The Mythical Man-Month

Bared to You: A Crossfire Novel

Bared to You: A Crossfire Novel

Book Description

Publication Date: June 12, 2012 | Series: A Crossfire Novel

"If I were to recommend any book today to readers who enjoyed 50 Shades...this would be the first one I would offer....scorching love scenes."--Dear Author

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Gideon Cross came into my life like lightning in the darkness...

He was beautiful and brilliant, jagged and white-hot. I was drawn to him as I'd never been to anything or anyone in my life. I craved his touch like a drug, even knowing it would weaken me. I was flawed and damaged, and he opened those cracks in me so easily...

Gideon knew. He had demons of his own. And we would become the mirrors that reflected each other's most private worlds...and desires.

The bonds of his love transformed me, even as I prayed that the torment of our pasts didn't tear us apart...

Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks, and the Hidden Powers of the Mind

Book Description

Publication Date: June 19, 2012

When Alex Stone was five years old, his father bought him a magic kit—a gift that would spark a lifelong love. Years later, while living in New York City, he discovered a vibrant underground magic scene exploding with creativity and innovation and populated by a fascinating cast of characters: from his gruff mentor, who holds court in the back of a rundown pizza shop, to one of the world's greatest card cheats, who also happens to be blind. Captivated, he plunged headlong into this mysterious world, eventually competing at the Magic Olympics and training with great magicians around the globe to perfect his craft.

From the back rooms of New York City's century-old magic societies to cutting-edge psychology labs; three-card monte on Canal Street to glossy Las Vegas casinos;Fooling Houdini recounts Stone's quest to join the ranks of master magicians. As he navigates this quirky and occasionally hilarious subculture, Stone pulls back the curtain on a community shrouded in secrecy, fueled by obsession and brilliance, and organized around a single overriding need: to prove one's worth by deceiving others.

But his journey is more than a tale of tricks, gigs, and geeks. In trying to understand how expert magicians manipulate our minds to create their astonishing illusions, Stone uncovers a wealth of insight into human nature and the nature of perception. Every turn leads to questions about how the mind perceives the world and processes everyday experiences. By investigating some of the lesser-known corners of psychology, neuroscience, physics, history, and even crime, all through the lens of trickery and illusion, Fooling Houdini arrives at a host of startling revelations about how the mind works—and why, sometimes, it doesn't.

Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

Book DescriptionPublication Date: February 22, 2005Do you want to get ahead in life? Climb the ladder to personal success? The secret, master networker Keith Ferrazzi claims, is in reaching out to other people. As Ferrazzi discovered early in life, what distinguishes highly successful people from everyone else is the way they use the power of relationships—so that everyone wins. In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps—and inner mindset—he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his Rolodex, people he has helped and who have helped him. The son of a small-town steelworker and a cleaning lady, Ferrazzi first used his remarkable ability to connect with others to pave the way to a scholarship at Yale, a Harvard MBA, and several top executive posts. Not yet out of his thirties, he developed a network of relationships that stretched from Washington’s corridors of power to Hollywood’s A-list, leading to him being named one of Crain’s 40 Under 40 and selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the Davos World Economic Forum. Ferrazzi's form of connecting to the world around him is based on generosity, helping friends connect with other friends. Ferrazzi distinguishes genuine relationship-building from the crude, desperate glad-handling usually associated with “networking.” He then distills his system of reaching out to people into practical, proven principles. Among them:Don’t keep score: It’s never simply about getting what you want. It’s about getting what you want and making sure that the people who are important to you get what they want, too.“Ping” constantly: The Ins and Outs of reaching out to those in your circle of contacts all the time—not just when you need something.Never eat alone: The dynamics of status are the same whether you’re working at a corporation or attending a society event— “invisibility” is a fate worse than failure. In the course of the book, Ferrazzi outlines the timeless strategies shared by the world’s most connected individuals, from Katherine Graham to Bill Clinton, Vernon Jordan to the Dalai Lama. Chock full of specific advice on handling rejection, getting past gatekeepers, becoming a “conference commando,” and more, Never Eat Alone is destined to take its place alongside How to Win Friends and Influence People as an inspirational classic.

The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2007

Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.

In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant The Shack wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book!

Farewell, My Queen: A Novel

Book Description

Publication Date: May 17, 2003

A woman whose function it once was to read books aloud to Marie Antoinette is haunted by the memory of her last days at the French court of Versailles, when Louis XVI's magnificent palace succumbed to the irrepressible forces of revolution. Now exiled in Vienna, Madame Agathe-Sidonie Laborde looks back twenty-one years to the legendary opulence of Versailles and, overcome with nostalgia and remorse, discovers the full measure of her fascination with the Queen she served. Madame Laborde takes the reader within the palace, meticulously reconstructing the 14th, 15th, and 16th of July 1789feverish days when the servants have disappeared and many of the courtiers are fleeing. Versailles' miniature universe, sparkling with every outward appearance of happiness and beauty, is brilliantly juxtaposed with the chaos that erupts. We witness the unraveling of the palace's dawn-to-dusk ritual and the rising panic of the court as Versailles edges closer and closer to collapse. With the revolutionaries virtually at the gates of the palace, Madame Laborde herself flees the night of the 16th, escaping with members of the once-powerful de Polignac family. Transporting us to revolutionary France with the knowledge and insight of an historian and with the skill of a consummate storyteller, Thomas evokes this historical moment more powerfully than any historical analysis can.

I Love Trucks

I Love Trucks

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 1998 | Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up

Vivid paintings by Shari Halpern and light verse by Philemon Sturges take readers through the roaring world of rumbling trucks and reveal each truck's special job.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

I Love Trucks! by Philemon Sturges, illus. by Shari Halpern, now in paperback, shows bright and colorful black outlined illustrations of a tow truck, a street sweeper and a backhoe in action. From the same team and in the same format ("I like trains that hoot and roar/ as they rumble by my door"), I Love Trains! demonstrates a flatcar carrying a veiled massive airplane ("secret stuff that's under wrap"), among other cargo. The books show the featured trucks and train cars on the endpapers.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-For toddlers with an insatiable appetite for trucks, this is a perfect choice. Vehicles that crawl, roll, dig, dump, mix concrete, gobble trash, and do a multitude of other things are depicted in simple rhyming language and big, bold illustrations outlined in black. On the front and end pages are facts about different kinds of trucks that will fascinate slightly older children. A book that's similar in style to Byron Barton's Trucks (Crowell, 1986) and sure to be popular.
Sally R. Dow, Ossining Public Library, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Vision: Your Pathway to Victory [Paperback]

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

"Vision: Your Pathway to Victory" is deeply intelligent, yet simplistically easy guide that exhibits how to obtain specific results. Using a unique process known as Strategic Visionary Planning, readers will become the author of their destiny. The content is inspirational, and reads like a recipe that arranges the reader’s hopes and dreams into an abnormally gratifying reality.

About the Author

Gordon D’Angelo is co-founder and Chairman of NEXT Financial Group, Inc., the seven-time Broker/Dealer of the Year Award winner, and Chairman and CEO of NEXT Financial Holdings, Inc., handling over 14 billion dollars in assets.
In addition to starting numerous 100 million dollar companies, Gordon was an original founder and director of Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. He has consulted for two of the top fifteen franchises in the world, and sits on the Board of Directors at Liberty Tax Service.
Gordon speaks at numerous financial and outside industry engagements, sharing his sought-after insight on Strategic Visionary Planning. He has been the key-note speaker for organizations and events such as Liberty Tax Service, The NEXT Challenge and Kingdom Advisors. He has also appeared on every major network affiliate, including ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. Gordon has shared the economic stage with such notables as former Secretary of State, James Baker; columnist, George Will; and the multi-talented Ben Stein.
Author Residence: Virginia Beach, VA