Search results for ""Author Paul Vigna""

The first ultimate fans’ guide to the hit TV show The Walking Dead—celebrating its popularity, depth as a genre, and cultural resonance—from resident Wall Street Journal Walking Dead columnist Paul Vigna In the seven years that it’s been on the air, The Walking Dead averages about 13 million viewers a week, and regularly hits 16 and 17 million—numbers unheard of for a cable show. It is AMC’s biggest money-maker by a country mile. The series finales of Mad Men and Breaking Bad, those Emmy-soaked shows that were such hits with the intellectual set, were the highest rated of their respective runs, but their numbers were only what The Walking Dead averages every single Sunday that it airs. It’s not just in the U.S., either; it’s a major hit in dozens of international markets, among them the U.K., Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, the Balkans, Korea, and Taiwan. For Fox, which carries the show overseas, The Walking Dead has given it some of its highest ratings ever. Why is this show such a massive and unlikely success? Guts will dissect every aspect of The Walking Dead and come up with answers (and will have some fun while doing so; this is, after all, a zombie show). The book will explore the show’s roots, its genre, its story, its backstory, and its cultural importance. It will delve into the changing nature of TV and media to see how that’s affected the phenomenon. It will take readers into the zombie genre itself, to discover why it’s different from vampires, werewolves, and Frankenstein; why people have found in zombies a mirror for their own fears, and how this is important to the show’s success. Lastly, the book will look at the fans themselves, from average twitter followers to NFL stars; we’ll meet with them at conventions and zombie races, even at Universal Studios where there’s a Walking Dead ride. Ultimately, these are the fans that make the show a ratings leviathan. While it’s no news that The Walking Dead is one of the most popular shows of all time, it is surprising that there has never been a comprehensive companion to the show...until now. Featuring in-depth interviews with the cast and crew as well as scintillating pop culture analysis, Guts is sure to be a fan favorite and a perfect gift for the ravenous fanbase that, simply, cannot get enough.

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'If the word 'blockchain' makes you want to call a plumber, or you think Satoshi is some kind of raw fish, you need to read Cryptocurrency today. If you're already a bit-convert, you'll still learn a lot' Niall Ferguson, author of The Ascent of Money1988 saw the birth of the internet. 2008 gave us bitcoin. Today, cybercurrencies are changing the world we live in. What would a world without banks, credit cards or national currencies look like for all of us?For centuries, the system that governs how money works has stayed the same. Now there's an alternative, and it puts us on the cusp of a revolution that could reshape our world. At the heart of this lie, cryptocurrencies, a technology with the transformative potential of the printing press or the internet. They bypass the elites and cut out the gatekeepers. Unlike traditional money, they don't have a nationality, they're digital and democratic. They are also lawless.From Silicon Valley to the streets of Beijing, this is a story about a revolution in the making, a tale of human invention, and a guide to the future. The perfect book for future proofing your money, let Cryptocurrency teach you everything you need to know about the future of finance.'Fascinating' The Times'Not only demystifies and explains bitcoin, but shows where it fits into the cultural zeitgeist and where it's pointed, and what that may mean for our financial system' John Mauldin, New York Times bestselling author'I can think of no better guide to what the future holds' Eswar Prasad, author of The Dollar Trap

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From the authors of the fascinating The Age of Cryptocurrency, comes the definitive work on the Internet’s next big thing: the blockchain. Many of the ‘legacy systems’ once designed to make our lives easier and our economy more efficient are no longer up to the task; big banks have grown more entrenched, privacy exists only until the next hack, and credit card fraud has become a fact of life. However, there is a way past all this―a new kind of operating system with the potential to revolutionise our economy: the blockchain. In The Truth Machine, Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna demystify the blockchain and explain why it can restore personal control over our data, assets, and identities; grant billions of excluded people access to the global economy; and shift the balance of power to revive society’s faith in itself. They reveal the empowerment possible when self-interested middlemen give way to the transparency of the blockchain, while highlighting the job losses, assertion of special interests, and threat to social cohesion that will accompany this shift. With a balanced perspective, Casey and Vigna show why we all must care about the path that blockchain technology takes―moving humanity forward, not backward.

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