2022, ISBN: 9780743225045

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US: Anchor, 2010. Near Fine. In excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlig hting. The spine remains undamaged. ISABEL DALHOUSIE - Book 6 Nothing captures t… Mehr…

US: Anchor, 2010. Near Fine. In excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlig hting. The spine remains undamaged. ISABEL DALHOUSIE - Book 6 Nothing captures the charm of Edinburgh like the bestselling Isabel Dalhous ie series of novels featuring the insatiably curious philosopher and woman detective. Whether investigating a case or a problem of philosophy, the ind efatigable Isabel Dalhousie, one of fiction's most richly developed amateur detectives, is always ready to pursue the answers to all of life's questio ns, large and small. The sensational sixth installment in the best-selling chronicles of the irr epressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie finds our inquisitive heroine and new m other racing two very troublesome people from her past. Isabel's son, Charlie, is only eighteen months, but his social life is already kicking into high gear, and it's at a birthday party, where Isabel is approached by Minty Auchterlonie, an old adversary and now a high-flying financier. Minty, it seems, is having trouble in her personal life, and seeks Isabel's help. To make matters worse, the anything but peaceable Professor Dove has accused Isabel's journal of plagiarism. There is also the ever-pressing question of the future of her relationship with Jamie. As always, she makes her way toward the heart of each problem by philosophizing, sleuthing, and downright snooping as only she can., Anchor, 2010, 4, New York: Berkley Books. Very Good. 4.25 x 1 x 7.5 inches. Paperback. 2000. 480 pages. <br>In life she was a high-profile model. In death she is the focus of a media firestorm that's demanding action from L ucas Davenport. One of his own men is a suspect in her murder. Bu t when a series of bizarre, seemingly unrelated slayings rock the city, Davenport suspects a connection that runs deeper than anyo ne had imagined--one that leads to an ingenious killer more ruthl ess than anyone had feared.... Editorial Reviews Review You won 't want to miss it. --Los Angeles Times Captivating. --Chicago S un-Times When you come out of the twists and turns that are Easy Prey, it is a marvel how [Sandford] could do this...he's a write r in control of his craft. --Chicago Sun-Times Crackerjack suspe nse...[Sandford's] at the top of his game again with Easy Prey. - -New York Post Wildly successful...contains all the elements fan s have come to expect: solid plot, gallows humor...sex, and the l ikeable, self-assured Davenport. --Booklist A grand guignol of a climax. --Kirkus Reviews Rapid-fire action...sharply evocative. -Minneapolis Star Tribune Easy Prey is hard to put down.--Richmo nd Times Dispatch The dialogue is deft, the melodrama masterfull y orchestrated and the conclusion truly culminant. As secrets exp lode, as bullets fly and bodies fall, and as the ground keeps shi fting, there's hardly time to keep up with the spectacle. --The L os Angeles Times [An] ever-entertaining series. As always, it's a joy to follow this rare cop who gets led more often by his gut instinct than by clues. His humor, understated and perverse, can be wildly funny, and the people he runs across are shrewdly conce ived originals. --Publishers Weekly Here's hoping that John Sand ford never retires Lucas Davenport or stops dreaming up diabolica l killers for the supersleuth to battle. The author's unbeatable at juggling suspense, comedy, sex...and [his] plots seem to be mo ving faster than ever. --The New York Post Lucas Davenport is al ways in top form, and with Easy Prey, Sandford has another winner to add to the Prey books. --The Orlando Sentinel About the Aut hor John Sandfordis the author of twenty-four Prey novels; the Vi rgil Flowers novels, most recentlyStorm Front; and six other book s. He lives in New Mexico. About the Author John Sandfordis the author of twenty-four Prey novels; the Virgil Flowers novels, mos t recentlyStorm Front; and six other books. He lives in New Mexic o. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. one WHEN THE FIRST MAN WOKE UP THAT MORNing, he wasn't thinking abou t killing anyone. He woke up with a head full of blues, a brain t hat was too big for his skull, and a bladder about to burst. He l ay with his eyes closed, breathing across a tongue that tasted li ke burnt chicken feathers. The blues rolled in through the bedroo m door. Coming down hard. He had been flying on cocaine for thr ee days, getting everything done, everything. Then last night, co ming down, he'd stopped at a liquor store for a bottle of Stolich naya. His bleeding brain retained a picture of himself lifting th e bottle off the shelf, and another picture of an argument with t he counterman, who didn't want to break a hundred-dollar bill. B y that time, the coke high had become unsustainable; and the Stol i had been a bad idea. There was no smooth landing after a three- day toot, but the vodka turned a wheels-up belly landing into a f ull crash-and-burn. Now he'd pay. If you peeled open his skull an d dumped it, he thought, his brain would look like a coagulated l ump of Campbell's bean soup. He cracked his eyes, lifted his hea d, and looked at the clock. A few minutes past seven. He'd gotten four hours of sleep. Par for the course with coke, and the Stoli hadn't helped. If he'd stayed down for ten hours, or twelve-he n eeded about sixteen to catch up-he might have been past the worst of it. Now he was just gonna have to suck it up. He turned to h is left, where a woman, a dishwater blonde, lay facedown in her p illow. He could only see about half of her head; the rest was bur ied by a red fleece blanket. She lay without moving, like a dead woman-but no such luck. He closed his eyes again, and there was n othing left in the world but the blues music bumping in from the next room, from the all-blues channel, nine-hundred-and-something on the TV dial. Must've left it on last night. . . . Gotta move , he thought. Gotta pee. Gotta take twenty aspirins and go down t o Country Kitchen and get some pancakes and link sausages. . . . The man didn't wake up thinking about murder. He woke up thinkin g about his head and his bladder and a stack of pancakes. Funny h ow things work out. That night, when he killed two people, he wa s a little shocked. - Green-eyed Alie'e Maison stood in the hul k of a rust-colored Mississippi River barge. She was wrapped in a designer dress that looked like froth over a reef in the Caribbe an Sea-an ankle-length dress the exact faded-jade color of her ey es, low-cut and sheer, hugging her hips, flaring at her ankles. S he was large-eyed, barefoot, elfin, fleeing down a pale yellow tw o-by-twelve-inch pine plank, which stretched like a line of fire out of the purple gloom of the barge's interior. Behind her, a h uge man in a sleeveless white T-shirt, filthy Sears work pants, a nd ten-inch work boots blew sparks off a piece of wrought iron wi th an acetylene torch. He was wearing a black dome-shaped welding helmet, and acrid gray smoke curled around his heavy, tense legs . The blank robotic faceplate, in combination with his hairy arms , the dirty shirt, the smoke, and the squat legs, gave him the gr otesque crouching power of a gargoyle. A fantasy at three thousa nd dollars an hour. And not quite right. - That's no fucking g ood. NO FUCKING GOOD! Amnon Plain moved through the bank of stro bes, his thick black hair falling over his forehead, his narrow g lasses glittering in the set lights, his voice cutting like a pie ce of broken glass: Alie'e, you're freezing up at the line. I wan t you blowing out of the place. I want you moving faster when you come up to the line, not slower. You're slowing down. And I want you to look pissed. You look annoyed, you look petulant- I am a nnoyed-I'm freezing, Alie'e snapped. I've got goose bumps the siz e of oranges. Plain turned to an assistant: Larry, move the heat er into the back. You gotta get some heat on her. We'll get the fumes, Larry said, arms akimbo, a deliberately effeminate pose. L arry wasn't gay, just ironic. We'll deal with the fucking fumes. Huh? Okay? We'll deal with the fucking fumes. You gotta do some thing. I'm really cold, Alie'e said. She clasped her arms around herself and shivered for effect. A man dressed in black walked ou t from behind the lights, peeling off his cashmere sport coat. He was tall, thin, his over-the-shoulder brunette hair worn loose a nd back. He had a thick hammered-silver loop earring in his left ear and a dark soul-patch under his lower lip. Take this until th ey're ready again, he said to Alie'e. She huddled in the coat. Tu rning away from them, Plain rolled his eyes. Larry-move the fucki n' heater. Larry shrugged and began wheeling the propane heater farther into the barge. If they all died of carbon monoxide poiso ning, it wouldn't be his fault. Plain turned back to Alie'e. Jax , take a hike, and take your coat with you. . . . Hey- the man i n black said, but nobody was looking at him, or paying attention. Plain continued: Alie'e, I want you pissed. Don't do that thing with your lips. You're sticking your lips out, like this. Plain pursed his lips. That's a pout. I don't want a pout. Do it like t his. . . . He grimaced, and Alie'e tried to imitate him. This was one of her talents: the ability to imitate expression, the way a dancer could imitate motion. That's better, Plain said to Alie' e. But make your mouth longer, turn it down, and get it set that way while you're moving. Do it again. She did it again, making th e changes. That's good, but now you need some mouth. He turned b ack to the line of lights and the small crowd gathered behind the m-an account executive, a creative director, a makeup artist, a h airdresser, a couture rep, a second photo assistant, and Alie'es parents, Lynn and Lil. Plain did not provide chairs, and the insi de of the barge was not a place you'd want to sit down, not if yo ur hand-tailored jeans cost four hundred and fifty dollars. To th e makeup artist, Plain said, Fix her mouth. And to the second ass istant: Jimmy, where's the fucking Polaroid? You got the Polaroid ? Jimmy was fanning a six-by-seven-centimeter Polaroid color pri nt, which was used to check exposure. He glanced at the print and said, It's coming up. Behind him, the creative director whisper ed to the account executive, Says 'fuck' a lot, and the account e xecutive muttered, They all do. Plain peered at the Polaroid, lo oked up at an overhead softbox. Move that box. About two feet to the right, that way. Jimmy moved it, and Plain looked around. Eve rybody ready? Alie'e, remember the line. Clark, are you ready? T he welder said, Yeah, I'm ready. Was that enough sparks? Sparks were fine, sparks were good, Plain said. You're the only fucking professional working here this morning. He looked back at Alie'e. Now, don't fucking pout-blow right through the line. . . . - A lie'e waited patiently until her mouth was fixed, staring blankly past the makeup artist's ear as a bit of color was patched into the left corner of her lower lip; Jax said into her ear, Love you . You're doing great, you look great. Alie'e barely heard him. Sh e was seeing herself walking the plank, the vision of herself tha t came from Plain's mind. When her mouth was done, she stepped b ack to her starting mark. Jax got out of the way, and when Plain said, Go, Alie'e got her expression right, started down the plank with a lanky, hip-swinging stride, and blew past the exposure li ne, the green dress swirling about her hips, the orange-yellow we lder's sparks flashing in the background. The stink and smoke of the burning metal curled around her as Plain, standing behind the camera, fired the bank of strobes. Better, Plain said, stepping toward her. A little fuckin' better. - They'd been working for two hours in the belly of the grain barge. The barge was a gift: a pilot on the Greek-owned Mississippi towboat Treponema had dri ven it into a protective abutment around a bridge piling. The dam aged barge had been floated to the Anshiser repair yard in St. Pa ul, where welders cut away the buckled hull plates and prepared t o burn on new ones. Plain spotted the disemboweled hulk while sco uting for photo locations. He made a deal with Archer Daniels Mid land, the barge owner: Delay repairs for a week, and ADM would ma ke Vogue. The people who ran ADM couldn't think of a good reason why the company would worry about Vogue, but their publicity ladi es were wetting their pants, so they said okay and the deal was m ade. - They were still working with the green dress when a team from TV3 showed up, and they all took a break. Alie'e goofed aro und, for the camera, with Jax, showing a little skin, doing a lon g, slow, rolling tongue-kiss, which the camera crew asked them to redo twice, once as a silhouette. The interviewer for TV3, a squ are-jawed ex-jock with bleached teeth and a smile he'd perfected in his bathroom mirror, said, after the cameras shut down, It's a slow day. I think we'll lead the news with this. Nobody asked w hy it was news: they all lived with cameras, and assumed that it was. - Two hours for four different shots, with and without fan s, two rolls of high-saturation Fujichrome film for each of the s hots. The Fuji would make the colors pop. Plain pronounced himsel f satisfied with the green dress, and they moved on. The next po se involved a torn T-shirt and a pair of male-look women's briefs , complete with the vented front. Alie'e and Jax moved against th e far hull and a little shadow, and Alie'e turned her back to the photo crowd and peeled off the green dress. She'd been nude bene ath the dress; anything else would ruin the line. She was aware of her nudity but not self-conscious about it, as she had been at first. Her first jobs had been as one model in a group, and they usually changed all at once; she was simply one naked woman amon g several. By the time she started up the ladder to stardom, to i ndividual attention, she'd become as conditioned to public nudity as a striptease dancer. Even more than that. She'd worked in Eu rope, with the Germans, and total nudity wasn't uncommon in fashi on work. She remembered the first time she'd had her pubic hair b rushed out, fluffed up. The brusher had been a thirty-something g uy who'd squatted in front of her, smoking a cigarette while he b rushed her, and then did a quick trim with a pair of barber sciss ors, all with the emotional neutrality of a postman sorting lette rs. Then the photographer came over to take a look, suggested a c ouple of extra snips. Her body might as well have been an apple. . . . You want privacy? You turn your back. . . . - Alie'e Mai son- Ah-Lee-Ay May-Sone -had been born Sharon Olson in Burnt Rive r, Minnesota. Until she was seventeen, she'd lived with her paren ts and her brother, Tom, in a robin's-egg-blue rambler just off H ighway 54, fourteen miles south of the Canadian line. She was a b eautiful baby. She won a beautiful-baby prize when she was a year old-she'd been born just before Halloween, and her costume was a pumpkin that her mother made on her Singer. A year later, Sharon toddled away with a statewide beautiful-toddler trophy. In that one, she'd been dressed as a lightning bug, in a suit of black an d gold. Dance and comportment lessons began when she was three, singing lessons when she was four. At five, she won the North Cen tral Tap-Fairies contest for children five and younger. That was the pattern: Miss Junior North Country, International Miss Snow ( International Falls and Fort Frances, Canada), Miss Border Lakes. She sang and danced through her school days. Miss Minnesota and even-her parents, Lynn and Lil, barely dared to dream it-Miss Ame rica was possible. Until she was fourteen, anyway. When the brea st genes were passed out in heaven, Alie'e had been in line for a n extra helping of eyes instead. That became obvious in junior hi gh when her, Berkley Books, 2000, 3, London: William Heinemann, 1896. Hardcover. Quarto; pp 224; Fair condition hardcover (SEE PHOTOS); brown spine with gilt text and decorations to spine; this volume only; boards show noticeable age toning toward edges; chipped spine and spine edges; slight spotting to spine; portion towards head edge; fraying to tail edges; text block has many black and white plates with tissue guards; previous owner's name to ffep; sticker to front pastedown; interior shows toning toward page edges; frontispiece with tissue guard; arts - Italian; Oversized order. Additional shipping and handling may be necessary for expedited/international orders. Economy international shipping unavailable due to size/weight restriction(s). Contact seller if you have any questions. NOTE: Shelved on the FS shelf in the Netdesk office, behind the desk. 1311797. FP New Rockville Stock., William Heinemann, 1896, 0, Verlag Moderne Kunst, 2001. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has soft covers. In good all round condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,1150grams, ISBN:, Verlag Moderne Kunst, 2001, 0, US: Harvest Books, 2004. Paperback. Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. A fifteenth-century painting by a Flemish master is about to be auctioned when Julia, a young art restorer, discovers a peculiar inscription hidden in a corner: Who killed the knight? In the painting, the Duke of Flanders and his knight are locked in a game of chess, and a dark lady lurks mysteriously in the background. Julia is determined to solve the five-hundred-year-old murder, but as she begins to look for clues, several of her friends in the art world are brutally murdered in quick succession. Messages left with the bodies suggest a crucial connection between the chess game in the painting, the knight's murder, the sordid underside of the contemporary art world, and the latest deaths. Just when all of the players in the mystery seem to be pawns themselves, events race toward a shocking conclusion. A thriller like no other, The Flanders Panel presents a tantalizing puzzle for any connoisseur of mystery, chess, art, and history., Harvest Books, 2004, 3, Arts Council England, 2003. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has soft covers. In good all round condition. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,250grams, ISBN:0728709937, Arts Council England, 2003, 0, Evelyn, Adams and Mackay, 1968. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. Clean from markings. In good all round condition. Dust jacket in poor condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,950grams, ISBN:0238788105, Evelyn, Adams and Mackay, 1968, 0, Faber & Faber, 1966. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. With slight and inoffensive markings, In poor condition, suitable as a reading copy. Dust jacket in poor condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,750grams, ISBN:, Faber & Faber, 1966, 0, Plume. Used - Good. Good condition. With remainder mark. A copy that has been read but remains intact. May contain markings such as bookplates, stamps, limited notes and highlighting, or a few light stains. Bundled media such as CDs, DVDs, floppy disks or access codes may not be included., Plume, 2.5, Healing Arts Press. Used - Good. Good condition. A copy that has been read but remains intact. May contain markings such as bookplates, stamps, limited notes and highlighting, or a few light stains. Bundled media such as CDs, DVDs, floppy disks or access codes may not be included., Healing Arts Press, 2.5, Hamish Hamilton. Very Good. 6.02 x 0.79 x 9.21 inches. Paperback. 1992. 240 pages. <br>Terrifying...Impressive...A challenging esay that justifies the feminist revival. THE NEW YORK TIMES Bestselling au thor and feminist scholar Marilyn French has written a shocking a nd fascinating analysis of the history of women's political, cult ural, physical, and economic repression that is as controversial as it is utterly convincing. In this stunning work of resarch, Ms . French creates a devastating portrait of today's male-dominated global society, with its underlying aim of destroying, subjugati ng, or mutilating women. Here is a devastating indictment of our values and an important step toward an urgent public discussion o f human morality. From the Trade Paperback edition. Editorial R eviews From Publishers Weekly Men's tendency to subjugate and ab use women operates on personal, institutional and cultural levels , notes novelist and feminist French ( Beyond Power ). Boys' desi re to dominate girls is instilled in childhood, while grown men s ee women as mothers owing them caretaking services, she observes. In her sharp analysis a major goal of male-conceived religious m ovements like Christian fundamentalism and militant Islam is to k eep women subservient. Other examples of institutional suppressio n of women explored by French are discrimination in the workplace , biased divorce judgments and widespread rape, wife beating and male incest, a systemic pattern tolerated by society. On the cult ural front she examines male sadomasochism against women in the a rts and advertising. A landmark in feminist analysis, this powerf ul indictment reveals the global extent of men's assault on women , drawing implicit connections between the drive to criminalize a bortion, starvation wages paid to women by transnational corporat ions, genital mutilation in Africa, Third World brothel tours and sociobiology's characterization of male aggression as normal, fe male aggression as nonadaptive. Author tour. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Kirkus Reviews Frenc h takes on global sexism from the fall of the ancient goddess-wor shiping societies to routine modern-day oppression of women in ev ery nation of the world--quite a large bite to chew, and not alwa ys thoroughly masticated. Humans are the only species in which on e sex consistently preys upon the other,'' French proclaims in th is determined attempt to sound an alarm to women around the world . Men's need to dominate women may be based in their own sense of marginality or emptiness; we do not know its root, and men are m aking no effort to discover it. But men's long-standing war again st women is now, in reaction to women's movements across the worl d, taking on a new ferocity, new urgency, and new veneers.'' Dati ng the birth of male insecurity to a decrease in dependence on hu nting in ancient matriarchal societies (which, French claims, led to defensive efforts to dominate women and nature through huntin g cults, male initiation rites, male deities, and, eventually, th e state- sanctioned ownership'' of women's bodies), the author as serts that today's nations continue to wage war against women: sy stemically, through organized religion and international economic policies that fail to value unpaid but indispensable women's wor k''; institutionally, in medicine, science, and law; culturally, via sexist language, advertising, arts, and other media; and indi vidually, through largely unpunished rape, wife-beating, sexual h arassment, and incest. French's passion, though otherwise somewha t reminiscent of Susan Faludi's Backlash (1991), is seriously und ermined by her overambitious attempt to investigate sexism in eve ry society at once--as well as by undocumented, sweeping accusati ons (all male violence toward women is part of a concerted campai gn'') and unchecked hyperbole (Since patriarchy began, prostituti on is the only work for which men pay women enough to support the mselves'') that obscure the many facts that French reveals once h er anger abates. A feminist call to arms--headstrong and provocat ive. -- Copyright ®1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserv ed. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From the Inside Flap Terrifying...Impressive...A challenging esay that justifies the feminist revival. THE NEW YOR K TIMES Bestselling author and feminist scholar Marilyn French ha s written a shocking and fascinating analysis of the history of w omen's political, cultural, physical, and economic repression tha t is as controversial as it is utterly convincing. In this stunni ng work of resarch, Ms. French creates a devastating portrait of today's male-dominated global society, with its underlying aim of destroying, subjugating, or mutilating women. Here is a devastat ing indictment of our values and an important step toward an urge nt public discussion of human morality. From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable ed ition of this title. From Library Journal French (author of the groundbreaking novel The Women's Room , LJ 11/15/77) states what she is about in her title. This exhausting, horrifying, and deepl y saddening compendium catalogs religious, sociological, institut ional, and physical oppression of women throughout the world. Whi le it is extensively footnoted, French's essays are focused towar d raising readers' consciousness of legal and political stricture s; statistics on rape, incest, female infanticide, and clitoridec tomy; and male obsession with controlling female reproduction. Li ttle of what is contained here will be news to any conscientious reader of Ms . magazine. One wonders who French perceives as her audience, as most feminists are probably aware of the global diff iculites faced by women, and those who would not take on the femi nist designation may simply dismiss her arguments. Although much shorter than Susan Faludi's extraordinary Backlash ( LJ 9/15/91; an LJ Best Book of 1991), which took aim primarily at media manip ulation, French's book is less accessible and more demanding of r eaders. For academic collections, and public libraries where inte rest warrants. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/91. - GraceAnne A . DeCandido, School Library Journal Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavai lable edition of this title. ., Hamish Hamilton, 1992, 3, Faber & Faber, 1966. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. Clean from markings. In poor condition, suitable as a reading copy. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,700grams, ISBN:, Faber & Faber, 1966, 0, State University of New York Press, 1999. Paperback. Very Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in excellent condition. Pages are intact and are not marred by notes or highlighting, but may contain a neat previous owner name. The spine remains undamaged. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed., State University of New York Press, 1999, 3, University of California Press, 1972. Paperback. Very Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in excellent condition. Pages are intact and are not marred by notes or highlighting, but may contain a neat previous owner name. The spine remains undamaged. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed., University of California Press, 1972, 3, US: Penguin Random House India, 2010. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. An evolutionary change in the world of leadership has arrived. And it is OP EN In this era of increasing complexities, leadership is evolving faster than ever before. More forward-looking organizations are moving away from the tr aditional closed forms towards an Open Source Leader model, where people ar e nurtured across layers by opening unto them the power and authority assoc iated with leadership - very similar to the model followed by the Open Sour ce Software Movement. If organizations and leaders do not keep up with this evolution, they will be left in the lurch. But if they manage to keep pace , they will live another day, to tell the tale of their success. Open Source Leader tells the story of such organizations that have managed to evolve ahead of their contemporaries. Sangeeth Varghese has woven togeth er eight defining attributes that are most commonly observed in such organi zations, helping them survive and thrive during the most challenging of tim es. In this book, entities as diverse as the Indian national cricket team, Wikipedia, BCG Consulting and the Art of Living reveal their most closely h eld secrets of success. It draws together the wisdom gleaned from some of t he greatest thought-leaders across the world, as well as from multiple disc iplines. Open Source Leader will keep you ahead of the evolutionary curve, irrespective of whether you are leading a Fortune 500 corporation, a start-up or a government institution. It will help you understand the future of leadersh., Penguin Random House India, 2010, 3, Center for the Intimate Arts, 2013. Paperback. Very Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in excellent condition. Pages are intact and are not marred by notes or highlighting, but may contain a neat previous owner name. The spine remains undamaged. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed., Center for the Intimate Arts, 2013, 3, Oxford University Press, 1924. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. Clean from markings. In fair condition, suitable as a study copy. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,350grams, ISBN:, Oxford University Press, 1924, 0, US: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting.The spine remains undamaged. An eye-opening, spine-tingling, heartwarming tour through the extraordinary history and secrets of the human body. The human body is the most fraught and fascinating, talked-about and taboo, unique yet universal fact of our lives. It is the inspiration for art, the subject of science, and the source of some of the greatest stories ever to ld. In Anatomies, acclaimed author of Periodic Tales Hugh Aldersey-Williams brings his entertaining blend of science, history, and culture to bear on this richest of subjects. In an engaging narrative that ranges from ancient body art to plastic surge ry today and from head to toe, Aldersey-Williams explores the corporeal mys teries that make us human: Why are some people left-handed and some blue-ey ed? What is the funny bone, anyway? Why do some cultures think of the heart as the seat of our souls and passions, while others place it in the liver? A journalist with a knack for telling a story, Aldersey-Williams takes part in a drawing class, attends the dissection of a human body, and visits the doctor's office and the morgue. But Anatomies draws not just on medical science and Aldersey-Williams's reporting. It draws also on the works of philosophers, writers, and artists from throughout history. Aldersey-Williams delves into our shared cultural heritageâ??Shakespeare to Frankenstein, Rembrandt to 2001: A Space Odysseyâ??to reveal how attitudes toward the human body are as varied as human history, as he explains the origins and legacy of tattooin., W. W. Norton & Company, 2013, 3, Penguin Publishing Group, 1977. Paperback. Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact. The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include previous owner inscriptions. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed., Penguin Publishing Group, 1977, 2.5, Skyhorse Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2006. Paperback. Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact. The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include previous owner inscriptions. An ex-library book and may have standard library stamps and/or stickers. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed., Skyhorse Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2006, 2.5, F&W Media, Incorporated, 2014. Paperback. Very Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in excellent condition. Pages are intact and are not marred by notes or highlighting, but may contain a neat previous owner name. The spine remains undamaged. An ex-library book and may have standard library stamps and/or stickers. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed., F&W Media, Incorporated, 2014, 3, US: Arcade, 2022. Paperback. Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting.The spine remains undamaged. Another Fabulous Art History Thriller by the Bestselling Author of Oil and Marble, Featuring the Master of Renaissance Perfection: Raphael! Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling is one of the most iconic masterpiece s of the Renaissance. Here, in Raphael, Painter in Rome, Storey tells of it s creation as never before: through the eyes of Michelangelo's fiercest riv al--the young, beautiful, brilliant painter of perfection, Raphael. Orphane d at age eleven, Raphael is determined to keep the deathbed promise he made to his father: become the greatest artist in history. But to be the best, he must beat the best, the legendary sculptor of the David, Michelangelo Bu onarroti. When Pope Julius II calls both artists down to Rome, they are pit ted against each other: Michelangelo painting the Sistine Ceiling, while Ra phael decorates the pope's private apartments. As Raphael strives toward pe rfection in paint, he battles internal demons: his desperate ambition, crip pling fear of imperfection, and unshakable loneliness. Along the way, he co nspires with cardinals, scrambles through the ruins of ancient Rome, and fa lls in love with a baker's-daughter-turned- prostitute who becomes his muse. With its gorgeous writing, rich settings, endearing characters, and riveting plot, Raphael, Painter in Rome brings to vivid life these two Renaissance masters going head to head in the deadly halls of the Vatican., Arcade, 2022, 3, Evelyn, Adams and Mackay , 1968. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. Book contains pencil markings. In good all round condition. Dust jacket in good condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,1000grams, ISBN:, Evelyn, Adams and Mackay, 1968, 0, The MIT Press, 11/16/2021. paperback. Very Good. 6x0x9. Very Good Condition - May show some limited signs of wear and may have a remainder mark. Pages and dust cover are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting., The MIT Press, 11/16/2021, 3, Cambridge, MA: Malor Books. Good. 2015. PAPERBACK; 109876543pt line. paperback. 8.5 X 5.5 X 0.5 inches. GOOD CONDITION, pencil reader notes,underlinded... thruout text..ow quite clean, solid & bright.. ; White titles on rich blue spine & cover; 220 pages; we have many "small minds" which simultaneously, but independently process feelings, fantasies, ideas, fixed routines, and interpersonal responses, how different parts of our minds come to the fore to handle different situations. This means that "we" are not the same person from moment to moment, but rather have different memories and abilities in different situations. Reading this groundbreaking book will help you take a step towards understanding who you – and all of us – really are. ., Malor Books, 2015, 2.5, NC Press, 1974. Hardcover. Very Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in excellent condition. Pages are intact and are not marred by notes or highlighting, but may contain a neat previous owner name. The spine remains undamaged. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed., NC Press, 1974, 3, Macmillan, 1898. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. In fair condition, suitable as a study copy. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,400grams, ISBN:, Macmillan, 1898, 0, Simon & Schuster. Very Good. 7 x 1.5 x 9.75 inches. Hardcover. 2003. 528 pages.<br>A history of the computer company Oracle chronicles its rise to become one of the industry's most powerful and profi table companies, noting its penchant for reinventing itself in pu rsuit of new goals. Editorial Reviews Review Softwar is a biography of Larry Ellison and his company, Oracle. As such , it's simultaneously a portrait of a clever and driven man, a ca se study of a successful software development company, and a tabl eau of the commercial software industry from its beginnings, thro ugh the dot-com craze, and into the present era. Matthew Symonds, who began this project while working as the editor of the excell ent technology section of the Economist, has done a great job wit h all three elements of his project, thanks in no small part to t he tremendous access he was given and to his close collaboration with Ellison. Collaboration is very nearly the right word, as El lison reviewed Symonds' manuscript before publication and, while he did not alter it, he did make a large number of comments, whic h appear in the book as footnotes. As Symonds is a good journalis t who attributes most of his material, Ellison is able to take is sue immediately with statements other people make about him and h is company. The overall effect is hypertextual, and represents an important new biographical technique that other writers should i mitate. Softwar succeeds because Ellison has a fantastically inte resting life, tremendous experience, and carefully considered opi nions, and because Symonds communicates them with clarity and sty le. --David Wall Topics covered: The life, times, acquaintances, tastes, toys, and opinions of Larry Ellison, the database entrep reneur and CEO of Oracle Corporation. From Publishers Weekly Sy monds was technology editor at the Economist when Ellison invited him to collaborate on a book about e-business, but the journalis t decided he would rather write a profile of the software tycoon, one of Silicon Valley's most notorious figures. Oracle's databas e programs have become integral to the Internet and other network ed computer systems, and Oracle's head is convinced that he can s urpass Microsoft as the industry leader. But he's also developed a reputation for his aggressive corporate tactics and personal fl amboyance. Ellison agreed to cooperate with the project, but as p art of the deal, he reserved the right to respond, which he does in a series of running footnotes. Sometimes he only uses the oppo rtunity to mouth business platitudes, but he also refutes stories , cracks jokes and even argues with other sources. Although the b ook deals extensively with Oracle's efforts to promote a new soft ware package, it comes to life most when it follows Ellison outsi de the office-prepping his sailboat for a run at the America's Cu p or overseeing the final touches on a Japanese garden complex. S ymonds's near-total access to his subject leads to intimate obser vations that verge on personal advice, as when the writer suggest s how best to handle a top Oracle executive or comments on the re lationship between Ellison and his two children. But he remains o bjective enough to point out several mistakes in the past managem ent of Oracle (many of which Ellison acknowledges or clarifies). Even without its unusual counterpoint, the book would stand as a compelling portrayal of one of the computer industry's most influ ential leaders. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Publishers Weekly Symonds was technology editor at the Econo mist when Ellison invited him to collaborate on a book about e-bu siness, but the journalist decided he would rather write a profil e of the software tycoon, one of Silicon Valley's most notorious figures. Oracle's database programs have become integral to the I nternet and other networked computer systems, and Oracle's head i s convinced that he can surpass Microsoft as the industry leader. But he's also developed a reputation for his aggressive corporat e tactics and personal flamboyance. Ellison agreed to cooperate w ith the project, but as part of the deal, he reserved the right t o respond, which he does in a series of running footnotes. Someti mes he only uses the opportunity to mouth business platitudes, bu t he also refutes stories, cracks jokes and even argues with othe r sources. Although the book deals extensively with Oracle's effo rts to promote a new software package, it comes to life most when it follows Ellison outside the office-prepping his sailboat for a run at the America's Cup or overseeing the final touches on a J apanese garden complex. Symonds's near-total access to his subjec t leads to intimate observations that verge on personal advice, a s when the writer suggests how best to handle a top Oracle execut ive or comments on the relationship between Ellison and his two c hildren. But he remains objective enough to point out several mis takes in the past management of Oracle (many of which Ellison ack nowledges or clarifies). Even without its unusual counterpoint, t he book would stand as a compelling portrayal of one of the compu ter industry's most influential leaders. Copyright 2003 Reed Bus iness Information, Inc. From Booklist There has been a war brewi ng in the software industry that most computer users don't even k now about. Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, wants to supplant th e current Windows-based client-server network architecture with a totally Internet-based solution that would simplify computing an d make Microsoft's server software obsolete. Even now, Oracle is the dominant software in business; every time you do a Google sea rch or buy something on , you are using it. Anyone who craves a play-by-play account of Ellison and the evolution of the number-one relational database in the world can really sink thei r teeth into this. There is a slightly bizarre twist to this high -tech tale: Ellison himself gets to throw in running commentary a t the bottom of many pages, augmenting and often contradicting th e author's text in his own brash style. Beware if you 're not up on your geekspeak, though, as the casual reader will get lost in all the IT systems acronyms thrown around, such as CRM, ERP, HR a nd TPC-C. More entertaining than the technical jargon is the ruth less backstabbing that goes on between Ellison and big-name compe titors such as Microsoft, Seibel Systems, PeopleSoft and i2 Techn ologies. David Siegfried Copyright © American Library Association . All rights reserved Review Alan Goldstein The Dallas Morning N ews Thank goodness for Larry Ellison. The chairman and chief exec utive of Oracle Corporation always keeps things interesting. -- R eview About the Author Matthew Symonds is currently political ed itor of The Economist, but before that was the magazine's technol ogy and communications editor for nearly four years. He has also been a founding editorial director of The Independent and strateg y director of BBC Worldwide Television. Symonds lives in London w ith his wife and three children. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permiss ion. All rights reserved. Chapter One: Larry and Me I first met Larry Ellison in his office at Oracle's Redwood Shores headquart ers on December 8, 1997. I had recently become The Economist's te chnology and communications editor, and this was the first of wha t became regular visits to Silicon Valley. I had just completed t wo days of meetings at Microsoft's campus at Redmond, Washington, 800 miles to the north, where an array of impressively on-messag e executives had been wheeled out for my benefit -- though unfort unately not Bill Gates himself. I would see him on my next visit, I was assured. But there was a strong hint that face time with B ill was conditional on The Economist's taking a more sympathetic line toward Microsoft in the antitrust case that the Department o f Justice was preparing against it. After a similar turn involvin g Oracle's most senior managers, I had been promised time with El lison himself. It turned out I'd picked a bad afternoon. I didn 't know it at the time, but Oracle was about to issue its first e arnings warning since the firm had nearly gone under in 1990. The economic crisis in Asia had taken its toll, and in North America , slowing license sales of Oracle's most important product, its a ll-conquering database, seemed to support the argument of some an alysts that Oracle was dominating a market that was getting close to saturation. The following day, the stock lost 30 percent of i ts value. As I waited, I could see Ellison through the glass do ors of the eleventh-floor boardroom, huddled in conversation. He was already an hour and a half late for his interview with me and I knew he had to fly to New York later in the day to deliver a k eynote speech at an Internet conference. I had heard stories abou t Ellison's lateness and didn't believe the press flak's distract ed excuses about an emergency being the cause of the delay. Let's leave it for another time, I suggested grumpily. But at that mom ent, I was suddenly ushered into Ellison's handsome office with i ts expensive Japanese artifacts and panoramic views across the ba y. Despite the strain he must have been under, Ellison was cour tesy itself. After apologizing profusely for his lateness, he beg an to talk about technology. His theme was the failure of the pre vailing computer architecture of the day, known as client/server (because the job of running software was shared between server co mputers in corporate data centers and their desktop PC clients). He believed client/server was an evolutionary dead end that was d istributing complexity with disastrous consequences. The answer w as a new model of computing based on the Internet, in which the c omplexity and the computing would be hidden in the network. Users would be able to access everything they needed through a web bro wser that could be run by a machine much less expensive and canta nkerous than a PC -- a network computer. There was nothing unex pected in this. It was a drum that Ellison had been beating for s ome time, and conceptually it was little different from Sun Micro systems's famous slogan that the network is the computer. Ellison had first declared the PC a ridiculous device at a technology co nference in Paris more than two years earlier. The speech, at the height of the hoopla surrounding the release of Windows 95 and i n front of an audience that included Bill Gates, caused a minor s ensation. Ellison ran through a well-rehearsed routine, but the re was nonetheless something extraordinarily compelling about his argument. He seemed to be speaking directly to the problems that anyone who depended on computers at work knew all too well: the crash-prone PC with its incomprehensible error messages; the incr edible effort of maintaining thousands of PCs across a company; t he apparently insurmountable difficulties of getting reasonable p erformance and scalability across wide-area networks. The argumen ts seemed utterly rational and commonsensical, while Ellison hims elf was passionate and funny. ??? Over the next three years, Ellison was proved to be far more right than wrong. The network c omputer itself proved to be a dazzling digression: Ellison had be en right about how the Internet would change the way computers we re used, but most people still reckoned that the best way of gett ing to the Internet was through a PC. A few network computers wer e made by Oracle and a loosely knit coalition of Microsoft's enem ies, such as IBM and Sun Microsystems, but tumbling PC prices and the limitations imposed by slow dial-up connections quickly cond emned them to irrelevance. Microsoft crowed; Ellison was made to look a bit foolish. But the PC versus the NC was a sideshow that stole attention from the real struggle for the future of computin g. What mattered was that Ellison had understood better than anyo ne the potential impact of the Internet on enterprise computing i n general and on Oracle in particular.* While the technology an alysts in the investment banks and the consultancies confidently predicted the maturing of the database market, Ellison realized t hat the Internet would exponentially increase both the number of database transactions and the number of people who would interact with Oracle's databases. That would mean more license growth tha n the analysts had dreamed of. Every time someone looked for a bo ok on , bought stock through E*TRADE, or put something up for auction on , that person was using an Oracle database. Ellison believed that the database would be the essential platfo rm for Internet computing, effectively displacing the once all-im portant operating system. Within companies, the same thing woul d happen. Instead of business software being used by only a handf ul of specialists, Internet-based applications could be extended to anyone with authorization and a browser. Every time one of tho se applications was used, there was a good chance that it would q uery the database that the application ran on. When the networkin g giant Cisco Systems talked of having a URL for everything we do , it was another way of saying that everybody they employed was c onstantly using the firm's Oracle database. In a client/server wo rld, less sophisticated databases, such as Microsoft's SQL Server , might have become good enough for many businesses, but with Int ernet computing came the need for databases that could support mi llions of users at once. With the coming of e-business, Oracle's databases became at least as much an essential element of infrast ructure as Cisco's routers or the big server computers made by th e likes of Sun that were also back in fashion. It was no coincide nce that in early 2000 those three companies -- the three superst ars of the Internet -- had a combined market value of nearly a tr illion dollars. If that was a stroke of luck for Oracle, what w asn't was Ellison's decision, to the horror of many colleagues an d customers, to abandon all further development of client/server- based applications and concentrate the firm's entire engineering effort on building for the new computing architecture of the Inte rnet. While rivals in the apps business, such as the German power house SAP and PeopleSoft, talked up the Internet and put a web fr ont-end on some of their products, Ellison went much further. Ora cle was the first established software firm to risk everything on the new paradigm. His rationale was simple: Oracle could never hope to be number one in enterprise applications as long as clie nt/, Simon & Schuster, 2003, 3<

2022, ISBN: 9780743225045

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US: Anchor, 2010. Near Fine. In excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlig hting. The spine remains undamaged. ISABEL DALHOUSIE - Book 6 Nothing captures t… Mehr…

US: Anchor, 2010. Near Fine. In excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlig hting. The spine remains undamaged. ISABEL DALHOUSIE - Book 6 Nothing captures the charm of Edinburgh like the bestselling Isabel Dalhous ie series of novels featuring the insatiably curious philosopher and woman detective. Whether investigating a case or a problem of philosophy, the ind efatigable Isabel Dalhousie, one of fiction's most richly developed amateur detectives, is always ready to pursue the answers to all of life's questio ns, large and small. The sensational sixth installment in the best-selling chronicles of the irr epressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie finds our inquisitive heroine and new m other racing two very troublesome people from her past. Isabel's son, Charlie, is only eighteen months, but his social life is already kicking into high gear, and it's at a birthday party, where Isabel is approached by Minty Auchterlonie, an old adversary and now a high-flying financier. Minty, it seems, is having trouble in her personal life, and seeks Isabel's help. To make matters worse, the anything but peaceable Professor Dove has accused Isabel's journal of plagiarism. There is also the ever-pressing question of the future of her relationship with Jamie. As always, she makes her way toward the heart of each problem by philosophizing, sleuthing, and downright snooping as only she can., Anchor, 2010, 4, London: William Heinemann, 1896. Hardcover. Quarto; pp 224; Fair condition hardcover (SEE PHOTOS); brown spine with gilt text and decorations to spine; this volume only; boards show noticeable age toning toward edges; chipped spine and spine edges; slight spotting to spine; portion towards head edge; fraying to tail edges; text block has many black and white plates with tissue guards; previous owner's name to ffep; sticker to front pastedown; interior shows toning toward page edges; frontispiece with tissue guard; arts - Italian; Oversized order. Additional shipping and handling may be necessary for expedited/international orders. Economy international shipping unavailable due to size/weight restriction(s). Contact seller if you have any questions. NOTE: Shelved on the FS shelf in the Netdesk office, behind the desk. 1311797. FP New Rockville Stock., William Heinemann, 1896, 0, New York: Berkley Books. Very Good. 4.25 x 1 x 7.5 inches. Paperback. 2000. 480 pages. <br>In life she was a high-profile model. In death she is the focus of a media firestorm that's demanding action from L ucas Davenport. One of his own men is a suspect in her murder. Bu t when a series of bizarre, seemingly unrelated slayings rock the city, Davenport suspects a connection that runs deeper than anyo ne had imagined--one that leads to an ingenious killer more ruthl ess than anyone had feared.... Editorial Reviews Review You won 't want to miss it. --Los Angeles Times Captivating. --Chicago S un-Times When you come out of the twists and turns that are Easy Prey, it is a marvel how [Sandford] could do this...he's a write r in control of his craft. --Chicago Sun-Times Crackerjack suspe nse...[Sandford's] at the top of his game again with Easy Prey. - -New York Post Wildly successful...contains all the elements fan s have come to expect: solid plot, gallows humor...sex, and the l ikeable, self-assured Davenport. --Booklist A grand guignol of a climax. --Kirkus Reviews Rapid-fire action...sharply evocative. -Minneapolis Star Tribune Easy Prey is hard to put down.--Richmo nd Times Dispatch The dialogue is deft, the melodrama masterfull y orchestrated and the conclusion truly culminant. As secrets exp lode, as bullets fly and bodies fall, and as the ground keeps shi fting, there's hardly time to keep up with the spectacle. --The L os Angeles Times [An] ever-entertaining series. As always, it's a joy to follow this rare cop who gets led more often by his gut instinct than by clues. His humor, understated and perverse, can be wildly funny, and the people he runs across are shrewdly conce ived originals. --Publishers Weekly Here's hoping that John Sand ford never retires Lucas Davenport or stops dreaming up diabolica l killers for the supersleuth to battle. The author's unbeatable at juggling suspense, comedy, sex...and [his] plots seem to be mo ving faster than ever. --The New York Post Lucas Davenport is al ways in top form, and with Easy Prey, Sandford has another winner to add to the Prey books. --The Orlando Sentinel About the Aut hor John Sandfordis the author of twenty-four Prey novels; the Vi rgil Flowers novels, most recentlyStorm Front; and six other book s. He lives in New Mexico. About the Author John Sandfordis the author of twenty-four Prey novels; the Virgil Flowers novels, mos t recentlyStorm Front; and six other books. He lives in New Mexic o. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. one WHEN THE FIRST MAN WOKE UP THAT MORNing, he wasn't thinking abou t killing anyone. He woke up with a head full of blues, a brain t hat was too big for his skull, and a bladder about to burst. He l ay with his eyes closed, breathing across a tongue that tasted li ke burnt chicken feathers. The blues rolled in through the bedroo m door. Coming down hard. He had been flying on cocaine for thr ee days, getting everything done, everything. Then last night, co ming down, he'd stopped at a liquor store for a bottle of Stolich naya. His bleeding brain retained a picture of himself lifting th e bottle off the shelf, and another picture of an argument with t he counterman, who didn't want to break a hundred-dollar bill. B y that time, the coke high had become unsustainable; and the Stol i had been a bad idea. There was no smooth landing after a three- day toot, but the vodka turned a wheels-up belly landing into a f ull crash-and-burn. Now he'd pay. If you peeled open his skull an d dumped it, he thought, his brain would look like a coagulated l ump of Campbell's bean soup. He cracked his eyes, lifted his hea d, and looked at the clock. A few minutes past seven. He'd gotten four hours of sleep. Par for the course with coke, and the Stoli hadn't helped. If he'd stayed down for ten hours, or twelve-he n eeded about sixteen to catch up-he might have been past the worst of it. Now he was just gonna have to suck it up. He turned to h is left, where a woman, a dishwater blonde, lay facedown in her p illow. He could only see about half of her head; the rest was bur ied by a red fleece blanket. She lay without moving, like a dead woman-but no such luck. He closed his eyes again, and there was n othing left in the world but the blues music bumping in from the next room, from the all-blues channel, nine-hundred-and-something on the TV dial. Must've left it on last night. . . . Gotta move , he thought. Gotta pee. Gotta take twenty aspirins and go down t o Country Kitchen and get some pancakes and link sausages. . . . The man didn't wake up thinking about murder. He woke up thinkin g about his head and his bladder and a stack of pancakes. Funny h ow things work out. That night, when he killed two people, he wa s a little shocked. - Green-eyed Alie'e Maison stood in the hul k of a rust-colored Mississippi River barge. She was wrapped in a designer dress that looked like froth over a reef in the Caribbe an Sea-an ankle-length dress the exact faded-jade color of her ey es, low-cut and sheer, hugging her hips, flaring at her ankles. S he was large-eyed, barefoot, elfin, fleeing down a pale yellow tw o-by-twelve-inch pine plank, which stretched like a line of fire out of the purple gloom of the barge's interior. Behind her, a h uge man in a sleeveless white T-shirt, filthy Sears work pants, a nd ten-inch work boots blew sparks off a piece of wrought iron wi th an acetylene torch. He was wearing a black dome-shaped welding helmet, and acrid gray smoke curled around his heavy, tense legs . The blank robotic faceplate, in combination with his hairy arms , the dirty shirt, the smoke, and the squat legs, gave him the gr otesque crouching power of a gargoyle. A fantasy at three thousa nd dollars an hour. And not quite right. - That's no fucking g ood. NO FUCKING GOOD! Amnon Plain moved through the bank of stro bes, his thick black hair falling over his forehead, his narrow g lasses glittering in the set lights, his voice cutting like a pie ce of broken glass: Alie'e, you're freezing up at the line. I wan t you blowing out of the place. I want you moving faster when you come up to the line, not slower. You're slowing down. And I want you to look pissed. You look annoyed, you look petulant- I am a nnoyed-I'm freezing, Alie'e snapped. I've got goose bumps the siz e of oranges. Plain turned to an assistant: Larry, move the heat er into the back. You gotta get some heat on her. We'll get the fumes, Larry said, arms akimbo, a deliberately effeminate pose. L arry wasn't gay, just ironic. We'll deal with the fucking fumes. Huh? Okay? We'll deal with the fucking fumes. You gotta do some thing. I'm really cold, Alie'e said. She clasped her arms around herself and shivered for effect. A man dressed in black walked ou t from behind the lights, peeling off his cashmere sport coat. He was tall, thin, his over-the-shoulder brunette hair worn loose a nd back. He had a thick hammered-silver loop earring in his left ear and a dark soul-patch under his lower lip. Take this until th ey're ready again, he said to Alie'e. She huddled in the coat. Tu rning away from them, Plain rolled his eyes. Larry-move the fucki n' heater. Larry shrugged and began wheeling the propane heater farther into the barge. If they all died of carbon monoxide poiso ning, it wouldn't be his fault. Plain turned back to Alie'e. Jax , take a hike, and take your coat with you. . . . Hey- the man i n black said, but nobody was looking at him, or paying attention. Plain continued: Alie'e, I want you pissed. Don't do that thing with your lips. You're sticking your lips out, like this. Plain pursed his lips. That's a pout. I don't want a pout. Do it like t his. . . . He grimaced, and Alie'e tried to imitate him. This was one of her talents: the ability to imitate expression, the way a dancer could imitate motion. That's better, Plain said to Alie' e. But make your mouth longer, turn it down, and get it set that way while you're moving. Do it again. She did it again, making th e changes. That's good, but now you need some mouth. He turned b ack to the line of lights and the small crowd gathered behind the m-an account executive, a creative director, a makeup artist, a h airdresser, a couture rep, a second photo assistant, and Alie'es parents, Lynn and Lil. Plain did not provide chairs, and the insi de of the barge was not a place you'd want to sit down, not if yo ur hand-tailored jeans cost four hundred and fifty dollars. To th e makeup artist, Plain said, Fix her mouth. And to the second ass istant: Jimmy, where's the fucking Polaroid? You got the Polaroid ? Jimmy was fanning a six-by-seven-centimeter Polaroid color pri nt, which was used to check exposure. He glanced at the print and said, It's coming up. Behind him, the creative director whisper ed to the account executive, Says 'fuck' a lot, and the account e xecutive muttered, They all do. Plain peered at the Polaroid, lo oked up at an overhead softbox. Move that box. About two feet to the right, that way. Jimmy moved it, and Plain looked around. Eve rybody ready? Alie'e, remember the line. Clark, are you ready? T he welder said, Yeah, I'm ready. Was that enough sparks? Sparks were fine, sparks were good, Plain said. You're the only fucking professional working here this morning. He looked back at Alie'e. Now, don't fucking pout-blow right through the line. . . . - A lie'e waited patiently until her mouth was fixed, staring blankly past the makeup artist's ear as a bit of color was patched into the left corner of her lower lip; Jax said into her ear, Love you . You're doing great, you look great. Alie'e barely heard him. Sh e was seeing herself walking the plank, the vision of herself tha t came from Plain's mind. When her mouth was done, she stepped b ack to her starting mark. Jax got out of the way, and when Plain said, Go, Alie'e got her expression right, started down the plank with a lanky, hip-swinging stride, and blew past the exposure li ne, the green dress swirling about her hips, the orange-yellow we lder's sparks flashing in the background. The stink and smoke of the burning metal curled around her as Plain, standing behind the camera, fired the bank of strobes. Better, Plain said, stepping toward her. A little fuckin' better. - They'd been working for two hours in the belly of the grain barge. The barge was a gift: a pilot on the Greek-owned Mississippi towboat Treponema had dri ven it into a protective abutment around a bridge piling. The dam aged barge had been floated to the Anshiser repair yard in St. Pa ul, where welders cut away the buckled hull plates and prepared t o burn on new ones. Plain spotted the disemboweled hulk while sco uting for photo locations. He made a deal with Archer Daniels Mid land, the barge owner: Delay repairs for a week, and ADM would ma ke Vogue. The people who ran ADM couldn't think of a good reason why the company would worry about Vogue, but their publicity ladi es were wetting their pants, so they said okay and the deal was m ade. - They were still working with the green dress when a team from TV3 showed up, and they all took a break. Alie'e goofed aro und, for the camera, with Jax, showing a little skin, doing a lon g, slow, rolling tongue-kiss, which the camera crew asked them to redo twice, once as a silhouette. The interviewer for TV3, a squ are-jawed ex-jock with bleached teeth and a smile he'd perfected in his bathroom mirror, said, after the cameras shut down, It's a slow day. I think we'll lead the news with this. Nobody asked w hy it was news: they all lived with cameras, and assumed that it was. - Two hours for four different shots, with and without fan s, two rolls of high-saturation Fujichrome film for each of the s hots. The Fuji would make the colors pop. Plain pronounced himsel f satisfied with the green dress, and they moved on. The next po se involved a torn T-shirt and a pair of male-look women's briefs , complete with the vented front. Alie'e and Jax moved against th e far hull and a little shadow, and Alie'e turned her back to the photo crowd and peeled off the green dress. She'd been nude bene ath the dress; anything else would ruin the line. She was aware of her nudity but not self-conscious about it, as she had been at first. Her first jobs had been as one model in a group, and they usually changed all at once; she was simply one naked woman amon g several. By the time she started up the ladder to stardom, to i ndividual attention, she'd become as conditioned to public nudity as a striptease dancer. Even more than that. She'd worked in Eu rope, with the Germans, and total nudity wasn't uncommon in fashi on work. She remembered the first time she'd had her pubic hair b rushed out, fluffed up. The brusher had been a thirty-something g uy who'd squatted in front of her, smoking a cigarette while he b rushed her, and then did a quick trim with a pair of barber sciss ors, all with the emotional neutrality of a postman sorting lette rs. Then the photographer came over to take a look, suggested a c ouple of extra snips. Her body might as well have been an apple. . . . You want privacy? You turn your back. . . . - Alie'e Mai son- Ah-Lee-Ay May-Sone -had been born Sharon Olson in Burnt Rive r, Minnesota. Until she was seventeen, she'd lived with her paren ts and her brother, Tom, in a robin's-egg-blue rambler just off H ighway 54, fourteen miles south of the Canadian line. She was a b eautiful baby. She won a beautiful-baby prize when she was a year old-she'd been born just before Halloween, and her costume was a pumpkin that her mother made on her Singer. A year later, Sharon toddled away with a statewide beautiful-toddler trophy. In that one, she'd been dressed as a lightning bug, in a suit of black an d gold. Dance and comportment lessons began when she was three, singing lessons when she was four. At five, she won the North Cen tral Tap-Fairies contest for children five and younger. That was the pattern: Miss Junior North Country, International Miss Snow ( International Falls and Fort Frances, Canada), Miss Border Lakes. She sang and danced through her school days. Miss Minnesota and even-her parents, Lynn and Lil, barely dared to dream it-Miss Ame rica was possible. Until she was fourteen, anyway. When the brea st genes were passed out in heaven, Alie'e had been in line for a n extra helping of eyes instead. That became obvious in junior hi gh when her, Berkley Books, 2000, 3, Verlag Moderne Kunst, 2001. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has soft covers. In good all round condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,1150grams, ISBN:, Verlag Moderne Kunst, 2001, 0, AMS Press, 1965. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. Clean from markings. In good all round condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,650grams, ISBN:, AMS Press, 1965, 0, US: Harvest Books, 2004. Paperback. Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. A fifteenth-century painting by a Flemish master is about to be auctioned when Julia, a young art restorer, discovers a peculiar inscription hidden in a corner: Who killed the knight? In the painting, the Duke of Flanders and his knight are locked in a game of chess, and a dark lady lurks mysteriously in the background. Julia is determined to solve the five-hundred-year-old murder, but as she begins to look for clues, several of her friends in the art world are brutally murdered in quick succession. Messages left with the bodies suggest a crucial connection between the chess game in the painting, the knight's murder, the sordid underside of the contemporary art world, and the latest deaths. Just when all of the players in the mystery seem to be pawns themselves, events race toward a shocking conclusion. A thriller like no other, The Flanders Panel presents a tantalizing puzzle for any connoisseur of mystery, chess, art, and history., Harvest Books, 2004, 3, Arts Council England, 2003. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has soft covers. In good all round condition. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,250grams, ISBN:0728709937, Arts Council England, 2003, 0, Faber & Faber, 1966. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. With slight and inoffensive markings, In poor condition, suitable as a reading copy. Dust jacket in poor condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,750grams, ISBN:, Faber & Faber, 1966, 0, Evelyn, Adams and Mackay, 1968. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. Clean from markings. In good all round condition. Dust jacket in poor condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,950grams, ISBN:0238788105, Evelyn, Adams and Mackay, 1968, 0, Healing Arts Press. Used - Good. Good condition. A copy that has been read but remains intact. May contain markings such as bookplates, stamps, limited notes and highlighting, or a few light stains. Bundled media such as CDs, DVDs, floppy disks or access codes may not be included., Healing Arts Press, 2.5, University of California Press, 1972. Paperback. Very Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in excellent condition. Pages are intact and are not marred by notes or highlighting, but may contain a neat previous owner name. The spine remains undamaged. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed., University of California Press, 1972, 3, US: Penguin Random House India, 2010. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. An evolutionary change in the world of leadership has arrived. And it is OP EN In this era of increasing complexities, leadership is evolving faster than ever before. More forward-looking organizations are moving away from the tr aditional closed forms towards an Open Source Leader model, where people ar e nurtured across layers by opening unto them the power and authority assoc iated with leadership - very similar to the model followed by the Open Sour ce Software Movement. If organizations and leaders do not keep up with this evolution, they will be left in the lurch. But if they manage to keep pace , they will live another day, to tell the tale of their success. Open Source Leader tells the story of such organizations that have managed to evolve ahead of their contemporaries. Sangeeth Varghese has woven togeth er eight defining attributes that are most commonly observed in such organi zations, helping them survive and thrive during the most challenging of tim es. In this book, entities as diverse as the Indian national cricket team, Wikipedia, BCG Consulting and the Art of Living reveal their most closely h eld secrets of success. It draws together the wisdom gleaned from some of t he greatest thought-leaders across the world, as well as from multiple disc iplines. Open Source Leader will keep you ahead of the evolutionary curve, irrespective of whether you are leading a Fortune 500 corporation, a start-up or a government institution. It will help you understand the future of leadersh., Penguin Random House India, 2010, 3, Hamish Hamilton. Very Good. 6.02 x 0.79 x 9.21 inches. Paperback. 1992. 240 pages. <br>Terrifying...Impressive...A challenging esay that justifies the feminist revival. THE NEW YORK TIMES Bestselling au thor and feminist scholar Marilyn French has written a shocking a nd fascinating analysis of the history of women's political, cult ural, physical, and economic repression that is as controversial as it is utterly convincing. In this stunning work of resarch, Ms . French creates a devastating portrait of today's male-dominated global society, with its underlying aim of destroying, subjugati ng, or mutilating women. Here is a devastating indictment of our values and an important step toward an urgent public discussion o f human morality. From the Trade Paperback edition. Editorial R eviews From Publishers Weekly Men's tendency to subjugate and ab use women operates on personal, institutional and cultural levels , notes novelist and feminist French ( Beyond Power ). Boys' desi re to dominate girls is instilled in childhood, while grown men s ee women as mothers owing them caretaking services, she observes. In her sharp analysis a major goal of male-conceived religious m ovements like Christian fundamentalism and militant Islam is to k eep women subservient. Other examples of institutional suppressio n of women explored by French are discrimination in the workplace , biased divorce judgments and widespread rape, wife beating and male incest, a systemic pattern tolerated by society. On the cult ural front she examines male sadomasochism against women in the a rts and advertising. A landmark in feminist analysis, this powerf ul indictment reveals the global extent of men's assault on women , drawing implicit connections between the drive to criminalize a bortion, starvation wages paid to women by transnational corporat ions, genital mutilation in Africa, Third World brothel tours and sociobiology's characterization of male aggression as normal, fe male aggression as nonadaptive. Author tour. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Kirkus Reviews Frenc h takes on global sexism from the fall of the ancient goddess-wor shiping societies to routine modern-day oppression of women in ev ery nation of the world--quite a large bite to chew, and not alwa ys thoroughly masticated. Humans are the only species in which on e sex consistently preys upon the other,'' French proclaims in th is determined attempt to sound an alarm to women around the world . Men's need to dominate women may be based in their own sense of marginality or emptiness; we do not know its root, and men are m aking no effort to discover it. But men's long-standing war again st women is now, in reaction to women's movements across the worl d, taking on a new ferocity, new urgency, and new veneers.'' Dati ng the birth of male insecurity to a decrease in dependence on hu nting in ancient matriarchal societies (which, French claims, led to defensive efforts to dominate women and nature through huntin g cults, male initiation rites, male deities, and, eventually, th e state- sanctioned ownership'' of women's bodies), the author as serts that today's nations continue to wage war against women: sy stemically, through organized religion and international economic policies that fail to value unpaid but indispensable women's wor k''; institutionally, in medicine, science, and law; culturally, via sexist language, advertising, arts, and other media; and indi vidually, through largely unpunished rape, wife-beating, sexual h arassment, and incest. French's passion, though otherwise somewha t reminiscent of Susan Faludi's Backlash (1991), is seriously und ermined by her overambitious attempt to investigate sexism in eve ry society at once--as well as by undocumented, sweeping accusati ons (all male violence toward women is part of a concerted campai gn'') and unchecked hyperbole (Since patriarchy began, prostituti on is the only work for which men pay women enough to support the mselves'') that obscure the many facts that French reveals once h er anger abates. A feminist call to arms--headstrong and provocat ive. -- Copyright ®1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserv ed. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From the Inside Flap Terrifying...Impressive...A challenging esay that justifies the feminist revival. THE NEW YOR K TIMES Bestselling author and feminist scholar Marilyn French ha s written a shocking and fascinating analysis of the history of w omen's political, cultural, physical, and economic repression tha t is as controversial as it is utterly convincing. In this stunni ng work of resarch, Ms. French creates a devastating portrait of today's male-dominated global society, with its underlying aim of destroying, subjugating, or mutilating women. Here is a devastat ing indictment of our values and an important step toward an urge nt public discussion of human morality. From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable ed ition of this title. From Library Journal French (author of the groundbreaking novel The Women's Room , LJ 11/15/77) states what she is about in her title. This exhausting, horrifying, and deepl y saddening compendium catalogs religious, sociological, institut ional, and physical oppression of women throughout the world. Whi le it is extensively footnoted, French's essays are focused towar d raising readers' consciousness of legal and political stricture s; statistics on rape, incest, female infanticide, and clitoridec tomy; and male obsession with controlling female reproduction. Li ttle of what is contained here will be news to any conscientious reader of Ms . magazine. One wonders who French perceives as her audience, as most feminists are probably aware of the global diff iculites faced by women, and those who would not take on the femi nist designation may simply dismiss her arguments. Although much shorter than Susan Faludi's extraordinary Backlash ( LJ 9/15/91; an LJ Best Book of 1991), which took aim primarily at media manip ulation, French's book is less accessible and more demanding of r eaders. For academic collections, and public libraries where inte rest warrants. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/91. - GraceAnne A . DeCandido, School Library Journal Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavai lable edition of this title. ., Hamish Hamilton, 1992, 3, Faber & Faber, 1966. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. Clean from markings. In poor condition, suitable as a reading copy. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,700grams, ISBN:, Faber & Faber, 1966, 0, Oxford University Press, 1924. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. Clean from markings. In fair condition, suitable as a study copy. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,350grams, ISBN:, Oxford University Press, 1924, 0, US: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting.The spine remains undamaged. An eye-opening, spine-tingling, heartwarming tour through the extraordinary history and secrets of the human body. The human body is the most fraught and fascinating, talked-about and taboo, unique yet universal fact of our lives. It is the inspiration for art, the subject of science, and the source of some of the greatest stories ever to ld. In Anatomies, acclaimed author of Periodic Tales Hugh Aldersey-Williams brings his entertaining blend of science, history, and culture to bear on this richest of subjects. In an engaging narrative that ranges from ancient body art to plastic surge ry today and from head to toe, Aldersey-Williams explores the corporeal mys teries that make us human: Why are some people left-handed and some blue-ey ed? What is the funny bone, anyway? Why do some cultures think of the heart as the seat of our souls and passions, while others place it in the liver? A journalist with a knack for telling a story, Aldersey-Williams takes part in a drawing class, attends the dissection of a human body, and visits the doctor's office and the morgue. But Anatomies draws not just on medical science and Aldersey-Williams's reporting. It draws also on the works of philosophers, writers, and artists from throughout history. Aldersey-Williams delves into our shared cultural heritageâ??Shakespeare to Frankenstein, Rembrandt to 2001: A Space Odysseyâ??to reveal how attitudes toward the human body are as varied as human history, as he explains the origins and legacy of tattooin., W. W. Norton & Company, 2013, 3, Penguin Publishing Group, 1977. Paperback. Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact. The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include previous owner inscriptions. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed., Penguin Publishing Group, 1977, 2.5, Skyhorse Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2006. Paperback. Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact. The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include previous owner inscriptions. An ex-library book and may have standard library stamps and/or stickers. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed., Skyhorse Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2006, 2.5, F&W Media, Incorporated, 2014. Paperback. Very Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in excellent condition. Pages are intact and are not marred by notes or highlighting, but may contain a neat previous owner name. The spine remains undamaged. An ex-library book and may have standard library stamps and/or stickers. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed., F&W Media, Incorporated, 2014, 3, US: Arcade, 2022. Paperback. Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting.The spine remains undamaged. Another Fabulous Art History Thriller by the Bestselling Author of Oil and Marble, Featuring the Master of Renaissance Perfection: Raphael! Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling is one of the most iconic masterpiece s of the Renaissance. Here, in Raphael, Painter in Rome, Storey tells of it s creation as never before: through the eyes of Michelangelo's fiercest riv al--the young, beautiful, brilliant painter of perfection, Raphael. Orphane d at age eleven, Raphael is determined to keep the deathbed promise he made to his father: become the greatest artist in history. But to be the best, he must beat the best, the legendary sculptor of the David, Michelangelo Bu onarroti. When Pope Julius II calls both artists down to Rome, they are pit ted against each other: Michelangelo painting the Sistine Ceiling, while Ra phael decorates the pope's private apartments. As Raphael strives toward pe rfection in paint, he battles internal demons: his desperate ambition, crip pling fear of imperfection, and unshakable loneliness. Along the way, he co nspires with cardinals, scrambles through the ruins of ancient Rome, and fa lls in love with a baker's-daughter-turned- prostitute who becomes his muse. With its gorgeous writing, rich settings, endearing characters, and riveting plot, Raphael, Painter in Rome brings to vivid life these two Renaissance masters going head to head in the deadly halls of the Vatican., Arcade, 2022, 3, Evelyn, Adams and Mackay , 1968. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. Book contains pencil markings. In good all round condition. Dust jacket in good condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,1000grams, ISBN:, Evelyn, Adams and Mackay, 1968, 0, The MIT Press, 11/16/2021. paperback. Very Good. 6x0x9. Very Good Condition - May show some limited signs of wear and may have a remainder mark. Pages and dust cover are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting., The MIT Press, 11/16/2021, 3, Routledge, 2006. Paperback. Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact. The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include previous owner inscriptions. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed., Routledge, 2006, 2.5, Cambridge, MA: Malor Books. Good. 2015. PAPERBACK; 109876543pt line. paperback. 8.5 X 5.5 X 0.5 inches. GOOD CONDITION, pencil reader notes,underlinded... thruout text..ow quite clean, solid & bright.. ; White titles on rich blue spine & cover; 220 pages; we have many "small minds" which simultaneously, but independently process feelings, fantasies, ideas, fixed routines, and interpersonal responses, how different parts of our minds come to the fore to handle different situations. This means that "we" are not the same person from moment to moment, but rather have different memories and abilities in different situations. Reading this groundbreaking book will help you take a step towards understanding who you – and all of us – really are. ., Malor Books, 2015, 2.5, Macmillan, 1898. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. In fair condition, suitable as a study copy. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,400grams, ISBN:, Macmillan, 1898, 0, Simon & Schuster. Very Good. 7 x 1.5 x 9.75 inches. Hardcover. 2003. 528 pages.<br>A history of the computer company Oracle chronicles its rise to become one of the industry's most powerful and profi table companies, noting its penchant for reinventing itself in pu rsuit of new goals. Editorial Reviews Review Softwar is a biography of Larry Ellison and his company, Oracle. As such , it's simultaneously a portrait of a clever and driven man, a ca se study of a successful software development company, and a tabl eau of the commercial software industry from its beginnings, thro ugh the dot-com craze, and into the present era. Matthew Symonds, who began this project while working as the editor of the excell ent technology section of the Economist, has done a great job wit h all three elements of his project, thanks in no small part to t he tremendous access he was given and to his close collaboration with Ellison. Collaboration is very nearly the right word, as El lison reviewed Symonds' manuscript before publication and, while he did not alter it, he did make a large number of comments, whic h appear in the book as footnotes. As Symonds is a good journalis t who attributes most of his material, Ellison is able to take is sue immediately with statements other people make about him and h is company. The overall effect is hypertextual, and represents an important new biographical technique that other writers should i mitate. Softwar succeeds because Ellison has a fantastically inte resting life, tremendous experience, and carefully considered opi nions, and because Symonds communicates them with clarity and sty le. --David Wall Topics covered: The life, times, acquaintances, tastes, toys, and opinions of Larry Ellison, the database entrep reneur and CEO of Oracle Corporation. From Publishers Weekly Sy monds was technology editor at the Economist when Ellison invited him to collaborate on a book about e-business, but the journalis t decided he would rather write a profile of the software tycoon, one of Silicon Valley's most notorious figures. Oracle's databas e programs have become integral to the Internet and other network ed computer systems, and Oracle's head is convinced that he can s urpass Microsoft as the industry leader. But he's also developed a reputation for his aggressive corporate tactics and personal fl amboyance. Ellison agreed to cooperate with the project, but as p art of the deal, he reserved the right to respond, which he does in a series of running footnotes. Sometimes he only uses the oppo rtunity to mouth business platitudes, but he also refutes stories , cracks jokes and even argues with other sources. Although the b ook deals extensively with Oracle's efforts to promote a new soft ware package, it comes to life most when it follows Ellison outsi de the office-prepping his sailboat for a run at the America's Cu p or overseeing the final touches on a Japanese garden complex. S ymonds's near-total access to his subject leads to intimate obser vations that verge on personal advice, as when the writer suggest s how best to handle a top Oracle executive or comments on the re lationship between Ellison and his two children. But he remains o bjective enough to point out several mistakes in the past managem ent of Oracle (many of which Ellison acknowledges or clarifies). Even without its unusual counterpoint, the book would stand as a compelling portrayal of one of the computer industry's most influ ential leaders. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Publishers Weekly Symonds was technology editor at the Econo mist when Ellison invited him to collaborate on a book about e-bu siness, but the journalist decided he would rather write a profil e of the software tycoon, one of Silicon Valley's most notorious figures. Oracle's database programs have become integral to the I nternet and other networked computer systems, and Oracle's head i s convinced that he can surpass Microsoft as the industry leader. But he's also developed a reputation for his aggressive corporat e tactics and personal flamboyance. Ellison agreed to cooperate w ith the project, but as part of the deal, he reserved the right t o respond, which he does in a series of running footnotes. Someti mes he only uses the opportunity to mouth business platitudes, bu t he also refutes stories, cracks jokes and even argues with othe r sources. Although the book deals extensively with Oracle's effo rts to promote a new software package, it comes to life most when it follows Ellison outside the office-prepping his sailboat for a run at the America's Cup or overseeing the final touches on a J apanese garden complex. Symonds's near-total access to his subjec t leads to intimate observations that verge on personal advice, a s when the writer suggests how best to handle a top Oracle execut ive or comments on the relationship between Ellison and his two c hildren. But he remains objective enough to point out several mis takes in the past management of Oracle (many of which Ellison ack nowledges or clarifies). Even without its unusual counterpoint, t he book would stand as a compelling portrayal of one of the compu ter industry's most influential leaders. Copyright 2003 Reed Bus iness Information, Inc. From Booklist There has been a war brewi ng in the software industry that most computer users don't even k now about. Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, wants to supplant th e current Windows-based client-server network architecture with a totally Internet-based solution that would simplify computing an d make Microsoft's server software obsolete. Even now, Oracle is the dominant software in business; every time you do a Google sea rch or buy something on , you are using it. Anyone who craves a play-by-play account of Ellison and the evolution of the number-one relational database in the world can really sink thei r teeth into this. There is a slightly bizarre twist to this high -tech tale: Ellison himself gets to throw in running commentary a t the bottom of many pages, augmenting and often contradicting th e author's text in his own brash style. Beware if you 're not up on your geekspeak, though, as the casual reader will get lost in all the IT systems acronyms thrown around, such as CRM, ERP, HR a nd TPC-C. More entertaining than the technical jargon is the ruth less backstabbing that goes on between Ellison and big-name compe titors such as Microsoft, Seibel Systems, PeopleSoft and i2 Techn ologies. David Siegfried Copyright © American Library Association . All rights reserved Review Alan Goldstein The Dallas Morning N ews Thank goodness for Larry Ellison. The chairman and chief exec utive of Oracle Corporation always keeps things interesting. -- R eview About the Author Matthew Symonds is currently political ed itor of The Economist, but before that was the magazine's technol ogy and communications editor for nearly four years. He has also been a founding editorial director of The Independent and strateg y director of BBC Worldwide Television. Symonds lives in London w ith his wife and three children. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permiss ion. All rights reserved. Chapter One: Larry and Me I first met Larry Ellison in his office at Oracle's Redwood Shores headquart ers on December 8, 1997. I had recently become The Economist's te chnology and communications editor, and this was the first of wha t became regular visits to Silicon Valley. I had just completed t wo days of meetings at Microsoft's campus at Redmond, Washington, 800 miles to the north, where an array of impressively on-messag e executives had been wheeled out for my benefit -- though unfort unately not Bill Gates himself. I would see him on my next visit, I was assured. But there was a strong hint that face time with B ill was conditional on The Economist's taking a more sympathetic line toward Microsoft in the antitrust case that the Department o f Justice was preparing against it. After a similar turn involvin g Oracle's most senior managers, I had been promised time with El lison himself. It turned out I'd picked a bad afternoon. I didn 't know it at the time, but Oracle was about to issue its first e arnings warning since the firm had nearly gone under in 1990. The economic crisis in Asia had taken its toll, and in North America , slowing license sales of Oracle's most important product, its a ll-conquering database, seemed to support the argument of some an alysts that Oracle was dominating a market that was getting close to saturation. The following day, the stock lost 30 percent of i ts value. As I waited, I could see Ellison through the glass do ors of the eleventh-floor boardroom, huddled in conversation. He was already an hour and a half late for his interview with me and I knew he had to fly to New York later in the day to deliver a k eynote speech at an Internet conference. I had heard stories abou t Ellison's lateness and didn't believe the press flak's distract ed excuses about an emergency being the cause of the delay. Let's leave it for another time, I suggested grumpily. But at that mom ent, I was suddenly ushered into Ellison's handsome office with i ts expensive Japanese artifacts and panoramic views across the ba y. Despite the strain he must have been under, Ellison was cour tesy itself. After apologizing profusely for his lateness, he beg an to talk about technology. His theme was the failure of the pre vailing computer architecture of the day, known as client/server (because the job of running software was shared between server co mputers in corporate data centers and their desktop PC clients). He believed client/server was an evolutionary dead end that was d istributing complexity with disastrous consequences. The answer w as a new model of computing based on the Internet, in which the c omplexity and the computing would be hidden in the network. Users would be able to access everything they needed through a web bro wser that could be run by a machine much less expensive and canta nkerous than a PC -- a network computer. There was nothing unex pected in this. It was a drum that Ellison had been beating for s ome time, and conceptually it was little different from Sun Micro systems's famous slogan that the network is the computer. Ellison had first declared the PC a ridiculous device at a technology co nference in Paris more than two years earlier. The speech, at the height of the hoopla surrounding the release of Windows 95 and i n front of an audience that included Bill Gates, caused a minor s ensation. Ellison ran through a well-rehearsed routine, but the re was nonetheless something extraordinarily compelling about his argument. He seemed to be speaking directly to the problems that anyone who depended on computers at work knew all too well: the crash-prone PC with its incomprehensible error messages; the incr edible effort of maintaining thousands of PCs across a company; t he apparently insurmountable difficulties of getting reasonable p erformance and scalability across wide-area networks. The argumen ts seemed utterly rational and commonsensical, while Ellison hims elf was passionate and funny. ??? Over the next three years, Ellison was proved to be far more right than wrong. The network c omputer itself proved to be a dazzling digression: Ellison had be en right about how the Internet would change the way computers we re used, but most people still reckoned that the best way of gett ing to the Internet was through a PC. A few network computers wer e made by Oracle and a loosely knit coalition of Microsoft's enem ies, such as IBM and Sun Microsystems, but tumbling PC prices and the limitations imposed by slow dial-up connections quickly cond emned them to irrelevance. Microsoft crowed; Ellison was made to look a bit foolish. But the PC versus the NC was a sideshow that stole attention from the real struggle for the future of computin g. What mattered was that Ellison had understood better than anyo ne the potential impact of the Internet on enterprise computing i n general and on Oracle in particular.* While the technology an alysts in the investment banks and the consultancies confidently predicted the maturing of the database market, Ellison realized t hat the Internet would exponentially increase both the number of database transactions and the number of people who would interact with Oracle's databases. That would mean more license growth tha n the analysts had dreamed of. Every time someone looked for a bo ok on , bought stock through E*TRADE, or put something up for auction on , that person was using an Oracle database. Ellison believed that the database would be the essential platfo rm for Internet computing, effectively displacing the once all-im portant operating system. Within companies, the same thing woul d happen. Instead of business software being used by only a handf ul of specialists, Internet-based applications could be extended to anyone with authorization and a browser. Every time one of tho se applications was used, there was a good chance that it would q uery the database that the application ran on. When the networkin g giant Cisco Systems talked of having a URL for everything we do , it was another way of saying that everybody they employed was c onstantly using the firm's Oracle database. In a client/server wo rld, less sophisticated databases, such as Microsoft's SQL Server , might have become good enough for many businesses, but with Int ernet computing came the need for databases that could support mi llions of users at once. With the coming of e-business, Oracle's databases became at least as much an essential element of infrast ructure as Cisco's routers or the big server computers made by th e likes of Sun that were also back in fashion. It was no coincide nce that in early 2000 those three companies -- the three superst ars of the Internet -- had a combined market value of nearly a tr illion dollars. If that was a stroke of luck for Oracle, what w asn't was Ellison's decision, to the horror of many colleagues an d customers, to abandon all further development of client/server- based applications and concentrate the firm's entire engineering effort on building for the new computing architecture of the Inte rnet. While rivals in the apps business, such as the German power house SAP and PeopleSoft, talked up the Internet and put a web fr ont-end on some of their products, Ellison went much further. Ora cle was the first established software firm to risk everything on the new paradigm. His rationale was simple: Oracle could never hope to be number one in enterprise applications as long as clie nt/, Simon & Schuster, 2003, 3<

2003, ISBN: 9780743225045

Taschenbuch, Gebundene Ausgabe

London: Pavilion Books Ltd, 2002. Well illustrated, quarto, pp 192, a very good copy in a slightly worn dustwrapper. [Very heavy - extra postage may be needed.]. {Taking an imaginative an… Mehr…

London: Pavilion Books Ltd, 2002. Well illustrated, quarto, pp 192, a very good copy in a slightly worn dustwrapper. [Very heavy - extra postage may be needed.]. {Taking an imaginative and creative look at the potential of creating and using light, Lighting by Design opens a new perspective on outdoor and indoor design. Lighting by design is designed to make lighting not so much a myth, but an essential part of interior design. It is easy to visualise fabrics from swatches and large samples, but lighting is more complex; we cannot touch or feel it, yet it is all around us and responsible for what we see. One needs to understand light in three dimensions - it's not only important what is lit, but to know where shadows are created. Skilful lighting is the balance between light and shade. Starting with a discussion on the nature of light and the interplay of lightand shadow on buildings inside and out, the author inspires with the imaginative creation of light within the home for varying effects from calm softness to theatrical drama. A major part of the book is devoted to outdoor lighting, from entrances and exits, roof terraces and decks to special features such as topiary, swimming pools, water features and statues blending, garden spaces and interior dimension into a unified whole. Specially commissioned photography shows before and after effects and unusual usage of daylight and artificial light to create new moods. Inspirational photographs feature the interiors of respected designers such as Jonathan Reed, Mary Fox Linton, Nina Campbell and Tricia Guild. Further features include use of pattern, focus, using coloured light and provide advice on the best choice of colours to maximise reflection into a space. The book is packed with elegant ideas, superb photographs and imaginative suggestions for creating a dramatic and changing environment.}. First Edition. Cloth. Very Good/Good., Pavilion Books Ltd, 2002, 2.75, HMSO, 1972. Book. Very Good. Soft cover. 1st Edition. stapled large paperback booklet, a very good tightly bound clean copy, b&w plates & plans, twenty-six case studies, pages not numbered., HMSO, 1972, 3, HMSO, 1972. Book. Very Good. Soft cover. 1st Edition. stapled large paperback booklet, a very good tightly bound clean copy, b&w plates & plans, twenty-six case studies, pages not numbered., HMSO, 1972, 3, New York: Dover Publications, 1965. xiv, 303pp. Index, bw plans and diagrams, appendices. Or pictorial card covers. A little worn ar edge of spine, bottom corners of some pages folded. Reprint of the 1900 original study of old houses in Connecticut. Period covered is 1635-1775.. Reprint. Soft Cover. Very Good. Large 8vo., Dover Publications, 1965, 3, Simon & Schuster. Very Good. 7 x 1.5 x 9.75 inches. Hardcover. 2003. 528 pages.<br>A history of the computer company Oracle chronicles its rise to become one of the industry's most powerful and profi table companies, noting its penchant for reinventing itself in pu rsuit of new goals. Editorial Reviews Review Softwar is a biography of Larry Ellison and his company, Oracle. As such , it's simultaneously a portrait of a clever and driven man, a ca se study of a successful software development company, and a tabl eau of the commercial software industry from its beginnings, thro ugh the dot-com craze, and into the present era. Matthew Symonds, who began this project while working as the editor of the excell ent technology section of the Economist, has done a great job wit h all three elements of his project, thanks in no small part to t he tremendous access he was given and to his close collaboration with Ellison. Collaboration is very nearly the right word, as El lison reviewed Symonds' manuscript before publication and, while he did not alter it, he did make a large number of comments, whic h appear in the book as footnotes. As Symonds is a good journalis t who attributes most of his material, Ellison is able to take is sue immediately with statements other people make about him and h is company. The overall effect is hypertextual, and represents an important new biographical technique that other writers should i mitate. Softwar succeeds because Ellison has a fantastically inte resting life, tremendous experience, and carefully considered opi nions, and because Symonds communicates them with clarity and sty le. --David Wall Topics covered: The life, times, acquaintances, tastes, toys, and opinions of Larry Ellison, the database entrep reneur and CEO of Oracle Corporation. From Publishers Weekly Sy monds was technology editor at the Economist when Ellison invited him to collaborate on a book about e-business, but the journalis t decided he would rather write a profile of the software tycoon, one of Silicon Valley's most notorious figures. Oracle's databas e programs have become integral to the Internet and other network ed computer systems, and Oracle's head is convinced that he can s urpass Microsoft as the industry leader. But he's also developed a reputation for his aggressive corporate tactics and personal fl amboyance. Ellison agreed to cooperate with the project, but as p art of the deal, he reserved the right to respond, which he does in a series of running footnotes. Sometimes he only uses the oppo rtunity to mouth business platitudes, but he also refutes stories , cracks jokes and even argues with other sources. Although the b ook deals extensively with Oracle's efforts to promote a new soft ware package, it comes to life most when it follows Ellison outsi de the office-prepping his sailboat for a run at the America's Cu p or overseeing the final touches on a Japanese garden complex. S ymonds's near-total access to his subject leads to intimate obser vations that verge on personal advice, as when the writer suggest s how best to handle a top Oracle executive or comments on the re lationship between Ellison and his two children. But he remains o bjective enough to point out several mistakes in the past managem ent of Oracle (many of which Ellison acknowledges or clarifies). Even without its unusual counterpoint, the book would stand as a compelling portrayal of one of the computer industry's most influ ential leaders. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Publishers Weekly Symonds was technology editor at the Econo mist when Ellison invited him to collaborate on a book about e-bu siness, but the journalist decided he would rather write a profil e of the software tycoon, one of Silicon Valley's most notorious figures. Oracle's database programs have become integral to the I nternet and other networked computer systems, and Oracle's head i s convinced that he can surpass Microsoft as the industry leader. But he's also developed a reputation for his aggressive corporat e tactics and personal flamboyance. Ellison agreed to cooperate w ith the project, but as part of the deal, he reserved the right t o respond, which he does in a series of running footnotes. Someti mes he only uses the opportunity to mouth business platitudes, bu t he also refutes stories, cracks jokes and even argues with othe r sources. Although the book deals extensively with Oracle's effo rts to promote a new software package, it comes to life most when it follows Ellison outside the office-prepping his sailboat for a run at the America's Cup or overseeing the final touches on a J apanese garden complex. Symonds's near-total access to his subjec t leads to intimate observations that verge on personal advice, a s when the writer suggests how best to handle a top Oracle execut ive or comments on the relationship between Ellison and his two c hildren. But he remains objective enough to point out several mis takes in the past management of Oracle (many of which Ellison ack nowledges or clarifies). Even without its unusual counterpoint, t he book would stand as a compelling portrayal of one of the compu ter industry's most influential leaders. Copyright 2003 Reed Bus iness Information, Inc. From Booklist There has been a war brewi ng in the software industry that most computer users don't even k now about. Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, wants to supplant th e current Windows-based client-server network architecture with a totally Internet-based solution that would simplify computing an d make Microsoft's server software obsolete. Even now, Oracle is the dominant software in business; every time you do a Google sea rch or buy something on , you are using it. Anyone who craves a play-by-play account of Ellison and the evolution of the number-one relational database in the world can really sink thei r teeth into this. There is a slightly bizarre twist to this high -tech tale: Ellison himself gets to throw in running commentary a t the bottom of many pages, augmenting and often contradicting th e author's text in his own brash style. Beware if you 're not up on your geekspeak, though, as the casual reader will get lost in all the IT systems acronyms thrown around, such as CRM, ERP, HR a nd TPC-C. More entertaining than the technical jargon is the ruth less backstabbing that goes on between Ellison and big-name compe titors such as Microsoft, Seibel Systems, PeopleSoft and i2 Techn ologies. David Siegfried Copyright © American Library Association . All rights reserved Review Alan Goldstein The Dallas Morning N ews Thank goodness for Larry Ellison. The chairman and chief exec utive of Oracle Corporation always keeps things interesting. -- R eview About the Author Matthew Symonds is currently political ed itor of The Economist, but before that was the magazine's technol ogy and communications editor for nearly four years. He has also been a founding editorial director of The Independent and strateg y director of BBC Worldwide Television. Symonds lives in London w ith his wife and three children. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permiss ion. All rights reserved. Chapter One: Larry and Me I first met Larry Ellison in his office at Oracle's Redwood Shores headquart ers on December 8, 1997. I had recently become The Economist's te chnology and communications editor, and this was the first of wha t became regular visits to Silicon Valley. I had just completed t wo days of meetings at Microsoft's campus at Redmond, Washington, 800 miles to the north, where an array of impressively on-messag e executives had been wheeled out for my benefit -- though unfort unately not Bill Gates himself. I would see him on my next visit, I was assured. But there was a strong hint that face time with B ill was conditional on The Economist's taking a more sympathetic line toward Microsoft in the antitrust case that the Department o f Justice was preparing against it. After a similar turn involvin g Oracle's most senior managers, I had been promised time with El lison himself. It turned out I'd picked a bad afternoon. I didn 't know it at the time, but Oracle was about to issue its first e arnings warning since the firm had nearly gone under in 1990. The economic crisis in Asia had taken its toll, and in North America , slowing license sales of Oracle's most important product, its a ll-conquering database, seemed to support the argument of some an alysts that Oracle was dominating a market that was getting close to saturation. The following day, the stock lost 30 percent of i ts value. As I waited, I could see Ellison through the glass do ors of the eleventh-floor boardroom, huddled in conversation. He was already an hour and a half late for his interview with me and I knew he had to fly to New York later in the day to deliver a k eynote speech at an Internet conference. I had heard stories abou t Ellison's lateness and didn't believe the press flak's distract ed excuses about an emergency being the cause of the delay. Let's leave it for another time, I suggested grumpily. But at that mom ent, I was suddenly ushered into Ellison's handsome office with i ts expensive Japanese artifacts and panoramic views across the ba y. Despite the strain he must have been under, Ellison was cour tesy itself. After apologizing profusely for his lateness, he beg an to talk about technology. His theme was the failure of the pre vailing computer architecture of the day, known as client/server (because the job of running software was shared between server co mputers in corporate data centers and their desktop PC clients). He believed client/server was an evolutionary dead end that was d istributing complexity with disastrous consequences. The answer w as a new model of computing based on the Internet, in which the c omplexity and the computing would be hidden in the network. Users would be able to access everything they needed through a web bro wser that could be run by a machine much less expensive and canta nkerous than a PC -- a network computer. There was nothing unex pected in this. It was a drum that Ellison had been beating for s ome time, and conceptually it was little different from Sun Micro systems's famous slogan that the network is the computer. Ellison had first declared the PC a ridiculous device at a technology co nference in Paris more than two years earlier. The speech, at the height of the hoopla surrounding the release of Windows 95 and i n front of an audience that included Bill Gates, caused a minor s ensation. Ellison ran through a well-rehearsed routine, but the re was nonetheless something extraordinarily compelling about his argument. He seemed to be speaking directly to the problems that anyone who depended on computers at work knew all too well: the crash-prone PC with its incomprehensible error messages; the incr edible effort of maintaining thousands of PCs across a company; t he apparently insurmountable difficulties of getting reasonable p erformance and scalability across wide-area networks. The argumen ts seemed utterly rational and commonsensical, while Ellison hims elf was passionate and funny. ??? Over the next three years, Ellison was proved to be far more right than wrong. The network c omputer itself proved to be a dazzling digression: Ellison had be en right about how the Internet would change the way computers we re used, but most people still reckoned that the best way of gett ing to the Internet was through a PC. A few network computers wer e made by Oracle and a loosely knit coalition of Microsoft's enem ies, such as IBM and Sun Microsystems, but tumbling PC prices and the limitations imposed by slow dial-up connections quickly cond emned them to irrelevance. Microsoft crowed; Ellison was made to look a bit foolish. But the PC versus the NC was a sideshow that stole attention from the real struggle for the future of computin g. What mattered was that Ellison had understood better than anyo ne the potential impact of the Internet on enterprise computing i n general and on Oracle in particular.* While the technology an alysts in the investment banks and the consultancies confidently predicted the maturing of the database market, Ellison realized t hat the Internet would exponentially increase both the number of database transactions and the number of people who would interact with Oracle's databases. That would mean more license growth tha n the analysts had dreamed of. Every time someone looked for a bo ok on , bought stock through E*TRADE, or put something up for auction on , that person was using an Oracle database. Ellison believed that the database would be the essential platfo rm for Internet computing, effectively displacing the once all-im portant operating system. Within companies, the same thing woul d happen. Instead of business software being used by only a handf ul of specialists, Internet-based applications could be extended to anyone with authorization and a browser. Every time one of tho se applications was used, there was a good chance that it would q uery the database that the application ran on. When the networkin g giant Cisco Systems talked of having a URL for everything we do , it was another way of saying that everybody they employed was c onstantly using the firm's Oracle database. In a client/server wo rld, less sophisticated databases, such as Microsoft's SQL Server , might have become good enough for many businesses, but with Int ernet computing came the need for databases that could support mi llions of users at once. With the coming of e-business, Oracle's databases became at least as much an essential element of infrast ructure as Cisco's routers or the big server computers made by th e likes of Sun that were also back in fashion. It was no coincide nce that in early 2000 those three companies -- the three superst ars of the Internet -- had a combined market value of nearly a tr illion dollars. If that was a stroke of luck for Oracle, what w asn't was Ellison's decision, to the horror of many colleagues an d customers, to abandon all further development of client/server- based applications and concentrate the firm's entire engineering effort on building for the new computing architecture of the Inte rnet. While rivals in the apps business, such as the German power house SAP and PeopleSoft, talked up the Internet and put a web fr ont-end on some of their products, Ellison went much further. Ora cle was the first established software firm to risk everything on the new paradigm. His rationale was simple: Oracle could never hope to be number one in enterprise applications as long as clie nt/, Simon & Schuster, 2003, 3<

2003, ISBN: 9780743225045

Hamano Publishing. Good. / / / 18 x 13 x 1.8 cm / 0.22 kg, Hamano Publishing, 2.5, Simon & Schuster. Very Good. 7 x 1.5 x 9.75 inches. Hardcover. 2003. 528 pages.<br>A histo… Mehr…

Hamano Publishing. Good. / / / 18 x 13 x 1.8 cm / 0.22 kg, Hamano Publishing, 2.5, Simon & Schuster. Very Good. 7 x 1.5 x 9.75 inches. Hardcover. 2003. 528 pages.<br>A history of the computer company Oracle chronicles its rise to become one of the industry's most powerful and profi table companies, noting its penchant for reinventing itself in pu rsuit of new goals. Editorial Reviews Review Softwar is a biography of Larry Ellison and his company, Oracle. As such , it's simultaneously a portrait of a clever and driven man, a ca se study of a successful software development company, and a tabl eau of the commercial software industry from its beginnings, thro ugh the dot-com craze, and into the present era. Matthew Symonds, who began this project while working as the editor of the excell ent technology section of the Economist, has done a great job wit h all three elements of his project, thanks in no small part to t he tremendous access he was given and to his close collaboration with Ellison. Collaboration is very nearly the right word, as El lison reviewed Symonds' manuscript before publication and, while he did not alter it, he did make a large number of comments, whic h appear in the book as footnotes. As Symonds is a good journalis t who attributes most of his material, Ellison is able to take is sue immediately with statements other people make about him and h is company. The overall effect is hypertextual, and represents an important new biographical technique that other writers should i mitate. Softwar succeeds because Ellison has a fantastically inte resting life, tremendous experience, and carefully considered opi nions, and because Symonds communicates them with clarity and sty le. --David Wall Topics covered: The life, times, acquaintances, tastes, toys, and opinions of Larry Ellison, the database entrep reneur and CEO of Oracle Corporation. From Publishers Weekly Sy monds was technology editor at the Economist when Ellison invited him to collaborate on a book about e-business, but the journalis t decided he would rather write a profile of the software tycoon, one of Silicon Valley's most notorious figures. Oracle's databas e programs have become integral to the Internet and other network ed computer systems, and Oracle's head is convinced that he can s urpass Microsoft as the industry leader. But he's also developed a reputation for his aggressive corporate tactics and personal fl amboyance. Ellison agreed to cooperate with the project, but as p art of the deal, he reserved the right to respond, which he does in a series of running footnotes. Sometimes he only uses the oppo rtunity to mouth business platitudes, but he also refutes stories , cracks jokes and even argues with other sources. Although the b ook deals extensively with Oracle's efforts to promote a new soft ware package, it comes to life most when it follows Ellison outsi de the office-prepping his sailboat for a run at the America's Cu p or overseeing the final touches on a Japanese garden complex. S ymonds's near-total access to his subject leads to intimate obser vations that verge on personal advice, as when the writer suggest s how best to handle a top Oracle executive or comments on the re lationship between Ellison and his two children. But he remains o bjective enough to point out several mistakes in the past managem ent of Oracle (many of which Ellison acknowledges or clarifies). Even without its unusual counterpoint, the book would stand as a compelling portrayal of one of the computer industry's most influ ential leaders. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Publishers Weekly Symonds was technology editor at the Econo mist when Ellison invited him to collaborate on a book about e-bu siness, but the journalist decided he would rather write a profil e of the software tycoon, one of Silicon Valley's most notorious figures. Oracle's database programs have become integral to the I nternet and other networked computer systems, and Oracle's head i s convinced that he can surpass Microsoft as the industry leader. But he's also developed a reputation for his aggressive corporat e tactics and personal flamboyance. Ellison agreed to cooperate w ith the project, but as part of the deal, he reserved the right t o respond, which he does in a series of running footnotes. Someti mes he only uses the opportunity to mouth business platitudes, bu t he also refutes stories, cracks jokes and even argues with othe r sources. Although the book deals extensively with Oracle's effo rts to promote a new software package, it comes to life most when it follows Ellison outside the office-prepping his sailboat for a run at the America's Cup or overseeing the final touches on a J apanese garden complex. Symonds's near-total access to his subjec t leads to intimate observations that verge on personal advice, a s when the writer suggests how best to handle a top Oracle execut ive or comments on the relationship between Ellison and his two c hildren. But he remains objective enough to point out several mis takes in the past management of Oracle (many of which Ellison ack nowledges or clarifies). Even without its unusual counterpoint, t he book would stand as a compelling portrayal of one of the compu ter industry's most influential leaders. Copyright 2003 Reed Bus iness Information, Inc. From Booklist There has been a war brewi ng in the software industry that most computer users don't even k now about. Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, wants to supplant th e current Windows-based client-server network architecture with a totally Internet-based solution that would simplify computing an d make Microsoft's server software obsolete. Even now, Oracle is the dominant software in business; every time you do a Google sea rch or buy something on , you are using it. Anyone who craves a play-by-play account of Ellison and the evolution of the number-one relational database in the world can really sink thei r teeth into this. There is a slightly bizarre twist to this high -tech tale: Ellison himself gets to throw in running commentary a t the bottom of many pages, augmenting and often contradicting th e author's text in his own brash style. Beware if you 're not up on your geekspeak, though, as the casual reader will get lost in all the IT systems acronyms thrown around, such as CRM, ERP, HR a nd TPC-C. More entertaining than the technical jargon is the ruth less backstabbing that goes on between Ellison and big-name compe titors such as Microsoft, Seibel Systems, PeopleSoft and i2 Techn ologies. David Siegfried Copyright © American Library Association . All rights reserved Review Alan Goldstein The Dallas Morning N ews Thank goodness for Larry Ellison. The chairman and chief exec utive of Oracle Corporation always keeps things interesting. -- R eview About the Author Matthew Symonds is currently political ed itor of The Economist, but before that was the magazine's technol ogy and communications editor for nearly four years. He has also been a founding editorial director of The Independent and strateg y director of BBC Worldwide Television. Symonds lives in London w ith his wife and three children. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permiss ion. All rights reserved. Chapter One: Larry and Me I first met Larry Ellison in his office at Oracle's Redwood Shores headquart ers on December 8, 1997. I had recently become The Economist's te chnology and communications editor, and this was the first of wha t became regular visits to Silicon Valley. I had just completed t wo days of meetings at Microsoft's campus at Redmond, Washington, 800 miles to the north, where an array of impressively on-messag e executives had been wheeled out for my benefit -- though unfort unately not Bill Gates himself. I would see him on my next visit, I was assured. But there was a strong hint that face time with B ill was conditional on The Economist's taking a more sympathetic line toward Microsoft in the antitrust case that the Department o f Justice was preparing against it. After a similar turn involvin g Oracle's most senior managers, I had been promised time with El lison himself. It turned out I'd picked a bad afternoon. I didn 't know it at the time, but Oracle was about to issue its first e arnings warning since the firm had nearly gone under in 1990. The economic crisis in Asia had taken its toll, and in North America , slowing license sales of Oracle's most important product, its a ll-conquering database, seemed to support the argument of some an alysts that Oracle was dominating a market that was getting close to saturation. The following day, the stock lost 30 percent of i ts value. As I waited, I could see Ellison through the glass do ors of the eleventh-floor boardroom, huddled in conversation. He was already an hour and a half late for his interview with me and I knew he had to fly to New York later in the day to deliver a k eynote speech at an Internet conference. I had heard stories abou t Ellison's lateness and didn't believe the press flak's distract ed excuses about an emergency being the cause of the delay. Let's leave it for another time, I suggested grumpily. But at that mom ent, I was suddenly ushered into Ellison's handsome office with i ts expensive Japanese artifacts and panoramic views across the ba y. Despite the strain he must have been under, Ellison was cour tesy itself. After apologizing profusely for his lateness, he beg an to talk about technology. His theme was the failure of the pre vailing computer architecture of the day, known as client/server (because the job of running software was shared between server co mputers in corporate data centers and their desktop PC clients). He believed client/server was an evolutionary dead end that was d istributing complexity with disastrous consequences. The answer w as a new model of computing based on the Internet, in which the c omplexity and the computing would be hidden in the network. Users would be able to access everything they needed through a web bro wser that could be run by a machine much less expensive and canta nkerous than a PC -- a network computer. There was nothing unex pected in this. It was a drum that Ellison had been beating for s ome time, and conceptually it was little different from Sun Micro systems's famous slogan that the network is the computer. Ellison had first declared the PC a ridiculous device at a technology co nference in Paris more than two years earlier. The speech, at the height of the hoopla surrounding the release of Windows 95 and i n front of an audience that included Bill Gates, caused a minor s ensation. Ellison ran through a well-rehearsed routine, but the re was nonetheless something extraordinarily compelling about his argument. He seemed to be speaking directly to the problems that anyone who depended on computers at work knew all too well: the crash-prone PC with its incomprehensible error messages; the incr edible effort of maintaining thousands of PCs across a company; t he apparently insurmountable difficulties of getting reasonable p erformance and scalability across wide-area networks. The argumen ts seemed utterly rational and commonsensical, while Ellison hims elf was passionate and funny. ??? Over the next three years, Ellison was proved to be far more right than wrong. The network c omputer itself proved to be a dazzling digression: Ellison had be en right about how the Internet would change the way computers we re used, but most people still reckoned that the best way of gett ing to the Internet was through a PC. A few network computers wer e made by Oracle and a loosely knit coalition of Microsoft's enem ies, such as IBM and Sun Microsystems, but tumbling PC prices and the limitations imposed by slow dial-up connections quickly cond emned them to irrelevance. Microsoft crowed; Ellison was made to look a bit foolish. But the PC versus the NC was a sideshow that stole attention from the real struggle for the future of computin g. What mattered was that Ellison had understood better than anyo ne the potential impact of the Internet on enterprise computing i n general and on Oracle in particular.* While the technology an alysts in the investment banks and the consultancies confidently predicted the maturing of the database market, Ellison realized t hat the Internet would exponentially increase both the number of database transactions and the number of people who would interact with Oracle's databases. That would mean more license growth tha n the analysts had dreamed of. Every time someone looked for a bo ok on , bought stock through E*TRADE, or put something up for auction on , that person was using an Oracle database. Ellison believed that the database would be the essential platfo rm for Internet computing, effectively displacing the once all-im portant operating system. Within companies, the same thing woul d happen. Instead of business software being used by only a handf ul of specialists, Internet-based applications could be extended to anyone with authorization and a browser. Every time one of tho se applications was used, there was a good chance that it would q uery the database that the application ran on. When the networkin g giant Cisco Systems talked of having a URL for everything we do , it was another way of saying that everybody they employed was c onstantly using the firm's Oracle database. In a client/server wo rld, less sophisticated databases, such as Microsoft's SQL Server , might have become good enough for many businesses, but with Int ernet computing came the need for databases that could support mi llions of users at once. With the coming of e-business, Oracle's databases became at least as much an essential element of infrast ructure as Cisco's routers or the big server computers made by th e likes of Sun that were also back in fashion. It was no coincide nce that in early 2000 those three companies -- the three superst ars of the Internet -- had a combined market value of nearly a tr illion dollars. If that was a stroke of luck for Oracle, what w asn't was Ellison's decision, to the horror of many colleagues an d customers, to abandon all further development of client/server- based applications and concentrate the firm's entire engineering effort on building for the new computing architecture of the Inte rnet. While rivals in the apps business, such as the German power house SAP and PeopleSoft, talked up the Internet and put a web fr ont-end on some of their products, Ellison went much further. Ora cle was the first established software firm to risk everything on the new paradigm. His rationale was simple: Oracle could never hope to be number one in enterprise applications as long as clie nt/, Simon & Schuster, 2003, 3<