The Works or Memo to the President Elect

The Works: Anatomy of a City

Author: Kate Ascher

How much do you really know about the systems that keep a city alive? The Works: Anatomy of a City contains everything you ever wanted to know about what makes New York City run. When you flick on your light switch the light goes on--how? When you put out your garbage, where does it go? When you flush your toilet, what happens to the waste? How does water get from a reservoir in the mountains to your city faucet? How do flowers get to your corner store from Holland, or bananas get there from Ecuador? Who is operating the traffic lights all over the city? And what in the world is that steam coming out from underneath the potholes on the street? Across the city lies a series of extraordinarily complex and interconnected systems. Often invisible, and wholly taken for granted, these are the systems that make urban life possible.

The Works: Anatomy of a City offers a cross section of this hidden infrastructure, using beautiful, innovative graphic images combined with short, clear text explanations to answer all the questions about the way things work in a modern city. It describes the technologies that keep the city functioning, as well as the people who support them-the pilots that bring the ships in over the Narrows sandbar, the sandhogs who are currently digging the third water tunnel under Manhattan, the television engineer who scales the Empire State Building's antenna for routine maintenance, the electrical wizards who maintain the century-old system that delivers power to subways.

Did you know that the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is so long, and its towers are so high, that the builders had to take the curvature of the earth's surface into account when designing it? Did you know that the George Washington Bridge takes in approximately $1 million per day in tolls? Did you know that retired subway cars travel by barge to the mid-Atlantic, where they are dumped overboard to form natural reefs for fish? Or that if the telecom cables under New York were strung end to end, they would reach from the earth to the sun? While the book uses New York as its example, it has relevance well beyond that city's boundaries as the systems that make New York a functioning metropolis are similar to those that keep the bright lights burning in big cities everywhere.

The Works is for anyone who has ever stopped midcrosswalk, looked at the rapidly moving metropolis around them, and wondered, how does this all work?

Interesting book:

Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership

Author: Madeleine Albright

The next president, whether Democrat or Republican, will face the daunting task of repairing America's core relationships and tarnished credibility after the damage caused during the past seven years. In Memo to the President Elect, former secretary of state and bestselling author Madeleine Albright offers provocative ideas about how to confront the striking array of challenges that the next commander-in-chief will face and how to return America to its rightful role as a source of inspiration across the globe.

Much more than a set of policy prescriptions, Secretary Albright's writing blends lessons from the past with forward-looking suggestions about how to assemble a first-rate foreign policy team, anticipate the actions of other key countries, make full use of presidential power without repeating the excesses of the Bush administration, and revive America's commitment to its founding ideals.

Albright's advice is candid—as conveyed in a confidential memo—and seasoned with humor and stories from her years in office. Drawing on her extensive experience as an advisor to two presidents and a key figure in four presidential transitions, she provides an insider's analysis of U.S. options in addressing the decisive issues of our era: terrorism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rivalries in the Middle East, the potential for nuclear war, and headaches created by such troublesome leaders as Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Russia's Vladimir Putin, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, and North Korea's Kim Jong-il.

The 2008 election promises to be one of the most dramatic in our nation's history. Memo to the President Elect offers indispensableguidance for the next occupant of the White House—and a wealth of insights for voters to think about before deciding who that person will be.

Publishers Weekly

Former secretary of state Albright's professionalism shines through as she does double duty as author and narrator. As simple and straightforward as her reading is, Albright creates a personal atmosphere, given the book's insider material and anecdotes. Addressing everything from the current war in Iraq to stories of her origin in politics, Albright reaches out to her listeners in her charismatic and clear-sighted manner. While there is little shift in her tone and voice, the reading is clear and well pronounced, allowing the material the respect it deserves. Audiences will find themselves intrigued and entertained by Albright's tales and her narration. Simultaneous release with the Harper hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 26, 2007). (Feb.)

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Table of Contents:

Prologue     1
Part 1
A Mandate to Lead     13
What Kind of President?     33
Thy Staff Shall Comfort Thee     51
The Art of Persuasion     79
Fifty Lady Sharpshooters     105
Be Sure You're Right; Then Go Ahead     129
The Lion and the Lion-tamers     147
Part 2
New Foundations     169
Hoops of Iron     197
America's Place in the Asian Century     231
Pride and Prejudice in Russia and South Asia     263
One Iraq Is Enough     295
Middle East: The Power to Choose     329
Isolating Al Qaeda     355
Part 3
Above the Thundering Abyss     379
Notes     391
Acknowledgments     411