Game Change

The gripping inside story of the 2008 presidential election, by two of the best political reporters in the country. “It’s one of the best books on politics of any kind I’ve read. For entertainment value, I put it up there with Catch 22.” —The Financial Times “It transports you to a parallel universe in which everything in the National Enquirer is true….More interesting is what we learn about the candidates themselves: their frailties, egos and almost super-human stamina.” —The Financial Times “I can’t put down this book!” —Stephen Colbert Game Change is the New York Times bestselling story of the 2008 presidential election, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the best political reporters in the country. In the spirit of Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes and Theodore H. White’s The Making of the President 1960, this classic campaign trail book tells the defining story of a new era in American politics, going deeper behind the scenes of the Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin campaigns than any other account of the historic 2008 election.

Seventeen-year-old Zeb Holloway is happy to work in his uncle’s auto repair shop and cruise through school without much effort. He’s a quarterback on his high school’s undefeated football team, but he never plays. Why would he when T.T. Munroe—a walking, talking highlight reel—is around? That is, until T.T’s injured a week before the state championships. Now Zeb is starting. As he assumes the role of QB and team leader, the entire town is watching him. And when a college recruiter says Zeb could have a future beyond his small New Hampshire town, he realizes there’s a bigger life out there for him . . . if he can play his heart out.

The bestselling author of Head Strong and The Bulletproof Diet answers the question, “How can I kick more ass at life?” by culling the wisdom of world-class thought leaders, maverick scientists, and disruptive entrepreneurs to provide proven techniques for becoming happier, healthier, and smarter. When Dave Asprey started his Bulletproof Radio podcast more than five years ago, he sought out influencers in an array of disciplines, from biochemists toiling in unknown laboratories to business leaders changing the world to mediation masters discovering inner peace. His guests were some of the top performing humans in the world, people who had changed their areas of study or even pioneered entirely new fields. Dave wanted to know: What did they have in common? What mattered most to them? What made them so successful—and what made them tick? At the end of each interview, Dave asked the same question: “What are your top three recommendations for people who want to perform better at being human?” After performing a statistical analysis of the answers, he found that the wisdom gleaned from these highly successful people could be distilled into three main objectives: finding ways to become smarter, faster, and happier. Game Changers is the culmination of Dave’s years-long immersion in these conversations, offering 46 science-backed, high performance “laws” that are a virtual playbook for how to get better at life. With anecdotes from game changers like Dr. Daniel Amen, Gabby Bernstein, Dr. David Perlmutter, Arianna Huffington, Esther Perel, and Tim Ferris as well as examples from Dave’s own life, Game Changers offers readers practical advice they can put into action to reap immediate rewards. From taming fear and anxiety to making better decisions, establishing high-performance habits, and practicing gratitude and mindfulness, Dave brings together the wisdom of today’s game-changers to help everyone kick more ass at life.

"A timely, speculative thought experiment in perspective, privilege, and identity." —Kirkus "The conceit behind Shusterman’s latest is truly unique. While it exhibits the author’s usual storytelling aplomb, it also manages to delve into more serious and timely subject matter, such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. Despite these heavy topics, the story still moves at a lively pace and, thanks to a zany sci-fi twist, manages to pack in a few laughs as well." —Booklist All it takes is one hit on the football field, and suddenly Ash’s life doesn’t look quite the way he remembers it. Impossible though it seems, he’s been hit into another dimension—and keeps on bouncing through worlds that are almost-but-not-really his own. The changes start small, but they quickly spiral out of control as Ash slides into universes where he has everything he’s ever wanted, universes where society is stuck in the past…universes where he finds himself looking at life through entirely different eyes. And if he isn’t careful, the world he’s learning to see more clearly could blink out of existence… This high-concept novel from the National Book Award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author of the Arc of a Scythe series tackles the most urgent themes of our time, making this a must-buy for readers who are starting to ask big questions about their own role in the universe.

Cuando los investigadores comenzaron a explorar el grado de inmersión e interés tan grande de la gente en los videojuegos, se quedaron perplejos. ¿Cómo es que la gente pone más esfuerzo en estos juegos que en su trabajo diario y en sus relaciones personales? ¿Por qué cuando juegan están contentos de trabajar tan duro durante tanto tiempo sin recibir un sueldo por ello? ¿Cómo están estos jugadores, tras haber malgastado su juventud encerrados en su cuarto conectados de manera diferente? ¿Estamos presenciando un cambio significativo en la evolución de la psicología humana? Las ideas que emergen de esta investigación tienen repercusiones muy grandes, no solo para el mundo del trabajo, sino también para una incipiente “economía de participación”. Y la “Gamificación”– la aplicación de nociones de mecánicas de juego muy atractivas, programas de fidelización y economía del comportamiento para impulsar la participación del usuario – son la esencia de este tema. A medida que construyamos una nueva economía digital, será casi inevitable que todos tengamos cada vez más tiempo libre – y las plataformas “gamificadas” nos ayudarán a utilizar ese tiempo de manera beneficiosa. GAME CHANGE explora algunas de las iniciativas más revolucionarias que hemos visto en este campo. Desglosa los mecanismos persuasivos del juego y ofrece ideas sobre cómo poner la teoría en práctica. ASÍ QUE, JUGUEMOS. Es hora de seleccionar un avatar y algunos poderes especiales. El viaje a través de este mundo desafiante comienza en la primera página.

A radically new, and easily learned, way to outstrategize your rivals. “The wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win.” So wrote Zhuge Liang, the great Chinese military strategist. He was referring to battlefield tactics, but the same can be said about any strategic situation. Even seemingly certain defeat can be turned into victory—whether in battle, business, or life—by those with the strategic vision to recognize how to “change the game” to their own advantage. The aim of David McAdams’s Game-Changer is nothing less than to empower you with this wisdom—not just to win in every strategic situation (or “game”) you face but to change those games and the ecosystems in which they reside to transform your life and our lives together for the better. Game-Changer develops six basic ways to change games—commitment, regulation, cartelization, retaliation, trust, and relationships—enlivened by countless colorful characters and unforgettable examples from the worlds of business, medicine, finance, military history, crime, sports, and more. The book then digs into several real-world strategic challenges, such as how to keep prices low on the Internet, how to restore the public’s lost trust in for-charity telemarketers, and even how to save mankind from looming and seemingly unstoppable drug-resistant disease. In each case, McAdams uses the game-theory approach developed in the book to identify the strategic crux of the problem and then leverages that “game-awareness” to brainstorm ways to change the game to solve or at least mitigate the underlying problem. So get ready for a fascinating journey. You’ll emerge a deeper strategic thinker, poised to change and win all the games you play. In doing so, you can also make the world a better place. “Just one Game-Changer [is] enough to seed and transform an entire organization into a more productive, happier, and altogether better place,” McAdams writes. Just imagine what we can do together.

The right pricing strategy can change the entire trajectory of a business, a market, and even society at large. To help you create your best pricing strategy efficiently and confidently, two leaders from BCG are introducing fresh perspectives on pricing that take you far beyond the realm of mind-numbing numbers. In their new book Game Changer: How Strategic Pricing Shapes Businesses, Markets, and Society, Jean-Manuel Izaret and Arnab Sinha simplify and clarify pricing strategy by integrating its many frameworks and concepts into seven distinct pricing games, each with its own proven tools, rules, forces, and structures. To help you pick the right game and play it well, Izaret and Sinha have developed the Strategic Pricing Hexagon, a tool refined through years of testing, iteration, and adaptation. The Hexagon is your portal to a business world where stronger growth and better financial performance come from a set of strategic pricing decisions, not endless myopic quests for optimal prices. But more than that, the Hexagon will change the way you think about and talk about pricing. The current conversation around pricing – as expressed through economics textbooks, Excel spreadsheets, political discourse, and educated guesswork – makes it easy to believe that pricing is nothing more than a technical, tactical and, for most people, boring game of numbers. Game Changer changes that conversation bysharing stories and research that bring the Hexagon and its seven pricing games to life. With research from BCG’s Bruce Henderson Institute and real-world examples from the world's most influential companies, the authors and their colleagues at BCG define pricing strategy as a business leader’s or business owner’s conscious decisions about how money flows in their market. They show how companies succeed in the long term when they focus on collaborative growth and value sharing with customers, not zero-sum value extraction from them. Discover how you can create and implement a winning pricing strategy that changes the trajectory of your business, your market, and even society.

The videogame scene has evolved from the hobby of boys in bedrooms to a popular pastime for anyone with a smartphone. Many of the old guard resent this mainstreaming of games culture - and they've been anything but welcoming. These trolls have created a climate of fear by abusing and harassing women, minorities and anyone who has dared to speak out against misogyny and other problems in the boys' club industry. Game Changers puts these conflicts under the microscope, in Australia and overseas. The book features exclusive interviews with many key figures working to make the videogame world a safe space, including Anita Sarkeesian and Zoë Quinn, two of the women at the centre of the Gamergate abuse. In 2015, they were asked by the United Nations to lead a panel discussion on the 'rising tide of online violence against women and girls'. Authors Dan Golding and Leena van Deventer use their extensive experience in the videogame industry, both as players and professionals, to examine how games culture is growing, diversifying and changing for the better.

A gift for sports fans and football afficianados Professional football in the last half century has been a sport marked by relentless innovation. For fans determined to keep up with the changes that have transformed the game, close examination of the coaching footage is a must. In The Games That Changed the Game, Ron Jaworski—pro football’s #1 game-tape guru—breaks down the film from seven of the most momentous contests of the last fifty years, giving readers a drive-by-drive, play-by-play guide to the evolutionary leaps that define the modern NFL. From Sid Gillman’s development of the Vertical Stretch, which launched the era of wide-open passing offenses, to Bill Belichick’s daring defensive game plan in Super Bowl XXXVI, which enabled his outgunned squad to upset the heavily favored St. Louis Rams and usher in the New England Patriots dynasty, the most cutting-edge concepts come alive again through the recollections of nearly seventy coaches and players. You’ll never watch NFL football the same way again.

In Game Changer Fergus Connolly shows how to improve performance with evidence-based analysis and athlete-focused training. Through his unprecedented experience with teams in professional football, basketball, rugby, soccer, Aussie Rules, and Gaelic football, as well as with elite military units, Connolly has discovered how to break down the common elements in all sports to their basic components so that each moment of any game can be better analysed, whether you're a player or coach. The lessons of game day can then be used to create valuable leaning experience in training.