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Love and ruin / by McLain, Paula,author.;
"The internationally bestselling author of The Paris wife returns to the timeless subject of Ernest Hemingway in this story of his passionate, volatile third marriage to Martha Gellhorn, an ambitious, fiercely independent, beautiful blonde who became one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century. In 1937, nervous but determined to succeed, Martha Gellhorn travels alone to Madrid to report on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War, and finds herself drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught in devastating conflict. She also finds herself unexpectedly -- and uncontrollably -- falling in love with Ernest Hemingway, a man already on his way to becoming a legend. In the shadow of the impending Second World War, and set against the tumultuous backdrops of Madrid, Finland, China, Key West and especially Cuba, where Martha and Ernest made their home, their relationship and professional careers ignite. But when Ernest publishes the biggest literary success of his career, For whom the bell tolls, they are no longer equals, and Martha must make a choice: surrender to the suffocating demands of a domestic lifestyle, or risk losing her husband by forging a path as her own woman and writer. It is a dilemma that will force her to break his heart, or her own"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961; Gelhourn, Martha, 1908-1998; Women journalists; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
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No rules rules : Netflix and the culture of reinvention / by Hastings, Reed,1960-author.; Meyer, Erin,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings reveals for the first time the unorthodox culture behind one of the world's most innovative, imaginative, and successful companies There's never before been a company like Netflix. Not only because it has led a revolution in the entertainment industries; or because it generates billions of dollars in annual revenue; or even because it is watched by hundreds of millions of people in nearly 200 countries. When Reed Hastings co-founded Netflix, he developed a set of counterintuitive and radical management principles, defying all tradition and expectation, which would allow the company to reinvent itself over and over on the way to becoming one of the most loved brands in the world. Rejecting the conventional wisdom under which other companies operate, Reed set new standards, valuing people over process, emphasizing innovation over efficiency, and giving employees context, not controls. At Netflix, adequate performance gets a generous severance and hard work is irrelevant. At Netflix, you don't try to please your boss, you practice radical candor instead. At Netflix, employees never need approval, and the company always pays top of market. When Hastings and his team first devised these principles, the implications were unknown and untested, but over just a short period of time they have led to unprecedented flexibility, speed, and boldness. The culture of freedom and responsibility has allowed the company to constantly grow and change as the world, and its members' needs, have also transformed. Here for the first time, Hastings and Erin Meyer, bestselling author of The Culture Map and one of the world's most influential business thinkers, dive deep into the controversial philosophies at the heart of the Netflix psyche, which have generated results that are the envy of the business world. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with current and past Netflix employees from around the globe and never-before-told stories of trial and error from his own career, No Rules Rules is the full, fascinating, and untold story of a unique company making its mark on the world"--
Subjects: Netflix (Firm); Netflix (Firm); Corporate culture.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The road years : a memoir, continued ... / by Mercer, Rick,1969-author.;
"Rick Mercer is back--again!--with the eagerly awaited sequel to his bestselling memoir. At the end of his memoir, Talking to Canadians, Rick Mercer was poised to make the biggest leap yet in his extraordinary career. Having overcome a serious lack of promise as a schoolboy and risen through the showbiz ranks--as an aspiring actor, star of a surprisingly successful one-man show about the Meech Lake Accord, co-founder of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, creator and star of the dark-comedy sitcom Made in Canada--he was about to tackle his biggest opportunity yet. The Road Years picks up the story at that exciting point, with the greenlighting of what would become Rick Mercer Report. Plans for the show of course included political satire and Rick's patented rants. But Rick and his partner, Gerald Lunz, were also determined to do something that comedy tends to avoid as too challenging: they would emphasize the positive. Rick would travel from coast to coast to coast in search of everything that's best about Canada, especially its people. He found a lot to celebrate, of course, and was rewarded with a huge audience and a run of 15 seasons. The Road Years tells the inside story of that stupendous success. A time when Rick was always heading to another town--or military base, sports centre, national park--to tag moose, hang from a harness (a lot), ride the Train of Death, and countless other joyous and/or reckless assignments. Added to the mix were encounters with the country's great. Every living prime minister. Rock and roll royalty from Rush to Randy Bachman. Olympians and paralympians. A skinny-dipping Bob Rae, a goal-keeping Margaret Atwood, a joint-rolling Pierre Berton. Along the way he even found the time to co-found and champion the charity Spread the Net, which has gone on to save more lives than any malaria medicine. Join the celebration, and revive a wealth of happy memories, with what is Rick Mercer's funniest, most fascinating book yet."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Mercer, Rick, 1969-; Comedians; Television personalities;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Mum & Dad / by Trollope, Joanna,author.;
It's been 25 years since Gus and Monica left England to start a new life in Spain, building a vineyard and wine business from the ground up. However, when Gus suffers a stroke and their idyllic Mediterranean life is thrown into upheaval, it's left to their three grown-up children in London to step in. Sebastian is busy running his company with his wife, Anna, who's never quite seen eye-to-eye with her mother-in-law. Katie, a successful solicitor in the city, is distracted by the problems with her long-term partner, Nic, and the secretive lives of their three daughters. And Jake, ever the easy-going optimist, is determined to convince his new wife, Bella, that moving to Spain with their 18-month-old would be a good idea. As the children descend on the vineyard, it becomes clear that each has their own idea of how best to handle their mum and dad, as well as the family business. But as long-simmering resentments rise to the surface and tensions reach breaking point, can the family ties prove strong enough to keep them together?
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; British; Parent and child; Married people; Vineyards; Families; Conflict of generations;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Big summer : a novel / by Weiner, Jennifer,author.;
"The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the "nothing short of brilliant" (People) Mrs. Everything returns with an unforgettable novel about friendship and forgiveness set during a disastrous wedding on picturesque Cape Cod. Six years after the fight that ended their friendship, Daphne Berg is shocked when Drue Cavanaugh walks back into her life, looking as lovely and successful as ever, with a massive favor to ask. Daphne hasn't spoken one word to Drue in all this time--she doesn't even hate-follow her ex-best friend on social media--so when Drue asks if she will be her maid-of-honor at the society wedding of the summer, Daphne is rightfully speechless. Drue was always the one who had everything--except the ability to hold onto friends. Meanwhile, Daphne's no longer the same self-effacing sidekick she was back in high school. She's built a life that she loves, including a growing career as a plus-size Instagram influencer. Letting glamorous, seductive Drue back into her life is risky, but it comes with an invitation to spend a weekend in a waterfront Cape Cod mansion. When Drue begs and pleads and dangles the prospect of cute single guys, Daphne finds herself powerless as ever to resist her friend's siren song. A sparkling novel about the complexities of female friendship, the pitfalls of living out loud and online, and the resilience of the human heart, Big Summer is a witty, moving story about family, friendship, and figuring out what matters most"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Chick lit.; Female friendship; Weddings; Overweight women; Social media;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 3
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Pests : how humans create animal villains / by Brookshire, Bethany,author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-330) and index."A squirrel in the garden. A rat in the wall. A pigeon on the street. Humans have spent so much of our history drawing a hard line between human spaces and wild places. When animals pop up where we don't expect or want them, we respond with fear, rage, or simple annoyance. It's no longer an animal. It's a pest. At the intersection of science, history, and narrative journalism, Pests is not a simple call to look closer at our urban ecosystem. It's not a natural history of the animals we hate. Instead, this book is about us. It's about what calling an animal a pest says about people, how we live, and what we want. It's a story about human nature, and how we categorize the animals in our midst, including bears and coyotes, sparrows and snakes. Pet or pest? In many cases, it's entirely a question of perspective. Bethany Brookshire's deeply researched and entirely entertaining book will show readers what there is to venerate in vermin, and help them appreciate how these animals have clawed their way to success as we did everything we could to ensure their failure. In the process, we will learn how the pests that annoy us tell us far more about humanity than they do about the animals themselves."--Publisher marketing.
Subjects: Instructional and educational works.; Human-animal relationships.; Pests.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Secret in the stone / by Benko, Kamilla.;
Claire Martinson and her sister Sophie have decided to stay in Arden--the magical land they discovered by climbing up a chimney in their great-aunt's manor. If what they've learned is true, the sisters are the last descendants of the royal family, and only a true heir of Arden--with magic in her blood--can awaken the unicorns. Since Sophie does not have magic, the land's last hope rests on Claire. The sisters journey to Stonehaven, a famed Gemmer school high in the mountains of Arden, so Claire can train in the magic of stones. As Claire struggles through classes, Sophie uncovers dangerous secrets about the people they thought they could trust. With Arden on the brink of crumbling, can Claire prove she is the prophesied heir and unlock the magic of the unicorns before it's too late?LSC
Subjects: Fantasy fiction.; Adventure fiction.; Sisters; Magic; Unicorns; Inheritance and succession; Quests (Expeditions); Schools; Animals, Mythical; Secrecy; Prophecies;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The fraud / by Smith, Zadie,author.;
"It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper-and cousin by marriage-of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years. Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems. Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story. The "Tichborne Trial"-wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title-captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Fraud; Housekeepers; Impostors and imposture; Novelists; Trials (Impostors and imposture);
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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The girls in the wild fig tree : how I fought to save myself, my sister, and thousands of girls worldwide / by Leng'ete, Nice,author.; Butler-Witter, Elizabeth,author.;
"Nice Leng`ete was raised in a Maasai village in Kenya by relatively progressive parents. Her father established a wildlife sanctuary, which was managed by the Maasai themselves rather than outside interests, and watching how he created a consensus by meeting people where they are gave Nice a lesson for the rest of her life. In 1998, when Nice was six, her parents both fell sick and died - it took years for her to understand that they had died of AIDS. Nice and Soila were taken in by their father's brother, who had little interest in whether the girls stayed in school. He expected that the sisters would undergo the ritual referred to as "the cut" (female genital mutilation), which would make them acceptable Maasai women and signal their readiness to be married. Fearing the ritual cut, which Nice had witnessed as a painful, bloody, and sometimes deadly procedure, Nice and Soila climbed a tree to hide. Nice hoped they could eventually run away, and delay the cut forever, but Soila knew that their uncle would not let both girls defy the rules. But maybe one of them could escape it, if the other submitted. After Soila chose to undergo the surgery, sparing Nice, who was still only nine, their lives diverged in the ways Nice had predicted. While Soila married, dropped out of school, and had children - all in her teenage years - Nice continued with her education, postponing receiving the cut at each school break, and became the first in her family to attend college. While at boarding school, at around age 16, Nice began training with Amref, an organization working for healthcare advances in Africa, after they had heard that she had been successfully talking to girls in her village about FGM. Even after she departed for Nairobi for college, she continued her outreach and made inroads in improving sexual education and feminine hygiene by conversing with the young girls, using herself as an example for what was possible. Changing the minds of the men was the biggest obstacle - as a rule in Maasai culture, women do not lead discussions with men - but again she started at the base, with the young unmarried men, before bringing her ideas about new, alternative ceremonial rites for girls to the tribe's elders. One by one, families agreed to end FGM. Girls were allowed to forgo the cut and stay in school. Men began marrying women who were whole. Nice's town has since ended FGM entirely, and her goal is to end the practice worldwide. Nice's journey from "heartbroken child and community outcast, to leader of the Maasai" is an inspiration and a reminder that one person can change the world - and every girl is worth saving"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Leng'ete, Nice; Amref Health Africa.; Female circumcision; Maasai (African people); Maasai (African people); Women, Maasai;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Lucky day / by Tingle, Chuck,author.;
"Four years ago, an unthinkable disaster occurred. In what was later known as the Low-Probability Event, 8 million people were killed in a single day, each of them dying in improbable, bizarre ways: strangled by balloon ropes, torn apart by exploding manhole covers, attacked by a chimpanzee wielding a typewriter. A day of freak accidents that proved anything is possible, no matter the odds. Luck is real now, and it's not always good. Vera, a former statistics and probability professor, lost everything that day, and she still struggles to make sense of the unbelievable catastrophe. To her, the LPE proved that the God of Order is dead and nothing matters anymore. When Special Agent Layne shows up on Vera's doorstep, she learns he's investigating a suspiciously -- and statistically impossible -- lucky casino. He needs her help to prove the casino's success is connected to the deaths of millions, and it's Vera's last chance to make sense of a world that doesn't. Because what's happening in Vegas isn't staying there, and she's the only thing that stands between the world and another deadly improbability..."--
Subjects: Bisexual fiction.; Queer fiction.; Horror fiction.; Novels.; Accidents; Casinos; Statisticians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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