Books about Passion from Amazon.com

As a young child in Naples, Italy, Sergio Esposito sat at his kitchen table observing the daily ritual of his large, loud family bonding over fresh local dishes and simple country wines. While devouring the rich bufala mozzarella, still sopping with milk and salt, and the platters of fresh prosciutto, sliced so thin he could see through it, he absorbed the profound relationship of food, wine, and family in Italian culture.
Growing up in Albany, New York, after emigrating there with his family, he always sat next to his uncle Aldo and sipped from his wineglass during their customary hours-long extended family feasts. Thus, from a very early age, Esposito came to associate wine with the warmth of family, the tastes of his mother’s cooking—and, above all, memories of his former life in Italy. When he was in his twenties, he headed for New York and undertook a career in wine, beginning a journey that would culminate in his founding of Italian Wine Merchants, now the leading Italian wine source in America. His career offered him the opportunity to make frequent trips back to Italy to find wine for his clients, to learn the traditions of Italian winemaking, and, in so doing, to rediscover the Italian way of life he’d left behind.
Passion on the Vine is Esposito’s intimate and evocative memoir of his colorful family life in Italy, his abrupt transition to life in America, and of his travels into the heart of Italy—its wine country—and the lives of those who inhabit it. The result is a remarkably engaging and entertaining wine/travel narrative replete with vivid portraits of seductive places—the world-famous cellars of Piedmont, the sweeping estates of Tuscany, the lush fields of Campania, the chilly hills of Friuli, the windy beaches of Le Marche; and of memorable people, diverse and vibrant wine artisans—from a disco-dancing vintner who bases his farming on the rhythm of the moon to an obsessive prince who destroys his vineyards before his death so that his grapes will never be used incorrectly.
Esposito’s luscious accounts of the wonderful food and wine that are so much a part of Italian life, and his poignant and often hilarious stories of his relationships with his family and Italian friends, make Passion on the Vine an utterly unique and enchanting work about Italy and its eternally seductive lifestyle.

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Price: $13.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Meet Fred.

In his powerful new book THE FRED FACTOR, motivational speaker Mark Sanborn recounts the true story of Fred, the mail carrier who passionately loves his job and who genuinely cares about the people he serves. Because of that, he is constantly going the extra mile handling the mail – and sometimes watching over the houses – of the people on his route, treating everyone he meets as a friend. Where others might see delivering mail as monotonous drudgery, Fred sees an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those he serves.

We’ve all encountered people like Fred in our lives. In THE FRED FACTOR, Mark Sanborn illuminates the simple steps each of us can take to transform our own lives from the ordinary – into the extraordinary. Sanborn, through stories about Fred and others like him, reveals the four basic principles that will help us bring fresh energy and creativity to our life and work: how to make a real difference everyday, how to become more successful by building strong relationships, how to create real value for others without spending a penny, and how to constantly reinvent yourself.

By following these principles, and by learning from and teaching other “Freds,” you, too, can excel in your career and make your life extraodinary. As Mark Sanborn makes clear, each of us has the potential be a Fred.THE FRED FACTOR shows you how.

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Price: $3.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained–the coast redwood trees,Sequoia sempervirens. Ninety-six percent of the ancient redwood forests have been destroyed by logging, but the untouched fragments that remain are among the great wonders of nature. The biggest redwoods have trunks up to thirty feet wide and can rise more than thirty-five stories above the ground, forming cathedral-like structures in the air. Until recently, redwoods were thought to be virtually impossible to ascend, and the canopy at the tops of these majestic trees was undiscovered. In The Wild Trees, Richard Preston unfolds the spellbinding story of Steve Sillett, Marie Antoine, and the tiny group of daring botanists and amateur naturalists that found a lost world above California, a world that is dangerous, hauntingly beautiful, and unexplored.

The canopyvoyagers are young–just college students when they start their quest–and they share a passion for these trees, persevering in spite of sometimes crushing personal obstacles and failings. They take big risks, they ignore common wisdom (such as the notion that there’s nothing left to discover in North America), and they even make love in hammocks stretched between branches three hundred feet in the air.

The deep redwood canopy is a vertical Eden filled with mosses, lichens, spotted salamanders, hanging gardens of ferns, and thickets of huckleberry bushes, all growing out of massive trunk systems that have fused and formed flying buttresses, sometimes carved into blackened chambers, hollowed out by fire, called “fire caves.” Thick layers of soil sitting on limbs harbor animal and plant life that is unknown to science. Humans move through the deep canopy suspended on ropes, far out of sight of the ground, knowing that the price of a small mistake can be a plunge to one’s death.

Preston’s account of this amazing world, by turns terrifying, moving, and fascinating, is an adventure story told in novelistic detail by a master of nonfiction narrative. The author shares his protagonists’ passion for tall trees, and he mastered the techniques of tall-tree climbing to tell the story in The Wild Trees–the story of the fate of the world’s most splendid forests and of the imperiled biosphere itself.


From the Hardcover edition..
Price: $8.90 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The smells, the tactile involvement, the delicious results - there's nothing quite like fresh-baked bread, and no other cookbook elevates the art of baking bread and sweets to such grand style as Marcy Goldman's A Passion for Baking. Goldman's enthusiasm and individuality come through loud and clear as readers explore her friendly, modern interpretations of traditional baking techniques. She shares baking secrets and funky trick of the trade, so that in no time at all, you'll be producing cheesy loaves, mammoth muffins, jumbo cookies, and more with your signature touch.Goldman's extensive baking experience and fun, friendly writing style make this book as much a pleasure to read as it is to use. With more than 200 original recipes and over 160 bold colour photos so temptingly real you can almost smell the aroma right off the page.Rise to occasion, reignite your own passion, and experience baking at a whole new level..
Price: $8.90 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"The Passion TestTM provides the simplest, clearest way to get started on knowing what you want-by getting clear on who you are." -from the Foreword by T. Harv Eker, #1 NY Times best-selling author, Secrets of The Millionaire Mind ~~~~ "The Passion TestTM has given me incredible insight into what was missing in my life, where I was not 100% spot on in pursuing my passions. It's simple, it's easy, and it's profound. Out of it came the creation of an organization I'd been putting off for six years and a fuller expression of my love and my commitment to my family. I think there's nothing more important than that." -Jack Canfield, co-creator of the #1 NY Times best-selling series, Chicken Soup for the Soul® ~~~~ "Chris and Janet Attwood have provided a clear, simple, and effective method to help you identify your core passions so you can create the fulfilling life you deserve." -John Gray, PhD, #1 NY Times best-selling author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus ~~~~ "Quite frankly I was blown away. The Passion TestTM is a very direct, practical roadmap on how to become prosperous, how to take what it is you love, and make it into a very, very substantial, and very fulfilling income." -Bill Harris, Director Centerpointe Research Institute ~~~~ "Passion is the key to your destiny. Discover your Passion by taking the best of all tests- Janet and Chris Attwood's 'Passion Test'" -Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the #1 NY Times best-selling series, Chicken Soup for the Soul® ~~~~ "The PassionTestTM is very provocative and very revealing, and it's unlike anything anyone has ever exposed me to. It challenged me in a very revealing way." -Jay Abraham, Marketing genius, author, Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got ~~~~ "I couldn't put it down. The story is so engaging, I almost forgot how much I wanted to take the test. Then, taking the test, I realized how valuable it was to hear Janet's story and what she went through to get to the point she could live her passion." -Yehuda Berg, The Kabbalah Center, author, The 72 Names of God, Power of Kabbalah, The Red String ~~~~ "The PassionTestTM has you focus on those things that are most important in your life, and passion is one of the keys to success for anyone, anywhere in the world. The PassionTestTM will be valuable for me, as the founder of BNI, in understanding what my franchisees are passionate about, because if they're not passionate about the things they're doing, they can have all the ability in the world, but they're not going to be as successful at running the programs we want them to run as they can be." -Ivan Misner, Chairman and Founder BNI (Business Networks International) ~~~~ "Simple, clear, powerful. The Passion TestTM is a remarkable tool for getting the clarity you need to begin living your dreams." -Marci Shimoff, co-author of the #1 NY Times best sellers Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul and Mother's Soul ~~~~ "Whether your life purpose is clear or you want to be clearer, The Passion TestTM provides a powerful tool for putting you on track to a more fulfilled, more complete life. The clearer your passions-the surer are your chances of realizing them." -Dr. Pankaj Naram, world-renowned Ayurvedic physician, personal pulse reader to the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa, co-author, Secrets of Natural Health ~~~~ "The Test itself is an incredibly valuable tool for clarifying what's really important to you in your life. Equally valuable were the lessons Chris and Janet Attwood share for actually living your mission." -Catherine Lanigan, author, Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile.
Price: $11.74 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $15.66 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Amazon Best of the Month, October 2007: As the Nazis advanced on France, celebrated writer Irène Némirovsky composed two final masterworks: Suite Française and Fire in the Blood. The first, smuggled out in a suitcase by her escaping daughters when Némirovsky was taken to her death at Auschwitz in 1942, surfaced more than 60 years later and restored her bestselling status. The other, two pages of which slipped out in that same suitcase, was thought lost--until biographers discovered the rest of the manuscript in papers given to Némirovsky's editor for safekeeping. A worthy companion to Suite Française, it follows three interwoven stories across two decades, when the hot-blooded affairs of youth threaten the cool calm of middle age. Once it has all unraveled, the last line lodges in your heart like a sliver. If only there could have been more. --Mari Malcolm.
Price: $10.48 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Elisabeth Elliot's story centers around one pivotal question: "Does God want everything?" Her emphatic answer--"Yes"--is what makes Passion and Purity the foremost Christian book on dating ever written. Based on stories, journal entries, and letters chronicling her own five-year courtship with Jim Elliot, she gives frank advice, scriptural directives, and compassionate examples of what it means to follow Christ in the midst of heartache and impatience. The perfect antidote for those who flounder in the thinking that "the Bible doesn't say anything about dating," Elliot's short chapters are filled with nuggets of wisdom that spell out exactly the opposite. "Until the will and the affections are brought under the authority of Christ, we have not begun to understand, let alone accept His lordship. The Cross, as it enters the love live, will reveal the heart's truth." Whether in a dating relationship, married, or pursuing a call to single life, readers will find Elliot's message challenging them to a true faith in a Christ who lovingly calls us to surrender all. --Courtenay Kehn.
Price: $6.70 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In I Will Not Die an Unlived Life, one of the most charismatic teachers and thinkers of today speaks from her heart. Twenty years ago, faced with a life-threatening illness, Dawna Markova began a journey of rediscovery. This book follows her path to finding deeper meaning in life. As she points out, people can continue to feel powerless and live habitual lives - or they can make the choice to follow their passion. "In a similar way to A Gift from the Sea, the readers of this book are invited to accompany me on a journey to come to know more intimately the value and purpose of their lives." - Dawna Markova.
Price: $4.75 [Notify me when price goes down.]