Charles Fishman – författare

Charles Fishman takes us into the heart of the biggest company on earth, ever, to show how the ‘Wal-Mart effect’ shapes lives everywhere, whether for cleaners in America, bicycle-makers in China or salmon farmers in Chile. Now Wal-Mart’s influence is so great it can determine everything from working practices to market forces themselves, Fishman asks: how did a shop manage to do all this? And what will the ultimate cost of low prices be?

Charles Fishman takes us into the heart of the biggest company on earth, ever, to show how the ‘Wal-Mart effect’ shapes lives everywhere, whether for cleaners in America, bicycle-makers in China or salmon farmers in Chile. Now Wal-Mart’s influence is so great it can determine everything from working practices to market forces themselves, Fishman asks: how did a shop manage to do all this? And what will the ultimate cost of low prices be?

Praised as “an entertaining and torrential flow of a book” by Nature magazine, The Big Thirst is a startling examination of the passing of the golden age of water and the shocking facts about how water scarcity will soon be a major factor in our lives.The water coming out of your kitchen tap is four billion years old and might well have been sipped by a Tyrannosaurus rex. Rather than only three states of water—liquid, ice, and vapor—there is a fourth, “molecular water,” fused into rock 400 miles deep in the Earth, and that’s where most of the planet’s water is found. Unlike most precious resources, water cannot be used up; it can always be made clean enough again to drink—indeed, water can be made so clean that it’s toxic. Water is the most vital substance in our lives but also more amazing and mysterious than we appreciate. As Charles Fishman brings vibrantly to life in this surprising and mind-changing narrative, water runs our world in a host of awe-inspiring ways, yet we take it completely for granted. But the era of easy water is over. Bringing readers on a lively and fascinating journey—from the wet moons of Saturn to the water-obsessed hotels of Las Vegas, where dolphins swim in the desert, and from a rice farm in the parched Australian outback to a high-tech IBM plant that makes an exotic breed of pure water found nowhere in nature—Fishman vividly shows that we’ve already left behind a century-long golden age when water was thoughtlessly abundant, free, and safe and entered a new era of high-stakes water. In 2008, Atlanta came within ninety days of running entirely out of clean water. California is in a desperate battle to hold off a water catastrophe. And in the last five years Australia nearly ran out of water—and had to scramble to reinvent the country’s entire water system. But as dramatic as the challenges are, the deeper truth Fishman reveals is that there is no good reason for us to be overtaken by a global water crisis. We have more than enough water. We just don’t think about it, or use it, smartly. The Big Thirst brilliantly explores our strange and complex relationship to water. We delight in watching waves roll in from the ocean; we take great comfort from sliding into a hot bath; and we will pay a thousand times the price of tap water to drink our preferred brand of the bottled version. We love water—but at the moment, we don’t appreciate it or respect it. Just as we’ve begun to reimagine our relationship to food, a change that is driving the growth of the organic and local food movements, we must also rethink how we approach and use water. The good news is that we can. As Fishman shows, a host of advances are under way, from the simplicity of harvesting rainwater to the brilliant innovations devised by companies such as IBM, GE, and Royal Caribbean that are making impressive breakthroughs in water productivity. Knowing what to do is not the problem. Ultimately, the hardest part is changing our water consciousness. As Charles Fishman writes, “Many civilizations have been crippled or destroyed by an inability to understand water or manage it. We have a huge advantage over the generations of people who have come before us, because we can understand water and we can use it smartly.” The Big Thirst will forever change the way we think about water, about our essential relationship to it, and about the creativity we can bring to ensuring that we’ll always have plenty of it.

2016 Audie Award Finalist for Business/Personal Development#1 New York Times bestselling author and Oscar–winning producer Brian Grazer has written a brilliantly entertaining and eye-opening exploration of curiosity and the life-changing effects it can have on every person’s life.From Academy Award–winning producer Brian Grazer, New York Times bestseller A Curious Mind offers a brilliant peek into the “curiosity conversations” that inspired him to create some of the world’s most iconic movies and television shows. He shows how curiosity has been the “secret” that fueled his rise as one of Hollywood’s leading producers and creative visionaries, and how all of us can channel its power to lead bigger and more rewarding lives. Grazer has spent most of his life exploring curiosity through what he terms “curiosity conversations” with some of the most interesting people in the world, including spies, royals, scientists, politicians, moguls, Nobel laureates, artists…anyone whose story might broaden his worldview. These discussions sparked the creative inspiration behind many of his movies and TV shows, including Splash, 24, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Arrested Development, 8 Mile, J. Edgar, Empire, and many others. A Curious Mind is not only a fascinating page-turner—it also offers a blueprint for how we can awaken our own curiosity and use it as a superpower in our lives. Whether you’re looking to strengthen your management style at work, uncover a new source of creativity, or become a better romantic partner, this book—and its lessons on the power of curiosity—can change your life.

#1 New York Times bestselling author and Oscar–winning producer Brian Grazer has written a brilliantly entertaining and eye-opening exploration of curiosity and the life-changing effects it can have on every person’s life.From Academy Award–winning producer Brian Grazer, New York Times bestseller A Curious Mind offers a brilliant peek into the “curiosity conversations” that inspired him to create some of the world’s most iconic movies and television shows. He shows how curiosity has been the “secret” that fueled his rise as one of Hollywood’s leading producers and creative visionaries, and how all of us can channel its power to lead bigger and more rewarding lives.Grazer has spent most of his life exploring curiosity through what he terms “curiosity conversations” with some of the most interesting people in the world, including spies, royals, scientists, politicians, moguls, Nobel laureates, artists…anyone whose story might broaden his worldview. These discussions sparked the creative inspiration behind many of his movies and TV shows, including Splash, 24, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Arrested Development, 8 Mile, J. Edgar, Empire, and many others.A Curious Mind is not only a fascinating page-turner—it also offers a blueprint for how we can awaken our own curiosity and use it as a superpower in our lives. Whether you’re looking to strengthen your management style at work, uncover a new source of creativity, or become a better romantic partner, this book—and its lessons on the power of curiosity—can change your life.

#1 New York Times bestselling author and Oscar–winning producer Brian Grazer has written a brilliantly entertaining and eye-opening exploration of curiosity and the life-changing effects it can have on every person’s life.From Academy Award–winning producer Brian Grazer, New York Times bestseller A Curious Mind offers a brilliant peek into the “curiosity conversations” that inspired him to create some of the world’s most iconic movies and television shows. He shows how curiosity has been the “secret” that fueled his rise as one of Hollywood’s leading producers and creative visionaries, and how all of us can channel its power to lead bigger and more rewarding lives. Grazer has spent most of his life exploring curiosity through what he terms “curiosity conversations” with some of the most interesting people in the world, including spies, royals, scientists, politicians, moguls, Nobel laureates, artists…anyone whose story might broaden his worldview. These discussions sparked the creative inspiration behind many of his movies and TV shows, including Splash, 24, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Arrested Development, 8 Mile, J. Edgar, Empire, and many others. A Curious Mind is not only a fascinating page-turner—it also offers a blueprint for how we can awaken our own curiosity and use it as a superpower in our lives. Whether you’re looking to strengthen your management style at work, uncover a new source of creativity, or become a better romantic partner, this book—and its lessons on the power of curiosity—can change your life.

The remarkable story of the trailblazers and the ordinary Americans on the front lines of the epic mission to reach the moon.President John F. Kennedy astonished the world on May 25, 1961, when he announced to Congress that the United States should land a man on the Moon by 1970. No group was more surprised than the scientists and engineers at NASA, who suddenly had less than a decade to invent space travel. When Kennedy announced that goal, no one knew how to navigate to the Moon. No one knew how to build a rocket big enough to reach the Moon, or how to build a computer small enough (and powerful enough) to fly a spaceship there. No one knew what the surface of the Moon was like, or what astronauts could eat as they flew there. On the day of Kennedy’s historic speech, America had a total of fifteen minutes of spaceflight experience—with just five of those minutes outside the atmosphere. Russian dogs had more time in space than U.S. astronauts. Over the next decade, more than 400,000 scientists, engineers, and factory workers would send 24 astronauts to the Moon. Each hour of space flight would require one million hours of work back on Earth to get America to the Moon on July 20, 1969. More than fifty years later, One Giant Leap is the sweeping, definitive behind-the-scenes account of the furious race to complete one of mankind’s greatest achievements. It’s a story filled with surprises—from the item the astronauts almost forgot to take with them (the American flag), to the extraordinary impact Apollo would have back on Earth, and on the way we live today. Charles Fishman introduces readers to the men and women who had to solve 10,000 problems before astronauts could reach the Moon. From the research labs of MIT, where the eccentric and legendary pioneer Charles Draper created the tools to fly the Apollo spaceships, to the factories where dozens of women sewed spacesuits, parachutes, and even computer hardware by hand, Fishman captures the exceptional feats of these ordinary Americans. One Giant Leap is the captivating story of men and women charged with changing the world as we knew it—their leaders, their triumphs, their near disasters, all of which led to arguably the greatest success story, and the greatest adventure story, of the twentieth century.

The New York Times bestselling, “meticulously researched and absorbingly written” (The Washington Post) story of the trailblazers and the ordinary Americans on the front lines of the epic Apollo 11 moon mission.President John F. Kennedy astonished the world on May 25, 1961, when he announced to Congress that the United States should land a man on the Moon by 1970. No group was more surprised than the scientists and engineers at NASA, who suddenly had less than a decade to invent space travel. When Kennedy announced that goal, no one knew how to navigate to the Moon. No one knew how to build a rocket big enough to reach the Moon, or how to build a computer small enough (and powerful enough) to fly a spaceship there. No one knew what the surface of the Moon was like, or what astronauts could eat as they flew there. On the day of Kennedy’s historic speech, America had a total of fifteen minutes of spaceflight experience—with just five of those minutes outside the atmosphere. Russian dogs had more time in space than US astronauts. Over the next decade, more than 400,000 scientists, engineers, and factory workers would send twenty-four astronauts to the Moon. Each hour of space flight would require one million hours of work back on Earth to get America to the Moon on July 20, 1969. “A veteran space reporter with a vibrant touch—nearly every sentence has a fact, an insight, a colorful quote or part of a piquant anecdote” (The Wall Street Journal) and in One Giant Leap, Fishman has written the sweeping, definitive behind-the-scenes account of the furious race to complete one of mankind’s greatest achievements. It’s a story filled with surprises—from the item the astronauts almost forgot to take with them (the American flag), to the extraordinary impact Apollo would have back on Earth, and on the way we live today. From the research labs of MIT, where the eccentric and legendary pioneer Charles Draper created the tools to fly the Apollo spaceships, to the factories where dozens of women sewed spacesuits, parachutes, and even computer hardware by hand, Fishman captures the exceptional feats of these ordinary Americans. “It’s been 50 years since Neil Armstrong took that one small step. Fishman explains in dazzling form just how unbelievable it actually was” (Newsweek).

In this specially combined edition with a new foreword, Academy Award–winning producer Brian Grazer and acclaimed author Charles Fishman blend their insights from bestselling books A Curious Mind and Face to Face to transform the art of connecting with and through curiosity.In A Curious Mind, deemed “a captivation account of how the simple act of asking questions can change your life” by Malcolm Gladwell, Grazer offers a brilliant peek into the “curiosity conversations” that inspired him to create some of the world’s most iconic movies and television shows. He shows how curiosity has been the “superpower” that fueled his rise as one of Hollywood’s leading producers and creative visionaries. And in the captivating follow-up Face to Face, Grazer reveals that the secret to a more fulfilling life lies in personal connections, sparked through curiosity, learning through his interactions with people like Taraji P. Henson, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Eminem, and Prince. Now with a new foreword with fresh insights about curiosity from the last decade, A Curious Mind Expanded invites you to consider your personal journey of human connection. A fascinating page-turner, this combined edition offers a blueprint for how we can awaken our own curiosity and use it as a superpower in our own lives.

In this specially combined edition with a new foreword, Academy Award–winning producer Brian Grazer and acclaimed author Charles Fishman blend their insights from bestselling books A Curious Mind and Face to Face to transform the art of connecting with and through curiosity.In A Curious Mind, deemed “a captivation account of how the simple act of asking questions can change your life” by Malcolm Gladwell, Grazer offers a brilliant peek into the “curiosity conversations” that inspired him to create some of the world’s most iconic movies and television shows. He shows how curiosity has been the “superpower” that fueled his rise as one of Hollywood’s leading producers and creative visionaries. And in the captivating follow-up Face to Face, Grazer reveals that the secret to a more fulfilling life lies in personal connections, sparked through curiosity, learning through his interactions with people like Taraji P. Henson, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Eminem, and Prince. Now with a new foreword with fresh insights about curiosity from the last decade, A Curious Mind Expanded invites you to consider your personal journey of human connection. A fascinating page-turner, this combined edition offers a blueprint for how we can awaken our own curiosity and use it as a superpower in our own lives.