Books

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Description: In this book you’ll learn how to crash your computer almost as well as Windows does, remove computer screws embedded in your forehead from pounding your head in frustration, avoid vendors who advertise “Incredible Bait and Switch Deals!”, and learn if your Software Licensing Agreement carries more obligations than a favor from Don Corleone.

Description:  “Too often, writing about the online world lacks emotional punch, but Katz’s obvious love for his ‘lost boys’ gives his narrative a rich taste.”— The New York Times Book ReviewJesse and Eric were geeks: suspicious of authority figures, proud of their status as outsiders, fervent in their belief in the positive power of technology. High school had been an unbearable experience and their small-town Idaho families had been torn apart by hard times. On the fringe of society, they had almost no social lives and little to look forward to. They spent every spare cent on their computers and every spare moment online. Nobody ever spoke of them, much less for them.But then they met Jon Katz, a roving journalist who suggested that, in the age of geek impresario Bill Gates, Jesse and Eric had marketable skills that could get them out of Idaho and pave the way to a better life. So they bravely set out to conquer Chicago—geek style. Told with Katz’s trademark charm and sparkle,  Geeks  is a humorous, moving tale of triumph over adversity and self-acceptance that delivers two irresistible heroes for the digital age and reveals the very human face of technology. Praise for  Geeks“Ultimately,  Geeks  is not a story about the Internet or computers or techies. It is a story about personal bonds, optimism, access to opportunity, and the courage to dream.” — Salon“An uplifting and hugely compassionate book.” — Philadelphia Inquirer “A story of friendship, optimism, social despair, and an updated version of that American icon, the tinkerer.” — USA Today

Description: This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world and did. Was he a destroyer or the greatest of liberators?Why did he have to fight his battle, not against his enemies, but against those who needed him most, and his hardest battle against the woman he loved? What is the world’s motor — and the motive power of every man? You will know the answer to these questions when you discover the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the characters in this story. Tremendous in its scope, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life — from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy — to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction — to the philosopher who becomes a pirate — to the composer who gives up his career on the night of his triumph — to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad — to the lowest track worker in her Terminal tunnels. You must be prepared, when you read this novel, to check every premise at the root of your convictions.This is a mystery story, not about the murder — and rebirth — of man’s spirit. It is a philosophical revolution, told in the form of an action thriller of violent events, a ruthlessly brilliant plot structure and an irresistible suspense. Do you say this is impossible? Well, that is the first of your premises to check.

Description: Millie McDeevit screamed a scream, so loud it made her eyebrows steam.She screamed so loud, her jawbone broke,Her tongue caught fire, her nostrils smoked…Poor Screamin’ Millie is just one of the unforgettable characters in this wondrous new book of poems and drawings. Here you will also meet Allison Beals and her twenty-five eels; Danny O’Dare, the dancin’ bear; the Human Balloon; and Headphone Harold.Shel Silverstein, the New York Times bestselling author of The Giving Tree, A Light in the Attic, Falling Up, and Every Thing On It, has created a poetry collection that is outrageously funny and deeply profound. So come, wander through the Nose Garden, ride the Little Hoarse, eat in the Strange Restaurant, and let the magic of Shel Silverstein open your eyes and tickle your mind.
Story List
– Advice- Allison Beals and Her 25 Eels- Alphabalance- Bad Cold- A Battle in the Sky- The Bear, the Fire, and the Snow- Best Mask?- Big Eating Contest- Bituminous?- Blood-Curdling Story- Body Language- Camp Wonderful- Carrots- Castle- Cat, a Kid, and a Mom- Cat Jacks- Cereal- Christmas Dog- Clean Gene- Complainin’ Jack- Cookwitch Sandwich- Crazy Dream- Crystal Ball- Danny O’Dare- The Deadly Eye- Dentist Dan- Description- Diving Board- Don the Dragon’s Birthday- Eggs Rated- Falling Up- Feeding Time- The Folks Inside- Foot Repair- Forgetful Paul Revere- The Former Foreman’s Story- Furniture Bash- Gardener- Glub-Glub- The Gnome, the Gnat, and the Gnu- Golden Goose- Hand Holding- Hard to Please- Haunted- Headless Town- Headphone Harold- Help!- Hi-Monster- Human Balloon- Hungry Kid Island- Hypnotized- Ice Cream Stop- Imagining- In the Land of…- James- Kanga Ruby- Keepin’ Count- Keep-Out House- Little Hoarse- Little Pig’s Treat- Long-Leg Lou and Short-Leg Sue- Long Scarf- Lyin’ Larry- Mari-Lou’s Ride- Medusa- Mirror, Mirror- Mister Moody- Molly’s Folly- Monkey- Morgan’s Curse- Mummy- Music Lesson- My Nose Garden- My Robot- My Sneaky Cousin- The Nap Taker- Needles and Pins- New World- No- No Grown-Ups- No Thank You- Noise Day- Nope- Obedient- Ooh!- One Out of Sixteen- People Zoo- Pinocchio- Plugging In- Poison-Tester- Porky- Quality Time- Reachin’ Richard- Red Flowers for You- Remote-a-Dad- Rotten Convention- Runners- Sack Race- Safe?- Scale- Screamin’ Millie- Settin’ Around- Shanna in the Sauna- Sharing- Shoe Talk- Short Kid- Show Fish- Sidewalking- Smile Makers- Snowball- Somethin’ New- Sorry I Spilled It- Spoiled Brat- Stone Airplane- Stork Story- Strange Restaurant- Stupid Pencil Maker- Sun Hat- Sybil the Magician’s Last Show- Tattooin’ Ruth- Tell Me- They Say I Have…- Tongue Sticker-Outer- The Toy Eater- Three O’clock- Three Stings- Turkey?- Unfair- Use for a Moose- The Voice- Warmhearted- Wastebasket Brother- Weavers- Web-Foot Woe- Weird-Bird- We’re Out of Paint, So…- When I Was Your Age- Why Is It?- Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda- Writer Waiting- Yuck

Description: Now Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tim Weiner offers the first definitive history of the CIA—and everything is on the record. LEGACY OF ASHES is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA itself, and hundreds of interviews with CIA veterans, including ten Directors of Central Intelligence. It takes the CIA from its creation after World War II, through its battles in the cold war and the war on terror, to its near-collapse after September 11th, 2001.Tim Weiner’s past work on the CIA and American intelligence was hailed as “impressively reported” and “immensely entertaining” in The New York Times.The Wall Street Journal called it “truly extraordinary . . . the best book ever written on a case of espionage.” Here is the hidden history of the CIA: why eleven presidents and three generations of CIA officers have been unable to understand the world; why nearly every CIA director has left the agency in worse shape than he found it; and how these failures have profoundly jeopardized our national security.

Description: Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found hereWho is Jason Bourne? Is he an assassin, a terrorist, a thief? Why has he got four million dollars in a Swiss bank account? Why has someone tried to murder him?…Jason Bourne does not know the answer to any of these questions. Suffering from amnesia, he does not even know that he is Jason Bourne. What manner of man is he? What are his secrets? Who has he killed?

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Description: But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender’s two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military’s purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine’s abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.

Description: 1984 is still the great modern classic of “negative utopia”—a startlingly original and haunting novel that creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing, from the first sentence to the last four words. No one can deny the novel’s hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions—a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.

Description: These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life — from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing — and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives — how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of … well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and — if the right questions are asked — is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.(front flap)

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Description: Come along, Toto, she said. We will go to the Emerald City and ask the Great Oz how to get back to Kansas again. Swept away from her home in Kansas by a tornado, Dorothy and her dog Toto find themselves stranded in the fantastical Land of Oz. As instructed by the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins, Dorothy sets off on the yellow brick road to try and find her way to the Emerald City and the Wizard of Oz, who can help her get home. With her companions the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, Dorothy experiences an adventure full of friendship, magic and danger. A much-loved children’s classic, The Wizard of Oz continues to delight readers young and old with its enchanting tale of witches, flying monkeys and silver shoes.

Description: 2001: A Space Odyssey first shocked, amazed, and delighted millions in the late 1960s, the novel was quickly recognized as a classic. Since then, its fame has grown steadily among the multitudes who have read the novel or seen the film based on it. Yet, along with almost universal acclaim, a host of questions has grown more insistent through the years:Who or what transformed Dave Bowman into the Star-Child? What purpose lay behind the transformation? What would become of the Star-Child?What alien purpose lay behind the monoliths on the Moon and out in space?What could drive HAL, a stable, intelligent computer, to kill the crew? Was HAL really insane? What happened to HAL and the spaceship Discovery after Dave Bowman disappeared?Would there be a sequel?Now all those questions and many more have been answered. In this stunning sequel to his international bestseller, Clarke has written what will truly be one of the great books of the ’80s. Cosmic in sweep, eloquent in its depiction of Man’s place in the Universe, and filled with the romance of space, this novel is a monumental achievement.

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Description: So great are the implications of this discovery that for the first time men are sent out deep into our solar system.But long before their destination is reached, things begin to go horribly, inexplicably wrong…One of the greatest-selling science fiction novels of our time, this classic book will grip you to the very end.

Description: But how can he go looking for Lord Asriel when Lyra is gone? Only with her help can he fathom the myriad plots and intrigues that beset him. The two great powers of the many worlds are lining up for war, and Will must find Lyra, for together they are on their way to battle, an inevitable journey that will even take them to the world of the dead…

Description: Each is searching—Lyra for the meaning of Dark Matter, Will for his missing father—but what they find instead is a deadly secret, a knife of untold power. And neither Lyra nor Will suspects how tightly their lives, their loves, and their destinies are bound together… until they are split apart.

Description: Perkins writes that his economic projections cooked the books Enron-style to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn’t afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies. Often, the money would simply be transferred from one bank account in Washington, D.C., to another one in New York or San Francisco. The deals were smoothed over with bribes for foreign officials, but it was the taxpayers in the foreign countries who had to pay back the loans. When their governments couldn’t do so, as was often the case, the U.S. or its henchmen at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would step in and essentially place the country in trusteeship, dictating everything from its spending budget to security agreements and even its United Nations votes. It was, Perkins writes, a clever way for the U.S. to expand its “empire” at the expense of Third World citizens.

Description: Morgan le Fay has promised to make Jack and Annie masters of the tree house if they can solve four riddles. In Ghost Town at Sundown, the Magic Tree House whisks Jack and Annie back to a ghost town in the Wild West of the 1880s. There, they meet a mustang herder named Slim as they search for the answer to the second riddle. From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Description: How to Succeed in Evil is the story of Edwin Windsor, Evil Efficiency Consultant. He tries to help super-villains be more villainous–or at least more profitable and sensible about the business side of Evil. Along with his very proper and English secretary Agnes and his hench-lawyer Topper, he struggles to make the world of super-powered people make sense, but this is very difficult because while Edwin’s advice is excellent, all of his clients are too egomaniacal to listen. There is, it must be said, a bit of comedy in this work. Edwin struggles with a cast of characters, including Dr. Loeb, a trust fund child who desperately wants to be an Evil Genius but has none of the talent; Dr. Loeb’s hideous mother, Iphagenia whose evil scheme is to foment a second Southern Rebellion, beginning with Lower Alabama; and the Cromogoldon, a brute with a forehead villainous low and quite possibly the strongest creature on the planet. Inevitably, Edwin’s unique clientele lead him into direct conflict with the greatest superhero of them all, Excelsior, and so, the quiet, restrained intellectual is pitted against heroic force.

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Description: This time the math adventure is centered around a potion that changes Sir Cumference into a fire-breathing dragon. Can Radius change him back? Join Radius on his quest through the castle to solve a riddle that will reveal the cure. It lies in discovering the magic number that is the same for all circles.Perfect for parent and teachers who are looking to make math fun and accessible for everyone.

Description: In this final, seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited.

Description: When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.

Description: Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want–but what Lyra doesn’t know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other.

Description: Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).