Books about Cleaning from Amazon.com

Here's another management parable that draws its lesson from an unlikely source--this time it's the fun-loving fishmongers at Seattle's Pike Place Market. In Fish! the heroine, Mary Jane Ramirez, recently widowed and mother of two, is asked to engineer a turnaround of her company's troubled operations department, a group that authors Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen describe as a "toxic energy dump." Most reasonable heads would cut their losses and move on. Why bother with this bunch of losers? But the authors don't make it so easy for Mary Jane. Instead, she's left to sort out this mess with the help of head fishmonger Lonnie. Based on a bestselling corporate education video, Fish! aims to help employees find their way to a fun and happy workplace. While some may find the story line and prescriptions--such as "Choose Your Attitude," "Make Their Day," and "Be Present"--downright corny, others will find a good dose of worthwhile motivational management techniques. If you loved Who Moved My Cheese? then you'll find much to like here. And don't worry about Mary Jane and kids. Fish! has a happy ending for everyone. --Harry C. Edwards.
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Kim Edwards’s stunning family drama evokes the spirit of Sue Miller and Alice Sebold, articulating every mother’s silent fear: what would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? In 1964, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins, he immediately recognizes that one of them has Down Syndrome and makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and to keep her birth a secret. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child as her own. Compulsively readable and deeply moving, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter is an astonishing tale of redemptive love. BACKCOVER: “Edwards is a born novelist. . . . Rich with psychological detail and the nuances of human connection.”
—Chicago Tribune

“Unfolds from an absolutely gripping premise, drawing you deeply and irrevocably into the entangled lives of two families and the devastating secret that shaped them both. I loved this riveting story.”
—Sue Monk Kidd

“Anyone would be struck by the extraordinary power and sympathy of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter.”
—The Washington Post

“Kim Edwards has written a novel so mesmerizing that I devoured it. . . . The Memory Keeper’s Daughter has it all.”
—Sena Jeter Naslund

“Kim Edwards has created a tale of regret and redemption, of honest emotion, of characters haunted by their past. This is simply a beautiful book.”
—Jodi Picoult.
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Now a major motion picture from Lion's Gate Films starring Christian Bale (Metroland), Chloe Sevigny (The Last Days of Disco), Jared Leto (My So Called Life), and Reese Witherspoon (Cruel Intentions), and directed by Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol).

In American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis imaginatively explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront..
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Are you confused by all the advice you hear and see daily on how to "go green"? Do you want to incorporate earth-friendly practices into your life, but you don't know where to start? Don't stress! Green guru Sophie Uliano has sorted through all the eco-info out there and put everything you need to know about living a green lifestyle right at your fingertips.

In Gorgeously Green, Sophie offers a simple eight-step program that is an easy and fun way to begin living an earth-friendly life. Each chapter covers topics from beauty to fitness, shopping to your kitchen—even your transportation. Whether it's finding the right lipstick, making dinner, buying gifts, or picking out a hot new outfit, finally, there is a book that tackles your daily eco-challenges with a take-charge plan. Just consider Sophie your go-to girl with all the eco-solutions. Find out how to:

• Green your entire beauty regime
• Detoxify your home
• Indulge in guilt-free shopping
• Adopt a home fitness routine
• Prepare eco-licious treats
• Give your kitchen a green makeover
• Become more aware of your impact on the earth

The book's dozens and dozens of eco-friendly tips, products, and practices combine to form a treasure trove of practical advice for every possible way to become stylishly green. Your questions about dressing, makeup, eating, shopping, cleaning, travel, and more are all answered right here. Adopting a green lifestyle is among the most positive, forward-thinking, and personally fulfilling choices that anyone can make--and Gorgeously Green shows that it doesn't have to be tedious, time-consuming, or glamourless!

Questions for Sophie Uliano

We had the opportunity to chat with Sophie Uliano over e-mail about Gorgeously Green, her suggestions for saving the Earth, and the very real possibility of becoming a hippie. Here's what Sophie had to say about the economics of eco-consciousness, the allure of non-toxic nail polish, and of course, whether it's truly easy being green.

Amazon.com: I've heard a common complaint that energy-saving light bulbs, organic food and clothing, and other "green" products are not as economical as traditional products. Is that true? Any tips for readers who want to be eco-conscious and budget-conscious too?

Sophie Uliano: I think that going green has a double meaning in that it also is about saving money. There is no way that I would or could go green if it meant that I was going to have to pay much more. If you make the cleaning spray that I suggest in my book, you will save a bunch on cleaning supplies because it's an all-purpose cleaner that I use on almost everything (a great germ-buster too). You will pay a little more upfront for energy-saving light bulbs, but as they last 15 times longer, you will save money in the long run. Food is the only thing that you may have to pay a bit more for, however, I think that your health is an important investment, so I choose to save on boring cleaning supplies and treat my family to food that not only tastes more delicious, but will keep them healthy and vibrant. Remember that if you follow all the energy-saving tips in the book, you are going to save a wad of cash too--so it's a win/win.

Amazon.com: I think many people are interested in making more sustainable choices, but when it comes to the heavy lifting it can be hard to break old habits. We tend to think, "Someone else will ride their bike to work today--I'll drive like I always do." What advice do you have that can help people "walk the talk"?

Uliano: I agree that it is hard to break old habits. My suggestion is to break one habit at a time. Choose the one thing that bothers you most. For me it is using paper towels when I know that I can easily use a rag instead. Make a decision about the change you want to make and tell your friends and family that you have decided to do this one thing and that you want their support. It could be that you are going to cook one organic meal from scratch once a week, or that you are going to air-dry your clothes this summer or simply that you will wash out a barely used zip-lock bag, instead of throwing it away--easy!

Amazon.com: Furthermore, I've heard many people worry that eco-consciousness is the first step toward becoming a granola hippie, to use one of your own phrases from the book. Do you have to be a hippie to go green?

Uliano: You so don't have to become the tree hugger/hippie to live a green way of life. I feel passionately that you can still have the glitz, the glam and the gleaming house because now there are so many eco-friendly companies that offer you safe and healthy choices: nail polishes, organic clothes that are fabulous to name a few.

Amazon.com: Not everyone lives in an area where green options are available and accessible. Can you suggest a few ways that readers can live a greener lifestyle even if they don't have easy access to car-sharing companies, wet dry-cleaners, and other alternatives you mention in your book?

Uliano: If you don't have easy access to some of the green options in my book, it really doesn't matter. No matter where you live, you can make a start. I recently visited my in-laws in Georgia, who have fewer options than we do here in Los Angeles; however, they have embarked on making their own cleaners, composting, growing veggies etc. There's advantages to living in a metropolitan city in that you can buy all the great eco-stuff, but if you live in a more rural setting, it's fantastic too because you may have a yard in which you can grow tomatoes or air-dry your laundry. I'd pick the latter if given the choice!

Amazon.com: Your book is mainly directed toward female readers--what tips do you have for men who are interested in making sustainable lifestyle changes?

Uliano: I wrote my book for women because I realized that as a mom, wife and working girl I could show like-minded women how easy it is to become green, however, men can totally benefit from my book too! My husband doesn't have a huge interest in non-toxic nail polish, but he's fascinated with everything solar and has started biking everywhere. We work together as a team, inspiring each other with our daily green discoveries--it's fun!.
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When Peter Walsh, organizational guru of TLC's hit show Clean Sweep and a regular contributor to The Oprah Winfrey Show, appeared on national television shows and told people how they could reclaim their lives from the suffocating burden of their clutter, the response was overwhelming. People flooded Peter's website (www.peterwalshdesign.com) with success stories about how his book had changed their lives.

Peter's unique approach helped people everywhere learn to let go of the emotional and psychological clutter that was literally and figuratively choking the life out of their homes.

With his good humor and reassuring advice, Peter shows you how to face the really big question: What is the vision for the life you want to live? He then offers simple techniques and a step-by-step plan to assess the state of your home, prioritize your possessions, and let go of the clutter you have been holding on to that has kept you from living the life you imagine. The result is freed-up space, less stress, and more energy for living a happier, richer life every day..
Price: $7.97 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Timothy Carrier, having a beer after work at his friend’s tavern, enjoys drawing eccentric customers into amusing conversations. But the jittery man who sits next to him tonight has mistaken Tim for someone very different—and passes to him a manila envelope full of cash.

“Ten thousand now. You get the rest when she’s gone.”

The stranger walks out, leaving a photo of the pretty woman marked for death, and her address. But things are about to get worse. In minutes another stranger sits next to Tim. This one is a cold-blooded killer who believes Tim is the man who has hired him.

Thinking fast, Tim says, “I’ve had a change of heart. You get ten thousand—for doing nothing. Call it a no-kill fee.” He keeps the photo and gives the money to the hired killer. And when Tim secretly follows the man out of the tavern, he gets a further shock: the hired killer is a cop.

Suddenly, Tim Carrier, an ordinary guy, is at the center of a mystery of extraordinary proportions, the one man who can save an innocent life and stop a killer far more powerful than any cop…and as relentless as evil incarnate. But first Tim must discover within himself the capacity for selflessness, endurance, and courage that can turn even an ordinary man into a hero, inner resources that will transform his idea of who he is and what it takes to be The Good Guy.


From the Hardcover edition..
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Are you eager to make a change but unsure what's next?

Organizing works when you know where you're going but don't know how to get there. But sometimes organizing isn't enough. When you're eager to make a change in your life, but you are unsure of your new destination, you need to SHED.

Expert organizer and New York Times bestselling author Julie Morgenstern has developed the four-step SHED plan to help you get unstuck from the defunct, obsolete objects and obligations preventing you from living a richer, more meaningful life. SHED picks up where other organizing processes leave off -- helping you purge the physical and behavioral clutter holding you back so you can finally create real change in your life.

But it's not just about throwing things away! The SHED process is more about what comes before and after you heave the clutter, so that the changes you make really stick in the long term. Learn how to:

Separate the treasures -- What is truly worth hanging on to?

Heave the trash -- What's weighing you down?

Embrace your identity -- Who are you without all your stuff?

Drive yourself forward -- Which direction connects to your genuine self?

Whether you're facing a move, a promotion, an empty nest, a marriage, divorce or retirement, When Organizing Isn't Enough provides a practical, transformative plan for positively managing change in every aspect of your life..
Price: $11.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Drawing on the success of her first book, Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui, Karen Kingston has met popular demand by expanding on the indispensable activity of clearing clutter. There is very little of actual Feng Shui here, and certainly nothing you can't get elsewhere, but the clutter problem gets full and complete treatment. Kingston reminds us that clutter is stuck energy that keeps you stuck in undesirable life patterns. Therefore, you can "sort out your life by sorting out your junk." Kingston covers the reasons we keep things as well as the amazing stories of people who have cleared their clutter away. More than just junk, clutter is all those things that have negative symbology and that collect stagnant energy. This latter can also apply to bodily, emotional, and spiritual clutter, all of which Kingston describes with characteristic passion. In an age of accumulation, it's good to see a book that frees up life again..
Price: $5.15 [Notify me when price goes down.]

At age 10, Steve Martin got a job selling guidebooks at the newly opened Disneyland In the decade that followed, he worked in Disney's magic shop, print shop, and theater, and developed his own magic/comedy act. By age 20, studying poetry and philosophy on the side, he was performing a dozen times a week, most often at the Disney rival, Knott's Berry Farm. Obsession is a substitute for talent, he has said, and Steve Martin's focus and daring--his sheer tenacity--are truly stunning. He writes about making the very tough decision to sacrifice everything not original in his act, and about lucking into a job writing for The Smothers Brothers Show. He writes about mentors, girlfriends, his complex relationship with his parents and sister, and about some of his great peers in comedy--Dan Ackroyd, Lorne Michaels, Carl Reiner, Johnny Carson. He writes about fear, anxiety and loneliness. And he writes about how he figured out what worked on stage.

This book is a memoir, but it is also an illuminating guidebook to stand-up from one of our two or three greatest comedians. Though Martin is reticent about his personal life, he is also stunningly deft, and manages to give readers a feeling of intimacy and candor. Illustrated throughout with black and white photographs collected by Martin, this book is instantly compelling visually and a spectacularly good read.


Amazon.com Exclusive
Three Bonus Deleted Passages from Steve Martin's Born Standing Up

On Returning to Disneyland
Ten years later, after the Beatles, drugs, and Vietnam had changed the entire tenor of American life, I returned to the magic shop at Disneyland and stood as a stranger. As I looked around the eerily familiar room another first came over me, a previously unknown emotion, one that was to have a curious force over me for the rest my life: the longing tug of nostalgia. Looking at the counter where I pitched Svengali Decks and the Incredible Shrinking Die, I was awash with the recollection of indelible nights where the sky was blown open by fireworks and big band sounds drifted through trees strung with fairy lights. I remembered my youth, when every moment was crisply present, when heartbreak and joy replaced each other quickly, fully and without trauma. Even now when I visit Disneyland, I am steeped in melancholy, because a corporation has preserved my nostalgia impeccably. Every nail and screw is the same, and Disneyland looks as new now as it did then. The paint is fresh, and the only wear allowed is faux. In fact, only I have changed. In the dream-like world of childhood memories, so often vague and imprecise, Disneyland remains for me not only vivid in memory, but vivid in fact.

On Meeting Diane Hall
During the day, I attended Santa Ana Junior College, taking drama classes and pursuing an unexpected interest in English poetry from Donne to Eliot. I would occasionally assist on a college stage production--never appearing in one--as a member of the crew. Years later I was looking through a box of memorabilia and noticed a silk-screened playbill of the musical Carousel, May, 1964, which listed me as a stagehand. The lead actress was Diane Hall. Something connected and I remembered that Diane Keaton's name was once Hall, (hence, Annie Hall). I confirmed with her that she was in that production. Neither of us remembers meeting the other, yet we must have worked in proximity. More evidence that I was a wallflower. Decades later, we ended up "making love" on the floor of a movie set on Father of the Bride.

On the Kennedy Assassination
One Friday in 1963, I had finished a class and was about to drive to Knott's Berry Farm for the afternoon shows when I saw a clump of agitated students across the campus. I asked someone what was going on. "They're saying that the president's been shot."

I drove across town to Knott's and punched radio buttons. I could hear the scheduled programs clicking off and being replaced by live broadcasts. Assassination seemed so ancient and inconceivable, I was sure that someone would soon correct the erroneous report. President Kennedy died that day and I didn't know that news could be taken so personally by a nation. Sitting backstage, watching the Birdcage's black-and-white TV drone out the increasingly grave report, we were all mute. We assumed the performance that night would be canceled, but as show time neared, word came down that we were going on. We couldn't fathom why; we believed no one would show up, much less enjoy us. I still can't explain the psychology, why the very full house that night was able to roar with laughter. The obvious must be correct: our silly show was providing some kind of balm that soothed the ache.

In 2003 I hosted the Oscars on the particular weekend that the United States invaded Iraq. The news was grim and just hours before the show I flipped on the TV and saw a report, subsequently proven false, that our captive soldiers were being beheaded. I quickly turned the TV off, sick. I knew, from my experience forty years earlier with the Kennedy assassination, what my job was, and I harbored a secret knowledge that the audience would laugh. I also felt that soldiers who might be watching would be tuning in to see the Oscars and all its hoopla, not a cheerless comedian doing what he doesn't do best. I decided to acknowledge the circumstances early in the show and then get on with the jokes. The academy had announced that the show would "cut back on the glitz." I walked out for the opening monologue, took a look around the stage at the dazzling, swirling staircases, mirrored curtains and polished floor, and simply said, "I'm glad they cut back on the glitz." It got a laugh of relief and the show could go on.

More from Steve Martin

The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!

Shopgirl

The Pleasure of My Company

Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays

Pure Drivel

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Praise for Born Standing Up
"[A] lean, incisive new book about the trajectory of [Martin's] life in comedy...Born Standing Up does a sharp-witted job of breaking down the step-by-step process that brought Steve Martin from Disneyland, where he spent his version of a Dickensian childhood as a schoolboy employee, to both the pinnacle of stardom and the brink of disaster...tightly focused...Born Standing Up is a surprising book: smart, serious, heartfelt and confessional without being maudlin." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"Absolutely magnificent. One of the best books about comedy and being a comedian ever written." --Jerry Seinfeld, GQ

"The writing is evocative, unflinching and cool. When Martin takes a scalpel to his life, what you feel is the precision of the surgeon more than the primal scream of the unanaesthetized patient...Born Standing Up is neither fanfare nor confession. It gives off a vibe of rigorous honesty. With lots of laughs." --Richard Corliss, Time Magazine

"A spare, unexpectedly resonant remembrance of things past…Martin's one true subject is the evolution of his comedy--the transcendent moments...A smart, gentlemanly, modest book…winning." --Jeff Giles, Entertainment Weekly, EW Pick: A

"A charming memoir tracking what the great comic characterizes as his 'war years.' Martin offers an eloquent and exacting account... [and] approaches his subjects with generosity, warmth and integrity." --Kirkus Reviews

"Sure to delight fans and create new ones." --Laura Mathews, Good Housekeeping

"What fun to discover the humble beginnings of some of his iconic personas...inspiring." --Rachel Rosenblit, Elle

"The archetypical story of the underdog's rise and a particularly American story...beautifully written, honest, engaging, and quietly brave." --Frederic Tuten, Bomb Magazine

"Son, you have an ob-leek sense of humor." --Elvis Presley

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Price: $4.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.

It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem. .
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