Burning Entrepreneur: How to Launch, Fund, and Set Your Startup on Fire


Brad Feld - 2012
    Renowned tech investor and start-up guru Brad Feld lights YOU on fire with this insider's book that will teach you how to launch, fund and run your own company. If you're already an entrepreneur or have always dreamed of being one, douse yourself in “Feld Thoughts” and catch the spark. You'll be burning, entrepreneur, with this e-book!. Brad's blog is a backstage pass to the 24/7 rock show that is tech startups. It is a master class in startup investing for givers and takers of funds. It is a rolling critique of tech products vast and simple (with enough edge to make the most scathing restaurant critic in Manhattan blush). And it is the journal of a peripatetic marathoner who still believes he will crack the four-hour mark someday. From such Feld Thoughts, we have constructed “The Burning Entrepreneur,” the e-book on startups that you would take to a desert island if it had electricity, a decent Internet connection and angel investors. “The Burning Entrepreneur” illuminates the actions and attitudes required to launch, fund and ignite your startup. Brad Feld is on fire. Find out what happens when you stand too close. TABLE OF CONTENTS - Introduction - Be on Fire - Be In Love With Your Business - Don't Be in the 99% - Ignorance Is Success - Meet the New Boss, NOT the Same as the Old Boss - Hire the Right People - It's the Product, Stupid! - Learning to Program: A Case Study - I Don't Hate Marketing: Neither Should You - OK, It's Really the Money, Stupid - Keeping Your You-Know-What Together - Burning Examples - Conclusion - Recommended Books for Burning Entrepreneurs GREAT EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK It was during that car ride that my dad hit me with words that would prove to be fundamental for me: “If you aren’t standing on the edge you are taking up too much space.” Thirty years later that line continues to be a defining characteristic for how I live my life. I’m constantly pushing, looking for the edge of whatever I do. (pg 14) Over time, I’ve learned that none of the short-term moves in the stock market matter at all in my life. It’s occasionally entertaining to turn on CNBC and see my friend Paul Kedrosky in the octobox telling all the other people that they don’t actually understand macro-economics, but it’s no different than watching McEnroe when he’s announcing a Nadal–Federer match. It’s just sport. (pg 33) I don’t create products anymore (I invest in companies that create them), but I’m a great alpha tester. I’ve always been good at this for some reason — bugs just find me. While my UX design skills are merely adequate, I’ve got a great feel for how to simplify things and make them cleaner. (pg 58) If you are someone who spends 30 minutes or more a day “organizing yourself,” I encourage you to step back and think about what you could change and how that might shift you from focusing on organizing to working toward outcomes. It’s liberating. (pg 103) ...buy a copy to read more!

Black Belt Patriotism: How We Can Restore the American Dream


Chuck Norris - 2008
    In it, Norris gives a no-holds-barred assessment of American culture and shows how Americans can get involved and change the nation's course for the better.

Oscar: The Bionic Cat


Kate Allan - 2013
    With both hind legs severed by a combine harvester, Oscar's life hangs in the balance. Luckily for him, his vet knows Noel Fitzpatrick, star of the BBC's The Bionic Vet. Noel agrees to try pioneering surgery on Oscar to replace his legs with specially created prosthetics. Against all odds, Oscar comes back from the brink to become the world's first bionic cat and a feline celebrity.

Let the Right One In


Anne Billson - 2010
    "Twilight," "True Blood," "Being Human," "The Vampire Diaries," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Blade," "Underworld," and the novels of Anne Rice and Darren Shan--against this glut of bloodsuckers, it takes an incredible film to make a name for itself. Directed by Tomas Alfredson and adapted for the screen by John Ajvide Lindqvist, The Swedish film "L't den r?tte komma in" (2008), known to American audiences as "Let the Right One In," is the most exciting, subversive, and original horror production since the genre's best-known works of the 1970s. Like "Twilight," "Let the Right One In" is a love story between a human and a vampire--but that is where the resemblance ends. Set in a snowy, surburban housing estate in 1980s Stockholm, the film combines supernatural elements with social realism. It features Oskar, a lonely, bullied child, and Eli, the girl next door. "Oskar, I'm not a girl," she tells him, and she's not kidding--she's a vampire. The two forge an intense relationship that is at once innocent and disturbing. Two outsiders against the world, one of these outsiders is, essentially, a serial killer. What does Eli want from Oskar? Simple companionship, or something else? While startlingly original, "Let the Right One In" could not have existed without the near century of vampire cinema that preceded it. Anne Billson reviews this history and the film's inheritence of (and new twists on) such classics as "Nosferatu" (1979) and "Dracula" (1931). She discusses the genre's early fliration with social realism in films such as "Martin" (1977) and "Near Dark" (1987), along with its adaptation of mythology to the modern world, and she examines the changing relationship between vampires and humans, the role of the vampire's assistant, and the enduring figure of vampires in popular culture.

The Human Cosmos: A Secret History of the Stars


Jo Marchant - 2020
    Jo Marchant's book can begin to heal it. For at least 20,000 years, we have led not just an earthly existence but a cosmic one. Celestial cycles drove every aspect of our daily lives. Our innate relationship with the stars shaped who we are--our art, religious beliefs, social status, scientific advances, and even our biology. But over the last few centuries we have separated ourselves from the universe that surrounds us. It's a disconnect with a dire cost.Our relationship to the stars and planets has moved from one of awe, wonder and superstition to one where technology is king--the cosmos is now explored through data on our screens, not by the naked eye observing the natural world. Indeed, in most countries modern light pollution obscures much of the night sky from view. Jo Marchant's spellbinding parade of the ways different cultures celebrated the majesty and mysteries of the night sky is a journey to the most awe inspiring view you can ever see--looking up on a clear dark night. That experience and the thoughts it has engendered have radically shaped human civilization across millennia. The cosmos is the source of our greatest creativity in art, in science, in life.To show us how, Jo Marchant takes us to the Hall of the Bulls in the caves at Lascaux in France, and to the summer solstice at a 5,000-year-old tomb at New Grange in England. We discover Chumash cosmology and visit medieval monks grappling with the nature of time and Tahitian sailors navigating by the stars. We discover how light reveals the chemical composition of the sun, and we are with Einstein as he works out that space and time are one and the same. A four-billion-year-old meteor inspires a search for extraterrestrial life. The cosmically liberating, summary revelation is that star-gazing made us human.

A Good Enough Daughter: A memoir


Alix Kates Shulman - 1999
    From her bestselling novel, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen, to her brilliant memoir, Drinking the Rain, she has chronicled what it means to defy the expectations of family and society in order to map one's own life. Now, in this unflinching but tender memoir, she explores what it means to do what is expected of a daughter--discovering in the process the unexpected, complicated joys of going home. Told with the grace, clarity, and insight we have come to expect from her, A Good Enough Daughter is the story of Shulman's difficult journey from dependency to alienation to reconciliation, as she returns home to care for her aging parents in the last years of their lives. The intersection of her own memory with family documents discovered in her parents' house provides the structure for this riveting exploration of her life as a daughter.

Wasted: An Alcoholic Therapist's Fight for Recovery in a Flawed Treatment System


Michael Pond - 2016
    . . A riveting and anxiety-inducing read. Mike Pond tells his story of recovery from alcoholism with a brutally honest, warts-and-all approach that makes you want cheer for him and simultaneously slap him upside the head.” – Vancouver SunPsychotherapist Michael Pond is no stranger to the devastating consequences of alcoholism. He has helped hundreds of people conquer their addictions, but this knowledge did not prevent his own near-demise. In this riveting memoir, he recounts how he lost his Penticton-based practice, his home, and his family—all because of his drinking. After scores of visits to the ER, a tour of hellish recovery homes, a stint in intensive care for end-stage alcoholism, and jail, Pond devised his own personal plan for recovery. He met Maureen Palmer and together they investigated scientific alternatives to the rigid abstinence doctrine pushed by Alcoholics Anonymous.

The Promise is His Presence: Why God is Always Enough


Glenna Marshall - 2019
    What if she told you that you don’t have to go looking for God’s presence? What if she told you that God’s presence is something you can enjoy all the time? God’s presence among his people set him apart from the pagan gods of ancient times. His presence on earth as God Incarnate split history in two. And today his presence is one of the most significant means of his goodness to us. Glenna’s own awakening to God’s presence began in the depths of winter. Rereading her journal, she realized that for six months she’d been cataloging all the ways God had abandoned her as she suffered from chronic pain. What if that . . . wasn’t true? Something had to change. Interweaving her own story of faith and doubt amid suffering, Glenna traces the theme of God’s presence from Genesis to Revelation and shows what it means for us in our own daily joys and struggles.

How to Save Your Child from Ostrich Attacks, Accidental Time Travel, and Anything Else that Might Happen on an Average Tuesday


James Breakwell - 2019
    

Flim-Flam Man: A True Family History


Jennifer Vogel - 2004
    John Vogel, fifty-two, had been arrested for single-handedly counterfeiting nearly $20 million in U.S. currency -- the fourth-largest sum ever seized by federal agents -- and then released pending trial. Though Jennifer hadn't spoken to her father in more than four years, the police suspected he might turn up at her Minneapolis apartment. She examined the shadows outside her building, thought she spotted him at the grocery store and the bus stop. He had simply vanished. Framed around the six months her father eluded authorities, Jennifer's memoir documents the police chase -- stakeouts, lie detector tests, even a segment on Unsolved Mysteries -- and vividly chronicles her tumultuous childhood while examining her father's legacy. A lifelong criminal who robbed banks, burned down buildings, scammed investors, and even plotted murder, John Vogel was also a hapless dreamer who wrote a novel, baked lemon meringue pies, and took his ten-year-old daughter to see Rocky in an empty theater on Christmas Eve. When it came time to pass his counterfeit bills, he spent them at Wal-Mart for political reasons.Culling from memories, photo albums, public documents, and interviews with the handful of people who knew the real John Vogel, Jennifer has created an intensely moving psychological portrait of a charismatic, larger-than-life figure -- a father who loved her and whom, in spite of everything, she loved back.

The Field Guide to Citizen Science: How You Can Contribute to Scientific Research and Make a Difference


Darlene Cavalier - 2020
    A citizen science project can involve one person or millions of people collaborating towards a common goal. The citizen science movement is approachable and inclusive, making it an excellent option for people looking for ways to get involved and make a difference. The Field Guide to Citizen Science—by the expert team at SciStarter—makes it easier than ever for those new to the process to get involved. It explains what citizen science is, explores the various types of projects available, shows how to succeed and stay motivated when you’re participating in a project, and explains how the data is used. The included projects range from passive observation to active data collection. With an upbeat and accessible tone and a lively, illustrated layout, this must-have guide is for anyone looking to join the fun and rewarding world of citizen science.

Still Hungry--After All These Years


Richard Simmons - 1999
    But she would never get the eggroll she'd longed for; she went into labor in the restaurant. Sixteen hours later, her youngest son Milton T. Simmons was born. And so begins the saga of fitness guru Richard Simmons and his lifelong love affair with food.Along the way he's helped millions of Americans with their battle of weight loss. Many know him through his groundbreaking infomercial products like Deal-A-Meal, Get Down the Pounds, and his exciting new Move, Groove, and Lost program. Still more have enjoyed his best-selling low-fat cookbooks Farewell to Fat and Sweetie Pie.

Tom Gates (Five book set)


Liz Pichon - 2013
    

Sikhs: The Untold Agony Of 1984


Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay - 2015
    She claimed the police had inserted a stick inside her… Swaranpreet realised that she had been cruelly violated; He spoke a single sentence but repeated it twice in chaste Punjabi: ‘Please give me a turban? I want nothing else…’ These are voices begging for deliverance in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in October-November 1984 in which 2,733 Sikhs were killed, burnt and exterminated by lumpens in the country. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay walks us through one of the most shameful episodes of sectarian violence in post Independent India and highlights the apathy of subsequent governments towards Sikhs who paid a price for what was clearly a state-sponsored riot. Poignant, raw and most importantly, macabre, the personal histories in the book reveal how even after three decades, a community continues to battle for its identity in its own country.

Elon Musk: Success Secrets


George Ilian - 2018
    Their determination to meet their goals and the challenges they overcame to succeed, make their stories unique and inspirational.Elon Musk is known for thinking outside the box, dreaming big and working tirelessly to achieve those dreams. He is open to ideas and ways to collaborate and improve what he is working on while funding these solutions. He thrives on his passion for work and is willing to put his weight behind projects he believes in and the innovations coming out of Space X and Tesla provide ample proof.Discover this maverick’s story and how you could emulate him!George Ilian has made his mark on the digital industry, owning an ebook business among other endeavours. He is the author of 18 books in the genre of business and motivation.