Sometimes life throws us a curveball. Sometimes it throws us a lifeline. Sometimes it throws us both. Sometimes we don’t know the meaning of what life throws us until well after it throws stuff at us. This is a book about self-doubt, friendship, anxiety, and a worldwide pandemic all through the everyday eyes of an office worker.
The first ever, first-person story of America's private, paramilitary contractors at work around the world-from a man who performed these missions himself and has decades of stories to tell. This is a fascinating tale-and potentially the first-to describe the work of American contractors, men who run highly dangerous missions deep inside foreign countries on the brink of war. It will lift the veil and detail the ultimate danger and risk of paramilitary operations (both officially government-sanctioned and not) and show us in very intimate terms exactly what private soldiers do when the government can't act or take public responsibility. GRAY WORK combines covert military intelligence with boots-on-the-ground realism, following Jamie Smith through his CIA training and work as a spy in the State Department, to his co-founding of Blackwater following 9/11, to his decision to leave that company. As the founder and director of Blackwater Security, Smith's initial vision has undeniably shaped and transformed a decade of war. He argues that this gray area-and its warriors who occupy the controversial space between public and private-has become an indispensable element of the modern battlefield.
“The parenting genre is never going to be the same” (Jancee Dunn, author of How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids) after this candid and hilarious collection of essays on motherhood from the award-winning television comedy writer and producer of 2 Broke Girls and The King of Queens, who swears she loves her kids—when she’s not hiding from them. Some women feel that motherhood is a calling and their purpose on earth. They somehow manage to make pregnancy look effortless, bring out the beauty in a screaming child, and keep the back seat of their cars as spotless as their kitchens. And then there are women like Liz Astrof—who originally had children because “everyone else was.” In this blunt and side-splittingly funny book of essays (previously published as Don’t Wait Up), Liz Astrof embraces the realities of motherhood (and womanhood) that no one ever talks about: like needing to hide from your kids in your closet, your car, or a yoga class on the other side of town, letting them eat candy for dinner because you just can’t deal, to the sheer terror of failing them or at the very least losing them in a mall. And sometimes, many times, wondering if the whole parenting thing wasn’t for you. Perfect for fans of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened and I Heart My Little A-Holes, Stay-At-Work Mom is a soul-baring and honest look at parenting and relationships for moms who realize that motherhood doesn’t have to be your entire life—just an amazing part of it.
A marketing director’s story of working at a startup called Google in the early days of the tech boom: “Vivid inside stories . . . Engrossing” (Ken Auletta). Douglas Edwards wasn’t an engineer or a twentysomething fresh out of school when he received a job offer from a small but growing search engine company at the tail end of the 1990s. But founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin needed staff to develop the brand identity of their brainchild, and Edwards fit the bill with his journalistic background at the San Jose Mercury News, the newspaper of Silicon Valley. It was a change of pace for Edwards, to say the least, and put him in a unique position to interact with and observe the staff as Google began its rocket ride to the top. In entertaining, self-deprecating style, he tells his story of participating in this moment of business and technology history, giving readers a chance to fully experience the bizarre mix of camaraderie and competition at this phenomenal company. Edwards, Google’s first director of marketing and brand management, describes the idiosyncratic Page and Brin, the evolution of the famously nonhierarchical structure in which every employee finds a problem to tackle and works independently, the races to develop and implement each new feature, and the many ideas that never came to pass. I’m Feeling Lucky reveals what it’s like to be “indeed lucky, sort of an accidental millionaire, a reluctant bystander in a sea of computer geniuses who changed the world. This is a rare look at what happened inside the building of the most important company of our time” (Seth Godin, author of Linchpin). “An affectionate, compulsively readable recounting of the early years (1999–2005) of Google . . . This lively, thoughtful business memoir is more entertaining than it really has any right to be, and should be required reading for startup aficionados.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Edwards recounts Google’s stumbles and rise with verve and humor and a generosity of spirit. He kept me turning the pages of this engrossing tale.” —Ken Auletta, author of Greed and Glory on Wall Street “Funny, revealing, and instructive, with an insider’s perspective I hadn’t seen anywhere before. I thought I had followed the Google story closely, but I realized how much I’d missed after reading—and enjoying—this book.” —James Fallows, author of China Airborne
From Pulitzer Prize–winner Garry Wills, the story of Augustine’s Confessions In this brief and incisive book, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills tells the story of the Confessions--what motivated Augustine to dictate it, how it asks to be read, and the many ways it has been misread in the one-and-a-half millennia since it was composed. Following Wills's biography of Augustine and his translation of the Confessions, this is an unparalleled introduction to one of the most important books in the Christian and Western traditions. Understandably fascinated by the story of Augustine's life, modern readers have largely succumbed to the temptation to read the Confessions as autobiography. But, Wills argues, this is a mistake. The book is not autobiography but rather a long prayer, suffused with the language of Scripture and addressed to God, not man. Augustine tells the story of his life not for its own significance but in order to discern how, as a drama of sin and salvation leading to God, it fits into sacred history. "We have to read Augustine as we do Dante," Wills writes, "alert to rich layer upon layer of Scriptural and theological symbolism." Wills also addresses the long afterlife of the book, from controversy in its own time and relative neglect during the Middle Ages to a renewed prominence beginning in the fourteenth century and persisting to today, when the Confessions has become an object of interest not just for Christians but also historians, philosophers, psychiatrists, and literary critics. With unmatched clarity and skill, Wills strips away the centuries of misunderstanding that have accumulated around Augustine's spiritual classic.
This office based book documents the stupidity that people endure when going through the process of finding, working, and losing a job. Carpenter discusses creative ways of dealing with a range of topics such as receiving rejection letters, using the bathroom at work, understanding the psychos you call co-workers, getting sentenced to a cubicle, the consequences of not being a "team player," getting fired, plotting your revenge, and many other side splitting topics that are sure to keep you bent over with laughter.
Sharing experiences and insights from his visits to monasteries over the years, popular speaker and university professor Randy Harris invites us into a richer, fuller life in the Spirit. Today there is a new hunger in the Christian community to live out radical and authentic faith in Christ. The days of easy answers and sound-bite Christianity are fading. Where do you go to find such faith being lived out? Randy Harris--popular college teacher and well-known preacher--turned to monasteries and hermits in his search for answers. "When I decided I wanted to learn how to pray," he explains, "I sought those who had spent their lives praying. When I wanted to learn to 'be still and know that he is God, ' I sought those for whom silence is a way of life. As I sought stability and balance, I found a way of life that has endured for 1500 years. I didn't exactly want to become a monk or hermit, but I did want to learn what they know--and it has become a life-changing journey." Most of us don't have time to visit a monastery or a hermit's retreat for a week or a month. So Randy Harris shows how the monastery can come to us. With wisdom, gentle humor, and captivating insight, Harris guides us on an unforgettable spiritual journey into a hidden world that very few will ever experience. You will learn prayer, humility, surrender, and quietness along this well-traveled path. And you may find yourself becoming a radical Jesus follower.
The classic guide to working from home and why we should embrace a virtual office, from the bestselling authors of Rework “A paradigm-smashing, compulsively readable case for a radically remote workplace.”—Susan Cain, New York Times bestselling author of Quiet Does working from home—or anywhere else but the office—make sense? In Remote, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of Basecamp, bring new insight to the hotly debated argument. While providing a complete overview of remote work’s challenges, Jason and David persuasively argue that, often, the advantages of working “off-site” far outweigh the drawbacks. In the past decade, the “under one roof” model of conducting work has been steadily declining, owing to technology that is rapidly creating virtual workspaces. Today the new paradigm is “move work to the workers, rather than workers to the workplace.” Companies see advantages in the way remote work increases their talent pool, reduces turnover, lessens their real estate footprint, and improves their ability to conduct business across multiple time zones. But what about the workers? Jason and David point out that remote work means working at the best job (not just one that is nearby) and achieving a harmonious work-life balance while increasing productivity. And those are just some of the perks to be gained from leaving the office behind. Remote reveals a multitude of other benefits, along with in-the-trenches tips for easing your way out of the office door where you control how your workday will unfold. Whether you’re a manager fretting over how to manage workers who “want out” or a worker who wants to achieve a lifestyle upgrade while still being a top performer professionally, this book is your indispensable guide.
Glimpses of God's Grace in the Hospital Room If you've ever spent time in a hospital, you know that it can be a place of struggles and hardships. These hardships aren't limited to physical problems; often when our bodies are in pain, our spiritual lives can suffer too. Former trauma surgeon Dr. Kathryn Butler experienced this firsthand as she walked alongside patients, colleagues, and friends through various illnesses and aching loss. In Glimmers of Grace, Butler draws from this experience to guide believers through the deep questions of God's trustworthiness in the midst of suffering. Blending memoir and devotional reflections, Butler interweaves her own stories of grace with narratives from Scripture to reveal how God's steadfast love endures even in times of great affliction.
The West Wing meets The Office in this “funny, moving story about working in the White House that is a must read for anyone who misses having Barack Obama as President” (Dan Pfeiffer, cohost of Pod Save America), directly from his senior writer and former Deputy Director of Messaging. West Winging It is the “fitfully funny…warm and observant” (Kirkus) story of Pat Cunnane and his journey from outsider to insider—from his dreary job at a warehouse to his dream job at the White House. Pat pulls the drapes back on the most famous and exclusive building in the United States, telling the story of the real West Wing with compelling and quirky portraits of the people who populate the place, from the President to the press corps. Pat takes you into the Oval Office, providing a “snappy, sunny” (USA TODAY) insider’s glimpse of what it’s really like—from the minutiae to the momentous—to work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Along the way, Pat draws an intimate portrait of the side of President Obama that few were privy to—the funnyman, the nerd, the athlete, the caring parent. He describes both the small details—the time he watched in horror as the President reached over the sneeze guard at Chipotle—and the larger, historic moments, such as watching the President handle the news of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. In some ways, working at the White House is a lot like every office, and in some ways, it’s like no office ever. Pat recounts the time he accidentally slammed a door on Joe Biden, plotted to have the Pope bless him by faking a sneeze, and almost killed America’s First Dog. “West Winging It is a fun, poignant reminder that the best part about working in the Obama White House was the people working with you, and knowing that everyone was there for the right reason: to try to do as much good, for as many people, as we possibly could” (Jay Carney, former press secretary). At its core, it’s a fish-out-of-water story—only these fish are trying to run the United States of America.
