The Life And Times Of Stack

Stack Hayward has spent much of his life entertaining people he meets everywhere with his tales of the "good old days". He finds humor in most of the events of his daily life. He has a special way of injecting a double dose of his "miracle medicine - humor" into the veins of friends or foes alike who find themselves out of humor and in need of a good uplift. His motto is - "Laughter is good for the soul".

From the cofounder of Square, an inspiring and entertaining account of what it means to be a true entrepreneur and what it takes to build a resilient, world-changing company In 2009, a St. Louis glassblowing artist and recovering computer scientist named Jim McKelvey lost a sale because he couldn't accept American Express cards. Frustrated by the high costs and difficulty of accepting credit card payments, McKelvey joined his friend Jack Dorsey (the cofounder of Twitter) to launch Square, a startup that would enable small merchants to accept credit card payments on their mobile phones. With no expertise or experience in the world of payments, they approached the problem of credit cards with a new perspective, questioning the industry's assumptions, experimenting and innovating their way through early challenges, and achieving widespread adoption from merchants small and large. But just as Square was taking off, Amazon launched a similar product, marketed it aggressively, and undercut Square on price. For most ordinary startups, this would have spelled the end. Instead, less than a year later, Amazon was in retreat and soon discontinued its service. How did Square beat the most dangerous company on the planet? Was it just luck? These questions motivated McKelvey to study what Square had done differently from all the other companies Amazon had killed. He eventually found the key: a strategy he calls the Innovation Stack. McKelvey's fascinating and humorous stories of Square's early days are blended with historical examples of other world-changing companies built on the Innovation Stack to reveal a pattern of ground-breaking, competition-proof entrepreneurship that is rare but repeatable. The Innovation Stack is a thrilling business narrative that's much bigger than the story of Square. It is an irreverent first-person look inside the world of entrepreneurship, and a call to action for all of us to find the entrepreneur within ourselves and identify and fix unsolved problems--one crazy idea at a time.

The Life and Times of Darrell Brinkley by Darrell Brinkley "Mr Shady Vallley" (as told by Nancy) __________________________________

'So they went forth, and they were given over to death by the guns.' -Rangipito, of Ngati Rahiri In the two decades before the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand was ripped asunder by island-spanning waves of warfare, extreme violence and cannibalism. Great war parties surged the length of the land to avenge historic grievances, killing and burning as they went. Whole peoples were uprooted and found new homes. Despite the name given them by history, one thing we can be certain about is that these dramatic conflicts were not simply 'musket' wars. This was an age of courage, of heroism, of great character and of astonishing deeds. And they are not dead history. Twenty-first-century New Zealand has been profoundly shaped by them, not least in the location of most of the major cities. In Guns and Utu, historian Matthew Wright disputes the many mythologies of these wars, examining some of the whys and wherefores of this generation-long culture collision. 'A spectacular book.' -Don Rood, Radio New Zealand National

A chef’s gripping quest to reconcile his childhood experiences as a migrant farmworker with the rarefied world of fine dining. Born in rural Mexico, Eduardo “Lalo” García Guzmán and his family left for the United States when he was a child, picking fruits and vegetables on the migrant route from Florida to Michigan. He worked in Atlanta restaurants as a teenager before being convicted of a robbery, incarcerated, and eventually deported. Lalo landed in Mexico City as a new generation of chefs was questioning the hierarchies that had historically privileged European cuisine in elite spaces. At his acclaimed restaurant, Máximo Bistrot, he began to craft food that narrated his memories and hopes. Mexico City–based journalist Laura Tillman spent five years immersively reporting on Lalo’s story: from Máximo’s kitchen to the onion fields of Vidalia, Georgia, to Dubai’s first high-end Mexican restaurant, to Lalo’s hometown of San José de las Pilas. What emerges is a moving portrait of Lalo’s struggle to find authenticity in an industry built on the very inequalities that drove his family to leave their home, and of the artistic process as Lalo calls on the experiences of his life to create transcendent cuisine. The Migrant Chef offers an unforgettable window into a family’s border-eclipsing dreams, Mexico’s culinary heritage, and the making of a chef.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

"The plot is engaging...Tissot tells a moving story..." Christian Woodard, book reviewer, Adirondack Daily Enterprise, NY In this novel of mystery, fun and sorrow, a man struggles to make a fresh start in life. Tuck Rising, an injured ski champion, returns to his hometown to find work as a Great Camp caretaker. With his new bride Britt Freier and his daughter Tibetta, he moves into a rustic home in the village of Meltmor, planning to stay only until he recovers from his injury and can return to racing. Like walking on thin ice, every step he takes brings him closer to peril. The story romps through the high jinks and hard times of a northern village and shines a light on the little known lives of caretakers. In a twist of magic realism, Pitt and his pet Rat's prophesies remind us that the way forward is not always clear. Life in the North brings Tuck far more obstacles than flags on a race course. Will Tuck overcome the challenges? Hold on to his family? Make his way back to the race course? Will misinformation and cover-ups obstruct his path to success? This book is a revision of Tibetta's World; High Jinks and Hard Times in the North Country. What readers are saying. "... vivid imagination along with knowledge of our beloved Adirondacks and small town people..." - Win, France "... a wonderful novel ... I think everyone should read it from 10 to 90. - Diana, New York "...mystery, love, murder, humor and philosophy all rolled into one..." - Liz, New York