O'Mara's


Book Description

A charming new Irish saga seriesA jilted bride to be, a woman with a secret past and a pesky red fox...Take a break you'll never forget at O'Mara's Manor House--the Georgian Guesthouse in the heart of Dublin's Fair City. Its cozy and elegant setting is where you'll fall in love with a cast of characters who'll stay with you long after you finish the book. Oh, and a full Irish breakfast is included.If Aisling O'Mara hadn't winged her way home to the Emerald Isle to take over the running of the family guesthouse she'd never have met Marcus, and her heart wouldn't have been broken. She's been trying to put her life back together since he left, but now he's back and says he's sorry. Can she trust him again?Una Brennan's booked into the guesthouse she used to walk past each morning when she was a girl full of hopes and dreams for her happy ever after. She left Dublin more than fifty years ago vowing she'd never set foot in the city again. Why did she leave and what's brought her back?Meanwhile, the little red fox who raids the bins outside O'Mara's basement kitchen door at night would like to know why the woman in Room 1, cries herself to sleep each night.Witty, sad, and insightful with a touch of romance. Come and stay at O'Mara's.




In Praise of Walking


Book Description

Walking upright on two feet is a uniquely human skill. It defines us as a species. It enabled us to walk out of Africa and to spread as far as Alaska and Australia. It freed our hands and freed our minds. We put one foot in front of the other without thinking - yet how many of us know how we do that, or appreciate the advantages it gives us? In this hymn to walking, neuroscientist Shane O'Mara invites us to marvel at the benefits it confers on our bodies and minds. In Praise of Walking celebrates this miraculous ability. Incredibly, it is a skill that has its evolutionary origins millions of years ago, under the sea. And the latest research is only now revealing how the brain and nervous system performs the mechanical magic of balancing, navigating a crowded city, or running our inner GPS system. Walking is good for our muscles and posture; it helps to protect and repair organs, and can slow or turn back the ageing of our brains. With our minds in motion we think more creatively, our mood improves and stress levels fall. Walking together to achieve a shared purpose is also a social glue that has contributed to our survival as a species. As our lives become increasingly sedentary, we risk all this. We must start walking again, whether it's up a mountain, down to the park, or simply to school and work. We, and our societies, will be better for it.




The Code


Book Description

One of New York Magazine's best books on Silicon Valley! The true, behind-the-scenes history of the people who built Silicon Valley and shaped Big Tech in America Long before Margaret O'Mara became one of our most consequential historians of the American-led digital revolution, she worked in the White House of Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the earliest days of the commercial Internet. There she saw firsthand how deeply intertwined Silicon Valley was with the federal government--and always had been--and how shallow the common understanding of the secrets of the Valley's success actually was. Now, after almost five years of pioneering research, O'Mara has produced the definitive history of Silicon Valley for our time, the story of mavericks and visionaries, but also of powerful institutions creating the framework for innovation, from the Pentagon to Stanford University. It is also a story of a community that started off remarkably homogeneous and tight-knit and stayed that way, and whose belief in its own mythology has deepened into a collective hubris that has led to astonishing triumphs as well as devastating second-order effects. Deploying a wonderfully rich and diverse cast of protagonists, from the justly famous to the unjustly obscure, across four generations of explosive growth in the Valley, from the forties to the present, O'Mara has wrestled one of the most fateful developments in modern American history into magnificent narrative form. She is on the ground with all of the key tech companies, chronicling the evolution in their offerings through each successive era, and she has a profound fingertip feel for the politics of the sector and its relation to the larger cultural narrative about tech as it has evolved over the years. Perhaps most impressive, O'Mara has penetrated the inner kingdom of tech venture capital firms, the insular and still remarkably old-boy world that became the cockpit of American capitalism and the crucible for bringing technological innovation to market, or not. The transformation of big tech into the engine room of the American economy and the nexus of so many of our hopes and dreams--and, increasingly, our nightmares--can be understood, in Margaret O'Mara's masterful hands, as the story of one California valley. As her majestic history makes clear, its fate is the fate of us all.




Crooked Numbers


Book Description

When one of Raymond Donne's former students is found stabbed to death under the Williamsburg Bridge, Ray draws on his past as a cop to find the truth in Tim O'Mara's second New York City mystery. Raymond Donne's former student Douglas Lee had everything going for him thanks to a scholarship to an exclusive private school in Manhattan, but all of that falls apart when his body is found below the Williamsburg Bridge with a dozen knife wounds in it. That kind of violence would normally get some serious attention from the police and media except when it's accompanied by signs that it could be gang related. When that's the case, the story dies and the police are happy to settle for the straightforward explanation. Dougie's mom isn't having any of that and asks Ray, who had been a cop before an accident cut his career short, to look into it, unofficially. He does what he can, asking questions, doling out information to the press, and filling in some holes in the investigation, but he doesn't get far before one of Dougie's private school friends is killed and another is put in the hospital. What kind of trouble could a couple of sheltered kids get into that would end like that? And what does is have to do with Dougie's death? None of it adds up, but there's no way Ray can just wait around for something to happen. Following on the heels of his acclaimed debut, Tim O'Mara's Crooked Numbers is another outstanding mystery that brings the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan to life and further solidifies O'Mara's place among the most talented new crime fiction writers working today.




Pivotal Tuesdays


Book Description

From the era of the industrial factory to the age of the microchip, Pivotal Tuesdays explores four twentieth-century elections—1912, 1932, 1968, and 1992—using the election of the American president as a lens through which to explore the broader sweep of the nation's social, economic, and political history.




Cities of Knowledge


Book Description

What is the magic formula for turning a place into a high-tech capital? How can a city or region become a high-tech powerhouse like Silicon Valley? For over half a century, through boom times and bust, business leaders and politicians have tried to become "the next Silicon Valley," but few have succeeded. This book examines why high-tech development became so economically important late in the twentieth century, and why its magic formula of people, jobs, capital, and institutions has been so difficult to replicate. Margaret O'Mara shows that high-tech regions are not simply accidental market creations but "cities of knowledge"--planned communities of scientific production that were shaped and subsidized by the original venture capitalist, the Cold War defense complex. At the heart of the story is the American research university, an institution enriched by Cold War spending and actively engaged in economic development. The story of the city of knowledge broadens our understanding of postwar urban history and of the relationship between civil society and the state in late twentieth-century America. It leads us to further redefine the American suburb as being much more than formless "sprawl," and shows how it is in fact the ultimate post-industrial city. Understanding this history and geography is essential to planning for the future of the high-tech economy, and this book is must reading for anyone interested in building the next Silicon Valley.




Strategy and Place


Book Description

Organisational boundaries are being transformed by downsizing, outsourcing, and networked links with customers and suppliers. Unprecedented advances in telecommunications and 'virtuality' are changing how companies occupy real space. To survive, managers must radically rethink the physical aspects of their companies. Based on cutting-edge research at such companies as Pacific Bell, Lever Brothers and Merrill Lynch, STRATEGY AND PLACE presents a framework for making key business decisions about one of the organisation's most valuable assets: its physical facilities and properties. O'Mara outlines three main approaches to real estate and facility management decision making: Incrementalism, where only short-term commitments to space are made and capital expenditures minimised; Standardisation, in which control over both design and management procedures is strictly maintained with centralised decision making; and Value-based, where organisational values factor into all design-related decisions, and procedures are flexible to meet the needs of individual parts of the organisation. O'Mara explains the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy, and shows how to apply them appropriately, based on an understanding of the profound impact of competitive uncertainty in today's new business environment.




Pulse of My Heart


Book Description

Unforgettable memoir: part medical mystery, part comedy of errors, part family drama and, most of all, an enduring love story.




Ollie Bear's Adventures with the Rainbow Heart Light


Book Description

The Rainbow Heart Light, Grandma Bear said, is a beautiful blessing from the Angel Bears sent to look after all the little bears. We can use the colors of the Rainbow Heart Light to help everyone. Join Ollie-Bear on his adventures with the Rainbow Heart Light as he learns to face the challenges of life with an open heart.




The Lady from the Black Lagoon


Book Description

This acclaimed biography shines a light on a trailblazing woman who created a classic movie monster—and the author’s quest to rescue her from obscurity. As a teenager, Mallory O’Meara was thrilled to discover that one of her favorite movies, Creature from the Black Lagoon, featured a monster designed by a woman, Milicent Patrick. But while Patrick should have been hailed as a pioneer in the genre, there was little information available about her. As O’Meara discovered, Patrick’s contribution had been claimed by a jealous male colleague and her career had been cut short. No one even knew if she was still alive. As a young woman working in the horror film industry, O’Meara set out to right the wrong, and in the process discovered the full, fascinating story of an ambitious, artistic woman ahead of her time. Patrick’s contribution to special effects proved to be just the latest chapter in a remarkable, unconventional life, from her youth growing up in the shadow of Hearst Castle, to her career as one of Disney’s first female animators. And at last, O’Meara discovered what really had happened to Patrick after The Creature’s success, and where she went. A true-life detective story and a celebration of a forgotten feminist trailblazer, Mallory O’Meara’s The Lady from the Black Lagoon establishes Patrick in her rightful place in film history while calling out a Hollywood culture where little has changed since. A Hugo and Locus Award Finalist A Thrillist Best Book of the Year One of Booklist’s 10 Best Art Books of the Year




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