Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth

by Juliet B. Schor

In Plenitude economist and bestselling author Juliet B. Schor offers a groundbreaking intellectual statement about the economics and sociology of ecological decline, suggesting a radical change in how we think about consumer goods, value, and ways to live.

Humans are degrading the planet far faster than they are regenerating it. As we travel along this shutdown path, food, energy, transport, and consumer goods are becoming increasingly expensive. The economic downturn that has accompanied the ecological crisis has led to another type of scarcity: incomes, jobs, and credit are also in short supply. Our usual way back to growth-a debt-financed consumer boom- is no longer an option our households, or planet, can afford.

Responding to our current moment, Plenitude puts sustainability at its core, but it is not a paradigm of sacrifice. Instead, it's an argument that through a major shift to new sources of wealth, green technologies, and different ways of living, individuals and the country as a whole can actually be better off and more economically secure. And as Schor observes, Plenitude is already emerging. In pockets around the country and the world, people are busy creating lifestyles that offer a way out of the work and spend cycle..… read more

The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the Twenty-first Century

by Jacqueline Olds

In our culture it’s more socially acceptable to be depressed than to be lonely. Yet loneliness is the inevitable by-product of our frenetic contemporary lifestyle. In this marvelously acute critique of how we live, Drs. Jacqueline Olds and Richard S. Schwartz show how the American way of life can lead to social isolation. Calling on their extensive clinical experience, new social surveys, and recent research on the effects of social exclusion, Olds and Schwartz uncover the ripple effects of social isolation in areas as varied as physical health, children’s emotional problems, substance abuse, violent crime—even global warming..… read more

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, the authors reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the "human scale principle," using the "Velcro Theory of Memory," and creating "curiosity gaps."

Made to Stick is a book that will transform the way you communicate ideas. It's a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures) and shows us the vital principles of winning ideas-and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.… read more

Outliers: The Story of Success

by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point and Blink) takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. "It is not the brightest who succeed," Gladwell writes. "Nor is success simply the sum of the decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities - and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them… read more

Far Arden

by Kevin Cannon

Meet Army Shanks - crusty old sea dog and legendary brawler of the high Arctic seas! He's got just one mission: to find the mythical island paradise known as Far Arden, which lies hidden (so they say) in the wintry oceans of the far North. But there's more than just water standing between Shanks and his goal: he'll have to contend with circus performers, adorable orphans, heinous villains, bitter ex-lovers, well-meaning undergraduates, and the full might of the Royal Canadian Arctic Navy! Not to mention he's not so sure how to get to Far Arden in the first place.

In his first solo graphic novel, Kevin Cannon (Top Ten; Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards) proves himself a master spinner of yarns with Far Arden. read more

The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA

by Mark Schultz (Author), Zander Cannon (Illustrator), Kevin Cannon (Illustrator)

Let's face it: From adenines to zygotes, from cytokinesis to parthenogenesis, even the basics of genetics can sound utterly alien. So who better than an alien to explain it all? Enter Bloort 183, a scientist from an asexual alien race threatened by disease, who's been charged with researching the fundamentals of human DNA and evolution and laying it all out in clear, simple language so that even his slow-to-grasp-the-point leader can get it. In the hands of the award-winning writer Mark Schultz, Bloort's predicament becomes the means of giving even the most science-phobic reader a complete introduction to the history and science of genetics that's as easy to understand as it is entertaining to read.

Named one of the 2009 Great Graphic Novels for Teens from the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), The Stuff of Life meets the criteria of both good quality literature and appealing reading for teens.

The Stuff of Life was the lead story on National Public Radio's Science Friday program (1/30/09.) Ira Flato (show's host) interviewed the author, Mark Schulze who was very enthusiastic when he talked about working with his illustrators (Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon - no relation). If you have a few minutes, I think you will enjoy this brief interview. … read more

Portrait of Passion

by Gail B. Stewart & Paul H. Phillips

Portrait of Passion discovers the secrets of the 2007 U.S. Women's National Soccer Team. Gail Stewart, author of more than 200 books for young adults, weaves fascinating stories of these great role models into an enticing and helpful read for soccer fans of all ages. What were the players like growing up? How did they acquire their toughness? How do they handle controversies? What would they have done differently? The book is filled with over 250 photos by top sports photographer Paul Phillips who followed the team from Chicago to China to capture stunning game action and off-the-field candids. … read more

A Whole New Mind - Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future

by Daniel H. Pink

Just as information workers surpassed physical laborers in economic importance, Pink claims, the workplace terrain is changing yet again, and power will inevitably shift to people who possess strong right brain qualities. His advocacy of "R-directed thinking" begins with a bit of neuroscience tourism to a brain lab that will be extremely familiar to those who read Steven Johnson's Mind Wide Open last year, but while Johnson was fascinated by the brain's internal processes, Pink is more concerned with how certain skill sets can be harnessed effectively in the dawning "Conceptual Age." The second half of the book details the six "senses" Pink identifies as crucial to success in the new economy-design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning-while "portfolio" sections offer practical (and sometimes whimsical) advice on how to cultivate these skills within oneself.… read more

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

by Daniel H. Pink

Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people--at work, at school, at home. It's wrong. As Daniel H. Pink explains in his new and paradigm- shattering book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does--and how that affects every aspect of our lives. He demonstrates that while the old-fashioned carrot-and-stick approach worked successfully in the 20th century, it's precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today's challenges. In Drive, he reveals the three elements of true motivation:

*Autonomy- the desire to direct our own lives
*Mastery- the urge to get better and better at something that matters
*Purpose- the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves...read more

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America

by Thomas L. Friedman

In this book, Friedman takes a fresh and provocative look at two of the biggest challenges we face today: America's surprising loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11; and the global environmental crisis, which is affecting everything from food to fuel to forests. In this groundbreaking account of where we stand now, he shows us how the solutions to these two big problems are linked--how we can restore the world and revive America at the same time.

Friedman explains how global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the astonishing expansion of the world's middle class through globalization have produced a planet that is "hot, flat, and crowded." Already the earth is being affected in ways that threaten to make it dangerously unstable. In just a few years, it will be too late to fix things--unless the United States steps up now and takes the lead in a worldwide effort to replace our wasteful… read more

The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

by Thomas L. Friedman

The world isn't going to be flat, it is flat, which gives Friedman's breathless narrative much of its urgency.

What Friedman means by "flat" is "connected": the lowering of trade and political barriers and the exponential technical advances of the digital revolution that have made it possible to do business, or almost anything else, instantaneously with billions of other people across the planet. This in itself should not be news to anyone. But the news that Friedman has to deliver is that just when we stopped paying attention to these developments--when the dot-com bust turned interest away from the business and technology pages and when 9/11 and the Iraq War turned all eyes toward the Middle East--is when they actually began to accelerate. Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven not by major corporations or giant trade organizations like the World Bank, but by individuals: desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world (but especially in India and China) who can compete--and win--not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work… read more

Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself

by Daniel H. Pink

With Manpower, Inc., the temporary agency, the nation's largest private employer and one-quarter to one-third of American workers operating as "free agents," Daniel Pink offers analysis of this "new economy" and advice on how to succeed in it. The Fast Company cover story that Pink, a former Gore chief speechwriter, wrote on the growth of "free agency" produced so much feedback that he traveled across the country with his young family to interview "America's new independent workers" for this book. Pink examines facts and figures, explores the roots of increasing free agency, and considers the new work ethic, employment contract, and time clock it generates. He outlines the structure of free-agent work and major disruptions (especially for involuntary free agents) and offers some predictions about how this new paradigm will affect … read more

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need

by Daniel H. Pink

Daniel Pink offers a first-of-its kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. Step by step he builds a career, illustrating as he does the six core lessons of finding, keeping, and flourishing in satisfying work: There is no plan, Forget about your weaknesses, Persistence trumps talent, It's not about you, Make excellent mistakes, Leave an imprintSmart, engaging, and insightful, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko offers practical advice for anyone looking to start a rewarding career… read more

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Team of Rivals doesn't just tell the story of Abraham Lincoln. It is a multiple biography of the entire team of personal and political competitors that he put together to lead the country through its greatest crisis. Here, Doris Kearns Goodwin profiles five of the key players in her book, four of whom contended for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination and all of whom later worked together in Lincoln's cabinet… read more

Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands

by Kevin Roberts

Sellout "Brand" or just plain "Bland"? In Lovemarks, advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts delves deep into what mysteries lie behind the long-term success and unwavering customer loyalty for a can of Coke or a pair of Levi's, ultimately concluding that Love is the answer, and without some emotional connection to a product, it will dry up like a generic raisin in the sun.

Roberts's points out: "That human attention has become our principle currency." And that, in these times, forming long-term emotionally charged relationships with customers is the only way to make a product weather the long haul… read more

The Lovemarks Effect: Winning in the Consumer Revolution

by Kevin Roberts

In The Lovemarks Effect: Winning in the Consumer Revolution, the people speak - consumers, owners, and marketers show the impact of Lovemarks on their lives, their businesses, and their aspirations. How consumers feel about you-their emotional connection to you-is what determines success now. The Lovemarks Effect offers instruction and inspiration about creating emotional connections and winning in a consumer-empowered future.

From the aisles of the in-store experience to the power of sustainable design, from Lovemarks research to consumer stories, The Lovemarks Effect is a joyride through the evolving business landscape… read more

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