by Warren Struhl ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 7, 2010
Through more than a dozen illustrative examples looking at challenges overcome by founders of Hotels.com, Spanx and others,...
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A serial entrepreneur reveals the skills and thrills behind building a successful start-up.
Struhl’s energetic first book encourages would-be entrepreneurs to seize opportunity and enter into the world of start-ups. Each chapter centers on one theme of advice, such as how to vet a new concept or take on industry giants, with Struhl providing examples from his own companies or those of his friends. Throughout the book, the stories of these businesses are specific, interesting and often amusing—as when the author regales his brash yet successful move to partner with Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Apple to distribute specialty paper samples. Struhl portrays himself as a “high powered” businessman and his aggressive style will likely pump up readers. However, there are places in the book where the tone verges on elitist, such as the anecdote about a colleague who starts a private jet service with support from Warren Buffett. In other instances, the author’s exceptional networking makes his success seem far out of reach for fledgling business owners; through his colleagues, Struhl meets the visionary behind the candy store in FAO Schwarz and he gets a call as soon as a particular poster company he admired goes up for sale. Halfway through the book, the reader begins to feel as if everything will keep falling into place, but then the author does something admirable: He describes struggles and expensive failures. Prospective investors change terms at the last minute. An initial public offering goes awry. A partner abandons a business deal, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars in legal fees. Despite the flops that would terrify a new entrepreneur, Struhl forges on with enthusiasm, reminding readers that failures happen—but the opportunity for success can be worth the risk.
Through more than a dozen illustrative examples looking at challenges overcome by founders of Hotels.com, Spanx and others, Struhl infuses readers with optimism that they too can launch a successful start-up.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2010
ISBN: 978-1453780619
Page Count: 234
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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