A Man of His Time (Secrets from a Halfway World)

A Man of His Time (Secrets from a Halfway World) PDF

Author: Steve Rochinski

Publisher: Mascot Books

Published: 2020-02-04

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9781645430209

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When a boy's childhood is destroyed by a vicious sexual predator, everything changes. With no one to turn to in his dysfunctional family, he lived only in fear with a single hope for salvation: music. Born with a synesthete's ability to hear music in every sound around him, a guitar became the key for him to escape his existence in a halfway world. A true story of resurrection and reclamation, A Man of his Time delivers an honest, articulate, and poignant commentary on a lifelong struggle to recover from the most sinister side of humanity.

Secrets of Silicon Valley

Secrets of Silicon Valley PDF

Author: Deborah Perry Piscione

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2013-04-02

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 113732421X

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While the global economy languishes, one place just keeps growing despite failing banks, uncertain markets, and high unemployment: Silicon Valley. In the last two years, more than 100 incubators have popped up there, and the number of angel investors has skyrocketed. Today, 40 percent of all venture capital investments in the United States come from Silicon Valley firms, compared to 10 percent from New York. In Secrets of Silicon Valley, entrepreneur and media commentator Deborah Perry Piscione takes us inside this vibrant ecosystem where meritocracy rules the day. She explores Silicon Valley's exceptionally risk-tolerant culture, and why it thrives despite the many laws that make California one of the worst states in the union for business. Drawing on interviews with investors, entrepreneurs, and community leaders, as well as a host of case studies from Google to Paypal, Piscione argues that Silicon Valley's unique culture is the best hope for the future of American prosperity and the global business community and offers lessons from the Valley to inspire reform in other communities and industries, from Washington, DC to Wall Street.

Halfway to Harmony

Halfway to Harmony PDF

Author: Barbara O'Connor

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

Published: 2021-01-12

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0374314462

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A heartfelt middle-grade novel from New York Times bestselling author Barbara O’Connor about a boy whose life is upended after the loss of his older brother—timeless, classic, and whimsical. Walter Tipple is looking for adventure. He keeps having a dream that his big brother, Tank, appears before him and says, “Let’s you and me go see my world, little man.” But Tank went to the army and never came home, and Walter doesn’t know how to see the world without him. Then he meets Posey, the brash new girl from next door, and an eccentric man named Banjo, who’s off on a bodacious adventure of his own. What follows is a summer of taking chances, becoming braver, and making friends—and maybe Walter can learn who he wants to be without the brother he always wanted to be like. Halfway to Harmony is an utterly charming story about change and growing up. Don't miss Barbara O'Connor's other middle-grade work—like Wish; Wonderland; How to Steal a Dog; Greetings from Nowhere; Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia; The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester; and more!

A Geography of Secrets

A Geography of Secrets PDF

Author: Frederick Reuss

Publisher: Unbridled Books

Published: 2010-09-01

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1609530012

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Two men: One discovers the cost of keeping secrets, of building a career within a government agency where secrets are the operational basis. Noel Leonard works for the Defense Intelligence Agency, mapping coordinates for military actions halfway around the world. One morning he learns that an error in his office is responsible for the bombing of a school in Pakistan. And he knows suddenly that he is as alone as he is wrong. From his windowless office in DC to an intelligence conference in Switzerland, and back to his daughter’s college in Virginia, Noel claws his way toward a more personally honest life in which he can tell his family everything every day. Another man learns that family secrets have kept him from who he is and from the ineluctable ways he is attached to a world he has always disdained. This unnamed narrator, a cartographer, is the son of a career diplomat whose activities in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and then in Europe during the Cold War may not have been what they were said to be. He, too, travels to Switzerland, but his quest is not to release himself from secrecy—it is to learn how deep the secrets in his own life go. With a voice like John le Carré’s and the international sensibility of Graham Greene, Frederick Reuss examines the unavoidably covert nature of lives that make their circles through Washington, DC. A Geography of Secrets is a novel of the time from an acclaimed author who knows the lay of the land.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore PDF

Author: Robin Sloan

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2012-10-02

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 1443415804

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The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon out of his life as a web-design drone, and serendipity, sheer curiosity and the ability to climb a ladder like a monkey have landed him a new gig working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. But Clay begins to realize that this store is even more curious than its name suggests. There are only a few customers, but they come in repeatedly and never seem to actually buy anything. Instead they “check out” impossibly obscure volumes from strange corners of the store, all according to some elaborate, long-standing arrangement with the gnomic Mr. Penumbra. The store must be a front for something larger, Clay concludes, and soon he has embarked on a complex analysis of the customers’ behaviour and roped his friends into helping him figure out just what’s going on. But once they take their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the secrets extend far beyond the walls of the bookstore. Evoking both the fairy-tale charm of Haruki Murakami and the enthusiastic novel-of-ideas wizardry of Neal Stephenson or Umberto Eco, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like—an establishment you have to enter and will never want to leave.

House of Leaves

House of Leaves PDF

Author: Mark Z. Danielewski

Publisher: Pantheon

Published: 2000-03-07

Total Pages: 738

ISBN-13: 0375420525

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“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.

The Secret History of the World

The Secret History of the World PDF

Author: Jonathan Black

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2013-05-30

Total Pages: 803

ISBN-13: 0857383086

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THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER The complete history of the world, from the beginning of time to the present day, based on the beliefs and writings of the secret societies. Jonathan Black examines the end of the world and the coming of the Antichrist. Or is the Antichrist already here? How will he make himself known and what will become of the world when he does? Willl it be the end of Time? Having studied theology and learnt from initiates of all the great secret societies of the world, Jonathan Black has learned that it is possible to reach an altered state of consciousness in which we can see things about the way the world works that hidden from our everyday commonsensical consciousness. This history shows that by using secret techniques, people such as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and George Washington have worked themselves into this altered state - and have been able to access supernatural levels of intelligence. This book will leave you questioning every aspect of your life and spotting hidden messages in the very fabric of society and in life itself. It will open your mind to a new way of living and leave you questioning everything you have been taught - and everything you've taught your children.

The House of Broken Angels

The House of Broken Angels PDF

Author: Luis Alberto Urrea

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2018-03-06

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0316516252

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In this "raucous, moving, and necessary" story by a Pulitzer Prize finalist (San Francisco Chronicle), the De La Cruzes, a family on the Mexican-American border, celebrate two of their most beloved relatives during a joyous and bittersweet weekend. "All we do, mija, is love. Love is the answer. Nothing stops it. Not borders. Not death." In his final days, beloved and ailing patriarch Miguel Angel de La Cruz, affectionately called Big Angel, has summoned his entire clan for one last legendary birthday party. But as the party approaches, his mother, nearly one hundred, dies, transforming the weekend into a farewell doubleheader. Among the guests is Big Angel's half brother, known as Little Angel, who must reckon with the truth that although he shares a father with his siblings, he has not, as a half gringo, shared a life. Across two bittersweet days in their San Diego neighborhood, the revelers mingle among the palm trees and cacti, celebrating the lives of Big Angel and his mother, and recounting the many inspiring tales that have passed into family lore, the acts both ordinary and heroic that brought these citizens to a fraught and sublime country and allowed them to flourish in the land they have come to call home. Teeming with brilliance and humor, authentic at every turn, The House of Broken Angels is Luis Alberto Urrea at his best, and cements his reputation as a storyteller of the first rank. "Epic . . . Rambunctious . . . Highly entertaining." -- New York Times Book Review"Intimate and touching . . . the stuff of legend." -- San Francisco Chronicle"An immensely charming and moving tale." -- Boston GlobeNational Bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award finalistA New York Times Notable BookOne of the Best Books of the Year from National Public Radio, American Library Association, San Francisco Chronicle, BookPage, Newsday, BuzzFeed, Kirkus, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Literary Hub

The Readymade Thief

The Readymade Thief PDF

Author: Augustus Rose

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-08-07

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0735221847

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“The most must-read of all must-reads.” —Marie Claire “A kickass debut from start to finish.” —Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railroad Lee Cuddy is seventeen years old and on the run. Betrayed by her family after taking the fall for a friend, Lee finds refuge in a cooperative of runaways holed up in an abandoned building they call the Crystal Castle. But the façade of the Castle conceals a far more sinister agenda, one hatched by a society of fanatical men set on decoding a series of powerful secrets hidden in plain sight. And they believe Lee holds the key to it all. Aided by Tomi, a young hacker and artist with whom she has struck a wary alliance, Lee escapes into the unmapped corners of the city—empty aquariums, deserted motels, patrolled museums, and even the homes of vacationing families. But the deeper she goes underground, the more tightly she finds herself bound in the strange web she’s trying to elude. Desperate and out of options, Lee steps from the shadows to face who is after her—and why. A novel of puzzles, conspiracies, secret societies, urban exploration, art history, and a singular, indomitable heroine, The Readymade Thief heralds the arrival of a spellbinding and original new talent in fiction.

Permanent Record

Permanent Record PDF

Author: Edward Snowden

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2019-09-17

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1250237246

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government’s system of mass surveillance, reveals for the first time the story of his life, including how he helped to build that system and what motivated him to try to bring it down. In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it. Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the extraordinary account of a bright young man who grew up online—a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet’s conscience. Written with wit, grace, passion, and an unflinching candor, Permanent Record is a crucial memoir of our digital age and destined to be a classic.