In his #1 bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. In BLINK, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. How do we make decisions--good and bad--and why are some people so much better at it than others? That's the question Malcolm Gladwell asks and answers in BLINK. Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology, examining case studies as diverse as speed dating, pop music, and the New Coke, Gladwell shows how the difference between good decision making and bad has nothing to do with how much information we can process quickly, but rather with the few particular details on which we focus. BLINK displays all of the brilliance that has made Malcolm Gladwell's journalism so popular and his books such perennial bestsellers as it reveals how all of us can become better decision makers--in our homes, our offices, and in everyday life.

• Business & Investing | Business Life
• Business & Investing | Careers
• Health, Mind & Body | Self-Help (Personal Growth)
• Health, Mind & body | Self-Help (Stress Management)

How do we manage change and prevail in these changing times? Dr. Johnson shows you how in his book that takes less than an hour to read, but has unique insights that can last for a lifetime.

From Dr. Spencer Johnson--one of the world's most respected thinkers, a beloved author, and an expert on management--Who Moved My Cheese  is a charming parable filled with insights that are inspirational and designed to help people who are in transition. Written for all ages.

One person said, "The cheese in this book is just a metaphor for life. Our lives and circumstances are always changing--especially in today's economy. Who Moved My Cheese?  provokes the reader to consider looking at life's clues a bit closer, and acting a lot faster when you see change on the horizon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Spencer Johnson, M.D earned a B.A. degree in Psychology from the University of Southern California, an M.D. degree from the Royal College of Surgeons, and medical clerkships at The Mayo Clinic and Harvard Medical School. More than 46 million copies of Spencer Johnson's books are in print worldwide, and have been translated into more than 47 languages.

• Health, Mind & Body | Self-Help
• Health, Mind & Body | Mental Health | Codependency
• Health, Mind & Body | Recovery | Substance Abuse
• Religion | Christianity | Devotionals & Meditations
• Religion | Spirituality | Inspirational

Reflecting on the core issues of codependency, Melody Beattie encourages readers to trust themselves on their journey to self-care. Each meditation is filled with the personal warmth and insight Beattie brings to all of her books.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Melody Beattie is one of America's most beloved self-help authors and a household name in addiction and recovery circles. Her international bestselling book, Codependent No More, introduced the world to the term "codependency" in 1986. Millions of readers have trusted Melody's words of wisdom and guidance because she knows firsthand what they're going through. In her lifetime, she has survived abandonment, kidnapping, sexual abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, divorce, and the death of a child. "Beattie understands being overboard, which helps her throw bestselling lifelines to those still adrift," said Time Magazine. Melody was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1948. Her father left home when she was a toddler, and she was raised by her mother. She was abducted by a stranger at age four. Although she was rescued the same day, the incident set the tone for a childhood of abuse, and she was sexually abused by a neighbor throughout her youth. Her mother turned a blind eye, just as she had denied the occurrence of abuse in her own past. Melody recalls: "My mother was a classic codependent. If she had a migraine, she wouldn't take an aspirin because she didn't do drugs. She believed in suffering." Unlike her mother, Melody was determined to self-medicate her emotional pain. Beattie began drinking at age 12, was a full-blown alcoholic by age 13, and a junkie by 18, even as she graduated from high school with honors. She ran with a crowd called "The Minnesota Mafia" who robbed pharmacies to get drugs. After several arrests, a judge mandated that she had to "go to treatment for as long as it takes or go to jail." Melody continued to score drugs in treatment until a spiritual epiphany transformed her. "I was on the lawn smoking dope when the world turned this purplish color. Everything looked connected--like a Monet painting. It wasn't a hallucination; it was what the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous calls 'a spiritual awakening.' Until then, I'd felt entitled to use drugs. I finally realized that if I put half as much energy into doing the right thing as I had into doing wrong, I could do anything," Beattie said. After eight months of treatment, Melody left the hospital clean and sober, ready to take on new goals: helping others get sober, and getting married and having a family of her own. She married a former alcoholic who was also a prominent and respected counselor and had two children with him. Although she had stopped drinking and using drugs, she found herself sinking in despair. She discovered that her husband wasn't sober; he'd been drinking and lying about it since before their marriage.
During her work with the spouses of addicts at a treatment center, she realized the problems that had led to her alcoholism were still there. Her pain wasn't about her husband or his drinking; it was about her. There wasn't a word for codependency yet. While Melody didn't coin the term codependency, she became passionate about the subject. What was this thing we were doing to ourselves? Driven into the ground financially by her husband's alcoholism, Melody turned a life-long passion for writing into a career in journalism, writing about the issues that had consumed her for years. Her 24-year writing career has produced fifteen books published in twenty languages and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. She has been a frequent guest on many national television shows, including Oprah. She and her books continue to be featured regularly in national publications including Time, People, and most major periodicals around the world. Although it almost destroyed her when her twelve-year-old son Shane died in a ski accident in 1991, eventually Melody picked up the pieces of her life again. "I wanted to die, but I kept waking up alive," she says. She began skydiving, mountain-climbing, and teaching others what she'd learned about grief.

 

• Biographies & Memoirs | Professionals & Academics
• Health, Mind & Body | Self-Help | Motivational
• Health, Mind & Body | Self-Help | Personal Transformation

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."  - Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:  Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) was an American professor of Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMR) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. From 1988-1997, he taught at the University of Virginia. He was an award-winning teacher and researcher, and worked with Adobe, Google, Electronic Arts (EA), and Walt Disney Imagineering, and pioneered the Alice project. Pausch learned that he had pancreatic cancer in Sept. 2006, and in Aug. 2007 he was given a terminal diagnosis: “3 to 6 months of good health left.” He gave an upbeat lecture titled “The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” on Sept. 28, 2007, at Carnegie Mellon, which became a popular You Tube vido and led to other media appearances. He then co-authored a book called The Last Lecture on the same theme, which became a New York Times best seller.Although Pausch lost his cancer battle on July 25, 2008, his legacy lives on through The Last Lecture.  Jeffrey Zaslow, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, attended the last lecture, and wrote the story that helped fuel worldwide interest in it. He lives in suburban Detroit with his wife, Sherry, and daughters Jordan, Alex and Eden.

"An unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history."

David J. Pelzer's mother, Catherine Roerva, was a devoted den mother to the Cub Scouts in her care, and somewhat nurturing to her other children, but not to David, whom she referred to as "an It." This book is a brief, horrifying account of the bizarre tortures she inflicted on him, told from the point of view of the author as a young boy being starved, stabbed, smashed face-first into mirrors, forced to eat the contents of his sibling's diapers and a spoonful of ammonia, and burned over a gas stove by his maniacal, alcoholic mom. Sometimes she claimed he had violated some rule--no walking on the grass at school!--but mostly it was pure sadism. Inexplicably, his father didn't protect him. Only an alert schoolteacher saved David. One wants to learn more about his ordeal and its aftermath, and now he's written a sequel, The Lost Boy, detailing his life in the foster-care system.

Although it is a grim story, A Child Called "It"  is very much in the tradition of Chicken Soup for the Soul series. This book is all about weathering adversity to find love, and Pelzer is an expert witness. 

Teens | Health, Mind & Body
Teens | Religion & Spirituality
Teens | Social Issues
Health, Mind & Body | Self-Help | Motivational & Inspirational | Positive thinking books

An indispensable book for teens, as well as parents, grandparents, or any adult who influences young people, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens  is destined to become the last word on surviving and thriving as a teen and beyond.

Being a teenager is both wonderful and challenging. In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, author Sean Covey applies the timeless principles of the 7 Habits to teens and the tough issues and life-changing decisions they face. In an entertaining style, Covey provides a step-by-step guide to help teens improve self-image, build friendships, resist peer pressure, achieve their goals, get along with their parents, and much more. In addition, this book is stuffed with cartoons, clever ideas, great quotes, and incredible stories about real teens from all over the world. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens  will engage teenagers unlike any other book.

One person said, "The layout of this book is fun and appeals to readers of any age. It's easy to read, and one of the most powerful positive thinking books on the market. Although aimed at teens, the values and tips can apply to anyone. I loved the little exercises, and the author's frankness on matters really inspired me. My favorite part of the book is the real life stories where he relates on how teenagers have overcome difficulties and still succeed in the end.

Health, Mind & Body | Self-Help
Health, Mind & Body | Mental Health
Religion & Spirituality | Spirituality
Emotional Eating; Compulsive Eating; Food Habits; Food Addiction; Obesity; Self-Esteem<

One person said, "Don't be misled by the title. Geneen Roth states several times early on that she does not believe in God, so if you are looking for a religion-based book, this is not for you. She leans more toward Buddhism. There are some good aspects to this book that makes you think. A better title for this book might have been: Women Who Make Food Their God."

No matter how sophisticated or wealthy or broke or enlightened you are, how you eat tells all. In  Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything, Geneen Roth begins with her most basic concept: The way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive. Your relationship with food is an exact mirror of your feelings about love, fear, anger, meaning, transformation and, yes, even God. But it doesn't stop there. Geneen shows how going beyond both the food and feelings takes you deeper into realms of spirit and soul to the bright center of your own life. If you suffer about your relationship with food--you eat too much or too little, think about what you will eat constantly or try not to think about it at all--you can be free. Just look down at your plate. The answers are there. Don't run. Look. Because when we welcome what we most want to avoid, we contact the part of ourselves that is fresh and alive. We touch the life we truly want and evoke divinity itself. Since adolescence, Geneen Roth has gained and lost more than a thousand pounds. She has been dangerously overweight and dangerously underweight. She has been plagued by feelings of shame and self-hatred and she has felt euphoric after losing a quick few pounds on a fad diet. Then one day, on the verge of suicide, she did something radical: She dropped the struggle, ended the war, stopped trying to fix, deprive and shame herself. She began trusting her body and questioning her beliefs. It worked. And losing weight was only the beginning. She wrote about her discoveries in When Food Is Love: Exploring The Relationship Between Eating and Intimacy, her first New York Times bestseller. Geneen gave huge numbers of women their first insights into compulsive eating and she changed huge numbers of lives for the better. Now, after more than three decades of studying, teaching and writing about what drives our compulsions with food, she adds a profound new dimension to her work in Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything.

BOOK DETAILS: HARDCOVER. 224 PAGES.

Health, Mind & Body | Self-Help | Success
Business & Investing | Management & Leadership | Motivational
Business & Investing | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Entrepreneurship

Discover your true purpose, take control of your life, and harness the forces that shape your destiny!

In  Awaken the Giant Within, Anthony Robbins, the nation's leader in the science of peak performance, shares his most effective strategies and techniques for mastering your emotions, your body, your relationships, your finances, and your life. The acknowledged expert in the psychology of change, Anthony Robbins provides a step-by-step program teaching the fundamental lessons of self-mastery that will enable you to wake up and take control of your life!

"Clear some space on your bookshelf for Mitch Albom's, Have a Little Faith, the story of a faith journey that could become a classic. Those who were born into faith, have lost faith, or are still searching will all be engaged and challenged by this powerful story of "finding faith" in relationships with others and with something greater than ourselves. Never satisfied with easy answers or soft platitudes, Mitch explores some of life's greatest mysteries and unanswered questions with great honesty, depth and self reflection. "
--Jim Wallis, CEO and Founder of Sojourners and author of The Great Awakening

What if our beliefs were not what divided us, but what pulled us together?

In Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom offers a beautifully written story of a remarkable eight-year journey between two worlds--two men, two faiths, two communities--that will inspire readers everywhere.

Albom's first nonfiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, Have a Little Faith begins with an unusual request: an eighty-two-year-old rabbi from Albom's old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy.

Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he'd left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor--a reformed drug dealer and convict--who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof.

Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat.

As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Albom and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; ...

How do we make decisions--good and bad--and why are some people so much better at it than others? Thats the question Malcolm Gladwell asks and answers in the follow-up to his huge bestseller, The Tipping Point. Utilizing case studies as diverse as speed dating, pop music, and the shooting of Amadou Diallo, Gladwell reveals that what we think of as decisions made in the blink of an eye are much more complicated than assumed. Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology, he shows how the difference between good decision-making and bad has nothing to do with how much information we can process quickly, but on the few particular details on which we focus. Leaping boldly from example to example, displaying all of the brilliance that made The Tipping Point a classic, Gladwell reveals how we can become better decision makers--in our homes, our offices, and in everyday life. The result is a book that is surprising and transforming. Never again will you think about thinking the same way.

The number of hours in a day is fixed, but the quantity and quality of energy available to us is not. This fundamental insight has the power to revolutionize the way you live.

As Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz demonstrate in their groundbreaking New York Times bestseller, managing energy, not time, is the key to enduring high performance as well as to health, happiness, and life balance. Their Full Engagement Training System is grounded in twenty-five years of working with great athletes -- tennis champ Monica Seles and speed-skating gold medalist Dan Jansen, to name just two -- to help them perform more effectively under brutal competitive pressures. Now this powerful, step-by-step program will help you to:

· Mobilize four key sources of energy

· Balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal

· Expand capacity in the same systematic way that elite athletes do

· Create highly specific, positive energy management rituals

The Power of Full Engagement is a highly practical, scientifically based approach to managing your energy more skillfully. It provides a clear road map to becoming more physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned -- both on and off the job.

Do you have what it takes to succeed in your career?

The secret of success is not what they taught you in school. What matters most is not IQ, not a business school degree, not even technical know-how or years of expertise. The single most important factor in job performance and advancement is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is actually a set of skills that anyone can acquire, and in this practical guide, Daniel Goleman identifies them, explains their importance, and shows how they can be fostered.

For leaders, emotional intelligence is almost 90 percent of what sets stars apart from the mediocre. As Goleman documents, it's the essential ingredient for reaching and staying at the top in any field, even in high-tech careers. And organizations that learn to operate in emotionally intelligent ways are the companies that will remain vital and dynamic in the competitive marketplace of today--and the future.

Comprehensively researched, crisply written, and packed with fascinating case histories of triumphs, disasters, and dramatic turnarounds, Working with Emotional Intelligence may be the most important business book you'll ever read.

Meet Fred.

In his powerful new book THE FRED FACTOR, motivational speaker Mark Sanborn recounts the true story of Fred, the mail carrier who passionately loves his job and who genuinely cares about the people he serves. Because of that, he is constantly going the extra mile handling the mail - and sometimes watching over the houses - of the people on his route, treating everyone he meets as a friend. Where others might see delivering mail as monotonous drudgery, Fred sees an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those he serves.

We've all encountered people like Fred in our lives. In THE FRED FACTOR, Mark Sanborn illuminates the simple steps each of us can take to transform our own lives from the ordinary - into the extraordinary. Sanborn, through stories about Fred and others like him, reveals the four basic principles that will help us bring fresh energy and creativity to our life and work: how to make a real difference everyday, how to become more successful by building strong relationships, how to create real value for others without spending a penny, and how to constantly reinvent yourself.

By following these principles, and by learning from and teaching other "Freds," you, too, can excel in your career and make your life extraordinary. As Mark Sanborn makes clear, each of us has the potential be a Fred.THE FRED FACTOR shows you how.