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Amazon Books
BEST SELLERS
Here you will find the most up-to-date best selling Amazon books
and selected Oprah Winfrey Book Club books, in addition to
other stellar children's classic books and best selling educational
books for educators!
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Books for Adults:
The Assault on Reason (Hardcover)
by Al Gore
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A visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy,
cronyism, and blind faith has combined with the degradation
of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously hostile
to reason. As "The Assault on Reason" shows us, we have
precious little time to waste. Gore's larger goal in this
book is to explain how the public sphere itself has evolved
into a place hospitable to reason's enemies, to make us more
aware of the forces at work on our own minds, and to lead us
to an understanding of what we can do, individually and
collectively, to restore the rule of reason and safeguard
our future. Drawing on a life's work in politics as well as
on the work of experts across a broad range of disciplines,
Al Gore has written a farsighted and powerful manifesto for
clear thinking.
An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming
and What We Can Do About It (Paperback)
by Al Gore
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
Our climate crisis may at times appear to be happening slowly,
but in fact it is happening very quickly-and has become a true
planetary emergency. The Chinese expression for crisis consists
of two characters. The first is a symbol for danger; the second
is a symbol for opportunity. In order to face down the danger
that is stalking us and move through it, we first have to
recognize that we are facing a crisis. So why is it that
our leaders seem not to hear such clarion warnings? Are they
resisting the truth because they know that the moment they
acknowledge it, they will face a moral imperative to act?
Is it simply more convenient to ignore the warnings? Perhaps,
but inconvenient truths do not go away just because they are
not seen. Indeed, when they are responded to, their significance
doesnt diminish; it grows. -- Al Gore
We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For:
Light in a Time of Darkness (Hardcover)
by Alice Walker
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
Walker, best known as a novelist, offers a collection of her
essays and talks in a variety of venues and efforts to express
and encourage spirituality and progressive political ideas.
Talking to midwives, black yoga instructors, college students,
Buddhists, and other admirers of her work, Walker offers commentary
on the ways that modern society is destroying itself and the earth,
and yet stands on the threshold of promising development. Walker urges
resistance to war, lower birth rates, simpler living, and
simple kindness as ways to improve life for us all.
The Color Purple (Paperback)
by Alice Walker
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of
20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being
abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her
sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of
her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her.
Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been
keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels,
combined with an example of love and independence provided
by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an
awakening of her creative and loving self. This book inspired
the movie by the same name, starring Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah
Winfrey and Danny Glover and directed by Steven Spielberg.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
(Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)
by Carson McCullers
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
With the publication of this, her first novel, Carson McCullers, all of
twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its profound sense
of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its
characters' inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers'
finest work, an enduring masterpiece. At its center is the
deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various
types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s.
Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's
mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house,
where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (and loosely based on
McCullers), finds solace in her music. Wonderfully attuned
to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition,
and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South,
McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives
voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated --
and, through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely
personal search for beauty.
She's Come Undone (Oprah's Book Club) (Mass Market Paperback)
by Wally Lamb
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
She's Come Undone is a powerful epic, an emotional journey in the life
of Dolores Price. Wally Lamb's Dolores is a perfectly flawed
character and easy to get attached to. Brilliant writing,
a fabulous point-of-view of a female told through the hand
of a male. How did he do it with such spot-on honesty?
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
(Paperback)
by Mitch Albom
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This life-affirming fable ironically opens at the end of the
life of a seemingly ordinary man. Known as "Eddie Maintenance"
to those he works with at Ruby Pier, Eddie led what he saw as
a disappointing life working as head of maintenance at a
seaside amusement park. Upon his death, he learns that heaven
is a place to make sense of his time on earth and that he
will meet five people from his life who will help him understand
its greatest lessons.
Lincoln as I Knew Him: Gossip, Tributes and Revelations
from His Best Friends and Worst Enemies (Hardcover)
by Harold Holzer (Editor)
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Lots of books have been written about Lincoln. Most tackled
this subject through Presidential Papers. Few took the time to
look at those who knew Lincoln. Holzer does this by reading all
the available material about Lincoln and getting together the
writings of those people who knew Lincoln. This book is a summary
of some of those people remembering Lincoln. It is great reading.
One is struck by the Lincoln in this book. He comes across as a
very human person. He was ugly and not very cultured. He was
smart, friendly, and did not take on an attitude with his high
position. He was approachable and easy to talk with. A baby
sitter reveals his humanity with her encounters. He was not
a racist, in a age when most white people were. He was ready
to forgive a people who broke the nation apart. He was a rare
human being. This comes across in the writting. For those
interested in the real Abe Lincoln, this is a great book.
Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor (Paperback)
by Michael J. Rosen
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
Many humor anthologies are very hit and miss, and they also tend
to be very much a "boys only" club. But "Mirth of a Nation" is of
the best I've ever seen, both in terms of quality and in
including an good representation of women humorists. Michael J.
Rosen has done an excellent job in compiling humorists such as
Fran Lebowitz, Dave Barry, Mark O'Donnell, Jon Stewart,
David Sedaris, Colleen Werthman, Patricia Marx and Henry Alford,
just to name a few. This anthology would make a wonderful gift
for just about anyone in any age group (it is pretty much
"clean humor").
How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci:
Seven Steps to Genius Every Day (Paperback)
by Michael Gelb
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
Founder and president of the High Performance Learning Center, Gelb,
in this book, offers "the Seven Da Vincian Principles" for
learning how to approach life like a genius. He uses Leonardo's
native Italian language to label these principles: "curiosita"
(curiosity and continuous learning), "dimostrazione"
(learning from experience), "sensazione" (sensory awareness),
"sfumato" (accepting and embracing uncertainty),
"arte/scienza" (balancing art and science, or "whole-brain"
thinking), "corporalita" (physical fitness and ambidexterity)
and "connessione" (seeing the interconnectedness of everything).
Gelb provides discussion of each principle in relation to
Leonardo's work, questions for reader "self-assessment,"
exercises and even notes for parents to apply the principles
to child-rearing and teaching. His view reflects the current
trend in working with "multiple intelligences" and creativity,
and is similar to the approach outlined in Todd Siler's
"Think Like a Genius" (1997).
Artist's Way
: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (Paperback)
by Julia Cameron
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
With the basic principle that creative expression is the
natural direction of life, Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan
lead you through a comprehensive twelve-week program to
recover your creativity from a variety of blocks, including
limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt,
addictions, and other inhibiting forces, replacing them
with artistic confidence and productivity.
This book links creativity to spirituality by showing how
to connect with the creative energies of the universe,
and has, in the four years since its publication, spawned
a remarkable number of support groups for artists dedicated
to practicing the exercises it contains.
The Vein of Gold
(Paperback)
by Julia Cameron
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
Coauthor of the best-selling The Artist's Way (above),
Cameron here assists her readers in broadening their creativity
by guiding them on a journey through seven kingdoms. Her
analogy of mining for gold?mining for the heart of
creativity works very well. To stimulate creative energies
while walking a path to emotional growth, Cameron suggests
beginning with writing a morning meditation. Chapters on
patience, courage, and spiritual gifts are all interesting,
each chapter ending with a list of tasks to practice.
Each page is festooned with a quote from a writer, artist,
or spiritualist. A solid bibliography and discography round
out this rich self-help guide to developing spiritual, creative lives.
From Hope to Higher Ground:
12 STOPS to Restoring America's Greatness
(Hardcover)
by Mike Huckabee
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
Huckabee's book exudes the leadership, warmth and charm that
made him the most popular Republican in a heavily Democratic
state. His book is less about partisan matters than it is
about building our communities and repairing our society.
As Jon Stewart noted on the Daily Show, it doesn't come across
as something a strong conservative would write, although
Huckabee himself is a bonafide conservative Republican.
This book speaks to renewing America--what we can do to
restore our former glory, and what we need to stop doing
to repair our damaged discourse and heal partisan wounds.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
(Hardcover)
by Steven Covey
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
"Dr Covey has put together one of the best works ever. The key
word in the title is "habits", no thinking about, setting goals
to do something, swishing or anchoring yourself, but actually
developing habits and actually doing it.
I've read this book several times and I get something new out of
it every time.
This book is not only "not over rated" as some readers indicated,
it is grossly under rated and arguably is the best self development
book on the book racks right now!
Books for Educators:
1000 Best New Teacher Survival Secrets
(Paperback)
by Kandace Martin, Kathy Brenny
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
Today's teachers are equipped with little more than a four-year
degree and a semester of student teaching when they face
their own classroom for the first time. Standing in front
of an overcrowded classroom-of any grade level-can be a
daunting and terrifying experience. This book is a
must-have resource for new teachers, covering important
issues across all grade levels. Authors and experienced
educators Kathy Brenny and Kandace Martin show readers how to:
set goals, manage the classroom, discipline students, maximize
lesson time, address prejudice, controversy and school violence,
utilize available resources, and manage their time and health.
Whether readers are recent graduates facing the classroom
for the first or second year, or experienced teachers making
a significant grade level move, this book helps them face
the classroom with confidence.
Books for Young People:
The Crocodile's True Colors (Children's Best-Sellers) (Hardcover)
by Eva Montanari
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
In the grassy fields of Africa, there is a school where young
animals learn to read and write, to make music and art."
From their school windows, the animals look out at a river
in which a fierce crocodile swims. When their teacher suggests
that they paint the scary croc, Lion chooses jagged lines
and brilliant purple. The other students laugh, but the
teacher explains: "Little Lion has used color to show how
he feels. In painting, this is called Expressionism."
Cubism, Futurism, Abstractionism, and Dada are similarly defined,
until one frustrated animal throws his paints into the river.
The croc, looking decidedly less fierce in his newly
acquired colors, retaliates by making his own painting.
Montanari, an Italian artist, does a fine job of explaining
difficult art concepts to the very young, and her art,
in bold colors and inventive shapes, is both appealing
and whimsical. A useful supplement to an art curriculum. K-Grade 4.
A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children
(Hardcover)
by Caroline Kennedy and Jon J. Muth
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
From the cover photograph of Kennedy as a toddler reading to her
teddy to the red linen-textured endpapers; from her thoughtful
introduction and words of encouragement to children at the
beginning of each section of carefully chosen poems to Muth's
beautifully executed watercolors, this volume is a treasure.
In compiling the collection, Kennedy passes on her own
family's tradition of creating a scrapbook of poems chosen
by the children in lieu of gifts to their mother and grandparents.
Divided by topic into seven sections, the collection is,
indeed, a treasury of beloved poems written in a variety of
styles by poets from many lands and generations, some more
familiar than others, some unknown. Grade 2 Up.
A Wrinkle in Time (Paperback)
by Madeleine L'Engle
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Everyone in town thinks Meg Murry is volatile and dull-witted,
and that her younger brother, Charles Wallace, is dumb. People are
also saying that their physicist father has run off and left
their brilliant scientist mother. Spurred on by these rumors
and an unearthly stranger, Meg and Charles Wallace and their
new friend Calvin O'Keefe embark on a perilous quest through
space to find their father. In doing so, they must travel
behind the shadow of an evil power that is darkening the cosmos,
one planet at a time. This is no superhero tale, nor is it
science fiction, although it shares elements of both. The
travelers must rely on their individual and collective strengths,
delving deep within themselves to find answers. A well-loved
classic and 1963 Newbery Medal winner, Madeleine L'Engle's
"A Wrinkle in Time" is sophisticated in concept yet warm
in tone, with mystery and love coursing through its pages.
Meg's shattering, yet ultimately freeing, discovery that
her father is not omnipotent provides a satisfying coming-of-age element.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Signature Edition
(Hardcover)
by C. S. Lewis, Pauline Baynes (Illustrator)
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All seven books in The Chronicles of Narnia are now available
in one volume with a beautiful new jacket and extra features!
Fans will also adore the take-away full-color map of Narnia and
learn more about the series and C. S. Lewis in excerpts from
Beyond the Wardrobe The Official Guide to Narnia. This special
edition is also graced with black-and-white chapter opening
artwork by Pauline Baynes.
The Lord of the Rings (Collector's Edition)
(Leather Bound)
by J.R.R. Tolkien
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There's no salvation for a fantasy fan who hasn't read the
gospel of the genre, J.R.R. Tolkien's definitive three-book epic,
the "Lord of the Rings" (encompassing "The Fellowship of the Ring,"
"The Two Towers," and "The Return of the King"), and its
charming precursor, "The Hobbit." That many (if not most)
fantasy works are in some way derivative of Tolkien is
understood, but the influence of the Lord of the Rings is
so universal that everybody from George Lucas to Led Zeppelin
has appropriated it for one purpose or another. The "Lord of
the Rings" is timeless because it's the product of a
truly top-shelf mind. Tolkien's epic, 10 years in the making,
recounts the Great War of the Ring and the closing of
Middle-Earth's Third Age, a time when magic begins to fade
from the world and men rise to dominance. Tolkien creates in the
"Lord of the Rings" a universal and all-embracing tale,
a justly celebrated classic. Copies of each individual book
in the series are also available from Amazon books.
Harry Potter Box Set (Books 1-6)
(Paperback)
by J. K. Rowling
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Follow Harry from his first days at Hogwarts School for
Witchcraft and Wizardry, through his many adventures with
Hermione and Ron, to his confrontations with rival Draco Malfoy
and the dreaded Professor Snape. From a dangerous descent into
the Chamber of Secrets to the Triwizard Tournament to the
return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, each adventure is more
riveting and exhilarating than its predecessor, and now all
six books are available together for the first time in an
elegant paperback boxed set. Individual books are also available
from Amazon books.
Warriors #1: Into the Wild (Warriors)
(Paperback)
by Erin Hunter
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
This is the first of a page-turning series about wild cats,
with its engrossing characters and heroes returning again
and again for more adventures and powerful life lessons.
In this first book, for generations, four clans of wild cats have shared the
forest according to laws laid down by powerful ancestral clans.
But now things are changing: ShadowClan has banished WindClan
and is threatening RiverClan and ThunderClan by insisting
on hunting rights within their territories. What's more,
each year the TwoLegs encroach further into the forest, and
prey is becoming scarce. A prophecy reveals, "Fire alone can
save [the] Clan." Into this dangerous situation wanders
a "kittypet," a young, bright orange tomcat whose courage
earns him, despite objections by some, a place as an
apprentice ThunderClan warrior and the new name of Firepaw.
In this first spine-tingling episode in the Warriors series,
Firepaw learns the ways of the wild life, facing many dangers
and treachery both within and without his new clan.
Intelligence notwithstanding, the cat characters are true
to their feline nature. Grades 6-9. Other books in the series
are also available from Amazon books.
The Jungle Book: The Classic Tale
(Hardcover)
by Rudyard Kipling, Graham C. Barrett, Don Daily (Illustrator)
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No child should be allowed to grow up without reading
"The Jungle Book." Published in 1894 and 1895, the story crackles
with as much life and intensity as ever. Rudyard Kipling pours
fuel on childhood fantasies with his tales of Mowgli, lost in
the jungles of India as a child and adopted into a family of
wolves. Mowgli is brought up on a diet of Jungle Law, loyalty,
and fresh meat from the kill. Regular adventures with his friends
and enemies among the Jungle-People--cobras, panthers, bears,
and tigers--hone this man-cub's strength and cleverness and
whet every reader's imagination. In much the same way Mowgli
is carried away by the
Bandar-log monkeys, young readers will be caught up by
the stories, swinging from page to page, breathless, thrilled,
and terrified. Ages 9 to 12. The DVD (and its sequel) of the popular Disney movie
derived from this book is also available from Amazon books.
Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters
(Hardcover)
by John Steptoe
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Amazon.com with more information on the product including purchase details.)
The story of an African King who has two beautiful daughters,
but one of them is mean, nasty, and haughty
while the other is sweet, compassionate and kind. When their
father learns that a ruler of another kingdom is to take a wife,
and is inviting all the women of the kingdom to come
to court, their father decides that both of his beautiful daughters should go.
On the way both girls encounter a series of tasks and,
through these, their true characters are tested.
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