Books about Life his from Amazon.com

Amazon Best of the Month, August 2008: In his fabulously entertaining The Kid Stays in the Picture, legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans wrote: "There are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth." David Carr's riveting debut memoir, The Night of the Gun, takes this theory to the extreme, as the New York Times reporter embarks on a three-year fact-finding mission to revisit his harrowing past as a drug addict and discovers that the search for answers can reveal many versions of the truth. Carr acknowledges that you can't write a my-life-as-an-addict story without the recent memoir scandals of James Frey and others weighing you down, but he regains the reader's trust by relying on his reporting skills to conduct dozens of often uncomfortable interviews with old party buddies, cops, and ex-girlfriends and follow an endless paper trail of legal and medical records, mug shots, and rejection letters. The kaleidoscopic narrative follows Carr through failed relationships and botched jobs, in and out of rehab and all manner of unsavory places in between, with cameos from the likes of Tom Arnold, Jayson Blair, and Barbara Bush. Admittedly, it's hard to love David Carr--sometimes you barely like the guy. How can you feel sympathy for a man who was smoking crack with his pregnant girlfriend when her water broke? But plenty of dark humor rushes through the book, and knowing that this troubled man will make it--will survive addiction, fight cancer, raise his twin girls--makes you want to stick around for the full 400-page journey. --Brad Thomas Parsons.
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Psychiatry and metaphysics blend together in this fascinating book based on a true case history Dr. Weiss, who was once firmly entrenched in a clinical approach to psychiatry, finds himself reluctantly drawn into past-life therapy when a hypnotized client suddenly reveals details of her previous lives. During one hypnosis session his client introduces the spirit guides who have been her soul therapists in between lives. This is when the story really takes off for Weiss, who discovers that these guides have specific messages about his dead son as well as Weiss's mission in life. No, we cannot verify the truth of this story using the limited scientific tools we have available. However, it is hard to dispute that this well-respected graduate of Columbia University and Yale Medical School has discovered a personal truth that has led him to be an enormously popular speaker, author, and leader in the field of past-life therapy. --Gail Hudson.
Price: $5.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

As a scientist, Albert Einstein is undoubtedly the most epic among 20th-century thinkers Albert Einstein as a man, however, has been a much harder portrait to paint, and what we know of him as a husband, father, and friend is fragmentary at best. With Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson (author of the bestselling biographies Benjamin Franklin and Kissinger) brings Einstein's experience of life, love, and intellectual discovery into brilliant focus. The book is the first biography to tackle Einstein's enormous volume of personal correspondence that heretofore had been sealed from the public, and it's hard to imagine another book that could do such a richly textured and complicated life as Einstein's the same thoughtful justice. Isaacson is a master of the form and this latest opus is at once arresting and wonderfully revelatory. --Anne Bartholomew

Read "The Light-Beam Rider," the first chapter of Walter Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe.

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Five Questions for Walter Isaacson

Amazon.com: What kind of scientific education did you have to give yourself to be able to understand and explain Einstein's ideas?

Isaacson: I've always loved science, and I had a group of great physicists--such as Brian Greene, Lawrence Krauss, and Murray Gell-Mann--who tutored me, helped me learn the physics, and checked various versions of my book. I also learned the tensor calculus underlying general relativity, but tried to avoid spending too much time on it in the book. I wanted to capture the imaginative beauty of Einstein's scientific leaps, but I hope folks who want to delve more deeply into the science will read Einstein books by such scientists as Abraham Pais, Jeremy Bernstein, Brian Greene, and others.

Amazon.com: That Einstein was a clerk in the Swiss Patent Office when he revolutionized our understanding of the physical world has often been treated as ironic or even absurd. But you argue that in many ways his time there fostered his discoveries. Could you explain?

Isaacson: I think he was lucky to be at the patent office rather than serving as an acolyte in the academy trying to please senior professors and teach the conventional wisdom. As a patent examiner, he got to visualize the physical realities underlying scientific concepts. He had a boss who told him to question every premise and assumption. And as Peter Galison shows in Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps, many of the patent applications involved synchronizing clocks using signals that traveled at the speed of light. So with his office-mate Michele Besso as a sounding board, he was primed to make the leap to special relativity.

Amazon.com: That time in the patent office makes him sound far more like a practical scientist and tinkerer than the usual image of the wild-haired professor, and more like your previous biographical subject, the multitalented but eminently earthly Benjamin Franklin. Did you see connections between them?

Isaacson: I like writing about creativity, and that's what Franklin and Einstein shared. They also had great curiosity and imagination. But Franklin was a more practical man who was not very theoretical, and Einstein was the opposite in that regard.

Amazon.com: Of the many legends that have accumulated around Einstein, what did you find to be least true? Most true?

Isaacson: The least true legend is that he failed math as a schoolboy. He was actually great in math, because he could visualize equations. He knew they were nature's brushstrokes for painting her wonders. For example, he could look at Maxwell's equations and marvel at what it would be like to ride alongside a light wave, and he could look at Max Planck's equations about radiation and realize that Planck's constant meant that light was a particle as well as a wave. The most true legend is how rebellious and defiant of authority he was. You see it in his politics, his personal life, and his science.

Amazon.com: At Time and CNN and the Aspen Institute, you've worked with many of the leading thinkers and leaders of the day. Now that you've had the chance to get to know Einstein so well, did he remind you of anyone from our day who shares at least some of his remarkable qualities?

Isaacson: There are many creative scientists, most notably Stephen Hawking, who wrote the essay on Einstein as "Person of the Century" when I was editor of Time. In the world of technology, Steve Jobs has the same creative imagination and ability to think differently that distinguished Einstein, and Bill Gates has the same intellectual intensity. I wish I knew politicians who had the creativity and human instincts of Einstein, or for that matter the wise feel for our common values of Benjamin Franklin.

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More to Explore

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Kissinger: A Biography

The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made

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Price: $10.90 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Product Description:
***Featuring a Foreword by J.K. Rowling***

The Harry Potter Books Were Just the Beginning of the Story. . .

During the brief span of just one decade, hundreds of millions of perfectly ordinary people made history: they became the only ones who would remember what it was like when the Harry Potter saga was still unfinished. What it was like to seek out friends, families, online forums, fan fiction, and podcasts to get a fix between novels. When the death of a character was a hotter bet than the World Series. When the unfolding story of a boy wizard changed the way books are read for all time.

And as webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron, one of the most popular Harry Potter sites on the Internet, Melissa Anelli had a front row seat to it all. Whether it was helping Scholastic stop leaks and track down counterfeiters, hosting live PotterCasts at bookstores across the country, touring with the wizard rock band Harry and the Potters, or traveling to Edinburgh to interview J. K. Rowling personally, Melissa was at the center of the Harry Potter tornado, and nothing about her life would ever be the same.

The Harry Potter books are a triumph of the imagination that did far more than break sales records for all time. They restored the world's sense of wonder, and took on a magical life of their own. Now the series has ended, but the story is not over. With remembrances from J. K. Rowling's editors, agents, publicists, fans, and Rowling herself, Melissa Anelli takes us on a personal journey through every aspect of the Harry Potter phenomenon—from his very first spell to his lasting impact on the way we live and dream.
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Somewhere over the passing years and changing culture, women have lost their way. This book was written to lead them bck home. Regardless of how you began your marriage or how dark and lonely the path that has brought you to where you are now..
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Everyone loves a good fable, and this is certainly one. The protagonist is Julian Mantle, a high-profile attorney with a whacked-out schedule and a shameful set of spiritual priorities. Of course it takes a crisis (heart attack) to give Mantle pause. And pause he does--suddenly selling all his beloved possessions to trek India in pursuit of a meaningful existence. The Himalayan gurus along the way give simple advice, such as, "What lies behind you and what lies before you is nothing compared to what lies within you." Yet it is easy to forgive the story's simplicity because each kernel of wisdom is framed to address the persistent angst of Western white-collar professionals. --Gail Hudson.
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Oswald Chambers, a Scotsman who converted to Christianity in his teens under the ministry of Charles Spurgeon, has been affecting Christians with his devotional words since My Utmost for His Highest was first published in 1935. This acknowledged classic contains 365 daily readings that take heady doctrine and make it practical, realistic, and intensely personal. With humor and humility, Chambers speaks plainly to the common man struggling with devotion to Christ in daily living. Worldly cares and self-serving desires begin to lose their appeal as Chambers aides the reader in transforming his mind by viewing life through the instruction of God's Word. Richard Halverson, former chaplain of the United States Senate, attests to this: "no book except the Bible has influenced my walk with Christ at such deep maturing levels." This is Chambers's chief desire, directing the reader to "shut out every other consideration and keep yourself before God for this one thing only--My Utmost for His Highest... determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and for Him alone." --Jill Heatherly.
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Study after study shows that fathers set up their daughters for success Involved fathers-whether or not they live in the same house as their daughters-boost their daughters' academic achievement, promote their emotional health, increase their compassion for others, and even bolster the status of women.

In What a Difference a Daddy Makes, renowned psychologist and bestselling author Dr. Kevin Leman seamlessly weaves the latest research on fathering with funny, moving stories about his own parenting experiences. He gives practical ideas and inspiration for fathers and provides specific direction for helping daughters grow into loving, confident, caring adults.

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In A New and Astonishing Life Of Benjamin Franklin As Written by His Good Mouse AMOS, young readers will discover that while the good Mr. Franklin got considerable credit, many of his most important contributions really originated with Amos, a less-than-humble rodent. Oh sure, his manuscript was found by author-editor Robert Lawson and published first in 1939, but discerning readers ever since have figured that it's the mouse who's the fellow with the ... tale. (For ages 10 and up with a sense of humor).
Price: $2.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]