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Hazy Bloom and the Pet Project (Hazy Bloom Ser. #2)
by Jennifer HamburgAfter wacky third grader Hazy Bloom starts seeing visions of things that will happen one day in the future, she hopes her "tomorrow power" will help her get the pet she's always dreamed of in this hilarious book by Jennifer Hamburg with illustrations by Jenn Harney. It's the annual Third Grade Leadership Challenge, where each third-grade class plans and hosts a fundraiser. Hazel "Hazy" Bloom, however, has other things on her mind—like proving to her parents she’s responsible enough to get a pet iguana. But when Hazy's "tomorrow power"—her ability to see visual clues about things that will happen one day in the future—mistakenly causes her to have a brilliant idea for a Pet Day fundraiser, her classmates put her in charge. Hazy's annoyed, until she realizes that if she helps the class win, her parents will finally see that she's responsible enough to get the iguana she's dreaming of. Soon, Hazy’s determined to make sure her team ends up on top—but it’s not so easy when her tomorrow visions keep throwing her plans into disarray!
Freedom to Die: People, Politics and the Right-to-Die Movement
by Derek Humphrey Mary ClementThe strength of the right-to-die movement was underscored as early as 1991, when Derek Humphry published Final Exit, the movement's call to arms that inspired literally hundreds of thousands of Americans who wished to understand the concepts of assisted suicide and the right to die with dignity. Now Humphry has joined forces with attorney Mary Clement to write Freedom to Die, which places this civil rights story within the framework of American social history. More than a chronology of the movement, this book explores the inner motivations of an entire society. Reaching back to the years just after World War II, Freedom to Die explores the roots of the movement and answers the question: Why now, at the end of the twentieth century, has the right-to-die movement become part of the mainstream debate? In a reasoned voice, which stands out dramatically amid the vituperative clamoring of the religious right, the authors examine the potential dangers of assisted suicide - suggesting ways to avert the negative consequences of legalization - even as they argue why it should be legalized.
Ladies of the Lake: A Novel
by Haywood SmithFrom Haywood Smith, the New York Times bestselling author of THE RED HAT CLUB novels comes a pitch perfect story of four sisters who are forced to come together after years of silenceSisters Dahlia, Iris, Violet, and Rose—all with grown children of their own—have a complicated relationship, so when their grandmother's will requires them to spend the whole summer—without friends or family—"camping in" at her run-down lodge on re mote Lake Clare in order to inherit the valuable land, old rivalries and new understanding emerge, with plenty of laughs along the way. Desperate to save her Buckhead home from foreclosure after being left in the lurch, recent divorcee Dahlia must complete the summer and sell her share immediately. Practical, even-tempered Violet will be no problem, but Iris has been Dahlia's nemesis since she learned to say, "no" to her big sister. And super-sweet, quirky Garage Sale Queen Rose is so "green" she'd test the patience of a saint. As tempers flare and old secrets are revealed, four grown women discover that the past is never truly buried, in Haywood Smith's Ladies of the Lake.
White Pine & Blue Water: A State of Maine Reader (City and Country Reader Series)
by Henry BestonHere is a volume that is true Maine--as eloquent of "downeast" as a bough of fir balsam, as the thunder of a wave of a rocky shore, as the lonely splendor of the northern lights in the sky behind Katahdin. In WHITE PINE AND BLUE WATER has been collected the best of three centuries of fact and fiction written about the wonderful country that is Maine.The recorded history of this northern land starts in the troubled era when the French and English battled each other and the Indians for sovereignty, told here in the words of early travelers, missionaries, soldiers. Then came the bloody days of revolution when Benedict Arnold marched on Quebec. The volume records the strange tale of two forgotten heroines, Maine women who accompanied their husbands on the trek through the Maine wilderness.As America grew, prosperity came to Maine through her ports. Her seafaring days are described by such authors as Rachael Field and Edwin Arlington Robinson, while 19th century men and women--Longfellow, Henry Thoreau, Harriet Beecher Stowe and James Russell Lowell among others--relate their own experiences in the Maine of that era. The inland Maine of tall trees and great rivers comes to life in the words of writers such as Stewart Holbrook and Ben Ames Williams.In telling of the Maine of living memory Robert P. Tristram Coffin describes the ice trade on the Kennebec and Sarah Orne Jewett writes of an old seacoast mansion. F. Marion Crawford notes the entrance of the summer visitor at Bar Harbor in the eighteen nineties.The farmlands and farmers of Maine command the attention of Elizabeth Coatsworth, Gladys Hastings Carroll and E. B. White, while Ruth Moore tells of Maine fishermen and Louise Dickinson Rich describes that imposing man, the Maine guide.Henry Beston is a student of things American, a distinguished naturalist, and a Maine farmer. In preparing this volume he has been able to draw on a knowledge both of Maine literature and of the land itself. His wife is Elizabeth Coatsworth, the poet. Mr. Beston has written a number of books, including NORTHERN FARM, which state-of-Mainers put at the top of their own list.
Kangaroo
by Yuz AleshkovskyKangaroo is a savage, cleansing satire in which Yuz Aleshkovsky confronts the hypocrisy, the cruelty, and the tragic failure of the Soviet regime. His phantasmagoria is faithful to reality, for--as Dostoevsky knew--it is impossible for "realism" to portray a society whose corruption is literally fantastic.One morning in 1949, Fan Fanych, alias Etcetera, is summoned from his Moscow apartment to KGB headquarters, where he is informed that he will be charged with a crime more heinous than any mere man could ever devise. Comrade Etcetera will be tried for "the vicious rape and murder of an aged kangaroo in the Moscow Zoo on a night between July 14, 1789, and January 9, 1905."Every moment in the nightmarish and hilarious account that follows lives up to the absurdity of this accusation. A seductive KGB agent attempts to convince Fan Fanych that he is a kangaroo; he finds himself in the dock at a spectacular show trial; is sent to a camp full of dedicated old Bolsheviks pathetically attempting to maintain their beliefs in the face of every new atrocity; encounters Hitler in Berlin and Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Yalta, where he is privileged to witness the famous conference as it was really conducted.
Politicking: How to Get Elected, Take Action, and Make an Impact in Your Community
by Bill RauchHow to get elected--and live to tell the taleBill Rauch has lived an unusual political life: a decade as press secretary, advance man, and confidant to New York mayor Ed Koch, followed by a decade as city councilman and now as mayor of Beaufort, South Carolina.In this account of the ways and means of local politics, Rauch contends that a great city and an antebellum town pose the same challenge-that of blending blood sport and selfless public service day in and day out. How to get elected, run a meeting, work the room, and take credit when it is due; how to ward off threats from rivals and control the agenda; how to look good on camera, leak stories, and shape press coverage to your advantage: Rauch illustrates these crucial points of political life with vivid and often hilarious inside stories from his tenure in New York and in Beaufort. Politicking is a winning blend of political primer and personal chronicle; more than that, it is an unusually candid account of how the political game is played-and won-in America today.
Groupon's Biggest Deal Ever: The Inside Story of How One Insane Gamble, Tons of Unbelievable Hype, and Millions of Wild Deals Made Billions for One Ballsy Joker
by Frank SennettThe inside story of the meteoric rise of Groupon from startup to $30 billion online giant and the audacious genius behind it, founder Andrew MasonIn late 2010, Groupon made an incredible gamble. Rather than take Google's $6 billion buyout offer, founder Andrew Mason turned the search giant down and decided to go it alone. The experts thought he was insane. Groupon was little more than two years old and staffed from top to bottom with twenty-somethings. The wild ride couldn't last, but Mason thought otherwise, and with knowledge of a possible IPO he liked his odds. A discount service that offers a deal a day at local merchants in countless cities in more than forty-three countries, Groupon is the fastest-growing company in Internet history and is as committed to innovating a new model for commerce as it is to creating an office culture and editorial voice based on radical transparency and absurd humor. Groupon's Biggest Deal Ever is the exclusive and unparalleled account of the incredible rise of discount giant Groupon and the compelling story of its offbeat founder Andrew Mason as he created a juggernaut of online commerce and ignited a consumer revolution.
The Three of Us: A New Life in New York
by Peter Godwin Joanna ColesThere are guides to every aspect and every angle of parenthood-from prenatal to post-college-yet none tells us what couples really and truly feel once confronted with the awesome power of Nature's Course. The Three of Us does.Seasoned travelers, successful professionals, Joanna Coles and Peter Godwin arrived in Manhattan ready to make it their oyster-she to be the New York correspondent for a major British newspaper, he to pursue his prize-winning career as a writer and journalist. Of course they were self-absorbed; why come to New York, if not to explore every avenue of self-interest? The news that Joanna is pregnant, however, causes a massive shift in paradigm. Suddenly they are launched unsteadily but irrevocably toward an altogether new New World.Like a series of mental ultrasounds, The Three of Us consists of alternating diary entries in which, day by day and month by month, Peter and Joanna navigate the uncharted waters of impending parenthood. There is much to discuss-the pros and cons of raising a child in a neighborhood frequented by transvestite prostitutes, for example-yet their reactions are not always on the same page; male and female panic about the Joyous Event, as we learn, can differ sharply. But every parent-to-be, every parent-that-is, will recognize and rejoice in the wonderful, terrible, and sometimes hilarious anxieties that attend the building of a nest. The Three of Us is a candid, refreshing, and reaffirming memoir about coming to terms with a new life.
Before the Big Bang: The Prehistory of Our Universe
by Brian CleggAccording to a recent survey, the most popular question about science from the general public was: what came before the Big Bang? We all know on some level what the Big Bang is, but we don't know how it became the accepted theory, or how we might know what came before. In Before the Big Bang, Brian Clegg (the critically acclaimed author of Upgrade Me and The God Effect) explores the history of this remarkable concept. From the earliest creation myths, through Hershel's realization that the Milky Way was one of many galaxies, to on-going debates about Black Holes, this is an incredible look at the origins of the universe and the many theories that led to the acceptance of the Big Bang. But in classic scientist fashion Clegg challenges the notion of the "Big Bang" itself, and raises the deep philosophical question of why we might want to rethink the origin of the universe. This is popular science at its best, exploratory, controversial, and utterly engrossing.
Blue Plate Special: A Novel of Love, Loss, and Food
by Frances NorrisBoth humorous and heartbreaking, Blue Plate Special serves up an uplifting exploration of the courage it takes to embrace life after loss.Thirty-three-year-old Julia Daniel doesn't really feel at home anywhere. Her life in L.A. is lonely, and her career as a food stylist for a struggling gourmet magazine falls well short of her desire to be a photographer. Although she liked growing up in Kentucky, ever since her mother's death and her father's remarriage, her birthplace hasn't felt like the right fit either. After the tragic deaths of her father and stepmother in a plane crash, Julia's true odyssey begins. Orphaned and adrift, she tries to find her way in the world while fending off a crazy boss, a pilfering stepsister, and a looming depression.Though shored up by two good friends and an excellent psychologist who helps her work through her grief, it is an unexpected-and comically disastrous-trip to Sedona for the magazine that finally enables Julia to move forward. Returning to L.A., she searches for the strength to strike out on her own, take a chance on love, and seek a tentative peace with her wayward stepsister."A thoughtful look at making one's way in a world that's uncertain." - Publishers Weekly
Chickamauga: Poems
by Charles WrightThis volume, Wright's eleventh book of poetry, is a vivid, contemplative, far-reaching, yet wholly plain-spoken collection of moments appearing as lenses through which to see the world beyond our moments. Chickamauga is also a virtuoso exploration of the power of concision in lyric poetry--a testament to the flexible music of the long line Wright has made his own. As a reviewer in Library Journal noted: "Wright is one of those rare and gifted poets who can turn thought into music. Following his self-prescribed regimen of purgatio, illuminato, and contemplatio, Wright spins one lovely lyric after another on such elemental subjects as sky, trees, birds, months, and seasons. But the real subject is the thinking process itself and the mysterious alchemy of language: 'The world is a language we never quite understand.'"
The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World
by Mark HertsgaardWhat America looks like to the rest of the worldAmericans rarely used to think about the outside world. As the mightiest nation in history, the United States could do as it pleased. Now Americans have learned the hard way that what outsiders think matters. When terror struck last September 11, author Mark Hertsgaard was completing a trip around the world, gathering perceptions about America from people in fifteen countries. Whether sophisticated business leaders, starry-eyed teenagers, or Islamic fundamentalists, his subjects felt both admiring and uneasy about the United States, enchanted yet bewildered, appalled yet envious.This complex catalogue of impressions--good, bad, but never indifferent--is the departure point for a short, pointed essay in the tradition of Common Sense and The Fate of the Earth. How can the world's most open society be so proud of its founding ideals yet so inconsistent in applying them? So loved for its pop culture but so resented for its high-handedness? Exploring such paradoxes, Hertsgaard exposes uplifting and uncomfortable truths that force natives and outsiders alike to see America with fresh eyes."Like it or not, America is the future," a European tells Hertsgaard. In a world growing more American by the day, The Eagle's Shadow is a major statement about and to the place everyone discusses but few understand.
Jenny & the Jaws of Life: Short Stories
by Jincy WillettIn these wonderfully funny and poignant stories, Willett's eccentric, complex characters think and do the unconventional. Soft, euphonic women gradually grow old; weak, unhappy men confront love and their own mortality; and abominable children desperately try to grow up with grace. With a unique voice and dry humor, Willett gives us a new insight into human existence, showing us those specific moments in relationships when life suddenly becomes visible.Critically acclaimed when it was first published in 1987, Jenny and the Jaws of Life is being brought back due to popular demand. It's a timeless collection filled with a certain freshness and wit that ring just as loudly today.
Rewriting Secrets for Screenwriters: Seven Strategies to Improve and Sell Your Work
by Tom LazarusEvery screenwriter needs to rewrite—more than once, probably many times—to make the story work and then to make a sale. And then again later on, to please producers, studios or stars. Tom Lazarus--author of "Stigmata", among other scripts--is a working screenwriter and professor at UCLA extension. In this book, he's distilled his own experience and that of other screenwriters into a system. SECRETS OF FILM REWRITING will teach writers how to:-prioritize big scenes-track transitions-plot corrections-add new information-pass through for dialogue-do an "on the nose" rewrite Hugely valuable to first-time screenwriters and to grizzled veterans of Hollywood pitch wars alike, SECRETS OF SCREENPLAY REWRITING is larded with humor and attitude as well as information. Its anatomy of a screenplay rewrite breaks down the book's lessons into their practical application—a must for anyone looking for a break in the film business.
The Divorced Child: Strengthening Your Family through the First 3 Years of Separation
by Joseph NowinskiDivorce is a reality of today's family life, but clinical research has shown that it is possible to mitigate its negative effects on children. Dr. Joseph Nowinski, a family therapist with over 20 years of experience treating families, argues that there is a three-year window in which to acclimate children to the change in family life. Combining case studies with new research, Dr. Nowinski gives parents the information and the tools to work through the transition. Written in a warm and authoritative tone, Nowinski will teach parents to:· Focus on your child's new day-to-day reality· Identify early signs of trouble· Help your child through the separation process and help them develop coping skills that will remain with them through life
Michelle Wie: The Making of a Champion
by Jennifer MarioIn the first-ever Michelle Wie biography, golf writer Jennifer Mario tells the story of this inspirational golfing phenomenon, from her million-dollar endorsement deals to her rocket rise to success—from her sweet golf swing to her life as a pro golfer. Michelle Wie's young career already reads like a world-record entry: youngest player to qualify for an LPGA tournament; youngest player to win the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links championship; youngest female to play in PGA Tour events. Now Michelle Wie can add to the list being the youngest female golfer to ever turn professional.This biography will be a great read for anyone interested in the life of their favorite role model—and for readers everywhere looking for the full story behind a legend in the making.
Love and Chaos (A Brooklyn Girls Novel)
by Gemma BurgessWild child and secret romantic Angie wakes up in a hotel room with $3,000 and no memories of the night before. Her best friends aren't talking to her, she can't get a job in fashion, her parents are divorcing, and she's about to turn twenty-three. And life is about to get much worse.Brooklyn Girls: Love and Chaos continues the story of our five favorite grads sharing a brownstone and starting out in New York City through Angie's eyes. On a journey from private jets and yacht parties to dirty subways and hipster bars via crazy storms, flash floods, and retail jobs from hell, Angie discovers who she is, what she wants, how she's going to get it —and a crazy little thing called true love.Meanwhile, her roommates lives are imploding, too. Coco's self-medicating and self-loathing, Pia's breaking up and cracking up, Madeleine's finding her voice and Julia might—just might—have met someone she can actually date.Brooklyn Girls is the hilarious, inspiring Gemma Burgess series every twenty-something has been waiting for that tells you that whatever you do, whatever mistakes you make, everything is going to be okay. All you need is a little luck, a little work, and your best friends.
Be My Knife
by David GrossmanThe international bestseller Be My Knife is a compelling love story from David Grossman, the leading Israeli novelist of his generation"We could be like two people who inject themselves with truth serum, and at long last have to tell it--the truth. I want to be able to say to myself, 'I bled truth with her,' yes, that's what I want. Be a knife for me, and I, I swear, will be a knife for you."An awkward, neurotic seller of rare books writes a desperate letter to a beautiful stranger whom he sees at a class reunion. This simple, lonely attempt at seduction begins a love affair of words between Yair and Miriam, two married, middle-aged adults, dissatisfied with their lives, yearning for the connection that has always eluded them--and, eventually, reawakened to feelings that they thought had passed them by. Their correspondence unfolds into an exchange of their most naked confessions: of desire, childhood tragedies, joys, and humiliations. Through the dialogue between Yair--a family man and surprisingly successful adulterer, whose complex, guarded letters reveal a life of secrets kept from the people closest to him--and Miriam, at first deceptively open and warm, who fills her life with distraction to avoid a past full of painful secrets, Be My Knife explores the nature and the limits of intimacy. A deep departure from David Grossman's previous work, Be My Knife is his subtlest, most passionate novel yet.
Inez: A Novel
by Carlos FuentesA magical short novel that weaves together two stories, two couples, two different times, and two grand passionsIn one of the narratives that comprise this superb new novel from Carlos Fuentes, we are introduced to Gabriel Atlan-Ferrara, a fabled orchestral conductor, and his great love Inez Prada, a renowned singer. In the other, Fuentes memorably delineates the very first encounter in human history between a man and a woman. In one, the intense drama of Berlioz's music for The Damnation of Faust informs the action; in the other, we watch as a slowly emergent love shapes the nature and character of the two protagonists. A beautiful crystal seal -- the meaning of which is a mystery that obsesses Atlan-Ferrara, who owns it -- unites these two narratives; the magical seal allows one to read unknown languages and hear impossible music, and it is the symbol of a shared love. The duality of Carlos Fuentes's brilliant new novel mirrors two eras, one in the deepest remote time and one in a time to come, but the passions evoked in both, reflected against each other like two sides of a crystal seal, break the limits of time and space and unite in one story. And, like the light refracted through the seal, it begins in prehistory and spirals out into infinity . . . In Inez, we find Carlos Fuentes at the height of his magical and realist powers. This profound and beautiful work confirms his standing as Mexico's pre-eminent novelist.
The Tragic Age: A Novel
by Stephen MetcalfeThis is the story of Billy Kinsey, heir to a lottery fortune, part genius, part philosopher and social critic, full time insomniac and closeted rock drummer. Billy has decided that the best way to deal with an absurd world is to stay away from it. Do not volunteer. Do not join in. Billy will be the first to tell you it doesn't always work--not when your twin sister, Dorie, has died, not when your unhappy parents are at war with one another, not when frazzled soccer moms in two ton SUVs are more dangerous than atom bombs, and not when your guidance counselor keeps asking why you haven't applied to college.Billy's life changes when two people enter his life. Twom Twomey is a charismatic renegade who believes that truly living means going a little outlaw. Twom and Billy become one another's mutual benefactor and friend. At the same time, Billy is reintroduced to Gretchen Quinn, an old and adored friend of Dorie's. It is Gretchen who suggests to Billy that the world can be transformed by creative acts of the soul. With Twom, Billy visits the dark side. And with Gretchen, Billy experiences possibilities.Billy knows that one path is leading him toward disaster and the other toward happiness. The problem is-Billy doesn't trust happiness. It's the age he's at. The tragic age. Stephen Metcalfe's brilliant, debut coming-of-age novel, The Tragic Age, will teach you to learn to love, trust and truly be alive in an absurd world.
Einstein: A Biography
by Jürgen NeffeAlbert Einstein is an icon of the twentieth century. Born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879, he is most famous for his theory of relativity. He also made enormous contributions to quantum mechanics and cosmology, and for his work he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921. A self-pronounced pacifist, humanist, and, late in his life, democratic socialist, Einstein was also deeply concerned with the social impact of his discoveries. Much of Einstein's life is shrouded in legend. From popular images and advertisements to various works of theater and fiction, he has come to signify so many things. In Einstein: A Biography, Jürgen Neffe presents a clear and probing portrait of the man behind the myth. Unearthing new documents, including a series of previously unknown letters from Einstein to his sons, which shed new light on his role as a father, Neffe paints a rich portrait of the tumultuous years in which Einstein lived and worked. And with a background in the sciences, he describes and contextualizes Einstein's enormous contributions to our scientific legacy.Einstein, a breakout bestseller in Germany, is sure to be a classic biography of the man and proverbial genius who has been called "the brain of the [twentieth] century."
A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry
by Andy MarinoAndy Marino's A Quiet American is an effort to examine the life of a genuine American hero whose political and cultural influence remain largely unacknowledged. The story of Varian Fry, called the "real Rick" of Casablanca, is perhaps one of the most unknown, yet extraordinary sagas of World War II. This penetrating biography follows Varian Fry through his adult life--from his beginnings in the 1930s as a Harvard graduate and political journalist to his arrival in Marseille in 1940 where he managed to spirit away thousands of Europe's cultural elite by falsifying passports, creating new identities, and always resorting to subterfuge. The list of those saved includes: Hannah Arendt, Andre Breton, Franz Werful and his wife Alma Mahler, Heinrich Mann, Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Andre Masson, and Max Ernst among others.
The Chosen One: A Novel
by Carol Lynch WilliamsCarol Lynch Willams' The Chosen One is a dazzling novel about a young teenager's rebellion from the polygamist cult that would have her become the seventh wife to her 60-year-old uncle Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated community without questioning the fact that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters, with two more on the way. That is, without questioning them much---if you don't count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with Joshua, the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her. But when the Prophet decrees that she must marry her sixty-year-old uncle---who already has six wives---Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family forever.PLUS SPECIAL BONUS CONTENT: FIRST CHAPTER "SNEAK PEEK" OF CAROL LYNCH WILLIAMS'S MILES FROM ORDINARY."Imagine Anna Quindlen or Sue Miller turning her attention to writing a young adult novel, and you have an idea what [Williams] has done for early teen readers…" --Audrey Couloumbis, author of the Newbery Honor Book Getting Close to BabyThirteen-year-old Lacey wakes to a beautiful summer morning excited to begin her new job at the library, just as her mother is supposed to start work at the grocery store. Lacey hopes that her mother's ghosts have finally been laid to rest; after all, she seems so much better these days, and they really do need the money. But as the hours tick by and memories come flooding back, a day full of hope spins terrifyingly out of control...."No one can get inside the head and heart of a 13-year-old girl better than Carol Lynch Williams, and I mean no one," said James S. Jacobs, Professor of Children's Literature at Brigham Young University, of her breakout novel, The Chosen One. Now this award-winning YA author brings us an equally gripping story of a girl who loves her mother, but must face the truth of what life with that mother means for both of them.
Dreamhunter (The Dreamhunter Duet)
by Elizabeth KnoxLaura comes from a world similar to our own except for one difference: it is next to the Place, an unfathomable land that fosters dreams of every kind and is inaccessible to all but a select few, the Dreamhunters. These are individuals with special gifts: the ability to catch larger-than-life dreams and relay them to audiences in the magnificent dream palace, the Rainbow Opera. People travel from all around to experience the benefits of the hunters' unique visions. Now fifteen-year-old Laura and her cousin Rose, daughters of Dreamhunters, are eligible to test themselves at the Place and find out whether they qualify for the passage. But nothing can prepare them for what they are about to discover. For within the Place lies a horrific secret kept hidden by corrupt members of the government. And when Laura's father, the man who discovered the Place, disappears, she realizes that this secret has the power to destroy everyone she loves . . .In the midst of a fascinating landscape, Laura's dreamy childhood is ending and a nightmare beginning. This rich novel, filled with beauty, danger, politics, and intrigue, comes to a powerful crescendo, leaving readers clamoring for Book Two.Dreamhunter is a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year."It is like nothing else I've ever read." -- Stephenie Meyer, The Twilight Saga
The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster—and How Nine Other Startups Left the Rest in the Dust
by Sean AmmiratiIn The Science of Growth, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon professor Sean Ammirati tackles the dos and don'ts of successful scaling, by looking at the startups that have won—and lost.The lean entrepreneurship movement has captivated Silicon Valley and entrepreneurs across the country. It's provided an agile framework to develop the right product solution for a given target market, and is now used by almost every fledgling company to do just that.The next challenge is growth - to achieve the financial returns and, more importantly, the impact they dreamed of when starting off on their adventure. Why do some companies realize the VC's goal of a 10x return on investment, while others flounder? What differentiates the companies that become part of the fabric of our lives and remain responsive, no matter how big they get from those that quickly fade? To find out, Ammirati looks at 20 different companies in pairs, who have achieved product-market fit at about the same point in history with the same general target customer-one of which has gone on to achieve real scale, while the other languished.As his research reveals, just a handful of choices-among them, who to partner with, how to finance growth, and how to use data-make all the difference in the world. With such intriguing examples as LinkedIn vs. Spoke, Facebook vs. Friendster, and McDonald's vs. White Castle, Ammirati shows the secret of "the science of growth" and how to cultivate it in any organization.