The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell ISBN: 0316316962, Hardcover - 17.47 BUY ISBN: 0316346624, Paperback - 8.97 BUY "The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell's The Tipping Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject. For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenomenon continues to this day--think of how often you've received information in an e-mail message that had been forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you. Gladwell develops these and other concepts (such as the "stickiness" of ideas or the effect of population size on information dispersal) through simple, clear explanations and entertainingly illustrative anecdotes, such as comparing the pedagogical methods of Sesame Street and Blue's Clues, or explaining why it would be even easier to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the actor Rod Steiger. Although some readers may find the transitional passages between chapters hold their hands a little too tightly, and Gladwell's closing invocation of the possibilities of social engineering sketchy, even chilling, The Tipping Point is one of the most effective books on science for a general audience in ages. It seems inevitable that "tipping point," like "future shock" or "chaos theory," will soon become one of those ideas that everybody knows--or at least knows by name. --Ron Hogan Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Rebecca Wells ISBN: 0060173289, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 0060928336, Paperback - 8.40 BUY ISBN: 156895199X, Large Print - 10.36 BUY Wells is a Louisiana-born Seattle actress and playwright; her loopy saga of a 40-year-old player in Seattle's hot theater scene who must come to terms with her mama's past in steamy Thornton City, Louisiana, reads like a lengthy episode of Designing Women written under the influence of mint juleps and Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!. The Ya-Yas are the wild circle of girls who swirl around the narrator Siddalee's mama, Vivi, whose vivid voice is "part Scarlett, part Katharine Hepburn, part Tallulah." The Ya-Yas broke the no-booze rule at the cotillion, skinny-dipped their way to jail in the town water tower, disrupted the Shirley Temple look-alike contest, and bonded for life because, as one says, "It's so much fun being a bad girl!" Siddalee must repair her busted relationship with Vivi by reading a half-century's worth of letters and clippings contained in the Ya-Ya Sisterhood's packet of "Divine Secrets." It's a contrived premise, but the secrets are really fun to learn. Black and Blue: A Novel Anna Quindlen ISBN: 0375500510, Hardcover - 16.10 BUY ISBN: 0440226104, Paperback - 7.50 BUY ISBN: 1568955650, Large Print - 11.99+ BUY "The first time my husband hit me I was nineteen years old," begins Fran Benedetto, the broken heroine of Anna Quindlen's Black and Blue. With one sweeping sentence, the door to an abused and tortured world is swung wide open and the psyche of a crushed and tattered self-image exposed. "Frannie, Frannie, Fran"--as Bobby Benedetto liked to call her before smashing her into kitchen appliances--was a young, energetic nursing student when she met her husband-to-be at a local Brooklyn bar. She was instantly captivated by his dark, brooding looks and magnetic personality, but her fascination soon solidified into a marital prison sentence of incessant abuse and the destruction of her own identity. After an especially horrific beating and rape, Fran realizes that the next attack could be the last. Fearing her son would be left alone with Bobby, she escapes one morning with her child. Fran's salvation comes in the form of Patty Bancroft and Co., a relocation agency for abused women that touts better service than the witness protection program. Armed only with a phone number, a few hundred dollars, and the help of several anonymous volunteers, Fran begins a new life. The agency relocates her to Florida, where she becomes Beth Crenshaw, a recently divorced home-care assistant from Delaware. Fran and her son adapt, meeting challenges with unexpected resilience and resolve until their past returns to haunt them. Quindlen renders the intricacies of spousal abuse with eerie accuracy, taking the reader deep within the realm of dysfunctional human ties. However, her vivid descriptions of abuse, emotional disintegration, and acute loneliness at times numb the reader with their realism. The Lovely Bones: A Novel Alice Sebold ISBN: 0316666343, Hardcover - 13.17 BUY ISBN: 0786245972, Large Print - 29.95 BUY On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon ("like the fish") is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey. Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case. As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams," where "there were no teachers.... We never had to go inside except for art class.... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue." The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the lost world of the living, following her family's dramas over the years like an episode of My So-Called Afterlife. Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family, and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on Earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow." Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish, and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings. --Brad Thomas Parsons House of Women Lynn Freed ISBN: 0316666335, Hardcover - 16.77 BUY ISBN: 0316095567, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Secrets twine around secrets in this haunting, intimate novel about the power of desire and the stifling force of isolation. Born to a wealthy womanizer and a vain opera singer, Theadora grows up on an estate with her mother, Nalia, at the southern tip of Africa. She is both spoiled and sheltered, never allowed to leave home unescorted. When Nalia goes inland for weekend sessions with her therapist, Katzenbogen, the maid, Maude, is left in charge. No man, not even Thea's father, is allowed up to the house. Later, it is clear why the gate is always padlocked; unbeknownst to her, 17-year-old Thea has been promised to her father's middle-aged cousin, a Syrian. He takes advantage of Thea's eagerness to see the world beyond her front yard, not to mention her yearning for male attention, and lures her from her haven. They quickly marry aboard a ship "And so it is done. I am to be married to a man whose name I do not know" and speed off to his nameless island home. Only there does Thea realize that this adventure might have serious consequences and question why the Syrian wanted her. The truth hardens her resolve to escape and see her mother again. Like a Jean Rhys antiheroine, Theadora strikes out fiercely against the world, but is helpless in the face of male desire. And like Rhys, Freed (The Mirror) imagines a world in which major events are only ambiguously described, but domestic details are sensuously immediate. This otherworldly tale philosophizes smartly on what it is to crave love and to sacrifice clarity for passion. 3-city author tour. The Secret Life of Bees Sue Monk Kidd ISBN: 0670032379, Hardcover - 17.17 BUY ISBN: 0142001740, Paperback - 11.20 BUY ISBN: 0786243066, Large Print - 29.95 BUY In Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, 14-year-old Lily Owen, neglected by her father and isolated on their Georgia peach farm, spends hours imagining a blissful infancy when she was loved and nurtured by her mother, Deborah, whom she barely remembers. These consoling fantasies are her heart's answer to the family story that as a child, in unclear circumstances, Lily accidentally shot and killed her mother. All Lily has left of Deborah is a strange image of a Black Madonna, with the words "Tiburon, South Carolina" scrawled on the back. The search for a mother, and the need to mother oneself, are crucial elements in this well-written coming-of-age story set in the early 1960s against a background of racial violence and unrest. When Lily's beloved nanny, Rosaleen, manages to insult a group of angry white men on her way to register to vote and has to skip town, Lily takes the opportunity to go with her, fleeing to the only place she can think of--Tiburon, South Carolina--determined to find out more about her dead mother. Although the plot threads are too neatly trimmed, The Secret Life of Bees is a carefully crafted novel with an inspired depiction of character. The legend of the Black Madonna and the brave, kind, peculiar women who perpetuate Lily's story dominate the second half of the book, placing Kidd's debut novel squarely in the honored tradition of the Southern Gothic. --Regina Marler Esau Philip Kerr ISBN: 0671019929, Paperback - 6.99 BUY Forget Everest. The most dangerous peak in the Himalayas is Machhapuchhare, considered so sacred that the Nepalese have banned all climbers. And no wonder, as American mountaineering ace Jack Furness discovers after an illegal entry--this is where the Yeti, a.k.a. the Abominable Snowman and Bigfoot, makes his home. Sure to be a major motion picture, this latest from the author of The Grid is an exciting if somewhat predictable (Furness's lover just happens to be a world-class paleoanthropoligist, for example) story of action, political intrigue, and moral ambiguity high above the clouds. If you don't recognize the title's source before Kerr reveals it, you've never heard Alan Bennett's hilarious "My brother is an hairy man" sermon. -- Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West Gregory Maguire ISBN: 0060987103, Paperback - 10.50 BUY Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister Gregory Maguire ISBN: 0060392827, Hardcover - 17.50 BUY ISBN: 0060987529, Paperback - 10.50 BUY ISBN: 1568958846, Large Print - 28.95 BUY Gregory Maguire's chilling, wonderful retelling of Cinderella is a study in contrasts. Love and hate, beauty and ugliness, cruelty and charity--each idea is stripped of its ethical trappings, smashed up against its opposite number, and laid bare for our examination. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister begins in 17th-century Holland, where the two Fisher sisters and their mother have fled to escape a hostile England. Maguire's characters are at once more human and more fanciful than their fairy-tale originals. Plain but smart Iris and her sister, Ruth, a hulking simpleton, are dazed and terrified as their mother, Margarethe, urges them into the strange Dutch streets. Within days, purposeful Margarethe has secured the family a place in the home of an aspiring painter, where for a short time, they find happiness. But this is Cinderella, after all, and tragedy is inevitable. When a wealthy tulip speculator commissions the painter to capture his blindingly lovely daughter, Clara, on canvas, Margarethe jumps at the chance to better their lot. "Give me room to cast my eel spear, and let follow what may," she crows, and the Fisher family abandons the artist for the upper-crust Van den Meers. When Van den Meer's wife dies during childbirth, the stage is set for Margarethe to take over the household and for Clara to adopt the role of "Cinderling" in order to survive. What follows is a changeling adventure, and of course a ball, a handsome prince, a lost slipper, and what might even be a fairy godmother. In a single magic night, the exquisite and the ugly swirl around in a heated mix: Everything about this moment hovers, trembles, all their sweet, unreasonable hopes on view before anything has had the chance to go wrong. A stepsister spins on black and white tiles, in glass slippers and a gold gown, and two stepsisters watch with unrelieved admiration. The light pours in, strengthening in its golden hue as the sun sinks and the evening approaches. Clara is as otherworldly as the Donkeywoman, the Girl-Boy. Extreme beauty is an affliction... But beyond these familiar elements, Maguire's second novel becomes something else altogether--a morality play, a psychological study, a feminist manifesto, or perhaps a plain explanation of what it is to be human. Villains turn out to be heroes, and heroes disappoint. The story's narrator wryly observes, "In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings. When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for human beings to turn into rats." --Therese Littleton Lost Gregory Maguire ISBN: 0060393823, Hardcover - 18.20 BUY ISBN: 0060988649, Paperback - 10.47 BUY Before he broke onto the adult bestseller lists with his irreverent interpretations of the Cinderella story (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister) and the Wizard of Oz (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West), Maguire wrote children's books with titles like Six Haunted Hairdos, Seven Spiders Spinning and Four Stupid Cupids. His latest is a virtual literary paella of adult and children's fantasies: Jack the Ripper, A Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Exorcist even a wafting glimpse of Dracula. The result is a deftly written, compulsively readable modern-day ghost story that easily elicits suspension of disbelief. American writer Winifred Rudge, whose mass market book about astrology has been far more successful than her fiction, is in London to research a novel linking Jack the Ripper to the house in Hampstead where her own great-great-grandfather rumored to be the model for Ebenezer Scrooge lived. But as Winifred discovers, there is no evidence that the Ripper ever visited Hampstead, let alone buried one of his victims inside the chimney of a house there, and his presence in the story is a red herring. Much more interesting is the mysterious disappearance of Winnie's cousin, John Comestor, the latest resident of the family house. Moreover, something is making an infernal racket inside the chimney, and soon there are other bizarre manifestations of some unseen force. A Dickensian assortment of neighbors (one dotty lady is called Mrs. Maddingly) variously obfuscate and hint at strange events. Maguire's prose is both jaunty and scary; he knows how to mix spooky ingredients with contemporary situations. By the time a spirit called Gervasa begins to speak through Winnie, readers will be hooked. Ella Enchanted Gail Carson Levine ISBN: 0060275103, Hardcover - 11.17 BUY ISBN: 0064407055, Paperback - 6.50 BUY ISBN: 0786227435, Large Print - 21.95 BUY At birth, Ella is inadvertently cursed by an imprudent fairy named Lucinda, who bestows on her the "gift" of obedience. Anything anyone tells her to do, Ella must obey. Another girl might have been cowed by this affliction, but not feisty Ella: "Instead of making me docile, Lucinda's curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally." When her beloved mother dies, leaving her in the care of a mostly absent and avaricious father, and later, a loathsome stepmother and two treacherous stepsisters, Ella's life and well-being seem in grave peril. But her intelligence and saucy nature keep her in good stead as she sets out on a quest for freedom and self-discovery, trying to track down Lucinda to undo the curse, fending off ogres, befriending elves, and falling in love with a prince along the way. Yes, there is a pumpkin coach, a glass slipper, and a happily ever after, but this is the most remarkable, delightful, and profound version of Cinderella you've ever read. Gail Carson Levine's examination of traditional female roles in fairy tales takes some satisfying twists and deviations from the original. Ella is bound by obedience against her will, and takes matters in her own hands with ambition and verve. Her relationship with the prince is balanced and based on humor and mutual respect; in fact, it is she who ultimately rescues him. Ella Enchanted has won many well-deserved awards, including a Newbery Honor. (Ages 9 to 14) --Emilie Coulter Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work: 101 Stories of Courage, Compassion and Creativity in the Workplace Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558744304, Hardcover - 24.00 BUY ISBN: 155874424X, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Soul: 101 Stories to Open the Heart & Rekindle the Spirit Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558742913, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 155874262X, Paperback - 10.36 BUY ISBN: 1558743812, Large Print - 11.87 BUY A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul: 101 More Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558743324, Hardcover - 24.00 BUY ISBN: 1558743316, Paperback - 10.36 BUY A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul: 101 More Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558743804, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558743790, Paperback - 10.36 BUY ISBN: 1558744002, Large Print - 11.87 BUY A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul: 101 More Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558744592, Paperback - 10.36 BUY A 5th Portion of Chicken Soup for the Soul : 101 Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558745440, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558745432, Paperback - 10.36 BUY A 6th Bowl of Chicken Soup for the Soul: More Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558746633, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558746625, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul - Stories of Triumphing Over Life's Obstacles Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558746994, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558746986, Paperback - 12.95 BUY Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul: 101 Stories of Courage and Inspiration from Those Who Haved Survived Cancer Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558744037, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558744029, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul: 101 Stories to Open the Hearts and Rekindle the Spirits of Women Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558744290, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558744150, Paperback - 10.36 BUY A Second Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul: 101 More Stories to Open the Hearts and Rekindle the Spirits of Women Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558746218, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558746226, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul: Inspirational Stories About Love and Relationships Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558746455, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558746463, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Soul: A Christmas Treasury Jack Canfield ISBN: 0757300006, Hardcover - 11.87 BUY Chicken Soup for the Soul of America: Stories to Heal the Heart of Our Nation Jack Canfield ISBN: 0757300073, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 0757300065, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Volunteer's Soul: Stories to Celebrate the Spirit of Courage, Caring and Community Jack Canfield ISBN: 0757300146, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Sister's Soul: 101 Inspirational Stories About Sisters and Their Changing Relationships Jack Canfield ISBN: 0757300251, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 0757300243, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Teacher's Soul: Stories to Open the Hearts and Rekindle the Spirit of Educators Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558749799, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558749780, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Traveler's Soul: Stories of Adventure, Inspiration and Insight to Celebrate the Spirit of Travel Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558749713, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558749705, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Pet Lovers Soul : Stories About Pets As Teachers, Healers, Heroes and Friends Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558745726, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558745718, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Cat and Dog Lover's Soul - Celebrating Pets as Family with Stories About Cats, Dogs and Other Critters Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558747117, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558747109, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul: Stories to Sow Seeds of Love, Hope and Laughter Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558748873, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558748865, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the College Soul: Inspiring and Humorous Stories About College Jack Canfield ISBN: 1558747036, Hardcover - 16.80 BUY ISBN: 1558747028, Paperback - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Mother and Daughter Soul: 101 Stories to Warm the Hearts of Mothers and Daughters Jack Canfield ISBN: 075730088X, Hardcover - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup for the Romantic Soul: Inspirational Stories About Love and Romance Jack Canfield ISBN: 0757300421, Hardcover - 10.36 BUY Chicken Soup from the Soul of Hawaii: 101 Stories of Aloha to Help You Create Paradise Whereever You Are Jack Canfield ISBN: 0757300618, Hardcover - 10.36 BUY |Heading Home| |The Nitty Gritty| |Doggone Crazy| |100 Acre Wood| |The Inner Circle| |1000 words| |Grins and Giggles| |Comfort Food| |Busy| |Oh the Places| copyright 2005