Best Selling Books by Phil Knight

In this instant and tenacious New York Times bestseller, Nike founder and board chairman Phil Knight “offers a rare and revealing look at the notoriously media-shy man behind the swoosh” (Booklist, starred review), illuminating his company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands. Bill Gates named Shoe Dog one of his five favorite books of the year and called it “an amazing tale, a refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like. It’s a messy, perilous, and chaotic journey, riddled with mistakes, endless struggles, and sacrifice. Phil Knight opens up in ways few CEOs are willing to do.” Fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed fifty dollars from his father and launched a company with one simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost running shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his car in 1963, Knight grossed eight thousand dollars that first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion. In this age of start-ups, Knight’s Nike is the gold standard, and its swoosh is one of the few icons instantly recognized in every corner of the world. But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always been a mystery. In Shoe Dog, he tells his story at last. At twenty-four, Knight decides that rather than work for a big corporation, he will create something all his own, new, dynamic, different. He details the many risks he encountered, the crushing setbacks, the ruthless competitors and hostile bankers—as well as his many thrilling triumphs. Above all, he recalls the relationships that formed the heart and soul of Nike, with his former track coach, the irascible and charismatic Bill Bowerman, and with his first employees, a ragtag group of misfits and savants who quickly became a band of swoosh-crazed brothers. Together, harnessing the electrifying power of a bold vision and a shared belief in the transformative power of sports, they created a brand—and a culture—that changed everything.

The Stranglers occupy a paradoxical position within the history of popular music. Although major artists within the punk and new-wave movements, their contribution to those genres has been effectively quarantined by subsequent critical and historical analyses. They are somehow "outside" the realm of what responsible accounts of the period consider to be worthy of chronicling. Why is this so? Certainly The Stranglers'' seedy and intimidating demeanor, and well-deserved reputation for misogyny and violence, offer a superficial explanation for their cultural excommunication. However, this landmark work suggests that the unsettling aura that permeated the group and their music had much more profound origins; ones that continue to have disturbing implications even today. The Stranglers, it argues, continue to be marginalised because, whether by accident or design, they brought to the fore the underlying issues of identity, status and structure that must by necessity be hidden from society''s conscious awareness. For this, they would not be forgiven.

50 simple things that you can do to make sure that Climate Change happens in our lifetime; how easy they are, how much they''re likely to cost and how much they might annoy your neighbours. All of this is backed up by solid science, so that you can make truly informed decisions about the very best ways to stuff the planet.

A father stops his white son from playing with his black friend. The ten-year-olds, Billy and Eugene, defy him. Sam and Ruby Lowe, Billyas parents, gave the McGeeas a place to live and help to better their lives. No good deed goes unpunished. Their kindness places the Loweas and McGeeas at risk. Risk turns to reality when one of the McGee girls is murdered. The racially volatile Riverhills County, Alabama, ignites. An old war hero, Sheriff A.B. Compton, must solve the crime or fight another war. The funeral is more than Eugene can bear, having just lost his father. Eugene and Billy leave the funeral to find a burnt out mansion and a swamp are keys in solving the murder. Sam Lowe is arrested for the murder. The Devil is set loose as Sam Lowe faces execution. But in the end two other men lay dead. Why?