General Books - Page 3

Practicing the Power of Now (Playaway Adult Nonfiction)

Amazon Price: $40.00 List Price: $40.00 Not yet published By: Playaway

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 113 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Practicing the Power of Now; Essential Teachings 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is a wonderful stand alone tool or a complimentary tool to the Power of now book. Powerful and insightful. I always have it near me.

Another spiritual inspiration. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is a wonderful companion piece to "The Power of Now". Meditation is a great stress reliever. And not worrying about where you came from or where you are going is the key to enjoying the present moment. great book.

Editorial Review:

Eckhart Tolle is rapidly emerging as one of the world’s most inspiring spiritual teachers, sharing the enlightenment he himself experienced after a startling personal transformation. His views go beyond any particular religion, doctrine, or guru. This book extracts the essence from his teachings in The Power of Now, showing us how to free ourselves from “enslavement to the mind.” The aim is to be able to enter into and sustain an awakened state of consciousness throughout everyday life. Through meditations and simple techniques, Eckhart shows us how to quiet our thoughts, see the world in the present moment, and find a path to “a life of grace, ease, and lightness.”

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

Pema Chodron

List Price: $20.00 By: Shambhala Amazon Marketplace: 83 new & used starting at $0.98

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 129 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

There is a fundamental happiness right within our reach, yet we usually miss it—ironically, while caught up in attempts to escape pain and suffering. Pema Chödrön's radical and compassionate advice for what to do when things fall apart in our lives goes against the grain of our usual habits and expectations and confronts us with traditional Buddhist wisdom. There is only one approach to suffering that is of lasting benefit, Pema teaches, and that approach involves moving toward painful situations to the best of our ability with friendliness and curiosity, relaxing into the essential groundlessness of our entire situation. It is there, in the midst of chaos, that we can discover the truth and love that are indestructible. Included in the book are: Ways to use painful emotions to cultivate wisdom, compassion, and courage Ways to communicate that lead to openness and true intimacy with others Practices for reversing our negative habitual patterns Methods for working with chaotic situations Ways to cultivate compassionate, energetic social action

The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

Jack Kornfield

Amazon Price: $18.48 List Price: $28.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Bantam Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $16.25

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

You have within you unlimited capacities for love, for joy, for communion with life, and for unshakable freedom—and here is how to awaken them. In The Wise Heart, one of the leading spiritual teachers of our time offers the most accessible and illuminating guide to Buddhism’s transformational psychology ever published in the West.

Trained as a monk in Thailand, Burma, and India, Jack Kornfield experienced at first hand the life-changing power of Buddhist teachings: the emphasis on the nobility and sacredness of the human spirit, the fine-grained analysis of emotion and thought, the precise techniques for healing, training, and transforming the mind and heart. In contrast to the medical orientation of most Western psychology and psychiatry, here is a vision of radiant human dignity, and a practical path for realizing it in our own lives.

The Wise Heart is the fruit of a life’s work that includes such classics as A Path with Heart and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. Filled with stories from Kornfield’s Buddhist psychotherapy practice and portraits of remarkable teachers, it also includes a moving account of his own recovery from a violence-filled childhood. For meditators and mental health professionals, Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, The Wise Heart offers an extraordinary journey from the roots of consciousness to the highest expression of human possibility.

The Power of a Praying Wife

Stormie Omartian

List Price: $16.99 By: Harvest House Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 11 new & used starting at $3.98

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 271 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

You need this book! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book reallly jumps into what God intended us wives to be. If you look at marriage many years ago it was about commitment, it was about the wife being the heart of the home while her husband was the head of it. God made woman as a partner and a helper for man and Stormie really covers it in detail. Marriages need the basic principals that she lays out in order to survive.

It really goes into great detail on how you can change your marriage just by changing yourself. IF YOU ARE SELFISH NATURED then you will hate this book. This book is about giving your heart and soul over to God and changing yourself to benefit your marriage. If you are the type that "won't change until he does" then don't buy this book because you need a Bible. You have to be willing to be completely unselfish the way Jesus Christ was when he was on earth. God is not saying "let the husband walk all over his wife." Most marriages that you see that have lasted 25 years or more today have God as the center of their marriage. The divorce rate 53% today, that has to tell you something? Something is missing, and it's God. If you change yourself to be a wife after God's own heart, then through you, God will reach your husband. Giving up is not the answer.

Editorial Review:

Every wife who desires a deeper, more meaningful relationship with her husband is sure to appreciate Stormie's candor and encouragement in this practical book. By focusing on 30 different areas, women can cover every aspect of their husband's lives with prayer, including security in work and finances; health and physical protection; spiritual and emotional strength; fears and emotions; faith and the future; sexuality and communication; and fatherhood, leadership and decision-making.

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . .: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes

Thomas Cathcart, Daniel Klein

Amazon Price: $9.60 List Price: $12.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin (Non-Classics) Amazon Marketplace: 65 new & used starting at $5.83

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 125 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Excellent. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I won't pretend for a moment I know a damn thing about philosophy, as much as I'd love to the esoteric barriers always seem just out reach for either my pedestrian intelligence or my patience, or both. This book, and its companion (Aristotle and an Aardvark) are both so enjoyable I read it completely while in the bookstore and still bought it. The authors appear to have a deeply rooted understanding of the nuances of philosophical thought and study yet present the material in such an approachable, understandable and humorous way one can't help but enjoy the process of learning. You WILL laugh and WILL learn.

Editorial Review:

This New York Times bestseller is the hilarious philosophy course everyone wishes they’d had in school

Outrageously funny, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . . has been a breakout bestseller ever since authors—and born vaudevillians—Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein did their schtick on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Lively, original, and powerfully informative, Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar . . . is a not-so-reverent crash course through the great philosophical thinkers and traditions, from Existentialism (What do Hegel and Bette Midler have in common?) to Logic (Sherlock Holmes never deduced anything). Philosophy 101 for those who like to take the heavy stuff lightly, this is a joy to read—and finally, it all makes sense!

The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

Christopher Hitchens

Amazon Price: $11.90 List Price: $17.50 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Da Capo Press Amazon Marketplace: 72 new & used starting at $6.50

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 47 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of God Is Not Great, a provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages--with never-before-published pieces by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case for a splendidly godless universe in this first-ever gathering of the influential voices--past and present--that have shaped his side of the current (and raging) God/no-god debate. With Hitchens as your erudite and witty guide, you’ll be led through a wealth of philosophy, literature, and scientific inquiry, including generous portions of the words of Lucretius, Benedict de Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, H. L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and many others well-known and lesser known. And they’re all set in context and commented upon as only Christopher Hitchens--“political and literary journalist extraordinaire” (Los Angeles Times)--can. Atheist? Believer? Uncertain? No matter: The Portable Atheist will speak to you and engage you every step of the way.

Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, And Why

Laurence Gonzales

Amazon Price: $15.96 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Blackstone Audiobooks Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $12.57

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 148 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Deep Survival 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Excellent book, different from the beaten path. I could not put it down.
I could relate from the experiences of panicking and letting your emotions out of control, it is deadly because in a survival situation you spend all your energy that way. I learned a lot on how humans behave, and what keeps you alive, and in the end what kicks in to help you until help comes!

Deep Survival 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Probably one of the most engaging books I've read this year. Gonzales is an amazing story-teller, bringing together harrowing stories from the headlines with the latest in brain and psychology research to make a highly entertaining book. As an avid outdoorsman myself with a few close calls, every word rings true to the real world. I savored the last few chapters, not wanting the book to come to an end.

Editorial Review:

After a plane crash, a 17 year old girl spends 11 days walking through the Peruvian jungle. Against all odds, with no food, shelter or equipment, she gets out. A better-equipped group of adult survivors of the same crash gave up and died. Laurence Gonzales delves into the science, psychology and art of wilderness survival. Examining stories of miraculous endurance and tragic death, he takes us to the top of snowy mountains and the depths of oceans, to the workings of the brain that control our behaviour.

Screwtape Letters

C. S. Lewis

List Price: $16.78 By: Audio Literature Amazon Marketplace: 15 new & used starting at $17.88

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 370 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Enlightening read for committed (and thinking) Christians 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I don't know how well this great book translates to agnostic readers, but for me it was a very enlightening and concrete way to understand what it means to try to be a good man in a world of temptation.

In keeping with the time period, I believe it was Winston Churchill who said "All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing". In the Screwtape Letters the senior tempter, tells his apprentice, it is just as affective to get a man to stare into a fire until it turns to ash, as to get him to commit some great sin, because either keeps him from doing what he should. I wonder what Mr. Lewis would have thought of digital cable television? I am as guilty as anyone of staring at that box instead of doing good.

So here's the deal.

This is an excellent book for any believer from High School on up, that wants to be good and avoid evil.

But that's just me.

Editorial Review:

Lewis' most famous work is a series of letters from a senior devil to a junior "agent in the field," instructing him in the arts of temptation. 2 cassettes.

The Numerati

Baker, Stephen

Amazon Price: $34.16 List Price: $44.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Blackstone Audiobooks, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 4 new & used starting at $31.40

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

They Have Your Number 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

It may be that you have a "shopper's card" at your local grocery; you hand it to the teller as you check out, and the computer registers, besides what the total is and how the store's inventory will need to be restocked, just what the purchases were for you as a specific individual shopper. Maybe it will mail you some coupons on items it can tell you will be interested in, based on what you have already bought. Not too interesting, not too challenging for the computer, not too intrusive. But what will happen when you get a smart cart at the store? That's one that will welcome your insertion of your shopper's card, and then tell you what your shopping list usually looks like so you don't forget anything, where today's bargains are (in other words, what the store manager is trying to offload), and the fastest route through the aisles so you can get everything you need. If this sounds like it could be a useful tool for you, and also sounds a little creepy because of all the information the store (and the cart) knows about you, it's just the beginning. You may well want to see what else those who are mining your personal information are up to by reading _The Numerati_ (Houghton Mifflin) by Stephen Baker. Baker is a business journalist who wants to let us know about a new reach of mathematics into our lives. There are no equations here, just stories of the mathematicians and computer geeks that use them to find and exploit patterns of our day-to-day existence. Baker has cast some light onto many facets of an arcane realm of number crunchers, and has written a book that is entertaining and often disconcerting.

You can decide that you do not want to have a shopper's card. You can also decide that you do not want a cell phone, you never want to purchase anything on a credit card, or you do not wish to use an internet search engine. If you do volunteer for such activities, the Numerati have you. You cannot help but leave a digital trail. Most of Baker's chapters involve his looking into a particular realm of number crunching, interviewing the geeks and mathematicians who are involved, describing what has been done so far, and explaining the prospects for the not-too-distant future. Perhaps the brightest prospects for data mining are medical. Patients will do nothing extra to deliver information; it will just be monitored passively. Imagine a bed equipped with sensors that would tell how many hours we are actually spending in it, or how much tossing or turning we do, or how many times we get up for a bathroom break and how much fluid is lost on each such trip. Maybe there will be magic carpet on the floor of an elderly patient's house; it could register weight gain, or a new peculiarity in gait, or a fall, or even if the patient has stopped moving around the house during the day.

Privacy concerns are valid; it remains to be seen how much each of us will have to re-think what privacy actually means. There could also be moral questions involved; if you could make a mathematical model of a pedophile, and your church or school screens job applicants using such a model, and the screen says a candidate is an 85% fit, what is the right thing to do (and, an entirely separate question, what will be the thing to do to minimize legal liability)? And that percentage fit - it's going to be what any Numerati have to put up with, because any prediction or pattern can only indicate not reality, not truth, but mere probability. Several of the boffins interviewed here say that as complicated as are the mathematical algorithms to turn people into data, the math is the easy part; it's the humans that are hard to figure out. It is surprising, too, how simple tasks are actually monumental; terrorist watch lists of mere names present a nightmare, as any non-terrorist traveler who has a similar name will tell you. Internationalizing such data is a horrendous task; the Chinese alone, for instance, spell Osama Bin Laden eleven different ways. Baker's brightly-written and enthusiastic book presents pleasing pictures of how our numbers will come up in the future, and emphasizes those without neglecting to mention the darker issues of data misuse. He even did his own little experiment that verified something information techs have known since the most primitive of electronic computers. He and his wife filled out questionnaires at a dating site, and were dismayed that the computer did not point them in each other's direction as potential matches. It turns out that Baker had mistakenly excluded women of his wife's age. The verification: garbage in, garbage out.

Editorial Review:

Every day, we produce loads of data about ourselves just by living in the modern world. Now, a group of mathematicians is sifting through this data to profile us and manipulate our behavior without our even realizing it.

The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels

Amazon Price: $1.95 List Price: $1.95 Usually ships in 6 days By: Merlin Press Amazon Marketplace: 8 new & used starting at $1.90

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 254 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Good in theory 1 out of 5 stars.
7 of 32 people found this review helpful.

Kinda a pointless book now that communism has been proven ineffective. I guess if you still want to live in this type of society you can move to Russa, China, Cuba etc. Lucky for them they have the US to give them foreign aid. Communism would be dead within a few decades without a capitolistic nation to support it.

Editorial Review:

Originally published on the eve of the 1848 European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account of the worldview Marx and Engels developed during their hectic intellectual and political collaboration. Formulating the principles of dialectical materialism, they believed that labor creates wealth, hence capitalism is exploitive and antithetical to freedom.

This new edition includes an extensive introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones, Britain's leading expert on Marx and Marxism, providing a complete course for students of The Communist Manifesto, and demonstrating not only the historical importance of the text, but also its place in the world today.