To Pixar and Beyond / Lawrence Levy / 272 pages

I had so much fun listening to this book. The narrator was Bronson Pinchot, who played Balki on "Perfect Strangers" and I would have never guessed! His voice was so soothing and wonderful to listen to, and he apparently has narrated quite a few audiobooks. The story of how Pixar went from a company, owned by Steve Jobs, that was somewhat lost about what its goals were (do hardware? do software? do commercials?) to the powerhouse in entertainment that it is today. The bulk of the story is centered around 1994-1996, when Toy Story is in development and Pixar hires Lawrence Levy to be their CFO. Eventually, a week after Toy Story is released, the IPO of Toy Story is also released and the stock price skyrockets.

I learned so much about business, start-ups, and how they are financed. For the Read Harder Challenge this year, I highly recommend reading this book for the Business category.

Where's Your WOW / Robyn Spizman & Rick Frishman / 164 pages

January reading...These two authors try to help the reader plot ways to get to the head of the pack, be memorable with customers, and achieve success. There are plenty of stories of how successful people did it...including the authors regaling you with their own awesomeness. My intention was to discover ways public libraries could use what we do every day to generate our own WOW factor and gain new customers. No new techniques that I could determine or haven't seen before.