The Way They Were: Dealing with Your Parents' Divorce After a Lifetime of Marriage


Brooke Lea Foster - 2006
    Written by an award-winning journalist who has lived through her own parents’ midlife divorce, this practical, comforting guide includes advice on: • How to help your parents without getting caught in the middle• How to have tough conversations with your parents about money, property, and inheritance—theirs and yours• How to understand the complexities of infidelity and stepfamilies• How to rebuild relationships with each parent after the divorceFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo


Michela Wrong - 2000
    While the population was pauperized, he plundered the country's copper and diamond resources, downing pink champagne in his jungle palace like some modern-day reincarnation of Joseph Conrad's crazed station manager.Michela Wrong, a correspondent who witnessed firsthand Mobutu's last days, traces the rise and fall of the idealistic young journalist who became the stereotype of an African despot. Engrossing, highly readable, and as funny as it is tragic, her book assesses how Belgium's King Leopold, the CIA, and the World Bank all helped to bring about the disaster that is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. If, in this poignant account, the villains are the "Big Vegetables" (les Grosses légumes) — the fat cats who benefited from Mobutu's largesse — the heroes are the ordinary citizens trapped in a parody of a state. Living in the shadow of a disintegrating nuclear reactor, where banknotes are not worth the paper they are printed on, they have turned survival into an art form. For all its valuable insights into Africa's colonial heritage and the damage done by Western intervention, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz is ultimately a celebration of the irrepressible human spirit.

Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy


Barbara Ehrenreich - 2003
    But for every female executive racking up frequent flier miles there are multitudes of women whose journeys go unnoticed. Each year, millions leave Mexico, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and other third world countries to work in the homes, nurseries, and brothels of the first world. This broad-scale transfer of labor associated with women's traditional roles results in an odd displacement. In the new global calculus, the female energy that flows to wealthy countries is subtracted from poor ones, often to the detriment of the families left behind. The migrant nanny — or cleaning woman, nursing-care attendant, maid — eases a "care deficit" in rich countries, while her absence creates one back home. Confronting a range of topics, from the fate of Vietnamese mail-order brides to the importation of Mexican nannies in Los Angeles and the selling of Thai girls to Japanese brothels, a diverse and distinguised group of writers offer an unprecedented look at a world shaped by mass migration and economic exchange. Collected and introduced by bestselling authors Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, these fifteen essays — of which only four have been previously published — reveal a new era in which the main resource extracted from the third world is no longer gold or silver, but love. Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of New York Times bestsellers Nickel and Dimed and The Worst Years of Our Lives, as well as Blood Rites. She lives near Key West, Florida. Arlie Russell Hochschild is the author of national bestsellers The Time Bind and The Second Shift. She live in San Francisco, California.

The Ecology of Commerce


Paul Hawken - 1993
    A visionary new program that businesses can follow to help restore the planet.

Charity Case


Dan Pallotta - 2012
    We deny the social sector the ability to grow because of our short-sighted demand that it send every short-term dollar into direct services. Yet if the sector cannot grow, it can never match the scale of our great social problems. In the face of this dilemma, the sector has remained silent, defenseless, and disorganized. In Charity Case, Pallotta proposes a visionary solution: a Charity Defense Council to re-educate the public and give charities the freedom they need to solve our most pressing social issues.Proposes concrete steps for how a national Charity Defense Council will transform the public understanding of the humanitarian sector, including: building an anti-defamation league and legal defense for the sector, creating a massive national ongoing ad campaign to upgrade public literacy about giving, and ultimately enacting a National Civil Rights Act for Charity and Social Enterprise From Dan Pallotta, renowned builder of social movements and inventor of the multi-day charity event industry (including the AIDS Rides and Breast Cancer 3-Days) that has cumulatively raised over $1.1 billion for critical social causes The hotly-anticipated follow-up to Pallotta's groundbreaking book UncharitableGrounded in Pallotta's clear vision and deep social sector experience, Charity Case is a fascinating wake-up call for fixing the culture that thwarts our charities' ability to change the world.

Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy


Robert Neuwirth - 2010
     • Scores of laid-off San Franciscans, working without any licenses, use Twitter to sell home-cooked foods.  • Dozens of major multinationals sell products through unregistered kiosks and street vendors around the world.  When we think of the informal economy, we tend to think of crime: prostitution, gun running, drug trafficking. Stealth of Nations opens up this underground realm, showing how the worldwide informal economy deals mostly in legal products and is, in fact, a ten-trillion-dollar industry, making it the second-largest economy in the world, after that of the United States. Having penetrated this closed world and persuaded its inhabitants to open up to him, Robert Neuwirth makes clear that this informal method of transaction dates back as far as humans have existed and traded, that it provides essential services and crucial employment that fill the gaps in formal systems, and that this unregulated market works smoothly and effectively, with its own codes and unwritten rules. Combining a vivid travelogue with a firm grasp on global economic strategy—along with a healthy dose of irreverence and skepticism toward conventional perceptions—Neuwirth gives us an eye-opening account of a world that is always operating around us, hidden in plain sight.

Wayne Bennett: Don't Die With The Music In You


Wayne Bennett
    

Innovate Like Edison: The Success System of America's Greatest Inventor


Michael J. Gelb - 2007
     Thomas Edison is the greatest innovator in American history. Edison’s focus on practical accomplishment set the stage for America’s global leadership in innovation. Now, for the first time ever, Innovate Like Edison translates the best practices of this supreme American inventor into contemporary terms to help today’s leaders harness their own innovative potential. With their unique insight and expertise, Michael Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott introduce a carefully researched, easy-to-apply system of five success secrets inspired by the creative methods of Edison himself. Presented in a step-by-step fashion, Innovate Like Edison provides the tools and strategies you need to compete and win in the business world and in everyday life. Whether you’re an amateur or an executive, Innovate Like Edison is an indispensable tool that will enable you to revamp and revitalize your own creative genius and thrive in today’s culture of innovation.

The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World


John Elkington - 2008
    Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." By this definition, some of today's entrepreneurs are decidedly unreasonable--and have even been dubbed crazy. Yet as John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan argue in The Power of Unreasonable People, our very future may hinge on their work.Through vivid stories, the authors identify the highly unconventional entrepreneurs who are solving some of the world's most pressing economic, social, and environmental problems. They also show how these pioneers are disrupting existing industries, value chains, and business models--and in the process creating fast-growing markets around the world.By understanding these entrepreneurs' mindsets and strategies, you gain vital insights into future market opportunities for your own organization. Providing a first-hand, on-the-ground look at a new breed of entrepreneur, this book reveals how apparently unreasonable innovators have built their enterprises, how their work will shape risks and opportunities in the coming years, and what tomorrow's leaders can learn from them.Start investing in, partnering with, and learning from these world-shaping change agents, and you position yourself to not only survive but also thrive in the new business landscape they're helping to define.

Managing Your Mind: The Mental Fitness Guide


Gillian Butler - 1995
    A blend of tried-and-true psychological counseling and no-nonsense management advice grounded in the principles of CBTand other psychological treatments, the book straddled two types of self-help literature, arguing that in one's personal and professional life, the way to success is the same. By adopting the practical strategies that mental health experts Butler and Hope have developed over years of clinical research and practice, one can develop the "mental fitness" necessary to resolve one's personal and interpersonal challenges at home and work and to live a productive, satisfying life.The first edition addressed how to develop key skills to mental fitness (e.g., managing one's time better, facing and solving problems better, keeping things in perspective, learning to relax, etc.), how to improve one's relationships, how to beat anxiety and depression, and how to establish a good mind-body balance. For this new edition, Butler and Hope have updated all preexisting material and have added five new chapters-on sexuality and intimate relationships; anger in relationships; recent traumatic events and their aftermath; loss and bereavement; and dealing with the past.

Can't We All Disagree More Constructively?: from The Righteous Mind (Kindle Single) (A Vintage Short)


Jonathan Haidt - 2016
      Drawing on twenty-five years of groundbreaking research, Haidt shows why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and why we need the insights of each if we are to flourish as a nation. Here is the key to understanding the miracle of human cooperation and the eternal curse of moralistic aggression, across the political divide and around the world.   An ebook short.

The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex


Incite! Women of Color Against ViolencePaula X. Rojas - 2007
    From art museums and university hospitals to think tanks and church charities, over 1.5 million organizations of staggering diversity share the tax-exempt 501(c)(3) designation, if little else. Many social justice organizations have joined this world, often blunting political goals to satisfy government and foundation mandates. But even as funding shrinks and government surveillance rises, many activists often find it difficult to imagine movement-building outside the nonprofit model. The Revolution Will Not Be Funded gathers original essays by radical activists from around the globe who are critically rethinking the long-term consequences of this investment. Together with educators and nonprofit staff they finally name the “nonprofit industrial complex” and ask hard questions: How did politics shape the birth of the nonprofit model? How does 501(c)(3) status allow the state to co-opt political movements? Activists--or careerists? How do we fund the movement outside this complex? Urgent and visionary, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded is an unbeholden exposé of the “nonprofit industrial complex” and its quietly devastating role in managing dissent.

Cut Numbers: A Novel


Nick Tosches - 1988
    It unravels the Mafia that only insiders know--the messy day-to-day business of violent crime, pornography, gambling, and extortion.

Programming Elixir: Functional |> Concurrent |> Pragmatic |> Fun


Dave Thomas - 2013
    You know you need concurrent applications, but also know these are almost impossible to get right. Meet Elixir, a functional, concurrent language built on the rock-solid Erlang VM. Elixir’s pragmatic syntax and built-in support for metaprogramming will make you productive and keep you interested for the long haul. This book is the introduction to Elixir for experienced programmers.Maybe you need something that’s closer to Ruby, but with a battle-proven environment that’s unrivaled for massive scalability, concurrency, distribution, and fault tolerance. Maybe the time is right for the Next Big Thing. Maybe it’s Elixir.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed


Paulo Freire - 1968
    The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire's work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm. With a substantive new introduction on Freire's life and the remarkable impact of this book by writer and Freire confidant and authority Donaldo Macedo, this anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed will inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come.