Showing results by author "Walter" in All Categories

Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us - an ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings. In best-selling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin turns to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. In Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson shows how Franklin defines both his own time and ours. The most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself.

When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.

Working from both primary and secondary sources, Walter Reid explores Britain's role in the creation of the modern Middle East and the rise of Zionism from the early years of the twentieth century to 1948, when Britain handed over Palestine to United Nations' control. From the decisions that Britain made has flowed much of the instability of the region and of the worldwide tensions that threaten the twenty-first century; this thought-provoking book considers how much Britain was to blame.

In Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography, Walter Isaacson provides an extraordinary account of Jobs' professional and personal life. Drawn from three years of exclusive and unprecedented interviews Isaacson has conducted with Jobs as well as extensive interviews with Jobs' family members and key colleagues from Apple and its competitors, this is the definitive portrait of the greatest innovator of his generation.

In this collection of Jeff Bezos' writings - his unique and strikingly original annual shareholder letters, plus numerous speeches and interviews that provide insight into his background, his work, and the evolution of his ideas - you'll gain an insider's view of the why and how of his success. Spanning a range of topics across business and public policy, from innovation and customer obsession to climate change and outer space, this book provides a rare glimpse into how Bezos thinks about the world and where the future might take us.

In the spring of 2012, the Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the future of the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions. It has already been deployed to cure deadly diseases, fight the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, and make inheritable changes in the genes of babies.

Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the West and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the repercussions of European colonialism in Africa remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.

1348. The Black Death enters England through the port of Melcombe; the people of the county start to die in the thousands. In the demesne of Develish, Lady Anne takes control of her people's future, chooses a bastard slave, Thaddeus Thurkell, to act as her steward, and together they decide to quarantine Develish by bringing the serfs inside the walls. With this sudden overturning of the accepted social order, where serfs exist only to serve their lords, conflicts soon arise....

Top homicide detective Josiah Raine hasn't touched another man since his husband's brutal murder seven years ago. Notorious bad boy Alexander Lytton hasn't known peace since destroying his privileged life to become Britain's most hated man. When Josiah arrests Alex for murder, the last thing he expects is to fall in love....

Ex-fighter pilot Cowboy, "hardwired" via skull sockets directly to his lethal electronic hardware, teams up with Sarah, an equally cyborized gun-for-hire, to make a last stab at independence from the rapacious Orbitals.

During the reign of Richard I, Wilfred of Ivanhoe earns his father's disapproval by falling in love with Rowena, his father's ward. His father had planned to wed her himself, and reestablish the Saxon line.

JamCaptain Cook: A Biography by Walter Besant presents the life and exploits of Captain James Cook, the renowned British explorer. It chronicles his daring voyages across uncharted oceans, his skill in navigation, and his pivotal role in mapping the world. Besant details Cook’s early life, his rise in the naval ranks, and his groundbreaking discoveries, while also exploring the complexities of his character. The biography portrays his enduring legacy as a skilled navigator and a controversial historical figure. Summary by Lina

Jonathan Oldbuck, the antiquary of the title, has a passion for the past–and delights in trying to convey it. He meets the mysteriously taciturn young Lovel and the two strike up a friendship, bonding over Roman ruins. When Lovel falls for Isabella, daughter of a local landowner, it looks like an impossible situation. Sharp, funny, gothic, romantic, and full of action, this is a thoroughly entertaining window on Scottish life in the summer of 1794: it was Scott’s intention to show the spirit of the times, and how the past affects the present–and it was his own favourite of all his novels.

From the best-selling author of Day of Infamy: In the bloodiest island combat of WWII, one group of men kept watch from behind Japanese lines. The Solomon Islands was where the Allied war machine finally broke the Japanese empire. As pilots, marines, and sailors fought for supremacy in Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and the Slot, a lonely group of radio operators occupied the Solomon Islands' highest points. Sometimes encamped in comfort, sometimes exposed to the elements, these coastwatchers kept lookout for squadrons of Japanese bombers headed for Allied positions.

Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson’s revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail?

Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy.

Anybody can get lucky. Nobody controls the odds like Billy Walters. Widely regarded as “the Michael Jordan of sports betting,” Walters is a living legend in Las Vegas and among sports bettors worldwide. With an unmatched winning streak of thirty-six consecutive years, Walters has become fabulously wealthy by placing hundreds of millions of dollars a year in gross wagers, including one Super Bowl bet of $3.5 million alone. Competitors desperate to crack his betting techniques have tried hacking his phones, cloning his beepers, rifling through his trash, and bribing his employees.

England, 1685. Decades after the end of the civil war, the country is once again divided when Charles II's illegitimate son, the Protestant Duke of Monmouth, arrives in Dorset to incite rebellion against his Catholic uncle. Armed only with pitchforks, Monmouth's army is quickly defeated by King James II's superior forces and charged with high treason. Those found guilty will be hanged, drawn and quartered. As Dorset braces for carnage, the redoubtable Lady Jayne Harrier and a small group of trusted allies contrive ways to save men from the gallows.

After rejecting the life his father has laid out for him, Frank Osbaldistone is sent to the North of England to live with his Uncle, where he is to repent his sins. However, when his father's wealth and reputation are threatened, he is drawn to the Scottish Highlands, where he must retrieve a set of stolen documents. It is here that he is pulled into a number of skirmishes relating to the Jacobite uprising of 1715, and where his path frequently crosses with the mysterious maverick outlaw known as Rob Roy....

Dorset, 1642. When bloody civil war breaks out between the king and Parliament, families and communities across England are riven by different allegiances. A rare few choose neutrality. One such is Jayne Swift, a Dorset physician from a royalist family, who offers her services to both sides in the conflict. Through her dedication to treating the sick and wounded, regardless of belief, Jayne becomes a witness to the brutality of war and the devastation it wreaks.