Books about Stumble from Amazon.com

This original, entertaining, and surprising book investigates verbal blunders: what they are, what they say about those who make them, and how and why we've come to judge them.

Um... is about how you really speak, and why it's normal for your everyday speech to be filled with errors—about one in every ten words. In this charming, engaging account of language in the wild, linguist and writer Michael Erard also explains why our attention to some blunders rises and falls. Where did the Freudian slip come from? Why do we prize "umlessness" in speaking—and should we? And how do we explain the American presidents who are famous for their verbal stumbles? Full of entertaining examples, Um... is essential reading for talkers and listeners of all stripes..
Price: $8.61 [Notify me when price goes down.]

An NPR commentator’s story of an unlikely epiphany and the healing power of faith

After years of sleeping around, working as a waitress, and suffering booze- induced blackouts, Heather King settled into sobriety, marriage, and a financially lucrative but unfulfilling career in a Beverly Hills law firm. As someone who had reached middle age “never believing in much of anything,” she found herself in the last place she thought she’d end up: the Catholic church.

Redeemed describes the steps of King’s journey—from finding herself holed up on the couch reading Hermits of the World (and then wondering why she and her husband weren’t having sex) to dealing with the breast cancer that brought her face-to-face with the Virgin Mary. With the death of her father and the devastation of divorce, she connects with Jesus Christ: “A guy who hung out with lepers, paralytics, the possessed: this is someone I can trust.”

This is a profound, fervent, darkly funny tale of an ongoing conversion by a Catholic who, however devout, is about as far from saintlike as can be imagined. Fans of Lauren Winners’s Girl Meets God and Anne Lamott’s writings will be drawn to King’s refreshing sense of humor, mesmerizing voice, and piercing honesty..
Price: $3.30 [Notify me when price goes down.]

“As America tries to deal with the consequences of its misfired Iraq expedition and the host of other challenges lurking in a murky future, this book will sharpen our thoughts on the uses and misuses of the UN and where it fits into Washington policies. The authors suggest an approach and specific policy elements that merit serious attention, even as they make clear they do not expect the UN will be any kind of panacea.”
—Morton Abramowitz, Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation

By the same authors:

The Third Try: can the UN work?

Published in Australia by Scribe Books in 2005, The Third Try was selected for the short list of a prestigious New South Wales Literary Prize. The German translation, by Dr Michael Haupt, was released in 2006 by Parthas Verlag in Berlin.

from Third Try Australian reviews:

“…a brilliant analysis of an often maligned organization that pledged international kinship and is struggling to reinvent itself to stand for something meaningful. An extremely significant book that is sure to rouse the public from its slumber. Five stars.”
—Tony O’Loughlin, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, October 2005

“…written for the lay reader and is set out in a clear, straightforward style … Its accessible manner makes welcome reading when facing such a daunting subject.”
—Chris Saliba, WebDiary.
Price: $10.59 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Over the years, Robert Sobel (Dangerous Dreamers, For Want of a Nail, Coolidge) has discovered that you can learn as much from analyzing a business's failure as its success In When Giants Stumble: Classic Business Blunders and How to Avoid Them, the Hofstra University business-history professor zeroes in on 15 devastating failures that either severely damaged companies or spelled their doom. "After all, medical people study diseases in order to learn how to keep people healthy. Why not apply the same logic to the study of business blunders?" For example, in a chapter on E.J. Korvette, Sobel explains how founder Eugene Ferkauf created a discount-marketing Goliath that tallied an astounding $1 million in sales when it opened in 1948--only to spiral into bankruptcy by 1980 due to poor hiring practices, undercapitalization, and ill-planned expansion. Other companies that come under Sobel's microscope include Osborne Computer, Montgomery Ward, Pan American World Airways, Schwinn, Pabst, and the NYSE. What was common to all of these companies was that their failure was preceded by great success, which should give many of today's movers and shakers plenty to think about. Recommended. --Howard Rothman.
Price: $26.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Light-hearted, though wearing a heavy heart, Paula McLain tries her best to shake her cast of invisible fathers. It’s brave to interrogate and, Job-like, dispense of heaven to go on living in and of this world. Stumble, Gorgeous offers her most powerful and accomplished writing to date: the music sings metrically and in a range of sounds and voices; the syntax unfolds pleasure and difficulty in uneven doses and often surprises in its jangling turns." —Ira Sadoff.
Price: $14.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]