Billionaire Boy: Mark Zuckerberg in His Own Words
Edited by George Beahm
Collins Business (paperback), 2013
PRs 400
Mark Zuckerberg, the youngest Person of the Year named by Time magazine since Charles Lindbergh in 1927, has grown in prominence as rapidly as the company he founded in a Harvard dorm room in 2004. The public’s appetite for insight into Facebook and its founder seems nearly insatiable. Curiosity abounds regarding Zuckerberg’s personality and management style, since fictional Hollywood portrayals and Wall Street whispers have painted a broad-strokes portrait of the young CEO that is at best only a fraction of the truth.
Given Facebook’s current $58 billion market capitalisation and 845 million worldwide users, there is clearly more to Zuckerberg than any over-simplified caricature could convey. The Boy Billionaire: Mark Zuckerberg In His Own Words is the first and only book to detail the visionary thoughts and opinions of Facebook’s founder entirely through direct quotations from Zuckerberg himself. It is the most intimate and most authoritative look at the man behind Facebook’s once-a-generation success, the tech heir-apparent to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
Like those two pioneering entrepreneurs, Zuckerberg has proven to be a calculating and sometimes ruthless strategist with a steadfast commitment to his vision. Facebook exists somewhere between a social utility and a model of 21st century business, leading next-gen tech companies through an economic climate still scarred by the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s, but increasingly driven by the inevitability of a global marketplace built on social media technology.
Facebook’s potential is unknown, but the key to its success depends on Zuckerberg’s own ideas and vision. This book serves up his most thought-provoking insights, as researched and chosen by George Beahm, the New York Times bestselling editor of I, Steve: Steve Jobs In His Own Words. The Boy Billionaire: Mark Zuckerberg In His Own Words provides crucial illumination of Zuckerberg and the company he’s created, emphasising insights, business strategies, and lessons learned. It is essential reading for people who seek innovative solutions applicable to their business, regardless of size, and makes an ideal gift or reference item for anyone interested in this newest of American business icon.
The New Threat From Islamic Militancy
Jason Burke
The Bodley Head (paperback), 2015
PRs 1295
In The New Threat renowned expert and prize-winning reporter Jason Burke provides the clearest and most comprehensive guide to Islamic militancy today.
From Syria to Somalia, from Libya to Indonesia, from Yemen to the capitals of Europe, Islamic militancy appears stronger, more widespread and more threatening than ever. ISIS and other groups, such as Boko Haram, together command significant military power, rule millions and control extensive territories. Elsewhere Al Qaeda remains potent and is rapidly evolving. Factions and subsidiaries proliferate worldwide, and a new generation of Western Jihadists are emerging, joining conflicts abroad and attacking at home. Who are these groups and what do they actually want? What connects them and how do they differ? How are we to understand their tactics of online activism and grotesque violence?
Drawing on almost two decades of frontline reporting as well as a vast range of sources, from intelligence officials to the militants themselves, renowned expert Jason Burke cuts through the mass of opinion and misinformation to explain dispassionately and with total clarity the nature of the threat we now face. He shows that Islamic militancy has changed dramatically in recent years. Far from being a ‘medieval’ throwback, it is modern, dynamic and resilient. Despite everything, it is entirely comprehensible.
The New Threat is essential reading if we are to understand our fears rather than succumb to them, to act rationally and effectively, and to address successfully one of the most urgent problems of our time.
Career of Evil
Robert Galbraith
Sphere (paperback), 2015
PRs 1295
When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman’s severed leg.
Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed. There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible—and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality.
With the police focusing on the one suspect Strike is increasingly sure is not the perpetrator, he and Robin take matters into their own hands, and delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men. But as more horrendous acts occur, time is running out for the two of them...
Career of Evil is the third in the highly acclaimed series featuring private detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott. A fiendishly clever mystery with unexpected twists around every corner, it is also a gripping story of a man and a woman at a crossroads in their personal and professional lives.
Sufism: An Introduction to the Mystical Tradition of Islam
Carl W. Ernst
Shambhala (paperback), 2011
PRs 1995
The Sufis are as diverse as the countries in which they’ve flourished—from Morocco to India to China—and as varied as their distinctive forms of art, music, poetry, and dance. They are said to represent the mystical heart of Islam, yet the term Sufism is notoriously difficult to define, as it means different things to different people both within and outside the tradition. With that fact in mind, Carl Ernst explores the broadest range of Sufi philosophies and practices to provide one of the most complete and comprehensive introductions to Sufism available in English. He traces the history of the movement from the earliest days of Islam to the present day, along the way examining its relationship to the larger world of Islam and its encounters with both fundamentalism and secularism in the modern world.
Pakistan: A Hard Country
Anatol Lieven
Penguin (paperback), 2011
PRs 1095
In the past decade Pakistan has become a country of immense importance to its region, the United States, and the world. With almost 200 million people, a 500,000-man army, nuclear weapons, and a large diaspora in Britain and North America, Pakistan is central to the hopes of Jihadis and the fears of their enemies. Yet the greatest short-term threat to Pakistan is not Islamist insurgency as such, but the actions of the United States, and the greatest long-term threat is ecological change.
Anatol Lieven’s book is a magisterial investigation of this highly complex and often poorly understood country. Engagingly written, combining history and profound analysis with reportage from Lieven’s extensive travels as a journalist and academic, Pakistan: A Hard Country is both utterly compelling and deeply revealing.