Books I like that you might enjoyTumblr (3.0; @raysbooks)http://books.raygrasso.com/<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1iu35ENxo1r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption</h1> <h2>Clay A. Johnson</h2> <p>The modern human animal spends upwards of 11 hours out of every 24 in a state of constant consumption. Not eating, but gorging on information ceaselessly spewed from the screens and speakers we hold dear. Just as we have grown morbidly obese on sugar, fat, and flour—so, too, have we become gluttons for texts, instant messages, emails, RSS feeds, downloads, videos, status updates, and tweets.</p> <p>We’re all battling a storm of distractions, buffeted with notifications and tempted by tasty tidbits of information. And just as too much junk food can lead to obesity, too much junk information can lead to cluelessness. The Information Diet shows you how to thrive in this information glut—what to look for, what to avoid, and how to be selective. In the process, author Clay Johnson explains the role information has played throughout history, and why following his prescribed diet is essential for everyone who strives to be smart, productive, and sane.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/19988876265http://books.raygrasso.com/post/19988876265Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:11:29 +0800nonfiction<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1ity2YF3U1r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and in Life</h1> <h2>Nassim Nicholas Taleb</h2> <p>This is a book about luck. More specifically, it is a book about how we perceive luck, twist it around and regard it as intention or purpose. What better setting than the world of trading to invesdtigate the subject? How often has the brilliant trader, who seems to the outside world to have been granted the gift of second sight in the implementation of his strategies, been suddenly wiped out by an unexpected shift in the markets? The book may have its roots firmly in the financial arena, but it also incorporates and explains the effects and repercussions of randomness in many varied fields - ranging from philosophy to literature and science - to create an insight into how randomness cannot be conquered, but can be embraced.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/19988682910http://books.raygrasso.com/post/19988682910Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:08:26 +0800nonfiction<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwl43zafqc1r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>The Lean Startup</h1> <h2>Eric Ries</h2> <p>Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.</p> <p>Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business. </p> <p>The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively.  Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute. <br/><br/>Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, <em>The Lean Startup</em> offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/14596658130http://books.raygrasso.com/post/14596658130Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:55:10 +0800nonfiction<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lu8cd2QVRI1r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Thinking in Systems: A Primer</h1> <h2>Donella H. Meadows</h2> <p>Meadows’ newly released manuscript, Thinking in Systems, is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life.</p> <p>Some of the biggest problems facing the world—war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation—are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking.</p> <p>While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner.</p> <p>In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/12410356928http://books.raygrasso.com/post/12410356928Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:17:26 +0800nonfiction<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrfja8wsIV1r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>The Big Sleep</h1> <h2>Raymond Chandler</h2> <p>When a dying millionaire hires Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.</p> <p>“Chandler [writes] like a slumming angel and invest[s] the sun-blinded streets of Los Angelos with a romantic presence.”<br/> —Ross Macdonald</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/10138234128http://books.raygrasso.com/post/10138234128Tue, 13 Sep 2011 05:49:20 +0800fiction<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqmx5kLxcT1r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Life</h1> <h2>Keith Richards</h2> <p>The long-awaited autobiography of the guitarist, songwriter, singer, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Ladies and gentlemen: Keith Richards.</p> <p>With The Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the songs that roused the world, and he lived the original rock and roll life. Now, at last, the man himself tells his story of life in the crossfire hurricane. Listening obsessively to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records, learning guitar and forming a band with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones. The Rolling Stones’s first fame and the notorious drug busts that led to his enduring image as an outlaw folk hero. Creating immortal riffs like the ones in “Jumping Jack Flash” and “Honky Tonk Women.” His relationship with Anita Pallenberg and the death of Brian Jones. Tax exile in France, wildfire tours of the U.S., isolation and addiction. Falling in love with Patti Hansen. Estrangement from Jagger and subsequent reconciliation. Marriage, family, solo albums and Xpensive Winos, and the road that goes on forever.</p> <p>With his trademark disarming honesty, Keith Richard brings us the story of a life we have all longed to know more of, unfettered, fearless, and true.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9497356685http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9497356685Sun, 28 Aug 2011 19:20:54 +0800nonfiction<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqmy61JfsC1r199mvo1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Magnum Landscape</h1> <h2>Ian Jeffrey</h2> <p>This is a selection of Magnum photographers’ images of landscapes from around the world, from the 1930s to the present day.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9497682436http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9497682436Sun, 28 Aug 2011 19:20:24 +0800photography<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqij5pwVyd1r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>The Visual Display of Quantitative Information</h1> <h2>Edward R. Tufte</h2> <p>A timeless classic in how complex information should be presented graphically. The Strunk & White of visual design. Should occupy a place of honor — within arm’s reach — of everyone attempting to understand or depict numerical data graphically.</p> <p>The design of the book is an exemplar of the principles it espouses: elegant typography and layout, and seamless integration of lucid text and perfectly chosen graphical examples. Very Highly Recommended.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9399524328http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9399524328Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:05:49 +0800designnonfiction<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqhgkeXVBR1r199mvo1_r1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams</h1> <h2>Klaus Kemp</h2> <p>In the more than 40 years that he spent working at Braun, Dieter Rams established himself as one of the most influential designers of the twentieth century. His elegantly clear visual language not only defined product design for decades, but also our fundamental understanding of what design is and what it can and should do.</p> <p>Dieter Rams created ten rules of design more than twenty years ago. Sometimes referred to as the ten commandments, they are just as relevant today: Good design is innovative. Good design makes a product useful. Good design is aesthetic. Good design helps a product to be understood. Good design is unobtrusive. Good design is honest. Good design is durable. Good design is consistent to the last detail. Good design is environmentally friendly. Good design is as little design<br/> as possible.</p> <p>Less and More elucidates the design philosophy of Dieter Rams. The book contains images of hundreds of Rams’s products as well as his sketches and models from Braun stereo systems and electric shavers to the chairs and shelving systems that he created for Vitsoe and his own company sdr+. In addition to the rich visual presentation of his designs, the book contains new texts by international design experts that explain how the work was created, describe its timeless quality, and put it into current context.</p> <p>In this way, the work of Dieter Rams is given a contemporary reevaluation that is especially useful in light of the rediscovery of functionalism and rationalism in today s design. Less and More shows us the possibilities that design opens for both the manufacturer and the consumer as a means of making our lives better through attractive, functional solutions that also save resources.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372485825http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372485825Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:12:00 +0800designnonfiction<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqhgiefQoZ1r199mvo1_r1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Beneath the Roses</h1> <h2>Gregory Crewdson</h2> <p>Best known for his elaborately choreographed, large-scale photographs, Gregory Crewdson is one of the most exciting and important artists working today. The images that comprise Crewdson’s new series, “Beneath the Roses,” take place in the homes, streets, and forests of unnamed small towns.</p> <p>The photographs portray emotionally charged moments of seemingly ordinary individuals caught in ambiguous and often disquieting circumstances. Both epic in scale and intimate in scope, these visually breathtaking photographs blur the distinctions between cinema and photography, reality and fantasy, what has happened and what is to come.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372464458http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372464458Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:11:00 +0800photography<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqhge224mN1r199mvo1_r1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>How to Be a Man</h1> <h2>John Birmingham & Dirk Flinthart</h2> <p>Hilarious work on the subject of all things male. Learn how to dress properly for business, how to buy, drive and maintain a car, and land a 747 jumbo jet.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372419515http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372419515Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:08:00 +0800nonfiction<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqhg9k1jn71r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Survivor: A Novel</h1> <h2>Chuck Palahniuk</h2> <p>Tender Branson—last surviving member of the Creedish Death Cult—is dictating his life story into Flight 2039’s recorder. He is all alone in the airplane, which will crash shortly into the vast Australian outback. But before it does, he will unfold the tale of his journey from an obedient Creedish child to an ultra-buffed, steroid- and collagen-packed media messiah. Unpredictable and unforgettable,.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372372723http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372372723Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:05:44 +0800fiction<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqhg59iZ4C1r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century</h1> <h2>Hunter S. Thompson</h2> <p>Brilliant, provocative, outrageous, and brazen, Hunter S. Thompson’s infamous rule breaking — in his journalism, in his life, and of the law — changed the shape of American letters and the face of American icons. <em>Kingdom of Fear</em> traces the course of Thompson’s life as a rebel — from a smart-mouthed Kentucky kid flouting all authority to a convention-defying journalist who came to personify a wild fusion of fact, fiction, and mind-altering substances.</p> <p>Call it the evolution of an outlaw. Here are the formative experiences that comprise Thompson’s legendary trajectory alongside the weird and the ugly. Whether detailing his exploits as a foreign correspondent in Rio, his job as night manager of the notorious O’Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, his epic run for sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket, or the sensational legal maneuvering that led to his full acquittal in the famous 99 Days trial, Thompson is at the peak of his narrative powers in <em>Kingdom of Fear.</em> And this boisterous, blistering ride illuminates as never before the professional and ideological risk taking of a literary genius and transgressive icon.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372329593http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372329593Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:03:09 +0800nonfiction<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqhfvrxDYC1r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Birdy</h1> <h2>Naomi Wallace</h2> <p>From the acclaimed 1978 novel by William Wharton, Birdy tells the story of a man undone by the horrors of World War II and the friend who tries to guide him back to earth. This stage adaptation, originally produced on the West End in London, is by MacArthur genius award winner Naomi Wallace.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372235039http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372235039Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:57:27 +0800fiction<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqhfqyP7OV1r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>A Fraction of the Whole</h1> <h2>Steve Toltz</h2> <p>Meet the Deans</p> <p>“The fact is, the whole of Australia despises my father more than any other man, just as they adore my uncle more than any other man. I might as well set the story straight about both of them …”</p> <p>Heroes or Criminals?<br/> Crackpots or Visionaries?<br/> Families or Enemies?</p> <p>“… Anyway, you know how it is. Every family has a story like this one.”</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372188853http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372188853Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:54:34 +0800fiction<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqhfizDWSo1r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>A Short History of Nearly Everything</h1> <h2>Bill Bryson</h2> <p>Bill Bryson confronts his greatest challenge: to understand — and, if possible, answer — the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilisation, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us.</p> <p>A Short History of Nearly Everything is sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372113647http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372113647Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:49:00 +0800nonfiction<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqhgt2ekz31r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability</h1> <h2>Steve Krug</h2> <p>Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it’s hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn’t read Steve Krug’s “instant classic” on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day.  In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and veteran alike.  Don’t be surprised if it completely changes the way you think about Web design.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372575909http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372575909Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:17:00 +0800designprogrammingnonfiction<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqhgo8kvpE1r199mvo1_400.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Eloquent Ruby</h1> <h2>Russ Olsen</h2> <p>It’s easy to write correct Ruby code, but to gain the fluency needed to write great Ruby code, you must go beyond syntax and absorb the “Ruby way” of thinking and problem solving. In Eloquent Ruby, Russ Olsen helps you write Ruby like true Rubyists do–so you can leverage its immense, surprising power.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372525930http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372525930Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:14:00 +0800programmingnonfiction<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqhgroldw81r199mvo1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Stylin’ with CSS: A Designer’s Guide</h1> <h2>Charles Wyke-Smith</h2> <p>Cascading Style Sheets enable you to rapidly create web designs that can be shared by hundreds or even thousands of web pages. It accelerates development cycles by centralizing text and layout information for easy editing and updates. This book teaches you everything you need to know to start using CSS in your web development work, from the basics of marking up your content and styling text, through the creation of multi-column page layouts without the use of tables.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372561540http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372561540Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:12:00 +0800programmingnonfiction<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqhg7iYXcj1r199mvo1_r1_250.jpg"/><br/><br/><h1>Snow Crash</h1> <h2>Neal Stephenson</h2> <p>In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous…you’ll recognize it immediately.</p>http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372353600http://books.raygrasso.com/post/9372353600Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:04:00 +0800fiction