From the host of NPR’s Planet Money , the deeply-investigated story of how one visionary, dogged investor changed American finance forever. Before Bill Gross was known among investors as the Bond King, he was a gambler. In 1966, a fresh college grad, he went to Vegas armed with his net worth ($200) and a knack for counting cards. $10,000 and countless casino bans later, he was hooked: so he enrolled in business school. The Bond King is the story of how that whiz kid made American finance his casino. Over the course of decades, Bill Gross turned the sleepy bond market into a destabilized game of high risk, high reward; founded Pimco, one of today’s most powerful, secretive, and cutthroat investment firms; helped to reshape our financial system in the aftermath of the Great Recession―to his own advantage; and gained legions of admirers, and enemies, along the way. Like every American antihero, his ambition would also be his undoing. To understand the winners and losers of today’s money game, journalist Mary Childs argues, is to understand the bond market―and to understand the bond market is to understand the Bond King.

In Typeset in the Future , blogger and designer Dave Addey invites sci-fi movie fans on a journey through seven genre-defining classics, discovering how they create compelling visions of the future through typography and design. Foreword by Matt Zoller Seitz This book delves deep into 2001: A Space Odyssey , Star Trek: The Motion Picture , Alien , Blade Runner , Total Recall , WALL·E , and Moon , studying the design tricks and inspirations that make each film transcend mere celluloid and become a believable reality. These studies are illustrated by film stills, concept art, type specimens, and ephemera, plus original interviews with Mike Okuda ( Star Trek ), Paul Verhoeven ( Total Recall ), and Ralph Eggleston and Craig Foster (Pixar). Typeset in the Future is an obsessively geeky study of how classic sci-fi movies draw us in to their imagined worlds—and how they have come to represent “THE FUTURE” in popular culture.

Edith Templeton—bohemian aristocrat, accomplished novelist, and widow of the physician to the King of Nepal—wrote this highly individual account of her visit to six northern Italian towns in the early 50s. Enchantingly evocative of the time and places, her vintage narrative is a gem of travel literature. In her new introduction, Anita Brookner offers an insightful, gracefully written analysis of the astringent wit and classic poise of Templeton’s writing.