Books about Navigating from Amazon.com

The latest tentacle of John Gray's formidable Mars and Venus octopus deals with a topic near to the heart of almost everybody--dating. With a lot of insight and common sense, Gray tackles the hard and often messy business of finding "a soul mate." Without fear or favor, Mars and Venus on a Date dissects the dynamics between men and women and the five stages each relationship must pass through: attraction, uncertainty, exclusivity, intimacy, and, finally, engagement (for marriage, of course). Even though Mars and Venus on a Date isn't The Rules by a long shot, the courtship it describes is surprisingly old-fashioned. It's chock-full of things your mother might say: "Most people find or are found by their soul mates when they are not really looking." "The man should never talk more than the woman." But how to know if the person you're with is your "soul mate?" Gray writes, "When our soul wants to marry our partner, it feels like a promise that we came into this world to keep." Which translates into, "When you know, you know.".
Price: $6.11 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Jane Isay, the editor who discovered Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia and commissioned Rachel Simmons' Odd Girl Out, has written an insightful, compelling book about "the delicate lifelong bond between grown kids and their parents." Isay traveled across the country and interviewed nearly 75 people (including dozens of parents and grown children), and Walking on Eggshells shares moving stories that will help parents and grown children build strong new adult relationships with one another. We asked Po Bronson, author of Why Do I Love These People?, to read Isay's book and give us his take. Read his review below. --Daphne Durham

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Guest Reviewer: Po Bronson

Po Bronson is the author of the brilliant bestseller What Should I Do with My Life?, the powerful and poignant Why Do I Love These People?, a hilarious novel called The Bombadiers, and The Nudist on the Late Shift, a collection of "true stories" about Silicon Valley.

When we tell family stories, we so often focus on the beginning and the end. The beginning is the two decades of our childhood and adolescence, and it's been the favorite narrative arc ever since Freud. What happens in your childhood does not stay in your childhood--it haunts the rest of your life. In the last decade, we've suddenly heard more stories of the end--narratives constructed around a parent's death, and often the year spent caring for that parent on their deathbed.

Because these are the conventional narratives, they often distract our attention from the many decades in between. We barely even have a terminology for these years--and the terms we employ sound like oxymorons: "Adult Children," "Parents of Adults." There's an old saying: you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family. In the beginning this is true--we're in the care of our parents, like it or not. And in the ending this is also true--they're in our care, like it or not. But in the long middle, this isn't so true. The middle is a period where both child and parent can keep their distance, if they prefer. And often do, harboring resentment. We too often accept that this is just the way it is. "She's never going to change" is a common, fatalist refrain.

In Walking on Eggshells, Jane Isay shines a much-needed light on these years. With a graceful respect for the families she investigates, she tells their stories--how they lost their love, and how they regained it. Isay covers the many ways families develop resentment, and the many techniques they employed to make peace. She shows that small changes in routine can go a long way to restoring goodwill. But it's not a self-help book; it's more of a literary contemplation, and we learn more by inspiration than by emulation.

Though this book addresses the parents directly, I suspect it will be passed back and forth, between generations, in many a family. --Po Bronson

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Price: $7.37 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $47.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Because of its unique focus on teaching the critical social skills that autistic children lack, this book has been cited by "Library Journal" as "Essential to All Collections ".
Price: $30.79 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Mary Pipher, author of the bestselling and groundbreaking Reviving Ophelia, which charts the troubled passage of girls into adolescence, has nimbly covered yet another psychological passage: that into old age, which May Sarton called "a foreign country."

Pipher reveals that the greatest shame for today's elders--most of whom survived the Depression--is not being self-sufficient. The majority of them stoically prefer to keep their feelings to themselves, and this is why it's so difficult to convince older parents to accept or even discuss such issues as physical and mental health, finances, eldercare, or living wills. This directly conflicts with the openness of their children, who grew up in the era of "free love" and were influenced by society (and the advent of psychology in the 1950s and popularization of therapy) to talk frankly about emotions. While a boomer can easily talk with a friend about marriage difficulties or even surgery, an elder is likely to find admitting such "weaknesses" abhorrent.

Another Country includes excerpts of sessions with dozens of Pipher's psychology patients, interspersed with not-so-obvious advice for sensitively communicating with the elderly. Some interviews are grim: one woman hallucinated that rodents were running through her house; she was so desperate for company from her family, but too proud to ask them to stop by, that she invented her own visitors. But the breakthroughs in communication Pipher is able to accomplish, sometimes with the help of grandchildren as intermediaries, are startling and thoroughly encouraging. (For example, the animals the woman was imagining disappeared after she received company regularly.)

Pipher cared for her dying mother for a "horrid," guilt-filled year while this book was being written and says that she wanted "to help others in my situation feel less alone." She also aims to help each generation understand the other. In these goals she's succeeded brilliantly. Any adult struggling with issues with their parents, especially mortality, will find Another Country an indispensable source of suggestions and support. --Erica Jorgensen.
Price: $4.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The government is hiring, for homeland security jobs and more! But if you want to be successful in landing a federal job, you need to understand the government's unique and complex application process. In this complete guide, Troutman shares the expertise that has enabled her to help many others just like you go on to new and rewarding jobs in federal service.

Applying for federal employment is different than in private industry. This new guide shows you how to succeed by breaking the government's intricate process down into 10 simple steps. Both first-time applicants and those already within government will find something new here, as application processes change over time. Ten Steps is simply the most up-to-date book on federal employment available today!

Written for all job levels and categories, with salaries ranging to $140,000.

Ten Steps to a Federal Job is a "must have" for any job seeker looking for federal employment. Let Troutman's latest guidebook walk you through every step of the application process and into a rewarding job in federal service.

Includes a CD-ROM with samples and examples, and our Federal Resume and KSA Builders, normally sold for $35 each..
Price: $22.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The orientation sessions might tell freshman where the student union is-but only the true experts can offer the real lowdown on college life. From making peace with a difficult roommate to choosing the right classes, in this guide college students and recent grads tell freshman all they need to know to get through their first year with flying colors..
Price: $4.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

What They Didn’t Teach You in Your Screenwriting Course

Screenwriters, listen up! Breakfast with Sharks is not a book about the craft of screenwriting This is a book about the business of managing your screenwriting career, from advice on choosing an agent to tips on juggling three deal-making breakfasts a day. Prescriptive and useful, Breakfast with Sharks is a real guide to navigating the murky waters of the Hollywood system.

Unlike most of the screenwriting books available, here’s one that tells you what to do after you’ve finished your surefire-hit screenplay. Written from the perspective of Michael Lent, an in-the-trenches working screenwriter in Hollywood, this is a real-world look into the script-to-screen business as it is practiced today.

Breakfast with Sharks is filled with useful advice on everything from the ins and outs of moving to Los Angeles to understanding terms like “spec,” “option,” and “assignment.” Here you’ll learn what to expect from agents and managers and who does what in the studio hierarchy. And most important, Breakfast with Sharks will help you nail your pitch so the studio exec can’t say no.

Rounded out with a Q&A section and resource lists of script competitions, film festivals, trade associations, industry publications, and more, Breakfast with Sharks is chock-full of “take this and use it right now” information for screenwriters at any stage of their careers..
Price: $8.45 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Everyday Negotiation shows how to recognize the shadow negotiation-- where the unspoken attitudes, hidden assumptions, and conflicting agendas that drive the bargaining process play out-- and how to put that knowledge to work. Originally titled The Shadow Negotiation and named by Harvard Business Review as one the Ten Best Books of 2000, this best-selling book revealed how women could master the hidden agendas that determine bargaining success. Now, the new edition, Everyday Negotiation, broadens the scope and offers the same illuminating advice for both men and women. Everyday Negotiation lays out simple steps to
* Overcome acts of self-sabotage
* Increase your bargaining power
* Establish the terms of your advocacy and encourage a collaborative discussion
* Encourage a collaborative discussion
* Think about the negotiation process in a whole new way.
Price: $11.14 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Changing Course is a how-to book for people who want to change the aging game. It is a practical book that provides a new way to think about and experience life after fifty. Changing Coursedemonstrates that people over fifty can redefine aging and retirement by building a different kind of portfolio, a Third Age Life Portfolio.

When it comes to aging, the future is not what it used to be. An array of new possibilities for people over fifty provides options previous generations simply did not have.

Historically, D words have defined becoming older: difficulty, disengagement, decline, degeneration, and disease. But recent research has been showing how people can set new directions with R words: renewal, reinvention, regeneration, rejuvenation, and redirection.

In Changing Course: Navigating Life After Fifty, William A. Sadler and James H. Krefft present path-breaking discoveries from over twenty years research. With life stories and lessons, they show readers how they too can take charge of their lives to redefine both aging and retirement.

This researched-based book follows the pioneering work of Bill Sadler: The Third Age: Six Principles of Growth and Renewal After Forty (Perseus, 2001).

Research has shown that people with a positive self-identity live an average of seven years longer than those with a negative self-image. People over fifty can reinvent themselves in a positive way by enlarging their life portfolios and embarking on Third Age Careers. People can thus recast retirement as an age of renewal and growth, not deterioration and decline.

Changing Course illustrates the principles for second growth and provides how-to lessons readers can use to change course. Readers can learn how to:

- Make life after fifty the most fulfilling years yet;

- Replace negative stereotypes of aging with positive images;

- Create a positive third age identity that leads to the person you want to become; and,

- Redefine success in terms of what you find personally fulfilling.

Changing Course is not a financial-planning title. Rather, the book addresses people who want to leave their brand on everything they've touched. Many financial-planning guides, especially those pitched to Baby Boomers, miss the point: people are by and large not mainly interested in figuring out how much money they need to retire. They want to figure out how to continue to do their own thing.

What good is it to know to the penny what financial resources you will need to retire if you have not thought through how you are going to spend your life after fifty?

Changing Course is a self-help book for people who want to create a different, better second half of life. Based on twenty years of research tracking innovative individuals, the book provides a positive scenario of new opportunities, as well as challenges that emerge at this time of life.

As part of an emerging international movement that is redefining aging, Changing Course focuses on the Third Age, a long middle period resulting from a longevity revolution that has added an average of thirty years to the life course.

The book shows how people can continue to experience second growth, renewal, and fulfillment into their sixties and seventies. Many books on the second half of life focus only on vital aging in the fourth age (late seventies and beyond).

The bottom-line message of Changing Course: Instead of winding down after fifty, here is how you can change course.

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Price: $18.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]