(Ratings from Amazon.com, as of this morning.)
At Amazon, B&N, and Walmart (Kobo):
Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World (Politics of Place Book 1), by Tim Marshall, $2.99
2,035 ratings
5-star: 73%
4-star: 17%
3-star: 6%
An award-winning journalist uses ten maps of crucial regions to explain the geo-political strategies of the world powers.
Maps have a mysterious hold over us. Whether ancient, crumbling parchments or generated by Google, maps tell us things we want to know, not only about our current location or where we are going but about the world in general. And yet, when it comes to geo-politics, much of what we are told is generated by analysts and other experts who have neglected to refer to a map of the place in question.
All leaders of nations are constrained by geography. In “one of the best books about geopolitics” (The Evening Standard), now updated to include 2016 geopolitical developments, journalist Tim Marshall examines Russia, China, the US, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Japan, Korea, and Greenland and the Arctic—their weather, seas, mountains, rivers, deserts, and borders—to provide a context often missing from our political reportage: how the physical characteristics of these countries affect their strengths and vulnerabilities and the decisions made by their leaders.
Marshall explains the complex geo-political strategies that shape the globe. Why is Putin so obsessed with Crimea? Why was the US destined to become a global superpower? Why does China’s power base continue to expand? Why is Tibet destined to lose its autonomy? Why will Europe never be united? The answers are geographical.
https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Geography-Explain-Everything-Politics-ebook/dp/B00V3L8ZHK/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/prisoners-of-geography-tim-marshall/1121494741?ean=9781501121487
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/prisoners-of-geography
Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric; by Thomas Gryta, $2.99
(add Audible narration for $7.49*)
988 ratings
5-star: 61%
4-star: 26%
3-star: 10%
How could General Electric—perhaps America’s most iconic corporation—suffer such a swift and sudden fall from grace?
This is the definitive history of General Electric’s epic decline, as told by the two Wall Street Journal reporters who covered its fall.
Since its founding in 1892, GE has been more than just a corporation. For generations, it was job security, a solidly safe investment, and an elite business education for top managers.
GE electrified America, powering everything from lightbulbs to turbines, and became fully integrated into the American societal mindset as few companies ever had. And after two decades of leadership under legendary CEO Jack Welch, GE entered the twenty-first century as America’s most valuable corporation. Yet, fewer than two decades later, the GE of old was gone.
Lights Out examines how Welch’s handpicked successor, Jeff Immelt, tried to fix flaws in Welch’s profit machine, while stumbling headlong into mistakes of his own. In the end, GE’s traditional win-at-all-costs driven culture seemed to lose its direction, which ultimately caused the company’s decline on both a personal and organizational scale. Lights Out details how one of America’s all-time great companies has been reduced to a cautionary tale for our times.
https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-Delusion-General-Electric-ebook/dp/B084D28MBV/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lights-out-thomas-gryta/1136365480?ean=9780358243571
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/lights-out-49
Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry, by Jason Schreier, $2.99
(add Audible narration for $12.99*)
832 ratings
5-star: 59%
4-star: 28%
3-star: 9%
The business of videogames is both a prestige industry and an opaque one. Based on dozens of first-hand interviews that cover the development of landmark games—Bioshock Infinite, Epic Mickey, Dead Space, and more—on to the shocking closures of the studios that made them, Press Reset tells the stories of how real people are affected by game studio shutdowns, and how they recover, move on, or escape the industry entirely.
Schreier's insider interviews cover hostile takeovers, abusive bosses, corporate drama, bounced checks, and that one time the Boston Red Sox's Curt Schilling decided he was going to lead a game studio that would take out World of Warcraft. Along the way, he asks pressing questions about why, when the video game industry is more successful than ever, it's become so hard to make a stable living making video games—and whether the business of making games can change before it's too late.
https://www.amazon.com/Press-Reset-Recovery-Video-Industry-ebook/dp/B08HLR61MG/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/press-reset-jason-schreier/1137602697?ean=9781538735480
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/press-reset
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan, $2.99
2,878 ratings
5-star: 70%
4-star: 20%
3-star: 7%
The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Timothy Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones.
https://www.amazon.com/Worst-Hard-Time-Survived-American-ebook/dp/B004H1UOSG/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/worst-hard-time-timothy-egan/1101126132?ean=9780547347776
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-worst-hard-time
The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, $2.99
(add Audible narration for $3.49*)
7,975 ratings
5-star: 75%
4-star: 12%
3-star: 6%
A preeminent scientist—and the world's most prominent atheist—asserts the irrationality of belief in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society, from the Crusades to 9/11.
Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He opposes the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being.
https://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins-ebook/dp/B003JTHWJQ/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-god-delusion-richard-dawkins/1116701362?ean=9780547348667
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-god-delusion
Bamboozled By Jesus: How God Tricked Me into the Life of My Dreams, by Yvonne Orji, $2.99
(add Audible narration for $12.99*)
853 ratings
5-star: 89%
4-star: 7%
3-star: 2%
Thriving stand-up comic and actress Yvonne Orji—best known as Issa Rae's BFF on the HBO series, Insecure—shares the secrets to living the life of your dreams.
Yvonne Orji has never shied away from being unapologetically herself, and that includes being outspoken about her faith. Known for interpreting Biblical stories and metaphors to fit current times, her humorous and accessible approach to faith leaves even non-believers inspired and wanting more.
The way Yvonne sees it, God is a Sovereign Prankster, punking folks long before Ashton Kutcher made it cool. When she meditates on her own life—complete with unforeseen blessings and unanticipated roadblocks—she realizes it’s one big testimony to how God tricked her into living out her wildest dreams. And she wants us to join in on getting bamboozled. This is not a Self-Help book—it’s a Get Yours book!
In Bamboozled by Jesus, Orji takes readers on a journey through twenty-five life lessons, gleaned from her own experiences and her favorite source of inspiration: the Bible. But this ain’t your mama’s Bible study. Yvonne infuses wit and heart in sharing pointers like why the way up is sometimes down, and how fear is synonymous to food poisoning. Her joyful, confident approach to God will inspire everyone to catapult themselves out of the mundane and into the magnificent.
https://www.amazon.com/Bamboozled-Jesus-Tricked-into-Dreams-ebook/dp/B08L3D4H7Q/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bamboozled-by-jesus-yvonne-orji/1132911559?ean=9781546012696
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/bamboozled-by-jesus-2
A True History of the United States: Indigenous Genocide, Racialized Slavery, Hyper-Capitalism, Militarist Imperialism and Other Overlooked Aspects of American Exceptionalism; by Daniel A. Sjursen, $1.99
43 ratings
5-star: 81%
4-star: 3%
3-star: 6%
Maj. (ret.) Danny Sjursen, who served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at West Point, delivers a true epic and the perfect companion to Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.
Sjursen shifts the lens and challenges readers to think critically and to apply common sense to their understanding of our nation's past—and present—so we can view history as never before.
A True History of the United States was inspired by a course that Sjursen taught to cadets at West Point, his alma mater.
https://www.amazon.com/True-History-United-States-Hyper-Capitalism-ebook/dp/B08HL93XGK/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-true-history-of-the-united-states-daniel-sjursen/1138122623?ean=9781586422547
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-true-history-of-the-united-states
The Code of the Extraordinary Mind: 10 Unconventional Laws to Redefine Your Life and Succeed on Your Own Terms, by Vishen Lakhiani, $2.99
3,749 ratings
5-star: 80%
4-star: 11%
3-star: 5%
[#1 Best seller in Amazon's new age meditation category]
What if everything we think we know about how the world works—our ideas of love, education, spirituality, work, happiness, and love—are based on Brules (bullsh*t rules) that get passed from generation to generation and are long past their expiration date?
This book teaches you to think like some of the greatest non-conformist minds of our era, to question, challenge, hack, and create new rules for YOUR life so you can define success on your own terms.
The Code of the Extraordinary Mind is a blueprint of laws to break us free from the shackles of an ordinary life. It makes a case that everything we know about the world is shaped by conditioning and habit. And thus, most people live their lives based on limiting rules and outdated beliefs about pretty much everything—love, work, money, parenting, sex, health, and more—which they inherit and pass on from generation to generation.
But what if you could remove these outdated ideas and start anew? What would your life look like if you could forget the rules of the past, and redefine what happiness, purpose, and success mean for you?
https://www.amazon.com/Code-Extraordinary-Mind-Unconventional-Redefine-ebook/dp/B0182SMOBE/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-code-of-the-extraordinary-mind-vishen-lakhiani/1123425869?ean=9781623367091
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-code-of-the-extraordinary-mind-3
Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing; by Anita Moorjani, $1.99
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6,053 ratings
5-star: 81%
4-star: 11%
3-star: 4%
[#1 Best seller in Amazon's cancer category]
"I had the choice to come back ... or not. I chose to return when I realized that 'heaven' is a state, not a place"
In this truly inspirational memoir, Anita Moorjani relates how, after fighting cancer for almost four years, her body began shutting down — overwhelmed by the malignant cells spreading throughout her system. As her organs failed, she entered into an extraordinary near-death experience where she realized her inherent worth . . . and the actual cause of her disease. Upon regaining consciousness, Anita found that her condition had improved so rapidly that she was released from the hospital within weeks—without a trace of cancer in her body!
Within this enhanced e-book, Anita recounts—in words and on video—stories of her childhood in Hong Kong, her challenge to establish her career and find true love, as well as how she eventually ended up in that hospital bed where she defied all medical knowledge.
https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Be-Me-Anita-Moorjani-ebook/dp/B006M7JCC2/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dying-to-be-me-anita-moorjani/1104266044?ean=9781401937522
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/dying-to-be-me-1
Dr. Drew interviewed Scott Adams recently, and Scott Adams mentioned the absurdity that Republicans went to overthrow the government on Jan 6, but they neglected to bring their guns. On the first or second anniversary of the event, that alleged oversight made the narrative appear absurd to me, so I made a "video" that was supposed to be audio from January 6, captured on a video camera from which the lens cap had not been removed. I'm posting it again just because.
While I was waiting on hold to talk with a human at the IRS, I decided to put some food out for the dogs. I set the full bag of dog food on a chair, and walked away to get the bowls. When I turned around I saw the bag slowly tipping over, spilling much of its contents onto the floor. Fortunately I had help cleaning it up.
The main task for today is to begin revising McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader. It may take a couple of weeks, possibly more. I still have to work at Publix, and next week I start a new job in the memory care unit of a rehab/nursing home facility, and I'll also be working at Publix at least one night.
After that I'll take a look at the double-slit experiment, and see if there is an interpretation that is consistent with my theory of wave physics.
Also, I came across the attached meme, which I had created two or three years (or so) ago. I thought I'd include it because I still like it.
I recently proposed a theory of matter and energy called Wave Physics. In this theory, the only things in the universe are energy and the universal membrane, which is the medium through which all energy is transfered and stored.
Tonight I realized that according to this theory, everyone and everything in the universe are connected to each other at all times. Things that would be impossible according to the standard model of particle physics, are very possible in the universe of wave physics. Psychic transmissions and the power of prayer are physically possible and make sense if the universe works in any way like the theory I proposed.
If you've ever heard the phone ring and felt sure who it was before answering it, and were proven correct, this makes sense in wave physics, but not with particle physics. If you've ever looked intently at someone, and had that person quickly turn and look directly at you (I have), that phenomenon makes sense if all of us are parts of the same vast, ...
I was only scheduled to work three days this week, so I decided to work on a theory I'd been playing around with for fun over the last few years. I'd never been a big fan of the standard model of particle physics, so a few years ago, just for fun, I thought about exploring some alternate ideas, with zero training and zero experiments.
This week I wrapped up a few loose ends, and posted it to a community I created called Wave Physics. Originally I had called it Alternative Physics, but I changed my mind, so the link still has alternativephysics in it, but the community name is Wave Physics. I'd love for people to pay $5.00 a month to tell me how wrong I am.
https://alternativephysics.locals.com/
I also posted it on my personal website:
