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Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
The prescient, page-turning account of a journey in Silicon Valley: a defining memoir of our digital age
In her mid-twenties, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener—stuck, broke, and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial--left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: a world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory, and, of course, progress.
Anna arrived amidst a massive cultural shift, as the tech industry rapidly transformed into a locus of wealth and power rivaling Wall Street. But amid the company ski vacations and in-office speakeasies, boyish camaraderie and ride-or-die corporate fealty, a new Silicon Valley began to emerge: one in far over its head, one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building.
Part coming-age-story, part portrait of an already-bygone era, Anna Wiener’s memoir is a rare first-person glimpse into high-flying, reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition, unregulated surveillance, wild fortune, and accelerating political power. With wit, candor, and heart, Anna deftly charts the tech industry’s shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability, alongside a personal narrative of aspiration, ambivalence, and disillusionment.
Unsparing and incisive, Uncanny Valley is a cautionary tale, and a revelatory interrogation of a world reckoning with consequences its unwitting designers are only beginning to understand.
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Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount
The ultimate gift for book lovers, this volume brims with literary treasures, all delightfully illustrated by beloved artist and founder of Ideal Bookshelf, Jane Mount.
Book lovers, rejoice! In this love letter to all things bookish, Jane Mount brings literary people, places, and things to life through her signature and vibrant illustrations. Readers will:
• Tour the world's most beautiful bookstores
• Test their knowledge of the written word with quizzes
• Find their next great read in lovingly curated stacks of books
• Sample the most famous fictional meals
• Peek inside the workspaces of their favorite authors
A source of endless inspiration, literary facts and recommendations, and pure bookish joy,Bibliophile is sure to enchant book clubbers, English majors, poetry devotees, inspiring writers, and any and all who identify as bookworms.
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The Things you can see Only when you Slow Down by Haemin Sunim, Chi-Young Kim, Youngcheol Lee
A multimillion-copy bestselling book of spiritual wisdom about the importance of slowing down in our fast-paced world, by the Buddhist author of Love for Imperfect Things
“Wise advice on how to reflect and slow down.” —Elle
Is it the world that’s busy, or is it my mind?
The world moves fast, but that doesn’t mean we have to. This bestselling mindfulness guide by Haemin Sunim (which means “spontaneous wisdom”), a renowned Buddhist meditation teacher born in Korea and educated in the United States, illuminates a path to inner peace and balance amid the overwhelming demands of everyday life.
By offering guideposts to well-being and happiness in eight areas—including relationships, love, and spirituality—Haemin Sunim emphasizes the importance of forging a deeper connection with others and being compassionate and forgiving toward ourselves. The more than twenty full-color illustrations that accompany his teachings serve as calming visual interludes, encouraging us to notice that when you slow down, the world slows down with you.
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The Little Book of Peace by Tiddy Rowan
Modern life can often feel hectic, stressful and anxiety-inducing. Now more than ever it is harder to escape the sense of chaos in the world. Tiddy Rowan's timeless book is designed to help us find a sense of inner peace and greater harmony with the people we live near, our environment and the world.
The Little Book of Peace is an anthology of musings, insights and stories on peace and how we attain it in life, drawing from the wisdom of philosophers, religious leaders, secular thinkers, writers, poets and artists. This beautifully designed book will inspire, soothe and uplift the soul.
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The Alphabet Thief by Bill Richardson, Roxanna Bikadoroff
The alphabet thief stole all of the B’s, and all of the bowls became owls…
When night falls, along comes a peculiar thief who steals each letter of the alphabet, creating a topsy-turvy world as she goes. It seems that no one can stop her, until the Z’s finally send her to sleep so that all the other letters can scamper back to where they belong.
Bill Richardson’s zany rhymes and Roxanna Bikadoroff’s hilarious illustrations will delight young readers with the silly fun they can have with language — and may even inspire budding young writers and artists to create their own word games.
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My Twentieth Century Evening by Kazua Ishiguro
The Nobel Lecture in Literature, delivered by Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go and When We Were Young) at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 7, 2017, in an elegant, clothbound edition.
In their announcement of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy recognized the emotional force of Kazuo Ishiguro’s fiction and his mastery at uncovering our illusory sense of connection with the world. In the eloquent and candid lecture he delivered upon accepting the award, Ishiguro reflects on the way he was shaped by his upbringing, and on the turning points in his career—“small scruffy moments . . . quiet, private sparks of revelation”—that made him the writer he is today.
With the same generous humanity that has graced his novels, Ishiguro here looks beyond himself, to the world that new generations of writers are taking on, and what it will mean—what it will demand of us—to make certain that literature remains not just alive, but essential.
An enduring work on writing and becoming a writer, by one of the most accomplished novelists of our generation.
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My Foolish Heart by Nick Bantock
From the creator of the bestselling Griffin & Sabine series comes a loving gift book that's (literally) full of heart. This quirky book takes six heart-themed expressions and gives them new meaning through engaging pop-ups. From Brave Hearted (a heart that looks like a tiger) to Light Hearted (a heart with lightbulbs surrounding it),My Foolish Heart features Bantock's signature art style in a small and giftable package. With its inimitable word play on turns of phrase, this playful book is a delightful surprise for Valentine's Day or whenever a token of unexpected affection is in order.
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Animals of a Bygone Era by Maja Safstrom
A beautifully illustrated collection of fascinating, surprising, and funny facts about extinct animals.
In the past, amazing and strange animals roamed the earth, including giant sea scorpions, tiny horses, enormous sloths, and fierce terror birds. These and many more fantastic extinct animals are illustrated in this whimsical collection by Swedish artist Maja Säfström.