Great Price for $14.42

Posted by admin
July 30, 2010

Charlie Finley: The Outrageous Story of Baseball’s Super Showman Review

Hot!!!

Special Price Here

Anyone who becomes a successful business person and makes millions of dollars in the process, obviously has something going for them; hard work, dedication, charm, negotiating skills; whatever it takes; they know how to put everything together and make things happen.

Charlie Finley was no exception, rising from a modest, working class background to become a millionaire who was able to cut a deal to purchase the old Kansas City A’s baseball team, before the 1961 season began. This was a man of great ingenuity, business acumen, and charm on one hand; a petty, lying, conniving, meddling snake in the grass on the other hand. Certainly, he was flamboyant, innovative, and smart enough to build one of the most successful baseball teams in history – the Oakland A’s – who won back to back to back World Series titles (1972 – 1974). He was also one of the biggest jerks in the game’s history; and became one of the most hated owners ever to win a World championship.

Authors G. Michael Green and Roger D Launius do a superb job of documenting the life and times of Charlie Finley, in an even-handed, but brutally honest commentary that leaves little doubt for the reader to conclude that whatever success this man achieved was almost in spite of himself. Finley’s antics were at times amusing, even innovative; but mostly, they were contemptuous. His legacy may be that of “super showman”, although most of his material was stolen from good guy Bill Veeck; in the end, I believe his legacy is really that of a pompous, rich jerk who had very little redeeming character qualities to admire. That’s a sad commentary on anyone; but it’s the plain truth.

Whether or not you agree with that assessment is for you to decide; however, I strongly recommend reading this fascinating biography so you can draw your own conclusions.

Charlie Finley: The Outrageous Story of Baseball’s Super Showman Feature

Charlie Finley: The Outrageous Story of Baseball’s Super Showman Overview

Before the “Bronx Zoo” of George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin, there were the Oakland Athletics of the early 1970s, one of the most successful, most colorful—and most chaotic—baseball teams of all time. They were all of those things because of Charlie Finley. Not only the A’s owner, he was also the general manager, personally assembling his team, deciding his players’ salaries, and making player moves during the season—a level of involvement no other owner, not even Steinbrenner, engaged in.
Drawing on interviews with dozens of Finley’s players, family members, and colleagues, G. Michael Green and Roger D. Launius present “Baseball’s Super Showman” (Time magazine’s description of Finley on the cover of an August 1975 issue) in all his contradictions: generous yet vengeful, inventive yet destructive. The stories surrounding him are as colorful as the life he led, the chronicle of which fills an important gap in baseball’s literature.

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

Best price

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 30, 2010 18:54:04

Relate Products

Visit : Lowest prices and special offer for HDTV. Buy CDs

Uncategorized
No Comments

Great Price for $5.62

Posted by admin
July 30, 2010

My Bondage and My Freedom Review

Hot!!!

Special Price Here

Historians often call the Civil War the first modern war, a precursor to the great battlefield slaughterhouses of the twentieth century. Frederick Douglass shows that America was also first to invent the totalitarian police state. It’s hard to believe Stalin didn’t have MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM prominently positioned on his bookshelf for frequent consultation because the Soviet system of oppression had so much in common with the system of oppression in the American South. The only significant difference was that, in the Soviet system, absolute power was vested in Stalin; in the American system, absolute power was vested in each slavemaster. Each slavemaster was, in essence, a little Stalin, with life and death power over his slave property.

The slave system rigorously withheld news and information from slaves. A slave often would not know his father or even his own date of birth. He could not lawfully learn to read. He could not travel without written authorization. He could not associate freely with other slaves. He could not safely trust anyone or confide his private thoughts to anyone because planted informers were so numerous. Slaves had to avoid even certain thoughts for fear the slavemaster would see in their facial expressions what was in their minds.

Disguised slave catchers would sometimes help and encourage a slave to escape, only to capture him for the reward. The slavemaster demanded and enforced absolute, immediate, and unquestioned subservience through fear, a liberal use of the lash and the constant threat of transferring a recalcitrant slave to an even harsher labor camp in the deep South.

Yet MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM is by no means a depressing book, thanks to Douglass’ irrepressible courage, wit, spirit and good luck when he most needed it. There are even a few intentionally hilarious moments, which I won’t give away in this review.

To avoid capture after his escape to the North, Douglass used the fees from his speeches in Great Britain and royalties from his book sales to legally buy his own freedom from his Maryland owner.

The book covers a period of American history I knew little about, the period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. I didn’t know, for example, that the abolition movement early in that period favored secession from the United States on the belief that the Constitution favored the South and backed to the hilt the slave system. An excellent recent book that supports that view is SLAVERY’S CONSTITUTION by David Waldstreicher.

Even though Douglass was a religious, believing Christian, he leveled his most scathing criticism at the way Southerners used Christianity to justify and advance the slave system. He often noted that the cruelest slave masters were also credited as the most religious members of their communities. Some of the worst even had “Rev.” attached to their names. The only slavemaster Douglass credited with relative decency and kindness also happened to be an atheist.

My Bondage and My Freedom Overview

Douglass wrote this autobiography which was published in 1855. Douglass was born in Maryland and separated from his mother when he was an infant. Some scholars think he was descendant from American Muslins. When he was 12 his owner’s wife broke the law by teaching him to read. The neighborhood children helped him with his reading and writing. As a teenager he spent a few years with a farmer known to be a slave breaker. He later obtained his freedom and became a well-known abolitionist.

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

Best price

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 30, 2010 05:03:05

Relate Products

Friends Link : Buy CDs Lowest prices and special offer for HDTV.

Uncategorized
No Comments

Great Price for $10.99

Posted by admin
July 29, 2010

The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama Review

Hot!!!

Special Price Here

The “Booklist” review that Amazon provides mentions the “contextual richness” of ‘The Bridge.’ I agree that this is one of the book’s strong points, especially as it covers great black writers.

Before reading ‘The Bridge,’ my exposure to serious African-American writing was fairly limited: a few scattered poems by Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks in an anthology of American poetry…lyrics by the band Love’s front man Arthur Lee.

Luckily, ‘The Bridge’ is replete with references to black writers and their works. Remnick not only mentions them in passing; often he provides a sample of their writing that makes me want to find out more.

I was especially impressed that Remnick chose excerpts from the following:

‘Black Metropolis,’ a 1945 book about African-American life in Chicago. In that book’s Introduction, Richard Wright notes, “There is an open and raw beauty about that city… . I felt these extremes of possibility, death and hope, while I lived half hungry and afraid…yearning to write, to tell my story. But I did not know what my story was.”

(As the young Obama did not know what his story was.)

‘Black Like Me,’ which Remnick notes was assigned to high schoolers. I do remember seeing this in high school. I didn’t know that the book’s author was a white man from Texas who in 1959 shaved his head, underwent prolonged ultraviolet exposure, took pills prescribed by a dermatologist to darken his skin, and then wrote about the indignities he suffered while in Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

(Obama wrote of reading an advertisement for “skin whiteners” in LIFE magazine as a young man and being “horrified.”)

‘Livin’ the Blues,’ by Frank Marshall Davis, is also mentioned. It is refreshing to see Davis given treatment not in the disparaging, limited way during the 2008 election (and apparently since), although Remick does address that aspect of it, but more importantly that Davis was a poet who wrote a terrific book about his experiences. I found this excerpt that Remnick provides from ‘Livin’ the Blues’ philosophically enlightening: “On the mainland, whites acted as if dignity were their exclusive possession, something to be awarded as they saw fit. Yet dignity is a human right, earned by being born.”

Of course, Remnick also covers Obama’s writing, relying heavily on Obama’s memoir, ‘Dreams from My Father.’ Because I knew that I was going to read ‘Dreams from My Father’ based on the excerpts Remnick provides, I decided to skip over a few of the pages in ‘The Bridge’ because I did not want to spoil my enjoyment of ‘Dreams.’

Remnick also mentions the slave narratives of Frederick Douglass (a fascinating figure in American history), and slave narratives generally, calling them the “earliest form of African-American memoir.” I was surprised some of them were published so long ago; for example, Remnick informs that ‘A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and the Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man,’ was published as a pamphlet in Boston in 1760.

Newspaper accounts pepper ‘The Bridge’ and provide a glimpse into the struggle for black ascendancy. (Example: As you read the first few pages of the ‘Reconstruction’ chapter, take note of the North Carolina ‘News and Observer’ account of its representation in the U.S. Congress by a black man.)

From slave narratives published in the 1700s to Maya Angelou’s ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,’ the contextual richness of ‘The Bridge’ includes a fine overview of African-American literature that should pique the interest of those unfamiliar with the genre.

(A final note to those involved in the production of this book, the designer, the print production manager, the compositors, and the editors: well done!)

The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama Feature

The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama Overview

No story has been more central to America’s history this century than the rise of Barack Obama, and until now, no journalist or historian has written a book thatfully investigates the circumstances and experiences of Obama’s life or explores the ambition behind his rise.Those familiar with Obama’s own best-selling memoiror his campaign speeches know the touchstones and details that he chooses to emphasize, but now—from a writer whose gift for illuminating the historical significanceof unfolding events is without peer—we have a portrait, at once masterly and fresh,nuanced and unexpected, of a young man in search of himself,and of a rising politician determined to become the first African-American president.

The Bridge offers the most complete account yet ofObama’s tragic father, a brilliant economist who abandonedhis family and ended his life as a beaten man;of his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham,who had a child as a teenager and then built her career as an anthropologist living and studying in Indonesia;and of the succession of elite institutions that first exposed Obamato the social tensions and intellectual currentsthat would force him to imagine and fashion an identity for himself. Through extensive on-the-record interviews with friends and teachers, mentors and disparagers, family members and Obama himself,David Remnick allows us to see how a rootless, unaccomplished, and confused young mancreated himself first as a community organizer in Chicago, anexperience that would not only shape his urge to work in politics but give him a home and a community, and that would propel him to Harvard Law School, where his sense of a greater mission emerged.

Deftly setting Obama’s political career against the galvanizing intersection of race and politics in Chicago’s history, Remnick shows us how that city’s complex racial legacy would make Obama’s forays into politics a source of controversy and bare-knuckle tactics: his clashes with older black politicians in the Illinois State Senate, his disastrous decision to challenge the former Black Panther Bobby Rush for Congress in 2000, the sex scandals that would decimate his more experienced opponents in the 2004 Senate race, and the story—from both sides—of his confrontation with his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.By looking at Obama’s political rise through the prism of our racial history, Remnick gives us the conflicting agendas of black politicians: the dilemmas of men like Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, and Joseph Lowery,heroes of the civil rights movement, who are forced to reassess old loyalties and understand the priorities of a new generation of African-American leaders.

The Bridge revisits the American drama of race, from slavery to civil rights, and makes clear how Obama’s quest is not just his own but is emblematic of a nation where destiny is defined by individuals keen to imagine a future that is different from the reality of their current lives.

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

Best price

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 29, 2010 16:21:54

Relate Products

Friends Link : Buy CDs Lowest prices and special offer for HDTV.

Uncategorized, , ,
No Comments

Check Out Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life for $7.50

Posted by admin
July 29, 2010

Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life Review

Hot!!!

Special Price Here

Tony Dungy outlines his life’s passion (belief in Jesus Christ) through the lenses of his life as an athlete, father, son, and NFL football coach. It is rewarding to read Tony’s words as it relates to his integrity as a person in a society where values seem to be faltering. As an educator and coach, I internalized Tony’s passion for staying the course, believing in good values, and especially living your values as a role model. It was encouraging in a quick fix society to hear the story of staying the course in what a person believes in regardless of the letdowns in a person’s journey. I enjoyed the theme of Quiet Strength and below are some quotes from the book that outlined some of my favorite strands intertwined in the book.

(p.51) “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?” Matthew 16:26

(p.105) Champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else. Chuck Noll

(p.183) It’s always easier to do things the wrong way, but it’s always best to do them the right way. CleoMae Dungy

Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life Feature

Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life Overview

2008 Retailer’s Choice Award winner!
Tony Dungy’s words and example have intrigued millions of people, particularly following his victory in Super Bowl XLI, the first for an African American coach. How is it possible for a coach—especially a football coach—to win the respect of his players and lead them to the Super Bowl without the screaming histrionics, the profanities, and the demand that the sport come before anything else? How is it possible for anyone to be successful without compromising faith and family? In this inspiring and reflective memoir, now updated with a new chapter, Coach Dungy tells the story of a life lived for God and family—and challenges us all to redefine our ideas of what it means to succeed.

The softcover edition of this #1 New York Times best-seller includes a new chapter! In it, Coach reflects on the 2007 football season and last year’s successful hardcover release of Quiet Strength. Also features a foreword by Denzel Washington and a 16-page color-photo insert. Over 1 million in print!

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

Best price

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 29, 2010 04:54:15

Relate Products

Related : Lowest prices and special offer for HDTV.

Spring Arbor/Ingram, , , ,
No Comments

Great Price for

Posted by admin
July 28, 2010

I Was Told There’d Be Cake Review

Hot!!!

Special Price Here

Sloane Crosley reminds me of a female David Sedaris. She’s funny, in the biting sense, and her stories really provoked a full-body laugh. Having just moved into the city, myself, and working in the publishing world, I feel a real connection to the hilarity behind Sloane’s tales, and hope I have a less-rocky, albeit just as adventurous journey.

I Was Told There’d Be Cake Overview

Unabridged CDs • 6 CDs, 6 hours

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

Best price

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 28, 2010 15:27:25

Relate Products

Thanks To : Lowest prices and special offer for HDTV. Buy CDs

Uncategorized,
No Comments

Check Out The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It (P.S.) for $7.62

Posted by admin
July 28, 2010

The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It (P.S.) Review

Hot!!!

Special Price Here

Upon the death of her husband, Francois Clicquot , Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin joined Alexandre Jerome Fourneux in a business partnership in 1806 and founded Veuve Clicquot Fourneaux & Co.. She immediately took an active role in the business, participating in the crafting of her own Champagne and within four years was in charge of the business which became Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin & Co.. The Widow Clicquot’s risky decision to arrange to transport her wines from the 1811 or “comet” vintage to Russia for sale after the fall of Napoleon saved her company and led to the internationalization of Champagne. She continued at the helm of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin & Co. until 1841, when at the age of 64 she retired. To this day, Champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin is the only elite Champagne house with a woman (Madame Cécile Bonnefond) at the helm.

In the 1800s everyone knew of the Widow Clicquot, but few understand anything about the woman behind the yellow label. Scant details of her life have been preserved. Her personal letters did not survive and there is little biographical record. It is to the author’s credit that she was able to recreate the life story and provide new insight about this unique woman. Mazzeo does write at times with considerable speculation, but her grasp of history makes the whole story very plausible. The book has extensive scholarly references and bibliography, but only one photo of the Widow Clicquot in her later years and no photos of early Champagne bottles or labels.

This book is valuable for the educational information about Champagne that is interjected throughout its pages. Here are just a few of the little known facts about Champagne that I learned:

* Champagne was discovered by the British, not the French. Sparkling wine appeared in England by the 1660s, decades before it was sold in France. Wine was shipped from France to England in wooden casks. The British wanted to better preserve the wine so they put the wine in bottles where the wine underwent a secondary fermentation. The British added sugar to the bottles, creating Champagne by the 1670s, a decade before it was produced in France.

* Early on, in the 1790s, Champagne was a dessert wine, very sweet, served cold and brownish pink in color due to added brandy and skins of grapes. There were only blanc de noirs (white and red grapes).

* Dom Pierre Perignon did not invent Champagne. That was a marketing ploy by the region’s Champagne producers at the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris. In reality, Dom Perignon was given the task of getting rid of bubbles that were ruining still wines of the time. A secondary fermentation occurred in wines stored over the winter in sealed wood casks and when the weather warmed in the spring, a secondary fermentation occurred creating bubbles in the so-called “devil’s wine.” There was little market for sparkling wine at the time. Dom Perignon was a pioneer of blending.

* The older a Champagne is, the smaller the bubbles become. Bubbles do not affect taste. Since vintage Champagne is aged extensively creating smaller bubbles, the quality of high quality Champagne is often attributed to small bubbles.

* Vintage Champagne must be aged a minimum of 3 years, some of the best are aged 7-8 years. After disgorgement, Champagne rarely improves with cellaring.

* The Widow Clicquot discovered remuage, a system of clearing Champagne yeast debris trapped in the bottle after secondary fermentation by riddling.

* Barbe-Nicole Clicquot was one of the first winemakers to use labels on her bottles in 1814.

* The signature of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot is on every orange label Champagne that bears her name.

The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It (P.S.) Feature

The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It (P.S.) Overview

Veuve Clicquot champagne epitomizes glamour, style, and luxury. In The Widow Clicquot, Tilar J. Mazzeo brings to life—for the first time—the fascinating woman behind the iconic yellow label: Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, who, after her husband’s death, defied convention by assuming the reins of the fledgling wine business they had nurtured together. Steering the company through dizzying political and financial reversals, she became one of the world’s first great businesswomen and one of the richest women of her time.

As much a fascinating journey through the process of making this temperamental wine as a biography of a uniquely tempered woman, The Widow Clicquot is the captivating true story of a legend and a visionary.

The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It (P.S.) Specifications

Amazon Best of the Month, October 2008: With its trademark fizz and sparkling taste, champagne has long been the beverage of choice for those in a celebratory mood. From the artillery of popping corks on New Year’s Eve to the clinking of newlywed glasses, a bit of the bubbly has locked arms with good cheer for centuries. Yet had it not been for the pioneering Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, the libation deemed “the wine of civilization” by Winston Churchill might today be available only to the excessively wealthy or extremely lucky. Author Tilar J. Mazzeo toasts the élan of Champagne’s Grand Dame with The Widow Clicquot, a fascinating story of the cunning bravery and good fortune that helped build the Veuve Clicquot brand. Widowed at age twenty-seven by the death of her husband François Clicquot, Barbe-Nicole assumed control of her family’s wine business amid the chaos of The Napoleonic Wars. That she became a prominent female leader in a male-dominated industry was one thing; building an empire amid savage political unrest was quite another. With passionate research and true admiration for her subject, Mazzeo pays homage to the beloved Widow from Reims and the remarkable weight her name still carries today. -Dave Callanan

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

Best price

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 28, 2010 03:18:04

Relate Products

My Links : Lowest prices and special offer for HDTV. Buy CDs

Uncategorized, , ,
No Comments

Check Out Revelation: A Matthew Shardlake Mystery

Posted by admin
July 27, 2010

Revelation: A Matthew Shardlake Mystery Review

Hot!!!

Special Price Here

This is the final book of the series following Matthew Shardlake’s adventures and it is no coincidence that it carries the same name as the final book of the New Testament. The intrepid lawyer’s main mission, for, as usual, he has several, is to track down a serial killer who bases his trail of horror on events that are described in biblical version.

I warn you that there are some stomach-churning descriptions within this book. One of the lesser pictures that Sansom conjures up early on is that of early dentures, made from wood and mounted with real, human teeth. Yeuch!

Shardlake is also trying to help a teenage boy who is incarcerated in the infamous “hospital for the mentally ill”: Bedlam. He also has to cope with the declining marriage of his assistant, Barak, and the lady for whom he’d fallen in “Sovereign”, Tamasin.

Once again, this is a dangerous mission for our hunch-backed hero. And, as in previous adventures, there are very few people whom he can trust. Because the villain is following a defined pattern, there is a small element of predictability, but this is skilfully used by the author to raise the level of tension to almost unbearable levels. Knowing roughly what is going to happen, but not how it is going to happen is excruciating!

Whether you are a fan of historical fiction, or a fan of crime mysteries and thrillers, I would recommend that you read your way through this series from beginning to end. Of course, if you are a fan of both genres, you are already on your way to the bookstore or library.

Revelation: A Matthew Shardlake Mystery Overview

“We can’t recommend this book too highly; it’s another virtuoso performance from a truly great talent.” -The Denver Post

Readers across America are discovering C. J. Sansom’s marvelous Shardlake novels. Now, with the brilliant fourth installment in the series, Revelation is poised to bring his highly praised historical thrillers to an even wider audience. In 1543, while Tudor England is abuzz with King Henry VIII’s wooing of Lady Catherine Parr, Matthew Shardlake is working to defend a teenage boy, a religious fanatic being held in the infamous Bedlam hospital for the insane. Then, when an old friend is murdered, Shardlake’s search for the killer leads him back not only to Bedlam but also to Catherine Parr-and the dark prophecies of the Book of Revelation.

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

Best price

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 27, 2010 13:57:05

Relate Products

See Also : Buy CDs Lowest prices and special offer for HDTV.

Uncategorized, , ,
No Comments

Check Out The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: An American Journalist in Yemen for $13.00

Posted by admin
July 27, 2010

The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: An American Journalist in Yemen Review

Hot!!!

Special Price Here

I admit that when I read that author Jennifer Steil had been asked to come to Yemen to teach a course on good journalism, with no background in Arabic or in the culture of Yemen, I didn’t expect much. But instead I found that her acute powers of observation made the book quite wonderful. She describes fascinating details: the little girls playing in the dust in chiffon princess dresses, the female reporters who couldn’t attend a working lunch with their male colleagues because they couldn’t risk removing the niqab from over their mouths, the woman reporter who needed to purchase modest clothing to work in the US because under an abaya, no one could see the tight low tops she wore.

Steil taught her classes in Western journalism and was asked to return and work as editor of the English language weekly Yemen Observer. She found a newspaper where press releases from the government were rewritten without question or verification, where deadlines were never observed, where men arrived at work late in the evening and left to chew qat before the articles were submitted and where the English language skills were barely legible.

As a western woman she occupied a third sex, which allowed her to mix with either the men or the women and gave her more access than a male writer or even a Yemeni would have. It didn’t mean however that the men would follow her direction on multiple journalistic sources, objectivity, language or time. So editing the paper became the occasion of 14 hour days and stress, until she reformed the culture of the paper. The results were significantly visible though, although she had to make certain compromises, especially as positions turned over and people without a western sense of journalism took over.

It was the friendship with a gay American colleague (at risk in a culture where homosexuality is a crime) and a brief love affair that seemed to center Steil. Generally speaking she did not associate greatly with the expat community except to swim at the western club. She rented a traditional Yemeni house in Old Sana’a and kept pretty much to herself, given the long hours at the paper, occasionally living with a roomate. She finally seemed to settle in, after rewarding her reporters for turning in pieces early so that she could have time for a life. And in doing so she had time to individually mentor her staff and met the Englishman who became her husband.

The young women reporters Steil mentored form the most vivid memories of the book. Often they had to be more conservative than other women simply because they worked at the sufferance of their husbands, fathers or brothers. If there were to be any hint of a scandal, they would need to stop work. So they went two by two to cover stories, had to return home before dark, only displayed their eyes and hands at business meetings (which made it difficult for Steil to distinguish them until she started eating with them and finally saw their faces.) The most promising of them returned from America and settled as a second wife in a polygamous household to a man who would permit her to work.

I highly recommend this book. Steil is an excellent writer with an astute eye for detail and a love of her adopted country.

The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: An American Journalist in Yemen Feature

The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: An American Journalist in Yemen Overview

 
 
“I had no idea how to find my way around this medieval city. It was getting dark. I was tired. I didn’t speak Arabic. I was a little frightened. But hadn’t I battled scorpions in the wilds of Costa Rica and prevailed? Hadn’t I survived fainting in a San José brothel?  Hadn’t I once arrived in Ireland with only in my pocket and made it last two weeks? Surely I could handle a walk through an unfamiliar town. So I took a breath, tightened the black scarf around my hair, and headed out to take my first solitary steps through Sana’a.”– from The Woman Who Fell From The Sky
 
In a world fraught with suspicion between the Middle East and the West, it’s hard to believe that one of the most influential newspapers in Yemen–the desperately poor, ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, which has made has made international headlines for being a terrorist breeding ground–would be handed over to an agnostic, Campari-drinking, single woman from Manhattan who had never set foot in the Middle East. Yet this is exactly what happened to journalist, Jennifer Steil.
 
Restless in her career and her life, Jennifer, a gregarious, liberal New Yorker, initially accepts a short-term opportunity in 2006 to teach a journalism class to the staff of The Yemen Observer in Sana’a, the beautiful, ancient, and very conservative capital of Yemen. Seduced by the eager reporters and the challenging prospect of teaching a free speech model of journalism there, she extends her stay to a year as the paper’s editor-in-chief. But she is quickly confronted with the realities of Yemen–and their surprising advantages.  In teaching the basics of fair and balanced journalism to a staff that included plagiarists and polemicists, she falls in love with her career again. In confronting the blatant mistreatment and strict governance of women by their male counterparts, she learns to appreciate the strength of Arab women in the workplace. And in forging surprisingly deep friendships with women and men whose traditions and beliefs are in total opposition to her own, she learns a cultural appreciation she never could have predicted.  What’s more, she just so happens to meet the love of her life.
 
With exuberance and bravery, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky offers a rare, intimate, and often surprising look at the role of the media in Muslim culture and a fascinating cultural tour of Yemen, one of the most enigmatic countries in the world.

The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: An American Journalist in Yemen Specifications

Tahir Shah Reviews The Woman Who Fell from the Sky

Tahir Shah is the author of The Caliph’s House and In Arabian Nights. Read his review of The Woman Who Fell from the Sky:

Just about everyone I meet is writing a book.

At parties and dinners they usually trap me in a corner between a potted plant and a wall, and they harangue me about a their masterwork. As a published author they expect I’ll be able to smooth the way up the long hard slope to Print-hood and success.

Most of the time I tell Would-be-writer dinner guests that they’re fabulous, and that they’re assured easy success, because of their rare and blatant talent. I tell them that because most people only want attention and, when they’ve been given it, they move on to someone else.

Sometimes, at the end of a long evening of being savaged by Would-be-writers, I lash out and hint at the truth–-that the first 100,000 words that most people knock out ought to be chucked in the trash right away. It’s the dirty water that comes through pipes that have never been used.

But once in a while you come across an author who hits the mark first off in the most lively, and enlivening way.

Jennifer Steil is one such writer.

It’s clear to me from the first line of her sleek, intelligent and charming book, that she has done her time in that gymnasium of authorship, the newspaper world. There is nothing like it to build the craft, although the majority of writers these days seem to shun it like the plague.

As a result, Jennifer doesn’t waste words. And, more importantly, she knows how to use them, like a mason selecting the right rock for a spot in a dry stone wall.

It would be enough for this first book to be a delight, which it is, but it captures something far deeper and far more poignant. Through it, she has reached the hallowed ground of the most successful travel writers. By this, I mean that she has triumphed in showing a place, revealing the sensibilities of a people and events, through anecdotes rather than direct description. It’s something which most writers fail miserably at, but a one that has the ability to depict a society in the most enticing way-–from the inside out.

I won’t waste space here detailing the ins and outs of Jennifer’s story in Yemen, because I coax anyone with an interest in the East-West dynamic to read her prose for themselves. But I will preface the book by saying that it is an extraordinary achievement: both eloquent and elegant, hilarious in parts but, most of all, sensible to a society so differing from her own.

Questions for Jennifer Steil

Q: How does writing a memoir compare to writing news stories?
A: Writing a memoir is in many ways much easier than writing news stories. News stories require such intensive reporting and running around, and then must be written on very tight deadlines. I had a year to write this book, and nearly another year to edit it, which felt very leisurely to me! Of course the book required research as well, but much of it was based on the daily journals I kept during my first year in Yemen.

Writing a memoir is also a much lonelier business than writing news stories. When I am working as a reporter, I am constantly talking with people, either interview subjects or colleagues. Writing a book required long solitary hours in my office, and I found myself longing for someone to talk to at the water cooler!

Of course, there are also huge differences in structure. I found myself struggling with the structure of the book, whereas I can fairly easily structure news stories. I figured out the structure the book as I went along–with lots of help from my editors!

There are also some commonalities between book writing and news writing. Both memoirs and journalism require scrupulous reporting of facts. I always try to be as honest and fair as possible. A memoir, however, includes plenty of my own opinions and feelings, which news writing excludes.

Q: At one point, you were surprised to find yourself sounding patriotic as you explained American constitutional rights to Farouq. How did being an expatriate affect your sense of what it means to be an American?
A: I feel that living abroad has deepened my affection for America, while also making me more critical of certain aspects of American culture. When I left the U.S., I was furious at our government and the country in general. A dedicated Democrat, I was bitter about the last two elections and outraged by pretty much everything George W. Bush ever did. I was embarrassed to be American and pessimistic about the future of the country.

Living in Yemen did not improve my view of the Bush administration, but it did make me grateful for the many privileges of life in the US. All the things I took for granted–drinkable tap water, free speech, freedom to dress however I wanted, a variety of healthy food available everywhere, dental care, good hospitals, decent education, diversity–became more precious to me. I felt proud that I came from a country where I could rant about whatever I wanted without fear of the government tossing me into jail.

I used to complain about sexism in America, which does still exist. But it is nothing compared to what women are subjected to in Yemen–and in so many other places. I feel so lucky that by the sheer accident of my birth I grew up in a country where I have had the freedom to go to school, be critical of religion, make friends with men and women, and choose a career for myself. I appreciate the fact that in the U.S. I feel that I am seen as a person with an intellect and rights, rather than as property.

That said, one thing I liked about leaving America was shedding so many THINGS. I gave away or threw out most of my possessions (aside from books and notebooks, which I stored in my parents’ barn) and it was really freeing to realize that I could easily live for a year with just two suitcases worth of clothes and other things. So much about life in the U.S. seems excessive from here. I mean, do we really need 97 flavors of chewing gum and 53 flavors of iced tea? I would go to stores and just get overwhelmed by the choices.

I have become more critical of the frivolity of American life. It’s hard to get worked up about my own small problems when Yemenis are worried about the most basic things: access to water, access to schools, starvation, sickness, and war.

Q: Despite the hardships, you truly fell in love with Yemen. What was the turning point?
A: There were many little turning points–meeting and having tea with my neighbors in Old Sana’a, finally finding time to eat lunch outside of the office (it made such a difference to get away for an hour!), figuring out how to do all of my shopping and errands in Arabic, and taking time to get out of Sana’a and explore more of this gorgeous country. I am glad I came here alone, because I got such a huge sense of accomplishment from finding my own way and becoming self-sufficient in this strange land.

Perhaps my biggest turning point came as a result of getting the newspaper on a regular schedule. Once I had achieved this Herculean feat, I was finally able to spend more time with my reporters individually. I could give them the training and attention they needed. I could also spend some time with them outside of the office. This made my job suddenly much more enjoyable. I loved spending time with my staff. They are the reason I came to Yemen, and the absolute best part of my first year here was watching their progress and forming relationships with them.

Once we were on a regular schedule, I also had more time to explore Yemen and meet people outside of work.

Q: How do you hope the book will affect readers? What stereotypes would you like to overturn?
A: So many westerners I meet in the U.S. and England have not even heard of Yemen. If they have, they only know it as a hotbed of terrorism, which is how it’s generally described in the news. News coverage of Yemen is extremely skewed–western papers rarely write about the country unless embassies are being attacked or tourists are getting blown up.

What you hardly ever read about is the amazing hospitality and generosity of the Yemeni people. The overwhelming majority of people I have met in Yemen have been kind, open-hearted, and curious about westerners. Yemenis will invite you home to lunch five minutes after meeting you. And if you go once, they will invite you back for lunch every week. This kind of immediate and sincere hospitality is not often found in the west.

I hope my book helps eliminate the stereotype that all Yemenis are crazed terrorists. I want people to come away with the understanding that Yemen has a diverse population, and the majority are peaceful people.

Q: Most books about Yemen have been written by men. What’s different about your perspective as a woman–a western woman at that?
A: Western men have pretty much zero access to women in Yemen (and Yemeni men don’t have much more!). Therefore, the books written about Yemen by men are missing half of the story–the women’s story. At least one male writer I’ve read admits he knows nothing of the world of Yemeni women, but adds that it is his understanding that Yemeni women may have little influence on political and public life, but that they rule the home. I did not find this to be true–certainly not for most of the women I have met here. The women I know have to obey the men in their family in every sphere–they are not free to go to school, fall in love, stay out after dark, work, go out, make friends with men, etc. without permission from men.

Because I am a westerner, I am sure there is still plenty I do not know about Yemen and Yemeni women in particular. While I’ve become close to many women who have confided in me, I am still ultimately an outsider. Yet some women confide in me because I am an outsider–they tell me things they are afraid of telling other Yemeni women, for fear of being judged.

Q: What is your next challenge as a writer and editor?
A: I would really like to write a novel. I’ve written one before, but I am not sure it should ever be published! So I’d like to start again. I think it would be fun to write something completely untrue for a change. Though it is tempting to write something about diplomatic life…

Photographs from The Woman Who Fell from the Sky

Jennifer Steil with Rocky the Kitten Mountains in Haraz Jennifer and Faris

Jennifer, Tim, and Their Bodyguards Yemeni Minaret A Staff Meeting

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

Best price

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 26, 2010 23:39:05

Relate Products

Related : Lowest prices and special offer for HDTV.

Uncategorized, ,
No Comments

Check Out Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who RIsked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II for $8.00

Posted by admin
July 26, 2010

Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who RIsked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II Review

Hot!!!

Special Price Here

A truly inspiring read about two fairly regular guys who accomplished a fairly incredible task through hard work, perseverence and common sense ingenuity, proving about a dozen “experts” wrong in the process.

Kurson does an excellent job of taking the reader into a number of different worlds- the technical world of deepwater scuba diving, the “weekend warrior” world of the deepwater wreck divers who hold regular jobs during the week and pursue this dangerous and fascinating hobby on the weekends, and the world of the German u-boats operating off the American east coast during WWII and the Americans trying to combat them. What makes the book exceptional is that, if the author’s foreward is to be believed, his descriptions of all of these “worlds” are true-to-fact and meticulously researched, yet the writing and narrative clip along more like an adventure novel than a textbook.

I suspect that folks with an interest in scuba diving, shipwrecks or WWII will cotton to this book more quickly than others, but I’d recommend the book to anyone. Even if you don’t have an interest in those subjects when you pick up the book, you might develop one quickly. And in a broader sense, it’s a great story of mankind’s innate thirst for discovery and “pioneer spirit” manifested in two ordinary guys, and a great example of how far perseverence combined with common sense ingenuity can take you.

Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who RIsked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II Overview

In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm comes a true tale of riveting adventure in which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery–and make history themselves.

For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents, braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, navigating through wreckage as perilous as a minefield, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than once in the rusting hulks of sunken ships.
But in the fall of 1991, not even these courageous divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey: a World War II German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wasteland of twisted metal, tangled wires, and human bones–all buried under decades of accumulated sediment.
No identifying marks were visible on the submarine or the few artifacts brought to the surface. No historian, expert, or government had a clue as to which U-boat the men had found. In fact, the official records all agreed that there simply could not be a sunken U-boat and crew at that location.

Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest to solve the mystery. Some of them would not live to see its end. Chatterton and Kohler, at first bitter rivals, would be drawn into a friendship that deepened to an almost mystical sense of brotherhood with each other and with the drowned U-boat sailors–former enemies of their country. As the men’s marriages frayed under the pressure of a shared obsession, their dives grew more daring, and each realized that he was hunting more than the identities of a lost U-boat and its nameless crew.

Author Robert Kurson’s account of this quest is at once thrilling and emotionally complex, and it is written with a vivid sense of what divers actually experience when they meet the dangers of the ocean’s underworld. The story of Shadow Divers often seems too amazing to be true, but it all happened, two hundred thirty feet down, in the deep blue sea.

From the Hardcover edition.

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

Best price

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 26, 2010 09:15:05

Relate Products

Related : Buy CDs

Uncategorized, , , , , ,
No Comments

Great Price for $2.74

Posted by admin
July 26, 2010

Einstein: His Life and Universe Review

Hot!!!

Special Price Here

If you don’t know much about Albert Einstein and probably aren’t going to get a PhD in Physics anytime soon, but want to know more about this historical figure, this is certainly the book for you.

I found Issacson’s easygoing writing style to be very helpful during the discussions on Einstein’s relativity theory and his philosophical battle against the randomness in emerging Quantum mechanics. In truth, one cannot understand this great man without some knowledge of these areas of physics, though a typical reader won’t want to understand their entirety.

In addition to his genius, it was wonderful to learn about Einstein’s astounding curiosity, his perseverance towards an academic career, his steadfast rejection of nationalism, his incredibly simple approach to his personal life, and his commitment to the idea that everything in nature has a purpose and an underlying structure- that “God doesn’t play dice”.

At the same time, Einstein was a man, and he had many shortcomings. It was particularly discouraging to learn about his failings as a husband and as a father. His outspoken naiveté regarding global politics also remind the reader of today’s society where celebrities in one field often feel the power/right to voice their opinions in another where they have little in the way of training or expertise.
I found his assessment of America in a letter to his son, particularly timely, paraphrasing: “in America everything is mass produced, even lunacy. But at the same time, everything fades away very quickly.”

This is a book that is for mature readers due to it’s length, some of it’s subject matter and some language.

Einstein: His Life and Universe Overview

By the author of the acclaimed bestseller Benjamin Franklin, this is the first full biography of Albert Einstein since all of his papers have become available.

How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson’s biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the rebellious nature of his personality. His fascinating story is a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom.

Based on newly released personal letters of Einstein, this book explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk — a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn’t get a teaching job or a doctorate — became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe. His success came from questioning conventional wisdom and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane. This led him to embrace a morality and politics based on respect for free minds, free spirits, and free individuals.

These traits are just as vital for this new century of globalization, in which our success will depend on our creativity, as they were for the beginning of the last century, when Einstein helped usher in the modern age.

Einstein: His Life and Universe Specifications

As a scientist, Albert Einstein is undoubtedly the most epic among 20th-century thinkers. Albert Einstein as a man, however, has been a much harder portrait to paint, and what we know of him as a husband, father, and friend is fragmentary at best. With Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson (author of the bestselling biographies Benjamin Franklin and Kissinger) brings Einstein’s experience of life, love, and intellectual discovery into brilliant focus. The book is the first biography to tackle Einstein’s enormous volume of personal correspondence that heretofore had been sealed from the public, and it’s hard to imagine another book that could do such a richly textured and complicated life as Einstein’s the same thoughtful justice. Isaacson is a master of the form and this latest opus is at once arresting and wonderfully revelatory. –Anne Bartholomew

Read “The Light-Beam Rider,” the first chapter of Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe.

Five Questions for Walter Isaacson

Amazon.com: What kind of scientific education did you have to give yourself to be able to understand and explain Einstein’s ideas?

Isaacson: I’ve always loved science, and I had a group of great physicists–such as Brian Greene, Lawrence Krauss, and Murray Gell-Mann–who tutored me, helped me learn the physics, and checked various versions of my book. I also learned the tensor calculus underlying general relativity, but tried to avoid spending too much time on it in the book. I wanted to capture the imaginative beauty of Einstein’s scientific leaps, but I hope folks who want to delve more deeply into the science will read Einstein books by such scientists as Abraham Pais, Jeremy Bernstein, Brian Greene, and others.

Amazon.com: That Einstein was a clerk in the Swiss Patent Office when he revolutionized our understanding of the physical world has often been treated as ironic or even absurd. But you argue that in many ways his time there fostered his discoveries. Could you explain?

Isaacson: I think he was lucky to be at the patent office rather than serving as an acolyte in the academy trying to please senior professors and teach the conventional wisdom. As a patent examiner, he got to visualize the physical realities underlying scientific concepts. He had a boss who told him to question every premise and assumption. And as Peter Galison shows in Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps, many of the patent applications involved synchronizing clocks using signals that traveled at the speed of light. So with his office-mate Michele Besso as a sounding board, he was primed to make the leap to special relativity.

Amazon.com: That time in the patent office makes him sound far more like a practical scientist and tinkerer than the usual image of the wild-haired professor, and more like your previous biographical subject, the multitalented but eminently earthly Benjamin Franklin. Did you see connections between them?

Isaacson: I like writing about creativity, and that’s what Franklin and Einstein shared. They also had great curiosity and imagination. But Franklin was a more practical man who was not very theoretical, and Einstein was the opposite in that regard.

Amazon.com: Of the many legends that have accumulated around Einstein, what did you find to be least true? Most true?

Isaacson: The least true legend is that he failed math as a schoolboy. He was actually great in math, because he could visualize equations. He knew they were nature’s brushstrokes for painting her wonders. For example, he could look at Maxwell’s equations and marvel at what it would be like to ride alongside a light wave, and he could look at Max Planck’s equations about radiation and realize that Planck’s constant meant that light was a particle as well as a wave. The most true legend is how rebellious and defiant of authority he was. You see it in his politics, his personal life, and his science.

Amazon.com: At Time and CNN and the Aspen Institute, you’ve worked with many of the leading thinkers and leaders of the day. Now that you’ve had the chance to get to know Einstein so well, did he remind you of anyone from our day who shares at least some of his remarkable qualities?

Isaacson: There are many creative scientists, most notably Stephen Hawking, who wrote the essay on Einstein as “Person of the Century” when I was editor of Time. In the world of technology, Steve Jobs has the same creative imagination and ability to think differently that distinguished Einstein, and Bill Gates has the same intellectual intensity. I wish I knew politicians who had the creativity and human instincts of Einstein, or for that matter the wise feel for our common values of Benjamin Franklin.

More to Explore


Benjamin Franklin: An American Life


Kissinger: A Biography
The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

Best price

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jul 25, 2010 20:48:27

Relate Products

See Also : Lowest prices and special offer for HDTV. Buy CDs

Uncategorized
No Comments
Next Page →