This story of two friends hiking over 1,300 miles is “a worthy successor to Bill Bryson’s classic book . . . A Walk in the Woods” (The VVA Veteran). Avalanche and Gorilla Jim is a true picture of what it’s like to hike over 1,300 miles of fun-filled, gut-wrenching, awe inspiring trail, filled with the humor of two guys on a long trek over grueling terrain. It allows the reader to actually live and feel Appalachian Trail life and its excitement, adventure, and fun—and reveals how in a sometimes crappy world, you can meet people who enrich your faith in humanity. This is the Appalachian Trail with all its beauty and flaws, an inspiring and often laugh-out-loud story of friendship and the incomparable experience of the outdoors.
Avalanche and Gorilla Jim is a true picture of what it's like to hike over 1300 miles of fun-filled, gut-wrenching, awe inspiring trail. It is filled with the humor of two guys on a long trek over grueling terrain. You actually live and feel Appalachian trail life, its exciting adventures and fun . . . and, in a sometimes crappy world, meet people who enrich your faith in humanity. This is the Appalachian Trail with all its beauty and flaws, written in a style of fresh sharp adventure with a pleasing edge.
Cahill is great! He is the P.J. O'Rourke of the outdoors! Fearless and hell-bent on overcoming all obstacles in his path, Cahill takes us to the oddest and scariest adventures nature has to offer.
Patrick McManus, the bestselling author of such hilarious books as A Fine and Pleasant Misery and Never Sniff a Gift Fish, now offers readers solid thoughts on the qualities that define leadership, beginning with the need to be tall, and much more, in this outrageous collection of short pieces that reveals his tortuous trip along the writer's path.
The authoritative account of the rise of Amazon and its intensely driven founder, Jeff Bezos, praised by the Seattle Times as "the definitive account of how a tech icon came to life." Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now. Brad Stone enjoyed unprecedented access to current and former Amazon employees and Bezos family members, giving readers the first in-depth, fly-on-the-wall account of life at Amazon. Compared to tech's other elite innovators -- Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg -- Bezos is a private man. But he stands out for his restless pursuit of new markets, leading Amazon into risky new ventures like the Kindle and cloud computing, and transforming retail in the same way Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing. The Everything Store is the revealing, definitive biography of the company that placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read.
A 41-year-old engineer quits his job to hike the Appalachian Trail. This is a true account of his hike from Georgia to Maine, bringing to the reader the life of the towns and the people he meets along the way.
"What corporations fear most are consumers who ask questions. Naomi Klein offers us the arguments with which to take on the superbrands." Billy Bragg from the bookjacket.
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world. Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to—and approach for—overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy.” In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007–08 financial crisis. Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt’s decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.
