Stelzer, inadvertently, and Neuman, intentionally, find themselves on a spaceship bound for Luxenben, a utopian planet. Once they arrive, Stelzer, a middle-age business man, is quartered in a zoological garden where he has no duties other than to roam the grounds during the institution’s open hours, be hospitable to zoo visitors, and graciously accept little bags of mixed nuts sold at the concession stand. His living conditions are likewise amenable: excellent food, a commodious studio apa...

In his new book, Hurwitz, employs his engineering background to confront a number of structural weaknesses in the institutions we rely on. One example; racial tensions in our inner cities.The author recommends dividing all urban residential districts into manageable neighborhoods that are, clearly demarked, denominated, open-bordered, and traffic restricted. Each neighborhood would be a self-sufficient community with schools, etc. Neighborhood gangs would be conscripted into teams ...

O'Reilly has once again updated its bestselling tutorial on ASP.NET, the world's leading web development tool from Microsoft. In Programming ASP.NET, Third Edition, authors Jesse Liberty and Dan Hurwitz give you the lowdown on the technology's latest version, ASP.NET 2.0, as well as Visual Studio 2005.Among the most significant improvements to ASP.NET 2.0 are new server controls and services that make you dramatically more productive. In fact, when compared to its predeces...

In a world drowning in data, a fugitive tries to outrun the forces that want to reprogram him, in this smart, edgy novel by a Hugo Award–winning author.Constantly shifting his identity among a population choking on information, innovation, and novelty, Nickie Haflinger is a most dangerous outlaw, yet he doesn't even appear to exist. As global society falls apart in all directions, with corporate power run amok and personal freedom surrendered to computers and burea...

Tyler Cowen’s controversial New York Times bestseller—the book heard round the world that ignited a firestorm of debate and redefined the nature of America’s economic malaise.America has been through the biggest financial crisis since the great Depression, unemployment numbers are frightening, media wages have been flat since the 1970s, and it is common to expect that things will get worse before they get better. Certainly, the multidecade stagnation is no...

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2014SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTIONThe first novel from Joseph O’Neill since NETHERLAND.‘O’Neill, in this book, has come of age as a novelist … a comic masterpiece … as mordantly funny as the best of stand-up comedy … Superb’ John Banville, New York Review of BooksIn 2007, a New York attorney bumps into an old college buddy – and accepts his friend’s offer of a job in Dubai, as the o...

Lead from the Outside is a necessary guide to harnessing the strengths of being an outsider by Stacey Abrams, one of the most prominent black female politicians in the U.S.Leadership is hard. Convincing others—and often yourself—that you possess the answers and are capable of world-affecting change requires confidence, insight, and sheer bravado. Stacey Abrams's Lead from the Outside is the handbook for outsiders, written with the awarene...

In this deeply smart and sneakily poignant collection of essays, the bestselling author of Fraud and Don’t Get Too Comfortable makes an inspired case for always assuming the worst—because then you’ll never be disappointed.Whether he’s taking on pop culture phenomena with Oscar Wilde-worthy wit or dealing with personal tragedy, Rakoff’s sharp observations and humorist’s flair for the absurd will have you positively reveling in the untapped power of negativity.

Robert B. Reich makes a powerful case for the expansion of America’s moral imagination. Rooting his argument in common sense and everyday reality, he demonstrates that a common good constitutes the very essence of any society or nation. Societies, he says, undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce the common good as well as vicious cycles that undermine it, one of which America has been experiencing for the past five decades. This process can and must be reversed. But first we need to weigh t...

On September 13, 1998, John Scalzi sat down in front of his computer to write the first entry in his blog Whatever--and changed the history of the Internet as we know it today.What, you're not swallowing that one? Okay, fine: He started writing Whatever and amused about 15 people that first day. If that many. But he kept at it, for ten years and running. Now 40,000 people drop by on a daily basis to see what he's got to say.About what? Well, about whatever...

The extensively revised and updated edition of Steven Landsburg’s hugely popular book, The Armchair Economist—“a delightful compendium of quotidian examples illustrating important economic and financial theories” (The Journal of Finance).In this revised and updated edition of Steven Landsburg’s hugely popular book, he applies economic theory to today’s most pressing concerns, answering a diverse range of daring questions, such as:Why are s...

"We all know bad manners when we see them," NPR and Vanity Fair contributor Henry Alford observes at the beginning of his new book. But what, he asks, do good manners look like in our day and age? When someone answers their cell phone in the middle of dining with you, or runs you off the sidewalk with their doublewide stroller, or you enter a post-apocalyptic public restroom, the long-revered wisdom of Emily Post can seem downright prehistoric.Troubled by the absence of go...