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Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power
Prizewinning journalists John Harwood and Gerald F. Seib show how today’s Washington power game really works, through stories of people who are making a difference on Pennsylvania Avenue, America’s power street. These new power brokers, some of whom are rarely seen and are largley unknown, have figured out how to make their voices heard, and how to get things done, amid the complexities of today’s gridlocked Washington. With unprecedented access to Washington insiders, and with deep insight into the unspoken rules of the road in the capital, Harwood and Seib explain why progress is so difficult and illuminate what it takes to succeed in the high stakes game of politics. Pennsylvania Avenue, the 1.2-mile stretch between the White House and the Capitol, is where the influential and ambitious congregate. Through stories of party strategists, money men, policy-makers, fixers, socialites, lobbyists, spinners, deal-makers, and more, Harwood and Seib explore the great political transformations that have altered in a fundamental way the relationship between Americans and their government. A new class of politician and radically different ways of conducting business now exist in Washington. Harwood and Seib showcase such master players as Ken Duberstein (the Fixer), a onetime aide to President Ronald Reagan turned superlobbyist, whose contacts and insider knowledge help clients sidestep Avenue jam-ups; Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein (the Businessman), a new breed of power broker who pioneered the age of “big money” in Washington; Rahm Emanuel (the Democratic Strategist), whose aggressive fundraising and crisis-room campaign enabled the Democrats to retake Congress in 2006; Debbie Wasserman Schultz (the Rising Star), a first-term Democratic representative from Florida whose meteoric ascent in the House has earned her influential allies as well as critics; Hilary Rosen (the Advocate), a former entertainment industry lobbyist who skillfully reframed the debate about same-sex marriage; and more. Inspiring and wonderfully written , Pennsylvania Avenue takes us inside America’s center of influence to show how our government really functions, and the insiders who make things happen..
Price: $13.00
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The 33-Year-Old Rookie: How I Finally Made it to the Big Leagues After Eleven Years in the Minors
Chris Coste dreamed of playing major-league baseball from the age of seven. But after eleven grueling years in the minors, a spot on a major-league roster still seemed just out of his reach–until that fateful call came from the Philadelphia Phillies in May 2006. At age thirty-three (“going on eighty”), Coste was finally heading to the big time. The 33-Year-Old Rookie is like a real-life Rocky, an unforgettable and inspirational story of one man’s unwavering pursuit of a lifelong goal. Beginning in a single-parent home in Fargo, North Dakota, and ending behind home plate on the flawless diamond of the Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park–where fans and teammates call him “Chris Clutch” because of his knack for getting timely hits–this intimate account of Coste’s baseball odyssey is a powerful story of determination, perseverance, and passion. For eleven seasons, Coste hustled, fought, and gritted his way to his breakthrough–and never lost faith in his abilities. Along the way, he gained the affection and admiration of baseball fans from Ottawa and Scranton to various Mexican and Venezuelan cities. Battered by years spent behind a catcher’s mask, and faced with bracing realities–there were bills to pay, and his young daughter was entering first grade–Coste decided to give it one last shot in 2006. But that year, during the Phillies’ major-league spring training, Coste was demoted to the minors at the last minute to make room for a utility outfielder, despite having hit a blistering .463 and earning the trust of the team’s pitchers. Later that season, though, Coste finally got the call-up, and he hit .364 during the Phillies’ furious battle to nail down the final postseason berth. Coste takes us through the 2006 spring training season–with its pulse-quickening moments and close calls–and into his first season as a major-league catcher with the Phillies. From tense stretch-run games that kept Phillies’ fans on the edge of their seats to moments of intimate personal reflection, Coste’s saga offers baseball aficionados an inside look at a remarkable life and career. In this stirring, wry, and candid look at the life of a professional baseball nomad who never surrendered his dream, we savor the sometimes bittersweet fruits of victory against seemingly insurmountable odds..
Price: $14.48
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Multiple Blessings: Surviving to Thriving With Twins and Sextuplets
In Multiple Blessings, Kate Gosselin shares the gripping details of her rollercoaster ride of emotional highs and lows when she discovered she and her husband, Jon, would be expecting sextuplets while still basking in the light of their twin girls' toddlerhood. Strongly encouraged to consider selective reduction for the sake of both mother and babies, she and Jon instead decided to accept the extreme challenge God had handed them. After suffering the long and winding road of infertility, the young couple felt stressed but blessed as they fought valiantly to help their babies survive the fight for their lives. Kate reveals excerpts from her private journal as she describes the daily struggle to carry the babies for thirty weeks. In addition to their uphill medical battle, the family suffered many emotional setbacks such as the loss of Jon's job, forcing the pair to look to God as their sole provider and sustainer of life. After the miraculous birth, the couple coped with months of neonatal intensive care for their newborns as well as Kate's physical recovery from such complete and prolonged bed rest. Later as the entire family of ten finally arrived home reeling with exhaustion, they still managed to feed, bathe, clothe, and monitor the health of their fragile infants as a steady parade of necessary and helpful volunteers turned their home and family life into a public arena. The young family lived moment to moment at first, not knowing what each new day would bring and how they would survive on such depleted sleep, money, and emotional reserves. However, as the months progressed, they grew into the next stage of development, proudly letting go of yesterday and looking forward to a brighter and ever-changing tomorrow. Their small home was soon filled to capacity with six cribs, six bouncy seats, several changing tables, never-ending piles of laundry, tubs of colorful toys, stacks of diapers, cartons of formula, rows and rows of bottles, bibs and pacifiers, two triplet strollers, six car seats, and so on. Yes, life was hectic and cramped, but with each major milestone Jon and Kate rejoiced at the miracles that unfolded around them. The crew of six growing babies along with their proud big sisters, Madelyn and Cara, did their part to fill those rooms with squawking, squealing, laughing, and of course, a healthy dose of crying. Kate and Jon eventually came out of the fog of the first precarious two years feeling eternally grateful for the love and support of family, friends, community, and indeed a nation. More important, they felt the ever present hand of a faithful God upholding them and giving them just enough strength and courage to take one day at a time..
Price: $13.59
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The Johnstown Flood
The history of civil engineering may sound boring, but in David McCullough's hands it is, well, riveting His award-winning histories of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Panama Canal were preceded by this account of the disastrous dam failure that drowned Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1889. Written while the last survivors of the flood were still alive, McCullough's narrative weaves the stories of the town, the wealthy men who owned the dam, and the forces of nature into a seamless whole. His account is unforgettable: "The wave kept on coming straight toward him, heading for the very heart of the city. Stores, houses, trees, everything was going down in front of it, and the closer it came, the bigger it seemed to grow.... The height of the wall of water was at least thirty-six feet at the center.... The drowning and devastation of the city took just about ten minutes." A powerful, definitive book, and a tribute to the thousands who died in America's worst inland flood. --Mary Ellen Curtin.
Price: $8.20
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Fever 1793
On the heels of her acclaimed contemporary teen novel Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson surprises her fans with a riveting and well-researched historical fiction Fever 1793 is based on an actual epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia that wiped out 5,000 people--or 10 percent of the city's population--in three months. At the close of the 18th century, Philadelphia was the bustling capital of the United States, with Washington and Jefferson in residence. During the hot mosquito-infested summer of 1793, the dreaded yellow fever spread like wildfire, killing people overnight. Like specters from the Middle Ages, gravediggers drew carts through the streets crying "Bring out your dead!" The rich fled to the country, abandoning the city to looters, forsaken corpses, and frightened survivors. In the foreground of this story is 16-year-old Mattie Cook, whose mother and grandfather own a popular coffee house on High Street. Mattie's comfortable and interesting life is shattered by the epidemic, as her mother is felled and the girl and her grandfather must flee for their lives. Later, after much hardship and terror, they return to the deserted town to find their former cook, a freed slave, working with the African Free Society, an actual group who undertook to visit and assist the sick and saved many lives. As first frost arrives and the epidemic ends, Mattie's sufferings have changed her from a willful child to a strong, capable young woman able to manage her family's business on her own. (Ages 12 and older) --Patty Campbell.
Price: $2.40
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Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War
The Civil War is the American Iliad. Lincoln, Stonewall Jackson, Grant, and Lee still stand as heroic ideals, as stirring to our national memory as were the legendary Achilles and Hector to the world of the ancient Greeks. Within the story of our Iliad one battle stands forth above all others: Gettysburg. Millions visit Gettysburg each year to walk the fields and hills where Joshua Chamberlain made his legendary stand and Pickett went down to a defeat which doomed a nation, but in defeat forever became a symbol of the heroic Lost Cause. As the years passed, and the scars healed, the debate, rather than drifting away has intensified. It is the battle which has become the great "what if," of American history and the center of a dreamscape where Confederate banners finally do crown the heights above the town. The year is 1863, and General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia are poised to attack the North and claim the victory that would end the brutal conflict. But Lee’s Gettysburg campaign ended in failure, ultimately deciding the outcome of the war. Launching his men into a vast sweeping operation, of which the town of Gettysburg is but one small part of the plan, General Lee, acting as he did at Chancellorsville, Second Manassas, and Antietam, displays the audacity of old. He knows he has but one more good chance to gain ultimate victory, for after two years of war the relentless power of an industrialized north is wearing the South down. Lee's lieutenants and the men in the ranks, embued with this renewed spirit of the offensive embark on the Gettysburg Campaign that many dream "should have been." The soldiers in the line, Yank and Reb, knew as well that this would be the great challenge, the decisive moment that would decided whether a nation would die, or be created, and both sides were ready, willing to lay down their lives for their Cause. An action-packed and painstakingly researched masterwork, Gettysburg stands as the first book in a series to tell the story of how history could have unfolded, how a victory for Lee would have changed the destiny of the nation forever. In the great tradition of T he Killer Angels and Jeff Shaara’s bestselling Civil War trilogy, this is a novel of true heroism and glory in America’s most trying hour. .
Price: $6.99
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Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century
In the post-September 11 world, Al Qaeda is no longer the central organizing force that aids or authorizes terrorist attacks or recruits terrorists. It is now more a source of inspiration for terrorist acts carried out by independent local groups that have branded themselves with the Al Qaeda name. Building on his previous groundbreaking research on the Al Qaeda network, forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman has greatly expanded his research to explain how Islamic terrorism emerges and operates in the twenty-first century.
In Leaderless Jihad, Sageman rejects the views that place responsibility for terrorism on society or a flawed, predisposed individual. Instead, he argues, the individual, outside influence, and group dynamics come together in a four-step process through which Muslim youth become radicalized. First, traumatic events either experienced personally or learned about indirectly spark moral outrage. Individuals interpret this outrage through a specific ideology, more felt and understood than based on doctrine. Usually in a chat room or other Internet-based venues, adherents share this moral outrage, which resonates with the personal experiences of others. The outrage is acted on by a group, either online or offline.
Leaderless Jihad offers a ray of hope. Drawing on historical analogies, Sageman argues that the zeal of jihadism is self-terminating; eventually its followers will turn away from violence as a means of expressing their discontent. The book concludes with Sageman's recommendations for the application of his research to counterterrorism law enforcement efforts. .
Price: $15.51
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Summerhill Secrets, Volume 1: Whispers Down the Lane/Secret in the Willows/Catch a Falling Star/Night of the Fireflies/A Cry in the Dark (Summerhill Secrets 1-5)
Set in rural Pennsylvania's Amish country, SummerHill Secrets follows the true-to-life struggles and heartfelt triumphs of fourteen-year-old Merry Hanson. Preteen girls will come to love, laugh, and cry with the impulsive Merry as she encounters intriguing mysteries while also struggling to be the best she can be in God's eyes. Volume One includes the original titles Whispers Down the Lane, Secret in the Willows, Catch a Falling Star, Night of the Fireflies, and A Cry in the Dark..
Price: $8.65
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Summerhill Secrets, Volume 2: House of Secrets/Echoes in the Wind/Hide Behind the Moon/Windows on the Hill/Shadows Beyond the Gate (Summerhill Secrets 6-10)
Set in rural Pennsylvania's Amish country, SummerHill Secrets follows the true-to-life struggles and heartfelt triumphs of sixteen-year-old Merry Hanson. Teen girls will come to love, laugh, and cry with the impulsive Merry as she encounters intriguing mysteries while also struggling to be the best she can be in God's eyes. Volume Two contains House of Secrets, Echoes in the Wind, Hide Behind the Moon, Windows on the Hill, and Shadows Beyond the Gate..
Price: $7.61
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I Choose To Stay: A Black Teacher Refuses to Desert the Inner City
The challenges of working in an urban school are not for every teacher. Some get burnt out fast. Some lose sight of why they started teaching to begin with. Some find their calling in other neighborhoods…with other kids. But not Salome Thomas-EL. A teacher at Roberts Vaux Middle School in Philadelphia's inner city, he chose to stay. Gripping, poignant, and surprisingly honest, this is his blistering real-life tale of mentoring and making a difference—and of how the reformation of America's educational system can start with just one school. I CHOOSE TO STAY
Salome Thomas-EL Embodying the best qualities of education pioneers Joe Clark and Jaime Escalante, Salome Thomas-EL is a black man dedicated to changing the lives—and dreams—of inner city kids. Born in 1964, one of eight children, Salome grew up in the Philadelphia projects. But identified early as "gifted," he had doors opened to him that are closed to most. In a media-related job, talking with superstars such as Julius Erving and Maurice Cheeks, he was on the fast track to success. But he couldn't forget his roots, or the children of the inner city. In the late 1980s, he went back into disadvantaged neighborhoods and into the classroom. As teacher, mentor, and in most cases, the only positive male role model in these children's lives, Salome Thomas-EL would do something extraordinary: he would lead the girls and boys of his school to victory as they competed in three major championships. Chess championships. Reviving the chess club, the Mighty Bishops, Salome taught his pupils to resolve conflict with their minds instead of their fists. They went into regional competitions, to the nationals in Tennessee, and to the U.S. Open in Orlando. Not knowing they were expected to lose, they won. In the years between 1996 and 2000, Mr. Thomas-EL helped scores of other schools begin similar programs. But in the same years, twenty of his students were murdered. Clearly, chess wasn't enough. Now in this compelling memoir, Salome Thomas-EL tells of what else needed to be done, from implementing the 100-book challenge program, to Saturday tutoring and in-school breakfasts. As his efforts began to have a citywide impact, the offers began pouring in for promotions, for advancement, for his going elsewhere. He chose to stay, and the results are an inspiration to us all. More than just one man's story, I CHOOSE TO STAY shows concerned Americans everywhere how to make a difference in their schools and communities. Acknowledging problems, banding together to solve them, and seeing the value of mentoring relationships are all lessons to be learned from the life of this extraordinary man, whose struggle and triumph are a model of how to engage students and their creativity...and of how to live..
Price: $6.75
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