David

In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.

Why has one game, alone among the thousands of games invented and played throughout human history, not only survived but thrived within every culture it has touched? What is it about its 32 figurative pieces, moving about its 64 black and white squares according to very simple rules, that has captivated people for nearly 1,500 years? Why has it driven some of its greatest players into paranoia and madness, and yet is hailed as a remarkably powerful intellectual tool?

Continuing the inspiring story begun in his first book, Every Second Counts captures the mind-set of a man who has beaten incredible odds and considers each day an opportunity for excellence.

For almost four desperate years, from 1939 to mid-1943, the British and American navies fought a savage, losing battle against German submarine wolfpacks. The Allies might never have turned the tide of that historic battle without an intelligence coup, and the race to break the German U-boat codes is one of the last great untold stories of World War II. David Kahn, the world's leading historian of cryptology, brings to life this tense, behind-the-scenes drama for the first time.

There have been many biographies of Stalin, but the court that surrounded him is untravelled ground. Simon Sebag Montefiore, acclaimed biographer of Catherine the Great's lover, prime minister, and general, Potemkin, has unearthed the vast underpinning that sustained Stalin. Not only ministers such as Molotov or secret service chiefs such as Beria, but men and women whose loyalty he trusted only until the next purge.