Academic Learning

The inspirational story of a former Microsoft executive’s quest to build libraries around the world and share the love of books What’s happened since John Wood left Microsoft to change the world? Just ask six million kids in the poorest regions of Asia and Africa. In 1999, at the age of 35, Wood quit a lucrative career to found the nonprofit Room to Read. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as "the Andrew Carnegie of the developing world", he strove to bring the lessons of the corporate world to the nonprofit sector - and succeeded spectacularly.

We all have a lot to learn from the diary of a teacher named Esmé Raji Codell, an educator who has struggled to maintain individuality in the face of bureaucracy and whose defiant stand against mediocrity will reverberate in companies as well as classrooms everywhere.

Get your CompanionReads summary of Margot Lee Shetterly's Hidden Figures and finish it today in less than 60 minutes!

On May 10, 1998, biologist Craig Venter, director of the Institute for Genomic Research, announced that he was forming a private company that within three years would unravel the complete genetic code of human life, seven years before the projected finish of the U.S. government's Human Genome Project. Venter hoped that by decoding the genome ahead of schedule, he would speed up the pace of biomedical research and save the lives of thousands of people. He also hoped to become very famous and very rich.

Newspaperman tells the story of how an immigrant's shy son from Queens, New York, rose to the top of his industry, powered by little more than passion, brains, and hard work. Phillips began his career working as a copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune for 16 dollars a week... and ended it as publisher of The Wall Street Journal and CEO of its parent corporation, Dow Jones & Company. The life story of Warren Phillips is the story of the American newspaper business.

This biography of educational activist and Black studies forerunner Bertha Maxwell-Roddey examines a life of remarkable achievements and leadership in the desegregated South. Sonya Ramsey modernizes the nineteenth-century term "race woman" to describe how Maxwell-Roddey and her peers turned hard-won civil rights and feminist milestones into tangible accomplishments in North Carolina and nationwide from the late 1960s to the 1990s.

Before she was an author of paranormal romance and urban fantasy novels, N. D. Jones was an educator. In her essay, she reflects on her 20-plus years as an educator in a field where most public school teachers and administrators are middle-class White women responsible for the academic future of more than 20 million students of color. Jones’ insights come from her years of facilitating cultural proficiency professional development for employees in a White-dominated public school system where all is supposed to mean all, yet racial inequity and disproportionality persist.

This audio study guide for Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business by Harold Livesay includes detailed summary and analysis of each chapter and an in-depth exploration of the novel’s multiple symbols, motifs, and themes such as the old world versus the new and ethical dilemmas in 19th-century capitalism. Featured content also includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay questions, and discussion topics.

This audio study guide for Lab Girl by Hope Jahren includes detailed summary and analysis of each chapter and an in-depth exploration of the book’s multiple symbols, motifs, and themes such as misogyny in the science, injustice, and plants. Featured content also includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay questions, and discussion topics. Lab Girl is Professor Hope Jahren’s 2016 best-selling memoir, a chronicle of a life spent in pursuit of big ideas and discoveries.

Adam Habib, the most prominent and outspoken university official through the recent student protests, takes a characteristically frank view of the past three years on South Africa's campuses in this new book. Habib charts the progress of the student protests that erupted on Wits University campus in late 2015 and raged for the better part of three years, drawing on his own intimate involvement and negotiation with the students, and also records university management and government responses to the events.

In Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level (2019), technology journalist Leander Kahney explains how a mild-mannered man from a small town in Alabama became the CEO of one of America’s most influential and successful companies. Cook, who once served as Apple’s chief operating officer, was considered a strange choice to replace Steve Jobs when he was announced as the company’s new leader in 2011...

About the original book: The Threat, by the former FBI deputy director, Andrew G. McCabe, is equal parts memoir and equal parts wake-up call for the American people. In a fast-paced style worthy of a thriller, McCabe narrates how the FBI has overcome challenges to counter the invisible menaces of terrorism and organized crime and how these efforts could be undone by a selfish and incompetent administration under President Trump. This book merits being in the must-read list of anyone interested in the details of some of the biggest FBI cases of recent times.

Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time (1997) details how a small coffee roastery in Seattle became a monolithic corporation with a worldwide reputation for providing affordable luxury beverages. Author Howard Schultz, now retired CEO and chairman of Starbucks, recounts how he grew the company into an internationally recognized chain after joining Starbucks in the early 1980s and buying it later that same decade...

In From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America (2019), Howard Schultz examines how his upbringing in a working class New York family influenced his actions when he became chairman and CEO of Starbucks. Schultz uses his eventual professional success to argue that the United States still can be a land of opportunity if those with means are willing to give chances and resources to those without.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, (2018) by veteran Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou, is a briskly paced narrative of the rise and fall of Theranos, the company that perpetrated perhaps the biggest fraud in medical technology history. The book follows the central characters in the company’s saga, especially Elizabeth Holmes, its founder.... (Disclaimer: This is NOT the original book. If you’re looking for the original book, it is available from Amazon and Audible.)

In her 2013 memoir, I Am Malala, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai describes her life as a young girl growing up in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. Purchase this in-depth analysis to learn more.

This summary contains the essential teachings and important critiques from the original copy. Ray Dalio has been called both "the Steve Jobs of investing" and "the philosopher king of the financial universe". In Principles: Life and Work, Ray Dalio shares what he's learned over the course of his remarkable career. He argues that life, management, economics, and investing can all be systematized into rules and understood like machines.

This FastReads Summary & Analysis offers supplementary material to The Third Wave to help you distill the key takeaways, review the book's content, and further understand the writing style and overall themes from an editorial perspective. Whether you'd like to deepen your understanding, refresh your memory, or simply decide whether or not this book is for you, FastReads Summary & Analysis is here to help. Absorb everything you need to know in under 20 minutes!

Walter Isaacson's Leonardo da Vinci (2017) is a biography of the Italian Renaissance artist, researcher, and inventor. Isaacson traces Leonardo's life and scientific pursuits and provides history and criticism for each of his important works.... Listen to this in-depth analysis to learn more.

Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone (2017) is Satya Nadella's memoir of his work as the chief executive officer of Microsoft. Nadella describes his efforts to reform the company's culture and push its priorities toward the next generation of technology.... Purchase this in-depth analysis to learn more.