Books about Returns from Amazon.com

Ever wonder how to retrieve a sunken golf cart from a snake-infested lake? Or which club in your bag is best suited for combat against a horde of rats? If these and other sporting questions are gnawing at you, The Downhill Lie, Carl Hiaasen’s hilarious confessional about returning to the fairways after a thirty-two-year absence, is definitely the book for you.

Originally drawn to the game by his father, Carl wisely quit golfing in 1973, when “Richard Nixon was hunkered down like a meth-crazed badger in the White House, Hank Aaron was one dinger shy of Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record, and The Who had just released Quadrophenia.” But some ambitions refuse to die, and as the years—and memories of shanked 7-irons—faded, it dawned on Carl that there might be one thing in life he could do better in middle age than he could as a youth. So gradually he ventured back to the dreaded driving range, this time as the father of a five-year-old son—and also as a grandfather.

“What possesses a man to return in midlife to a game at which he’d never excelled in his prime, and which in fact had dealt him mostly failure, angst and exasperation? Here’s why I did it: I’m one sick bastard.”

And thus we have Carl’s foray into a world of baffling titanium technology, high-priced golf gurus, bizarre infomercial gimmicks and the mind-bending phenomenon of Tiger Woods; a maddening universe of hooks and slices where Carl ultimately—and foolishly—agrees to compete in a country-club tournament against players who can actually hit the ball. “That’s the secret of the sport’s infernal seduction,” he writes. “It surrenders just enough good shots to let you talk yourself out of quitting.”

Hiaasen’s chronicle of his shaky return to this bedeviling pastime and the ensuing demolition of his self-esteem—culminating with the savage 45-hole tournament—will have you rolling with laughter. Yet the bittersweet memories of playing with his own father and the glow he feels when watching his own young son belt the ball down the fairway will also touch your heart. Forget Tiger, Phil and Ernie. If you want to understand the true lure of golf, turn to Carl Hiaasen, who has written an extraordinary book for the ordinary hacker.

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Price: $12.92 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Graystripe and Millie have finally found ThunderClan's old territory, but Twoleg monsters have devastated the forest and Graystripe fears that all of his Clanmates have been killed or captured by Twolegs. Millie insists that they keep looking, and an old friend helps point the two cats on the path that the Clans followed many moons ago.

But danger still lurks around every turn, and Graystripe worries that he and Millie are lost on an impossible journey.

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Price: $3.26 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Hopes for a new peaceful international order after the end of the Cold War have been dashed by sobering realities: Great powers are once again competing for honor and influence Nation-states remain as strong as ever, as do the old, explosive forces of ambitious nationalism. The world remains “unipolar,” but international competition among the United States, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, and Iran raise new threats of regional conflict. Communism is dead, but a new contest between western liberalism and the great eastern autocracies of Russia and China has reinjected ideology into geopolitics. Finally, radical Islamists are waging a violent struggle against the modern secular cultures and powers that, in their view, have dominated, penetrated, and polluted their Islamic world. The grand expectation that after the Cold War the world would enter an era of international geopolitical convergence has proven wrong.

For the past few years, the liberal world has been internally divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. Now, in The Return of History and the End ofDreams, Robert Kagan masterfully poses the most important questions facing the liberal democratic countries, challenging them to choose whether they want to shape history or let others shape it for them.

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Price: $12.38 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Investing is all about common sense. Owning a diversified portfolio of stocks and holding it for the long term is a winner’s game. Trying to beat the stock market is theoretically a zero-sum game (for every winner, there must be a loser), but after the substantial costs of investing are deducted, it becomes a loser’s game. Common sense tells us—and history confirms—that the simplest and most efficient investment strategy is to buy and hold all of the nation’s publicly held businesses at very low cost. The classic index fund that owns this market portfolio is the only investment that guarantees you with your fair share of stock market returns.

To learn how to make index investing work for you, there’s no better mentor than legendary mutual fund industry veteran John C. Bogle. Over the course of his long career, Bogle—founder of the Vanguard Group and creator of the world’s first index mutual fund—has relied primarily on index investing to help Vanguard’s clients build substantial wealth. Now, with The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, he wants to help you do the same.

Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing will show you how to incorporate this proven investment strategy into your portfolio. It will also change the very way you think about investing. Successful investing is not easy. (It requires discipline and patience.) But it is simple. For it’s all about common sense.

With The Little Book of Common Sense Investing as your guide, you’ll discover how to make investing a winner’s game:

• Why business reality—dividend yields and earnings growth—is more important than market expectations
• How to overcome the powerful impact of investment costs, taxes, and inflation
• How the magic of compounding returns is overwhelmed by the tyranny of compounding costs
• What expert investors and brilliant academics—from Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham to Paul Samuelson and Burton Malkiel—have to say about index investing
• And much more

You’ll also find warnings about investment fads and fashions, including the recent stampede into exchange traded funds and the rise of indexing gimmickry. The real formula for investment success is to own the entire market, while significantly minimizing the costs of financial intermediation. That’s what index investing is all about. And that’s what this book is all about.

JOHN C. BOGLE is founder of the Vanguard Group, Inc., and President of its Bogle Financial Markets Research Center. He created Vanguard in 1974 and served as chairman and chief executive officer until 1996 and senior chairman until 2000. In 1999, Fortune magazine named Mr. Bogle as one of the four "Investment Giants" of the twentieth century; in 2004, Time named him one of the world’s 100 most powerful and influential people, and Institutional Investor presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award..
Price: $10.59 [Notify me when price goes down.]

If any comic has a claim to have truly reinvigorated the genre, then The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller--known also for his excellent Sin City series and his superb rendering of the blind superhero Daredevil--is probably the top contender Batman represented all that was wrong in comics and Miller set himself a tough task taking on the camp crusader and turning this laughable, innocuous children's cartoon character into a hero for our times. The great Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, the arguably peerless Watchmen) argued that only someone of Miller's stature could have done this. Batman is a character known well beyond the confines of the comic world (as are his retinue) and so reinventing him, while keeping his limiting core essentials intact, was a huge task.

Miller went far beyond the call of duty. The Dark Knight is a success on every level. Firstly it does keep the core elements of the Batman myth intact, with Robin, Alfred the butler, Commissioner Gordon, and the old roster of villains, present yet brilliantly subverted. Secondly the artwork is fantastic--detailed, sometimes claustrophobic, psychotic. Lastly it's a great story: Gotham City is a hell on earth, street gangs roam but there are no heroes. Decay is ubiquitous. Where is a hero to save Gotham? It is 10 years since the last recorded sighting of the Batman. And things have got worse than ever. Bruce Wayne is close to being a broken man but something is keeping him sane: the need to see change and the belief that he can orchestrate some of that change. Batman is back. The Dark Knight has returned. Awesome. --Mark Thwaite.
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The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming is a spiritual adventure story. A chance encounter with a poster depicting a detail of Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son set in motion a chain of events that enabled Nouwen to redefine and claim his vocation late in his life. In this book, which interweaves elements of art history, memoir, Midrash, and self-help, Nouwen brings the parable to life with empathic analyses of each character. Nouwen's absorption in the story (and the painting) is so complete that the father's challenge to love the son, and the son's challenge to receive that love, become Nouwen's own. And Nouwen's writing is so clear and his tone is so appealingly frank and humble that readers--no matter how far from home--will find hope for themselves in the prodigal peace Nouwen ultimately achieves. --Michael Joseph Gross.
Price: $7.15 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Shines a practical light on the spiritual disciplines that have been in use since the time of Abraham.

In a sense, every day of our lives is labor. It is questionable if you can ever be exactly the same person waking up on two consecutive days. How are spiritual sojourners to cope with the constant change? Many are beginning to explore the ancient Christian spiritual practices that have been in use for centuries, everything from fixed-hour prayer to fasting to sincere observance of the Sabbath. What is causing this hunger for deeper spirituality?

Brian McLaren guides us on this quest for an explanation of these spiritual practices, many of which go all the way back to Abraham and the establishment of Israel. In the midst of contemporary Christianity, we discover the beauty of these ancient disciplines and the transformation through Christ that each can provide.

Why have certain spiritual disciplines been in use for centuries and why is it important?

It is questionable if one can ever be exactly the same person waking up on two consecutive days. How are spiritual sojourners to cope with the constant change? Many are beginning to explore the ancient Christian spiritual practices, such as fixed-hour prayer, fasting and sincere observance of the Sabbath. What is causing this hunger for deeper spirituality?

Brian McLaren guides us on this quest for an explanation of these spiritual practices, many of which go all the way back to Abraham and the establishment of Israel. In the midst of contemporary Christianity, we discover the beauty of these disciplines and the transformation through Christ that each can provide.

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Price: $11.26 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In recent years many smart investors have exited the stock market and other investment areas because they have essentially lost control of their investments. They have relied on the advice and skill of their brokers, bankers, and financial advisors. Many investment and retirement accounts have dwindled. Fortunately, there is a wonderful but little-understood alternative: currency trading and investing. As with many other business segments, the Internet and technology have opened up this attractive marketplace to a new breed of individual investors and speculators working part-time. You and I can now stand on an even playing field with the largest banks and trading institutions from the comfort of home. Currency trading is the practice of exchanging one country's currency for another country's currency. The foreign exchange (Currency or Forex or FX) market is the largest trading market in the world exceeding $1.9 trillion every single day! Essentially there are four variables involved: currencies, exchange rate, time, and interest rate. The relationships of these variables create opportunities for small investors to obtain investment returns that are generally unheard of in the traditional investment world. You owe it to yourself and your family to begin to learn about currency trading. You can get started with just $100 or less, and the investment can easily be managed in a part-time capacity, usually requiring a few hours on the Internet a week from your home or your office. Currency investments can provide you with very high and secure rate of return, in some cases as high as 12%, 18%, 24%, or even 1,000% or more per year. If performed correctly, currency trading will far outpace all other investments. The key is to know how to perform this process correctly. This all sounds great, but what is the catch? There really is none, except you must know what you are doing! This groundbreaking and exhaustively researched new book will provide everything you need to know to get you started generating high-investment returns with low risk from start to finish, and you can start with less than $100. You will learn what currency trading is; how to invest in foreign currency; trading strategies and tactics; technological considerations; how to set up your account online; purchase currency online; day trader insights; current trends; Pivot Programs; price projectors; futures predicting; trading software; insider secrets to help you double or even triple your investment all while avoiding traps and pitfalls. In addition, we took the extra effort and spent an unprecedented amount of time researching, interviewing, e-mailing, and communicating with hundreds of today s most successful currency traders. Aside from learning the basics of currency trading you will be privy to their secrets and proven successful ideas. Instruction is great, but advice from experts is even better, and the experts chronicled in this book are earning millions. If you are interested in learning hundreds of hints, tricks, and secrets on how to earn enormous profits in currency trading while controlling your investments, then this book is for you..
Price: $15.30 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Why is it that our current twenty-first century A.D. is so similar to the twenty-first century B.C.?
Is history destined to repeat itself? Will biblical prophecies come true, and if so, when?

It has been more than three decades since Zecharia Sitchin's trailblazing book The 12th Planet brought to life the Sumerian civilization and its record of the Anunnaki—the extraterrestrials who fashioned man and gave mankind civilization and religion. In this new volume, Sitchin shows that the End is anchored in the events of the Beginning, and once you learn of this Beginning, it is possible to foretell the Future.

In The End of Days, a masterwork that required thirty years of additional research, Sitchin presents compelling new evidence that the Past is the Future—that mankind and its planet Earth are subject to a predetermined cyclical Celestial Time.

In an age when religious fanaticism and a clash of civilizations raise the specter of a nuclear Armageddon, Zecharia Sitchin shatters perceptions and uses history to reveal what is to come at The End of Days.

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Price: $3.59 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Stocks for the Long Run set a precedent as the most complete and irrefutable case for stock market investment ever written. Now, this bible for long-term investing continues its tradition with a fourth edition featuring updated, revised, and new material that will keep you competitive in the global market and up-to-date on the latest index instruments.

Wharton School professor Jeremy Siegel provides a potent mix of new evidence, research, and analysis supporting his key strategies for amassing a solid portfolio with enhanced returns and reduced risk. In a seamless narrative that incorporates the historical record of the markets with the realities of today's investing environment, the fourth edition features:

• A new chapter on globalization that documents how the emerging world will soon overtake the developed world and how it impacts the global economy
• An extended chapter on indexing that includes fundamentally weighted indexes, which have historically offered better returns and lower volatility than their capitalization-weighted counterparts
• Insightful analysis on what moves the market and how little we know about the sources of big market changes
• A sobering look at behavioral finance and the psychological factors that can lead investors to make irrational investment decisions

A major highlight of this new edition of Stocks for the Long Run is the chapter on global investing. With the U.S. stock market currently holding less than half of the world's equity capitalization, it's important for investors to diversify abroad. This updated edition shows you how to create an “efficient portfolio” that best balances asset allocation in domestic and foreign markets and provides thorough coverage on sector allocation across the globe.

Stocks for the Long Run is essential reading for every investor and advisor who wants to fully understand the market-including its behavior, past trends, and future influences-in order to develop a prosperous long-term portfolio that is both safe and secure.

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Price: $18.90 [Notify me when price goes down.]