Books of the World newsletter

ISSUE NUMBER 010

JUNE - 2000

Previous issues:
NEWS AND ARTICLES
  • Bezos Talks at Books' Big-Top Jeff Bezos is the keynote speaker at this year's Book Expo America -- six years after he first attended to research whether his fledgling site, Amazon.com, could make a go of it. M.J. Rose reports from Chicago.
  • E-books a hot topic at book show Paper-and-ink publishers are gathering for their annual book convention, and an electronic upstart has them all talking.
  • Who Can Dig Digital Books? The future of the book has long been a subject of heated debate, especially with the advent of the e-world. Now researchers will study how people actually use digital books. By Kendra Mayfield.

RECENT ADDITIONS TO "BOOKS OF THE WORLD"


RECOMMENDED BOOKS
  • BESTSELLERS
    • "Organizing from the Inside Out"
      by Julie Morgenstern

      Don't worry! Julie Morgenstern used to be more disorganized than you. Then she had a child and was forced to devise a foolproof system for organizing, including "Julie's No- Brainer Toss List." Fortune 500 companies consult her. Shouldn't you?
    • "Clicks and Mortar"
      by David Pottruck and Terry Pearce

      According to David Pottruck (co-CEO at Schwab) and Terry Pearce, virtually every business will have to embrace the Internet sooner or later--which means profound changes. They offer an insightful road map for creating the culture and leadership necessary to meet the e-commerce challenge.
    • "White Teeth"
      by Zadie Smith

      Already the subject of much transatlantic buzz, Zadie Smith's first novel takes on race and sex, class and history. Yet "White Teeth" is no polemical tract, but a wickedly inventive comedy with a large London cast and an unmistakable bite to its prose.
    • "Ravelstein"
      by Saul Bellow

      Saul Bellow pulls off yet another masterpiece in this controversial, acerbic, surprisingly funny fictionalization of his friendship with the late Allan Bloom, the Chicago academic turned millionaire author. Here Bloom becomes Abe Ravelstein, ravenous for great ideas and the good life even as AIDS claims him.
    • "Easy Prey"
      by John Sandford

      Supercool sleuth Lucas Davenport tries to figure out who killed a Minneapolis supermodel after her last wild sex party--but there are so many colorful suspects!
    • "Hannibal"
      by Thomas Harris

      Hannibal the Cannibal is back, he's bad, and he's in paperback.
    • "ChangeWave Investing"
      by Tobin Smith

      Smith argues that, despite the topsy-turvy NASDAQ, the New Economy can still double your money in six months.
    • "The Simple Abundance Companion"
      by Sarah Ban Breathnach

      The latest smash bestseller from an author whose books are "like having a big sister to guide you through the journey of self-discovery, sharing equal parts of joy and sorrow, pain and growth," according to one Amazon.com customer. Each chapter is devoted to making the most of one month of the year.
    • "The Four Agreements"
      by Don Miguel Ruiz

      Everything Don Miguel Ruiz knows he learned from his Toltec ancestors--and autorbusght to Oprah and her fans. He's like Carlos Castaneda, only his advice is actually practical as well as spiritual. And you get no hangovers, either.
    • "American Psycho"
      by Bret Easton Ellis

      Long before the movie came out, this shiny, soulless, stylish, extraordinarily black and bloody satire of upper- class manners and mayhem has been flying out of Amazon.com's distribution centers faster than one of Patrick Bateman's dates fleeing his chainsaw.

  • BUSINESS
    • "High-Flying Adventures in the Stock Market"
      by Molly Baker

      If you think mutual funds are boring, then read "High-Flying Adventures in the Stock Market" and think again. Molly Baker looks into a year in the life of Jerry Frey, manager of a family of mutual funds, and relates what it means to oversee a $2 billion portfolio.
    • "Clicks & Mortar"
      by David Pottruck and Terry Pearce

      According to David Pottruck (co-CEO at Charles Schwab) and Terry Pearce, virtually every business will have to embrace the Internet sooner or later--which means profound changes internally as well as externally. In "Clicks & Mortar," they offer an insightful road map for creating the culture and leadership necessary to meet the e-commerce challenge.
    • "The Monk and the Riddle"
      by Randy Komisar

      Randy Komisar can say it with a straight face: "It's not about the money." In "The Monk and the Riddle," Komisar, former CEO of LucasArts Entertainment and now "virtual CEO" of several emerging companies, explains what success really means in the heart of Silicon Valley.
    • "Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman"
      by Gail Evans

      What is it about the American workplace that women make up half the workforce but are practically invisible at the top of corporate hierarchies? In "Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman," CNN executive vice president Gail Evans shows women what it takes to succeed in a workplace whose rules are written by men.
    • "High Tech Start Up"
      by John Nesheim

      Thinking about doing an IPO? Reading John Nesheim's "High Tech Start Up" may be the best first step you can take. From preparing the business plan to working with venture capitalists, Nesheim's got it covered.
    • "Irrational Exuberance"
      by Robert Shiller

      Ever since Alan Greenspan first uttered them in 1996, the words "irrational exuberance" have caused many a sleepless night for both professional and individual investors. In "Irrational Exuberance," Yale professor Robert Shiller reflects on the factors and feedback loops that have kept stocks priced so high for so long. Look out below!
    • "Beyond the Basics"
      by Mary Farrell

      Online investing has lead thousands to the stock market for the first time. But after you've gotten your feet wet (or burned), what's next? In "Beyond the Basics," PaineWebber analyst and Wall $treet Week "elf" Mary Farrell helps both novice and experienced investors find their edge in today's turbulent markets.

  • CYBERCULTURE
    • "Clicks and Mortar"
      by David S. Pottruck and Terry Pearce

      David S. Pottruck, president and co-CEO of Charles Schwab, and Terry Pearce, founder of Leadership Communication, are among those who believe the Net will forever change the way business is conducted--if it hasn't done so already. In "Clicks and Mortar," they draw on personal experience to suggest corporate officials preparing for this new reality by refocusing their practices, principles, and passions on the real needs of a 21st-century company.
    • "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace"
      by Lawrence Lessig

      Everyone knows that cyberspace is a wild frontier that can't be regulated, right? Everyone is wrong, and that's why we should all read Harvard Law prof (and famous Microsoft trial expert) Lawrence Lessig's eye-opening, jaw-dropping book "Code," the best guide yet to the future that's heading our way like a frictionless freight train. For such an analytical book, it's also anecdote-studded and utterly fun to read.
    • "Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities"
      by Amy Jo Kim

      There's been a marked shift in the philosophy of developing successful Web sites. The technologies (HTML, JavaScript, JavaServer Pages) no longer occupy center stage. Rather, functional objectives and the communities that grow up around them seem to be the main ingredient in Web-site success. In her carefully reasoned and well-written "Community Building on the Web," Amy Jo Kim explains why communities form and grow.
    • "Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century"
      by Simson Garfinkel

      Forget the common cold for a moment. Instead, consider the rise of "false data syndrome," a deceptive method of identification derived from numbers rather than more recognizable human traits. Simson Garfinkel couples this idea with concepts like "data shadow" and "datasphere" in "Database Nation," offering a decidedly unappealing scenario of how we have overlooked privacy with the advent of advanced technology.
    • "Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything"
      by James Gleick

      Never in the history of the human race have so many had so much to do in so little time. That, anyway, is the impression most of us have of civilized life at the turn of the millennium, and "Faster" only sharpens it. Elegantly composed and insightfully researched, "Faster" delivers a brisk volley of observations on how microchips, media, and economics, among other things, have accelerated the pace of everyday experience over the course of the manic 20th century.
    • "Telecosm"
      by George Gilder

      Publication date: June 2000
      Predicting a revolutionary new era of unlimited bandwidth, George Gilder's "Telecosm" describes how the "age of the microchip"--dubbed the "Microcosm"--is ending and leaving in its wake a new era, the telecosm. Gilder explains this new stage as "the world enabled and defined by new communications technology."
    • "The Nudist on the Late Shift: And Other True Tales of Silicon Valley" (Reprint Edition)
      by Po Bronson

      In "The Nudist on the Late Shift," Po Bronson intends to capture the spirit of the Valley, leading us through a series of vignettes that take us from a "near brush with sudden wealth" to a $400 million buyout; from life on the edge with a group of Java programmers to the plight of a futurist writer with the deadline for a 9,000-word article looming.
    • "The Social Life of Information"
      by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid

      How many times has your PC crashed today? While Gordon Moore's now famous law projecting the doubling of computer power every 18 months has more than borne itself out, it's too bad that a similar trajectory of the reliability and usefulness of all that power didn't come to pass as well. Advances in information technology are most often measured in the cool numbers of megahertz, throughput, and bandwidth--but for many of us the experience of these advances might be better measured in hours of frustration. The gap between the hype of the Information Age and its reality is often wide and deep, and it's into this gap that John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid plunge in "The Social Life of Information."



FREE BOOKS


 
 
Out of print and rare books


BOOKS OF THE WORLD HOME