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  <id>380493</id>
  <title><![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]></title>
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  <description><![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]></description>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
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    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
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  <date_updated>Sat Dec 12 14:28:39 -0800 2009</date_updated>
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    <body><![CDATA[It feels as a socio-political essay in the form of a novel, or as a novel in the form of a socio-political essay. Yates, the conferencist who has made a successful business of anticipating the future which is essentially tailor-made for the establishment, finds himself suffering from self-disappoint...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/80784764">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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      <review>
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    <![CDATA[The Futurist]]>
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  <average_rating>3.24</average_rating>
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    <![CDATA[Yates is a Futurist.Which is a fancy way of saying he flies around the world, lecturing various conferences, confabs, and conglomerates, dispensing prepackaged bullshit in an attempt to stay just ahead of the latest trend and claim he saw it first.  But now Yates has lost faith in the very future that he&#8217;s paid to sell and gives what should be a career-ending rant. Instead, a mysterious governmental group hires him to travel the globe and discover why the world seems to hate America. <br/><br/>From Middle Eastern war zones to Polynesian superluxe corporate retreats, James Othmer takes us on a mordantly hilarious journey through corporate double-speak and global unrest to find the truth beneath the buzz.]]>
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  <published>2006</published>
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    <rating>2</rating>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[Fans of Cory Doctorow's books]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at>Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Jul 01 16:30:03 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon Mar 24 19:45:05 -0700 2008</date_updated>
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    <body><![CDATA[Amusing at times, but a little too self-aware and sarcastically hip to be a truly satisfying read.]]></body>
    
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    <![CDATA[The Futurist]]>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
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    <![CDATA[Yates is a Futurist.Which is a fancy way of saying he flies around the world, lecturing various conferences, confabs, and conglomerates, dispensing prepackaged bullshit in an attempt to stay just ahead of the latest trend and claim he saw it first.  But now Yates has lost faith in the very future that he&#8217;s paid to sell and gives what should be a career-ending rant. Instead, a mysterious governmental group hires him to travel the globe and discover why the world seems to hate America. <br/><br/>From Middle Eastern war zones to Polynesian superluxe corporate retreats, James Othmer takes us on a mordantly hilarious journey through corporate double-speak and global unrest to find the truth beneath the buzz.]]>
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  <date_updated>Tue Nov 11 20:57:19 -0800 2008</date_updated>
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    <body><![CDATA[To use the old cliché, this book had me laughing out loud. Yates, the cynical protagonist in this fast moving book, took me on a hilarious ride around the world selling bullshit to countries that could have just used the bull and not the shit. I’m not a cynic, though I ‘m cynical (yeah, right) ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/37333411">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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      <review>
  <id>48956051</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Patrick]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Norristown, PA]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
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  <published>2006</published>
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    <rating>4</rating>
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  <read_at>Mon May 19 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Mar 11 14:27:46 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Mar 11 14:37:01 -0700 2009</date_updated>
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    <body><![CDATA[I read this book and it is very good: the writing is very crisp and clean, but a bit distant, the main character is cynical but have a bit of a good heart to acknowledge that. After reading that, I wished that I had applied to the Futurist position so I could have been a sell out at a higher price w...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/48956051">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/48956051]]></url>
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      <review>
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    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
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    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
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  <published>2006</published>
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    <rating>3</rating>
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  <read_at>Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Sep 09 18:35:52 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Sep 09 18:36:02 -0700 2007</date_updated>
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    <body><![CDATA[The Futurist is, oddly enough, about a man who makes his living as a futurist. In other words, someone who analyzes trends and predicts the future. After giving what should be a career ending speech exposing himself as a fraud, he is recruited by a secret government agency to find out what the rest ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5964990">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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    <location><![CDATA[Cedar Crest, NM]]></location>
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  <id type="integer">551134</id>
  <isbn>0307275140</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780307275141</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">14</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175725427m/551134.jpg</image_url>
  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175725427s/551134.jpg</small_image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/551134.The_Futurist</link>
  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Yates is a Futurist.Which is a fancy way of saying he flies around the world, lecturing various conferences, confabs, and conglomerates, dispensing prepackaged bullshit in an attempt to stay just ahead of the latest trend and claim he saw it first.  But now Yates has lost faith in the very future that he&#8217;s paid to sell and gives what should be a career-ending rant. Instead, a mysterious governmental group hires him to travel the globe and discover why the world seems to hate America. <br/><br/>From Middle Eastern war zones to Polynesian superluxe corporate retreats, James Othmer takes us on a mordantly hilarious journey through corporate double-speak and global unrest to find the truth beneath the buzz.]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>1</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Mar 23 21:33:00 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 18 10:03:44 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[What a depressing read this was.  I was intrigued by the blurbs on the cover and was hoping for an interesting story about a complex character.  I was wrong.<br/><br/>This book felt like a bizarre hybrid of &quot;Jerry Maguire&quot; and those Dos Equis &quot;Most Interesting Man in the World&quot;...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/18480505">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/18480505]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/18480505]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>66141244</id>
    <user>
    <id>2582387</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Marvin]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Iowa City, IA]]></location>
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  <isbn>038551722X</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780385517225</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">25</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>2</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Thu Jan 10 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Tue Aug 04 08:38:12 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Aug 04 08:38:42 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[A futurist (one who predicts future trends) has a personal &amp; career crisis after years of increasingly selling his services by telling people what they want to hear. He gets caught up in a mysterious, dangerous assignment that brings everything to a head. It's mildly amusing &amp; otherwise OK, but noth...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66141244">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66141244]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66141244]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>49959842</id>
    <user>
    <id>1864696</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Jared]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[New York, NY]]></location>
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  <text_reviews_count type="integer">25</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174325937m/380493.jpg</image_url>
  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174325937s/380493.jpg</small_image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Sat Mar 21 09:55:46 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Mar 21 09:57:27 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[i really dug this book.  i was consciously trying to figure out why as i was reading it, and i think it simply comes down to the main character, yates.  i loved his character.  following him, his thought process, his travels, his decision making, that's what did if for me.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/49959842]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/49959842]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>9098700</id>
    <user>
    <id>620123</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Brian]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Vienna, VA]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/620123-brian]]></link>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174325937s/380493.jpg</small_image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/380493.The_Futurist_A_Novel</link>
  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>2</rating>
  <votes>-1</votes>
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  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Nov 14 08:00:42 -0800 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Nov 14 08:00:42 -0800 2007</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[At first glance, this was a book that should have been right up my alley.  A guy gets sick of the BS he gets paid to feed corporate gatherings, and turns on them.  As a result, he seems to be more popular than ever.  He's a geek, always encouraging companies to take the next step forward in propelli...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9098700">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9098700]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9098700]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>59773923</id>
    <user>
    <id>706193</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Katie]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Rockville, MD]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/706193-katie]]></link>
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  <id type="integer">380493</id>
  <isbn>038551722X</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780385517225</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">25</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174325937m/380493.jpg</image_url>
  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174325937s/380493.jpg</small_image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>2</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Mon Jun 15 13:28:49 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon Jun 15 13:29:05 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I liked the idea of this book (a cynical futurist) better than the implementation... I would have preferred him stay cynical and funny rather than getting to the learning-a-lesson part. This book started out fairly interesting and amusing, but then kind of petered out for me.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/59773923]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/59773923]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>29194946</id>
    <user>
    <id>832416</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Nick]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[New York, NY]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/832416-nick]]></link>
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  <id type="integer">551134</id>
  <isbn>0307275140</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780307275141</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">14</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175725427m/551134.jpg</image_url>
  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175725427s/551134.jpg</small_image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Yates is a Futurist.Which is a fancy way of saying he flies around the world, lecturing various conferences, confabs, and conglomerates, dispensing prepackaged bullshit in an attempt to stay just ahead of the latest trend and claim he saw it first.  But now Yates has lost faith in the very future that he&#8217;s paid to sell and gives what should be a career-ending rant. Instead, a mysterious governmental group hires him to travel the globe and discover why the world seems to hate America. <br/><br/>From Middle Eastern war zones to Polynesian superluxe corporate retreats, James Othmer takes us on a mordantly hilarious journey through corporate double-speak and global unrest to find the truth beneath the buzz.]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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            <shelf name="books-that-fit-in-my-back-pocket-" />
      </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[People who like big ideas]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sat Aug 16 08:23:42 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Mon Aug 04 05:56:05 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Aug 16 08:23:42 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[The Futurist was an enjoyable action thriller that weaves in technology, globalization, and the pithy philosophies of the 21st century.  <br/><br/>This 2 day read reminded me of the DaVinci Code in that its an action adventure that has stops along the way where, through dialogue, the characters se...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/29194946">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/29194946]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/29194946]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>47220578</id>
    <user>
    <id>1084441</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Melody]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[South Jordan, UT]]></location>
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  <text_reviews_count type="integer">25</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>1</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Feb 22 21:10:19 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Feb 22 21:11:53 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[The cover jacket was promising something more entertaining than what I found inside.  I thought it was depressing.  I need definite good guys to root for and found most characters lacking in character!]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/47220578]]></url>
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      <review>
  <id>4820513</id>
    <user>
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    <name><![CDATA[Len]]></name>
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  <isbn>0307275140</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780307275141</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">14</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Yates is a Futurist.Which is a fancy way of saying he flies around the world, lecturing various conferences, confabs, and conglomerates, dispensing prepackaged bullshit in an attempt to stay just ahead of the latest trend and claim he saw it first.  But now Yates has lost faith in the very future that he&#8217;s paid to sell and gives what should be a career-ending rant. Instead, a mysterious governmental group hires him to travel the globe and discover why the world seems to hate America. <br/><br/>From Middle Eastern war zones to Polynesian superluxe corporate retreats, James Othmer takes us on a mordantly hilarious journey through corporate double-speak and global unrest to find the truth beneath the buzz.]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
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    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Mon Aug 20 12:44:53 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon Aug 27 07:28:33 -0700 2007</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This is one of the funniest novels I've read in a long, long time. It's difficult to believe this was Othmer's first novel, and I can't wait for his next one.<br/><br/>The Futurist is loaded with fabulous pop culture references and humorous digs at politics, advertising and pop culture itself. At ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4820513">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4820513]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4820513]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>39530036</id>
    <user>
    <id>894585</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Elliot]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[New York, NY]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Yates is a Futurist.Which is a fancy way of saying he flies around the world, lecturing various conferences, confabs, and conglomerates, dispensing prepackaged bullshit in an attempt to stay just ahead of the latest trend and claim he saw it first.  But now Yates has lost faith in the very future that he&#8217;s paid to sell and gives what should be a career-ending rant. Instead, a mysterious governmental group hires him to travel the globe and discover why the world seems to hate America. <br/><br/>From Middle Eastern war zones to Polynesian superluxe corporate retreats, James Othmer takes us on a mordantly hilarious journey through corporate double-speak and global unrest to find the truth beneath the buzz.]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Mon Dec 22 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Dec 07 13:27:08 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon Dec 22 10:43:19 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I laughed a couple times when reading this and that makes it better than &quot;Then We Came To the End&quot;. Three stars feels like 1/2 star too many but I'm doing it anyways, just so it gets more than the aforementioned. ]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39530036]]></url>
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      <review>
  <id>48382790</id>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sun Apr 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Mar 05 20:11:48 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Apr 26 11:51:52 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This is not a book I would normally pick up so I'm thankful for the wonderful book group (fiction files redux here on goodreads) that I belong to that introduced me to Mr. James P. Othmer.  What I liked the most about this book was the main character Yates.  I have nothing in common with him and yet...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/48382790">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/48382790]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/48382790]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>3926793</id>
    <user>
    <id>244887</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Jason]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[San Francisco, CA]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
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  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174325937s/380493.jpg</small_image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Aug 01 14:05:21 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 17 03:16:34 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Pretty fair assessment (at least from my standpoint of a web developer living in San Francisco, which isn't saying much) of what it's like living on the purported forefront of technology and Western culture. If you know people like our protagonist Yates or those that move in his circles, this tale w...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3926793">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3926793]]></url>
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</review>
      <review>
  <id>81035672</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Kather21]]></name>
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  <isbn13>9780385517225</isbn13>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <small_image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174325937s/380493.jpg</small_image_url>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>2</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Mon Dec 07 00:00:00 -0800 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Mon Dec 14 19:16:42 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon Dec 14 19:17:38 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Motivational speaker takes on mysterious client and confusion reigns.]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/81035672]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/81035672]]></link>
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      <review>
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    <![CDATA[The Futurist]]>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Yates is a Futurist.Which is a fancy way of saying he flies around the world, lecturing various conferences, confabs, and conglomerates, dispensing prepackaged bullshit in an attempt to stay just ahead of the latest trend and claim he saw it first.  But now Yates has lost faith in the very future that he&#8217;s paid to sell and gives what should be a career-ending rant. Instead, a mysterious governmental group hires him to travel the globe and discover why the world seems to hate America. <br/><br/>From Middle Eastern war zones to Polynesian superluxe corporate retreats, James Othmer takes us on a mordantly hilarious journey through corporate double-speak and global unrest to find the truth beneath the buzz.]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>2</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <read_at>Mon Jan 12 00:00:00 -0800 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Jan 14 15:11:45 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Jan 14 15:12:22 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Read on a plane, nothing great but it kept me entertained.]]></body>
    
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      <review>
  <id>43364905</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Paula]]></name>
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  <isbn>038551722X</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780385517225</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">25</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
  </title>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
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    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
</book>

    <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <date_added>Sat Jan 17 11:20:37 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Jan 17 11:20:49 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[made me want to go to Greenland]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/43364905]]></url>
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      <review>
  <id>50877461</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Melissa]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Futurist: A Novel]]>
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  <average_rating>3.33</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>158</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[<p>WHO IS THE FUTURIST?<br/><br/>He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.<br/><br/>He once was asked by the <em>New York Times</em> to write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it.<br/><br/>He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students.<br/><br/>He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read, <em>Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace</em>.<br/><br/>He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people&#8217;s nebulous jobs to their confused parents.<br/><br/>He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch.<br/><br/>He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.</p><p>Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He&#8217;s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. <br/><br/>But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates&#8217;s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she&#8217;s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us?<br/><br/>Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals, <em>The Futurist</em> manages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time.<br/><br/>It&#8217;s the novel we all deserve.</p>]]>
  </description>
  <published>2006</published>
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    <rating>5</rating>
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  <read_at>Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Mar 29 20:53:24 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Mar 29 20:54:04 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Wow.  I really liked it!]]></body>
    
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