Download or read book True Luck written by Anyta Sunday and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-03-05 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Benjamin Otto is a bottle of liquid luck. Good looks. Good brain. Whatever the challenge: good odds. Except, what happens when those odds change? Dad's had enough bankrolling Ben and requests him to get a job. The challenge: make enough money to finance Christmas or face telling his little brother the holidays are dead. Then there's Sebastian. The guy from his politics class who is always coming in second after him. The guy who steals Ben's idea to collect bottles for quick cash. The guy who makes Ben wonder if any amount of luck will be enough to win him what he really wants...
Download or read book Luck written by Nicholas Rescher and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2001-03-15 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Luck touches us all. "Why me?" we complain when things go wrong—though seldom when things go right. But although luck has a firm hold on all our lives, we seldom reflect on it in a cogent, concerted way. In Luck, one of our most eminent philosophers offers a realistic view of the nature and operation of luck to help us come to sensible terms with life in a chaotic world. Differentiating luck from fate (inexorable destiny) and fortune (mere chance), Nicholas Rescher weaves a colorful tapestry of historical examples, from the use of lots in the Old and New Testaments to Thomas Gataker’s treatise of 1619 on the great English lottery of 1612, from casino gambling to playing the stock market. Because we are creatures of limited knowledge who do and must make decisions in the light of incomplete information, Rescher argues, we are inevitably at the mercy of luck. It behooves us to learn more about it.
Download or read book I Know This Much Is True written by Wally Lamb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-03 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
Download or read book Just My Luck written by Cammie McGovern and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critically acclaimed author Cammie McGovern's powerful and heartwarming middle grade novel will appeal to readers who loved R. J. Palacio's Wonder, Holly Sloan's Counting by 7s, and Lynda Mullaly Hunt's Fish in a Tree. "This brave story, told with wry humor, is inspirational," raved Ann M. Martin, New York Times bestselling author of Rain Reign. Fourth grade is not going at all how Benny Barrows hoped. He hasn't found a new best friend. He's still not a great bike rider—even though his brother George, who's autistic, can do tricks. And worst of all, he worries his dad's recent accident might be all his fault. Benny tries to take his mom's advice and focus on helping others, and to take things one step at a time. But when his dad ends up in the hospital again, Benny doesn't know how he and his family will overcome all the bad luck that life seems to have thrown their way. Just My Luck is a deeply moving and rewarding novel about a down-on-his-luck boy whose caring heart ultimately helps him find the strength to cope with tragedy and realize how much he truly has to offer his friends and family.
Download or read book The Elfowl Saga written by Barry J. Hoffman and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2002-10 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Elfowl Family, rulers of Draca Maldinor, must confront a challenge far beyond the resources available to them. Tenuously reunited, but indecisive as to what course of action to follow, they must face a fierce attack from their ancient enemies. This time, empowered by a strangely heightened level of hatred, their implacable foes have altered the historical equation by entering into an alliance with savage creatures who scarcely qualify as human.
Download or read book The Breakthrough Company written by Keith R. Mcfarland and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-06-21 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Breakthrough Company, Keith McFarland pinpoints how everyday companies become extraordinary, showing that luck is a negligible factor. Rather, breakthrough success turns out to be associated with a clearly identifiable set of strategies and skills that anyone in any business can emulate - from small startup to industry paragon. Encouraged by experts such as business legend Peter Drucker and Good to Great author Jim Collins to identify the drivers that enable a company to push past the entrepreneurial phase, McFarland spent five years building and analyzing the world's largest growth-company performance database and interviewing more than 1,500 growth-company executives on four continents. His goal was simple: to identify the secrets of breakthrough. This book is the result. Winnowing a study pool of more than 7,000 companies down to nine that have made the transition to major-player status, McFarland highlights real-world tools and myth-busting insights that can be used by anyone wanting his or her business to join this exclusive circle.
Download or read book Them And Us written by Will Hutton and published by Abacus. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The suddenness and depth of the recession has raised questions about the workability of capitalism not seen since the 1930s. One of the constraints on recovery is the growing belief that if the old model did not work there is no new one on offer. This book sets out to provide one, arguing that reconstructing a bust financial system is not just a technical question. It cannot be done without a wholescale revision of the wider system and values on which it is based. And fairness must be placed at the heart of the new capitalism if our society is to recover its values. Will Hutton's new book musters brilliant, convincing arguments which will lend favour on both right and left. It is set to be a book which captures the mood of the moment in the same way that THE STATE WE'RE IN did.
Download or read book One Story a Day written by Leonard Judge and published by DC Canada Education Publishing. This book was released on 2024-07-11T21:00:00Z with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One Story a Day for is a series of 365 stories in 12 books that touch on a wide variety of topics intended for slightly older children than the Early Readers set. The stories, written by Canadian authors, are inspired by life lessons, fables from around the world, nature, science, and history. The series is designed to foster children's total development—linguistic, intellectual, social, and cultural—through the joy of reading.
Download or read book Get Real Get Rich written by Farrah Gray and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-12-27 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documents the success story of a formerly impoverished Chicago native who became a millionaire at the age of fourteen and the youngest person to have a Wall Street office, in a guide that challenges popular misconceptions about how to become wealthy.
Download or read book The Biggest Bluff written by Maria Konnikova and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller • A New York Times Notable Book “The tale of how Konnikova followed a story about poker players and wound up becoming a story herself will have you riveted, first as you learn about her big winnings, and then as she conveys the lessons she learned both about human nature and herself.” —The Washington Post It's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel, Poker Hall of Fame inductee and winner of tens of millions of dollars in earnings, and convinced him to be her mentor. But she knew her man: a famously thoughtful and broad-minded player, he was intrigued by her pitch that she wasn't interested in making money so much as learning about life. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance had led her to a giant of game theory, who pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish between what can be controlled and what can't. And she certainly brought something to the table, including a Ph.D. in psychology and an acclaimed and growing body of work on human behavior and how to hack it. So Seidel was in, and soon she was down the rabbit hole with him, into the wild, fiercely competitive, overwhelmingly masculine world of high-stakes Texas Hold'em, their initial end point the following year's World Series of Poker. But then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel's guidance, Konnikova did have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read, not just her opponents but far more importantly herself; how to identify what tilted her into an emotional state that got in the way of good decisions; and how to get to a place where she could accept luck for what it was, and what it wasn't. But she also began to win. And win. In a little over a year, she began making earnest money from tournaments, ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She won a major title, got a sponsor, and got used to being on television, and to headlines like "How one writer's book deal turned her into a professional poker player." She even learned to like Las Vegas. But in the end, Maria Konnikova is a writer and student of human behavior, and ultimately the point was to render her incredible journey into a container for its invaluable lessons. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until the luck once again breaks our way.
Download or read book The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had written by Kristin Levine and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-01-22 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last thing Harry ?Dit? Sims expects when Emma Walker comes to town is to become friends. Proper -talking, brainy Emma doesn?t play baseball or fi sh too well, but she sure makes Dit think, especially about the differences between black and white. But soon Dit is thinking about a whole lot more when the town barber, who is black, is put on trial for a terrible crime. Together Dit and Emma come up with a daring plan to save him from the unthinkable. Set in 1917 and inspired by the author?s true family history, this is the poignant story of a remarkable friendship and the perils of small-town justice
Download or read book Luck of the Titanic written by Stacey Lee and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Downstairs Girl comes the richly imagined story of Valora and Jamie Luck, twin British-Chinese acrobats traveling aboard the Titanic on its ill-fated maiden voyage. Valora Luck has two things: a ticket for the biggest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world, and a dream of leaving England behind and making a life for herself as a circus performer in New York. Much to her surprise though, she's turned away at the gangway; apparently, Chinese aren't allowed into America. But Val has to get on that ship. Her twin brother Jamie, who has spent two long years at sea, is there, as is an influential circus owner, whom Val hopes to audition for. Thankfully, there's not much a trained acrobat like Val can't overcome when she puts her mind to it. As a stowaway, Val should keep her head down and stay out of sight. But the clock is ticking and she has just seven days as the ship makes its way across the Atlantic to find Jamie, perform for the circus owner, and convince him to help get them both into America. Then one night the unthinkable happens, and suddenly Val's dreams of a new life are crushed under the weight of the only thing that matters: survival.
Download or read book The Boring Stuff of Success written by Nitin Sharma and published by Notion Press. This book was released on 2023-06-01 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: KEY TO ATTAINING SUCCESS with just 13 SIMPLE and EFFECTIVE STEPS! “Achieving success once in life is a completely different thing, but to maintain that glory of success, we must follow a simple, organized, and boring path.” Indeed, everyone has their own goals and priorities but a single thing that is very common in everyone’s life is to undertake the hike of success. Everyone wants to catch a bright, secure, and comfortable life. To achieve that, people often try different methods and change their fields, careers, lifestyles, etc. People also join seminars, gather experiences and knowledge, but despite this, they are unable to taste success. Why? Because of - ?Failing to set principles. ?Failing to follow it religiously. ?Failing to be consistent. Because the most important thing to succeed in life is to have solid principles that can be followed by anyone in any circumstance. In The Boring Stuff of Success, the author shares with us 13 simple but effective principles, which are definitely boons to attain success in life. This amazing book will teach you - ?How staying boring could take you a step closer to success. ?How having no choice but to thrive can guarantee success. ?How to break your illusion of success. ?What is the formula to success? ?How can you create a complete blueprint of success by following effective techniques. In the end, the author also shares an evitable equation of success and the practical ways to measure success. Through these practical ways, anyone can measure their progress in the major areas of life.
Download or read book The Success Equation written by Michael J. Mauboussin and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative book, Michael Mauboussin offers the structure needed to analyze the relative importance of skill and luck, offering concrete suggestions for making these insights work to your advantage by making better decisions.
Download or read book The Truth Shall Make You Rich written by Farrah Gray and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 2008-12-30 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of Reallionaire challenges common misconceptions about success and lays out the road map to a richer life Raised in the impoverished south side of Chicago, Farrah Gray defied the odds and became a millionaire by age fourteen. He was the youngest person to have an office on Wall Street, and the youngest to receive an honorary doctorate. Now, at 24, he is an inspiration to millions and the bestselling author of Reallionaire, #1 Essence Bestseller. In The Truth Shall Make You Rich, Gray shares the secret to his success: an emphatic rejection of the seven fallacies most people believe about money and success: the Born Lucky Lie, the Celebrity Lie, the Money Lie, the Debt Lie, the Google and Gates Lie, the Wall Street Lie, and the Work-Hard Lie. By revealing the truth behind the myths, Gray empowers readers to blaze their own paths and make their own millions.
Download or read book Rain written by Jeffrey J. Fox and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-02-04 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: RAIN is the first business parable written by bestselling business book author Jeffrey J. Fox. The parable follows a young New England paperboy, named Rain, as he learns the business of being in business and quickly becomes the best paperboy in town. Through a series of humorous poignant vignettes, Jeff illustrates forty "rainmaker" business lessons that can be applied to not only paperboys, but anyone in business and sales. Rain's time as a paperboy proves to be just as valuable as getting an MBA. As with Jossey-Bass' popular Lencioni business fables, the format for Rain includes an actionable business model at the end of the book with instant takeaways and practical advice.
Download or read book Life 101 written by Mark Vian and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2008-03 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our lives become so filled with stress and activities; we sometimes forget the little wonders of joy that fill our day. We become so entangled in "stuff" that we may miss the realization that life is a gift. In Life 101, Mark S. Vian inspires us to reflect on our existence. Vian encourages us to stop and think about our chosen place in life, both in the past and in the present. Only we can make the decision to live happy and fulfilling lives. No matter what has happened in the past, our perspective of life and the future should become our focus and ultimate reality. The many poems, inspirational quotes, and readings carry positive messages of hope and encouragement. The title poem summarizes the book's theme of living life fully: "Life blossoms for those who seek expression/goodness, and fulfillment/Life flounders for those who, in their arrogance/feel life owes them expression, goodness, and fulfillment." In today's world of high expectations and differing perspectives of right and wrong, society is starving for a simpler and more understanding life. The messages in Life 101 move us toward that goal.
