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The House Advantage: Playing the Odds to Win Big In Business
As part of the notorious MIT Team depicted in Ben Mezrich's now classic Bringing Down the House, Jeff Ma used math and statistics to master the game of blackjack and reap handsome rewards at casinos. Years later, Ma has inspired not only a bestselling novel and hit movie, but has also started three different companies—the latest of which, Citizen Sports, is an innovative marriage of sports, betting, and digital technology—and launched a successful corporate speaking career. The House Advantage reveals Ma's cutting-edge mathematical insights into the world of statistics and makes them applicable to a wide business audience. He argues that numbers are the key to analyzing nearly everything in the world of business, from how to spot and profit from global market inefficiencies to having multiple backup plans in anticipation of every probability. Ma's stories and business lessons are as intriguing as they are universally applicable.
The Millionaire Next Door
The incredible national bestseller that is changing people's lives -- and increasing their net worth!CAN YOU SPOT THE MILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR?Who are the rich in this country?What do they do?Where do they shop?What do they drive?How do they invest?Where did their ancestors come from?How did they get rich?Can I ever become one of them?Get the answers in The Millionaire Next Door, the never-before-told story about wealth in America. You'll be surprised at what you find out....How can you join the ranks of America's wealthy (defined as people whose net worth is over one million dollars)? It's easy, say doctors Stanley and Danko, who have spent the last 20 years interviewing members of this elite club: you just have to follow seven simple rules. The first rule is, always live well below your means. The last rule is, choose your occupation wisely. You'll have to buy the book to find out the other five. It's only fair. The authors' conclusions are commonsensical. But, as they point out, their prescription often flies in the face of what we think wealthy people should do. There are no pop stars or athletes in this book, but plenty of wall-board manufacturers--particularly ones who take cheap, infrequent vacations! Stanley and Danko mercilessly show how wealth takes sacrifice, discipline, and hard work, qualities that are positively discouraged by our high-consumption society. "You aren't what you drive," admonish the authors. Somewhere, Benjamin Franklin is smiling.
See more photos, specs, and reviewsConfessions of an Economic Hit Man
With new material from the author "Economic hit men," John Perkins writes," are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as Empire but one that has taken on terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization." John Perkins should know-he was an economic hit man for an international consulting firm that worked to convince developing countries to accept enormous loans and to funnel that money to U.S. corporations. Once these countries were saddled with huge debts, the American government and international aid agencies were able to request their "pound of flesh" in favors, including access to natural resources, military cooperation, and political support. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is the story of one man's experiences inside the intrigue, greed, corruption and little-known government and corporate activities that America has been involved in since World War II, and which have dire consequences for the future of democracy and the world.
See more photos, specs, and reviewsDenial: A Memoir of Terror
"I have listened and I have been quiet all my life. But now I will speak."
One of the world's foremost experts on terrorism and post-traumatic stress disorder investigates her own unsolved adolescent sexual assault at the hands of a serial rapist, and in so doing, examines the horrors of trauma and denial.
Alone in an unlocked house in a safe neighborhood in the suburban town of Concord, Massachusetts, two good, obedient girls, Jessica Stern, fifteen, and her sister, fourteen, were raped on the night of October 1, 1973. The girls had just come back from ballet lessons and were doing their homework when a strange man armed with a gun entered their home. Afterward, when they reported the crime, the police were skeptical.
The rapist was never caught. For over thirty years, Stern denied the pain and the trauma of the assault. Following the example of her family, Stern-who lost her mother at the age of three, and whose father was a Holocaust survivor-focused on her work instead of her terror. She became a world-class expert on terrorism, a lauded academic and writer who interviewed terrorists around the globe. But while her career took off, her success hinged on her symptoms. After her ordeal she could not feel fear in normally frightening situations.
Stern believed she'd disassociated from the trauma altogether, until a devoted police lieutenant reopened the sisters' rape case and brought her back to that harrowing night more than three decades past. With the help of the lieutenant, Stern began her own investigation-bringing to bear all her skills as a researcher-to uncover the truth about the town of Concord, her family, and her own mind. The result is Denial, a candid, courageous, and ultimately hopeful look at a trauma and its aftermath.
See more photos, specs, and reviewsSurely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)
The outrageous exploits of one of this century's greatest scientific minds and a legendary American original. In this phenomenal national bestseller, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman recounts in his inimitable voice his adventures trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas on gambling with Nick the Greek, painting a naked female toreador, accompanying a ballet on his bongo drums and much else of an eyebrow-raising and hilarious nature. A New York Times bestseller; more than 500,000 copies sold.
See more photos, specs, and reviewsMemories, Dreams, Reflections
An autobiography put together from conversations, writings and lectures with Jung's cooperation, at the end of his life.
See more photos, specs, and reviewsThe Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal
Amazon Exclusive: Kevin Spacey on The Accidental Billionaires
Kevin Spacey's films include Superman Returns, Beyond the Sea, The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Swimming with Sharks, Seven, L.A. Confidential, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Negotiator, Hurlyburly, K-Pax, and The Shipping News. He will next be seen in Men Who Stare at Goats opposite George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, and Jeff Bridges, as well as Nick Moran's film Telstar opposite Colm O'Neil and Pam Ferris. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of The Accidental Billionaires:
I first met Ben Mezrich when I produced and starred in 21, the film adaptation of his great bestseller Bringing Down the House. Ben has a gift for finding high-energy, strange-but-true tales and The Accidental Billionaires is no exception.
You may think you know the story of the Facebook phenomenon, but you haven't heard the whole story and never like this. Recreating the unbelievable rise of the world's biggest social network-not to mention the planet's youngest billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg-Ben tells a captivating story of betrayal, vast amounts of cash, and two friends who revolutionized the way humans connect to one another-only to have an enormous falling out and never speak again.
Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were two geeky, socially awkward Harvard undergrads who wanted nothing more than to be cool. While Eduardo chose the more straightforward path of trying to gain acceptance into one of the school's ultra-posh, semi-secret Final Clubs, Mark used his computer skills by hacking into Harvard's computers, pulling up all the pictures of every girl on campus to create a sort of "hot-or-not" site exclusive to Harvard. Though the prank nearly got Mark kicked out of college, he and Eduardo realized that they were on to something big. Thus, the initial concept of Facebook was born; what happened next, however, was right out of a Hollywood thriller.
The Accidental Billionaires is the perfect pairing of author and subject. It's pure summer fun-a juicy, fast-paced, unputdownable Mezrich tale that adds to his canon of lad lit. And Hollywood has come calling again: I'm currently working with Dana Brunetti, Scott Rudin, Mike Deluca, and Aaron Sorkin on the movie adaptation of The Accidental Billionaires. If the book is any indication, the film is going to be a must see.-Kevin Spacey See more photos, specs, and reviewsAppetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West
A Note from Stephen Fried on Appetite for America
I first encountered Fred Harvey seventeen years ago in the lobby of El Tovar, the historic hotel just a few steps from the edge of the Grand Canyon. His moody portrait was hanging there, his anxious eyes seemingly scrutinizing everything, and I wondered who the hell he was.
A pamphlet in our room offered some insight, explaining that his company had been running the hotels, the restaurants, the gift shops at the canyon--even training the mules--since 1905. It also mentioned the amazing impact of his entrepreneurial vision. From the 1870s through the 1940s, Fred's revolutionary family business--which included restaurants, hotels, dining cars and stores from Chicago to Los Angeles along the Santa Fe railroad, and later along Rt. 66--had forever changed the way Americans ate, drank, cooked, traveled, and spent their leisure time.
Hotel pamphlets don't often change my life, but I was immediately struck by what sounded like a great American saga that needed to be told in more depth, perhaps in a magazine article. So I started searching for information about Fred, picking up the few academic books that mentioned him, his company, and his legendary waitresses, the Harvey Girls.
I learned that the Fred Harvey name had once been ubiquitous in America, as the company built the nation's first chain of restaurants, lunchrooms, hotels, bookstores--in fact, the first national chain of anything--and was heralded for its unusually high standards of customer service and employee loyalty. By the 1940s, Fred and the Harvey Girls were such a well-established part of Americana that they inspired both a best-selling novel and an Oscar-winning movie musical with Judy Garland. And they went on to inspire everything from the Howard Johnson's chain to McDonald's and Starbucks, and all the major national hotels (along with a robust community of Harvey memorabilia collectors.)
As I continued my research, I found myself caught up in the little-known Harvey family drama. I realized that much of what was attributed to Fred himself had actually been done by his equally brilliant but unsung son, Ford--who memorialized his father by turning him into a brand-name. I am a sucker for stories about father-son family businesses, having grown up in one myself (furniture).
Somehow I never got around to writing that article. But ten years later, I was having lunch with my editor at Bantam, and we started talking about the new breed of history books--like Seabiscuit and Devil in the White City--being written by contemporary journalists. I suddenly found myself regaling her with my fascination with Fred Harvey, insisting that the saga of his multigenerational family business had all the excitement, intrigue and narrative richness of this new genre of "history buffed" books. Writing it would also give me a window into an entire 75-year stretch of American history.
By the end of the lunch, we agreed I write a book on Fred. It was the best decision I ever made in my career; this has been the most challenging and rewarding book I've ever written.
The more I've learned about Fred, his family, his Harvey Girls, his business and his world, the more I understand about America. And, by reliving through them two Depressions and several major recessions, two world wars, two flu pandemics, the rise of trains, autos and planes, electric lights, telephones, radio and television, I am constantly reminded of this nation's courage and resiliency.
The very first person (besides my editors) to read the manuscript of this book told me Fred's story made him feel better about America. And I know exactly what he means.
May Fred be with you.
See more photos, specs, and reviewsSomeone Will Be with You Shortly: Notes from a Perfectly Imperfect Life
Lisa Kogan is a forty-nine-year-old single woman who maintains that every human being deserves a great mattress, a comfortable pair of shoes, and a very smart shrink, and that no one has grown a decent tomato since 1963. She used to think the world wasn't all that complicated, but along came AIDS and crack and Rush Limbaugh, and she had to think again. Still, she's nostalgic for that time when you had to walk all the way across the room to change channels and there was no such thing as a spy satellite capable of spotting a precancerous mole on her left thigh.
In Someone Will Be with You Shortly, Kogan grapples with issues big (her six-year-old daughter, Julia, and the 8,000 miles that separate them from Julia's father) and small (her recent apartment renovation, which consisted of turning over the sofa cushions and then realizing that they looked better the other way) with the self-deprecating humor and deep appreciation for what really matters that have made her column in O, The Oprah Magazine so beloved. Here is a book for anyone who has ever been unnerved by pleather pants, lunch meat, or ambivalent men (not necessarily in that order), but believes that life is a fragile bit of luck well worth living.
See more photos, specs, and reviewsA Rumor of War
When it first appeared, A Rumor of War brought home to American readers, with terrifying vividness and honesty, the devastating effects of the Vietnam War on the soldiers who fought there. And while it is a memoir of one young man's experiences and therefore deeply personal, it is also a book that speaks powerfully to today's students about the larger themes of human conscience, good and evil, and the desperate extremes men are forced to confront in any war.
A platoon commander in the first combat unit sent to fight in Vietnam, Lieutenant Caputo landed at Danang on March 8, 1965, convinced that American forces would win a quick and decisive victory over the Communists. Sixteen months later and without ceremony, Caputo left Vietnam a shell-shocked veteran whose youthful idealism and faith in the rightness of the war had been utterly shattered. A Rumor of War tells the story of that trajectory and allows us to see and feel the reality of the conflict as the author himself experienced it, from the weeks of tedium hacking through scorching jungles, to the sudden violence of ambushes and firefights, to the unbreakable bonds of friendship forged between soldiers, and finally to a sense of the war as having no purpose other than the fight for survival. The author gives us a precise, tactile view of both the emotional and physical reality of war.
When Caputo is reassigned to headquarters as "Officer in Charge of the Dead," he chronicles the psychological cost of witnessing and recording the human toll of the war. And after his voluntary transfer to the frontlines, Caputo shows us that the major weapons of guerrilla fighting are booby traps and land mines, and that success is measured not in feet but in body counts. Nor does the author shrink from admitting the intoxicating intensity of combat, an experience so compelling that many soldiers felt nostalgic for it years after they'd left
Vietnam. Most troubling, Caputo gives us an unflinching view not only of remarkable bravery and heroism but also of the atrocities committed in Vietnam by ordinary men so numbed by fear and desperate to survive that their moral distinctions had collapsed.
More than a statement against war, Caputo's memoir offers readers today a profoundly visceral sense of what war is and, as the author says, of "the things men do in war and the things war does to men."
This edition includes a twentieth-anniversary postscript by the author.