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Books by Date

2011-06-18	Making It All Work by David Allen. Getting Things Done launched a wave of organization and productivity. Making It All Work expands on the earlier ideas, setting them into a more complete context and clarifying certain important ideas such as "Horizons of Focus." it shows how to build a flexible organizational system to support productivity, from the details of getting a lot of work accomplished, through project management, and up to a complete perspective on the values most important to your happiness in your life.
2011-05-08	Rattatouille by Pixar. An animated rat pursues and achieves the career he loves. (ages 10 to 16)
2010-12-30	Business Model Generation, A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. A small number of elements can be realized and combined differently to create an amazing variety of different business models. What a business model is, how to analyze rework, and how to create new ones are explained.
	Newton and the Counterfeiter, The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist by Thomas Levenson. Newton's character shows clearly in this history of his management of the British royal mint. Newton was not a man of aloof theory, but passionately committed to using theory as man's method of understanding and controlling nature, combining intense focus on fundamentals with a deep pursuit of practical details.
	How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes by Peter Schiff and Andrew Schiff. An easy-to-follow explanation of production, trade, prosperity, and its ruin through government financial interference.
	How Not to Die, Surprising Lessons on Living Longer, Safer, and Healthier from America's Favorite Medical Examiner by Jan Garavaglia, M.D.. Stories and explanations of the main causes of accidental death, with a simple list of the top ten precautions. Follow the advice, and you will likely avoid most accidental early exits.
	A Gift to My Children, A Father's Lessons for Life and Investing by Jim Rogers. The famed investor Jim Rogers concisely gives his advice for growing living well.
	Certain to Win by Chet Richards. John Boyd proposed a theory of military strategy that has revolutionized warfare by placing an emphasis on the cognitive aspects of conflict, especially on the roles of values and epistemology (though he uses an odd vocabulary of his own, and can be maddingly unclear). This theory is for the first time applied to winning and losing more broadly, outside the specifically military.
	Neoconservatism, An Obituary for an Idea by C. Bradley Thompson, with Yaron Brook. An obituary so soon! Surely the reports of neoconservatism's death are greatly exaggerated. C. Bradley Thompson has written (with Yaron Brook) the most comprehensive and original analysis of neoconservatism yet published and in the process has dealt it a mortal blow. Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea reveals publicly for the first time what the neocons call their philosophy of governance--their plan for governing America. This book explicates the deepest philosophic principles of neoconservatism, traces the intellectual relationship between the political philosopher Leo Strauss and contemporary neoconservative political actors, and provides a trenchant critique of neoconservatism from the perspective of America's founding principles. The theme of this timely book--neoconservatism as a species of anti-Americanism--will shake up the intellectual salons of both the Left and Right. What makes this book so compelling is that Thompson actually lived for many years in the Straussian/neoconservative intellectual world. Neoconservatism therefore fits into the "breaking ranks" tradition of scholarly criticism and breaks the mold when it comes to informed, incisive, nonpartisan critique of neoconservative thought and action. (publisher's description) This book is a must-read for all Americans interested in defending the founding fathers vision of a free and just society. --Glenn Beck A novel and riveting account. . .that traces a tight arc from Leo Strauss through Irving Kristol to the daily travails of Washington politics. --Richard Epstein, University of Chicago C. Bradley Thompson and Yaron Brook delve deeply into the origin, arc, and current nature of the neoconservative movement in the United States. Brilliant, deep, and told with authority. --Thom Hartmann, Air America Radio Network host
2010-11-14	Dancing with the Muses, A Historical Approach to Basic Concepts of Music. From the author's website, "Johnson draws on his experience as composer and music teacher to explain the basic concepts of music in terms of dramatic stories from history, which helps the reader understand where the ideas came from and why they are what they are. In contrast to many purely technical books on music, "Dancing with the Muses" continually explains the emotional/expressive effects of the musical elements." (more: preface, Music Classes )
2010-05-29	The Trump Card, Playing to Win in Work and Life by Ivanka Trump. The best business books share some common themes: be selfish, create values, earn your way, follow your curiosity, do the work, respect the self-interest of others, dream big, plan, and act. The Trump Card illustrates this from the fresh, individual perspective of Ivanka Trump, the thoughtful and sassy businesswoman and entrepreneur. The advice is valuable, yet even more valuable is the benevolent optimism and implicit conviction that only a life of creating values is fully lived.
2010-04-04	Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead by Robert Mayhew.
	Essays on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged by Robert Mayhew. Atlas Shrugged is the most complete artistic expression of Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, which she called "a philosophy for living on earth" and described as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." This collection of essays in turn is the most complete, scholarly, and philosophical analysis of Atlas Shrugged. Every essay in the book revealed to me new insights on the means and justification of living a full, happy life. As with his earlier collections such as Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, Dr Mayhew has placed a feast in front of us. (more: Atlas Shrugged )
2010-03-26	The Checklist Manifesto, How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande. Checklists allow one to manage complexity and cognitive overload. Gawande shows, first, that checklists are the means, during complex situations, to consistently apply the knowledge that is available in our minds but that we might forget to use. Second, checklists permit us to manage the assembly and integration of knowledge that is held by different members of an enterprise when facing a complex situation. (more: Checklist in Brief, Review of The Checklist Manifesto )
2010-01-31	The Logical Leap, Induction in Physics by David Harriman. All knowledge rests on induction from the evidence of sensory data, yet philosophers have claimed throughout history that knowledge is either an arbitrary, subjective fantasy or a mystic insight transmitted from another dimension, with induction and sensory evidence peripheral or irrelevant. David Harriman demonstrates the central role of induction and the precise method of valid induction, which, if followed, produces certainty. Further, he demonstrates that knowledge is the integration of sensory data, so all knowledge is contextual and open-ended. Harriman's demonstration is inductive: he uses a detailed history of science to show the inductive method in action; when the proper method has been followed, it has produced mankind's greatest achievements in knowledge, while to the extent ignored or rejected, men have stagnated in ignorance. This book should be essential reading to every philosopher, scientist, and person interested in confidently knowing the validity of knowledge and how to get it.
2010-01-09	The "What's Happening to My Body" Book for Boys by Area Madaras. This book gives boys entering puberty the information they need to understand the changes to their bodies, emotions, and, interests. The explanations are sensible, non-threatening, and in terms understandable to a boy becoming a teen. (ages 10 to 13)
	The "What's Happening to My Body" Book for Girls by Lynda Madaras and Area Madaras. This book gives girls entering puberty the information they need to understand the changes to their bodies, emotions, and, interests. The explanations are sensible, non-threatening, and in terms understandable to a girl becoming a teen. (ages 10 to 13)
2009-12-31	Goal Setting, A Motivational Technique that Works! by Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham. In a series of succinct chapters, Locke and Latham define goal setting, describe why it is effective at motivating business productivity increases, give the evidence that goal setting is at the heart of most other successful productivity methods, and describe how to apply and measure goal setting successfully across a range of activities from unskilled labor to the highest levels of corporate strategic management. The principles also apply to personal goal setting and motivation. (out-of-print, see sources.)
2009-12-28	The Arthur Trilogy by Kevin Crossley-Holland. Thirteenthth-century Arthur develops his values and becomes a young man at the time of the fourth crusade, aided by a "seeing stone," which gives him a view into the sometimes parallel, sometimes very different life of the legendary Arthur, and gives the reader much to think about, both of the myth and history, and also of more philosophic ideas such as purpose, independence, and values. (ages 10 to 13)
2009-08-30	Science in Ancient Greece by Kathlyn Gay. A useful summary of the development of science and mathematics in the ancient Greek world. Each chapter concentrates on a different aspect of science, such as discoveries in geography, mathematics, astronomy, anatomy, etc. (ages 7 to 13)
	Wonders of Old, Blank Timeline Book of World History by Terri Johnson. History comes alive when your student records significant historical events in his own hand. He will make connections between historical events by recording entries across academic subjects. (out-of-print, see sources.)
2009-08-29	The Iranians, Persia, Islam, and the Soul of a Nation by Sandra MacKey. Does Ancient history matter in modern times? America in this very moment confronts a nation whose cultural identity extends back to roots in Ancient Persia. That Americans are ignorant of the historical identity of Iran is the most ominous prospect in our relationship with the Iranian people. This book is an important example of why history matters.
2009-08-23	Blackline Maps Of World History, The Complete Set 5000Bc-Present [PRINT + CD] by Terri Johnson. A favorite of homeschool parents, you can now have hundreds of outline maps of history ready for reference or printed for coloring.
2009-08-21	A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000 - 323 BC by Marc Van De Mieroop. "I do not know of any other handbook of similar size that can compete with Van de Mieroop's book in philological competence, in historiographic method, and in expository clearness." Mario Liverani, in Orientalia
	Wonders of the Ancient World by Sandy Ransford, David Farris. An exploration of the wonders of the ancient world, through puzzles, games, quiz questions, facts and activities for children of seven years and upwards. There are word puzzles, picture puzzles, crosswords, and logic and maths puzzles, as well as cartoons and jokes. (ages 7 to 10)

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