By Topic Books - Page 13

This Is Not the Life I Ordered: 50 Ways to Keep Your Head Above Water When Life Keeps Dragging You Down

Deborah Collins Stephens, Michealene Cristini Risley, Jackie Speier, Jan Yanehiro

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> By Topic -> Motivation
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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This Is Not the Life I Ordered is for anyone who has ever felt overworked, overwhelmed, or just plain unlucky (and, who hasn't?!). Through this collection of stories, wisdom, and practical advice, readers will meet four ordinary women who have faced extraordinary life challenges. Together, they have a history of six marriages, ten children, four stepchildren, six dogs, two miscarriages, two cats, a failed adoption, and foster parenthood. Two have lived through the death of their spouses and one was shot and left for dead on a tarmac in Guyana -- which is documented in "Jonestown" airing on PBS' American Experience

This book started simply with four friends getting together for "kitchen-table coaching sessions" to talk about their lives. Week by week and story by story, they realized their great advice to each other could help other women struggling with life's myriad issues of work, family, and love, as well as the big questions of life and death. For over a decade, the power and strength of their collective friendship enabled these women not only to survive but to thrive. They invite readers to join them to learn how they, too, can turn "misfortunate" events into joy-filled opportunities. Readers will want to share this book with every woman in their lives!

* Authors are best-selling business-book author, Deborah Collins Stephens; Emmy winner Jan Yanehiro; State Senator Jackie Speier; and entrepreneur Michealene Cristini Risley whose Flashcards was screened at last year's Cannes Film Festival.

* Authors' support circle includes Debbi Fields, Kristi Yamaguchi, Danielle Steele, Gerry Laybourne, and other power women.

* Features practical "Wit (Women in Transition) Kit" tips at the end of each chapter to help readers to be their own life coaches.

Gratitude: A Daily Journal

D. D. Watkins, Jack Canfield

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: HCI Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $10.17

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

'You will start to become increasingly aware of the miracles all around you and the events in your life will begin to unfold in what seem like magical and mysterious ways.'

—Jack Canfield

As Jack Canfield's Key to Living the Law of Attraction explains, gratitude and acknowledgment are essential components in creating and attracting what you want in your life. Through the expression of gratitude on a daily basis, you align yourself to receive all the good the universe has to offer.

By simply focusing your thoughts and attention on the abundance that is already present in your life, you will literally shift your energy to a positive vibration that will automatically and effortlessly attract even more to begrateful for.

Gratitude: A Daily Journal is a year-long, two-part journal that provides a simple framework for your personal expressions of gratitude and acknowledgment. This journal is a powerful tool that will help to raise your consciousness and increase your awareness of the beauty and synchronicity that surround you each day. With each daily expression of gratitude, you will create a vibrational match for love, joy, and abundance.

On Church Leadership (A Book You'll Actually Read)

Mark Driscoll

Amazon Price: $9.99 List Price: $9.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Crossway Books Amazon Marketplace: 23 new & used starting at $5.74

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> By Topic -> Leadership
Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity -> Ministry & Church Leadership -> Church Administration
Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity -> Ministry & Church Leadership -> Ministry

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Mark Driscoll knows something about church leadership. He founded Mars Hill Church in Seattle in 1996, and it is now one of the fastest-growing and most prolific church-planting churches in America. Writing out of his personal experience and biblical conviction, Driscoll examines six important areas of church leadership, packing big truth into this little book, making it a book you’ll actually read.

This book also includes some helpful appendices that answer seventeen common practical questions about church leadership, as well as a sample membership covenant and a list of recommended reading for further study on church leadership.

On Church Leadership is part of a series of thorough, inexpensive, and accessible books that give clear, biblical answers to difficult theological questions and controversies. Through this series, readers will get a solid and simple introduction to a major doctrine by investing just a little time and money.

Praise for the A Book You’ll Actually Read series:

“Mark has a gift of taking weighty ideas and expressing them in clear and lively language.”
Bruce A. Ware, Professor of Christian Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Serious, informed, reverent, but not technical discussions of great themes.”
D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

“Simply and superbly written! Mark Driscoll has given us tools that can be placed in the hands of a skeptic or seeker, a new believer or mature saint.”
Daniel L. Akin, President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

“These accessible books will encourage believers to see that theology is not an afterthought in the mission of God and the life of his church.”
Ed Stetzer, Director of LifeWay Research

“These books are well worth an hour of your time.”
Craig Groeschel, Founding Pastor of LifeChurch.tv and author of Confessions of a Pastor

The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die

John B. Izzo

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 61 new & used starting at $4.61

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Motivational
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Negotiating
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Inspirational to say the least 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I'm a recent college grad. and I took this book with me while I backpacked through most of Western Europe. I read it within the first 3 weeks of my adventure and it made a difference on how I saw the rest of the trip (which lasted another 9 weeks). I honestly slowed down to experience more, to take it all in. I became better friends with my two buddy's who were traveling with me, the sites seemed that much more intriguing and beautiful, and I met dozens of people, who I probably would have met if I hadn't read the book, or had, but it helped me to see things about them in a different light.

The use of stories and interviews helped to make this book so interesting. While there is more to life, then these 5 ideals, they have changed as well as reinforced many of my beliefs. I would recommend this book to anyone who needs enlightenment about their life, and everyone around them.

Editorial Review:

What are the secrets to finding happiness? Why do some people live well and die happy? John Izzo asked thousands of people to identify the 'wisest' person they knew. The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die shares what he learned from over 200 people aged 60-106 whom others said had found the meaning in life. From town barbers to Holocaust survivors, from aboriginal chiefs to CEO's, these people had over 18,000 years of life experience. With warmth and wit, this book shares the Five Secrets to a happy and purpose-filled life which Izzo distilled from listening to these stories. Dr. Izzo also shows the reader how to put these secrets into practice in our lives. This book will make you laugh, bring you to tears, and inspire you to discover what matters long before you die. Based on a highly acclaimed TV series appearing on PBS, this book takes the reader on a heart-warming and profound journey to find lasting happiness.

Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts : Using the Power of Pleasure to Have Your Way with the World

Regena Thomashauer

Amazon Price: $10.87 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 66 new & used starting at $2.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 55 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Stupid 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I've never given a book a one-star review before. The one star is for the exercises in the book but the writing itself is awful. What a waste of money. I'm not even going to give this one to the library -- it's going straight into the recycling bin.

Attracting What You Want, Just by Being Female 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

It was the pink cover that attracted me. I picked it up, and put it down a few different times.

I ended up reading the book over the course of one week, while relaxing each evening in a perfumed bath. How fitting, since the book is all about pleasure. Specifically, female pleasure - of every kind.

Having my way with the world - radiating joy and pleasure as a means to attract, to draw wonderful things toward me--how revolutionary! And better, so much better than what's currently playing on the "female misery" channel!

I tried out Mama Gena's suggestions - "pleasure exercises" mainly because they seemed like fun. People in my world, even strangers, began to respond immediately, treating me like a delicious dish that they could not get enough of ... Just as Mama Gena predicted.

It's quite the adventure, learning to use fun and enjoyment as the barometer for how to lead one's life.

I noticed a copy of this book in my local bookstore yesterday, the last one left on the shelf. Pink as ever, and just as alluring. I'm saying to you now: why not take it out for a spin?

You'll be amazed at how much fun and pleasure can be squeezed into the most ordinary day.

Turn off the "female misery" channel once and for all - and start really living.

Editorial Review:

Relationship expert Regena Thomashauer teaches the lost "womanly arts" of identifying your desires, having fun no matter where you are, knowing sensual pleasure, befriending your inner bitch, flirting (in a way that makes your day, not just his), and more -- because making pleasure your priority can actually help you reach your goals. So if you need a refresher course in fun -- and you know you do -- come to Mama.

Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man

Norah Vincent

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin (Non-Classics) Amazon Marketplace: 69 new & used starting at $2.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Vincent is courageous, but the book falls a little flat... 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Being especially interested in the study of masculinity, I was excited to read this book after hearing about Vincent's initial concept and consequent project. I held off buying the book for awhile, and only purchased it after it came out in paperback. After completing the book a few nights ago, I must say that I almost wish that I had forgotten to read it. In reading the book, I was expecting a courageous account of how difficult it was for a woman to navigate male culture in disguise, and further, how her ensuing journey would complicate simplistic understandings of gender roles in contemporary American society. Instead, I got gratuitous condescension heaped upon a wide variety of underdeveloped-male "characters" - the working-class man in particular, and the emotionally handicapped male in general. Vincent's work is by no means insightful, lacks any real tension, and was tedious to read. The only worthwhile part of the book was the author's discussion of her nervous break that resulted from her experiment. It was the only part of the book that seemed somewhat honest. Yet, while this final discussion elicited some emotional response from me, I could not help but feel a little manipulated - was this addendum a desperate move to add credibility to the banal observations that littered Vincent's work? I grant that Vincent's experiment was a courageous one, too bad the author could not break out of rigid stereotypes about both men and women to actually add something worthwhile to discussions of masculinity and gender in a world where such discussions are sorely needed.

Editorial Review:

A journalist’s provocative and spellbinding account of her eighteen months spent disguised as a man

Norah Vincent became an instant media sensation with the publication of Self-Made Man, her take on just how hard it is to be a man, even in a man’s world. Following in the tradition of John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me), Norah spent a year and a half disguised as her male alter ego, Ned, exploring what men are like when women aren’t around. As Ned, she joins a bowling team, takes a high-octane sales job, goes on dates with women (and men), visits strip clubs, and even manages to infiltrate a monastery and a men’s therapy group. At once thought- provoking and pure fun to read, Self-Made Man is a sympathetic and thrilling tour de force of immersion journalism.

Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes

Alfie Kohn

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Mariner Books Amazon Marketplace: 93 new & used starting at $3.83

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Applied Psychology
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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> By Topic -> Motivation

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 68 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A very important book! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I am extremely grateful to the author, Alfie Kohn, for writing this book. It has changed me forever. That sounds dramatic, but it is the truth. For me, it was paradigm shattering. I view myself, my children, and all people differently now. I can see more clearly what motivates me and all people. I feel more peace with myself, and that who I am and what I do is enough. I need not fear the judgments of others. I also have more compassion for my family and the whole human race. What a marvelously written book that is essential for all people to read. You will never be the same after pondering it's pages.

Editorial Review:

The basic strategy we use for raising children, teaching students, and managing workers can be summarized in six words: Do this and you'll get that. We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in much the same way we train the family pet. Drawing on a wealth of psychological research, Alfie Kohn points the way to a more successful strategy based on working with people instead of doing things to them. "Do rewards motivate people?" asks Kohn. "Yes. They motivate people to get rewards." Seasoned with humor and familiar examples, Punished By Rewards presents an argument unsettling to hear but impossible to dismiss.

How to Argue & Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday

Gerry Spence

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: St. Martin's Griffin Amazon Marketplace: 127 new & used starting at $2.91

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 85 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Bad advice 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The author redefines "argue" as "communicate", then tries to tell you how to "win at communicating". He does this by presenting a lot of half-truths and monologues borne of a critically incomplete understanding of even his own example situations. The result is a lot of really, really bad advice.

This book is useless as a guide to arguing (or even communicating), but possibly potentially useful in understanding the kinds of broken thinking you may encounter in others while trying to argue or communicate with people of like mind with the author.

Editorial Review:

The Laws of Arguing According to Gerry Spence

1. Everyone is capable of making the winning argument.
2. Winning is getting what we want, which also means helping "others" get what they want.
3. Learn that words are a weapon, and can be used hostilely in combat.
4. Know that there is always a "biological advantage" of delivering the TRUTH.
5. Assault is not argument.
6. Use fear as an ally in pubic speaking or in argument. Learn to convert its energy.
7. Let emotions show and don't discourage passion.
8. Don't be blinded by brilliance.
9. Learn to speak with the body. The body sometimes speaks more powerfully than words.
10. Know that the enemy is not the person with whom we are engaged in a failing argument, but the vision within ourselves.

The Creative Entrepreneur: A DIY Visual Guidebook for Making Business Ideas Real

Lisa Sonora Beam

Amazon Price: $13.59 List Price: $19.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Quarry Books Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $12.42

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Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Reference -> Business of Art
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Small Business & Entrepreneurship -> Entrepreneurship
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Small Business & Entrepreneurship -> New Business Enterprises

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Common sense that pops! 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I was skeptical. But, then I found that this book is a real motivator. Fun to read, fun to look at, but with a serious mission: how can business owners like me blend creativity and business success? The book goes on to answer that question.

Our small web company deals with the un-bending requirements of accounting/distribution systems with the softer, yet stronger, notions of creative presentation of products and company image. I am constantly looking for new inspiration, and this book has it.

I have already started my journal, and I have gleaned a couple of new ideas that I will use. I found it delightful to browse or to read chunks at one sitting, and it helped me look at my situation with a fresh point of view. I highly recommend it. I got a copy of the book for my son too.

Editorial Review:

The Creative Entrepreneur is a visual, results-oriented, step-by-step method of business development for creatives from all walks of life who want to turn their passions into viable business opportunities.

Whether you are and artist, designer, or small business owner, this book will empower you to renew and nurture your vision with the steps required to take an idea and make it real.

The Creative Entrepreneur offers a dynamic left brain/right brain approach to developing a business focus that evaluates underlying internal issues unique to creative types and shows how to practically address them.

You'll gain a combination of powerful business and strategic planning tools and learn how to use them like a pro. Related journal exercises further explore each concept in a visual and engaging way that appeals to how creative types think, learn and process information. Your journal becomes a companion and map for your creative business journey.

What I Know Now: Letters to My Younger Self

Ellyn Spragins

Amazon Price: $10.36 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Broadway Amazon Marketplace: 56 new & used starting at $4.59

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

If you could send a letter back through time to your younger self, what would the letter say?

In this moving collection, forty-one famous women write letters to the women they once were, filled with advice and insights they wish they had had when they were younger.

Today show correspondent Ann Curry writes to herself as a rookie reporter in her first job, telling herself not to change so much to fit in, urging her young self, “It is time to be bold about who you really are.” Country music superstar Lee Ann Womack reflects on the stressed-out year spent recording her first album and encourages her younger self to enjoy the moment, not just the end result. And Maya Angelou, leaving home at seventeen with a newborn baby in her arms, assures herself she will succeed on her own, even if she does return home every now and then.

These remarkable women are joined by Madeleine Albright, Queen Noor of Jordan, Cokie Roberts, Naomi Wolf, Eileen Fisher, Jane Kaczmarek, Olympia Dukakis, Macy Gray, and many others. Their letters contain rare glimpses into the personal lives of extraordinary women and powerful wisdom that readers will treasure.

Wisdom from What I Know Now

“Don’t let anybody raise you. You’ve been raised.” —Maya Angelou

“Try more things. Cross more lines.” —Breena Clarke

“Learn how to celebrate.” —Olympia Dukakis

“You don’t have to be afraid of living alone.” —Eileen Fisher

“Please yourself first . . . everything else follows.” —Macy Gray

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss another human being.” —Barbara Boxer

“Work should not be work.” —Mary Matalin

“You can leave the work world—and come back on your own terms.” —Cokie

Roberts

“Laundry will wait very patiently.” —Nora Roberts

“Your hair matters far, far less than you think” —Lisa Scottoline

“Speak the truth but ride a fast horse.” —Kitty Kelley