Book Romeo and Juliet | Introduction

A perennial staple of high school English classes, Romeo and Juliet was written by Shakespeare at a relatively early juncture in his literary career, most probably in 1594 or 1595. During much of the twentieth century, critics tended to disparage this play in comparison to the four great tragedies that Shakespeare wrote in the first decade of the seventeenth century (Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello). Appraised next to the Bard's mature works, Romeo and Juliet appears to lack the psychological depth and the structural complexity of Shakespeare's later tragedies. But over the past three decades or so, many scholars have altered this assessment, effectively upgrading its status within Shakespeare's canon. They have done this by discarding comparative evaluation and judging Romeo and Juliet as a work of art in its own right.

Viewed from this fresh perspective, Shakespeare's tragic drama of the "star-crossed" young lovers is seen to be an extraordinary work. Indeed, Romeo and Juliet was an experimental stage piece at the time of its composition, featuring several radical departures from long-standing conventions. These innovative aspects of the play, moreover, reinforce and embellish its principal themes. The latter include the antithesis between love and hate, the correlative use of a light/dark polarity, the handling of time (as both theme and as structural element), and the prominent status accorded to Fortune and its expression in the dreams, omens and forebodings that presage its tragic conclusion.


Romeo and Juliet DVD Movies

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Books Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, & Priorities of a Winning Life

Tony Dungy's words and example have intrigued millions of people, particularly following his victory in Super Bowl XLI, the first for an African American coach. How is it possible for a coach--especially a football coach--to win the respect of his players and lead them to the Super Bowl without the screaming histrionics, the profanities, the demand that the sport come before anything else? How is it possible for anyone to be successful without compromising faith and family? In this inspiring and reflective memoir, Coach Dungy tells the story of a life lived for God and family--and challenges us all to redefine our ideas of what it means to succeed. Includes a foreword by Denzel Washington and a 16-page color photo insert.

From the Inside Flap

What does it take to be a modern-day hero?

"I really wanted to show people you can win all kinds of ways. . . . For your faith to be more important than your job, for your family to be more important than that job . . . we all know that's the way it should be. . . . I'm not afraid to say it.Tony Dungy

People of all ages crave heroes. But its rare to find someoneespecially someone in the media spotlight like Tony Dungywhose life and work reflect positive, value-driven precepts.

In Coach Dungy, many have found a role model. Sports fans admire the way he intensely pursues success without sacrificing his team members well-being. Parents point to his example when teaching their children about the importance of hard work, persistence, and graciousness whether they win or lose. Even his fiercest competitors acknowledge that Coach Dungy is a class act who knows how to get the job done and who keeps his priorities intact while hes doing it.

To all these people and more, Tony Dungy is a real-life heroone who teaches us about the importance of quiet strength, fierce determination, and a humble heart.

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Books O's Guide to Life: The Best of O, the Oprah Magazine (The Oprah Magazine)

For anyone on a journey of self-discovery, here is the ultimate handbook for living well. O's Guide to Life, the new second volume of The Best of O, The Oprah Magazine book series, gathers the most empowering, energizing, and entertaining articles of the magazine's last two years. Filled with advice from experts such as Dr. Phil, Suze Orman, Martha Beck, and Oprah, the book addresses three major aspects of life. "Your Personal Best" focuses on emotional and physical well-being: maintaining health, building confidence, finding a sense of purpose and balance. "Relationships" provides the tools and insights everyone needs to forge better connections with our partners, families, friends, and co-workers. And, "Living in the World" urges the reader to make life more meaningful by helping and reaching out to others. This is a resource that readers will keep returning to for answers and inspiration.

Features

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More than 100 of the best articles from O, The Oprah Magazine

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Discover "Your Personal Best" with the latest information on weight loss, health, and beauty, plus must-reads about seeking happiness, getting through dark times, exploring spirituality, going solo, aging beautifully, and making your dreams a reality

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Improve your relationships with advice from columnists such as Dr. Phil and Lisa Kogan on everything from dating, marriage, and sex to communication with family, friends, and co-workers

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Get motivated by "Living in the World" with Oprah's intimate interviews with fascinating people who know how to give back, such as Christiane Amanpour and Desmond Tutu, stories about everyday heroes, and celebrities' eye-opening "Aha" moments

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With more than 300 photos, 336 full-color pages, vibrant design, lush images, and an abundance of good writing, the energy of O, The Oprah Magazine radiates from every page

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Books Good Dog. Stay

“The life of a good dog is like the life of a good person, only shorter and more compressed,” writes Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anna Quindlen about her beloved black Labrador retriever, Beau. With her trademark wisdom and humor, Quindlen reflects on how her life has unfolded in tandem with Beau’s, and on the lessons she’s learned by watching him: to roll with the punches, to take things as they come, to measure herself not in terms of the past or the future but of the present, to raise her nose in the air from time to time and, at least metaphorically, holler, “I smell bacon!”

Of the dog that once possessed a catcher’s mitt of a mouth, Quindlen reminisces, “there came a time when a scrap thrown in his direction usually bounced unseen off his head. Yet put a pork roast in the oven, and the guy still breathed as audibly as an obscene caller. The eyes and ears may have gone, but the nose was eternal. And the tail. The tail still wagged, albeit at half-staff. When it stops, I thought more than once, then we’ll know.”

Heartening and bittersweet, Good Dog. Stay. honors the life of a cherished and loyal friend and offers us a valuable lesson on our four-legged family members: Sometimes an old dog can teach us new tricks.

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Books Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

At age 10, Steve Martin got a job selling guidebooks at the newly opened Disneyland. In the decade that followed, he worked in Disney's magic shop, print shop, and theater, and developed his own magic/comedy act. By age 20, studying poetry and philosophy on the side, he was performing a dozen times a week, most often at the Disney rival, Knott's Berry Farm. Obsession is a substitute for talent, he has said, and Steve Martin's focus and daring--his sheer tenacity--are truly stunning. He writes about making the very tough decision to sacrifice everything not original in his act, and about lucking into a job writing for The Smothers Brothers Show. He writes about mentors, girlfriends, his complex relationship with his parents and sister, and about some of his great peers in comedy--Dan Ackroyd, Lorne Michaels, Carl Reiner, Johnny Carson. He writes about fear, anxiety and loneliness. And he writes about how he figured out what worked on stage.

This book is a memoir, but it is also an illuminating guidebook to stand-up from one of our two or three greatest comedians. Though Martin is reticent about his personal life, he is also stunningly deft, and manages to give readers a feeling of intimacy and candor. Illustrated throughout with black and white photographs collected by Martin, this book is instantly compelling visually and a spectacularly good read.

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Books Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth, 73rd Edition

"This is the best parody since the National Lampoon published its phony newspaper, "The Dacron Republican-Democrat," in 1978."

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Books The Choice

Book Description
#1 New York Times bestseller Nicholas Sparks turns his unrivaled talents to a new tale about love found and lost, and the choices we hope we'll never have to make.Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job, loyal friends, even a waterfront home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life -

boating, swimming , and regular barbecues with his good-natured buddies -- he holds the vague conviction that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style. That is, until Gabby Holland moves in next door. Spanning the eventful years of young love, marriage and family, THE CHOICE ultimately confronts us with the most heartwrenching question of all: how far would you go to keep the hope of love alive?

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Books The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

Review
"It's about time this book was written. It is a long-overdue manifesto for the mobile lifestyle, and Tim Ferriss is the ideal ambassador. This will be huge."
–Jack Canfield
Co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul®, 100+ million copies sold

"This is a whole new ball game. Highly recommended."
–Dr. Stewart D. Friedman
Adviser to Jack Welch and Former Vice President Al Gore on Work/Family Issues
Director of the Work/Life Integration Project, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

"Stunning and amazing. From mini-retirements to outsourcing your life,
it's all here. Whether you're a wage slave or a Fortune 500 CEO, this
book will change your life!"
–Phil Town
#1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Rule #1

"The 4-Hour Workweek is a new way of solving a very old problem: just how can we work to live and prevent our lives from being all about work? A world of infinite options awaits those who would read this book and be inspired by it!"
–Michael E. Gerber
Founder & Chairman of E-Myth Worldwide and the World's #1 Small Business Guru

“Timothy has packed more lives into his 29 years than Steve Jobs has in his 51.”
–Tom Foremski
Journalist and Publisher of SiliconValleyWatcher.com

“Thanks to Tim Ferriss, I have more time in my life to travel, spend time with family and write book blurbs. This is a dazzling and highly useful
work.”
–A.J. Jacobs
Editor-at-Large, Esquire Magazine, Author of The Know-It-All

"If you want to live life on your own terms, this is your blueprint."
–Mike Maples
Co-founder of Motive Communications (IPO to $260M market cap), Founding Executive of Tivoli (sold to IBM for $750M)

"Tim is Indiana Jones for the digital age. I've already used his advice to go spearfishing on remote islands and ski the best hidden slopes of Argentina. Simply put, do what he says and you can live like a millionaire."
–Albert Pope
Derivatives Trading, UBS World Headquarters

“This engaging book makes you ask the most important question that you will ever face: What exactly is it that you want out of work and life, and why? Tim Ferriss is a master of getting more for less, often with the help of people he doesn't even know, and here he gives away his secrets for fulfilling your dreams.”
–Bo Burlingham
Editor-at-Large, Inc. magazine
Author of Small Giants: Companies That Choose To Be Great Instead of Big

"Reading this book is like putting a few zeros on your income. Tim brings lifestyle to a new level–listen to him!"
–Michael D. Kerlin
McKinsey & Company Consultant to Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund
J. William Fulbright Scholar

"Part scientist and part adventure hunter, Tim Ferriss has created a road map for an entirely new world. I devoured this book in one sitting–I have seen nothing like it."
–Charles L. Brock
Chairman and CEO, Brock Capital Group
Former CFO, COO, and General Counsel, Scholastic, Inc.
Former President, Harvard Law School Association

"Outsourcing is no longer just for Fortune 500 companies. Small and mid-sized firms, as well as busy professionals, can outsource their work to increase their productivity and free time for more important commitments. It's time for the world to take advantage of this revolution.”
–Vivek Kulkarni
CEO Brickwork India and former IT Secretary, Bangalore
Credited as the “techno-bureaucrat” who helped make Bangalore an IT destination in India

"Tim is the master! I should know. I followed his rags to riches path and watched him transform himself from competitive fighter to entrepreneur. He tears apart conventional assumptions until he finds a better way."
–Dan Partland
Emmy Award-Winning Producer; American High, Welcome to the Dollhouse

"The 4-Hour Workweek is an absolute necessity for those adventurous souls who want to live life to its fullest. Buy it and read it before you sacrifice any more!"
–John Lusk
Group Product Manager, Microsoft World Headquarters

"If you want to live your dreams now, and not in 20 or 30 years, buy this book!"
–Laura Roden
Chairman of the Silicon Valley Association of Start-up Entrepreneurs
Lecturer in Corporate Finance, San Jose State University

“With this kind of time management and focus on the important things in life, people should be able to get 15 times as much done in a normal work week.”
–Tim Draper
Founder, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Financiers to innovators including Hotmail, Skype, and Overture.com

"Tim Ferriss’s book is about gaining the courage to streamline your life
… But even more than that, it challenges the reader to seriously consider an essential–yet rarely asked–question: What do you really want from life?"
–Rolf Potts
Author of Vagabonding and Travel Columnist for Yahoo! News

"Tim has done what most people only dream of doing. I can't believe he is going to let his secrets out of the bag. This book is a must read!"
–Stephen Key
Top Inventor and Team Designer of Teddy Ruxpin, Lazer Tag
Consultant to “American Inventor”

Book Description
What do you do? Tim Ferriss has trouble answering the question. Depending on when you ask this
controversial Princeton University guest lecturer, he might answer:

“I race motorcycles in Europe.”
“I ski in the Andes.”
“I scuba dive in Panama.”
“I dance tango in Buenos Aires.”

He has spent more than five years learning the secrets of the New Rich, a fast-growing subculture who has abandoned the “deferred-life plan” and instead mastered the new currencies—time and mobility—to create luxury lifestyles in the here and now.

Whether you are an overworked employee or an entrepreneur trapped in your own business, this book is the compass for a new and revolutionary world. Join Tim Ferriss as he teaches you:

• How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
• How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
• How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
• How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and freuent "mini-retirements"
• What the crucial difference is between absolute and relative income
• How to train your boss to value performance over presence, or kill your job (or company) if it’s beyond repair
• What automated cash-flow “muses” are and how to create one in 2 to 4 weeks
• How to cultivate selective ignorance—and create time—with a low-information diet
• What the management secrets of Remote Control CEOs are
• How to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50–80% off
• How to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office

You can have it all—really.

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Books His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass) [BOX SET] (Mass Market Paperback)

In the epic trilogy His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman unlocks the door to worlds parallel to our own. Dæmons and winged creatures live side by side with humans, and a mysterious entity called Dust just might have the power to unite the universes--if it isn't destroyed first. The three books in Pullman's heroic fantasy series, published as mass-market paperbacks with new covers, are united here in one boxed set that includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. Join Lyra, Pantalaimon, Will, and the rest as they embark on the most breathtaking, heartbreaking adventure of their lives. The fate of the universe is in their hands. (Ages 13 and older)


Book Description
Now, for the first time, the HIS DARK MATERIALS Trilogy is available in a trade paperback edition. All three books in the His Dark Materials trilogy-- THE GOLDEN COMPASS, THE SUBTLE KNIFE, and THE AMBER SPYGLASS--are available in a new complete boxed set featuring the trade paperbacks. New material is available in all three books: The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife feature black-and-white chapter-opening art by Philip Pullman himself; The Amber Spyglass features chapter-opening quotes from the likes of Milton, Donne, Blake, Byron and the Bible, which did not appear in hardcover. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Books Playing For Pizza: A Novel

Third-string Cleveland Browns quarterback Rick Dockery becomes the greatest goat ever by throwing three interceptions in the closing minutes of the AFC championship game. Fleeing vengeful fans, he finds refuge in the grungiest corner of professional football, the Italian National Football League as quarterback of the inept but full-of-heart Parma Panthers. What ensues is a winsome football fable, replete with team bonding and character-building as the underdog Panthers challenge the powerhouse Bergamo Lions for a shot at the Italian Superbowl. The book is also the author's love letter to Italy. Rick is first baffled and then enchanted by all things Italian-tiny cars! opera! benign corruption!-and through him Grisham (The Firm) instructs his
readership in the art of gracious living, featuring sumptuous four-hour, umpteen-course meals. The writing sometimes lapses into travel-guide ("most Italian cities are sort of configured around a central square, called a piazza") and food porn ("[the veal cutlets are beaten with a small bat, then dipped in eggs, fried in a skillet, and then baked in the oven with a mix of parmigiano cheese and stock until the cheese melts"), but it's invigorated by appealing characters and lively play-by-play. The result is a charming fish-out-of-water story.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Books A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book

The award-winning PostSecret project's most profound and stunning postcards to date

For the past three years Frank Warren has invited people of all backgrounds and nationalities to send him creatively decorated postcards bearing secrets they have never before revealed. He has shared these PostSecrets on his award-winning blog, www.PostSecret.com, in an internationally traveling art exhibit, and in three electrifying books: the bestselling PostSecret, My Secret, and The Secret Lives of Men and Women.

Now, in his most extraordinary book yet, Warren again delves into our collective confessions, presenting a never-before-seen selection of provocative and moving PostSecrets. A Lifetime of Secrets lays bare our private fears, hopes, regrets, and desires, from people as young as eight and as old as eighty. From painful admissions of infidelity to breathtaking revelations and endearing sentiments, Warren's latest collection will shock and move readers of every age, revealing secrets that have haunted their creators for a lifetime.

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Books Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy

Sabuda and Reinhart Studios have created another spectacular pop-up book for George Lucas's epic STAR WARS movies! Bestselling pop-up artist and engineer Matthew Reinhart has designed a thirtieth anniversary commemorative edition that comes packed with a variety of novelty features -- pop-ups, working light sabers, pull tabs, and other interactive looks at the exciting and popular movies. This beautiful book will impress all fans of STAR WARS and gives a whole new perspective to the films.

MATTHEW REINHART is a renowned paper engineer and bona fide STARS WARS aficionado. He has worked with Robert Sabuda on many wonderful pop-up titles such as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, A B C Disney, Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs, and Movable Mother Goose. He also created Mommy? by Maurice Sendak, The Pop-Up Book of Nightmares, and The Pop-Up Book of Phobias. He lives in New York City.

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Books: Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy, Part 3 (Sword Of Truth, Book 11)

Descending into darkness, about to be overwhelmed by evil, those people still free are powerless to stop the coming dawn of a savage new world, while Richard faces the guilt of knowing that he must let it happen. Alone, he must bear the weight of a sin he dare not confess to the one person he lovesand has lost. Join Richard and Kahlan in the concluding novel of one of the most remarkable and memorable journeys ever written. It started with one rule, and will end with the rule of all rules, the rule unwritten, the rule unspoken since the dawn of history. When next the sun rises, the world will be forever changed.

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Books: Love in the Time of Cholera (MTI) (Vintage International)

The ironic vision and luminous evocation of South America that have distinguished Garcia Marquez's Nobel Prize-winning fiction since his landmark work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, persist in this turn-of-the-century chronicle of a unique love triangle. It is a fully mature novel in scope and perspective, flawlessly translated, as rich in ideas as in humanity. The illustrious and meticulous Dr. Juvenal Urbino and his proud, stately wife Fermina Daza, respectively past 80 and 70, are in the autumn of their solid marriage as the drama opens on the suicide of the doctor's


chess partner. Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, a disabled photographer of children, chooses death over the indignities of old age, revealing in a letter a clandestine love affair, on the "fringes of a closed society's prejudices." This scenario not only heralds Urbino's demise soon afterwhen he falls out of a mango tree in an attempt to catch an escaped parrotbut brilliantly presages the novel's central themes, which are as concerned with the renewing capacity of age as with an anatomy of love. We meet Florentino Ariza, more antihero than hero, a mock Don Juan with an undertaker's demeanor, at once pathetic, grotesque and endearing, when he seizes the memorably unseemly occasion of Urbino's funeral to reiterate to Fermina the vow of love he first uttered more than 50 years before. With the fine detailing of a Victorian novel, the narrative plunges backward in time to reenact their earlier, youthful courtship of furtive letters and glances, frustrated when Fermina, in the light of awaking maturity, realizes Florentino is an adolescent obsession, and rejects him. With his uncanny ability to unearth the extraordinary in the commonplace, Garcia Marquez smoothly interweaves Fermina's and Florentino's subsequent histories. Enmeshed in a bizarre string of affairs with ill-fated widows while vicariously conducting the liaisons of others via love poems composed on request, Florentino feverishly tries to fill the void of his unrequited passion. Meanwhile, Fermina's marriage suffers vicissitudes but endures, affirming that marital love can be as much the product of art as is romantic love. When circumstances both comic and mystical offer Fermina and Florentino a second chance, during a time in their lives that is often regarded as promising only inevitable degeneration toward death, Garcia Marquez beautifully reveals true love's soil not in the convention of marriage but in the simple, timeless rituals that are its cement. 100,000 first printing; first serial to the New Yorker; BOMC main selection.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Books:Walking in Your Own Shoes: Discover God's Direction for Your Life (Hardcover)

As the son of Robert H. Schuller, founding pastor of the Crystal Cathedral megachurch in California and host of The Hour of Power television broadcast, Schuller (Getting Through What You're Going Through) grew up knowing that he would have big shoes to fill. Although he is inheriting the ministry reins, Schuller's goal has been to do so in his own way, and in this book he hopes to inspire others to fulfill their God-given potential and pursue their dreams. The encouragement is fairly trite: Schuller encourages readers that God is with them on their journey, that bad things that happen will be a good part of God's overall plan, and that God has a unique purpose for everyone. While there is a lot of scripture throughout, these are shallow skimmings, with brief thoughts held together by numerous stories and one analogy after another. Tinges of prosperity gospel teaching and undercurrents of pop psychology lead to advice like Christ died for the purpose of ensuring you success in your journey, and Develop an overview and create your own personal map. Despite a built-in audience and a coveted foreword from Dr. Phil, this book may alienate readers with its stale, unclear writing. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
God had a specific reason when he formed us to be individuals, unique creations that each fulfill a special purpose. Everything we are, have been, and will be is all part of a grand plan of God's love. Everything helps to shape us into the people God wants us to be and where we find our inner satisfaction, joy, and meaning.

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Books: The Kite Runner

In his debut novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini accomplishes what very few contemporary novelists are able to do. He manages to provide an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political turmoil--in this case, Afghanistan--while also developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional triumphs resonate with readers long after the last page has been turned over. And he does this on his first try.

The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule. ("...I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.")

Some of the plot's turns and twists may be somewhat implausible, but Hosseini has created characters that seem so real that one almost forgets that The Kite Runner is a novel and not a memoir. At a time when Afghanistan has been thrust into the forefront of America's collective consciousness ("people sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for Kunduz"), Hosseini offers an honest, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, but always heartfelt view of a fascinating land. Perhaps the only true flaw in this extraordinary novel is that it ends all too soon. --Gisele Toueg --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems

In this appraisal of America's woes, conservative TV and talk-radio host Beck (The Real America) lays lighthearted siege to everything that makes the world worse. [P]olitical correctness is the biggest threat this nation faces today, he declares, as it makes us prey for Islamic fundamentalists, renders taboo the roots of our economic troubles (poor people are, in fact, lazy, he argues) and creates rampant distortion in the media. Beck goes paragraph for paragraph with global-warming alarmist Al Gore, merrily slaughtering the sacred cows of the environmentalist crowd. Not sated by the hide of the former vice president, he goes after everything and everyone from poverty to perverts, offering solutions to these and other problems (e.g., the key to success in the capitalist system is to believe in it). While often informative, as in his chapter on global warming, Beck is sometimes tedious, particularly when dealing with Islam and education (France is literally teetering on the edge, and our biggest ally, England, is about to be turned inside out as well). He's at his best when most absurd, and funniest when he's his own target (the father of four is little more than a flesh-and-bone jungle gym). This should make a good read for conservatives. (Nov.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Glenn Beck is CNN's chief corporate-fascism advocate."

-- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.



"Finally! A guy who says what people who aren't thinking, are thinking."

-- Jon Stewart



"Satan's mentally challenged younger brother."

-- Stephen King



"There's something about him that suggests that, one night, he'll say something that will cost him his career...."

-- Keith Olbermann



"Glenn Beck shouldn't be on [the air]."

-- Al Franken

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Books Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching: 32.5 Strategies to Ring Your Own (Cash) Register in Business and Personal Success

What is CHA-CHING?



Cha-Ching! is a sound familiar to all.

Cha-Ching! is the sound of a cash register ringing up a sale.

Cha-Ching! is the sound of achievement.

Cha-Ching! is the sound of motivation and inspiration.

Cha-Ching! is the sound of money.

Cha-Ching! is the sound of wealth.

Cha-Ching! is the sound of fulfillment.



Cha-Ching! is the sound of music...Music that makes you feel great every time you hear it. Not just rhythm, Cha-Ching! sets the tone for more Cha-Chings! and gives you the self-confidence that if you have rung the register once, you can ring it again, and again (and again).



Cha-Ching! is the sound of success...The continued achievement, motivation, and inspiration -- adding up to a sweet choir of melodic sweetness. It's the sweet sound of success. What's your sound of success?



Buy Cha-Ching! and make your own music, dance to your own rhythm, and ring your own register. The CASH register.


About the Author
Jeffrey Gitomer is the world's #1 expert on selling. He is author of Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, as well as the WSJ and BusinessWeek bestsellers Little Good Book of YES! Attitude, Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers; The Sales Bible; and Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless. He gives over 100 presentations a year, serving customers ranging from Coca-Cola to Cingular Wireless, Wells Fargo Bank and IBM to Mercedes Benz.

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Books The Pillars of the Earth (Deluxe Edition) (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)

read this book years ago and it still is one of the best. I don't want to give anything away, but if you want to read something about the middle ages that is lengthy and absorbing, give this one a shot. Well worth your time.

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Books The Pillars of the Earth (Paperback)

With this book, Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner, escaping the narrow genre of suspense thrillers to take credit for a historical novel of gripping readability, authentic atmosphere and detail and memorable characterization. Set in 12th-century England, the narrative concerns the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge.
The ambitions of three men merge, conflict and collide through four decades during which social and political upheaval and the internal politics of the church affect the progress of the cathedral and the fortunes of the protagonists. The insightful portrayals of an idealistic master builder, a pious, dogmatic but compassionate prior and an unscrupulous, ruthless bishop are balanced by those of a trio of independent, resourceful women (one of them quite loathesome) who can stand on their own as memorable characters in any genre. Beginning with a mystery that casts its shadow on ensuing events, the narrative is a seesaw of tension in which circumstances change with shocking but true-to-life unpredictability. Follett's impeccable pacing builds suspense in a balanced narrative that offers action, intrigue, violence and passion as well as the step-by-step description of an edifice rising in slow stages, its progress tied to the vicissitudes of fortune and the permutations of evolving architectural style. Follett's depiction of the precarious balance of power between monarchy and religion in the Middle Ages, and of the effects of social upheavals and the forces of nature (storms, famines) on political events; his ability to convey the fine points of architecture so that the cathedral becomes clearly visualized in the reader's mind; and above all, his portrayals of the enduring human emotions of ambition, greed, bravery, dedication, revenge and love, result in a highly engrossing narrative. Manipulating a complex plot in which the characters interact against a broad canvas of medieval life, Follett has written a novel that entertains, instructs and satisfies on a grand scale. 400,000 first printing; $400,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild main dual selection; author tour.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Books Soul Communication: Opening Your Spiritual Channels for Success and Fulfillment

Soul Communication is a practical guide to some of the simplest yet most profound spiritual development exercises that Dr. Zhi Gang Sha teaches on national television and in his teleclasses, workshops, and appearances. It presents Dr. Sha's instruction on how to allow the inner essence of our soul to express through our bodies, our voices, and in our communication with others - not only with our fellow human beings, but also with other souls, including our own soul.

The power of the soul is vast and untapped. Dr. Sha reveals many ancient secrets for accessing this power, while at the same time updating these teachings for our modern world. Soul Communication is a primer for those on the spiritual path, showing the reader how to relate to the soul, and open up all the available channels for the wisdom and blessings of the soul to pour forth into daily living.

A warm and heartfelt offering from Dr. Sha, the wisdom in this volume is presented in conversational language that makes profound spiritual insight simple and accessible.

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The Birds in My Life

"Supreme Master Ching Hai's relationship with birds represents an ideal to which all humans should aspire! When she encounters a bird left to languish in a small case, she rescues and rehabilitates that creature with kindness, communication and unconditional love. Supreme Master offers a profound lesson. Every creature you encounter has a heart and feelings and deserves respect.

Review
Time and again she praises their outer and inner beauty and thereby softly invites her readers to practise seeing with their third eye in order to recognise more of the full beauty of our feathered friends.

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Books Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy, Part 3 (Sword Of Truth, Book 11)

Descending into darkness, about to be overwhelmed by evil, those people still free are powerless to stop the coming dawn of a savage new world, while Richard faces the guilt of knowing that he must let it happen. Alone, he must bear the weight of a sin he dare not confess to the one person he lovesand has lost. Join Richard and Kahlan in the concluding novel of one of the most remarkable and memorable journeys ever written. It started with one rule, and will end with the rule of all rules, the rule unwritten, the rule unspoken since the dawn of history. When next the sun rises, the world will be forever changed.

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Books: Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10

On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less then twenty-four hours later, only one of those Navy SEALs remained alive. This is the story of fire team leader
Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of Operation Redwing, and the desperate battle in the mountains that led, ultimately, to the largest loss of life in Navy SEAL history. But it is also, more than anything, the story of his teammates, who fought ferociously beside him until he was the last one left-blasted unconscious by a rocket grenade, blown over a cliff, but still armed and still breathing. Over the next four days, badly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell fought off six al Qaeda assassins who were sent to finish him, then crawled for seven miles through the mountains before he was taken in by a Pashtun tribe, who risked everything to protect him from the encircling Taliban killers.A six-foot-five-inch Texan, Leading Petty Officer Luttrell takes us, blow-by-blow, through the brutal training of America's warrior elite and the relentless rites of passage required by the Navy SEALs. He transports us to a monstrous battle fought in the desolate peaks of Afghanistan, where the beleaguered American team plummeted headlong a thousand feet down a mountain as they fought back through flying shale and rocks. In this rich , moving chronicle of courage, honor, and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers one of the most powerful narratives ever written about modern warfare-and a tribute to his teammates, who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

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Books: His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass) [BOX SET] (Mass Market Paperback)

In the epic trilogy His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman unlocks the door to worlds parallel to our own. Dæmons and winged creatures live side by side with humans, and a mysterious entity called Dust just might have the power to unite the universes--if it isn't destroyed first. The three books in Pullman's heroic fantasy series, published as mass-market paperbacks with new covers, are united here in one boxed set that includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. Join Lyra, Pantalaimon, Will, and the rest as they embark on the most breathtaking, heartbreaking adventure of their lives. The fate of the universe is in their hands. (Ages 13 and older)

Book Description
Now, for the first time, the HIS DARK MATERIALS Trilogy is available in a trade paperback edition. All three books in the His Dark Materials trilogy-- THE GOLDEN COMPASS, THE SUBTLE KNIFE, and THE AMBER SPYGLASS--are available in a new complete boxed set featuring the trade paperbacks. New material is available in all three books: The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife feature black-and-white chapter-opening art by Philip Pullman himself; The Amber Spyglass features chapter-opening quotes from the likes of Milton, Donne, Blake, Byron and the Bible, which did not appear in hardcover. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Books: Double Cross (Alex Cross)

Just when Alex thought his life was calming down into a routine of patients and therapy sessions, he finds himself back in the game--this time to catch a criminal mastermind like no other. A spate of elaborate murders in Washington D.C. have the whole East Coast on edge. They are like nothing Alex Cross and his new girlfriend,
Detective Brianna Stone, have ever seen. With each murder, the case becomes increasingly complex. There's only one thing Alex knows: the killer adores an audience. As victims are made into gruesome spectacles citywide, inducing a media hysteria, it becomes clear to Alex that the man he's after is a genius of terror--and he's after fame. The killer has the whole city by its strings--and he'll stop at nothing to become the most terrifying star that Washington D.C. has ever seen.

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Books: Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time (Paperback)

Starred Review. Some failures lead to phenomenal successes, and this American nurse's unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, the world's second tallest mountain, is one of them. Dangerously ill when he finished his climb in 1993, Mortenson was sheltered for seven weeks by the small Pakistani village of Korphe; in return, he promised to build the impoverished town's first school, a project that grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Coauthor Relin recounts Mortenson's efforts in fascinating detail, presenting compelling portraits of the village elders, con artists, philanthropists, mujahideen, Taliban officials, ambitious school girls and upright Muslims Mortenson met along the way. As the book moves into the post-9/11 world, Mortenson and Relin argue that the United States must fight Islamic extremism in the region through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, especially for girls. Captivating and suspenseful, with engrossing accounts of both hostilities and unlikely friendships, this book will win many readers' hearts. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine
While critics agree that Three Cups of Tea should be read for its inspirational value rather than for its literary merit, the book's central theme, derived from a Baltistan proverb, rings loud and clear. "The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger," a villager tells Greg Mortenson. "The second time, you are an honored guest. The third time you become family." An inspirational story of one man's efforts to address poverty, educate girls, and overcome cultural divides, Three Cups, which won the 2007 Kiriyama Prize for nonfiction, reveals the enormous obstacles inherent in becoming such "family." Despite the important message, critics quibbled over the awkward prose and some melodrama. After all, a story as dramatic and satisfying as this should tell itself.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Books: The Gathering (Man Booker Prize) (Paperback)

*Starred Review* The blessing and the curse of family bonds have been addressed by some of our best writers, perhaps never so movingly as by William Kennedy in his Albany cycle of novels. Now Irish novelist Enright, whose intense lyrical style recalls Kennedy's, gives full voice to another tale of familial agony: Veronica's grief in the wake of her wayward brother Liam's suicide. Past and present merge as
Veronica recalls their childhood growing up in Dublin in a family of 14, with never enough money or enough attention from their overburdened parents. She's convinced it all went wrong when Liam was sexually abused by a family friend, and her recollections of that day alternate with sunnier ones of their endless roughhousing and joking. When Liam drowned himself, with a tide of "blood, sea water and whiskey" running in his veins, he took Veronica's sense of purpose with him. Inconsolable, and suffering from insomnia, she spends her evenings driving and writing, trying to come to terms with the fact that "someone you love is dead, and the world is full of people you don't." Enright's hypnotic prose turns her desperation into something fierce and beautiful. Wilkinson, Joanne

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Books Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny

Money maven Suze Orman's latest book, Women & Money addresses the complicated (and often dysfunctional) relationship women have with personal finance. Orman's direct, non-condescending style is perfect for this subject matter--she begins with the premise that "Women can invest, save, and handle debt as well and skillfully as any man" and then tackles the important question--"So why don't they?" Designed to

educate and inspire, Women & Money also offers a "Save Yourself Plan," a five-month program that "delivers genuine long-term financial security." Want to know more? Watch a video message from Suze below, and take a gander at the first chapter of Women & Money--you'll be "controlling your destiny" in no time. --Daphne Durham

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Books Become a Better You

Joel Osteen reaches one of the largest audiences in the U.S. and across the globe--more than 42,000 people attend his church every week, and millions more tune in by television to hear his words of inspiration and wisdom. His first book, Your Best Life Now, has sold over 4 million copies and is available worldwide in 17 languages. His message of hope is helping people find a closer connection with God by learning to apply the principles of Scripture to their everyday lives.

In this new book, Become a Better You, Joel Osteen offers seven simple yet profound action steps that will help readers discover the better things they were born for... their individual purpose and destiny. As charming and passionate on the page as he is in person, Osteen incorporates key biblical principles, devotions, and personal testimonies that will uplift and enlighten readers. He speaks directly to the hearts and concerns of people from every walk of life. People love Joel Osteen--they love to be in his presence, to hear him speak, and to read what he's written--they just can't get enough of him.

Become a Better You will encourage and inspire readers to reach their full, unique and God given potential.

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Books The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing During the Change, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

Menopause doesn't have to be a dreaded curse of aging during which we can look forward only to hot flashes and whacked-out hormonal mood swings. According to Christiane Northrup, M.D. (Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom), menopause often marks the beginning of a woman's most sexually passionate, creatively inspired, and professionally productive phase of life.

While this may sound like wishful thinking, Northrup backs up her good news with solid medical expertise. As an obstetrician and gynecologist, Northrup has specialized in using a mind-body approach to women's health for decades, which means she doesn't just write about hormones, but also examines how a woman's lifestyle, emotions, and beliefs are affected by menopause. With the right diet, attitude, and perhaps some supplements along the way, women can actually look forward to a resurgence of energy and a revolutionary opportunity for personal growth--one that rivals the hormonally driven period of adolescence in its scope and urgency, she claims. And yes, at just under 500 pages, The Wisdom of Menopause does explain how to have a positive and healthy menopause in concise detail. Northrup has indeed "written the book" on menopause.

It helps that Northrup has been through menopause herself (she vowed she wouldn't write a book on it until she was on the other side). Readers have the sense that they are gleaning advice from a knowledgeable holistic doctor as well as a sage aunt whose life was radically altered by the "change of life" (Northrup divorced at the onset of menopause). After she shares her personal story of "the change," Northrup delves into a significant discussion on how self-sacrifice catches up with women in midlife. Suddenly, hormones are directing women out of the caregiver role and into an inwardly focused assessment of life and its meaning, she explains. Resentments (not hormones) are what spur the notorious surges of anger, as women reexamine the agreements surrounding their relationships with colleagues, friends, and family members.

From here, Northrup guides readers into a thorough section on menopausal hormone changes--a discussion that is scientifically informative, yet entirely accessible. While acknowledging the need for hormone-replacement therapy and the tremendous relief it can provide (helping to alleviate insomnia, hot flashes, and depression), Northrup encourages women to avoid synthetic hormones and instead consider "bioidentical" hormones (such as estradiol, estrone, and estriol). She also devotes an entire chapter to foods and supplements that support hormonal balance. By the way, she says to skip the wild Mexican yam creams: "they certainly don't provide the documented benefits of progesterone." Be warned: some readers may find the advice in Wisdom of Menopause too alternative for their liking. For example, in her discussion on insomnia, one of Northrup's recommendations is to cover the mirror at night, following the ancient Asian design principles of feng shui. (Skeptics will find Northrup's medical assertions carefully cited and footnoted in the rear of her book.)

Northrup gives a solid and practical diet plan that supports hormonal balance while countering the weight gain that so frequently plagues menopausal women ("focus on portion size, not calories," "eat protein at every meal," and cut down on refined and high-carbohydrate foods). Readers can also expect a thorough mind-body discussion in subsequent chapters that cover breast health, bone loss, and cultivating midlife beauty, along with chapters titled "Sex and Menopause: Myths and Reality" and "Creating Pelvic Health and Power."

She concludes with a list of mail-order and online resources, such as retailers for bioidentical hormones, progesterone cream, Chinese herbs, soy products, weight-loss audiocassettes, lubricants, and Kegel weights. Northrup takes a truly comprehensive approach to all the effective treatments of menopausal symptoms so that women can make their own highly informed and wise choices. --Gail Hudson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Books The Secret

Supporters will hail this New Age self-help book on the law of attraction as a groundbreaking and life-changing work, finding validation in its thesis that one's positive thoughts are powerful magnets that attract wealth, health, happiness... and did we mention wealth? Detractors will be appalled by this as well as when the book argues that fleeting negative thoughts are powerful enough to create terminal illness, poverty and even widespread disasters. The audio version of this

controversial book, read by Byrne and contributing authors such as John Gray and Neale Donald Walsch, is uneven at best. The cheesy, obvious sound effects will not do much to add intellectual respectability to a work that has been widely denounced as pseudoscience. Mostly, this audio is hampered by its confusing and disjointed organization—techniques that worked reasonably well in the print version and the movie, such as cutting every few seconds from one enthusiastic expert to another, make for a choppy and somewhat bewildering listening experience. The gentle cadences of Rhonda Byrne's breathy, Aussie-infused voice are certainly the best part of the audio, but her material is scarce and provides mostly connective tissue between the testimonials.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Books Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

From Publishers Weekly
Sacks is an unparalleled chronicler of modern medicine, and fans of his work will find much to enjoy when he turns his prodigious talent for observation to music and its relationship to the brain. The subtitle aptly frames the book as a series of medical case studies-some in-depth, some abruptly short. The tales themselves range from the relatively mundane (a song that gets stuck on a continuing loop in one's

mind) through the uncommon (Tourette's or Parkinson's patients whose symptoms are calmed by particular kinds of music) to the outright startling (a man struck by lightning subsequently developed a newfound passion and talent for the concert piano). In this latest collection, Sacks introduces new and fascinating characters, while also touching on the role of music in some of his classic cases (the man who mistook his wife for a hat makes a brief appearance). Though at times the narrative meanders, drawing connections through juxtaposition while leaving broader theories to be inferred by the reader, the result is greater than the sum of its parts. This book leaves one a little more attuned to the remarkable complexity of human beings, and a bit more conscious of the role of music in our lives. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Books Results That Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That Will Take Your Company to the Top

Praise For Results That Last

"Quint Studer is a superb communicator with a deep belief in the power of relationships. His informal tone, sense of humor, and real-world stories bring his business principles to life. Results That Last has a vital, optimistic quality that will keep readers re-reading long after other leadership books have been relegated to a dark corner of the shelf."
—Nido Qubein, author of How to Get Anything You Want; President, High Point University; Chairman, Great Harvest Bread Company; and founder, National Speakers Association Foundation

"Results That Last is long overdue and fills a big gap in effective business management. There are legions of books that show us the way to achieve successful results in business, but very few that teach us how to institutionalize success. In reality, achieving success is the easy part. The real challenge is to achieve results that last. Quint Studer not only proves it is possible to hardwire a culture for lasting results, but lays out a simple, logical, and effective way to do so. Anyone who wants to make success a habit needs to read this book."
—Bob MacDonald, former CEO, Allianz Life of North America and author of Beat the System: 11 Secrets to Building an Entrepreneurial Culture in a Bureaucratic World

"I have always been fascinated by how the various parts of an organization work together to achieve strategic objectives. In Results That Last, Quint Studer explores the complex subject of performance improvement in a fresh, readable, and easy-to-grasp way. By standardizing certain business practices and leader behaviors, any company in any field can create an environment that allows it to achieve and sustain long-term results."
—David F. Giannetto, coauthor of The Performance Power Grid: The Proven Method to Create and Sustain Superior Organizational Performance

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Books Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations

With no-holds-barred candor, the straight-talking former ambassador to t
he United Nations takes readers behind the scenes at the UN and the U.S. State Department and reveals why his efforts to defend American interests and reform the UN resulted in controversy. A veteran of three Republican administrations and a nominee for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, Bolton shows how the U.S. can lead the way to a more realistic global security arrangement for the twenty-first century and identifies the next generation of threats to America.

The son of a Baltimore firefighter and the first person in his family to go to college, with scholarships to Yale University and Yale Law School, John Bolton studied with preeminent conservative thinkers Robert Bork and Ralph Winter. After law school, he experienced the "Reagan Revolution" firsthand in Edwin Meese's justice department -- where the American judiciary was fundamentally reshaped. His diplomatic skills were honed working with Secretary of State James Baker during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and serving in the administration of President George W. Bush as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs.

In this revealing memoir, he candidly recounts his appointment in 2005 as Ambassador to the United Nations, his headline-making Senate confirmation battle, which resulted in his recess appointment, and his sixteen-month tenure at the United Nations. Bolton offers keen insight into such international crises as North Korea's nuclear test, Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, the genocide in Darfur, the monthlong negotiation that produced the controversial end of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, and more. Recounting both his successes and frustrations in taking a hard line against weapons-of-mass destruction proliferators, terrorists, and rogue states such as North Korea and Iran, he also exposes the operational inadequacies that hinder the UN's effectiveness in international diplomacy and its bias against Israel and the United States. At home, he criticizes the pernicious bureaucratic inertia in the U.S. State Department that can undermine presidential policy.

A fascinating chronicle of the career of a distinguished lawyer and diplomat who has fought to preserve American sovereignty and strength at home and abroad, Surrender Is Not an Option is the candid memoir of one of America's outstanding statesmen that is sure to become required reading for everyone interested in international affairs.

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Books Be a Real Estate Millionaire: Secret Strategies for Lifetime Wealth Today

T. Harv Eker, New York Times bestselling author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
"Dean Graziosi knows what it takes to become a millionaire from real estate by using secret strategies that can be easily learned and applied. This book is a winner!"

Jack Canfield, co-author of The Success Principles(tm)
"Dean's common sense approach makes it feel like he is personally teaching you exactly what to do while making sure you avoid what not to do. His personal experiences alone are enough to make this book a must read."

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Books Love in the Time of Cholera (Oprah's Book Club)

The ironic vision and luminous evocation of South America that have distinguished Garcia Marquez's Nobel Prize-winning fiction since his landmark work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, persist in this turn-of-the-century chronicle of a unique love triangle. It is a fully mature novel in scope and perspective, flawlessly translated, as rich in ideas as in humanity. The illustrious and meticulous Dr. Juvenal Urbino

and his proud, stately wife Fermina Daza, respectively past 80 and 70, are in the autumn of their solid marriage as the drama opens on the suicide of the doctor's chess partner. Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, a disabled photographer of children, chooses death over the indignities of old age, revealing in a letter a clandestine love affair, on the "fringes of a closed society's prejudices." This scenario not only heralds Urbino's demise soon afterwhen he falls out of a mango tree in an attempt to catch an escaped parrotbut brilliantly presages the novel's central themes, which are as concerned with the renewing capacity of age as with an anatomy of love. We meet Florentino Ariza, more antihero than hero, a mock Don Juan with an undertaker's demeanor, at once pathetic, grotesque and endearing, when he seizes the memorably unseemly occasion of Urbino's funeral to reiterate to Fermina the vow of love he first uttered more than 50 years before. With the fine detailing of a Victorian novel, the narrative plunges backward in time to reenact their earlier, youthful courtship of furtive letters and glances, frustrated when Fermina, in the light of awaking maturity, realizes Florentino is an adolescent obsession, and rejects him. With his uncanny ability to unearth the extraordinary in the commonplace, Garcia Marquez smoothly interweaves Fermina's and Florentino's subsequent histories. Enmeshed in a bizarre string of affairs with ill-fated widows while vicariously conducting the liaisons of others via love poems composed on request, Florentino feverishly tries to fill the void of his unrequited passion. Meanwhile, Fermina's marriage suffers vicissitudes but endures, affirming that marital love can be as much the product of art as is romantic love. When circumstances both comic and mystical offer Fermina and Florentino a second chance, during a time in their lives that is often regarded as promising only inevitable degeneration toward death, Garcia Marquez beautifully reveals true love's soil not in the convention of marriage but in the simple, timeless rituals that are its cement. 100,000 first printing; first serial to the New Yorker; BOMC main selection.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Books Clapton: The Autobiography

“I found a pattern in my behavior that had been repeating itself for years, decades even. Bad choices were my specialty, and if something honest and decent came along, I would shun it or run the other way.”

With striking intimacy and candor, Eric Clapton tells the story of his eventful and inspiring life in this poignant and honest autobiography. More than a rock star, he is an icon, a living embodiment of the history of rock music. Well known for his reserve in a profession marked by self-promotion, flamboyance, and spin, he now chronicles, for the first time, his remarkable personal and professional journeys.

Born illegitimate in 1945 and raised by his grandparents, Eric never knew his father and, until the age of nine, believed his actual mother to be his sister. In his early teens his solace was the guitar, and his incredible talent would make him a cult hero in the clubs of Britain and inspire devoted fans to scrawl “Clapton is God” on the walls of London’s Underground. With the formation of Cream, the world's first supergroup, he became a worldwide superstar, but conflicting personalities tore the band apart within two years. His stints in Blind Faith, in Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, and in Derek and the Dominos were also short-lived but yielded some of the most enduring songs in history, including the classic “Layla.”

During the late sixties he played as a guest with Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, as well as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and longtime friend George Harrison. It was while working with the latter that he fell for George’s wife, Pattie Boyd, a seemingly unrequited love that led him to the depths of despair, self-imposed seclusion, and drug addiction. By the early seventies he had overcome his addiction and released the bestselling album 461 Ocean Boulevard, with its massive hit “I Shot the Sheriff.” He followed that with the platinum album Slowhand, which included “Wonderful Tonight,” the touching love song to Pattie, whom he finally married at the end of 1979. A short time later, however, Eric had replaced heroin with alcohol as his preferred vice, following a pattern of behavior that not only was detrimental to his music but contributed to the eventual breakup of his marriage.
In the eighties he would battle and begin his recovery from alcoholism and become a father. But just as his life was coming together, he was struck by a terrible blow: His beloved four-year-old son, Conor, died in a freak accident. At an earlier time Eric might have coped with this tragedy by fleeing into a world of addiction. But now a much stronger man, he took refuge in music, responding with the achingly beautiful “Tears in Heaven.”

Clapton is the powerfully written story of a survivor, a man who has achieved the pinnacle of success despite extraordinary demons. It is one of the most compelling memoirs of our time.

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Books: Stone Cold

Oliver Stone and the Camel Club are back in their most dangerous adventure yet, a war on two fronts. Casino king Jerry Bagger from The Collectors is hunting Annabelle Conroy who conned him out of millions. Stone and his colleagues Reuben,
Milton, and Caleb marshal all their resources to protect Annabelle. Yet all their skills may not be enough when a deadly new opponent rips off the veneer of Stone's own mysterious past. Bagger's menace pales next to newcomer Harry Finn's lethality. Seeming a normal family-man, Finn has already killed three men with more targets to come. When Finn also sets his bulls-eye on Stone, his reason why will be the greatest shock of all, making readers reconsider their beliefs in good and evil. As bodies and institutions topple, the story rockets toward a shattering finale that will leave the survivors of this explosive tale changed forever.

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Boom!: Voices of the Sixties Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today

In The Greatest Generation, his landmark bestseller, Tom Brokaw eloquently evoked for America what it meant to come of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War. Now, in Boom!, one of America’s premier journalists gives us an epic portrait of another defining era in America as he brings to life the tumultuous Sixties, a fault line in American history. The voices and stories of both famous people and ordinary citizens come together as Brokaw takes us on a memorable journey through a remarkable time, exploring how individual lives and the national mindset were affected by a controversial era and showing how the aftershocks of the Sixties continue to resound in our lives today. In the reflections of a generation, Brokaw also discovers lessons that might guide us in the years ahead.

Boom! One minute it was Ike and the man in the grey flannel suit, and the next minute it was time to “turn on, tune in, drop out.” While Americans were walking on the moon, Americans were dying in Vietnam. Nothing was beyond question, and there were far fewer answers than before.

Published as the fortieth anniversary of 1968 approaches, Boom! gives us what Brokaw sees as a virtual reunion of some members of “the class of ’68,” offering wise and moving reflections and frank personal remembrances about people’s lives during a time of high ideals and profound social, political, and individual change. What were the gains, what were the losses? Who were the winners, who were the losers? As they look back decades later, what do members of the Sixties generation think really mattered in that tumultuous time, and what will have meaning going forward?

Race, war, politics, feminism, popular culture, and music are all explored here, and we learn from a wide range of people about their lives. Tom Brokaw explores how members of this generation have gone on to bring activism and a Sixties mindset into individual entrepreneurship today. We hear stories of how this formative decade has led to a recalibrated perspective–on business, the environment, politics, family, our national existence.

Remarkable in its insights, profoundly moving, wonderfully written and reported, this revealing portrait of a generation and of an era, and of the impact of the 1960s on our lives today, lets us be present at this reunion ourselves, and join in these frank conversations about America then, now, and tomorrow.

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A Thousand Splendid Suns

It's difficult to imagine a harder first act to follow than The Kite Runner: a debut novel by an unknown writer about a country many readers knew little about that has gone on to have over four million copies in print worldwide. But when preview copies of Khaled Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, started circulating at Amazon.com, readers reacted with a unanimous enthusiasm that few of us could remember seeing before. As special as The Kite Runner was, those readers said, A Thousand Splendid Suns is more so, bringing Hosseini's compassionate storytelling and his sense of personal and national tragedy to a tale of two women that is weighted equally with despair and grave hope.

We wanted to spread the word on the book as widely, and as soon, as we could. See below for an exclusive excerpt from A Thousand Splendid Suns and early reviews of the book from some of our top customer reviewers.--The Editors

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Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and Anguish

Although Mark Levin is known as a constitutional lawyer and a nationally syndicated broadcaster, he is, first and foremost, a dog lover. In 1998, he and his family welcomed a half-Border Collie/half-Cocker Spaniel they named Pepsi into their lives. Six years later, his wife and son persuaded him to adopt a dog from the local shelter, a Spaniel mix. It turned out he was older than originally thought, and he was the most beautiful dog they'd ever seen. They named him Sprite. Their lives would never be the same.

Sprite and Pepsi became fast friends. They did everything together, from rummaging through the trash to loudly greeting the deliveryman. And the Levin family fell in love with him -- with his gentle nature, beautiful face and soft, huggable fur. But on Halloween night, shortly after joining their family, Sprite suddenly collapsed and was rushed to the animal hospital. It was the first of many such visits, and the start of a long journey for the Levin family, filled with much joy and anguish.

During the next two years, Sprite and Pepsi were inseparable. And Sprite's bond with the Levin family deepened. Friends, neighbors, and even Mark's radio audience came to know and love Sprite. As Mark's daughter turned eighteen and graduated from high school and Mark's son turned fifteen, Sprite's health deteriorated -- even as his spirits remained high and his beauty and grace continued to inspire. Comfort came from family, fans, and friends, and between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2006, the Levin family said their emotional final goodbye. Crushed and consumed with grief, Mark turned to family, friends, and fans for help.

But new hope came when the Levins least expected it.

Rescuing Sprite is a stunningly intimate look at the love between a family and a dog, one that movingly shows, in Mark Levin's words, that "in the end, we humans are the lucky ones."

The author will donate a portion of his proceeds from the sale of this book to animal shelters.

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Books Valley Boy: The Education of Tom Perkins

Review
"Tom Perkins is a man of extraordinary passions, among them deals, venture capital, entrepreneurs, ocean racing, vintage cars, and extraordinary women. Valley Boy is a heady mix of picaresque adventure and high finance, more fun than most novels, told in a charming, intimate style as if you were a privileged guest on one of Tom's legendary yachts."
-- James Stewart, New Yorker contributor and author of the best-selling Den of Thieves

"A smart, often funny and wholly engaging account of a fabulous and varied life lived on the frontiers of high tech America. Utterly absorbing from first to last, this is one memoir which is as unique as its author."
-- Richard North Patterson, #1 New York Times best-selling author

As if Tom Perkins didn't have it all--and he does not seem to lack for one single thing--the guy can damn well WRITE, too. I picked up Valley Boy before dinner, got engrossed by the Hewlett Packard intrigue, sailed on through Danielle Steel, and wound up skipping a meal. This is an entertaining, penetrating, and even wise look at the high life, California-style!
-- Sean Wilsey, author of the best-selling Oh the Glory of It All

"I read it in one sitting and enjoyed the fascinating, frank and open discussion of Perkins' life."
-- Prof. Herbert Boyer, cofounder of Genentech

Praise for Tom Perkins

"A Titan of American Business"
-Newsweek

"One of American venture capital's founding fathers." -The Economist

"You know you're rich when...you assemble one of the world's great collections of supercharged cars of the 1920s and 30s, sell it just before the antique car market collapses, but still drive to the office in a late-model turbo Bentley. Perkins provides a paradigm of life lived wisely and well, without a wrong note, a missed step, or (it seems) a dream unrealized."
-Forbes

"A Silicon Valley Luminary...A decisive, brilliant strategist...His success came partly from a willingness to risk everything he had-literally-to get his way."
-San Jose Mercury News

"A big engine...a grand figure in the life of the Valley."
-David Kaplan in Silicon Boys

"A charismatic corporate gamesman with a gambler's nerve."
-San Francisco Chronicle

Book Description
A revealing memoir from Tom Perkins—renowned venture capitalist, Silicon Valley and biotechnology pioneer, and one of America’s most successful businessmen

Known for his idiosyncratic ideas and golden touch, Tom Perkins has always been one of the business world’s most intriguing figures. But his legacy took an unexpected new turn when he resigned from Hewlett-Packard’s board in 2006, protesting the “questionable ethics and dubious legality” of their chairman’s now infamous leak investigation. In this insightful memoir, Perkins recalls these and other fascinating episodes of his life, both personal and professional, including his involvement in the creation of American industries no one could have dreamed of a century ago.

In 1957 Perkins started working for Hewlett-Packard, and his career with the company spanned, becoming the administrative head of the research laboratories and the first general manager of its skyrocketing computer businesses. He was a pioneer in laser technology, starting the company that he later merged into Spectra-Physics. As chairman of Genentech for fourteen years, founder of the Silicon Valley venture-capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and director of Applied Materials at Compaq, Corning Glass, and Philips Electronics, Perkins never shies away from the cutting edge.

He also discusses his marriage to Danielle Steel, his notorious vintage car collection, his yacht (the largest privately owned sailboat), his race across the ocean, his being tried for manslaughter in a backwater French town, and the toughest assignment he’s ever had: as a trustee emeritus at the San Francisco ballet.

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Books Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)

Readers beware. The brilliant, breathtaking conclusion to J.K. Rowling's spellbinding series is not for the faint of heart--such revelations, battles, and betrayals await in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that no fan will make it to the end unscathed. Luckily, Rowling has prepped loyal readers for the end of her series by doling out increasingly dark and dangerous tales of magic and mystery, shot through with lessons about honor and contempt, love and loss, and right and wrong. Fear not, you will find no spoilers in our review--to tell the plot would ruin the journey, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is an odyssey the likes of which Rowling's fans have not yet seen, and are not likely to forget. But we would be remiss if we did not offer one small suggestion before you embark on your final adventure with Harry--bring plenty of tissues.

The heart of Book 7 is a hero's mission--not just in Harry's quest for the Horcruxes, but in his journey from boy to man--and Harry faces more danger than that found in all six books combined, from the direct threat of the Death Eaters and you-know-who, to the subtle perils of losing faith in himself. Attentive readers would do well to remember Dumbledore's warning about making the choice between "what is right and what is easy," and know that Rowling applies the same difficult principle to the conclusion of her series. While fans will find the answers to hotly speculated questions about Dumbledore, Snape, and you-know-who, it is a testament to Rowling's skill as a storyteller that even the most astute and careful reader will be taken by surprise.

A spectacular finish to a phenomenal series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a bittersweet read for fans. The journey is hard, filled with events both tragic and triumphant, the battlefield littered with the bodies of the dearest and despised, but the final chapter is as brilliant and blinding as a phoenix's flame, and fans and skeptics alike will emerge from the confines of the story with full but heavy hearts, giddy and grateful for the experience. --Daphne Durham

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Books Home to Holly Springs (Father Tim, Book 1)

Karon's bestselling series of Mitford novels has concluded with 25 million copies sold to date, but to the relief of eager fans, she introduces a new series featuring Father Tim. The beloved Episcopal priest returns to his childhood town of Holly Springs, Miss., where he reconnects with old friends and battles some old demons. The novel is thick with Father Tim's past, as Karon uses flashbacks to shed light on his early adulthood, especially his transition to seminary. In Holly Springs, his penchant for getting near strangers to open up to him—and his earnest, moving reflections on faith, prayer and the risks of love—are reassuringly present. His wife, Cynthia, is on stage far less than he, but when she appears, she is charming and insightful, as usual. Yet the book is far from perfect. Development of the quirky locals in Holly Springs is thin, and the end is a tad abrupt. Most frustratingly, the central drama of the novel falls flat: Father Tim discovers a long-buried family secret, but he doesn't grapple deeply enough with the emotional consequences of his discovery, nor does Karon fully explore the ways in which the secret plunges us into the Southern quagmire of race. Still, Mitford fans will enjoy this newest visit with wise, winsome, lovable Father Tim. (Oct. 30)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
“Far from Mitford and his beloved wife Cynthia, Father Tim Kavanagh enters unfamiliar emotional territory in the town of his birth.

When he receives a letter postmarked Holly Springs, Miss., that contains a cryptic two-word message written in a precise, old-fashioned hand, Father Tim decides to answer its call and return to his birthplace for the first time in 38 years. On the long drive, he faces unanswered questions and half-forgotten memories: What happened to his boyhood chum and blood brother, Tommy? What caused his father's melancholy that bordered on cruelty? What happened to Peggy, the adored black caregiver who disappeared when he was 11? Who is trying to contact him, and why? As Father Tim awaits the letter writer, he is showered by blessings: He finds that his hometown has been beautifully restored, and he makes peace with an old flame. When the summons comes, it brings both joy and betrayal. He is reunited with his beloved Peggy, only to learn a terrible secret: She was carrying his father's child when she disappeared. When Peggy reveals that Henry, her son and Tim's half-brother, has leukemia and can only survive with a transfusion from a compatible sibling, Tim has to struggle to reach the decision he knows is right. In this setting away from home, we see Father Tim in a new light as he wrestles with his past and explores the origins of his religious convictions. The saga veers into magical theater as Karon (Cynthia Coppersmith's Violet Comes to Stay, 2006, etc.) ties up every loose end in Tim's past. But readers who miss Mitford's colorful eccentrics will be satisfied by Holly Springs's ample supply of quirky characters.

Karon's deft interweaving of past and present infuses the Mitford saga with new energy.”
—Kirkus Reviews

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Books The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, in his fourteenth year as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan took part in a very quiet collective effort to ensure that America didn't experience an economic meltdown, taking the rest of the world with it. There was good reason to fear the worst: the stock market crash of October 1987, his first major crisis as Federal Reserve Chairman, coming just weeks after he assumed control, had come much closer than is even today generally known to freezing the financial system and triggering a genuine financial panic. But the most remarkable thing that happened to the economy after 9/11 was...nothing. What in an earlier day would have meant a crippling shock to the system was absorbed astonishingly quickly.

After 9/11 Alan Greenspan knew, if he needed any further reinforcement, that we're living in a new world - the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-directing, and fast-changing than it was even 20 years ago. It's a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new challenges. The Age of Turbulence is Alan Greenspan's incomparable reckoning with the nature of this new world - how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill-channeled through his own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure. He begins his account on that September 11th morning, but then leaps back to his childhood, and follows the arc of his remarkable life's journey through to his more than 18-year tenure as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, from 1987 to 2006, during a time of transforming change.

Alan Greenspan shares the story of his life first simply with an eye toward doing justice to the extraordinary amount of history he has experienced and shaped. But his other goal is to draw readers along the same learning curve he followed, so they accrue a grasp of his own understanding of the underlying dynamics that drive world events. In the second half of the book, having brought us to the present and armed us with the conceptual tools to follow him forward, Dr. Greenspan embarks on a magnificent tour de horizon of the global economy. He reveals the universals of economic growth, delves into the specific facts on the ground in each of the major countries and regions of the world, and explains what the trend-lines of globalization are from here. The distillation of a life's worth of wisdom and insight into an elegant expression of a coherent worldview, The Age of Turbulence will stand as Alan Greenspan's personal and intellectual legacy.

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Books Water for Elephants: A Novel

Jacob Jankowski says: "I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other." At the beginning of Water for Elephants, he is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. His life wasn't always like this, however, because Jacob ran away and joined the circus when he was twenty-one. It wasn't a romantic, carefree decision, to be sure. His parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He buried his parents, learned that they left him nothing because they had mortgaged everything to pay his tuition, returned to school, went to the exams, and didn't write a single word. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The circus he joins, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. With Ringling Brothers as the standard, Benzini Brothers is far down the scale and pale by comparison.

Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob's life with this circus. Sara Gruen spares no detail in chronicling the squalid, filthy, brutish circumstances in which he finds himself. The animals are mangy, underfed or fed rotten food, and abused. Jacob, once it becomes known that he has veterinary skills, is put in charge of the "menagerie" and all its ills. Uncle Al, the circus impresario, is a self-serving, venal creep who slaps people around because he can. August, the animal trainer, is a certified paranoid schizophrenic whose occasional flights into madness and brutality often have Jacob as their object. Jacob is the only person in the book who has a handle on a moral compass and as his reward he spends most of the novel beaten, broken, concussed, bleeding, swollen and hungover. He is the self-appointed Protector of the Downtrodden, and... he falls in love with Marlena, crazy August's wife. Not his best idea.

The most interesting aspect of the book is all the circus lore that Gruen has so carefully researched. She has all the right vocabulary: grifters, roustabouts, workers, cooch tent, rubes, First of May, what the band plays when there's trouble, Jamaican ginger paralysis, life on a circus train, set-up and take-down, being run out of town by the "revenooers" or the cops, and losing all your hooch. There is one glorious passage about Marlena and Rosie, the bull elephant, that truly evokes the magic a circus can create. It is easy to see Marlena's and Rosie's pink sequins under the Big Top and to imagine their perfect choreography as they perform unbelievable stunts. The crowd loves it--and so will the reader. The ending is absolutely ludicrous and really quite lovely. --Valerie Ryan --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
With its spotlight on elephants, Gruen's romantic page-turner hinges on the human-animal bonds that drove her debut and its sequel (Riding Lessons and Flying Changes)—but without the mass appeal that horses hold. The novel, told in flashback by nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski, recounts the wild and wonderful period he spent with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus he joined during the Great Depression. When 23-year-old Jankowski learns that his parents have been killed in a car crash, leaving him penniless, he drops out of Cornell veterinary school and parlays his expertise with animals into a job with the circus, where he cares for a menagerie of exotic creatures[...] He also falls in love with Marlena, one of the show's star performers—a romance complicated by Marlena's husband, the unbalanced, sadistic circus boss who beats both his wife and the animals Jankowski cares for. Despite her often clichéd prose and the predictability of the story's ending, Gruen skillfully humanizes the midgets, drunks, rubes and freaks who populate her book. (May 26)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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