Books about Advances from Amazon.com

Wake Up and Take Control of Your Life!

Anthony Robbins, the nation's leader in the science of peak performance, shows you his most effective strategies and techniques for mastering your emotions, your body, your relationships, your finances, and your life. The acknowledged expert in the psychology of change, Anthony Robbins provides a step-by-step program teaching the fundamental lessons of self-mastery that will enable you to discover your true purpose, take control of your life and harness the forces that shape your destiny..
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Written in clear, lively prose by one of the foremost scholars in the area of social welfare, THE RELUCTANT WELFARE STATE: ENGAGING HISTORY TO ADVANCE SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY, Sixth Edition, places social policy into political, cultural, and societal context. Using social policy history as a catalyst, Dr. Jansson analyzes the evolution of American welfare and invites you to think critically about issues, developments, and policies in prior eras and in contemporary society, to help you develop your own "policy identity.".
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A brilliantly chilling novel by New York Times bestselling author John Connolly about a chain of killings, linked obscurely by great distances and the passage of years, and the settling of their blood-debts -- past, present, and future.

As a small boy, Louis witnesses an unspeakable crime that takes the life of a member of his small, southern community. He grows up and moves on, but he is forever changed by the cruel and brutal nature of the act. It lights a fire deep within him that burns white and cold, a quiet flame just waiting to ignite. Now, years later, the sins of his life are reaching into his present, bringing with them the buried secrets and half-forgotten acts of his past.

Someone is hunting him, targeting his home, his businesses, and his partner, Angel. The instrument of revenge is Bliss, a killer of killers, the most feared of assassins. Bliss is a Reaper, a lethal tool to be applied toward the ultimate end, but he is also a man with a personal vendetta.

Hardened by their pasts, Louis and Angel decide to strike back. While they form a camaraderie that brings them solace, it offers them no shelter from the fate that stalks them. When they mysteriously disappear, their friends are forced to band together to find them. They are led by private detective Charlie Parker, a killer himself, a Reaper in waiting.

Connolly's triumphant prose and unerring rendering of his tortured characters mesmerize and chill. He creates a world where everyone is corrupt, murderers go unpunished, but betrayals are always avenged. Yet another masterpiece from a proven talent, The Reapers will terrify and transfix..
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Texas Hold 'em is not an easy game to play well. To become an expert you must balance many concepts, some of which occasionally contradict each other. In 1988, the first edition appeared. Many ideas, which were only known to a small, select group of players, were made available to anyone who was striving to become an expert, and the hold 'em explosion had begun. It is now a new century, and the authors have again moved the state of the art forward by adding over 100 pages of new material, including extensive sections on "loose games," and "short-handed games." Anyone who studies this text, is well disciplined, and gets the proper experience should become a significant winner. Some of the other ideas discussed include play on the first two cards, semi-bluffing, the free card, inducing bluffs, staying with a draw, playing when a pair flops, playing trash hands, desperation bets, playing in wild games, reading hands, and psychology..
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Dynamic Romanian multimillionaire Nicolae Carpathia's sphere of influence steadily grows as he parlays his looks, charm, charisma, and intellectual brilliance into success in business and politics. But is it mere coincidence that those who oppose or offend him suffer to the point of death? Meanwhile, a young Buck Williams begins his journalistic career. Pilot Rayford Steele gains more responsibility at work and at home. Scientist Chaim Rosenzweig begins work on a secret formula that could change the world. All three go about their daily lives, unaware of each other or of the powerful young man from Romania. Around the world, the stage is being set for the cataclysmic event that will change the world forever..
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The hedge fund industry has grown dramatically over the last two decades, with more than eight thousand funds now controlling close to two trillion dollars. Originally intended for the wealthy, these private investments have now attracted a much broader following that includes pension funds and retail investors. Because hedge funds are largely unregulated and shrouded in secrecy, they have developed a mystique and allure that can beguile even the most experienced investor. In Hedge Funds, Andrew Lo--one of the world's most respected financial economists--addresses the pressing need for a systematic framework for managing hedge fund investments.

Arguing that hedge funds have very different risk and return characteristics than traditional investments, Lo constructs new tools for analyzing their dynamics, including measures of illiquidity exposure and performance smoothing, linear and nonlinear risk models that capture alternative betas, econometric models of hedge fund failure rates, and integrated investment processes for alternative investments. He concludes with a case study of quantitative equity strategies in August 2007, and presents a sobering outlook regarding the systemic risks posed by this industry.

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MODEL- 54246 VENDOR- PRIMA GAMES FEATURES- Official Strategy Guide for Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire Defeat Team Aqua and Team Magma!* Tips for winning the Pokemon Contests * Locations to all Secret Bases and Battle Towers * Thorough Pokedex featuring Ruby and Sapphire Pokemon with locations statistics and skills.* Strategy to win all 2-on-2 battles and beat all enemy Pokemon Trainers * Complete walkthrough of the vast new Pok mon world including all cities towns streets and dungeons.* Detailed moves list * Tips to capturing evolving and customizing your Pokemon * Detailed charts for Technical and Hidden Machines* 152 Pages* Platform- GameBoy AdvanceMANUFACTURER WARRANTY:  90 DAYS.
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From three-time New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice--whose novels have been called "bold and ambitious" by The New York Times, "chillingly perverse" by USA Today, and "shocking, sexy...intricate" by Glamour--comes this startling psychological thriller about an Iraq War vet who seeks redemption and revenge when a fellow Marine he failed to protect during the war is brutally murdered.

John Houck became a Marine to become a hero. But his life changed when he failed to notice an explosive device that ended up maiming the captain of his Force Recon Company, a respected Marine who nearly sacrificed himself to save John's life.

Home from Iraq, John pays a visit to his former captain, only to discover the captain has been gruesomely murdered. John pursues a strange man he sees running from the scene, but he discovers that Alex Martin is not the murderer. Alex is, in fact, the former captain's secret male lover and the killer's intended next victim.

When it becomes clear that local law enforcement has direct connections to the murder itself, John realizes that to repay his debt of honor, he must teach Alex Martin how to protect himself, even if that means teaching Alex to kill. In the process, John confronts the painful truth about the younger brother he was unable to protect and the older sister he always felt he failed.

Blind Fall is a story of honor and integrity, of turning failure into victory. It is a stunning departure for Christopher Rice: the story of two men, one a Marine, one gay, who must unite to avenge the death of the man they both loved--one as a brother-in-arms, one as a lover--and to survive.

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Amazon.com Exclusive
A Letter from Christopher Rice

Dear Amazon.com Reader,

Authors hate answering the question "what is your book about?" because deep down most of us are arrogant enough to believe that our books are about everything. Birth, death, love, grief. You name it, I probably think it's in there somewhere, albeit sometimes only in the form of a throwaway character, like a wisecracking gas station attendant who pops off a few good lines about living in the present as my main character bounces on the balls of his feet, impatient to be rung up so he can race to his next car-chase. But the longer I write for a living, the more it becomes clear to me that while arrogance is a helpful tool for dealing with one's own negative reviews (or the death threats that have been posted alongside your promotional video on YouTube), the question "what is your book about" is one that I better have a coherent answer to long before it's posed to me by anyone besides the ever-present critic who lives in my head. Otherwise I find myself writing entire chapters about the shape of a certain box hedge because I've lost my way and fallen prey to that childish belief that writing is about nothing more than filling up a page. (It is, kind of, but only when you're past deadline.) That said, I can say with confidence that my latest thriller, Blind Fall, is a novel about self-acceptance. It's about how we are often forced to let go of something we believed to be an absolute truth before we can treat ourselves with the same respect we would grant our closest friend. And in that sense, it is also a story about how our own visions of our past, of where we came from and what made us who we are, become incomplete and deceptive if we turn away from of those who walked the path with us and the insights they have to offer into our own personal history.

Phew! Got that out of the way. How was that, Amazon.com editors? Did I win over some Jonathan Franzen readers with that one?

Please note that I referred to my own novel as a thriller. I did so with pride. As I've said now in numerous interviews, Blind Fall was intended to be lean, clear and forceful, a suspenseful story about gays in the military that might appeal to the broadest audience possible. That doesn't mean I dumbed down or cleaned up a more "literary"--God, I hate that word--story that's still sitting in my desk drawer. It means I chose to tell the entire story from the point-of-view of the character facing the greatest personal challenge of any in the book--John Houck, the battle-scarred Marine who discovers the comrade who saved his life in combat was secretly gay. Anything that didn't serve John's character, that didn't ring true to who he was, didn't make the cut. That was a challenge. I love the guy as much as I do any of my protagonists but let's just say we probably wouldn't end up voting for the same candidate in the Presidential election this coming November and we certainly have different CDs in rotation. (To get into character sometimes I would depart from my usual film score montages and get amped up on a little Coheed & Cambria and Incubus. Don't laugh! It's not that big of a stretch. I went to a Mottley Crue concert when I was twelve.)

I also chose to tell you who the killer was about 70 pages in. Why? Because this novel is not a whodunit. This novel is a what-the-hell-are-they-going-to-do, but that's got a few too many words in it so we call those thrillers. Don't get me wrong; there are some twists and turns along the way, but I didn't want the reader breaking sweat over who was responsible for the murder that starts off the action. I wanted the reader's heart to become invested in the relationship between John, the straight (and more than a little homophobic) Marine, and Alex, the secret gay lover of the man who saved John's life. How are these two very different men going to come to accept one another, if at all? This is the question that dominated my thoughts while I was writing the book, and if you decide to give it a read, I hope it dominates yours as well. Sometimes the best suspense comes not from the revelation of a previously concealed detail that's been skillfully foreshadowed, but from wondering how a character you have come to know intimately over the course of many chapters is going to react to a seemingly insurmountable set of obstacles. That's what I was shooting for with Blind Fall.

So there you have it, along with a few unsolicited personal details about yours truly. (Like the fact that I went to a Motley Crue concert when I was twelve.) At the very least, I hope Blind Fall keeps some of you up late at night. For the next month, my late nights will all be spent in hotels as I cross the country to promote this puppy. Maybe I'll get to meet some of you along the way.

Best,

Christopher Rice

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