Mission to Paris: A Novel

Mission to Paris: A Novel Overview

It is the late summer of 1938, Europe is about to explode, the Hollywood film star Fredric Stahl is on his way to Paris to make a movie for Paramount France. The Nazis know he’s coming—a secret bureau within the Reich Foreign Ministry has for years been waging political warfare against France, using bribery, intimidation, and corrupt newspapers to weaken French morale and degrade France’s will to defend herself.
 
For their purposes, Fredric Stahl is a perfect agent of influence, and they attack him. What they don’t know is that Stahl, horrified by the Nazi war on Jews and intellectuals, has become part of an informal spy service being run out of the American embassy in Paris.
 
From Alan Furst, the bestselling author, often praised as the best spy novelist ever, comes a novel that’s truly hard to put down. Mission to Paris includes beautifully drawn scenes of romance and intimacy, and the novel is alive with extraordinary characters: the German Baroness von Reschke, a famous hostess deeply involved in Nazi clandestine operations; the assassins Herbert and Lothar; the Russian film actress and spy Olga Orlova; the Hungarian diplomat and spy, Count Janos Polanyi; along with the French cast of Stahl’s movie, German film producers, and the magnetic women in Stahl’s life, the socialite Kiki de Saint-Ange and the émigré Renate Steiner.
 
But always at the center of the novel is the city of Paris, the heart and soul of Europe—its alleys and bistros, hotels grand and anonymous, and the Parisians, living every night as though it was their last. As always, Alan Furst brings to life both a dark time in history and the passion of the human hearts that fought to survive it.

Advance praise for Mission to Paris
 
“The writing in Mission to Paris, sentence after sentence, page after page, is dazzling. If you are a John le Carré fan, this is definitely a novel for you.”—James Patterson
 
“I am a huge fan of Alan Furst. Furst is the best in the business—the most talented espionage novelist of our generation.”—Vince Flynn
 
Praise for Alan Furst
 
“Unfolds like a vivid dream . . . One couldn’t ask for a more engrossing novel.”—The Wall Street Journal, about Spies of the Balkans
 
“Though set in a specific place and time, Furst’s books are like Chopin’s nocturnes: timeless, transcendent, universal. One does not so much read them as fall under their spell.”—Los Angeles Times, about The Spies of Warsaw
 
“Alan Furst’s novels swing a beam into the shadows at the edges of the great events leading to World War II. Readers come knowing he’ll deliver effortless narrative.”—USA Today, about The Foreign Correspondent
 
“Positively bristles with plot, characters and atmosphere . . . Dark Voyage has the ingredients of several genres—the mystery, the historical novel, the espionage thriller, the romance—but it rises above all of them.”—The Washington Post, about Dark Voyage
 
“No other espionage writer touches [Furst’s] stylish forays into Budapest and Berlin, Moscow and Paris. No other writer today captures so well the terror and absurdity of the spy, the shabby tension and ennui of émigré communities at the time. His characters are hopeless, lethal, charming. His voice is, above all, knowing.”—Boston Sunday Globe, about Blood of Victory

Mission to Paris: A Novel Specifications

Guest Reviewer: Justin Cronin on Mission to Paris by Alan Furst
Justin Cronin is the New York Times bestselling author of The Passage, Mary and O’Neil (which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize), and The Summer Guest. Other honors for his writing include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Whiting Writers’ Award. A Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Rice University, he divides his time between Houston, Texas, and Cape Code, Massachusetts.

Fans of Alan Furst are a passionate lot, and I count myself among them. Put a group of Furst’s readers in a room, and before long they will be ardently advocating for their favorites (I always come out swinging for The World at Night), only to change their minds, and change them again, as they are reminded of an especially harrowing episode in The Polish Officer, or a perfect turn of phrase in Blood of Victory, or a sumptuous love scene in The Spies of Warsaw.

So which of Furst’s novels is his best? In my opinion, it’s an eleven-way tie.

Now, make that twelve.

Furst’s elegant thrillers of World War II Europe are often grouped with the works Graham Greene and John le Carre for the literary quality of his prose. The comparison is apt, but Furst is really one of a kind: a novelist whose body of work has recast his genre, elevating it to the level of literature. He has a way of getting everything right, putting every sentence to flawless use with a compact, suggestive style. In just a few brush strokes, Furst can capture the essence of a character—man or woman, friend or foe, Gestapo officer or society doyenne—and his ability to evoke a setting makes me weep with envy. Furst’s foggy Paris streets and glittering salons aren’t just places we see; we actually seem to visit them, bathing in their rich atmospheres. When a Furst character steps into a café in the 16th Arrondissment, you can practically smell the Gauloises smoke wafting from the pages.

But what truly sets Furst apart is his characters’ alignment with their circumstances. Like every great novelist, he understands that history is an overlay of private lives and public events, and therein lies the richest, most morally edifying human drama. Furst’s protagonists aren’t professional spies. Dashing, yes. Romantic, to be sure. Capable of the bon mot, without doubt. But in their hearts, they are men and women like the rest of us, adrift in the currents of their lives. It’s the exigencies of war, with all its political murk and unlikely gunpoint bedfellows, that ignite them to personal heroism. You can hear them saying, with existential fatalism, “Well, it’s been a marvelous life—wonderful food, sumptuous parties, and surprising nights of love—but I guess it’s over now. I’ll have to become something more. Count me in.”

Mission to Paris is trademark Furst, a book not merely to read but to luxuriate in. Vienna-born Fredric Stahl, nee Franz Stalka, is a Hollywood actor of modest renown sent to Paris to star in a French movie named, ironically, “Apres la Guerre” (“After the War”). The year is 1938; Hitler has just taken Czechoslovakia and set his sights on Poland. With his American connections, high profile, and Germanic ancestry, Stahl attracts the interest of the political arm of the Reich’s Foreign Ministry; their goal is to manipulate him into making a public declaration against French rearmament. Initially, all Stahl wants to do is enjoy his time in Paris, where fond memories and sensual adventures await, and finish his film, for which he has high hopes. But he can’t stay on the sidelines for long; the next thing he knows, he’s flying to Berlin to judge a film festival of nakedly propagandist “mountain movies,” with stacks of Swiss francs stuffed inside his suit to purchase Nazi secrets. The night he meets his contact—the glamorous Russian actress Olga Orlova, who proves surprisingly adept with a silencer—Stahl awakens to the smell of smoke and the sound of shattering glass: beyond the windows of his hotel room, Kristallnacht is in full swing.

What happens then? Please. I’ve said too much as it is.

Suffice to say that for Furst’s legion of the obsessed, the novel is everything we crave and more. And for newcomers—why there should still be any, I simply don’t know—it’s certain to send them back into his rich body of work, hungry for more.

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It Starts with Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways

It Starts with Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways Overview

Food can change your life in unexpected ways.

It Starts With Food will show you how.

It Starts With Food outlines a clear, balanced, sustainable plan to change the way you eat forever--and transform your life in unexpected ways. Your success story begins with "The Whole30," Dallas and Melissa Hartwig's powerful 30-day nutritional reset.

Since 2009, their underground Whole30 program has quietly led tens of thousands of people to weight loss, improved quality of life and a healthier relationship with food - accompanied by stunning improvements in sleep, energy levels, mood and self-esteem. More significantly, many people have reported the "magical" elimination of a variety of symptoms, diseases and conditions - in just 30 days.

diabetes · high cholesterol · high blood pressure · obesity · acne · eczema · psoriasis · hives asthma · allergies · sinus infections · migraines · acid reflux · celiac disease · Crohn's · IBS bipolar disorder · depression · seasonal affective disorder · eating disorders · ADHD endometriosis · PCOS · infertility · arthritis · Lyme disease · hypothyroidism · fibromyalgia

Now, Dallas and Melissa detail the theories behind the Whole30, summarizing the science in a simple, accessible manner. It Starts With Food shows you how certain foods may be having negative effects on how you look, feel and live - in ways that you'd never associate with your diet. More importantly, they outline their life-long strategy for Eating Good Food in a clear and detailed action plan designed to help you create a healthy metabolism, heal your digestive tract, calm systemic inflammation and put an end to unhealthy cravings, habits, and relationships with food.

Infused with their signature wit, tough love and common sense, It Starts With Food is based on the latest scientific research and real-life experience, and includes success stories, a shopping guide, a meal planning template, a meal plan with creative, delicious recipes, an extensive list of resources, and much more.

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Cronkite

Cronkite Overview

For decades, Walter Cronkite was known as "the most trusted man in America." Millions across the nation welcomed him into their homes, first as a print reporter for the United Press on the front lines of World War II, and later, in the emerging medium of television, as a host of numerous documentary programs and as anchor of the CBS Evening News, from 1962 until his retirement in 1981. Yet this very public figure, undoubtedly the twentieth century's most revered journalist, was a remarkably private man; few know the full story of his life. Drawing on unprecedented access to Cronkite's private papers as well as interviews with his family and friends, Douglas Brinkley now brings this American icon into focus as never before.

Brinkley traces Cronkite's story from his roots in Missouri and Texas through the Great Depression, during which he began his career, to World War II, when he gained notice reporting with Allied troops from North Africa, D-day, and the Battle of the Bulge. In 1950, Edward R. Murrow recruited him to work for CBS, where he covered presidential elections, the space program, Vietnam, and the first televised broadcasts of the Olympic Games, as both a reporter and later as an anchor for the evening news. Cronkite was also witness to—and the nation's voice for—many of the most profound moments in modern American history, including the Kennedy assassination, Apollos 11 and 13, Watergate, the Vietnam War, and the Iran hostage crisis.

Epic, intimate, and masterfully written, Cronkite is the much-anticipated biography of an extraordinary American life, told by one of our most brilliant and respected historians.

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The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future

The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future Overview

A forceful argument against America's vicious circle of growing inequality by the Nobel Prize–winning economist.

The top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. And, as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains, while those at the top enjoy the best health care, education, and benefits of wealth, they fail to realize that “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.”

Stiglitz draws on his deep understanding of economics to show that growing inequality is not inevitable: moneyed interests compound their wealth by stifling true, dynamic capitalism. They have made America the most unequal advanced industrial country while crippling growth, trampling on the rule of law, and undermining democracy. The result: a divided society that cannot tackle its most pressing problems. With characteristic insight, Stiglitz examines our current state, then teases out its implications for democracy, for monetary and budgetary policy, and for globalization. He closes with a plan for a more just and prosperous future.

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Thinking, Fast and Slow

Thinking, Fast and Slow Overview

Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of 2011

A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title

One of The Economist’s 2011 Books of the Year

One of The Wall Steet Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011

Winner of the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest

 

Daniel Kahneman, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his seminal work in psychology that challenged the rational model of judgment and decision making, is one of our most important thinkers. His ideas have had a profound and widely regarded impact on many fields—including economics, medicine, and politics—but until now, he has never brought together his many years of research and thinking in one book.

In the highly anticipated Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.

Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will transform the way you think about thinking.

Thinking, Fast and Slow Specifications

Amazon Best Books of the Month, November 2011: Drawing on decades of research in psychology that resulted in a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, Daniel Kahneman takes readers on an exploration of what influences thought example by example, sometimes with unlikely word pairs like "vomit and banana." System 1 and System 2, the fast and slow types of thinking, become characters that illustrate the psychology behind things we think we understand but really don't, such as intuition. Kahneman's transparent and careful treatment of his subject has the potential to change how we think, not just about thinking, but about how we live our lives. Thinking, Fast and Slow gives deep--and sometimes frightening--insight about what goes on inside our heads: the psychological basis for reactions, judgments, recognition, choices, conclusions, and much more.  --JoVon Sotak

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Thank You Notes 2

Thank You Notes 2 Overview

LIMITED EDITION: INCLUDES SOUND CHIP WITH THANK YOU NOTES THEME MUSIC.

Picking up where the first Thank You Notes left off, Jimmy Fallon has many more people and things to thank. He addresses some 200 new subjects in need of his undying "gratitude." Each page will feature one note and a photograph of its recipient.

"Thank you, gift bags, for saying "I care enough to put your gift in a slightly fancier bag than the one I bought it in."

"Thank you, people whose Facebook profile picture is them as a baby, for basically saying, "Here's the last time I wasn't ugly."

"Thank you, women who walk around with their yoga mats in slings, for either looking like an unemployed archer or a bazooka smuggler."

HAVING TROUBLE GETTING THE THEME TO PLAY? HERE IS HOW TO MASTER "THE PINCH"

1. Put the tip of your left thumb on the "Pinch Here" black dot on the inside cover
2. Put the tip of your index finger on the front cover, opposing your thumb tip
3. USE FINGER TIPS ONLY, AND PINCH HARD
4. If that doesn't work, try a few other places right around the black dot until you find the sensor
5. PINCH AWAY!

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Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health Overview

A renowned cardiologist explains how eliminating wheat from our diets can prevent fat storage, shrink unsightly bulges, and reverse myriad health problems.

Every day, over 200 million Americans consume food products made of wheat. As a result, over 100
million of them experience some form of adverse health effect, ranging from minor rashes and high blood sugar to the unattractive stomach bulges that preventive cardiologist William Davis calls “wheat bellies.” According to Davis, that excess fat has nothing to do with gluttony, sloth, or too much butter: It’s due to the whole grain wraps we eat for lunch.

After witnessing over 2,000 patients regain their health after giving up wheat, Davis reached the disturbing conclusion that wheat is the single largest contributor to the nationwide obesity epidemic—
and its elimination is key to dramatic weight loss and optimal health. In Wheat Belly, Davis exposes the harmful effects of what is actually a product of genetic tinkering and agribusiness being sold to the
American public as “wheat”—and provides readers with a user-friendly, step-by-step plan to navigate a new, wheat-free lifestyle.

Informed by cutting-edge science and nutrition, along with case studies from men and women who
have experienced life-changing transformations in their health after waving goodbye to wheat, Wheat
Belly is an illuminating look at what is truly making Americans sick and an action plan to clear our plates of this seemingly benign ingredient.

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In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin Overview

“Larson is a marvelous writer...superb at creating characters with a few short strokes.”—New York Times Book Review
  
Erik Larson has been widely acclaimed as a master of narrative non-fiction, and in his new book, the bestselling author of Devil in the White City turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power.
 
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.
 
A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition.
 
Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin Specifications

Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2011: In the Garden of Beasts is a vivid portrait of Berlin during the first years of Hitler’s reign, brought to life through the stories of two people: William E. Dodd, who in 1933 became America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s regime, and his scandalously carefree daughter, Martha. Ambassador Dodd, an unassuming and scholarly man, is an odd fit among the extravagance of the Nazi elite. His frugality annoys his fellow Americans in the State Department and Dodd’s growing misgivings about Hitler’s ambitions fall on deaf ears among his peers, who are content to “give Hitler everything he wants.” Martha, on the other hand, is mesmerized by the glamorous parties and the high-minded conversation of Berlin’s salon society—and flings herself headlong into numerous affairs with the city’s elite, most notably the head of the Gestapo and a Soviet spy. Both become players in the exhilarating (and terrifying) story of Hitler’s obsession for absolute power, which culminates in the events of one murderous night, later known as “the Night of Long Knives.” The rise of Nazi Germany is a well-chronicled time in history, which makes In the Garden of Beasts all the more remarkable. Erik Larson has crafted a gripping, deeply-intimate narrative with a climax that reads like the best political thriller, where we are stunned with each turn of the page, even though we already know the outcome. --Shane Hansanuwat

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Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College

Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College Feature

• Jossey - Bassw Teacher
• Grades K-12

Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College Overview

Teach Like a Champion offers effective teaching techniques to help teachers, especially those in their first few years, become champions in the classroom. These powerful techniques are concrete, specific, and are easy to put into action the very next day. Training activities at the end of each chapter help the reader further their understanding through reflection and application of the ideas to their own practice.

Among the techniques:

• Technique #1: No Opt Out. How to move students from the blank stare or stubborn shrug to giving the right answer every time.
• Technique #35: Do It Again. When students fail to successfully complete a basic task, from entering the classroom quietly to passing papers around, doing it again, doing it right, and doing it perfectly, results in the best consequences.
• Technique #38: No Warnings. If you're angry with your students, it usually means you should be angry with yourself. This technique shows how to effectively address misbehaviors in your classroom.

The book includes a DVD of 25 video clips of teachers demonstrating the techniques in the classroom.

Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College Specifications

Teach Like a Champion offers effective teaching techniques to help teachers, especially those in their first few years, become champions in the classroom. These powerful techniques are concrete, specific, and are easy to put into action the very next day. Training activities at the end of each chapter help the reader further their understanding through reflection and application of the ideas to their own practice.

Among the techniques:

• Technique #1: No Opt Out. How to move students from the blank stare or stubborn shrug to giving the right answer every time.
• Technique #35: Do It Again. When students fail to successfully complete a basic task?from entering the classroom quietly to passing papers around?doing it again, doing it right, and doing it perfectly, results in the best consequences.
• Technique #38: No Warnings. If you're angry with your students, it usually means you should be angry with yourself. This technique shows how to effectively address misbehaviors in your classroom.

The book includes a DVD of 25 video clips of teachers demonstrating the techniques in the classroom.

Top Five Things Every Teacher Needs to Know (or Do) to Be Successful
Amazon-exclusive content from author Doug Lemov

1. Simplicity is underrated. A simple idea well-implemented is an incredibly powerful thing.

2. You know your classroom best. Always keep in mind that what’s good is what works in your classroom.

3. Excellent teaching is hard work. Excellent teachers continually strive to learn and to master their craft. No matter how good a teacher is it’s always possible to be better.

4. Every teacher must be a reading teacher. Reading is the skill our students need.

5. Teaching is the most important job in the world. And it’s also the most difficult.

Amazon Exclusive: Q&A with Author Doug Lemov

“Great teachers are born, not made…” You obviously disagree with this statement—please tell us why.
A few teachers may be born with an intuitive gift for teaching but I when I watch a great teacher I see mostly hard work and attention to detail. So believe that great teachers can be made. Every teacher can improve by using proven, concrete techniques in the classroom. This question brings to mind two amazing teachers I know—Julie Jackson and Colleen Driggs. Julie and Colleen are always doing things like reviewing their lesson plans on the way to work and talking with peers about how to improve their craft. It’s exciting to me that what we may attribute to natural talent is actually hard work. You can choose to work hard and improve and become exactly the teacher you want to be.

What’s the best way for a teacher to start the year with a new class?
It’s important to build systems and routines, as I describe in chapter six, “Setting and Maintaining High Behavioral Expectations” in Teach Like a Champion. The first day of school should be teaching students the right way to do things and practicing this over and over. Learning and practicing these systems and routines allows a teacher and her students to rely on this foundation for the rest of the year.

I once witnessed Dave Levin (who is a founder of KIPP schools and a fantastic teacher) begin a teacher training workshop in an interesting way. Dave started by handing a mirror to every teacher in the room. He said, “Your classroom is a mirror. It looks however you make it look. The first step is to believe that your classroom mirrors your decisions. You can control it.” That’s the first step. To accept that as a teacher you decide who you want to be and how you want to create your classroom culture. You own it. Some people do it so you can do it. And that’s a good thing.

If you could just change one thing in our nation’s schools, what would you change?
It’s important that we do everything possible to support teachers so that they love their work and can be successful in the classroom. In my opinion, teachers should get paid the same as professional athletes or film stars.

This book is largely based on your experience with the group of charter schools you help lead on the east coast, called Uncommon Schools. Please tell us more about Uncommon Schools.
Uncommon Schools is a group of schools that serve low-income populations in urban centers in New York and New Jersey. Across our 16 schools 98% of our students scored proficient in math and just below 90% in English. This means that our schools usually outperform more privileged suburban districts.

We’ve been using the 49 techniques in my book for 5 years, with our teachers constantly refining and adding to them. Our experience has proven not only that that these techniques work—and they can work in every school and in every classroom—but that great teachers make them better and more sophisticated over time. And best of all the teachers who practice using them find themselves in control of a happy, rigorous classroom that reflects the motivations that brought them to teaching in the first place. Successful teachers are happy teachers!

More to Explore: Teach Like a Champion Guides

Title Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College Teach Like a Champion Field Guide: A Practical Resource to Make the 49 Techniques Your Own Guide Type Handbook Workbook   Audience Level Beginner Beginner to Intermediate/Advanced   Pages 352 480   List Price .95 .95   Publication Date April, 2010 January, 2012   Author(s) Doug Lemov Doug Lemov   Print Book 0470550473 1118116828   Kindle Book B003BGUON8 B006PW2UVO   Brief Description What the best teachers do: powerful classroom mgmt. and motivation techniques-- concrete, specific, and easy to put into action. Implementing, customizing, and mastering these techniques with self-assessment, partnering, troubleshooting, and new video clips,

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Canada

Canada Overview

"First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later."

Then fifteen-year-old Dell Parsons' parents rob a bank, his sense of normal life is forever altered. In an instant, this private cataclysm drives his life into before and after, a threshold that can never be uncrossed.

His parents' arrest and imprisonment mean a threatening and uncertain future for Dell and his twin sister, Berner. Willful and burning with resentment, Berner flees their home in Montana, abandoning her brother and her life. But Dell is not completely alone. A family friend intervenes, spiriting him across the Canadian border, in hopes of delivering him to a better life. There, afloat on the prairie of Saskatchewan, Dell is taken in by Arthur Remlinger, an enigmatic and charismatic American whose cool reserve masks a dark and violent nature.

Undone by the calamity of his parents' robbery and arrest, Dell struggles under the vast prairie sky to remake himself and define the adults he thought he knew. But his search for grace and peace only moves him nearer to a harrowing and murderous collision with Remlinger, an elemental force of darkness.

A true masterwork of haunting and spectacular vision from one of our greatest writers, Canada is a profound novel of boundaries traversed, innocence lost and reconciled, and the mysterious and consoling bonds of family. Told in spare, elegant prose, both resonant and luminous, it is destined to become a classic.

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Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss, Revised Edition

Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss, Revised Edition Overview

The Eat To Live 2011 revised edition includes updated scientific research supporting Dr. Fuhrman's revolutionary six-week plan and a brand new chapter highlighting Dr. Fuhrman's discovery of toxic hunger and the role of food addiction in weight issues.  This new chapter provides novel and important insights into weight gain. It explains how and why eating the wrong foods causes toxic hunger and the desire to over consume calories; whereas a diet of high micronutrient quality causes true hunger which decreases the sensations leading to food cravings and overeating behaviors.  It instructs readers on how to leave behind the discomfort of toxic hunger, cravings, and addictions to unhealthy foods.

New recipes and menus are included as well as new and updated Frequently Asked Questions.

This is a book that will let you live longer, reduce your need for medications, and improve your health dramatically. It is a book that will change the way you want to eat. Most importantly, if you follow the Eat To Live™ diet, you will lose weight faster than you ever thought possible.

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A Song of Ice and Fire, Books 1-4 (A Game of Thrones / A Feast for Crows / A Storm of Swords / Clash of Kings)

A Song of Ice and Fire, Books 1-4 (A Game of Thrones / A Feast for Crows / A Storm of Swords / Clash of Kings) Feature

• 4 Book Boxed Set
• A GAME OF THRONES
• A CLASH OF KINGS
• A STORM OF SWORDS
• A FEAST FOR CROWS

A Song of Ice and Fire, Books 1-4 (A Game of Thrones / A Feast for Crows / A Storm of Swords / Clash of Kings) Overview

George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series has become, in many ways, the gold standard for modern epic fantasy. Martin--dubbed the "American Tolkien" by Time magazine--has created a world that is as rich and vital as any piece of historical fiction, set in an age of knights and chivalry and filled with a plethora of fascinating, multidimensional characters that you love, hate to love, or love to hate as they struggle for control of a divided kingdom. It is this very vitality that has led it to be adapted as the HBO miniseries "Game of Thrones."

This boxed set includes the following novels:
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
A Feast for Crows

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The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Overview

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable.  The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.

The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively.  Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.

Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.

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Cowards: What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say

Cowards: What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say Overview

COURAGE > COWARDS

As we approach the most important presidential election in America’s history, something has been lost among all of the debates, attack ads, and super- PACs—something that Americans used to hold in very high regard: THE TRUTH.

Glenn Beck likes to say that “the truth has no agenda”—but there’s another side to that: people who have agendas rarely care about the truth. And, these days, it seems like everyone has an agenda. The media leads with stories that rate over those that matter. Politicians put lobbyists and electability over honesty. Radicals alter history in order to change the future.

In Cowards, Glenn Beck exposes the truth about thirteen important issues that have been hijacked by deceit. Whether out of spite, greed, or fear, these are the things that no one seems to be willing to have an honest conversation about. For example:

* How our two-party POLITICAL SYSTEM often leaves voters with NO GOOD OPTIONS.

* How extremists are slowly integrating ISLAMIC LAW into our SOCIETY.

* How PROGRESSIVE “religious” leaders like JIM WALLIS are politicizing the Bible.

* How the CARTEL VIOLENCE on our border is FAR WORSE than people realize.

* How “LIBERTARIAN” has been INTENTIONALLY turned into a DIRTY WORD.

* How GEORGE SOROS has amassed enough MONEY and POWER to INFLUENCE entire ECONOMIES.

In some cases, the truth is out there, but people simply don’t want to hear it. It’s much easier, and certainly a lot more convenient, to keep our blinders on. After all, as a quote attributed to President James Garfield made clear, “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.”

Miserable or not, the truth can no longer be something we hope for; it must be something we live. When courage prevails, cowards do not—and this book was written to ensure that’s exactly what happens.

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The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives That Make You Feel Alive

The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives That Make You Feel Alive Overview

On a dark and steamy Caribbean night, Brendon Burchard stood bleeding atop the crumpled hood of his wrecked car. That night he learned about mortality, discovering that at the end of our lives we will all ask, “Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?”

Since that fateful night, Brendon has lived a fully charged life, and he’s helped millions of people around the globe transform their lives and feel more alive, engaged, and fulfilled.

Brendon observes that the emotional energy of the world has flatlined, and he sets out to fix it. People are stressed, restless, and wanting more out of life. Despite the fact that most people have what they “need” to be happy, they rarely feel the levels of excitement, engagement, or satisfaction they deserve. So what’s the solution?

In The Charge, Brendon argues that the only way to measurably improve the quality of your life is to learn how to activate the very 10 drives that make you most human. These drives are your desires for more control, competence, congruence, caring, connection, change, challenge, creative expression, contribution, and consciousness. These drives shape everything you think, feel, and do in life, so understanding and mastering them is critical to your success and happiness. Strategically activating these drives on a consistent basis is the fastest path to living a fully charged life.

Harnessing our human drives is not easy; if it were, we wouldn’t see so much restlessness in the world. That’s why Brendon has devised what he calls the true “activators” of human experience—a series of powerful yet simple actions you can take to radically increase your levels of energy, engagement, and fulfillment in all areas of your life.

What Brendon uncovers in The Charge will surprise and challenge you. It turns out that most of the ways we seek to meet our human drives are actually counterproductive. We all want more control, for example, but seeking to have more certainty in our daily lives or to control other people will actually decrease our levels of control (and happiness). We have a deep desire for change, too, but we often fail to make the right kinds of change that would make us feel more alive and in command of our lives.

In The Charge, Brendon helps us overcome these mistakes and illuminates the path for strategically and intelligently activating our 10 human drives so that we can have the one thing we all want: more life in our lives! Brendon Burchard is the founder of High Performance Academy and author of the #1 New York Times and #1 USA Today bestselling book The Millionaire Messenger. He is also the author of Life’s Golden Ticket and one of the top motivation and high performance trainers in the world. His famous training events and videos inspire millions of people to find their charge, share their voice, and make a greater difference.

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The 17 Day Diet: A Doctor's Plan Designed for Rapid Results

The 17 Day Diet: A Doctor's Plan Designed for Rapid Results Feature

• Dr. Mike Moreno (Author)
• The 17 Day Diet: A Doctor's Plan Designed for Rapid Results

The 17 Day Diet: A Doctor's Plan Designed for Rapid Results Overview

If you need to shed pounds fast and in a safe, effective, and lasting way, this is the book for you! Unlike many diet programs that starve you down to size, Dr. Mike Moreno’s 17 Day Diet relies on proven methods to help you take weight off and keep it off for good—whether you’ve got 10 pounds to lose or 100. His revolutionary program adjusts your body metabolically so that you burn fat day in and day out. The program is structured around four 17 day cycles:

Accelerate—the rapid weight loss portion that helps flush sugar and fat storage from your system

Activate—the metabolic restart portion with alternating low and high calorie days to help shed body fat

Achieve—this phase is about learning to control portions and introducing new fitness routines

Arrive—a combination of the first three cycles to keep good habits up for good. On weekends, enjoy your favorite foods!

Each cycle changes your calorie count and the food that you’re eating. The variation that Dr. Mike calls ‘body confusion’ keeps your metabolism guessing; this means that you can expect big changes in the first 17 days alone!

This is not a diet that relies on a tiny list of approved foods, grueling exercise routines, or unrealistic calorie counts that leave you hungry and unfulfilled. Moderation and proper portions are key factors in the 17 Day Diet—the trick is to figure out the foods and routines that work best with your real lifestyle. That’s why the book is filled with tips for how to avoid the usual food pitfalls like holidays, eating out, or even just a tempting candy jar. Along with a comprehensive explanation of how each segment works, every phase comes with an extensive list of foods, recipes, and sample meal plans to help make grocery shopping a breeze. Because of the diversity that you are allowed from the very beginning of the program, there is a way to make this diet work with almost any food allergies you might have or what cuisine you’re used to eating.

The 17 Day Diet is a simple plan that gets big, long-lasting results if you stick with it and let Dr. Mike help you along the way. Whether this is your first attempt at dieting or your fiftieth, you must believe that you can do this. What matters now is focusing on your goals, identifying what you need to get there, and taking action to begin the process. Your health and happiness are important, so stand strong, believe in yourself, and let your 17 Day Diet begin now!

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From a Distance (Timber Ridge Reflections, Book 1)

From a Distance (Timber Ridge Reflections, Book 1) Feature

• ISBN13: 9780764203893
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

From a Distance (Timber Ridge Reflections, Book 1) Overview

What happens when the realization of a dream isn't what you imagined... and the secret you've spent a lifetime guarding is finally laid bare?

Determined to become one of the country's premier newspaper photographers, Elizabeth Westbrook travels to the Colorado Territory to capture the grandeur of the mountains surrounding the remote town of Timber Ridge. She hopes, too, that the cool, dry air of Colorado, and its renowned hot springs, will cure the mysterious illness that threatens her career, and her life.

Daniel Ranslett, a former Confederate sharpshooter, is a man shackled by his past, and he'll do anything to protect his land, and his solitude. When an outspoken Yankee photographer captures an image that appears key to solving a murder, putting herself in danger, Daniel is called upon to repay a debt. He's a man of his word, but repaying that debt could bring secrets from his past to light.

Forced on a perilous journey together, Daniel and Elizabeth's lives intertwine in ways neither could have imagined when first they met . . . from a distance.

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Never Smile at Strangers

Never Smile at Strangers Overview

WHEN TEENAGE GIRLS VANISH in what was once considered a safe, Louisiana bayou town, the lives of four desperate young locals take unexpected turns, begging the crucial question: Do you every truly know those closest to you?


SYNOPSIS

When nineteen-year-old Tiffany Perron vanishes from rural Grand Trespass, Louisiana, best friend HALEY LANDRY's relationship with her boyfriend becomes increasingly strained. To make ma cvvctters worse, her impressionable younger sister BECKY has begun idolizing an impetuous, seductive 15 year old who's encouraging her to do dangerous things.

Meanwhile, ERICA DUVALL, a reclusive 19-year-old aspiring writer, befriends Haley. Ten years earlier, Erica's mother abandoned her, leaving her with the womanizing used car salesman father she loathes. She's decided to write a novel based on Tiffany's disappearance; a novel that she hopes will lead to a reunion with her estranged novelist mother.

RACHEL ANDERSON, a 36-year-old mother of two, is having trouble coming to terms with her husband, TOM's, affair with the missing girl--a relationship that supposedly ended shortly before Tiffany's disappearance. What's more, she comes to the blood curdling realization that someone is watching her through the large back windows of her house.

A DISTURBED MAN also lives in the area. Ever since his mother's murder four years earlier, he's been raising his insolent teenage sister, ALLIE, who sleeps with truck drivers for money. He considers women to be dangerous--and his world revolves around his fear and hatred for them. He's terrified of his sister, knowing she's intent on pushing him over the edge.



PRAISE FOR "NEVER SMILE AT STRANGERS"

"Jennifer Minar-Jaynes' debut novel Never Smile at Strangers is a gritty, atmospheric Southern thriller that keeps the heat and the tension cranked high right to the end. Small town secrets, fully-realized characters, and a truly twisted killer keep you turning the pages. Minar-Jaynes has an unerring instinct for the perfect detail that draws you in and won't turn you loose."

-- J.D. Rhoades, Shamus nominee & author of The Devil's Right Hand, Good Day in Hell, and Safe and Sound



"Never Smile at Strangers is an irresistible debut packed with surprises. Her set-up is riveting, the plot loaded with twists and turns that leads into an effective and logical conclusion. Add this to prose that is fresh, interesting, and innovative, and you have one of the best debut novels that's sure to please readers for years to come."

-- Michael Laimo, author of Dead Souls and Deep In The Darkness "Solid, effective throughout.


Dark emotions ranging from grief and loneliness to insanity are vividly brought to life with entirely believable insight... immediately sucks us in, sustains the suspense and keepers the reader involved."

-- Reader/Reviewer from Atchity Entertainment International


"Combines the best elements of mystery and suspense--intriguing characters, compulsive plotting, first-rate storytelling. A terrifically impressive debut."

--David Angsten, author of Dark Gold and Night of the Furies


"Jennifer Minar-Jaynes is a welcome addition to the family of thriller writers."

--Robert S. Levinson, bestselling author of Where the Lies Begin, Ask A Dead Man, Hot Paint

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The Perfect Blend

The Perfect Blend Overview

Bestselling romance and mystery writer Anita Higman, brings home friendship, romance and the smell of freshly brewed coffee. This Novella is a perfect read at the end of a long day.

Book Description:
The Café Rose is a place for great coffee and falling in love. Jacques, the owner and matchmaker of the Café Rose, seats his friend, Hamilton Wakefield, with loner Kasey Morland. Her business life is a mess, and since Hamilton is an entrepreneur, he lets Kasey know he's just the man to straighten her out. Sparks fly, coffee is poured, and romance is in the air. Will their clashing personalities turn into a bitter brew, or will Hamilton and Kasey discover they are instead, the perfect blend?

About Anita Higman:
Award-winning author, Anita Higman, has thirty books published (several coauthored) for adults and children, and she has been honored as a Barnes & Noble Author of the Month for Houston. Anita has a BA degree, combining communication, psychology, and art. Her favorite things include exotic teas, movies, and all things Jane Austen. To contact Anita or enter her monthly contest for a free signed book please visit her website at www.anitahigman.com.

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Nephilim Genesis of Evil

Nephilim Genesis of Evil Overview

Top #10 bestseller in Horror

Fans of Stephen King or Frank Peretti will love this!

Ancient beings that remain today. If you like fiction that challenges ancient history, then read on...

Another great review...

Nephilim is a sort of twist on the vampire novel, a sort of supernatural detective novel set in a lakeside Colorado town, focusing on an ancient evil described in Genesis. I would associate it with the works of Stephen King.
Chris Nelson, dreamlogic.net

Nephilim Genesis of Evil

A dark power described in Genesis revisits a small mountain town.
A journalist who witnessed an evil presence searches for answers.
He finds a town succumbing to supernatural forces.
Now, an evil prophesy may be fulfilled by the Nephilim.

More GREAT reviews...

This was an amazing book...I could hardly put it down.
Sue Owen, author

Pawlish has created a wonderful story that will pull readers in from the very beginning. The mystery and suspense of the novel kept me on edge as I read and I highly suggest those interested in fallen angels read this novel.
A Book Vacation, book reviews

If you'd like to read humorous mysteries with a healthy dose of suspense, check out the Reed Ferguson mystery series:

This Doesn't Happen In The Movies


5 Star Review
I hope you revel in the vicarious thrills as much as I did. The plot works on all levels, the supporting cast is great, and Pawlish reveals key elements of Reeds character with light brush strokes and a master's touch.
RJ McDonnell, author of The Rock & Roll mysteries

Search for "This Doesn't Happen In The Movies" or "Renee Pawlish"

If you would like more about Renee Pawlish, sign up for her mailing list at reneepawlish.com.

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