever you go to your local public library, send mail via the post office, or visit Yosemite, you are taking advantage of a longstanding American tradition: the public option. Some of the most useful and beloved institutions in American life, from public schools to museums, are public options--yet they are seldom celebrated as such. These government-supported opportunities co-exist peaceably alongside private options, ensuring equal access and expanding opportunity for all. Ganesh Sitaraman and Anne Alstott challenge decades of received wisdom about the proper role of government, inviting us to look past the political red herrings peddled by the right (and sometimes the left) and consider the vast improvements that could come from the expansion of public options. Far from illustrating the impossibility of effective government services, as their critics claim, public options hold the potential to transform American civic life, offering a wealth of solutions to seemingly intractable problems, from housing shortages to the escalating cost of health care. Imagine a low-cost, high-quality public option for child care. Or an extension of the excellent Thrift Savings Plan from federal employees to all Americans. Or every person having access to a bank account at the Fed, with no fees and no minimums. From broadband internet to higher education, The Public Option reveals smart new ways to meet pressing public needs while spurring healthy competition. More effective than vouchers or tax credits, and far more equitable than blind faith in the marketplace, public options could offer us all fairer choices, greater security, and more meaningful participation in American life.-- Provided by publisher
The Millennial Whisperer
The Practical, Profit -focused Playbook for Working with and Motivating the World's Largest Generation
Published in 2019
Don't Knock the Hustle
Young Creatives, Tech Ingenuity, and the Making of a New Innovation Economy
Published in 2019