What We Are Reading Today: Singular Sensation by Michael Riedel

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Updated 16 November 2020
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What We Are Reading Today: Singular Sensation by Michael Riedel

This is the extraordinary story of a transformative decade on Broadway, featuring gripping behind-the-scenes accounts of shows such as Rent, Angels in America, Chicago, The Lion King, and The Producers that changed the history of the American theater.

Singular Sensation serves as a follow-up to Michael Riedel’s well-received Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway.

Riedel, the longtime columnist for the New York Post, has crafted an impressive career of providing insights and tantalizingly juicy bits about the New York theater scene. 

“Broadway is good at comebacks,” writes Riedel. 

Riedel “presents the drama behind every mega-hit or shocking flop, bringing readers into high-stakes premieres, fraught rehearsals, tough contract negotiations, intense Tony Award battles, and more,” said a review in goodreads.com. 

“From the bitter feuds to the surprising collaborations, all the intrigue of a revolutionary era in the Theater District is packed into Singular Sensation. Broadway has triumphs and disasters, but the show always goes on,” said the review. 

It said Reidel’s “love for Broadway is apparent in the energy and research that powers this book.”

“Riedel shows us how shows get made and contracts are negotiated.”


What We Are Reading Today: The Mystery of the Invisible Hand

Updated 28 April 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: The Mystery of the Invisible Hand

Author: Marshall Jevons 

In “The Mystery of the Invisible Hand,” Henry Spearman, an economics professor with a knack for solving crimes, is pulled into a case that mixes campus intrigue, stolen art, and murder.

Arriving at San Antonio’s Monte Vista University to teach a course on art and economics, he is confronted with a puzzling art theft and the suspicious suicide of the school’s artist-in-residence.

From Texas to New York, Spearman traces the connections between economics and the art world, finding his clues in monopolies, auction theory, and Adam Smith.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Little Book of Beetles’

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Updated 27 April 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Little Book of Beetles’

Author: ARTHUR V. EVANS

Packed with surprising facts, this delightful and gorgeously designed book will beguile any nature lover. Expertly written and beautifully illustrated throughout with color photographs and original color artwork, “The Little Book of Beetles” is an accessible and enjoyable mini-reference about the world’s beetles, with examples drawn from across the globe.

It fits an astonishing amount of information in a small package, covering a wide range of topics — from anatomy, diversity, and reproduction to habitat and conservation.

 


What We Are Reading Today: Spiderweb Capitalism: How Global Elites Exploit Frontier Markets

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Updated 26 April 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: Spiderweb Capitalism: How Global Elites Exploit Frontier Markets

  • Hoang reveals the strategies behind spiderweb capitalism and examines the moral dilemmas of making money in legal, financial, and political gray zones

Author: Kimberly Kay Hoang

In 2015, the anonymous leak of the Panama Papers brought to light millions of financial and legal documents exposing how the superrich hide their money using complex webs of offshore vehicles. Spiderweb Capitalism takes you inside this shadow economy, uncovering the mechanics behind the invisible, mundane networks of lawyers, accountants, company secretaries, and fixers who facilitate the illicit movement of wealth across borders and around the globe.
Kimberly Kay Hoang traveled more than 350,000 miles and conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews with private wealth managers, fund managers, entrepreneurs, C-suite executives, bankers, auditors, and other financial professionals. She traces the flow of capital from offshore funds in places like the Cayman Islands, Samoa, and Panama to special-purpose vehicles and holding companies in Singapore and Hong Kong, and how it finds its way into risky markets onshore in Vietnam and Myanmar.

Hoang reveals the strategies behind spiderweb capitalism and examines the moral dilemmas of making money in legal, financial, and political gray zones.

Dazzlingly written, Spiderweb Capitalism sheds critical light on how global elites capitalize on risky frontier markets, and deepens our understanding of the paradoxical ways in which global economic growth is sustained through states where the line separating the legal from the corrupt is not always clear.

 


What We’re Reading Today: Work Life Well-lived

Updated 25 April 2024
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What We’re Reading Today: Work Life Well-lived

Author: Kelly Mackin

This book will disrupt how you think about creating your best work life and workplace and give you a road map to get you there, says a review published on goodreads.com.

Through years of research and truth-finding, Kelly Mackin and her company, Motives Met, have discovered a completely new mindset and approach around what well-being at work is all about, how to get there, and why it’s so important that we do get there.

This book is a personal guide and a call to action for a shift in our approach to work.


What We Are Reading Today: Natural Magic

Updated 25 April 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: Natural Magic

Author: Renee Bergland 

Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin were born at a time when the science of studying the natural world was known as natural philosophy, a pastime for poets, priests, and schoolgirls.

The world began to change in the 1830s, while Darwin was exploring the Pacific aboard the Beagle and Dickinson was a student in Amherst, Massachusetts.

“Natural Magic” intertwines the stories of these two luminary 19th-century minds whose thought and writings captured the awesome possibilities of the new sciences and at the same time strove to preserve the magic of nature.