The End of Competitive Advantage Rita Gunther McGrath

Review: The End of Competitive Advantage

Chances are the strategies that worked well for you, even a few years ago, no longer deliver the results you need. Dramatic changes in business have unearthed a major gap between traditional approaches to strategy and the way the real world works now.

In short, strategy is stuck. Most leaders are using frameworks that were designed for a different era of business and based on a single dominant idea – that the purpose of strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Now, Columbia Business School professor and globally recognised strategy expert, Rita Gunther McGrath, argues that it’s time to go beyond the very concept of sustainable competitive advantage.

4/5* Read!

Review: Almost Love

When Sarah falls for Matthew, she falls hard.
So it doesn’t matter that he’s twenty years older. That he sees her only in secret. That, slowly but surely, she’s sacrificing everything else in her life to be with him.
Sarah’s friends are worried. Her father can’t understand how she could allow herself to be used like this. And she’s on the verge of losing her job.
But Sarah can’t help it. She is addicted to being desired by Matthew.
And love is supposed to hurt.
Isn’t it?

3.5/5* Read!

Review: Big Little Lies

Sometimes it’s the little lies that turn out to be the most lethal.

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one.

Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price.

New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbours secret doubts about her son. But why?

3.5* Read!

This Song Will Save Your Life Book Cover

Review: This Song Will Save Your Life

All her life, Elise Dembowski has been an outsider. Starting a new school, she dreams of fitting in at last – but when her best attempts at popularity fail, she almost gives up. Then she stumbles upon a secret warehouse party. There, at night, Elise can be a different person, making real friends, falling in love for the first time, and finding her true passion – DJ’ing.

But when her real and secret lives collide, she has to make a decision once and for all: just who is the real Elise?

4* Read

Review: The Thirty List

Everyone has one. That list. The things you were supposed to do before you turn thirty… Of course, sometimes real life doesn’t work out like that. And at thirty, Rachel has slid down every ladder she ever climbed.

Jobless, broke, and ditched by her husband, she has to move in with grumpy Patrick and his four year old son, who’ve got problems of their own. So to cheer themselves up, Rachel and Patrick decide to revisit their ‘lists’. Soon they are learning to tango, abseiling, trying stand-up comedy and more. But as Rachel gets closer to Patrick, she wonders if their relationship is too good to be true. And what will happen when they finish their lists?

4* Read!

Review: Brooklyn

It is Ireland in the early 1950s and for Eilis Lacey, as for so many young Irish girls, opportunities are scarce. So when her sister arranges for her to emigrate to New York, Eilis knows she must go, leaving behind her family and her home for the first time.

Arriving in a crowded lodging house in Brooklyn, Eilis can only be reminded of what she has sacrificed. She is far from home – and homesick. And just as she takes tentative steps towards friendship, and perhaps something more, Eilis receives news which sends her back to Ireland. There she will be confronted by a terrible dilemma – a devastating choice between two worlds.

3.5* Read!

Review: December Girl

Molly Thomas is a feisty, independent soul, born on the Winter Solstice. At every stage of her life, she has faced troubles. As a young woman, her family are evicted from their home at Christmas. Molly swears vengeance on the jealous neighbour and land agent responsible, Flann Montgomery. Then in 1896, her baby son is taken from his pram. While Molly searches the streets for little Oliver, the police are called but her baby is gone.

Why does trouble seem to follow Molly? And will she ever find out what happened to her child? December Girl is a tale of family bonds, love, revenge and murder.

4* Read!

Review: Tower of Dawn

Chaol Westfall has always defined himself by his unwavering loyalty, his strength, and his position as the Captain of the Guard. But all of that has changed since the glass castle shattered, since his men were slaughtered, since the King of Adarlan spared him from a killing blow, but left his body broken.

His only shot at recovery lies with the legendary healers of the Torre Cesme in Antica—the stronghold of the southern continent’s mighty empire. And with war looming over Dorian and Aelin back home, their survival might lie with Chaol and Nesryn convincing its rulers to ally with them. But what they discover in Antica will change them both—and be more vital to saving Erilea than they could have imagined.

4.5* Read!

Review: Empire of Storms

The long path to the throne has only just begun for Aelin Galathynius. Loyalties have been broken and bought, friends have been lost and gained, and those who possess magic find themselves at odds with those don’t.

As the kingdoms of Erilea fracture around her, enemies must become allies if Aelin is to keep those she loves from falling to the dark forces poised to claim her world. With war looming on all horizons, the only chance for salvation lies in a desperate quest that may mark the end of everything Aelin holds dear. Will Aelin succeed in keeping her world from splintering, or will it all come crashing down?

4.5* Read!

Review: All That She Can See

Cherry has a hidden talent. She can see things other people can’t and she decided a long time ago to use this skill to help others. As far as the rest of the town is concerned she’s simply the kind-hearted young woman who runs the local bakery, but in private she uses her gift to add something special to her cakes so that after just one mouthful the townspeople start to feel better about their lives.

They don’t know why they’re drawn to Cherry’s bakery – they just know that they’re safe there and that’s how Cherry likes it. She can help them in secret and no one will ever need to know the truth behind her gift. And then Chase arrives in town and threatens to undo all the good Cherry has done. Because it turns out she’s not the only one who can see what she sees…

4* Read!

Review: One of Us is Lying

Yale hopeful Bronwyn has never publicly broken a rule. Sports star Cooper only knows what he’s doing in the baseball diamond. Bad body Nate is one misstep away from a life of crime. Prom queen Addy is holding together the cracks in her perfect life. And outsider Simon, creator of the notorious gossip app at Bayview High, won’t ever talk about any of them again.

He dies 24 hours before he could post their deepest secrets online. Investigators conclude it’s no accident. All of them are suspects. Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you’ll go to protect them.

4* Read!

Review: How To Be Single

It’s the most annoying question, and they just can’t help asking you.
You’ll be asked it at family gatherings, particularly weddings.
Men will ask you on first dates.
Therapists will ask you over and over again.
It’s the question that has no good answer.
It’s the question that when people stop asking it, makes you feel even worse – why are you single?

3.5* Read!

Review: The Circle

When Mae is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. Run out of a sprawling California campus, the Circle links users’ personal emails, social media, and finances with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of transparency.

Mae can’t believe her great fortune to work for them – even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public…

3.5* Read!

Review: Truth or Dare

How far is too far when it comes to the people you love? Claire Casey hates being the centre of attention. But if it means getting Sef Malik to notice her, it’s a risk she’s happy to take. Sef is prepared to do anything to help his recently disabled brother. But this means putting Claire’s love – and life – on the line. Because when you’re willing to risk everything, what is there left to lose?

3.5* Read!

Review: Eleanor & Park

Eleanor first meets Park, she thinks he’s obnoxious. When Park first meets Eleanor, he thinks she’s weird. It is hate at first sight. But as they suffer each other’s company in silence on the bus rides from and to home every day, Eleanor and Park realise that first impressions can be deceiving.

3* Read!

Review: Small Great Things

When a newborn baby dies after a routine hospital procedure, there is no doubt about who will be held responsible: the nurse who had been banned from looking after him by his father.

What the nurse, her lawyer, and the father of the child cannot know is how this death will irrevocably change all of their lives, in ways both expected and not.

Small Great Things is about prejudice and power; it is about that which divides and unites us.

4.5* Read!