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Random House, Inc.
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Today, when your fortunes can literally change overnight, the new strategic imperative is making your moment of maximum risk your moment of maximum opportunity. In The Upside, Adrian Slywotzky provides bold and original ideas for growth breakthroughs as well as the practical tools to use Monday morning, such as •How to change the odds for your next major initiative and create potential industry breakthroughs, as Toyota did with its expanding universe of Prius vehicles. •Shape and exploit risk, don’t be shaped by it. Become a knowledge-intensive business and continuallyincrease the knowledge gap between yourself and rivals, as Coach and Tsutaya of Japan have convincingly done. •A category killer can’t kill what’s not in its category. When basketball legend Bill Russell faced a taller, stronger Wilt Chamberlain, he led the Celtics to victory by inventing a different game. The same thinking lets Target prosper in a Wal-Mart world—and can help you outcompete the “unbeatable” rival in your own industry. •When you come to a fork in the road—take it! Only a fraction of companies survive when industries experience technological or strategic transitions. To be a survivor, learn the secret that enabled Microsoft to weather the advent of the Internet—the art of the double bet. •Stuckinabusinessbox? Findthebiggerbox—and then the biggest.When growth stagnates, capture more of your customer’s dollars through demand innovation and big-box thinking, as companies from Continental AG and Ikea to Procter & Gamble have done. •Your competitors can also be your greatest enablers of profit. Stop competing yourself to death! The key is knowing when to compete and when to collaborate, as Apple has shown with its revolutionary approach to the music business. In the 1980s conventional wisdom was that you could have high quality or low cost, but not both—until Japanese makers of cars and electronics showed otherwise. Now, high quality and low cost are required just to enter the marketplace. Today, we face a similar paradox when it comes to risk and reward. Rather than shrink from the high risk so integral to the tumultuous global economy, Adrian Slywotzky shows how it can be your greatest source of growth and future reward. |
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Tanis Half-Elven... Flint Fireforge... Tasslehoff Burfoot... the classic Dragonlance characters are back! Picking up where the first book of the classic Dragonlance Chronicles left off, this tale follows the Companions of the Lance on their adventures following the rescue of the refugees of Pax Tharkas. Flint and Tanis Half-Elven travel to the dwarven kingdom of Thorbardin, while the rest of the Companions confront challenges of their own. |
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«Stroll through the French Quarter, sample the city's distinctive Creole cuisine, listen to the best live music, or take a post-Katrina drive to remember the victims – Fodor's New Orleans 2008 offers all these experiences and more! Our local writers have traveled throughout the country to find the best hotels, restaurants, attractions and activities to prepare you for a journey of stunning variety. Before you leave for your trip be sure to pack your Fodor's guide to ensure you don't miss a thing. The San Francisco Chronicle sums it up best –»Fodor's guides are saturated with information.» — We frequently update our New Orleans guide, and we make every effort to bring you the most accurate and thorough book. Plus we provide timely updates about the area at Fodors.com. — Unlike other travel books, Fodor's guides rely heavily on local experts who know the territory best–so you know you're seeing the real New Orleans. — We give you the planning tools you need to tailor your trip. We give options for all budgets. You make the choices.» |
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A compelling vision. Bold leadership. Decisive action. Unfortunately, these prerequisites of success are almost always the ingredients of failure, too. In fact, most managers seeking to maximize their chances for glory are often unwittingly setting themselves up for ruin. The sad truth is that most companies have left their futures almost entirely to chance, and don’t even realize it. The reason? Managers feel they must make choices with far-reaching consequences today, but must base those choices on assumptions about a future they cannot predict. It is this collision between commitment and uncertainty that creates THE STRATEGY PARADOX. This paradox sets up a ubiquitous but little-understood tradeoff. Because managers feel they must base their strategies on assumptions about an unknown future, the more ambitious of them hope their guesses will be right – or that they can somehow adapt to the turbulence that will arise. In fact, only a small number of lucky daredevils prosper, while many more unfortunate, but no less capable managers find themselves at the helms of sinking ships. Realizing this, even if only intuitively, most managers shy away from the bold commitments that success seems to demand, choosing instead timid, unremarkable strategies, sacrificing any chance at greatness for a better chance at mere survival. Michael E. Raynor, coauthor of the bestselling The Innovator's Solution, explains how leaders can break this tradeoff and achieve results historically reserved for the fortunate few even as they reduce the risks they must accept in the pursuit of success. In the cutthroat world of competitive strategy, this is as close as you can come to getting something for nothing. Drawing on leading-edge scholarship and extensive original research, Raynor’s revolutionary principle of Requisite Uncertainty yields a clutch of critical, counter-intuitive findings. Among them: The Board should not evaluate the CEO based on the company’s performance, but instead on the firm’s strategic risk profile The CEO should not drive results, but manage uncertainty Business unit leaders should not focus on execution, but on making strategic choices Line managers should not worry about strategic risk, but devote themselves to delivering on commitments With detailed case studies of success and failure at Sony, Microsoft, Vivendi Universal, Johnson & Johnson, AT&T and other major companies in industries from financial services to energy, Raynor presents a concrete framework for strategic action that allows companies to seize today’s opportunities while simultaneously preparing for tomorrow’s promise. |
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«How You Can Strike It Rich in Life and Business Finally, the secrets of the truly wealthy are revealed! Now you can uncover what the world's richest people know that you don't—and learn to apply simple, practical, yet innovative methods that will enrich and enhance your life and bottom line. In What Rich People Know & Desperately Want to Keep Secret, author Brian Sher shares the best-of-the-best ideas and secrets to help you discover the basic but powerful principles necessary to attain personal and financial success. «A must-read. Packed with common sense and sound strategies, this book shows how you can succeed and get a taste of the good life». —James W. Robinson, senior adviser, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and author of the bestselling The Excel Phenomenon, Empire of Freedom, and The New Professionals «A good primer for the self-directed, self-motivated, and self-employed. This is the new bible for the self-made millionaire. Follow it well and reap the rewards». —Edmund J. Pankau, CEO of Pankau Consulting» |
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Bernhard Schlink brings to these seven superbly crafted stories the same sleek concision and moral acuity that made The Reader an international bestseller. His characters–men with importunate appetites and unfortunate habits of deception–are uneasily suspended between the desire for love and the impulse toward flight. A young boy’s fascination with an eerily erotic painting gradually leads him into the labyrinth of his family’s secrets. The friendship between a West Berliner and an idealistic young couple from the East founders amid the prosperity and revelations that follow the collapse of communism. An acrobatic philanderer (one wife and two mistresses, all apparently quite happy) begins to crack under the weight of his abundance. By turns brooding and comic, and filled with the suspense that comes from the inexorable unfolding of character, Flights of Love is nothing less than masterful |
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Thirteen-year-old Ben Tracey is looking forward to spending the summer in the Democratic Republic of Congo where his father has been hired to examine the valuable mineral Coltan that is being mined there. They soon realize that the people in the village close to the mine are frightened and it doesn’t take long for Ben and his father to discover why: behind the door of every hut there is at least one person dying or seriously ill, and no one seems to be doing anything to help. As Ben’s father falls ill, it is up to Ben and his new friend from the village, Halima, to try and tell the government what’s going on so the village can be isolated to prevent the sickness spreading. Will they be able to prevent disaster? |
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«Part «Blackhawk Down», part «The Riddle of the Sands», this is an extraordinarily gripping non-fiction thriller, written by a former MI6 officer. «Operation Kronstadt» not only reveals the early days of Britain's intelligence services but uncovers a truly dramatic story from the Russian Revolution involving a daring rescue attempt and a 'mission impossible' against the best defended naval target in Russia. By May 1919, when the power struggle between former Tsarists and Bolsheviks hangs in the balance, the only British agent in Russia is trapped and in mortal danger. Mansfield Cumming, the first 'C', dreams up an audacious — probably suicidal — plan to rescue him, and a young naval officer is sent with a specially selected team into the jaws of the Soviet fleet. This is the remarkable story of the spy, Paul Dukes, (the only MI6 officer to be knighted for work in the field), and of Gus Agar, whose extraordinary escapade won him the Victoria Cross.» |
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These three short novels about forbidden and otherworldly desires reveal deeply buried erotic truths. Met by Moonlight asks the questions Can it be possible that a handsome stranger met by moonlight is a mischievous fairy out to sample a taste of human love and passion? What will happen when the magic witching month of May is over? When he loses his human form, will he lose his memories of her as well? In the tale The House of Dust, the king is dead, but the queen cannot grieve until she's had vengeance. She must descend into and brave the Underworld in order to bring her lover back from the dead. Lastly, The Dragon Lord takes place in the misty marshlands of Navarone, where the princess is about to be married. Her parents desperately hope this will cure her of the problem that they have fought to keep secret for years her tendency to play with fire. The princess lights fires in the grate with her eyes when no one is looking, and she is lustful in a land of rigid morality. |
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Scattered, disorganized, with a badly coordinated wardrobe, Louise resolves to get it together although even her boyfriend is part-time. But then she discovers she’s succeeded at something: getting pregnant. |
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When Ravi Kapoor, an over-worked London doctor, is driven beyond endurance by his obnoxious father-in-law, he asks his wife: 'Can't we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away'. His prayer seems to have been answered when his entrepreneurial cousin, Sonny, sets up a retirement home, recreating a lost corner of England in a converted guesthouse in Bangalore. Travel and set-up are inexpensive, staff willing and plentiful — and the British pensioners can enjoy the hot weather and take mango juice with their gin. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a brilliant comedy of manners, mixing acute observation with a deeper message about how different cultures cope in the modern world. |
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Detective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene of the biggest case he's ever been part of. The President's son and daughter have been abducted from their school — an impossible crime, but somehow the kidnapper has done it. Alex does everything he can but is shunted to the fringes of the investigation. Someone powerful doesn't want Cross too close. A deadly contagion in the DC water supply threatens to cripple the capital, and Alex sees the looming shape of the most devastating attack the United States has ever experienced. He is already working flat-out on the abduction, and this massive assault pushes Cross completely over the edge. With each hour that passes, the chance of finding the children alive diminishes. In an emotional private meeting, the First Lady asks Alex to please save her kids. But even the highest security clearance doesn't get him any closer to the kidnapper — and Alex makes a desperate decision that goes against everything he believes in. A full-throttle thriller with unstoppable action, unrestrained emotion, and relentless suspense, Kill Alex Cross is the most gripping Alex Cross novel James Patterson has ever written. |
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In 1886, a mysterious travelling circus becomes an international sensation. Open only at night, constructed entirely in black and white, Le Cirque des Reves delights all who wander its circular paths and warm themselves at its bonfire. Although there are acrobats, fortune-tellers and contortionists, the Circus of Dreams is no conventional spectacle. Some tents contain clouds, some ice. The circus seems almost to cast a spell over its aficionados, who call themselves the reveurs — the dreamers. At the heart of the story is the tangled relationship between two young magicians, Celia, the enchanter's daughter, and Marco, the sorcerer's apprentice. At the behest of their shadowy masters, they find themselves locked in a deadly contest, forced to test the very limits of the imagination, and of their love... A fabulous, fin-de-siecle feast for the senses and a life-affirming love story, The Night Circus is a captivating novel that will make the real world seem fantastical and a fantasy world real. |
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Wise, often funny, sometimes heartbreaking, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood tells the story of Marjane Satrapi's life in Tehran from the ages of six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken child of radical Marxists, and the great-grandaughter of Iran's last emperor, Satrapi bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Amidst the tragedy, Marjane's child's eye view adds immediacy and humour, and her story of a childhood at once outrageous and ordinary, beset by the unthinkable and yet buffered by an extraordinary and loving family, is immensely moving. It is also very beautiful; Satrapi's drawings have the power of the very best woodcuts. Persepolis ends on a cliffhanger in 1984, just as fourteen-year-old Marjane is leaving behind her home in Tehran, escaping fundamentalism and the war with Iraq to begin a new life in the West. In Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return we follow our young, intrepid heroine through the next eight years of her life: an eye-opening and sometimes lonely four years of high school in Vienna, followed by a supremely educational and heartwrenching four years back home in Iran. Just as funny and heartbreaking as its predecessor — with perhaps an even greater sense of the ridiculous inspired by life in a fundamentalist state — Persepolis 2 is also as clear-eyed and searing in its condemnation of fundamentalism and its cost to the human spirit. In its depiction of the universal trials of adolescent life and growing into adulthood — here compounded by being an outsider both abroad and at home, and by living in a state where you have no right to show your hair, wear make-up, run in public, date, or question authority — it's raw, honest, and incredibly illuminating. |
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Way before Puss ever met Shrek, our suave and furry feline hero goes on a swashbuckling ride, as he teams with mastermind Humpty Dumpty and the street-savvy Kitty to steal the famed Goose that lays the Golden Eggs. Join in Puss on his swashbuckling adventure, in this perfect novel for young readers. Based on the film, it includes 8 pages of colour photos to help you re-live the fun! |
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The hit BBC series Sherlock offers a fresh, contemporary take on the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories, and has helped introduce a whole new generation of fans to the legendary detective. In this TV tie-in edition of the classic novel, first published in The Strand in 1901, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are called to the haunting and beautiful moors of Dartmoor and the home of the Baskerville family, who seem to have fallen victim to a family curse. A terrifying spectre in the shape of a great hound was once said to have hunted an ancestor across the moors and the recent, mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville suggests that the hound has returned. But is this really a supernatural curse or is a much more dastardly and earthly plot a foot? Sherlock and Dr Watson must solve the riddle of the hound before another murder is committed. |
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The hit BBC series Sherlock offers a fresh, contemporary take on the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories, and has helped introduce a whole new generation of fans to the legendary detective. This TV tie-in edition to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's second collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories, which was first published in 1894, includes the infamous The Final Problem . It is one of Conan Doyle's favourite Sherlock tales and the detective's deadliest challenge. This is the ultimate thriller, in which Sherlock meets his intellectual match: the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty. As Moriarty pushes Sherlock to his intellectual limits, this game of cat and mouse will test not only their wits but their mortality. |
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George Hall doesn't understand the modern obsession with talking about everything. 'The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.' Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored. At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his tempestuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased — as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has 'strangler's hands'. Katie can't decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband's former colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind. The way these damaged people fall apart — and come together — as a family is the true subject of Mark Haddon's disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely. |
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A Myron Bolitar Novel |
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