Interview: Carl Hiaasen on his latest, ‘Star Island’

The bestselling author discusses his latest Florida caper, ‘Star Island’, a story of an ‘off-the-rails’ pop star who needs surrogates to provide cover when she can no longer handle the grind of her showbiz existence. See how Hiaasen describes it from here.

Mojo – Marshall Goldsmith (Hyperion)

Marshall Goldsmith pulls no punches. He wants to help you get back on track – get your ‘mojo’ back as he puts it, but he wont tolerate self-delusion along the way. This much is clear in “Mojo: How to Get it, How to Keep It, How to Get it Back if You Lose It.”

Goldsmith, (author of last year’s bestseller, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”) lays out a prescription for identifying what makes you tick, how you are different and what you have to offer, and then how to shape and maximize those skills to cut through life like a proverbial hot butter knife. In this short (200 pages), but powerful book, Dr. Goldsmith (who as an executive coach, advises top Fortune 500 companies regularly) quickly identifies habits and traits that hold people back (the ‘Nojo’) and how to quickly subvert them and get back on the path to success.

This easy read is anchored by a writing style that makes its points clearly through a number of streamlined examples that most readers should have no problem understanding. The linchpins of Goldsmith’s focus are identity, achievement, reputation and acceptance and the concepts are reinforced by dedicated chapters, questionaries, graphics and work sheets that far from belaboring the point, rather serve to explain and reinforce the overriding concept; are you receiving short-term gain and maximizing your long term goals through your actions, both large and small. This is the essence of the book.

It’s easy to see why Goldsmith is a best-seller in the field. His books are on target and get to the root of the matter – albeit sometimes counter-intuitively – using both the broad and specific strokes required for the reader to get back on track. His laser focus on what works vs. what we think will work is exactly what makes his work stand out in a crowded field.

For more try: Marshall Goldsmith’s website

Video: ‘The Obama Diaries’ by Laura Ingraham

Laura Ingraham claims to have gotten her hands on a very special national treasure in her brand new book release… ‘The Obama Diaries.’ Check out conservative talk-radio maven and bestselling author Laura Ingraham’s satirical send-up of the first year of the Obama administration. Is this where it ends or just the beginning? Is she hinting at a traveling road show, too, in this video? Guess you’ll just have to watch and see for yourself.

Interview: Michael Moore on Books, Capitalism and More

While often viewed as a popular counter-culture filmographer, Michael Moore reminds us of his long career as an author for such books as “Stupid White Men,” “Dude, Where’s My Country,” “Downsize This” and others as well as discussing the DVD release of his latest film “Capitalism: A Love Story” in this video interview.

The Men Who Would Be King – Nicole Laporte (HMH)

It was 1994 and there had not been a powerhouse new film studio created in six decades when the triumvirate of uber film producer Steven Spielberg, Disney animation domo Jeffrey Katzenberg and music mogul and billionaire David Geffen created the company it seemed everyone in Hollywood wanted to work for, Dreamworks.

Since that time, the studio has been at the center of more than its share of major successes (‘Saving Private Ryan,’ ‘Gladiator,’ ‘Shrek’), failures (‘Champs,’ ‘Amistad,’ videogames and a music label) imbroglios and controversies, ultimately reducing its fate to a shadow of its auspicious beginnings. Along the way, the principals and the company itself have taken on the majors, acquired partners and associates from the world of the wealthy (Paul Allen being the most prominent early patron) and the political (the Clintons), created and subsequently destroyed valuable distribution deals and ended up getting crushed by the weight of their own egos into something that barely resembled the heady days when ‘Dream’ was the operative word. (Or as a Business Week headline once opined “Plenty of Dreams, Not Enough Works?”)

As a film industry reporter for Variety, Nicole Laporte had a ringside seat for all the juicy machinations that make up Dreamworks’ cloak-and-dagger, well-storied history. Though without a shred of cooperation from its notoriously reclusive partners, the reporter was forced to piece the story together through existing reports and a network of contacts; former employees and company associates who either provided deep background or in some cases were willing to go on-the-record. Fortunately for her and the reader, there is no shortage of famed stories, incidences and people (some with life-long confidentiality contracts) willing to talk about what they viewed as a nonetheless remarkable experience.

In ‘The Men Who Would Be King,’ Laporte connects the story everyone knows with the more hidden and perhaps heretofore never revealed sagas which the company made a habit of keeping under wraps; beginning with all the hype and raw ambition of the new partners and the promise of their Hollywood dream, to the soon to come squabbles, mixed agendas, powerplays and the ultimate dismantling of a company that came in like a tornado while virtually burning out like a shooting star, with billions won and lost along the way.

The Dreamworks story was a book waiting to be written in Hollywood, and the invaluable insights and rivalries (did someone say ‘Ovitz?’) are already the stuff of legends. There are a few missing pieces (short shrift is given to the music and publishing operations that fell under Dreamworks umbrella) but overall for fans of film business history (or readers of ‘Disney Wars’ or the Geffen biography, ‘The Operator’) this may be the only seminal book on this well protected topic for many years to come.

Uncharted TerriTORI (Video)

It’s not every Hollywood starlet whose name greets you on a Virgin Airways flight into la-la land. But Tori Spelling has come to accept that her life is a spectacle. Her name is her brand, and business is booming. Too bad when your job is to be yourself, you can’t exactly take a break.

See what this Hollywood actress, mother and best-selling author has to say about her current state of affairs in this video for her latest book ‘Uncharted TerriTORI’ here at Blog on Books.

Kitty Kelly: Oprah’s Got Money, But Not Happiness

The author of the Oprah biography says the billionaire television hostess created the OWN network to find happiness. Does that ring true to you? See what else celebrity power author Kitty Kelly had to say about her newest release here.

Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers

James Kwak and Simon Johnson make the case that the global economy is being held hostage by America’s six megabanks: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley – in their powerful new book ‘13 Bankers.’

See the rest of the results, featuring the latest from Michael Lewis, Chelsea Handler, Daniel Amen, Patti Smith and more:
Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers For April 8

Googled: The End of the World as We Know It – Ken Auletta (Penguin)

Like IBM in the 60s, Microsoft in the 80s and Apple in the 90’s, there are many books nowadays about the search and online behemoth known simply as Google.

Then there is Ken Auletta’s.

Unlike everything that has come before it, Auletta’s ‘Googled’ is the ultimate volume by which the search giant’s business will be judged – at least for now. With his unique, direct access to its founders, staff, closed-door meetings and more, Auletta has cracked open the true story (or close to it) of a company that, despite it’s ‘Don’t be evil’ credo, is suspected by some as already having so much information on all of us as to have the potential of Orwellian ambitions or at least perfidious temptations. (Witness the just released Viacom vs. YouTube court documents, for example.)

As the top media critic for The New Yorker as well as the scribe behind seminal volumes on the three TV networks (‘Three Blind Mice’), Microsoft and it’s enemies (‘World War 3.0′) and others, Auletta long ago established his prowess at both getting the story right and embuing his take with the larger cultural landscape of just how his subject companies fit in and effect a broader world far beyond their walls.

‘Googled’ is no different. At times, Auletta uses the Mountain View-based company as a proxy for the internet as a whole as he deftly sprinkles stories of other tech and web kingpins (Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Netscape, Andressen, Zuckerberg and others) in order to further illustrate how Sergey, Larry (and now Eric’s) company fits into the broader panoply of web/tech life in the new millennium.

While many books have extolled the history of the famed search giant turned media company, only ‘Googled’ does a comprehensive job of exploring the much deeper ambitions and implications of where the style, practice and reliance on the ‘algorithm’ has brought them and where it may or may not eventually take them from here.

From their original Stanford/garage roots to their dealings with investors, their reluctance to bring in a CEO, their non-traditional stock IPO auction, their morph into advertising, the purchase of 757 corporate jets, the YouTube acquisition, numerous product initiatives, relations with board members like John Doerr and Al Gore, the campus culture (free meals and massages) and more, Auletta does the best job by far of capturing what has evolved into perhaps the most important company of recent years.

As far as where their ambition and technology take them (and us) and whether they can maintain their market dominant position is the subject of Auletta’s closing research as well. We wont be the spoiler, except to say, A+.

Andrew Young on ‘The Politician’; The John Edwards Scandal

Many people have serious questions about just what John Edwards was thinking both having an affair and fathering a ‘love child’ in the course of running for President of the United States in 2008. Now his former aide, Andrew Young, has come forward and in his new book ‘The Politician: An Insider’s Account of John Edwards’s Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down,” he writes about the affair Edwards had with filmmaker Rielle Hunter and tells readers how Edwards’ plotted to hide the facts of his mistress’ pregnancy from both his wife Elizabeth and the electorate at large.

While Edwards has recently admitted his paternity of the child in question and has already gone on the record regarding his affair, it is the details (and the evidence) of the affair that Young, a decade long associate of Edwards, reveals here for the first time. Young is believed to have a front-row seat for the play-by-play of the coverup as he was both asked to claim the paternity as his own as well as providing Hunter a hiding place within his own family home during the most heated portion of the story.

There is great reporting around the web on Young and his book, some of which are highlighted below. Take a look:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/01/26/book-report-the-politician-by-andrew-young/tab/article/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/books/excerpt-the-politician.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/05/andrew-young-john-edwards_n_450791.html

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Politics/andrew-young-john-edwards-orchestrated-paternity-cover/story?id=9625466

http://us.macmillan.com/CMS400/uploadedFiles/ThePoliticianExcerpt.pdf

Next Page »