Mike and Mallory grew up together with feuding families. Both families were successful with farming and never got along. Mallory has been away on the west coast for the past five years, but the death of her grandpa has brought her back home. Now her family needs help with dealing with her grandpa’s will. Why did he leave part of his fortune to Mike’s family? Mallory contacts Mike to help her with the will, but what they find will change everything. As Mike and Mallory fall for one another, their families try to push them a part. Will Mike and Mallory disregard their feuding families or will it tear them a part?
“Meticulously researched …compels us to confront the current-day legacy of these Nazi ties.” —Wall Street Journal A groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis helped German tycoons make billions off the horrors of the Third Reich and World War II—and how America allowed them to get away with it. In 1946, Günther Quandt—patriarch of Germany’s most iconic industrial empire, a dynasty that today controls BMW—was arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he had been forced to join the party by his archrival, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have only grown wealthier in the generations since, while their reckoning with this dark past remains incomplete at best. Many of them continue to control swaths of the world economy, owning iconic brands whose products blanket the globe. The brutal legacy of the dynasties that dominated Daimler-Benz, cofounded Allianz, and still control Porsche, Volkswagen, and BMW has remained hidden in plain sight—until now. In this landmark work of investigative journalism, David de Jong reveals the true story of how Germany’s wealthiest business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the atrocities of the Third Reich. Using a wealth of previously untapped sources, de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured slave laborers, and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler’s army as Europe burned around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong exposes how America’s political expediency enabled these billionaires to get away with their crimes, covering up a bloodstain that defiles the German and global economy to this day.
An NPR Best Book of 2017 Heiress to the nearly forty-billion-dollar L’Oréal fortune, Liliane Bettencourt was the world’s richest woman and the fourteenth wealthiest person. But her gilded life took a dark yet fascinating turn in the past decade. At ninety-four, she was embroiled in what has been called the Bettencourt Affair, a scandal that dominated the headlines in France. Why? It’s a tangled web of hidden secrets, divided loyalties, frayed relationships, and fractured families, set in the most romantic city—and involving the most glamorous industry—in the world. The Bettencourt Affair started as a family drama but quickly became a massive scandal, uncovering L’Oréal’s shadowy corporate history and buried World War II secrets. From the Right Bank mansions to the Left Bank artist havens; and from the Bettencourts’ servant quarters to the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy; all of Paris was shaken by the blockbuster case, the shocking reversals, and the surprising final victim. It all began when Liliane met François-Marie Banier, an artist and photographer who was, in his youth, the toast of Paris and a protégé of Salvador Dalí. Over the next two decades, Banier was given hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts, cash, and insurance policies by Liliane. What, exactly, was their relationship? It wasn’t clear, least of all to Liliane’s daughter and only child, Françoise, who became suspicious of Banier’s motives and filed a lawsuit against him. But Banier has a far different story to tell... The Bettencourt Affair is part courtroom drama; part upstairs-downstairs tale; and part characterdriven story of a complex, fascinating family and the intruder who nearly tore it apart.
The inside story of the clash of two of Wall Street's biggest, richest, toughest, most aggressive players -- Carl Icahn and Bill Ackman -- and Herbalife, the company caught in the middle With their billions of dollars and their business savvy, activist investors Carl Icahn and Bill Ackman have the ability to move markets with the flick of a wrist. But what happens when they run into the one thing in business they can't control: each other? This fast-paced book tells the story of the clash of these two titans over Herbalife, a nutritional supplement company whose business model Ackman questioned. Icahn decided to vouch for them, and the dispute became a years-long feud, complete with secret backroom deals, public accusations, billions of dollars in stock trades, and one dramatic insult war on live television. Wapner, who hosted that memorable TV show, has gained unprecedented access to all the players and unravels this remarkable war of egos, showing the extreme measures the participants were willing to take. When the Wolves Bite is both a rollicking, entertaining read--a great business story of money and power and pride.
The CEO’s Boss, originally published in 2010, is the definitive guide to a productive working relationship between corporate boards and CEOs. Speaking to an era when company directors must monitor the actions and day-to-day operations of their CEO, William M. Klepper offers eight essential lessons to help boards operate more effectively in this bold and independent role. Since the publication of the first edition, Klepper has continued to develop and apply its lessons for a variety of businesses and settings. In this second edition, Klepper renews the paradigm set forth in the first, with new case studies of companies such as Wells Fargo, BP, Hewlett-Packard, and Proctor & Gamble. Giving directors, executives, investors, and stakeholders the tools to make crucial relationships work, Klepper details the best techniques for selecting the right CEO, establishing a working relationship, and giving effective feedback. He affirms the importance of the social contract between directors and their CEOs, encourages directors to embrace their independence, and teaches executives to value tough love. He revisits the first edition’s case studies and derives new insights from how these companies followed—or failed to heed—the book’s precepts. He also takes a close look at the predictions he made almost ten years ago, providing new forecasts and integrating core knowledge to ensure that The CEO’s Boss remains essential in our ever-changing business landscape.
Alpha Academy: Where betas get booted. Eccentric billionaire Shira Brazille founded the super-exclusive Alpha Academy on exotic Alpha Island to nurture the next generation of exceptional dancers, writes, musicians, and inventors. It' s a dream come true for one hundred lucky girls, but those not measuring up can be sent home at any time, for any reason. The one left standing will win worldwide fame. Who will it be? Skye Hamilton Is stepping up her game as Shira sheds Alpha Academy girls faster than skin from a will-pumiced foot. There's just one thing standing in her way: island bad boy Taz Brazille. Can Skye keep a dancer's poise, or will Taz throw her off the music once and for all? Allie A. Abbott Finally knows who she really is, and nothing is going to bring her down. Not even AJ, who just can't let go of the past. But she can Bring. It. On. Allie's come too far to be sent home without a fight. Charlie Deery After bouncing like a dashboard hula doll between Allie and Darwin, Charlie finally has her BFF and Brazille beau by her side. But as the competition on Alpha Island reaches its boiling point, will her drive to win make her lose what matters most? If at first you don't succeed, you're not an alpha.
The global economy deteriorated in a matter of months due to governments’ mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak. General observers may describe this event as “unforeseen,” but they fail to look at the patterns of the past that reveal the future. Cyclical behavior dominates every facet of our world, including warfare, civil unrest, and even pandemics. “The Cycle of War and the Coronavirus” is the most comprehensive review of the war cycle from the beginning of recorded history. The civil unrest prevailing on a worldwide basis can be traced to events of the past, as it is cyclically on time for a revolution. However, the current pandemic is by no means a natural occurrence—this a deliberate attempt to radicalize the world in the vision of those pulling strings behind the curtain. This book exposes the truth, explaining why the coronavirus outbreak destroyed the global economy, the culprits, and what we can expect in the short-term and long-term volatile future.
New York Times Book Review • Notable Book of the Year Washington Post • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2019 NPR.org • NPR 2019 Concierge Slate • 10 Best Books of the Year Chicago Tribune • Best Books of the Year Publishers Weekly • 10 Best Books of the Year Audience of One reframes America’s identity through the rattled mind of an insomniac, cable-news-junkie president.New York Times chief television critic James Poniewozik offers a “darkly entertaining” (Carlos Lozada, Washington Post) history of mass media from the early 1980s to today, demonstrating how a volcanic, camera-hogging antihero merged with America’s most powerful medium to become our forty-fifth president. In charting the seismic evolution of television from a monolithic mass medium into today’s fractious confederation of spite-and-insult media subcultures, Poniewozik reveals how Donald Trump took advantage of these historic changes by constantly reinventing himself: from a boastful cartoon zillionaire; to 1990s self-parodic sitcom fixture; to The Apprentice reality-TV star; and finally to Twitter-mad, culture-warring demagogue. Already lauded as a “brilliant and daring” (Annalisa Quinn, NPR) work that defines a generation, Audience of One emerges as a classic in cultural criticism.
Can leadership lessons be learnt from the Mahabharata? Demystifying Leadership positively asserts that we can and probes inquiry in the lives of six characters-Bhishma, Ashvatthama, Karna, Shakuni, Kunti and Krishna. It studies these characters in inescapable situations as they navigate through life by demonstrating values, decision-making ability, integrity and principles. Within the given constraints, some of these characters swim and rise, while others sink in moral turpitude. Extrapolating these successful and not-so-successful character traits to corporate leaders and linking them to scholarship, the authors provide lessons for leaders and managers operating in diverse situations. Borrowing from different disciplines, such as literature, philosophy, politics and psychology, Demystifying Leadership proposes to link essentials of leadership in the form of a Leadership Triangle comprising six levels: positive personality, peace with personal identity, purpose, positive use of power and politics, paradoxical leadership and principled pragmatism. It takes a grounded approach in amalgamating mythology and leadership through scholarship and practice.
