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  Double or Nothing - How Two...

  Tom Breitling, Cal Fussman

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  If Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn had come of age at the end of the twentieth century looking for an all-American adventure, they probably would've headed for Vegas. However, they'd have been hard-pressed to go on a wilder ride than the one taken by Tom Breitling and Tim Poster to the top of the famed Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino.Call them the Odds Couple.Breitling is the kid who lives next door if you grow up in Burnsville, Minnesota. He never saw a hundred dollar bill or The Godfather until he went to college. Poster comes from a family of oddsmakers who reach for the Doritos on football Sundays and scream for the point spread. He was whistling Sinatra and booking games at his Las Vegas high school.Their unlikely friendship began in college over an eight-dollar veal parmigiana sandwich that led to a partnership in a hotel reservation business. Starting with a desk, a chair, a pillow, and a telephone, Tim and Tom grew a company that they sold during the dot.com boom for $105 million. This allows Tim to pursue his childhood dream of owning a casino and bringing back the glory days of Vegas.When Tim ups the odds and raises the limits to give gamblers the best game in town, a craps player nicknamed "Mr. Royalty," who's on one of the hottest winning streaks in history, heads for the Nugget. When he begins to take Tom and Tim for millions, the partnership is put to the test. But Tim refuses to back off on the odds or the high limits, telling his partner, "It's a ballsy proposition here. It's gonna be a roller coaster ride. But we don't have a public company to answer to. It's just you and me."When Mr. Royalty rolls twenty-two consecutive passes and rakes in a mountain of chips, he takes Tim and Tom to the brink. They must figure out a way to hold up the House.Just as they do, the roller coaster ride really gets rolling-and the ride becomes crazier than they'd ever imagined.

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  On Locations - Lessons Learned...

  Mark Kamine, Mike White

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  This must-listen account of starting at the lowest rung on the production ladder among enormously famous and outrageously demanding people will be devoured for its insights, gossip, humor, and storytelling. Married and with a child, the author takes unpaid gigs to get a foot in the door and eventually ends up working on all seasons of The Sopranos, often named the best TV show ever.The show's setting and its creator's insistence on accuracy placed the native New Jersey author in the right place at the right time to become part of television history.Includes many stories about guest stars like Steve Buscemi, Peter Bogdanovich, and Lauren Bacall, as well as the beloved cast, including new tales of James Gandolfini, who Kamine first meets after David Chase casts him as the Dean of Admissions in the classic first season "College" episode.Woven in is a personal story of home life and strife, achievement and frustration, anxiety and accomplishment. The book's epilogue brings listeners up to the moment as the author, after many more years as an anonymous everyman, eventually enjoys outsize professional success as executive producer of the HBO hit series created by Mike White, The White Lotus.

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  A Fridge for a Picasso

  John Jesse

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  A gallery of famous and eccentric figures animate this entertaining and informative autobiography. Not least is John Jesse who treats life as fun yet established himself as a respected specialist in his field of Art Nouveau and Art Deco. The book is richly illustrated with some of the works he has collected and sold.

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  The Butcher Embezzler and the...

  Gretchen Cherington

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  Three powerful men converge on the banks of the Red Cedar River in the early 1900s in southern Minnesota—George Albert Hormel, founder of what will become the $10 billion food conglomerate Hormel Foods; Alpha LaRue Eberhart, the author's paternal grandfather and Hormel's executive vice president and corporate secretary; and Ransome Josiah Thomson, Hormel's comptroller. Over ten years, Thomson will embezzle $1.2 million from the company's coffers, nearly bringing the company to its knees.The Butcher, The Embezzler, and The Fall Guy opens in 1922 as George Hormel calls Eberhart into his office and demands his resignation. Hailed as the true leader of the company he'd helped Hormel build—is Eberhart complicit in the embezzlement? Far worse than losing his job and the great wealth he'd rightfully accumulated is that his beloved young wife, Lena, is dying while their three children grieve alongside. Of course, his story doesn't end there.In scale both intimate and grand, Cherington deftly weaves the histories of Hormel, Eberhart, and Thomson within the sweeping landscape of our country's early industries, along with keen observations about business leaders gleaned from her thirty-five-year career advising top company executives.

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  Luck or Something Like It - A...

  Kenny Rogers

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  For more than half a century, Kenny Rogers has been recording some of the most revered and beloved music in America and around the world. Now, in his first-ever memoir, Kenny details his lifelong journey to becoming one of American music's elder statesmen. Exploring the struggles of his long road, his story begins simply: growing up in Depression-era Texas, living in the projects, surviving in poverty, and listening to his mother, who always had just the right piece of wisdom. Recounting his early years, Kenny charts how he came into his own as an artist with the First Edition, only to have the band's breakup in the 1970s raise questions about his musical future. Yet, as Kenny explains, it was precisely this soul-searching that led him to a new direction on his own in Nashville. Telling the stories that have become legends in a town that's seen many of them, he recalls the making of his career in country music and his most memorable songs. Along the way, he shares the friendships, both big and small, that hav

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  How to Treat People - A Nurse's...

  Molly Case

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  As a teenager, Molly Case underwent an operation that saved her life. Nearly a decade later, she finds herself in the operating room again—this time as a trainee nurse. She learns to care for her patients, sharing not only their pain, but also life-affirming moments of hope. In doing so, she offers a compelling account of the processes that keep them alive, from respiratory examinations to surgical prep, and of the extraordinary moments of human connection that sustain both nurse and patient.In rich, lyrical prose, Case illustrates the intricacies of the human condition through the hand of a stranger offered in solace, a gentle word in response to fear and anger, or the witnessing of a person's last breaths. It is these moments of empathy, in the extremis of human experience, that define us as people. But when Molly's father is admitted to the cardiac unit where she works, the professional and the personal suddenly collide.Weaving together medical history, art, memoir, and science, How to Treat People beautifully explores the oscillating rhythms of life and death in a tender reminder that we can all find meaning in being, even for a moment, part of the lives of others.

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