By Topic Books - Page 11

Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives

Jim Sheeler

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning story, Jim Sheeler’s unprecedented look at the way our country honors its dead; Final Salute Is a stunning tribute to the brave troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and to the families who continue to mourn them

They are the troops that nobody wants to see, carrying a message that no military family ever wants to hear. It begins with a knock at the door. “The curtains pull away. They come to the door. And they know. They always know,” said Major Steve Beck.

Since the start of the war in Iraq, marines like Major Beck found themselves thrown into a different kind of mission: casualty notification. It is a job Major Beck never asked for and one for which he received no training. They are given no set rules, only impersonal guidelines.

Marines are trained to kill, to break down doors, but casualty notification is a mission without weapons. For Beck, the mission meant learning each dead marine’s name and nickname, touching the toys they grew up with and reading the letters they wrote home. He held grieving mothers in long embraces, absorbing their muffled cries into the dark blue shoulder of his uniform. He stitched himself into the fabric of their lives, in the simple hope that his compassion might help alleviate at least the smallest piece of their pain. Sometimes he returned home to his own family unable to keep from crying in the dark.

In Final Salute, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jim Sheeler weaves together the stories of the fallen and of the broken homes they have left behind. It is also the story of Major Steve Beck and his unflagging efforts to help heal the wounds of those left grieving. Above all, it is a moving tribute to our troops, putting faces to the mostly anonymous names of our courageous heroes, and to the brave families who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country. Final Salute is the achingly beautiful, devastatingly honest story of the true toll of war. After the knock on the door, the story has only begun.

Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter

Steven Johnson

List Price: $23.95 By: Riverhead Hardcover Amazon Marketplace: 76 new & used starting at $2.00

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Total reviews: 93 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Mind Wide Open comes a groundbreaking assessment of popular culture as it's never been considered before: through the lens of intelligence.

The $10 billion video gaming industry is now the second-largest segment of the entertainment industry in the United States, outstripping film and far surpassing books. Reality television shows featuring silicone-stuffed CEO wannabes and bug-eating adrenaline junkies dominate the ratings. But prominent social and cultural critic Steven Johnson argues that our popular culture has never been smarter.

Drawing from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and literary theory, Johnson argues that the junk culture we're so eager to dismiss is in fact making us more intelligent. A video game will never be a book, Johnson acknowledges, nor should it aspire to be-and, in fact, video games, from Tetris to The Sims to Grand Theft Auto, have been shown to raise IQ scores and develop cognitive abilities that can't be learned from books. Likewise, successful television, when examined closely and taken seriously, reveals surprising narrative sophistication and intellectual demands.

Startling, provocative, and endlessly engaging, Everything Bad Is Good for You is a hopeful and spirited account of contemporary culture. Elegantly and convincingly, Johnson demonstrates that our culture is not declining but changing-in exciting and stimulating ways we'd do well to understand. You will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again.

The Manual: A True Bad Boy Explains How Men Think, Date, and Mate--and What Women Can Do to Come Out on Top

Steve Santagati

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Relationships -> Dating
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Relationships -> Interpersonal Relations

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 87 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

How many times have you and your friends asked one another these questions without ever coming up with any good answers? Your girlfriends just tell you what you want to hear. At the end of the day, the only person who can give you insight into man problems is—that’s right—a man! But guys have hidden agendas. What guy would give up all his dating advantages by spilling the goods?

Steve Santagati would. A self-confessed serial dater and Bad Boy, Steve is telling all for the benefit of womankind. Every guy is at least part Bad Boy, and in The Manual, this prime specimen reveals what every woman needs to know to counter Bad Boy tactics, both amateur and professional. Steve is never condescending or callous, but honest, perceptive, and street-smart. His guidance is straightforward and his insights are dead-on, giving women tools they can immediately put to work.

Discover what you may not want to know but need to know about:

•The Heart of the Bad Boy (i.e., the nature of the beast)
•The Male Mind: how he sees you and how you can make this worko your advantage
•Guys on the Hunt: the male modus operandi, from the grocery store to Home Depot
•When Boy Meets Girl: how to handle dating, from flirting to “sext” messaging to learning his weaknesses
•Mating: so you’ve got him . . . should you keep him?

Why learn from a Bad Boy instead of, say, a psychologist? Because there’s no replacement for “in the field” experience. You’ll benefit from (and laugh at) stories of real things Steve has done in relationships with women as well as of women turning the tables on him when he least expected it. The book also includes a question-and-answer section, in which Steve explores some of the toughest dating issues.

To understand Steve is to understand the Bad Boy, and that will take you a long way in understanding all men. Find out how much more fun dating can be when you get the upper hand on Bad Boys . . .
for good.

Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel

Candace B. Pert, Deepak Chopra

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 109 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Why Candace B. Pert Feels the way She Feels 3 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

"Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel" is mostly about why Candace B. Pert feels the way she feels. This is more about her life and research than about how you feel. She briefly discusses alternative medicine and talks about who she has met while lecturing.

While the title of the book does not accurately describe the contents, this is by no means a boring read. Candace B. Pert describes her life as a neuroscientist and then explores her own spirituality. If you want to know more about Candace B. Pert then this is your book. She discusses her life in detail and explains her passion for curing AIDS.

This book was not what I expected it to be so I have to say I agree with many of the one-star and five-star reviews. This book is exciting but has little to do with the emotions you and I feel. The only real information on emotions included a brief discussion of how repressed anger can cause cancer. If you are looking for something fascinating to listen to then I can recommend Your Body Is Your Subconscious Mind by Candace B. Pert.

If you are ready to explore how you can control your health through your thoughts I can highly recommend:

The Wisdom of Your Cells: How Your Beliefs Control Your Biology

The Biology Of Belief: Unleashing The Power Of Consciousness, Matter And Miracles

~The Rebecca Review

Editorial Review:

A key player in the discovery, in 1972, of the brain's opiate receptors explains the science behind this and other evidence of the intimate connection between mind and body and their meaning for the future of Western medicine. 75,000 first printing. Tour."

The Grief Recovery Handbook : The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death Divorce, and Other Losses

John W. James, Russell Friedman

Amazon Price: $10.40 List Price: $13.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Collins Living Amazon Marketplace: 68 new & used starting at $2.98

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 62 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Grief Recovery Handbook 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The Grief Recovery Handbook: A Step-By-Step Program for Moving Beyond Loss The service from the provider was excellent. I wanted only the original because I have my own copy. This is helping numerous people 3000 miles across trhe country, thanks to you.

A Different Look on Grief Recovery 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is a hopeful book that can help you work through your grief even if it is a death, divorce, job loss, or other major loss. If you are over 40 there is a 1 in 3 chance someone close to you will have died during that year. Our society celebrates life, and de-emphasizes grief and the death of our loved ones. Well meaning people say things like this was meant to be, they are out of pain now, and you will find someone else.

Your situation is unique. Even if you find someone with what is on the surface a similar loss, for example, the loss of a child, your situation is dramatically different than their situation and your recovery will be equally as unique. This book offers ideas different than keep yourself busy, and life goes on, it addresses how you feel and how to work through your feelings. I would recommend this book those who have lost.

Editorial Review:

Incomplete recovery from grief can have a lifelong negative effect onyour capacity for happiness. Drawing from their own histories, as wellas from others, the authors illustrate what grief is and how it ispossible to recover and regain energy and spontaneity. Based on a provenprogram, now extensively revised, The Grief Recovery Handbookoffers grievers the specific actions needed to complete the grievingprocess and accept loss. For those ready to regain a sense of aliveness,the principles outlined here make this a life-changinghandbook.

The Anger Workbook: A 13-Step Interactive Plan to Help You... (Minirth-Meier Clinic Series)

Les Carter, Frank Minirth

Amazon Price: $11.55 List Price: $16.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Thomas Nelson Amazon Marketplace: 102 new & used starting at $4.14

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Not great even for Christians 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I am a Christian psychologist and bought this on the Minirth-Meier reputation. Having used it with several clients, I'm not impressed. First, it's pervasive Biblical answers without presenting them in ways palatable for non-Christians makes it a poor tool to use with anyone other than Christians. Secondly, the book's vocabulary is written at the college level. I have a Ph.D. myself and can easily read and understand it, but good communication uses the most commonly used and clearly understood words; why fill a book with long words and jargon when you're trying to communicate to a broad audience? Third, I thought the emphasis of the book was strongly tilted to subconscious or preconscious emotionally driven ideas, with relatively little presented on basic and practical anger managment tools and how to apply them in different situations. I applaud the authors' attempts to communicate anger management principles in light of Scripture, but am disappointed in how they put it together.

Editorial Review:

This is the only anger management system we've found that offers interactive exercises to help readers understand and modify their own behavior. Whether your anger is from tension at work, frustration at home, or just life in general -- this workbook will help you identify and modify the anger that keeps you from inner peace and contentment. From doctors nationally known in the field of Christian counseling.

The Expanded Family Life Cycle: Individual, Family, and Social Perspectives (An Allyn & Bacon Classics Edition) (3rd Edition) (Allyn and Bacon Classics in Education)

Betty Carter, Monica McGoldrick

Amazon Price: $96.80 List Price: $96.80 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Allyn & Bacon Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $67.19

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Now featured in a Classics Edition with a new Foreword by Donald Boch, The Expanded Family Life Cycle integrates theory and research with clinical guidelines and cases by two of the most-respected authors, teachers, and clinicians in the field of family therapy--Betty Carter and Monica McGoldrick. This classic Family Therapy text continues to provide "a new and more comprehensive way to think about human development and the life cycle," reflecting changes in society away from orientation toward the nuclear family, toward a more diverse and inclusive definition of "family." This expanded view of the family includes the impact of issues at multiple levels of the human system: the individual, family households, the extended family, the community, the cultural group, and the larger society. The text features a ground-breaking integration of individual male and female development in systemic context; our increasing racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity; the emergence of men's movements and issues; the growing visibility of lesbian and gay families; and the neglected area of social class.

The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy

Jon Gordon

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

If you love parables, you'll love this book... 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Middle aged man comes home one day and starts to take stock of his life - he is failing at his job, in his marriage and with his kids. One day his car breaks down on his way to work and he has to take the bus to work - he meets a bus driver and passengers who force him to reflect on his life and a better way forward. The author, through this parable, reveals "10 secrets" for success in life, at home and in work that lead to fulfillment and accomplishment. The 10 rules:

1) You're the driver of your bus
2) Desire, vision, and focus move your bus in the right direction
3) Fuel your ride with positive energy (negative energy is friction)
4) Invite people on your bus and share your vision for the road ahead
5) Don't waste your energy on those who don't get on your bus
6) Post a sign that says no energy vampires allowed on your bus (get rid of the malcontents)
7) Enthusiasm attracts more passengers and energizes them for the ride
8) Love your passengers by giving them your time, listening, recognition, service - work to bring out the best in them
9) Drive with purpose
10) Have fun and enjoy the ride

My assessment:

1) Easy to read, can finish in one 2 hour sitting

2) Initially comes off as "too cute" but author manages to pull you in with a simple but powerful message with some basic plays in a ground game that can win

3)Applicable to all ages from teenager on up

4)If you like parables, you'll love the story's messages. If not, you'll wonder why you didn't just jump to the excellent outline recap in the back of the book.

5) This story reminds me of the famous Albert Einstein quote: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." The author succeeds in taking a frustratingly easy trap to fall into with a simple and effective path forward.

Two of my favorite excerpts:

"The goal is not to be better than anyone else but rather be better than you were yesterday."

and

"Your positive energy and vision must be greater than anyone's and everyone's negativity. Your certainty must be greater than everyone's doubt. After all, George, there will always be the doubters who doubt, doubt and doubt and tell you you can't do this and you won't be able to accomplish that. They think that dreams were meant for others but not for people like you and them. And there will even be people who don't want you to succeed because it makes them see their own weaknesses and failures. So that's how important your positive energy is George. You can always kick people off your bus and you'll need to do that from time to time but just remember that there will always be more negative people who get on. And sometimes you will have an Energy Vampire on your bus like a boss or someone who you can't kick off. You got to deal with them. That's why you got to feed the positive dog and why you got to cultivate it every day and why we gave you the Energy Book. One day is not enough, George. It's got to be a habit. Positive energy is a like a muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets. The stronger it gets the more powerful you become. Repetition is the key and the more you focus on positive energy the more it becomes your nature state. So when someone comes at you with negativity you will be able to respond with strength and positive energy."

Editorial Review:

In the style of other bestselling business fables, The Energy Bus takes you on an enlightening and inspiring ride that reveals ten secrets for approaching life and work with the kind of positive, forward thinking that leads to true accomplishment—at work and at home. Author Jon Gordon shows you how to turn negative energy into positive achievement.

2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

Daniel Pinchbeck

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 115 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Awful 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I bought it thinking it was going to be interesting - it is hard to read because it is so bad.

My father picked it up and read a few pages and had to put it down because it was so bad.

Don't waste your time or money - not really about 2012, more about the author and whatever ego/mind trip he was on.

Nicely written but....... 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is nicely written and interesting. I agree that there are things going on that we do not understand. I do agree that something will happen in 2012 as far astrological alignments are concerned. Whether or not they are for the good or bad. That is to be determined. I personally think this author has done too much acid. This book as nothing really to do with Quetzalcoatl at all. He talks primarily about crop circles and his relationship with his childs mother going down the drain due to drugs. I think this book is his own healing process.

Editorial Review:

The acclaimed metaphysical epic that binds together the cosmological phenomena of our time, ranging from crop circles to quantum theory to the resurgence of psychedelic drugs, to support the contention of the Mayan calendar that the year 2012 portends a global shift-in consciousness, culture, and way of living-of unprecedented consequence.

The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do

Peg Tyre

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Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the moment they step into the classroom, boys begin to struggle. They get expelled from preschool nearly five times more often than girls; in elementary school, they’re diagnosed with learning disorders four times as often. By eighth grade huge numbers are reading below basic level. And by high school, they’re heavily outnumbered in AP classes and, save for the realm of athletics, show indifference to most extra­curricular activities. Perhaps most alarmingly, boys now account for less than 43 percent of those enrolled in college, and the gap widens every semester!

The imbalance in higher education isn’t just a “boy problem,” though. Boys’ decreasing college attendance is bad news for girls, too, because ad­missions officers seeking balanced student bodies pass over girls in favor of boys. The growing gender imbalance in education portends massive shifts for the next generation: how much they make and whom they marry.

Interviewing hundreds of parents, kids, teachers, and experts, award-winning journalist Peg Tyre drills below the eye-catching statistics to examine how the educational system is failing our sons. She explores the convergence of culprits, from the emphasis on high-stress academics in preschool and kindergarten, when most boys just can’t tolerate sitting still, to the outright banning of recess, from the demands of No Child Left Behind, with its rigid emphasis on test-taking, to the boy-unfriendly modern curriculum with its focus on writing about “feelings” and its purging of “high-action” reading material, from the rise of video gaming and schools’ unease with technology to the lack of male teachers as role models.

But this passionate, clearheaded book isn’t an exercise in finger-pointing. Tyre, the mother of two sons, offers notes from the front lines—the testimony of teachers and other school officials who are trying new techniques to motivate boys to learn again, one classroom at a time. The Trouble with Boys gives parents, educators, and anyone concerned about the state of education a manifesto for change—one we must undertake right away lest school be-come, for millions of boys, unalterably a “girl thing.”