Books about Deserve from Amazon.com

The success stories speak for themselves in this book from money maestro Dave Ramsey. Instead of promising the normal dose of quick fixes, Ramsey offers a bold, no-nonsense approach to money matters, providing not only the how-to but also a grounded and uplifting hope for getting out of debt and achieving total financial health.

Ramsey debunks the many myths of money (exposing the dangers of cash advance, rent-to-own, debt consolidation) and attacks the illusions and downright deceptions of the American dream, which encourages nothing but overspending and massive amounts of debt. "Don't even consider keeping up with the Joneses," Ramsey declares in his typically candid style. "They're broke!"

The Total Money Makeover isn't theory. It works every single time. It works because it is simple. It works because it gets to the heart of the money problems: you.

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Price: $11.60 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Oprah Book Club® Selection, May 1999: Astrid Magnussen, the teenage narrator of Janet Fitch's engrossing first novel, White Oleander, has a mother who is as sharp as a new knife. An uncompromising poet, Ingrid despises weakness and self-pity, telling her daughter that they are descendants of Vikings, savages who fought fiercely to survive. And when one of Ingrid's boyfriends abandons her, she illustrates her point, killing the man with the poison of oleander flowers. This leads to a life sentence in prison, leaving Astrid to teach herself the art of survival in a string of Los Angeles foster homes.

As Astrid bumps from trailer park to tract house to Hollywood bungalow, White Oleander uncoils her existential anxieties. "Who was I, really?" she asks. "I was the sole occupant of my mother's totalitarian state, my own personal history rewritten to fit the story she was telling that day. There were so many missing pieces." Fitch adroitly leads Astrid down a path of sorting out her past and identity. In the process, this girl develops a wire-tight inner strength, gains her mother's white-blonde beauty, and achieves some measure of control over their relationship. Even from prison, Ingrid tries to mold her daughter. Foiling her, Astrid learns about tenderness from one foster mother and how to stand up for herself from another. Like the weather in Los Angeles--the winds of the Santa Anas, the scorching heat--Astrid's teenage life is intense. Fitch's novel deftly displays that, and also makes Astrid's life meaningful. --Katherine Anderson.
Price: $1.44 [Notify me when price goes down.]

For all of us who have been wounded by another and struggled to understand and move beyond our feelings of hurt and anger, Lewis Smedes's classic book on forgiveness shows that it is possible to heal our pain and find room in our hearts to forgive. Breaking down the process of healing into four stages and offering stories of real people's experience throughout, this wise book provides hope and solace for all who long for the peace that comes with forgiveness. This classic is now available in an updated paperback PLUS edition with a reader's guide and other bonus materials.

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Price: $7.91 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Teacher-turned-writer Alfie Kohn takes on traditional-education giants like E.D. Hirsch, along with practically every state government "raising the bar" and toughening standards, in this attack on the back-to-basics movement An established critic of America's fixation on grades and test scores, Kohn has written a detailed, methodical treatise that accuses politicians and educators of replacing John Dewey, the father of public education, with test-tutoring king Stanley Kaplan. The current standards movement that demands students learn a list of dates and facts prepares kids for Jeopardy, Kohn argues, not real life. He joins David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle (The Manufactured Crisis) in questioning whether today's schools are truly floundering, warning that romantic memories of the old school, with its tests, worksheets, and drills, are purely that--memories romanticized by time and perception.

Kohn backs up his argument with research and observations from like-minded reformers such as Deborah Meier, but his position is nothing new. Rather, it is a volley back at traditionalists, a direct counter to Hirsch's 1996 book The Schools We Need, which Kohn critically dissects at length, even accusing Hirsch of incorrectly generalizing footnoted research. Kohn also takes issue with the backlash against the whole-language approach to reading instruction (though this argument wears thin, given that many schools have already moved beyond the debate to use a combination of whole language and phonics). The overall message of The Schools Our Children Deserve is a valid cautionary tale about the future of American education that deserves to be heard out by teachers, policymakers, and parents. --Jodi Mailander Farrell.
Price: $5.55 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Oprah Book Club® Selection, January 2001: A happy family, the Mulvaneys After decades of marriage, Mom and Dad are still in love--and the proud parents of a brood of youngsters that includes a star athlete, a class valedictorian, and a popular cheerleader. Home is an idyllic place called High Point Farm. And the bonds of attachment within this all-American clan do seem both deep and unconditional: "Mom paused again, drawing in her breath sharply, her eyes suffused with a special lustre, gazing upon her family one by one, with what crazy unbounded love she gazed upon us, and at such a moment my heart would contract as if this woman who was my mother had slipped her fingers inside my rib cage to contain it, as you might hold a wild, thrashing bird to comfort it."

But as we all know, Eden can't last forever. And in the hands of Joyce Carol Oates, who's chronicled just about every variety of familial dysfunction, you know the fall from grace is going to be a doozy. By the time all is said and done, a rape occurs, a daughter is exiled, much alcohol is consumed, and the farm is lost. Even to recount these events in retrospect is a trial for the Mulvaney offspring, one of whom declares: "When I say this is a hard reckoning I mean it's been like squeezing thick drops of blood from my veins." In the hands of a lesser writer, this could be the stuff of a bad television movie. But this is Oates's 26th novel, and by now she knows her material and her craft to perfection. We Were the Mulvaneys is populated with such richly observed and complex characters that we can't help but care about them, even as we wait for disaster to strike them down. --Anita Urquhart.
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Author Chris Lytle had modest career aspirations He merely wanted to be the next Walter Cronkite But instead of being offered a job in the newsroom, he was offered a job in the sales department He took the sales job and became an "accidental salesperson."

Most people don't choose sales as a career. Sales chooses them--and they end up wondering how to make the most of a profession they were never prepared for.

They don't have to wonder anymore. In THE ACCIDENTAL SALESPERSON, Lytle gives readers the road map for excelling in sales. Lively and entertaining, this somewhat unorthodox guide is packed with thought-provoking axioms, humorous and instructive anecdotes, specific strategies, and powerful tools--everything readers need to master essential lessons in sales and professionalism.

Readers will find there are some things THE ACCIDENTAL SALESPERSON lacks--dull theories, manipulative methods, and high-pressure tactics. But with the wealth of money-generating, career-building techniques it does provide, we don't think those items will be missed..
Price: $10.74 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The bestselling guide to the best places to retire in the United States.

Completely revised and updated, Retirement Places Rated is an indispensable reference for the estimated 40 million Americans who will be 65 or older by 2010. Dividing the United States into 18 regions and 200 cities, towns, and   counties, retirement quality-of-life expert David Savageau draws a detailed statistical portrait of each locale, ranking each for cost of living, climate, crime, services, employment opportunities, and leisure and recreational amenities. A rundown of the top 30 overall retirement places along with assessment tools, easy-to-read graphs and charts, interpretive commentaries by the author, and extensive appendices help retirees evaluate their relocation choices and make the right move.

For the seventh edition, new features include:

• 22 new places
• A new chapter on housing, with   data on shelter choices (homes, condos, apartments, and mobile homes), plus home prices and property taxes
• An expanded   ambience chapter, and   new data on age, education, politics, and diversity
• An expanded services chapter, with new data on air travel, physician specialties, and hospital services
• Easy-to-use relocation resources, including Web sites, addresses, books, and other information
• David Savageau Washington DC has traveled throughout the country since 1982, visiting locations that attract older adults. He wrote the "Quality of Life" column for Expansion Management magazine, and has been a featured speaker at the U.S. Department of State’s quarterly seminars on retirement.

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Price: $5.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $7.20 [Notify me when price goes down.]