Books about Spectacular from Amazon.com

In the fight for health and happiness, New York Times bestselling author Montel Williams shares his battle plan for better living.

In his inspiring autobiography Climbing Higher, Montel Williams told the story of his lifelong struggle for respect and success-and his ongoing struggle with multiple sclerosis. In Body Change: The 21-Day Fitness Program for Changing Your Body...and Changing Your Life!; he shared his successful workout strategies; And now, in Living Well with Montel, Montel imparts his personal recipe for healthy and happy living. He also shares his 21-Day Living Well Food and Workout Program-a hard-hitting, three-phased health plan for fast, fit results.

For anyone who wants to fight chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease, and neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis-or just wants to feel spectacular in their daily life, it's time for a push to the next level-by Living Well with Montel..
Price: $13.70 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Taking a drive in the country has been popular since horse-and-buggy days. But while the road trip itch is as strong as ever, scenic drives get scarcer year by year. The answer is a collection of the 120 loveliest drives in the U.S., providing maps and tours (with sites along the way itemized and lovingly described), trip length, when to go, nearby attractions, and local information sources. Free time is at a premium these days; rather than waste your leisure time in highway gluts, it's worth taking directions to some of the most beautiful drives the country still has to offer..
Price: $18.06 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Propaganda," says Noam Chomsky, "is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state"--in other words, the means by which leaders keep the masses in line. In this slim pamphlet, he looks at American propaganda efforts, from the warmongering of Woodrow Wilson to the creation of popular support for the 1991 military intervention in Kuwait, and reveals how falsification of history, suppression of information, and the promotion of vapid, empty concepts have become standard operating procedure for the leaders of the United States--both Democrats and Republicans--in their efforts to prevent citizens from raising awkward questions about U.S. policy. .
Price: $5.56 [Notify me when price goes down.]

When a world-famous shoe designer walked into his surprise birthday party and saw the cake that was waiting for him--a Manolo stiletto perched alluringly next to a tissue-filled shoebox--it was his turn to ogle someone else's talent. The cake, created by Elisa Strauss of Confetti Cakes in New York City, was a sensation. Not only did everyone at the party want to know how it was made, they wanted to know how to create something as dazzling themselves.


This unique book contains projects for every skill level: from gorgeous, sugar-dusted heart cookies to delightful billiard-ball cupcakes, to sculpted cakes in the shape of wine bottles and Chinese takeout boxes, to the extravagantly beautiful, threetiered
embroidery cake showcased on Sex and the City. With delicious recipes, stunning creations for every occasion, suggestions for time-saving shortcuts, and hot tips for fabulous results, all illustrated with gorgeous photographs and easy-to follow diagrams, THE CONFETTI CAKES COOKBOOK is a must-have for the outrageously chic baker in all of us..
Price: $15.92 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Need to get results with 3ds max fast? Why take months to learn every button in 3ds max when you can create great visuals with just a few key tools? Learn to create quick yet stunning logo treatments, special effects, and animated characters with the fastest techniques possible. Need convincing grass, trees, water, shadows? You can use the memory-hogging methods that choke your display and take forever to render, or you can get it done bing-bang with this book. When you need an animated character you can spend days fiddling with polygons, or you can use this book to put it together in minutes and get the entire project done in a day. How to Cheat in 3ds max includes a host of time-saving techniques as well as little-known tools that will make you look like an expert in no time flat. This book is for busy professionals who need to get it done right, but also need it done fast.

The CD includes scene files and bitmaps used to illustrate the cheats. also potentially Camtasia (video) files showing some of the trickier techniques that are better explained visually than on paper. Music files, organizational samples (i.e. dope sheets) or other files that are referred to in the book.

-Author is well-respected Max authority - she shares her secrets on little-known tools that save a bundle of time

-Concise, step by step, focused, examples with everything on CD so that artists and designers can start toying right away.

-New title in proven How to Cheat series: solution-oriented, quick results.

-No need to learn the entire program to look like a pro - info is quick, task-oriented, with real-life creative solutions..
Price: $25.04 [Notify me when price goes down.]

''Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way renewed my belief that it is possible to write authentic narratives about urban schools ... I plan to make this book required reading for my teacher education students...''
--From the Foreword by Carl A. Grant, University of Wisconsin, Madison

''Once I began reading, I couldn't put it down. The power here is in the details. It s a marvelous, important book and is badly needed at a moment when the values it upholds are under an unrelenting assault from forces of reactionary ignorance.''
--Jonathan Kozol, author of Amazing Grace.

''In a time of ever more testing and standardization, Brian Schultz demonstrates in powerful ways what the critically democratic alternative looks like. Anyone who wants to make a difference in urban education needs to read this book.''
--Michael W. Apple, author of Educating the ''Right'' Way

''An amazing tale of incredible fifth-grade citizen activists that reveals what education in America's inner cities could and should be.''
--Jeannie Oakes, Presidential Professor in Education Equity, UCLA

''The lessons about curriculum and teaching are powerful and the story is absolutely inspiring.''
--James A. Beane, author of A Reason to Teach: Creating Classrooms of Dignity and Hope

''Carr Community Academy is a crumbling elementary school in Chicago next to one of the largest and most perilous public housing projects-Cabrini Green. It also is the location of one of the more spectacular fifth-grade classes in the country.''
--Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, author, and founder, Public Citizen research group

''This fifth-grade class illustrates some important lessons about America: The neglect of the inner-city poor, the virtues of creative public service, of teaching to educate-not just to pass a test-and of perseverance.''
--Robert Siegel, All Things Considered, National Public Radio

''When city kids are thought to be nothing more than a tangle of pathologies and deficits who must be 'saved' by crusading, missionary teachers the result is always some form of colonization. In this extraordinary book, Brian Schultz, a courageous teacher writing here with clarity and passion, performs a radical reversal and provides an alternative.''
--William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago, and author of To Teach

''Through their compelling school improvement efforts, Schultz and his fifth graders clearly counter the colonizing policy that says only the privileged can be educated through freedom to pursue personal interests and collective commitments.''
--William H. Schubert, University Scholar, University of Illinois at Chicago

What happens when a teacher resists the pressures of ''teaching to the test'' and creates a curriculum based on student needs, wants, and desires? Brian Schultz did just that when he challenged his students from a housing project in Chicago to name a problem in their community that they wanted to solve. When the students unanimously focus on replacing their dilapidated school building, an unforgettable journey is put into motion. As his students examine the conditions of their blighted school and research the deeper causes of decay, they set off on a mission of remedy and repair. It is finally their own questions and activities that power their profound self-transformations. This moving story is a tribute to what determined teachers are able to achieve in the current stifling environment of high-stakes testing and standardization. Anyone who has faith in creativity, commitment, and the deep potential of inner-city children and youth will want to read this book..
Price: $17.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

When first published in 1987, The Art of Turned Bowls was a work ahead of its time. Now, considering the resurgence in popularity of this woodworking genre, the book is perfectly poised for rediscovery. Retooled with fresh full-color photographs of contemporary bowls featuring the work of award-winning turners from around the world, Richard Raffan's classic has been totally updated to meet the demands of today's turner. With a unique talent for making even the most abstract ideas accessible, the world's most admired turning teacher offers an invaluable wealth of design advice. Practical, informative, and undeniably inspiring, this new edition also expands its exploration of form and developing profiles. Along with a good lathe and a reliable set of tools, The Art of Turned Bowls belongs in the shop of every serious bowl turner..
Price: $16.39 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Between 1976 and 1994, Commodore had astounding success in the nascent personal computer business. Amid the chaos and infighting, Commodore was able to achieve some remarkable industry firsts. They were the first major company to show a personal computer, even before Apple and Radio Shack. They sold a million computers before anyone else. No single computer has sold more than the Commodore 64. The first true multimedia computer, the Amiga, came from Commodore. Yet with all these milestones, Commodore receives almost no credit as a pioneer. Commodore was one of the only companies with the ability to make silicon, and the results were obvious. They had more creativity, more color, and more character than the competition. While Apple and IBM charged exorbitant prices, Commodore was able to reach the masses with affordable computers while remaining profitable. The Commodore 64 cut a path of destruction through the early industry, knocking Tandy, Texas Instruments, Sinclair, and Atari out of the computer business and badly hurting Apple and even IBM. While other companies received more press, Commodore sold more computers. Yet Commodore never reached a comfortable position. They were always on the verge of blinding success or abysmal failure. Commodore’s volatile founder, Jack Tramiel, lived on the edge, and he made sure his employees lived there too. On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore tells the story through over 44 hours of interviews with former engineers and managers: Chuck Peddle, the digital God who created a revolution with the 6502 chip and designed the PET computer. Al Charpentier, the chain smoking architect of Commodore’s revolutionary graphics chips. Bob Yannes, the frustrated musician and synthesizer aficionado who designed the Commodore 64 and the SID sound chip. Bil Herd, the unruly engineer who created the maligned Plus/4 and later sought redemption with the C128. The Amiga engineers, who created the first true multimedia system even before the word multimedia existed. Irving Gould, financier and majority shareholder who rescued Commodore in the sixties, then allowed it to wither..
Price: $18.53 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In Last Train to Paradise novelist Les Standiford has written a lively, felicitous account of the building of the Florida East Coast Railway, which, for a little over two decades, connected mainland Florida with Key West. Henry Morrison Flagler, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil partner and, in many eyes, the true genius behind that company, embarked on the project in 1905 when he was 74 years old. The railroad, which crossed more than 150 miles of open sea, was an engineering feat nearly equal in scale and difficulty to the digging of the Panama Canal. Standiford's narrative skillfully blends tales of construction perils (not the least of which were escadrilles of mosquitoes) with brief, illuminating travelogues and natural histories, pocket descriptions of life in early 20th-century Florida, and a truly gripping description of an epic standoff between Mother Nature, in the form of a monstrous hurricane, and a stalled, 160-ton steam locomotive. With nary a single missed note, this fascinating tale is popular history at its best. --H. O'Billovich.
Price: $6.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Don’t Just Celebrate–Relax!

We all know that holidays are meant to be fun. But for the cook planning the feast, the holidays can inspire dread. Feeding the family on a daily basis is hard enough. Making the meal both special and delicious can raise the bar out of sight.

In Saving Dinner for the Holidays bona fide Dinner Diva Leanne Ely will show you that festive meals can be as easy and relaxing as they are tasty. She plans the menus, provides comprehensive, itemized shopping lists that are organized by supermarket section, includes heirloom recipes, and even includes the all-important timeline so that your party goes off without a hitch. She also gives you a big helping hand in the kitchen and offers tips on how to make your table sparkle with warmth and beauty.

There’s a Valentine’s Day Chocolate Feast not to be missed, a Mother’s Day dinner that can actually be prepared by Dad and the kids, a Fourth of July picnic that lights up the palate, and many other red-letter feasts. There are even recipes that help turn leftovers into delectable dishes..
Price: $8.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]