Download or read book The Spite Game written by Anna Snoekstra and published by MIRA. This book was released on 2018-10-30 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone does bad things when no one is watching Mercilessly bullied in high school, Ava knows she needs to put the past behind her and move on, but she can’t—not until she’s exacted precise, catastrophic revenge on the people who hurt her the most. First, she watches Saanvi. Flawlessly chic and working hard at a top architectural firm, Saanvi has it all together on the surface. But everyone does bad things when they think no one is watching and Ava only wants what’s fair—to destroy Saanvi’s life the way her own was destroyed. Next, she watches Cass. She’s there as Cass tries on wedding dresses, she’s there when Cass picks out a cake, she’s there when Cass betrays her fiancé. She’s the reason Cass’s entire future comes crashing down. Finally, Ava watches Mel. Mel was always the ringleader and if anyone has to pay, it’s her. But one tiny slipup and Ava realizes the truth: Mel knows she’s being watched, and she’s ready to play Ava’s games to the bitter end.

Download or read book Spite written by Simon McCarthy-Jones and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spite angers and enrages us, but it also keeps us honest. In this provocative account, a psychologist examines how petty vengeance explains human thriving. Spite seems utterly useless. You don't gain anything by hurting yourself just so you can hurt someone else. So why hasn't evolution weeded out all the spiteful people? As psychologist Simon McCarthy-Jones argues, spite seems pointless because we're looking at it wrong. Spite isn't just what we feel when a car cuts us off or when a partner cheats. It's what we feel when we want to punish a bad act simply because it was bad. Spite is our fairness instinct, an innate resistance to exploitation, and it is one of the building blocks of human civilization. As McCarthy-Jones explains, some of history's most important developments—the rise of religions, governments, and even moral codes—were actually redirections of spiteful impulses. A provocative, engaging read, Spite shows that if you really want to understand what makes us human, you can't just look at noble ideas like altruism and cooperation. You need to understand our darker impulses as well.

Download or read book Ahead of the Game written by Kevin J. Ryan and published by HarperCollins Leadership. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prepare to be inspired by the story of Delane Parnell, the unlikeliest of CEOs now leading a gaming empire at the center of the booming, multibillion-dollar esports industry. Delane Parnell is not your typical tech entrepreneur. He was raised in a gang-riddled neighborhood on Detroit’s west side, bouncing between homes as his mother tried to make ends meet. Many of his closest friends and family members ended up in jail or dead. This makes it even more incredible that Delane became the 25-year-old founder and CEO of PlayVS, a Los Angeles company that is forever changing the gaming landscape in America. In 2018, esports— team-based competitive video gaming—became an officially sanctioned high school sport, meaning student gamers can now earn varsity letters just like their basketball and volleyball player peers. Delane’s startup is making that happen, providing the infrastructure that hosts the competitions, compiles the statistics, organizes playoff tournaments, and streams state championships for tens of thousands of students across the country. Ahead of the Game is a deeply reported narrative that tells the story of Delane, the motley group of underdogs and hustlers that helped build his several-hundred-million-dollar startup, and the previously overlooked students now participating in America’s growing esports phenomenon. It’s a tale of perseverance, courage, loyalty, race, family, tragedy, and believing you can overcome the odds—no matter how severely they’re stacked against you. Readers will also: Learn how the growing Esports industry is changing the lives of students across the country who were previously not engaged in the high school experience. Get a glimpse into a successful entrepreneur path unlike any other by following the story of how Delane Parnell created PlayVs in spite of the greatest of challenges. Be inspired that there is hope and opportunity available to people who go against conventional paths to realize their dreams. With a foreword by Sean "Diddy" Combs

Download or read book In the Garden of Spite written by Camilla Bruce and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Riveting! Camilla, high-five! Amazing work!”—Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, #1 New York Times bestselling authors of Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered An audacious novel of feminine rage about one of the most prolific female serial killers in American history--and the men who drove her to it. They whisper about her in Chicago. Men come to her with their hopes, their dreams--their fortunes. But no one sees them leave. No one sees them at all after they come to call on the Widow of La Porte. The good people of Indiana may have their suspicions, but if those fools knew what she'd given up, what was taken from her, how she'd suffered, surely they'd understand. Belle Gunness learned a long time ago that a woman has to make her own way in this world. That's all it is. A bloody means to an end. A glorious enterprise meant to raise her from the bleak, colorless drudgery of her childhood to the life she deserves. After all, vermin always survive.

Download or read book Love at First Spite written by Anna E. Collins and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Falling in love is the ultimate payback in this delightful, breezy romcom about an interior designer who teams up with an enigmatic architect at her firm to get revenge on her ex the only way she knows how: by building a spite house next door “Filled with sizzling chemistry and delicious revenge, Love at First Spite had me smiling from start to finish. This is one debut you don’t want to miss!” —Kate Bromley, author of Talk Bookish to Me They say living well is the best revenge. But sometimes, spreading the misery seems a whole lot more satisfying. That’s interior designer Dani Porter’s justification for buying the vacant lot next to her ex-fiancé’s house…the house they were supposed to live in together, before he cheated on her with their Realtor. Dani plans to build a vacation rental that will a) mess with his view and his peace of mind and b) prove that Dani is not someone to be stepped on. Welcome to project Spite House. That plan quickly becomes complicated when Dani is forced to team up with Wyatt Montego, the handsome, haughty architect at her firm, and the only person available to draw up blueprints. Wyatt is terse and stern, the kind of man who eats his sandwich with a knife and fork. But as they spend time together on- and off-site, Dani glimpses something deeper beneath that hard veneer, something surprising, vulnerable, and real. And the closer she gets to her goal, the more she wonders if winning revenge could mean losing something infinitely sweeter… “Rollickingly, fast-paced… Fans of Emily Henry’s tales will enjoy Collins’ imaginative rom-com.” —Booklist “Wyatt is the perfect grumpy romance hero with a heart of gold. An enemies-to-friends-to-lovers story that’s sure to delight rom-com fans.” —Kirkus Reviews

Download or read book Skin in the Game written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and published by Random House. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A bold work from the author of The Black Swan that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility In his most provocative and practical book yet, one of the foremost thinkers of our time redefines what it means to understand the world, succeed in a profession, contribute to a fair and just society, detect nonsense, and influence others. Citing examples ranging from Hammurabi to Seneca, Antaeus the Giant to Donald Trump, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows how the willingness to accept one’s own risks is an essential attribute of heroes, saints, and flourishing people in all walks of life. As always both accessible and iconoclastic, Taleb challenges long-held beliefs about the values of those who spearhead military interventions, make financial investments, and propagate religious faiths. Among his insights: • For social justice, focus on symmetry and risk sharing. You cannot make profits and transfer the risks to others, as bankers and large corporations do. You cannot get rich without owning your own risk and paying for your own losses. Forcing skin in the game corrects this asymmetry better than thousands of laws and regulations. • Ethical rules aren’t universal. You’re part of a group larger than you, but it’s still smaller than humanity in general. • Minorities, not majorities, run the world. The world is not run by consensus but by stubborn minorities imposing their tastes and ethics on others. • You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot. “Educated philistines” have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low-carb diets. • Beware of complicated solutions (that someone was paid to find). A simple barbell can build muscle better than expensive new machines. • True religion is commitment, not just faith. How much you believe in something is manifested only by what you’re willing to risk for it. The phrase “skin in the game” is one we have often heard but rarely stopped to truly dissect. It is the backbone of risk management, but it’s also an astonishingly rich worldview that, as Taleb shows in this book, applies to all aspects of our lives. As Taleb says, “The symmetry of skin in the game is a simple rule that’s necessary for fairness and justice, and the ultimate BS-buster,” and “Never trust anyone who doesn’t have skin in the game. Without it, fools and crooks will benefit, and their mistakes will never come back to haunt them.”

Download or read book A Game for Swallows written by Zeina Abirached and published by Graphic Universe ™. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Zeina was born, the civil war in Lebanon had been going on for six years, so it's just a normal part of life for her and her parents and her little brother. The city of Beirut is cut in two, separated by bricks and sandbags and threatened by snipers and shelling. East Beirut is for Christians, and West Beirut is for Muslims. When Zeina's parents don't return one afternoon from a visit to the other half of the city, and the bombing grows ever closer, the neighbors in her apartment house create a world indoors for Zeina and her brother where it's comfy and safe, where they can share cooking lessons and games and gossip. Together they try to make it through a dramatic day in the one place they hoped they would always be safehome. Zeina Abirached, born into a Lebanese Christian family in 1981, has collected her childhood recollections of Beirut in a warm story about the strength of family and community.

Download or read book We Are Watching Eliza Bright written by A.E. Osworth and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR • Harper’s Bazaar • CrimeReads • Electric Literature • Autostraddle • The Globe and Mail In this thrilling story of survival and anger, a woman has her whole life turned upside down after speaking out against workplace hostility–and inadvertently becomes the leader of a cultural movement. Eliza Bright was living the dream as an elite video game coder at Fancy Dog Games when her private life suddenly became public. But is Eliza Bright a brilliant, self-taught coder bravely calling out the toxic masculinity and chauvinism that pervades her workplace and industry? Or, is Eliza Bright a woman who needs to be destroyed to protect "the sanctity of gaming culture"? It depends on who you ask... When Eliza reports an incident of workplace harassment that is quickly dismissed, she's forced to take her frustrations to a journalist who blasts her story across the Internet. She's fired and doxxed, and becomes a rallying figure for women across America. But she's also enraged the beast that is male gamers on 4Chan and Reddit, whose collective, unreliable voice narrates our story. Soon Eliza is in the cross-hairs of the gaming community, threatened and stalked as they monitor her every move online and across New York City. As the violent power of an angry male collective descends upon everyone in Eliza's life, it becomes increasingly difficult to know who to trust, even when she's eventually taken in and protected by an under-the-radar Collective known as the Sixsterhood. The violence moves from cyberspace to the real world, as a vicious male super-fan known only as The Inspectre is determined to exact his revenge on behalf of men everywhere. We watch alongside the Sixsterhood and subreddit incels as this dramatic cat-and-mouse game plays out to reach its violent and inevitable conclusion. This is an extraordinary, unputdownable novel that explores the dark recesses of the Internet and male rage, and the fragile line between the online world and real life. It's a thrilling story of female resilience and survival, packed with a powerful feminist message.

Download or read book Spite Club written by Julie Kriss and published by Five Doors Creative. This book was released on 2017-10-18 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Rule of Spite Club: Don't fall for your fake boyfriend.Here's what happened: My boyfriend cheated on me with Nick Mason's girlfriend.We're both angry. What better way to get revenge than to pretend to get together out of spite?Nick is rude and rebellious and completely freaking gorgeous. He's not my type, and I'm not his. There's no way we would work outside of our little game of dirty sex and well kept secrets.The problem is, he's an addiction. Or maybe a plague. The more time I spend with him, the more I risk my good-girl image and my carefully built life.I might want what's bad for me. I might want Nick. And I might have to convince him - if I can survive him.

Download or read book The Player of Games written by Iain M. Banks and published by Orbit. This book was released on 2009-12-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Culture — a human/machine symbiotic society — has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game. . . a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life — and very possibly his death. The Culture Series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata

Download or read book The Game written by Neil Strauss and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hidden somewhere, in nearly every major city in the world, is an underground seduction lair. And in these lairs, men trade the most devastatingly effective techniques ever invented to charm women. This is not fiction. These men really exist. They live together in houses known as Projects. And Neil Strauss, the bestselling author and journalist, spent two years living among them, using the pseudonym Style to protect his real-life identity. The result is one of the most explosive and controversial books of the last decade—guaranteed to change the lives of men and transform the way women understand the opposite sex forever. On his journey from AFC (average frustrated chump) to PUA (pick-up artist) to PUG (pick-up guru), Strauss not only shares scores of original seduction techniques but also has unforgettable encounters with the likes of Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Heidi Fleiss, and Courtney Love. And then things really start to get strange—and passions lead to betrayals lead to violence. The Game is the story of one man's transformation from frog to prince to prisoner in the most unforgettable book of this generation.

Download or read book Fun and Games written by Duane Swierczynski and published by Mulholland Books. This book was released on 2011-06-20 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first of three explosive pulp thrillers arriving back-to-back from cult crime fiction sensation and Marvel Comics scribe Duane Swierczynski. Charlie Hardie, an ex-cop still reeling from the revenge killing of his former partner's entire family, fears one thing above all else: that he'll suffer the same fate. Languishing in self-imposed exile, Hardie has become a glorified house sitter. His latest gig comes replete with an illegally squatting B-movie actress who rants about hit men who specialize in making deaths look like accidents. Unfortunately, it's the real deal. Hardie finds himself squared off against a small army of the most lethal men in the world: The Accident People. It's nothing personal-the girl just happens to be the next name on their list. For Hardie, though, it's intensely personal. He's not about to let more innocent people die. Not on his watch.

Download or read book The Master Game written by Graham Hancock and published by Red Wheel Weiser. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Master Game is a rollercoaster intellectual journey through the back streets and rat runs of history to uncover the traces in architecture and monuments of a secret religion that has shaped the world. Pivotal historical events and processes, not least the Renaissance, the birth of scientific rationalism, and the French and American revolutions, are radically reevaluated in the light of new investigative evidence presented in The Master Game. Even the belief that the United States has a "global mission," so obvious today, may ultimately prove to be less the result of a shortterm reaction to terrorism than the inevitable working out of a covert plan originally set in motion almost two thousand years ago. The Master Game refers to a scheme or "game" played on the world stage to bring about a world order governed by a lofty goal which, today, we term the "Masonic Ideal." The Master Game traces the origins of this game of symbols and words and talismans from ancient Egypt all the way to modern times, and places it squarely on the elitist Scottish Rite Freemasonry, headquartered in Washington, DC, and ruled by a secretive and powerful brotherhood of men who have attained the thirtythird degree. The Master Game exposes this world order's true purpose and, more importantly, shows how it has affected the United States of America and badly backfired on 9/11. The book is adapted and expanded from the authors' earlier, outofprint book Talisman.

Download or read book Level Up written by Scott Rogers and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-09-29 with total page 515 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Design and build cutting-edge video games with help from video game expert Scott Rogers! If you want to design and build cutting-edge video games but aren’t sure where to start, then this is the book for you. Written by leading video game expert Scott Rogers, who has designed the hits Pac Man World, Maxim vs. Army of Zin, and SpongeBob Squarepants, this book is full of Rogers's wit and imaginative style that demonstrates everything you need to know about designing great video games. Features an approachable writing style that considers game designers from all levels of expertise and experience Covers the entire video game creation process, including developing marketable ideas, understanding what gamers want, working with player actions, and more Offers techniques for creating non-human characters and using the camera as a character Shares helpful insight on the business of design and how to create design documents So, put your game face on and start creating memorable, creative, and unique video games with this book!

Download or read book Success Is 90 Spite written by Jane Zei and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the popular webcomic The Pigeon Gazette! Follow artist Jane Zei through the everyday rollercoaster of a quarter-life crisis—when high-flying optimism meets cold, hard adulthood during the journey from college to a full-time career. With favorites from viral webcomic The Pigeon Gazette, along with never-before seen comics, Success is 90% Spite is a reminder that there's nothing you can't achieve through hard work, persistence—and really wanting to prove someone else wrong. • A hilarious and high-energy collection that captures the all-too-real difficulties of life as a 20-something in a modern world • Comics follow Jane's endearingly awkward and whimsical efforts to navigate adulthood. • Covers a range of topics in both short, four-panel, and longer-form comics When life gives you lemons . . . throw those suckers back into life's stupid face and make your own success. From choosing Lord of the Rings over love, to mastering pooping etiquette in the workplace, Jane's existential adventures are told with an extra dose of narrative imagination, extended jokes on inane topics, and daydreams. • The Pigeon Gazette has been featured in articles by Huffington Post, Bored Panda, and Buzzfeed • Great book for fans of funny webcomics, internet humor, and any millennial trying to make their way in the world • Add it to the collection of books like Adulthood Is a Myth: A Sarah's Scribbles Collection by Sarah Andersen, Am I There Yet?: The Loop-de-loop, Zigzagging Journey to Adulthood by Mari Andrew, and It's All Absolutely Fine: Life Is Complicated So I've Drawn It Instead by Ruby Elliot

Download or read book Card Games For Dummies written by Barry Rigal and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-03-04 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Card games offer loads of fun and one of the best socializing experiences out there. But picking up winning card strategies is a bit of a challenge, and though your buddies may think that picking up the rules of the game is easy, winning is a totally different story. With Card Games For Dummies, Second Edition, you’ll not only be able to play the hottest card games around, you can also apply game-winning strategies and tips to have fun and beat your opponents. Now updated, this hands-on guide shows you everything you need to know—the basics, the tricks, and the techniques—to become a master card player, with expanded coverage on poker as well as online gaming and tournaments. Soon you will have the card-playing power to: Pin down your opponents in Texas Hold’em Show off your power in Stud Poker Hit wisely in Blackjack Break hearts ruthlessly in Hearts Mix up the night with Gin and Rummy Build yourself a victory in Bridge Send them fishing in Go Fish This straightforward, no-nonsense guide features great ways to improve your game and have more fun, as well as a list of places to find out more about your favorite game. It also profiles different variations of each game, making you a player for all seasons!

Download or read book The Game of Saturn written by Peter Mark Adams and published by Scarlet Imprint. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2017 Esoteric Book of the Year As voted by the membership of the Occult of Personality’s Chamber of Reflection Dr. Joscelyn Godwin, Colgate University, emeritus “Besides gratifying the bibliophile, the contents follow scholarly principles, and the notes and documentation are as thorough as one could wish .... Even if only partially provable, The Game of Saturn opens a new and darker vista on the pagan Renaissance. No student of that current should ignore it” Renaissance Quarterly Volume LXXI, No. 2 Niketas Siniossoglou. National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens “The Game of Saturn by Peter Mark Adams is a fascinating read. The author calls it “a literary detective story”, but this may well be an understatement ... Adams decodes astral, alchemical, and sexual associations that are plausible, and shows how they may have been redeployed into visual format ... The Game of Saturn is a stimulating read, and it is difficult to put it down. It will appeal to all scholars of Renaissance intellectual history, esotericism, and Plethon. Published by Scarlet Imprint, the book is a rare example of fine printmaking, featuring beautiful reproductions of the Sola-Busca deck.” Aries - Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism 18 (2018) 287–304. The Game of Saturn is the first full length, scholarly study of the enigmatic Renaissance masterwork known as the Sola-Busca tarot. It reveals the existence of a pagan liturgical and ritual tradition active amongst members of the Renaissance elite and encoded within the deck. Beneath its beautifully decorated surface, its imagery ranges from the obscure to the grotesque; we encounter scenes of homoeroticism, wounding, immolation and decapitation redolent of hidden meanings, violent transformations and obscure rites. For the first time in over five hundred years, the clues embedded within the cards reveal a dark Gnostic grimoire replete with pagan theurgical and astral magical rites. Careful analysis demonstrates that the presiding deity of this ‘cult object’ is none other than the Gnostic demiurge in its most archaic and violent form: the Afro-Levantine serpent-dragon, Ba’al Hammon, also known as Kronos and Saturn, though more notoriously as the biblical Moloch, the devourer of children. Conveyed from Constantinople to Italy in the dying years of the Byzantine Empire, the pagan Platonist George Gemistos Plethon sought to ensure the survival of the living essence of Neoplatonic theurgy by transplanting it to the elite families of the Italian Renaissance. Within that violent and sorcerous milieu, Plethon’s vision of a theurgically enlightened elite mutated into its dark shadow – a Saturnian brotherhood, operating within a cosmology of predation, which sought to channel the draconian current to preserve elite wealth, power and control. This development marks the birth of an ‘illumined elite’ over three centuries before Adam Weishaupt’s ‘Illuminati.’ The deck captures the essence of this magical tradition and constitutes a Western terma whose talismanic properties may serve to establish an initiatory link with the current. This work fully explores the historical context for the deck’s creation against the background of tense Ferrarese-Venetian diplomatic intrigue and espionage. The recovery of the deck’s encoded narratives constitutes a significant contribution to Renaissance scholarship, art history, tarot studies and the history of Western esotericism.