True Compass: A Memoir by Edward M. Kennedy

Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy

(February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009)

was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. In office from November 1962 until his death, Kennedy served nine terms in the Senate. At the time of his death, he was the second most senior member of the Senate, and the third-longest-serving senator in U.S. history. Kennedy crossed party lines to reach legislative goals.[4] Kennedy was one of the most influential leaders in history and one of America's greatest senators.

Kennedy was respected and admired around the world He was best known as one of the most outspoken and effective Senate proponents of progressive causes and bills. For many years the most prominent living member of the Kennedy family, he was the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both victims of assassinations, and the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.

He became known as "The Lion of the Senate", through his long tenure and influence. More than 300 bills that Kennedy and his staff wrote were enacted into law. He was known for working with Republicans and finding compromises among Senators with disparate views. Kennedy played a major role in passing many important laws, including laws addressing immigration, cancer research, health insurance, apartheid, disability discrimination, AIDS care, civil rights, mental health benefits, children's health insurance, education and volunteering. In the 2000s, he led several unsuccessful immigration reform efforts. During decades in office, Kennedy's major legislative goal was enactment of universal health care, which he continued to work toward during the Obama administration.


Product Description
In this landmark autobiography, five years in the making, Senator Edward M. Kennedy tells his extraordinary personal story--of his legendary family, politics, and fifty years at the center of national events.

TRUE COMPASS

The youngest of nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, he came of age among siblings from whom much was expected. As a young man, he played a key role in the presidential campaign of his brother John F. Kennedy, recounted here in loving detail. In 1962 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he began a fascinating political education and became a legislator.

In this historic memoir,Ted Kennedy takes us inside his family, re-creating life with his parents and brothers and explaining their profound impact on him. or the first time, he describes his heartbreak and years of struggle in the wake of their deaths. Through it all, he describes his work in the Senate on the major issues of our time--civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate, the quest for peace in Northern Ireland--and the cause of his life: improved health care for all Americans, a fight influenced by his own experiences in hospitals.

His life has been marked by tragedy and perseverance, a love of family, and an abiding faith. There have been controversies, too, and Kennedy addresses them with unprecedented candor. At midlife, embattled and uncertain if he would ever fall in love again, he met the woman who changed his life, Victoria Reggie Kennedy. Facing a tough reelection campaign against an aggressive challenger named Mitt Romney, Kennedy found a new voice and began one of the great third acts in American politics, sponsoring major legislation, standing up for liberal principles, and making the pivotal endorsement of Barack Obama for president.

Hundreds of books have been written about the Kennedys. TRUE COMPASS will endure as the definitive account from a member of America's most heralded family, an inspiring legacy to readers and to history, and a deeply moving story of a life like no other.

About the Author
Edward M. Kennedy has represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate for forty-seven years. In 2004 he began interviews at the Miller Center of the University of Virginia for an oral history project about his life. Since then, he has drawn from his fifty years of contemporaneous notes from his personal diaries and worked closely on this book with Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Powers, coauthor of Flags of Our Fathers and author of Mark Twain: A Life.

Find more books about senator Edward Kennedy here

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A Pocket Style Manual 5e with 2009 MLA Update (Spiral-bound) by Diana Hacker

Product Description

The first of its kind, A Pocket Style Manual continues to help student writers get answers to their writing and research questions. Its concise and straightforward content is flexible enough to suit the needs of writers in the humanities, social sciences, sciences, health professions, business courses, fine arts, teacher training courses, and beyond. Its slim format, brief length, and spiral binding make it a portable and practical tool. With its signature Diana Hacker quick-reference features, A Pocket Style Manual has always provided quick solutions to writing problems. Supplemented by the best free and open Web resources, A Pocket Style Manual offers the best value for students.

In the Hacker tradition, the new contributing authors — Nancy Sommers, Tom Jehn, Jane Rosenzweig, and Marcy Carbajal Van Horn — have crafted solutions for the challenges today’s college students face. Together they give us a new edition that provides more help with research writing and one that works better for a wider range of students.


About the Author

Diana Hacker personally class-tested her handbooks with nearly four thousand students over 35 years at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland, where she was a member of the English faculty. Hacker handbooks, built on innovation and on a keen understanding of the challenges facing student writers, are the most widely adopted in America. Other Hacker handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin’s, include The Bedford Handbook, Seventh Edition (2006); A Writer’s Reference, Sixth Edition (2007); and A Pocket Style Manual, Fifth Edition (2008).



ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS

NANCY SOMMERS, Sosland Director of Expository Writing at Harvard University, has also taught composition at Rutgers University and at Monmouth College and has directed the writing program at the University of Oklahoma. A two-time Braddock Award winner, Sommers is well-known for her research and publications on student writing. Her recent work involves a longitudinal study of undergraduate writing. Nancy Sommers is co-author of Fields of Reading, Eighth Edition (2007) for Bedford/St. Martin’s.

TOM JEHN teaches composition and directs the Writing Across the Disciplines program at Harvard University. A recipient of numerous teaching awards both at Harvard and at the University of Virginia, he also leads professional development seminars on writing instruction for public high school teachers.

JANE ROSENZWEIG teaches composition and directs the writing center at Harvard University. She has also taught writing at Yale University and the University of Iowa.

MARCY CARBAJAL VAN HORN, Assistant Professor of English and ESL at Santa Fe Community College (FL), teaches composition to native and nonnative speakers of English and teaches the Advanced ESL Writing course.

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A Writer's Reference with 2009 MLA Update by Diana Hacker

Product Description

A Writer’s Reference is the most widely adopted college handbook ever published. The new edition is available in a classic version that provides more help with academic writing, serves a wider range of multilingual students, and lends more support for college research — all in an easy-to-use quick-reference format. Now for all the ways you teach your course, you can choose the classic version or choose from among 4 additional versions with varied content.

-A Writer’s Reference with Exercises is tailor-made for classroom use or for additional grammar practice with 86 integrated exercise sets.

-A Writer’s Reference with Writing in the Disciplines provides help for college writing beyond composition with advice and models in six academic disciplines.

-A Writer’s Reference with Writing about Literature includes an entire tabbed section on interpreting and writing about works of literature, with two annotated student essays.

-A Writer’s Reference with Extra Help for ESL Writers includes an entire tabbed section for nonnative speakers of English; it offers targeted advice and strategies for college writing and research.


About the Author

Diana Hacker's handbooks, used at almost half of the colleges and universities in the country, are the most widely adopted in America. A member of the English faculty at Prince George's Community College in Maryland for almost 35 years, Diana Hacker personally class-tested her handbooks with nearly four thousand students. Diana Hacker's other handbooks, all published by Bedford/St. Martin's, include The Bedford Handbook (2006); Rules for Writers (2004); andA Pocket Style Manual (2004).

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS
NANCY SOMMERS, Sosland Director of Expository Writing at Harvard University, has also taught composition at Rutgers University and at Monmouth College and has directed the writing program at the University of Oklahoma. A two-time Braddock Award winner, Sommers is well-known for her research and publications on student writing. Her articles "Revision Strategies of Student and Experienced Writers" and "Responding to Student Writing" are two of the most widely read in the field. Her recent work involves a longitudinal study of undergraduate writing. Nancy Sommers is coauthor of Fields of Reading (2007) and tudent Writers at Work: The Bedford Prizes, both published by Bedford/St. Martin's.

TOM JEHN teaches composition and directs the writing across the disciplines program at Harvard University. A recipient of numerous teaching awards both at Harvard and at the University of Virginia, he also leads professional development seminars on writing instruction for public high school teachers through the Calderwood Writing Fellows Project.

JANE ROSENZWEIG, a published author of fiction and non-fiction, teaches composition and directs the writing center at Harvard University. She has also taught writing at Yale University and the University of Iowa.

MARCY CARBAJAL VAN HORN, assistant professor of English and ESL at Santa Fe Community College (FL), teaches composition to native and nonnative speakers of English and teaches the Advanced ESL Writing course. She has also taught university-level academic writing and critical thinking at Instituto Technológico y de Estudios Superiores in Mexico.

EDITORIAL ADVISERS:
Of the more than 500 experienced composition instructors who reviewed the new edition, a core group served as an editorial advisory board — carefully reviewing all new material in depth, making sure the book would work as well for their students as it always had.

Joanne ADDISON
University of Colorado, Denver

Derick BURLESON
University of Alaska, Fairbanks

Paige BYAM
Northern Kentucky University

Elizabeth CANFIELD
Virginia Commonwealth University

Richard CARR
University of Alaska, Fairbanks

Michele CHEUNG
University of Southern Maine

Jon CULLICK
Northern Kentucky University

David ENDICOTT
Tacoma Community College

Lin FRASER
Sacramento City College

Hank GALMISH
Green River Community College

Nancy GISH
University of Southern Maine

Jacqueline GRAY
St. Charles Community College

Barclay GREEN
Northern Kentucky University

Karen GROSSWEINER
University of Alaska, Fairbanks

D. J. HENRY
Daytona Beach Community College

Kandace KNUDSON
Sacramento City College

Tonya KROUSE
Northern Kentucky University

Tamara KUZMENKOV
Tacoma Community College

Cheryl LAZ
University of Southern Maine

Lydia Lynn LEWELLEN
Tacoma Community College

Jeanette LONIA
Delaware Technical and Community College

Walter LOWE
Green River Community College

Michael MACKEY
Community College of Denver

Tammy MATA
Tarrant County Community College

Holly MCSPADDEN
Missouri Southern State University

Liora MORIEL
University of Maryland, College Park

Patricia MURPHY
Missouri Southern State University

Melissa NICOLAS
University of Louisiana, Lafayette

Diane Allen O’HERON
Broome Community College

Sarah QUIRK
Waubonsee Community College

Ann SMITH
Modesto Junior College

Steve THOMAS
Community College of Denver

Nick TINGLE
University of California, Santa Barbara

Terry Myers ZAWACKI
George Mason University

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Too Good to Be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff by Erin Arvedlund

In 11 December 2008 the federal authorities arrest the NASDAQ stock exchange

former chairman who perform what has been called the largest investor fraud ever committed by an individual.

Bernard Madoff

Product Description
Despite all the headlines about Bernard Madoff, who pleaded guilty to running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, he is still shrouded in mystery. Why (and when) did he turn his legitimate business into a massive fraud? How did he fool so many smart investors for so long? Who among his family and employees knew the truth?

The best person to answer these questions—and tell the full story of Madoff’s rise and fall—is Erin Arvedlund. In early 2001, she was suspicious of the amazing returns of Madoff’s hedge fund, which no one could explain. Her article in Barron’s, based on more than one hundred interviews, could have prevented a lot of misery, had the SEC followed up.

But almost no one was willing to believe anything bad about “Uncle Bernie”—so nice, so humble, so generous to charities. As Arvedlund shows, Madoff was no ordinary liar, but a master of the type of lies people really wanted to believe. He kept his clients at a distance and allowed handsomely paid friends to solicit new ones for him; playing hard to get created an irresistible mystique.

Now, Arvedlund tackles the tough questions that are still unanswered in the wake of Madoff’s collapse:

Did he start off as a legitimate money manager or was he a fraud from the beginning? Were there indications of larceny at the very start of his career?
Why did MadoffÂ’s biggest supporters within the industry, such as Walter Noel of Fairfield Greenwich and Ezra Merkin of Gabriel Capital, ignore the warning signs that were so apparent? Did they choose to remain ignorant as long as their commissions rolled in?
Why did SEC investigations fail to catch Madoff’s Ponzi scheme even though several people had voiced concerns about his operation?
Who else helped Madoff carry out his scam? His family and close associates have denied any involvement, but was it possible for one man to engineer a heist of such scope?

With her keen investigative eye, Arvedlund presents a sweeping narrative of Madoff’s career—from his youth in Queens, New York, to his early days working for his father-in-law, to his time as chairman of the NASDAQ exchange, and finally to infamy as the worldÂ’s most notorious swindler. She offers a riveting glimpse of Madoff the man—an indifferent student with little ambition who transformed himself into a star with a talent for trading, a reputation for innovation, and an unmistakably erratic nature.

Readers will be fascinated by Arvedlund’s portrayal of Madoff, his empire, and all those who never considered that he might be too good to be true.

About the Author
Erin Arvedlund is an investigative journalist who has written for BarronÂ’s, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, TheStreet.com, and Portfolio.com. In 2001, she wrote the first skeptical article about Bernard Madoff for a major publication. This is her first book.

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My Journey with Farrah: A Story of Life, Love, and Friendship by Alana Stewart

The story about Alana Hamiltion Stewart friend Farrah Fawcett's battle with cancer.


Product Description

Alana Stewart and Farrah Fawcett went through it all together. Friends for thirty years, they were an essential part of each other's lives since first meeting at a dinner party in the 1970s. During that time, they supported each other through the trials of Hollywood life while also raising their families, keeping in close contact.

But in the fall of 2006, a test of their friendship arose unlike any other they'd faced: Farrah was diagnosed with aggressive rectal cancer. She was determined to fight, and Alana was determined to help her. Together, they were relentless in their pursuit of a cure, traveling halfway around the world as they sought every mainstream, alternative, and experimental therapy available. In all, they spent the better part of the next three years together - Alana by her friend's side as they struggled hand in hand with the unknown.

Now, in these intimate and personal diaries, Alana shares her thoughts on the events of the last three years, documenting the journey she and Farrah embarked on as they prayed for a miracle. Reflecting back on the three decades they shared, Alana details what she's learned about her friend and herself as they battled through the trials of this illness. From the importance of selflessness, to the undeniable value of faith, to the remarkable resilience of the human spirit, Alana's day-to-day entries reveal a side of these two friends that the world has never seen. Even in the face of this debilitating disease, Farrah's courage and determination continues to teach us about life . . . and love.

Writing candidly about aging, marriage, motherhood, and faith--all topics she and Farrah dealt with together over the years - Alana provides a moving tribute to a woman, once Hollywood's golden girl, and an inspiring celebration of life. My Journey with Farrah is the story of two courageous women who stood by each other through good times, bad times, and now the most trying of times. It is a book that will make people laugh, cry, and rejoice in the power of friendship.



About the Author

Alana Stewart is an actress, former model, and talk-show host who has worked in Hollywood for almost forty years. She filmed and produced Farrah's Story, a documentary about her friend Farrah Fawcett's battle with cancer, which aired on NBC in May 2009. Alana devoted the past three years of her life to helping Farrah through her harrowing and courageous journey. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

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Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 2 by Julia Child

The sequel of Mastering The Art of French Cooking, Volume One

Product Description
Here is the sequel to the great cooking classic. Each of the new recipes is worked out step-by-step, with the clarity and precision that are the essence of the first volume. 5 times as many drawings as in Vol. I make the clear instructions even more so.

About the Author
Julia Child , a native of California and a Smith College graduate; Simone Beck, French-born and -educated; and Louisette Bertholle, half French and half American, educated in both countries, represented an even blending of the two backgrounds and were singularly equipped to write about French cooking for Americans. Mrs. Child studied at Paris's famous Cordon Bleu, and all three authors worked under various distinguished French chefs. In 1951 they started their own cooking school in Paris, L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes, at the same time that this book was taking shape. After that, Madame Beck published two cookbooks, Simca's Cuisine in 1972 and New Menus from Simca's Cuisine in 1979, and she continued to teach cooking in France. Madame Bertholle also had several cookery books published. Shortly after the appearance of Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961, Julia Child began appearing in the public television series The French Chef, which aired for many years all over the United States, and in 1978 the program Julia Child & Company was launched, followed the next year by Julia Child & More Company. In 1968 recipes from her early programs, many of which were drawn from this book, were published in The French Chef Cookbook.

In 1975 From Julia Child's Kitchen was published, followed in 1978 and 1979 by Julia Child & Company and Julia Child & More Company, based on those programs. Also based on television series were the two books—Cooking with Master Chefs and In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs—she wrote in the mid-1990s, as well as Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, with Jacques Pépin, in 1999. The Way to Cook, her magnum opus, was published in 1989, and in 2000 she gave us Julia's Kitchen Wisdom, a distillation of her years of cooking experience.

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The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The best selling romance fiction of 2003 and become motion pictures in 2009

The Time Traveler's Wife, published in 2003, is the debut novel of American author Audrey Niffenegger. It is a love story about a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel unpredictably, and about his wife, an artist who has to cope with his frequent absences and dangerous experiences. Niffenegger, frustrated in love when she began the work, wrote the story as a metaphor for her failed relationships. The tale's central relationship came to her in a flash one day and subsequently became the novel's title. The novel, which has been classified as both science fiction and romance, examines issues of love, loss, and free will. In particular, it uses time travel to explore miscommunication and distance in relationships. It also investigates deeper existential questions.

The novel won the Exclusive Books Boeke Prize and a British Book Award. A film version was released in August 2009.


From Publishers Weekly
This clever and inventive tale works on three levels: as an intriguing science fiction concept, a realistic character study and a touching love story. Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian with "Chrono Displacement" disorder; at random times, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. This leads to some wonderful paradoxes. From his point of view, he first met his wife, Clare, when he was 28 and she was 20. She ran up to him exclaiming that she'd known him all her life. He, however, had never seen her before. But when he reaches his 40s, already married to Clare, he suddenly finds himself time travelling to Clare's childhood and meeting her as a 6-year-old. The book alternates between Henry and Clare's points of view, and so does the narration. Reed ably expresses the longing of the one always left behind, the frustrations of their unusual lifestyle, and above all, her overriding love for Henry. Likewise, Burns evokes the fear of a man who never knows where or when he'll turn up, and his gratitude at having Clare, whose love is his anchor. The expressive, evocative performances of both actors convey the protagonists' intense relationship, their personal quirks and their reminiscences, making this a fascinating audio.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --

From Booklist
On the surface, Henry and Clare Detamble are a normal couple living in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. Henry works at the Newberry Library and Clare creates abstract paper art, but the cruel reality is that Henry is a prisoner of time. It sweeps him back and forth at its leisure, from the present to the past, with no regard for where he is or what he is doing. It drops him naked and vulnerable into another decade, wearing an age-appropriate face. In fact, it's not unusual for Henry to run into the other Henry and help him out of a jam. Sound unusual? Imagine Clare Detamble's astonishment at seeing Henry dropped stark naked into her parents' meadow when she was only six. Though, of course, until she came of age, Henry was always the perfect gentleman and gave young Clare nothing but his friendship as he dropped in and out of her life. It's no wonder that the film rights to this hip and urban love story have been acquired. Elsa Gaztambide
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"A powerfully original love story."

-- People

"Tremendous grace and imagination . . . A love story without softness or flinchiing."

-- The Washington Post Book World

"[A] time-travel love story par excellence. . . . [A] soaring celebration of thhe victory of love over time."

-- Chicago Tribune

Spirited . . . Niffenegger plays ingeniously in her temporal hall of mirrors."

-- The New Yorker

Product Description
A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic storytelling that makes the novel's unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant.

An enchanting debut and a spellbinding tale of fate and belief in the bonds of love, The Time Traveler's Wife is destined to captivate readers for years to come.


About the Author
Audrey Niffenegger is a professor in the M.F.A. program at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts.This is her first novel, which in hardcover was a selection of Today’s Book Club. She lives in Chicago.

Awards and nominations

Locus Award for Best First Novel 2004 Nominated
Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2004 Longlisted
Arthur C. Clarke Award 2005 Shortlisted
John W. Campbell Memorial Award 2005 Third place
Exclusive Books Boeke Prize 2005 Won
Geffen Award 2006 Nominated
British Book Award for Popular Fiction 2006 Won

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Sookie Stackhouse, Books 1-7 [BOX SET] by Charlaine Harris

The books box set of famous vampire fictions of Sookie Stackhouse serie.

Product Description
Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is no typical Southern belle. She can read minds. And she’s got a thing for vampires. Which, in a town like Bon Temps, Louisiana, means she’ll have to watch her back—and neck…

This box set
Includes:

Dead Until Dark
Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
Dead to the World
Dead as a Doornail
Definitely Dead
All Together Dead
From Dead to Worse

About the author
Charlaine Harris(born November 25, 1951 in Tunica, Mississippi) is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing for over twenty years. She was raised in the Mississippi River Delta area. Though her early works consisted largely of poems about ghosts and, later, teenage angst, she wrote plays when she attended Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. She began to write books a few years later.

After publishing two stand-alone mysteries, Harris launched a lighthearted series "starring" Georgia librarian Aurora Teagarden, with Real Murders, a Best Novel nominee for the 1990 Agatha Awards. Harris wrote eight Aurora titles. In 1996, she released the first of the much darker Shakespeare mysteries, featuring the amateur sleuth Lily Bard, a karate student who makes her living cleaning houses. Shakespeare's Counselor, the fifth--and last-- was printed in fall 2001.

After Shakespeare, Harris created The Sookie Stackhouse urban fantasy series about a telepathic waitress who works in a bar in the fictional Northern Louisiana town of Bon Temps. The first of these, Dead Until Dark, won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Mystery in 2001. Each book follows Sookie as she tries to solve mysteries involving vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures. The series, which now numbers nine titles, has been released worldwide.

Sookie Stackhouse proved to be so popular that Alan Ball, creator of Six Feet Under, announced he would undertake the production of a new show for HBO based upon the books. He wrote and directed the pilot episode for that series, True Blood, which premiered in September of 2008. It was an instant success and was quickly picked up for a second season.

In October 2005, Harris's new mystery series about a young woman named Harper Connelly debuted with the release of Grave Sight. Harper has the ability to determine the cause of death of any body. There are now three Harper titles (GRAVE SIGHT, GRAVE SURPRISE, AN ICE COLD GRAVE) with a 4th (GRAVE SECRET) to be released in 2009.

Harris has also co-edited three very popular anthologies with her friend Toni L.P. Kelner. The anthologies feature stories with an element of the supernatural, and the submissions come from a rare mixture of mystery and urban fantasy writers.

Professionally, Harris is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the American Crime Writers League. She is a member of the board of Sisters in Crime, and alternates with Joan Hess as president of the Arkansas Mystery Writers Alliance. Personally, Harris is married and the mother of three. She lives in a small town in Southern Arkansas and when she is not writing her own books, she reads omnivorously!

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Mastering The Art of French Cooking, Volume One (1) (Fortieth - 40th - Anniversary Edition) (Vol 1) by Julia Child

Julia Child (born Julia Carolyn McWilliams August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American chef, author and television personality. She introduced French cuisine and cooking techniques to the American mainstream through her many cookbooks and television programs, notably The French Chef which premiered in 1963 and showcased her one-of-a-kind persona. Her most famous work is the 1961 cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Her biogrphy movie , Julie & Julia is now a major motion picture (releasing in August 2009) starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child. It is partially based on her memoir, My Life in France.

For those who looking for this book sequel please visit here.

Volume two

Product Description
Revised edition of the classic cookbook, originally published in 1961.

From the Inside Flap
"Anyone can cook in the French manner anywhere," wrote Mesdames Beck, Bertholle, and Child, "with the right instruction." And here is the book that, for forty years, has been teaching Americans how.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking is for both seasoned cooks and beginners who love good food and long to reproduce at home the savory delights of the classic cuisine, from the historic Gallic masterpieces to the seemingly artless perfection of a dish of spring-green peas. This beautiful book, with more than one hundred instructive illustrations, is revolutionary in its approach because:

• It leads the cook infallibly from the buying and handling of raw ingredients, through each essential step of a recipe, to the final creation of a delicate confection.
• It breaks down the classic cuisine into a logical sequence of themes and variations rather than presenting an endless and diffuse catalogue of recipes; the focus is on key recipes that form the backbone of French cookery and lend themselves to an infinite number of elaborations—bound to increase anyone's culinary repertoire.
• It adapts classical techniques, wherever possible, to modern American conveniences.
• It shows Americans how to buy products, from any supermarket in the U.S.A., that reproduce the exact taste and texture of the French ingredients: equivalent meat cuts, for example; the right beans for a cassoulet; the appropriate fish and shellfish for a bouillabaisse.
• It offers suggestions for just the right accompaniment to each dish, including proper wines.

Since there has never been a book as instructive and as workable as Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the techniques learned here can be applied to recipes in all other French cookbooks, making them infinitely more usable. In compiling the secrets of famous cordons bleus, the authors have produced a magnificent volume that is sure to find the place of honor in every kitchen in America.

From the Back Cover
"Has it really been 40 years since Julia Child rescued Americans from dreary casseroles? This reissue, clad in a handsome red jacket, is what a cookbook should be: packed with sumptuous recipes, detailed instructions, and precise line drawings. Some of the instructions look daunting, but as Child herself says in the introduction, 'If you can read, you can cook.'"
- Entertainment Weekly

About the Author
Julia Child, a native of California and a Smith College graduate; Simone Beck, French-born and -educated; and Louisette Bertholle, half French and half American, educated in both countries, represented an even blending of the two backgrounds and were singularly equipped to write about French cooking for Americans. Mrs. Child studied at Paris's famous Cordon Bleu, and all three authors worked under various distinguished French chefs. In 1951 they started their own cooking school in Paris, L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes, at the same time that this book was taking shape. After that, Madame Beck published two cookbooks, Simca's Cuisine in 1972 and New Menus from Simca's Cuisine in 1979, and she continued to teach cooking in France. Madame Bertholle also had several cookery books published. Shortly after the appearance of Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961, Julia Child began appearing in the public television series The French Chef, which aired for many years all over the United States, and in 1978 the program Julia Child & Company was launched, followed the next year by Julia Child & More Company. In 1968 recipes from her early programs, many of which were drawn from this book, were published in The French Chef Cookbook.

In 1975 From Julia Child's Kitchen was published, followed in 1978 and 1979 by Julia Child & Company and Julia Child & More Company, based on those programs. Also based on television series were the two books—Cooking with Master Chefs and In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs—she wrote in the mid-1990s, as well as Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, with Jacques Pépin, in 1999. The Way to Cook, her magnum opus, was published in 1989, and in 2000 she gave us Julia's Kitchen Wisdom, a distillation of her years of cooking experience.

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The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet

From Publishers Weekly
Checking in on a friend's brother at Ivenwald, a Washington-based fundamentalist group living communally in Arlington, Va., religion and journalism scholar Sharlet finds a sect whose members refer to Manhattan's Ground Zero as "the ruins of secularism"; intrigued, Sharlet accepts on a whim an invitation to stay at Ivenwald. He's shocked to find himself in the stronghold of a widespread "invisible" network, organized into cells much like Ivenwald, and populated by elite, politically ambitious fundamentalists; Sharlet is present when a leader tells a dozen men living there, "You guys are here to learn how to rule the world." As it turns out, the Family was established in 1935 to oppose FDR's New Deal and the spread of trade unions; since then, it has organized well-attended weekly prayer meetings for members of Congress and annual National Prayer Breakfasts attended by every president since Eisenhower. Further, the Family's international reach ("almost impossible to overstate") has "forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most oppressive regimes in the world." In the years since his first encounter, Sharlet has done extensive research, and his thorough account of the Family's life and times is a chilling expose.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
"A brilliant marriage of investigative journalism and history, an unsettling story of how this small but powerful group shaped the faith of the nation in the 20th century and drives the politics of empire in the 21st. Anyone interested in circles of power will love this book." -- Debby Applegate, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher

"An astounding entrée to a fascinating Christian network unknown to most Americans. . . . A must-read for any American who wants to know who is actually pulling the strings at the highest levels of power." -- Heidi Ewing, co-director Jesus Camp

"I was once an insider’s insider within fundamentalism. Unequivocally: Sharlet knows what he’s talking about. . . . Those who want to be un-deceived (and wildly entertained) must read this disturbing tour de force." -- Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy For God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back

"Jeff Sharlet is one of the very best writers covering the politics of religion. Brilliantly reported and filled with wonderful anecdotes, THE FAMILY tells the story of an influential group that you haven’t previously heard of, and need to know about." -- Ken Silverstein, Washington editor of Harper's and author of The Radioactive Boy Scout

"Jeff Sharlet provides a fascinating account of how part of American Christianity has gone off on a dangerous tangent. It should worry everyone—maybe especially those of us who understand the Gospels to be a call to help the powerless, not prop up the powerful." -- Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and The Bill McKibben Reader

"Of all the important studies of the American right, THE FAMILY is undoubtedly the most eloquent. It is also quite possibly the most terrifying." -- Thomas Frank, New York Times bestselling author of What's the Matter with Kansas?

"One of the most compelling and brilliantly researched exposes you’ll ever read—just don’t read it alone at night!" -- Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch

"This is a gripping, utterly original narrative about an influential evangelical elite that few Americans even know exists. . . . The Christian Right will never look the same again." -- Michael Kazin, author of A Godly Hero: the Life of William Jennings Bryan and The Populist Persuasion: An American History

"Un-American theocrats can only fool patriotic American democrats when there aren’t critics like Jeff Sharlet around—careful scholars and soulful writers who understand both the majesty of faith and the evil of its abuses. A remarkable accomplishment in the annals of writing about religion." -- Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

"[Sharlet] has managed to infiltrate the most influential and secretive fundamentalist network in America, and ground his reporting in the most astute and original explanation of fundamentalism I’ve ever read. . . . Indispensable." -- Hanna Rosin, former religion reporter for the Washington Post and author of God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save the Nation --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
"I was once an insider's insider within fundamentalism. Unequivocally: Sharlet knows what he's talking about. . . . Those who want to be un-deceived (and wildly entertained) must read this disturbing tour de force." (Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy For God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back )

"[Sharlet] has managed to infiltrate the most influential and secretive fundamentalist network in America, and ground his reporting in the most astute and original explanation of fundamentalism I've ever read. . . . Indispensable." (Hanna Rosin, former religion reporter for the Washington Post and author of God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save the Nation )

"An astounding entre to a fascinating Christian network unknown to most Americans. . . . A must-read for any American who wants to know who is actually pulling the strings at the highest levels of power." (Heidi Ewing, co-director Jesus Camp )

"A brilliant marriage of investigative journalism and history, an unsettling story of how this small but powerful group shaped the faith of the nation in the 20th century and drives the politics of empire in the 21st. Anyone interested in circles of power will love this book." (Debby Applegate, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher )

"Jeff Sharlet provides a fascinating account of how part of American Christianity has gone off on a dangerous tangent. It should worry everyone-maybe especially those of us who understand the Gospels to be a call to help the powerless, not prop up the powerful." (Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and The Bill McKibben Reader )

"Un-American theocrats can only fool patriotic American democrats when there aren't critics like Jeff Sharlet around-careful scholars and soulful writers who understand both the majesty of faith and the evil of its abuses. A remarkable accomplishment in the annals of writing about religion." (Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America )

"Jeff Sharlet is one of the very best writers covering the politics of religion. Brilliantly reported and filled with wonderful anecdotes, THE FAMILY tells the story of an influential group that you haven't previously heard of, and need to know about." (Ken Silverstein, Washington editor of Harper's and author of The Radioactive Boy Scout )

"Of all the important studies of the American right, THE FAMILY is undoubtedly the most eloquent. It is also quite possibly the most terrifying." (Thomas Frank, New York Times bestselling author of What's the Matter with Kansas? )

"One of the most compelling and brilliantly researched exposes you'll ever read-just don't read it alone at night!" (Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch )

"This is a gripping, utterly original narrative about an influential evangelical elite that few Americans even know exists. . . . The Christian Right will never look the same again." (Michael Kazin, author of A Godly Hero: the Life of William Jennings Bryan and The Populist Persuasion: An American History )

Product Description

They insist they are just a group of friends, yet they funnel millions of dollars through tax-free corporations. They claim to disdain politics, but congressmen of both parties describe them as the most influential religious organization in Washington. They say they are not Christians, but simply believers.

Behind the scenes at every National Prayer Breakfast since 1953 has been the Family, an elite network dedicated to a religion of power for the powerful. Their goal is "Jesus plus nothing." Their method is backroom diplomacy. The Family is the startling story of how their faith—part free-market fundamentalism, part imperial ambition—has come to be interwoven with the affairs of nations around the world.



About the Author

Jeff Sharlet is a visiting research scholar at New York University's Center for Religion and Media. He is a contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone, the coauthor, with Peter Manseau, of Killing the Buddha, and the editor of TheRevealer.org. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant

One of bestselling business management book.

Published by Harvard Business School Press since 2005

by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

From Publishers Weekly
Kim and Mauborgne's blue ocean metaphor elegantly summarizes their vision of the kind of expanding, competitor-free markets that innovative companies can navigate. Unlike "red oceans," which are well explored and crowded with competitors, "blue oceans" represent "untapped market space" and the "opportunity for highly profitable growth." The only reason more big companies don't set sail for them, they suggest, is that "the dominant focus of strategy work over the past twenty-five years has been on competition-based red ocean strategies"-i.e., finding new ways to cut costs and grow revenue by taking away market share from the competition. With this groundbreaking book, Kim and Mauborgne-both professors at France's INSEAD, the second largest business school in the world-aim to repair that bias. Using dozens of examples-from Southwest Airlines and the Cirque du Soleil to Curves and Starbucks-they present the tools and frameworks they've developed specifically for the task of analyzing blue oceans. They urge companies to "value innovation" that focuses on "utility, price, and cost positions," to "create and capture new demand" and to "focus on the big picture, not the numbers." And while their heavyweight analytical tools may be of real use only to serious strategy planners, their overall vision will inspire entrepreneurs of all stripes, and most of their ideas are presented in a direct, jargon-free manner. Theirs is not the typical business management book's vague call to action; it is a precise, actionable plan for changing the way companies do business with one resounding piece of advice: swim for open waters.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Blue Ocean Strategy will have you wondering why companies need so much persuasion to stay out of shark-infested waters." -- BusinessWeek, April 4th 2005

"Blue Ocean raises pertinent questions… and delivers valuable answers." -- American Way, March 2005

"Companies struggling to stay afloat in the market's...red oceans would do well to look into Blue Ocean Strategy." -- Fort Worth Star Telegram, 14 February 2005

"The book is clearly written, offering many examples of blue-ocean strategies and the techniques to develop such a scheme." -- Globe and Mail, June 8, 2005

Product Description

Winning by Not Competing: A Fresh Approach to Strategy


Since the dawn of the industrial age, companies have engaged in head-to-head competition in search of sustained, profitable growth. They have fought for competitive advantage, battled over market share, and struggled for differentiation. Yet these hallmarks of competitive strategy are not the way to create profitable growth in the future.



In a book that challenges everything you thought you knew about the requirements for strategic success, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne argue that cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than a hundred years and thirty industries, the authors argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors, but from creating "blue oceans": untapped new market spaces ripe for growth. Such strategic moves-which the authors call "value innovation"- create powerful leaps in value that often render rivals obsolete for more than a decade.



Blue Ocean Strategy presents a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any company can use to create and capture blue oceans. A landmark work that upends traditional thinking about strategy, this book charts a bold new path to winning the future.


From the Inside Flap
"After reading Blue Ocean Strategy, you will never again see your competition in quite the same light. Kim and Mauborgne present a compelling case for pursuing strategy with a creative, not combative, approach. Their emphases on value innovation and stakeholder engagement alone make this book a must-read for both executives and students of business."

-Carlos Ghosn, President and CEO, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.

"This is an extremely valuable book to read. It examines the experience of companies in areas as diverse as watches, wine, cement, computers, automobiles, and even the circus to shed new light on the development of future strategies."

-Nicolas G. Hayek, Cofounder and Chairman of the Board, Swatch Group

"I recommend Blue Ocean Strategy to any executive in the private or public sector. It shows how to break from the status quo, create a winning future strategy, and execute this fast at low cost. As much a practical guide as an eye-opener."

-William J. Bratton, Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, former Police Commissioner of the City of New York

"Kim and Mauborgne's strategies are not only original but practical. Our company has used them and obtained powerful results. The authors chart a bold new path to winning the future."

-Patrick Snowball, Chief Executive, Norwich Union Insurance

From the Back Cover


Companies have long engaged in head-to-head competition in search of sustained, profitable growth. They have fought for competitive advantage, battled over market share, and struggled for differentiation.


Yet in today’s overcrowded industries, competing head-on results in nothing but a bloody “red ocean” of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. In a book that challenges everything you thought you knew about the requirements fro strategic success, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne contend that while most companies compete within such red oceans, this strategy is increasingly unlikely to create profitable growth in the future.


Based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more then a hundred years and thirty industries, Kim and Mauborgne argue that tomorrow’s leading companies will succeed not by battling competitors, but by creating “blue ocean” of uncontested market space ripe for growth. Such strategies moves—termed “value innovation”-create powerful leaps in value for both the firm and its buyers, rendering rivals obsolete and unleashing new demand.


Blue Ocean Strategyprovides a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant. In this frame-changing book, Kim and Mauborgne present a proven analytical framework and the tools for successfully creating and capturing blue oceans. Examining a wide range of strategic moves across a host of industries, Blue Ocean Strategy highlights the six principles that every company can use to successfully formulate and execute blue ocean strategies. The six principles show how to reconstruct market boundaries, focus on the big picture, reach beyond existing demand, get the strategic sequence right, overcome organizational hurdles, and build execution into strategy.


Upending traditional thinking about strategy, this landmark book charts “a bold new path to winning the future”.

About the Author


W. Chan Kim is the Boston Consulting Group Bruce D. Henderson Chair Professor of Strategy and International Management at INSEAD.

Renée Mauborgne is the INSEAD Distinguished Fellow and Professor of Strategy and Management.

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Fundamentals of Corporate Finance Standard Edition by Stephen Ross,Randolph Westerfield

The 9th Edition of bestselling Textbook about corporate finance


Product Description
The best-selling Fundamentals of Corporate Finance (FCF) is written with one strongly held principle– that corporate finance should be developed and taught in terms of a few integrated, powerful ideas. As such, there are three basic themes that are the central focus of the book:

1) An emphasis on intuition—underlying ideas are discussed in general terms and then by way of examples that illustrate in more concrete terms how a financial manager might proceed in a given situation.

2) A unified valuation approach—net present value (NPV) is treated as the basic concept underlying corporate finance. Every subject covered is firmly rooted in valuation, and care is taken to explain how particular decisions have valuation effects.

3) A managerial focus—the authors emphasize the role of the financial manager as decision maker, and they stress the need for managerial input and judgment.

The Ninth Edition continues the tradition of excellence that has earned Fundamentals of Corporate Finance its status as market leader. Every chapter has been updated to provide the most current examples that reflect corporate finance in today’s world. The supplements package has been updated and improved, and with the new Excel Master online tool, student and instructor support has never been stronger.

About the Author
Stephen Ross is presently the Franco Modigliani Professor of Finance and Economics at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One of the most widely published authors in finance and economics, Professor Ross is recognized for his work in developing the Arbitrage Pricing Theory and his substantial contributions to the discipline through his research in signaling, agency theory, option pricing, and the theory of the term structure of interest rates, among other topics. A past president of the American Finance Association, he currently serves as an associate editor of several academic and practitioner journals. He is a trustee of CalTech, a director of the College Retirement Equity Fund (CREF), and Freddie Mac. He is also the co-chairman of Roll and Ross Asset Management Corporation.

Randoloph W. Westerfield is Dean of the Marshall School of Business at University of Southern California and holder of the Robert R. Dockson Dean’s Chair of Business Administration. From 1988 to 1993, Professor Westerfield served as the chairman of the School’s finance and business economics department and the Charles B. Thornton Professor of Finance. He came to USC from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he was the chairman of the finance department and member of the finance faculty for 20 years. His areas of expertise include corporate financial policy, investment management and analysis, mergers and acquisitions, and stock market price behavior. Professor Westerfield has served as a member of the Continental Bank trust committee, supervising all activities of the trust department. He has been consultant to a number of corporations, including AT&T, Mobil Oil and Pacific Enterprises, as well as to the United Nations, the U.S. Department of Justice and Labor, and the State of California.

Bradford D. Jordan is Professor of Finance and Gatton Research Fellow in the Carol Martin Gatton College of Business and Economics at the University of Kentucky. He has a long-standing interest in both applied and theoretical issues in corporate finance, and has extensive experience teaching all levels of corporate finance and financial management policy. Professor Jordan has published numerous articles on issues such as cost of capital, capital structure, and the behavior of security prices.

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The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street by Justin Fox

This is how starred review comment on Justin Fox 's writing

"His analysis is singularly compelling, and the rare business history that reads like a thriller... A must-read for anyone interested in the markets, our economy or government, this dense but spellbinding work brings modern finance and economics to life."

(Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. At the core of the current financial crisis has been the widely held assumption that markets behave rationally. Fox, Time magazine editor-at-large, isn't the first to bring scrutiny—or censure—to the conceit, but his analysis is singularly compelling, and the rare business history that reads like a thriller. Fox leads us on a chronological journey of modern economic theory, featuring the cast of scholars who constructed the 20th- and 21st-century financial landscape, from Irving Fisher to such post-WWII figures as Milton Friedman, Harry Markowitz, Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller, Jack Treynor and William Sharpe. Fox offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at academia's finest, complete with amusing anecdotes about the players and their theories, and illustrates how our economic behaviors and markets have been shaped by a gradually refined theory holding that the stock market prices are both random and perfectly rational. A must-read for anyone interested in the markets, our economy or government, this dense but spellbinding work brings modern finance and economics to life. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com The upside of the current Great Recession is that it could drive a stake through the heart of the academic nostrum known as the efficient-market hypothesis. This theory holds that stock and bond markets are nearly perfect -- even during such crazes as the dot-com mania -- and that prices on the exchanges instantly and accurately reflect the available information about publicly traded securities. After the market crash of 1987, Yale University economist Robert Shiller called that belief "the most remarkable error in the history of economic theory." He could have said "most harmful error" as well. Yet it lived on and contributed mightily to the mortgage bust. One presumes from the title of Justin Fox's "The Myth of the Rational Market" that he has come to bury, not to praise. And certainly, the opportunity for such an undertaking is rich. Proceeding from the assumption that economic actors are unerringly rational, the theory's disciples have endowed market prices with the wisdom of every moment. Thus, at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reflects the accumulated financial knowledge of civilization, and equally so at 2 on Thursday -- even if the market has moved hundreds of points in the interim. How did this faith in the supremacy of market group-think do us harm? For one, as the dot-com and other manias demonstrated, the crowd occasionally gets it wrong. The mistaken faith in markets turned regulators into fawning groupies. Notably, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan doubted that he or anyone else could detect -- or regulate -- a bubble in advance. The power of the doctrine was its grand design: the comforting notion that the financial universe adhered to absolute laws. But that was also its flaw. Prices couldn't be wrong; if they were, someone would seek to profit from the error and correct it. The illustrative joke was of two economists who spot a $10 bill on the ground. One stoops to pick it up, whereupon the other interjects, "Don't. If it were really $10, it wouldn't be there anymore." Theorists such as Eugene Fama decreed that if prices are unforeseeable, then the future direction of the market is random. And if the market is truly random, prices should follow what mathematicians call a bell-curve distribution. In nature, this works. We don't know whether your neighbor will be tall or short, but we can predict, with pretty close approximation, how many very tall people will live in your town. In nature, extreme results such as a village of seven-footers will never occur. Fox tells the story of how financial engineers assumed that markets would behave the same way, with generally predictable variances in prices. In particular, the theory of option pricing, the cornerstone of modern finance, has built into it the assumption that prices are random. The theory was devised by Fischer Black, Myron Scholes and Robert Merton. The last two won the Nobel Prize in 1997 and were partners in Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund that blew up in 1998. What happened to LTCM? It turned out that in financial markets, extreme events do happen. People get emotional and decide to buy (or sell) in unison. All of LTCM's trades went sour simultaneously. Nonetheless, the modelers kept at it. Rating agencies assumed that subprime mortgagees would behave in random fashion -- large numbers of people would never default at the same time, right? (Oops.) Fox, a business columnist for Time, spins a fascinating historical narrative, beginning with economist Irving Fisher's paean to markets in, alas, 1929. Postwar economists such as Paul Samuelson noticed that most investment pros do not beat the averages. This led to the one positive contribution of the efficient-market hypothesis: Jack Bogle's invention of index funds, which mimic the performance of the stock market as a whole and keep ordinary people from wasting their money trying to beat it. Fox recognizes that true believers in the market's efficiency suffered from a "blinkered" mindset and "tunnel vision." Yet I think he lets them off too easily. He laments (as if it were necessary) the lack of any alternative "grand new theory" and finds that the debate has resulted in a "muddle." Fox concludes, "If you do come up with an idea for beating the market, you need a model that explains why everybody else isn't already doing the same thing." Not necessarily. Markets aren't physics. Maybe no one model explains them. The emerging school of behavioral finance fills in many of the gaps left by the efficient marketers. Behavioral finance, which Fox discusses at length, holds that financial man -- far from the perfect, mechanical trader depicted in textbooks -- is a rather neurotic fellow. He follows the crowd, fails to plan ahead and often makes mistakes. To think that his every price is perfect is a remarkable error indeed.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Review
"Fox makes business history thrilling." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch )

"Impressively broad and richly researched." (Financial Times )

"Good wonky fun." (Barry Ritholz, The Big Picture blog )

"His analysis is singularly compelling, and the rare business history that reads like a thriller... A must-read for anyone interested in the markets, our economy or government, this dense but spellbinding work brings modern finance and economics to life." (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

"This wise and witty book is must reading for anyone who wonders what makes financial markets tick. Even those who have wrestled with this question for years will be glad to have read Fox's compelling history." (Peter Bernstein, author of Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk )

"...a rich history of the world's most seductive investing idea...the book chronicles the rise of rational market theory over the decades and captures the sizzle and pop of the intellectual debate ..." (Bloomberg )

"A fascinating historical narrative." (Roger Lowenstein, The Washington Post )

"An intellectual tour-de-force..." (The Economist )

"A lucid, lively and learned account." (Barron's )

"Justin Fox is a truly insightful fellow who can see things with his own eyes-a rare, very rare attribute." (Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan )

Product Description

Chronicling the rise and fall of the efficient market theory and the century-long making of the modern financial industry, Justin Fox's The Myth of the Rational Market is as much an intellectual whodunit as a cultural history of the perils and possibilities of risk. The book brings to life the people and ideas that forged modern finance and investing, from the formative days of Wall Street through the Great Depression and into the financial calamity of today. It's a tale that features professors who made and lost fortunes, battled fiercely over ideas, beat the house in blackjack, wrote bestselling books, and played major roles on the world stage. It's also a tale of Wall Street's evolution, the power of the market to generate wealth and wreak havoc, and free market capitalism's war with itself.

The efficient market hypothesis—long part of academic folklore but codified in the 1960s at the University of Chicago—has evolved into a powerful myth. It has been the maker and loser of fortunes, the driver of trillions of dollars, the inspiration for index funds and vast new derivatives markets, and the guidepost for thousands of careers. The theory holds that the market is always right, and that the decisions of millions of rational investors, all acting on information to outsmart one another, always provide the best judge of a stock's value. That myth is crumbling.

Celebrated journalist and columnist Fox introduces a new wave of economists and scholars who no longer teach that investors are rational or that the markets are always right. Many of them now agree with Yale professor Robert Shiller that the efficient markets theory “represents one of the most remarkable errors in the history of economic thought.” Today the theory has given way to counterintuitive hypotheses about human behavior, psychological models of decision making, and the irrationality of the markets. Investors overreact, underreact, and make irrational decisions based on imperfect data. In his landmark treatment of the history of the world's markets, Fox uncovers the new ideas that may come to drive the market in the century ahead.



About the Author

Justin Fox is the business and economics columnist for Time magazine and the author of the popular Time.com blog The Curious Capitalist (www.time.com/curiouscapitalist). Previously an editor and writer at Fortune, he appears regularly on CNN, CNBC, and PBS's Nightly Business Report. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.

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The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, July 2009: The girl with the dragon tattoo is back. Stieg Larsson's seething heroine, Lisbeth Salander, once again finds herself paired with journalist Mikael Blomkvist on the trail of a sinister criminal enterprise. Only this time, Lisbeth must return to the darkness of her own past (more specifically, an event coldly known as "All the Evil") if she is to stay one step ahead--and alive. The Girl Who Played with Fire is a break-out-in-a-cold-sweat thriller that crackles with stunning twists and dismisses any talk of a sophomore slump. Fans of Larsson's prior work will find even more to love here, and readers who do not find their hearts racing within the first five pages may want to confirm they still have a pulse. Expect healthy doses of murder, betrayal, and deceit, as well as enough espresso drinks to fuel downtown Seattle for months. --Dave Callanan

Review
'The Girl Who Played with Fire is that rare thing - a sequel that is even better than the book that went before... it is to be read in great hungry chunks' Observer. 'It is rare to find a thriller in which the female characters are allowed so much space to be. Lisbeth Salander really is a wonderful creation' Scotsman. 'Astonishing novels... Larsson came up with an entirely new kind of heroine for the crime story... as with Larsson's first novel, this is wonderful stuff' Daily Express. 'A year ago, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo won ecstatic praise from British critics and readers. Now its successor, The Girl who Played with Fire, has outsold the likes of Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson - once more, another figure seizes the book by the scruff of its neck and binds the reader in fetters of fascination' Independent. 'As with the first book, this complex novel is not just a thrilling read, but tackles head-on the kind of issues that Larsson himself railed against in society, such as endemic establishment corruption and the exploitation of women' Daily Mail. 'In her (Salander) Larsson has created a heroine unique to detective fiction. Where else can you find a bisexual female detective with punk-era fashion sense who just happens to be an expert computer hacker?' Independent. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
Advance reviews:

“A suspenseful, remarkably moving novel . . . This is the best Scandinavian novel to be published in the U.S. since Smilla’s Sense of Snow . . . Salander is one of those characters who come along only rarely in fiction: a complete original, larger than life yet firmly grounded in realistic detail, utterly independent yet at her core a wounded and frightened child . . . One of the most compelling characters to strut the crime-fiction stage in years.”
–Booklist (starred)

“Fans of postmodern mystery will revel in Larsson’s latest . . . also starring journo extraordinaire Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, the Lara Croft of the land of the midnight sun . . . Lisbeth is really a Baltic MacGyver with a highly developed sense of outrage, a sociopathic bent and brand-new breast implants, to say nothing of a well-stuffed bankbook . . . Some of the traditional elements of the espionage thriller turn up in Larsson’s pages, while others are turned on their head . . . Still, while endlessly complex, the plot has the requisite chases, cliffhangers and bloodshed. Not to mention Fermat’s theorem.”
–Kirkus Reviews

Reviews from abroad:


“As good as crime writing gets . . . Completely absorbing and engaging on both a narrative and a moral level . . . Lisbeth Salander [is] a remarkable heroine.”
–The Times Literary Supplement

“The huge pleasure of these books is Salander, a fascinating creation with a complete and complex psychology . . . Salander is recognisably a Lara Croft for grown-ups–a female Terminator.”
–The Guardian

“Addictive . . . We are in the hands of a master . . . Salander and Blomkvist [are] the finest and strangest partnership in crime fiction since Holmes and Watson . . . Stunningly memorable.”
–Scotland on Sunday

“The Girl Who Played with Fire is that rare thing–a sequel that is even better than the book that went before . . . A combination of urgent, multilayered thriller, traditional police procedural and articulate examination of the way a supposedly open-minded country like Sweden treats its vulnerable women and children.”
–The Observer

“With the spiky and sassy Salander, Larsson created the most original heroine to emerge in crime fiction for many years . . . She seizes the book by the scruff of its neck and binds the reader in fetters of fascination.”
–The Independent

“This second novel is even more gripping and astonishing than the first. What makes it outstanding is the author’s ability to handle dozens of characters and parallel narratives without losing tension. Larsson was a fantastic storyteller. This novel will leave readers on the edge of their seats.”
–The Sunday Times (London)

“The best thriller I’ve read in ages . . . If you want a book to take on your lifetime trip on the Trans-Siberian railway, The Girl Who Played With Fire is the one.”

–Evening Herald (Ireland)

Product Description
Mikael Blomkvist, crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden, implicating well-known and highly placed members of Swedish society, business, and government.

But he has no idea just how explosive the story will be until, on the eve of publication, the two investigating reporters are murdered. And even more shocking for Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander—the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker who came to his aid in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and who now becomes the focus and fierce heart of The Girl Who Played with Fire.

As Blomkvist, alone in his belief in Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation of the slayings, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous hunt in which she is the prey, and which compels her to revisit her dark past in an effort to settle with it once and for all.

About the Author
Stieg Larsson, who lived in Sweden, was the editor in chief of the magazine Expo and a leading expert on antidemocratic, right-wing extremist and Nazi organizations. He died in 2004, shortly after delivering the manuscripts for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

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