Books about Shaping from Amazon.com

The World Café process has been used by tens of thousands of people around the world to tackle real-life issues. Based on seven key principles, it begins with small, intimate conversations at café -style tables; these gatherings then link and build on each other as people move between groups and cross-pollinate ideas. In this way, Café learning enables even very large groups to think together creatively in a single, connected conversation. This complete resource explains the Café concept and provides readers with the tools they need to get started. Each chapter opens with stories from business, education, government, and community organizations, each a dramatic example of how leaders are using this process in the real world. Such stories underline the Café 's immediate, practical implications for meeting and conference design, strategy formation, knowledge creation, and large-scale systems change. The book includes a foreword by best-selling author Margaret J. Wheatley, an afterword by author Peter Senge, and real-world stories of the Café process in action at Hewlett-Packard, the nation of Singapore, and the University of Texas..
Price: $10.65 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Robert Young Pelton first became aware of the phenomenon of hired guns in the War on Terror when he met a covert team of contractors on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border in the fall of 2003. Pelton soon embarked on a globe-spanning odyssey to penetrate and understand this shadowy world, ultimately delivering stunning insights into the way private soldiers are used.

Enter a blood-soaked world of South African mercenaries and tribal fighters backed by ruthless financiers. Drop into Baghdad’s Green Zone, strap on body armor, and take a daily high-speed ride with a doomed crew of security contractors who dodge car bombs and snipers just to get their charges to the airport. Share a drink in a chic hotel bar with wealthy owners of private armies who debate the best way to stay alive in war zones.

Licensed to Kill spans four continents and three years, taking us inside the CIA’s dirty wars; the brutal contractor murders in Fallujah and the Alamo-like sieges in Najaf and Al Kut; the Deep South contractor training camps where ex–Special Operations soldiers and even small town cops learn the ropes; the contractor conventions where macho attendees swap bullet-punctuated tales and discuss upcoming gigs; and the grim Central African prison where contractors turned failed mercenaries pay a steep price.

The United States has encouraged the use of the private sector in all facets of the War on Terror, placing contractors outside the bounds of functional legal constraints. With the shocking clarity that can come only from firsthand observation, Licensed to Kill painstakingly deconstructs the most controversial events and introduces the pivotal players. Most disturbingly, it shows that there are indeed thousands of contractors—with hundreds more being produced every month—who’ve been given a license to kill, their services available to the highest bidder.


From the Hardcover edition..
Price: $7.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Wonder why all those hours spent on the treadmill or lifting weights aren't getting you the results you want? According to Thurmond, if you're not working out in a way that's just right for your individual body type, you're wasting time and energy. In 12-DAY BODY SHAPING MIRACLE, Michael Thurmond presents his breakthrough exercise program for getting your body into a better proportional balance. Using Thurmond's exclusive "blueprinting system", you'll identify your unique metabolism and body type. You'll then discover a personalized exercise plan to quickly target your specific problem areas and transform your body shape in just 12 days. For example, if you are bottom heavy, you learn how to trim your thighs and hips while building up your shoulders and back, giving your body that trimmer, more hourglass-like shape. Thurmond's unique program focuses on sculpting muscles through select, easy-to-do weight training techniques with cardiovascular activity. And, no matter what your starting weight, level of fitness or shape is, Thurmond guarantees rapid results..
Price: $8.27 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In his explosive New York Times bestseller, top CIA operative Robert Baer paints a chilling picture of how terrorism works on the inside and provides startling evidence of how Washington politics sabotaged the CIA’s efforts to root out the world’s deadliest terrorists, allowing for the rise of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the continued entrenchment of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

A veteran case officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations in the Middle East, Baer witnessed the rise of terrorism first hand and the CIA’s inadequate response to it, leading to the attacks of September 11, 2001. This riveting book is both an indictment of an agency that lost its way and an unprecedented look at the roots of modern terrorism, and includes a new afterword in which Baer speaks out about the American war on terrorism and its profound implications throughout the Middle East.

“Robert Baer was considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field
officer in the Middle East.”
–Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker

From The Preface
This book is a memoir of one foot soldier’s career in the other cold war, the one against terrorist networks. It’s a story about places most Americans will never travel to, about people many Americans would prefer to think we don’t need to do business with.

This memoir, I hope, will show the reader how spying is supposed to work, where the CIA lost its way, and how we can bring it back again. But I hope this book will accomplish one more purpose as well: I hope it will show why I am angry about what happened to the CIA. And I want to show why every American and everyone who cares about the preservation of this country should be angry and alarmed, too.

The CIA was systematically destroyed by political correctness, by petty Beltway wars, by careerism, and much more. At a time when terrorist threats were compounding globally, the agency that should have been monitoring them was being scrubbed clean instead. Americans were making too much money to bother. Life was good. The White House and the National Security Council became cathedrals of commerce where the interests of big business outweighed the interests of protecting American citizens at home and abroad. Defanged and dispirited, the CIA went along for the ride. And then on September 11, 2001, the reckoning for such vast carelessness was presented for all the world to see.
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Price: $4.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

An animated first-time history of the visionaries--editors, authors, librarians, booksellers, and others--whose passion for books has transformed American childhood and American culture

What should children read? As the preeminent children's literature authority, Leonard S. Marcus, shows incisively, that's the three-hundred-year-old question that sparked the creation of a rambunctious children's book publishing scene in Colonial times. And it's the urgent issue that went on to fuel the transformation of twentieth-century children's book publishing from a genteel backwater to big business.

Marcus delivers a provocative look at the fierce turf wars fought among pioneering editors, progressive educators, and librarians--most of them women--throughout the twentieth century. His story of the emergence and growth of the major publishing houses--and of the distinctive literature for the young they shaped--gains extraordinary depth (and occasional dish) through the author's path-finding research and in-depth interviews with dozens of editors, artists, and other key publishing figures whose careers go back to the 1930s, including Maurice Sendak, Ursula Nordstrom, Margaret K. McElderry, and Margret Rey.

From The New England Primer to The Cat in the Hat to Cormier's The Chocolate War, Marcus offers a richly informed, witty appraisal of the pivotal books that transformed children's book publishing, and brings alive the revealing synergy between books like these and the national mood of their times..
Price: $13.84 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Christendom is dying and needs to be removed from its life-support system. Starting with this frank assessment of the current church, Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch present an alternative model for ministry in todayÂ's postmodern world. Instead of mourning the demise of the Western church as the center of society, the authors explain how the church can be reborn through incarnational mission, messianic spirituality, and apostolic structure. Church leaders who heed the authorsÂ' call will see death turned into new life through the creation of a vital, missional church.

[Frost and HirschÂ's] contribution brings an in-depth theological reflection as well as providing a broad scope informed by their extensive reading in theology, culture and mission as well as their on-site visits to missional churches in the USA and the United Kingdom.
—Eddie Gibbs, Donald A. McGavran Professor of Church Growth, Fuller Theological Seminary

This book is a bountiful multi-course meal, each serving presented with charm and class. It will satisfy even eclectic appetites, and please the most discriminating palates. Four Stars.
—Leonard Sweet, Drew Theological School, George Fox University.
Price: $12.68 [Notify me when price goes down.]

According to Robert Baer, the center of the global economy is a "kingdom built on thievery, one that nurtures terrorism, destroys any possibility of a middle class based on property rights, and promotes slavery and prostitution." This kingdom also sits on one quarter of the world's oil reserves, thus ensuring that it receives the full support and protection of the U.S. government. Sleeping With the Devil details the hypocritical and corrupt relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and the potentially calamitous economic consequences of maintaining this Faustian bargain.

As Baer makes clear, the U.S. has been aware of problems within the bitterly divided Al Sa'ud family for years, but has ignored the facts in order to keep lucrative business deals afloat. (The amount of money the royal family spends to influence powerful American politicians and lobbyists is staggering.) Particularly damning are his details regarding Saudi Arabia's support of militant Islamic groups, including al Qaeda. The ruling family funnels millions of dollars to such groups in order to dissuade them from overthrowing the monarchy--a protection scheme that is shaky at best, given the hatred most citizens feel for the ruling family. To prevent economic disaster that could come from either a local uprising or an interruption in the flow of oil due to terrorism, Baer raises the possibility of the U.S. seizing the Saudi oil fields and forcing a regime change on its own terms: "An invasion and a revolution might be the only things that can save the industrial West from a prolonged, wrenching depression," he warns.

Baer spent 21 years with the CIA, much of it in the Middle East, so he is an informed guide to this complex subject. His alarming book deserves to be read for raising many important and troubling questions. --Shawn Carkonen.
Price: $7.07 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Just as culture is critical to understanding the dynamics behind any thriving community, organization, or business, the daily realities and deep structure of school life hold the key to educational success. Reforms that strive for educational excellence are likely to fail unless they are meaningfully linked to the school's unique culture. In Shaping School Culture, Terrence E. Deal and Kent D. Peterson show how leaders can harness the power of school culture to build a lively, cooperative spirit and a sense of school identity.

The authors draw from over twenty years of research on school improvement as well as from their own extensive work with school leaders across the country to identify viable new strategies for effective school leadership. They describe the critical elements of culture--the purposes, traditions, norms, and values that guide and glue the community together--and show how a positive culture can make school reforms work. Deal and Peterson also explore the harmful characteristics of toxic cultures and suggest antidotes to negativity on the part of teachers, students, principals, or parents.

Using real-life cases from their own research, Deal and Peterson provide concrete, detailed illustrations of exemplary practice in different school cultures. They reveal the key symbolic roles that leaders play in school change and identify the specific skills needed to change school culture successfully. Shaping School Culture provides an action blueprint for school leaders committed to transforming their schools for success..
Price: $20.83 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From the author of the national bestseller The Complete Book of Abs comes the definitive book on the Next Big Thing in fitnesscore training From the bestselling author of The Complete Book of Abs comes this comprehensive guide to a new movement in fitness: core training. The bodys core refers to the muscles that comprise the center of your body: the muscles of the abdomen, lower back, butt, and hips. With the increasing popularity of yoga and Pilatesboth of which depend on strong core musclesthe fitness community has turned its focus from the abs to the core. The Brungardt brothers simple 9-week program is based on over 100 exercises and includes workouts appropriate for beginners and fitness enthusiasts alike. This book will help men and women of all body types and fitness levels to strengthen their core for better mobility, posture, and physique. Get ready to get fit!.
Price: $8.78 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Inside Every Young Woman is a Princess…In Search of her Prince

In a culture that mocks our longing for tender romance, in a world where fairy tales never seem to come true — do we dare hope for more? For every young woman asking that question, this book is an invitation. With refreshing candor and vulnerability, bestselling author Leslie Ludy reveals how, starting today, you can experience the passion and intimacy you long for. You can begin a never-ending love story with your true Prince. Discover the authentic beauty of a life fully set-apart for Him. Experience a romance that will transform every part of your existence and fulfill the deepest longings of your feminine heart..
Price: $8.46 [Notify me when price goes down.]