Recommendations based on "Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology"

NATIONAL BESTSELLER“The stories in this book make for a fascinating and remarkably complete pantheon of just about every common despair and every joy related to game development.” — Rami Ismail, cofounder of Vlambeer and developer of Nuclear ThroneDeveloping video games—hero's journey or fool's errand? The creative and technical logistics that go into building today's hottest games can be more harrowing and complex than the games themselves, often seeming like an endless maze or a bottomless abyss. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes readers on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius. Exploring the artistic challenges, technical impossibilities, marketplace demands, and Donkey Kong-sized monkey wrenches thrown into the works by corporate, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels reveals how bringing any game to completion is more than Sisyphean—it's nothing short of miraculous.Taking some of the most popular, bestselling recent games, Schreier immerses readers in the hellfire of the development process, whether it's RPG studio Bioware's challenge to beat an impossible schedule and overcome countless technical nightmares to build Dragon Age: Inquisition; indie developer Eric Barone's single-handed efforts to grow country-life RPG Stardew Valley from one man's vision into a multi-million-dollar franchise; or Bungie spinning out from their corporate overlords at Microsoft to create Destiny, a brand new universe that they hoped would become as iconic as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings—even as it nearly ripped their studio apart.Documenting the round-the-clock crunches, buggy-eyed burnout, and last-minute saves, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is a journey through development hell—and ultimately a tribute to the dedicated diehards and unsung heroes who scale mountains of obstacles in their quests to create the best games imaginable.

The battle for the control of RJR Nabisco in the Autumn of 1988, which became the largest and most dramatic corporate takeover in American history, sent shock-waves through the international business world and became a symbol of the greed, excess and egotism of the eighties.Barbarians at the Gate recounts this two-month battle with breathtaking pace and flair, and transports back to the Wall Street empire before it crumbled, through the boardroom doors, into the midnight meetings, the betrayals, the deal makers and publicity flaks, into a world where - as Nabisco CEO Ross Johnson put it - 'a few million dollars are lost in the sands of time'.Twenty years on, the world is once again recovering from a period of financial extravagance and irresponsibility. This revised edition brings the ultimate business thriller up to date for a new generation of readers.

Carlo Ancelotti is one of the greatest managers of all time, with five Champions League titles to his name. Yet his approach could not be further from the aggressive theatricals favoured by many of his rivals. His understated style has earned him the fierce loyalty of players like David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Cristiano Ronaldo. In Quiet Leadership, Ancelotti reveals the full, riveting story of his managerial career - his methods, mentors, mistakes and triumphs - and takes us inside the dressing room to trace the characters, challenges and decisions that have shaped him. The result is both a scintillating memoir and a rare insight into the business of leadership.

A New York Times BestsellerIn the spirit of Steve Jobs and Moneyball, Elon Musk is both an illuminating and authorized look at the extraordinary life of one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting, unpredictable, and ambitious entrepreneurs—a real-life Tony Stark—and a fascinating exploration of the renewal of American invention and its new “makers.”Elon Musk spotlights the technology and vision of Elon Musk, the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity, who sold one of his Internet companies, PayPal, for $1.5 billion. Ashlee Vance captures the full spectacle and arc of the genius’s life and work, from his tumultuous upbringing in South Africa and flight to the United States to his dramatic technical innovations and entrepreneurial pursuits.Vance uses Musk’s story to explore one of the pressing questions of our age: can the nation of inventors and creators who led the modern world for a century still compete in an age of fierce global competition? He argues that Musk—one of the most unusual and striking figures in American business history—is a contemporary, visionary amalgam of legendary inventors and industrialists including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs. More than any other entrepreneur today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as the visionaries of the golden age of science-fiction fantasy.Thorough and insightful, Elon Musk brings to life a technology industry that is rapidly and dramatically changing by examining the life of one of its most powerful and influential titans.

The Sunday Times Sports Book of the Year A Times Book of the Year A Financial Times Book of the Year A Guardian Book of the Year A New Statesman Book of the Year 'The heartwarming story of the collaboration and friendship between English football's oddest couple, Elton John and Graham Taylor' The Times ' A wonderful, feel-good account of an ultimately English provincial story' Simon Kuper _____________________ An unforgettable British underdog story from one of our greatest narrative nonfiction writers, John Preston, and the international musical icon and bestselling author, Sir Elton John. Britain in the 1970s was beset by unrest and unemployment, as inflation soared, fuel was scarce, and hooliganism was on the rise. And for Watford FC, the outlook was even gloomier. Rundown and rat-infested, Watford were an ailing side with holes in their kit and barely enough fans to fill a stand. Of the 92 clubs in the Football League, spread across four divisions, Watford were in 92nd place. Meanwhile, Elton John was the most successful rockstar in the world. With six-inch platforms, spangled jumpsuits, and peroxide hair, he was glamorous, gay, and seemingly a world away from the semi-detached house in Pinner where he had supported Watford FC as a child. Many assumed he would move to America. Instead, he bought the football club. Watford Forever is the remarkable story of Elton John's ownership of Watford FC and its transformational journey to the top of the First Division under iconic manager Graham Taylor. Perhaps most remarkably, four of the same players who had been written off as has-beens went with them all the way from the bottom to the top. Inspiring and infectiously funny, this is a tribute to football's unlikeliest friendship as Elton John and Taylor, a straight-talking former fullback with a love of Vera Lynn, beat the odds and their personal demons to save a club and a community. Immersed in the grime and glamour of '70s Britain, Watford Forever is one of sport's great underdog stories and a love letter to the beautiful game.

"The authoritative masterpiece" (L. A. Times) on the Apollo space program and NASA's journey to the moonThis acclaimed portrait of heroism and ingenuity captures a watershed moment in human history. The astronauts themselves have called it the definitive account of their missions. On the night of July 20, 1969, our world changed forever when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. Based on in-depth interviews with twenty-three of the twenty-four moon voyagers, as well as those who struggled to get the program moving, A Man on the Moon conveys every aspect of the Apollo missions with breathtaking immediacy and stunning detail.A Man on the Moon is also the basis for the acclaimed miniseries produced by Tom Hanks, From the Earth to the Moon, now airing and streaming again on HBO in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.

"When discussing greatness, we have too often distilled it down to how many rings someone has won, neglecting to celebrate the incredible influence that players have had on the evolution of basketball. Kirk's book beautifully explains this other side of greatness—how one player's skill and style of play can change the game forever."—JJ RedickThe bestselling author of Sprawlball, Kirk Goldsberry returns with a visual feast of a book—equal parts Book of Basketball and Shea Serrano—that uses sharp writing, his signature graphics, and cutting-edge statistical analyses to unpack how a handful of NBA superstars —MJ to Lebron to Jokic—have reshaped pro basketball and charted the course to the future of the NBA.Every few years a talent comes along that disrupts everything we think we know about how the NBA should work. Whether it’s scoring, playmaking, or shooting, these are players and tactics that fundamentally challenge how the game is played and what greatness looks like on a basketball court. For a period of time, these players each become an “Atlas” for the league, carrying the weight of the NBA on their shoulders, but also providing the roadmap that points the way to the future of the sport. In tandem, they map out the modern NBA’s creation.Goldsberry returns with a highly visual, electrifying tour through the last three decades of NBA history, showing the “Atlas” players that have led us out of the brutishness of 90s hoops and into the wide open spaces of the most skilled era in NBA history. Charting the course from Jordan to Jokic—with plenty of stops along the way for Iverson, Kobe, Curry, and of course Lebron—Goldsberry, who was instrumental in helping spur the NBA’s statistical revolution, has designed a vibrant new way to compare and debate the contributions of the best NBA players of all-time. Masterfully connecting NBA past and present through incisive writing and stunning visual statistical analyses, he shows how we’ve come to this unprecedented moment, a time when offensive efficiency and shooting percentages are higher than ever.Using beautifully designed, four-color shot maps and illustrations, Goldsberry offers a graphic journey through the last thirty years of the NBA that covers up to the 2023 season and is as much fun to look at as it is to read. The end result offers stories and analyses of a select group of NBA superstars that open up lively debates, reveal just how singular their talents truly are, and characterize the dramatic 21st-century metamorphosis of the best basketball league in the world.

King James offers a fascinating, inside look at the early years of the king of the basketball court, Lebron James.LeBron is a six-foot-eight gift from the basketball heavens. In the early 2000's, at St. Vincent-St. Mary's, he was the undisputed finest high school player in America. The "Chosen One" NBA scouts drooled over, corporations dreamt of, event promoters begged for, and now NBA fans clamor after. With appearances on the cover of Sports Illustrated and features on ESPN and in newspapers across the country, never before had a high school basketball player been so highly touted or an eighteen-year-old athlete been the subject of such fascination.In fact, no basketball player in the world experienced this level of attention. But believe the hype: there is no denying that LeBron James is a force on the basketball court, and his rags-to riches story is the stuff that dreams are made of.Author Ryan Jones has written a book that incorporates everything during the early reign of King James: the controversy, the athletic potential, the jerseys and the Humvee, the hobnobbing with the world's most famous stars, the money, and, of course, the game.This is a book for every fan of LeBron James and for anybody interested in reading about the NBA basketball legend in the making.

The defining, behind-the-scenes chronicle of one of the most extraordinary, beloved, and dominant pop cultural entities in America’s history -- Marvel Comics – and the outsized personalities who made Marvel including Martin Goodman, Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby.“Sean Howe’s history of Marvel makes a compulsively readable, riotous and heartbreaking version of my favorite story, that of how a bunch of weirdoes changed the world…That it’s all true is just frosting on the cake.”—Jonathan LethemFor the first time, Marvel Comics tells the stories of the men who made Marvel: Martin Goodman, the self-made publisher who forayed into comics after a get-rich-quick tip in 1939, Stan Lee, the energetic editor who would shepherd the company through thick and thin for decades and Jack Kirby, the WWII veteran who would co-create Captain America in 1940 and, twenty years later, developed with Lee the bulk of the company’s marquee characters in a three-year frenzy. Incorporating more than one hundred original interviews with those who worked behind the scenes at Marvel over a seventy-year-span, Marvel Comics packs anecdotes and analysis into a gripping narrative of how a small group of people on the cusp of failure created one of the most enduring pop cultural forces in contemporary America.

New York Times Bestseller"The ultimate behind-the-scenes account.” —Washington Post“The definitive history of the landmark TV show.” —USA TodayJoin the entire Dunder Mifflin gang on a journey back to Scranton: here's the hilarious and improbable inside story behind the beloved series.Based on hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with the cast and creators and illustrated with 100 behind-the-scenes photographs, here, at last, is the untold inside story of The Office, featuring a foreword by Greg Daniels, who adapted the series for the U.S. and was its guiding creative force, and narrated by star Brian Baumgartner (aka “Kevin Malone”) and executive producer Ben Silverman..In Welcome to Dunder Mifflin, the entire Office gang reunite after nearly a decade to share their favorite untold stories, spill secrets, and reveal how a little show that barely survived its first season became the most watched series in the universe. This ultimate fan companion pulls back the curtain as never before on all the absurdity, genius, love, passion, and dumb luck that went into creating America's beloved The Office.Featuring the memories of Steve Carell, John Krasinkski, Jenna Fischer, Greg Daniels, Ricky Gervais, Rainn Wilson, Angela Kinsey, Craig Robinson, Brian Baumgartner, Phyllis Smith, Kate Flannery, Ed Helms, Oscar Nunez, Amy Ryan, Ellie Kemper, Creed Bratton, Paul Lieberstein, Ben Silverman, Mike Schur, and many more.