Where to buy A Big Little Life A Memoir of a Joyful Dog order it now

Author : Dean Koontz
Total Page : 288
Publisher : Hyperion
Publication Date : 2009 08 25

A Big Little Life A Memoir of a Joyful Dog
>> Is he the only person
with the cutest smartest bestest dog in the whole world Of course not because all of our dogs are like that I know he supports Canine Companions for Independence and the like I do too But his style is so wide eyed Gee whiz that I couldn t read it Didn t plan to read the ending anyhow We have a handful of dogs waiting for us at the Rainbow Bridge All of you do too as does Mr Koontz
>> Bonding
Dean Koontz gives us a biography of Trixie as well as a glimpse into his own life and thought processes I was predisposed to like this book because i like how Mr Koontz uses the english language There is grace and humor in his writing no matter the subject Being animal lover helped too When he talks of time and memory Ch 16 dogs and death Ch 17 he is preaching to the choir i have no doubt that animals have a consciousness and dare i say it Souls
But if you prefer txtspk and are convinced of mankind s superiority in all aspects of life this is not for you
>> Dean Koontz never fails
As a dog lover and Dean Koontz fan I was doubly pleased with this offering Koontz is clearly a man of heart or he wouldn t have his beloved goldens in nearly everything he writes and I m happy that his popularity permitted him to write this tribute to a wonderful dog He understands them as only a true dog lover can

Fast Shipping No Ordinary Time Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt The Home Front in World War II order it now

Author : Doris Kearns Goodwin
Total Page : 768
Publisher : Simon Schuster
Publication Date : 1995 10 01

No Ordinary Time Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt The Home Front in World War II
>> Great sublimation
This rather dense book was a pleasure to read and great education for me The author is so good at weaving historical events both dry subjects and personal accounts and keeps you engaged and curious Even their flaws in personalities and relationships seem to have produced significant accomplishments a great case of sublimation
>> No ordinary read
My early memories of the Depression and WWII were dim I was just a small child during that time What are vivid are the feelings of love and adoration for FDR by my mother and her family One of my fondest experiences was taking my Mom to Warm Springs GA to visit his home and place of his death

I have learned through the years that the mere mention of Franklin Roosevelt evokes extreme emotions he was either loved and admired or hated and condemned There seemed to be no middle ground

I learned so much about this man his politics our country the Great Depression and WWII in this remarkable Doris Kearns Goodwin biography She has the ability to put you there as an observer during so many pivotal times in American history Her seamless segues from past to present allow the reader to understand this man s past as it is woven into his life s story You can almost visualize Winston Churchill running about the White House in a velvet robe

So importantly it also let s one understand his loving yet poignant and painful marriage to Eleanor

Regardless of your politics reading this book is truly an uncommon experience



>> No Ordinary Time
The best book on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Ms Goodwin won wide aclaim for this book and deserving so Full of facts that you never knew and historical background on the family and their views Very Interesting and a fast read

The Liars Club buy online

Author : Mary Karr
Total Page : 336
Publisher : Picador
Publication Date : 1996 11 08

The Liars Club
>> Fine storytelling in an emotional black hole
A childhood spent in an ugly Texas oil town blighted by an alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother sure does give Mary Karr a good story to tell And she tells her story with a sure hand and a finely honed black humor This is the reason to read Mary Karr s book

Eventually though the narrative began to feel hollow to me Mary Karr is telling her story from a great distance not so much of time but of therapy and creative writing coursework She talks of her physical reactions to the craziness around her for example watching her mentally ill mother burn her toys and belongings in a bonfire or recoiling from the demands of nursing her father but her emotional self is remote or even absent

I felt this lack only because I recently read two misery lit memoirs whose emotional tone seemed more honest to me The Glass Castle and Hungry Hill In each of these books the child s hurt is more keenly felt Mary Karr seems intent on pushing away the hurt in favor of the story And yes it s a great story
>> a tattered tale
The writing and story were great but i d say the seller oversetimated the book s condition a bit Still it arrived quickly and all s well that reads well
>> Liar s Club Pulls No Punches
Mary Karr s book Liar s Club should be required reading for all memoirists

Karr lays bare her horrendous childhood and sexual abuse with a painfully truthful yet poignant and laugh out loud funny story of her love hate relationship with an extraordinary and extraordinarily frustrated mother a candidate for a good shrink if there ever was one Fortunately she has a father who is her rock at least when he s not drinking

As is the case in many such situations Karr and her older sister learn to cope by relying on each other for support I can see why it has endured and is recommended by so many therapists

From Karr s recounting of her early panic to her final absolution I loved this book

Mary Lynn Archibald author of the memoir Accidental Cowgirl Six Cows No Horse and No Clue

Shop for Meditations Dodo Press

Author : Marcus Aurelius
Total Page : 180
Publisher : Dodo Press
Publication Date : 2006 08 12

Meditations Dodo Press
>> Philosophy its best
I will keep it short

Amazon shipped the order rather quickly the book came nice and new the reading itself is irreplaceable Would definitely recommend for others
>> Not so common sense
Everywhere at each moment you have the option
to accept this event with humility
to treat this person as he should be treated
to approach this thought with care so that nothing irrational creeps in

With these words Marcus Aurelius succinctly captures the philosophy he shaped his worldview around Practical philosophy such as this often gets tagged with the phrase common sense but to me this does a great injustice to both the underlying philosophy and to the clearly intense struggle to live life by such a code The ideals that Marcus articulates are perhaps commonly understood but rarely translated into practice because human nature tends toward the opposite response to act selfishly to taint our judgment with thoughts of what if and why me and to rail against that or those we believe have caused us insult or harm To live as a Stoic to accept external events as outside of our control to treat others with justice and fairness and work toward the common good and to be able to separate objective fact from subjective evaluation is incredibly difficult The fact that Marcus felt the need to write these notes down and often repeat the same themes over and over again to himself gives proof to their difficulty

Marcus can seem a bit cold and a bit pessimistic at times but I don t think this need be the case It is actually a rather liberating message both specific and demanding of its adherents Want true happiness Be unselfish in your actions Don t deny your emotions or speculations but do keep them distinct from objective fact The things that are done and said to you are only bad if you let them be Improve what you can control accept what you can t If you need help putting things in perspective Marcus reminds us that all is transient this too shall pass More sobering than uplifting the message is different than your typical modern self help book Yet it is these differences and the insights they produce that make it a stimulating and rewarding read especially in these turbulent days at the beginning of the 21st century Due to its excellent introduction and general ease of reading I particularly enjoyed this Hays translation but encourage potential readers to compare several versions to see which fits their needs best
>> Hardly ground breaking but essential nonetheless
If you expect this book to be anything but common sense and practical idioms you are mistaken The genius is this common sense and practical knowledge is tested and elaborated on by the most powerful man on earth at that time and one of the most respected of his empire a good judge of ethics and morals Marcus Aurelius neither intended this to be a radical new treatise or even published for that matter instead these are the reiterations of a student of Stoicism reinforcing his willpower in face of his self acknowledged weaknesses and in that regard an intriguing intimate look into one of the few philospher kings of Plato s dreaming

His philosophy sometimes rambling often redundant and idiosyncratic repetition of the theme of afterlife is nothing new to anyone who has studied Stoicism For those unfamiliar it reads easily and has a non academic feel without sinking to a dear diary sappiness These are real life politics and wars he is describing and he s the one responsible for pulling the empire through it The brief maxims and longer diatribes are not profession in nature or necessarily inspiring but are timeless all the same and like the Ecclesiastes and the Upanishads a practical code to follow A book I will likely come back to again and again

Cheap price for Pretty in Plaid A Life A Witch and a Wardrobe or the Wonder Years Before the Condescending Egomaniacal Self Centered Smart Ass Phase order it now

Author : Jen Lancaster
Total Page : 384
Publisher : NAL Trade
Publication Date : 2010 05 04

Pretty in Plaid A Life A Witch and a Wardrobe or the Wonder Years Before the Condescending Egomaniacal Self Centered Smart Ass Phase
>> You wont stop laughing
If you can imagine Jen Lancaster only gets better with each book You will find yourself laughing out loud and nodding along with the stories Jen tells about her life in the 80 s and 90 s in this book I can t recommend it highly enough
>> Not as Pretty as Others
Jen Lancaster keeps her humorous bit alive with her third novel Pretty In Plaid Lancaster takes readers on the ultimate flashback in time traveling back through the 80s and 90s and revealing her journey to show just how she got to where she is now I enjoyed reading about the disastrous birthday dinner when Lancaster was eight and realized how to eat a lobster her Greek years in college and how she struggled to fit in and how she came to meet her future husband Fletch
Pretty in Plaid was a fun read mainly because I was learning even more about one of my favorite authors I like how Lancaster lets readers into her life and her humor and honesty through each saga keeps me laughing throughout the novel I do have to be honest and say this wasn t my favorite novel from Jen Lancaster it just didn t give me the same pull as the others I have read I think maybe because there was not really a true plot it was just basically story telling and I wasn t sure where the story would stop Still an entertaining read and I would recommend to all chick lit fans just not a personal favorite of mine

>> Feels Forced
I had read all four of Jen Lancaster s books and occasionally read her blog I think she s funny and I m amused by her sense of humor however I did not love this It felt forced like she was reaching to think of funny things to talk about I still chuckled at some points but its definitely not her best book Bitter is I will probably continue to read her books but I certainly won t be paying 25 for a brand new hardcover Next time I ll buy it used or wait for it to come out in paperback

Save price for Killing Willis From Diff rent Strokes to the Mean Streets to the Life I Always Wanted

Author : Todd Bridges
Total Page : 288
Publisher : Touchstone
Publication Date : 2010 03 16

Killing Willis From Diff rent Strokes to the Mean Streets to the Life I Always Wanted
>> An incredible story of Todd Bridges
In promoting this book Todd Bridges in his interview with Today show co host Meredith Vieira on NBC on March 15 2010 and later with Joy Behar on her show on CNN spoke openly and honestly about his ordeal of physical sexual and emotional abuse he faced from the very people who were responsible for his best interest and safety He has lived through the most difficult days of abuse the harassment from police intense racism in Los Angeles Police Department LAPD in 1980s and 1990s addiction to controlled substances life on the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles repeated criminal charges including a murder charge and bad publicity surrounding Diff rent Strokes other actors Gary Coleman and Dana Plato Incidentally Dana died tragically at a very young age due to drug addiction and drug overdose on May 8 1999 It is absolutely overwhelming for any man let alone a kid to face this trauma yet Todd proves that you need to fight your way out never relent to momentary setbacks and you can still emerge as a reformed positive role model for kids who face similar challenges He has turned his life around by becoming an author a family man a responsible father working actor director and a producer This is absolutely incredible saga of an individual who had everything to the very lowest point in life This is especially hard for fans who watched Diff rent Strokes on TV regularly during 1970s and 80s

The middle pages are especially hard to read as Todd Bridges describes in great detail his unfortunate addiction to various controlled substances and then becoming a drug trafficker himself living on the most dangerous streets of South Central LA and dealing with worst offenders Constant harassment of LAPD racism he experienced from them at a very young age when he could not understand what it meant Todd describes a very happy childhood growing in San Francisco where he faces very little racism but moving to Los Angeles would change everything it is not only fame money girls drugs and sex but also the law going incessantly after him

From this book we also get to know the working relationship between three young actors of the show Gary Coleman guided by his father was mean and unfriendly The friendship between Dana Plato and Todd Bridges is not so sweet after all Dana had addition to drugs since the age of 13 and everyone on the set knew her problem because she was using them on the set and was a highly unreliable cast member Both of them had several years of sexual relationship and drug use but Todd Bridges still regards her as his best friend whom he wanted to help in her final days by persuading her to check into a rehab clinic This story is deeply saddening and hard to read especially for fans who adored the show

1 Diff rent Strokes Seasons 1 2 DVD Set First Two Seasons
2 On the Set of Diff rent Strokes
>> Raw but not in a good way
If you re looking for a raw no holds barred depiction of drugs sex and violence then this may be the biography for you However if you re looking for anything heavier than that introspection self awareness and maturation this may not be the place to look I couldn t bear to keep reading after around 200 pages not because of Todd s raw depiction of the street life but rather because his chronicle feels thoroughly deficient in other more important respects

First of all Todd demonstrates little understanding of himself and seems to have a tremendous ego He goes on and on about what a big deal he was as a child/teen star often seems like he s bragging when he discusses his exploits and promotions in the drug world and constantly paints himself as an innocent victim even going as far as to say that none of what he did was his fault other than taking drugs in the first place How about his running two crack houses and intentionally getting several women hooked How about all the crime and death he indirectly promoted through his drug dealing activities At one particularly important point in the book he finds himself wrongfully accused of murder and never connects the dots to realize that the murder was committed by his people in his crack house against his arch rival No Todd claims he never fired a gun but many guns fired because of him Todd sees himself here as an innocent victim of racial profiling and personal grudges in much the same way as he was when the police repeatedly pulled him over earlier in life and hassled him for being black The two situations are far from the same It s not that Todd needs to show more remorse over the things he did it s that he doesn t show any because he doesn t see himself as deserving blame Though he often talks about how far he fell and how ashamed of himself he d become it was never for anything other than being a drug user who no longer cared about his career He ll spend entire pages talking about pioneering a way to make crack in the microwave or rising to become a small time drug lord in such a short amount of time but these read like bragging rights not confessions

Secondly there are several times in the book where Todd s accounts seem highly unreliable Though there are times where he knows that what he s saying sounds hard to believe and says as much there are other accounts that simply don t add up At one point in the book Todd is cheated out of his entire fortune and is left with nothing Yet in the next few chapters he mentions his nice five bedroom home his Ethan Allen dining room table and his BMW and he has another car too Sure he may have lost most of his fortune but he s clearly still affluent and goes on to survive comfortably and support a heavy drug addiction without working or stealing for many years after At another point in the book Todd s drug lord mentor has four crack houses but when Todd takes over his business a few pages later there are two crack houses In a third memorable instance Todd s old rival gets revenge on Todd by knocking him down running into his crack house and locking him out This makes absolutely no sense Drug lords seeking revenge outside of a crack house at night fire guns and kill They do not run into houses and lock people out The fact that this is all part of Todd s alibi for how he had nothing to do with this man ending up in his crack house and being brutally murdered makes this account even more suspicious There s also a time when Todd is on death row for killing Henry and the cops add an armed robbery charge to the mix Todd tells them that Henry is the one who did it and to go look for him Why would he have said that if Henry s death is the whole reason Todd was on death row in the first place

Finally the general writing style is exceptionally poor and non engaging Todd often sounds like he s just rambling and heading toward a general direction in his narrative There s also an excessive usage of commas in the middle of sentences and before the word because any time that it is used I m not sure what co writer Sarah Tomlinson actually did for this book but it feels completely unedited

Please don t get me wrong Todd Bridges has led a fascinating and incredibly painful life he has been the victim of many unfortunate circumstances including abuse sexual abuse and blatant racism he has pulled himself out of the abyss and in at least one instance he has performed a heroic feat that saved someone s life I have nothing against Todd Bridges as a person but I could certainly do without Killing Willis
>> Todd Bridges is such a whiner
I really didn t want to deal with this book because I was ALIVE during the 90s and 2000s so I already know Todd Bridges life story but the Vine program offerred it and there was nothing else I wanted so I got it The reviews made it seem like this book was soooo good All Todd does is whine in the book When Todd was harrassed by the police for driving his own Porshe he stated it was racism by the LA Cops we got it When he was arrested for the killing of the people at the crack house he stated it was racism by the LA Cops we got it Now in his book he rehashes the same claims Todd we get that your life got off track because of racism give it a rest Sarcasm

Todd whines and I use the word whines because Todd s life was pretty okay and has turned out fine yet he still feels he has been wronged The trials and tribulations of Todd Bridges would have been good in book form but the writing is dry He describes the abuse at the hands of his father over and over again but the way he describes it is like he was an observer I felt no emotion to any of the things Todd said in his book and the racism thing just got old

To top it off Todd was on the Joy Behar show a week ago and they were talking about actors being able to bounce back Robert Downey Jr etc When Todd was asked why he couldn t bounce back of course he replied RACISM Todd just be quiet

You have not become a huge star again because your acting range is limited Other than Willis and your child characters your acting has been blah You bring nothing to a dramatic role You are no Denzel Morgan Freeman Don Cheatle Tyler Perry etc You just don t have the acting chops to bounce back Your son is now an actor focus on his success and stop whining

Would I recommend this book Yes if you were not ALIVE in the 90s and 2000s and don t know Todd s story already the racism the arrests the drug use the former child star syndrome the sex with Dana Plato etc

Cheap price on Autobiography of a Yogi Includes Bonus CD

Author : Paramahansa Yogananda
Total Page : 520
Publisher : Self Realization Fellowship
Publication Date : 2006 06 01

Autobiography of a Yogi Includes Bonus CD
>> Autobiography of a Yogi should only be taken for entertainment
I bought the audio book on Audible and it is well read and somewhat interesting But it s total pseudoscience and supernatural fiction If you are looking for scholarly insights into spirituality this is not it At times I felt like I was being outright lied to examples include a man who can t show up in pictures and a teleporting silver talisman to name a few Sometimes it borders on being outright charlatan Read it for entertainment or not at all There are better things to spend your time with
>> Amazing book
This book if you can believe what is in its pages contains the secrets for the attainment of nirvana Paramahansa Yogananda was a saint and his life was touched my many powerful yogis swamis and Christ like individuals This book explains the limitations of the old and new testaments and what they were trying to explain Words can not begin to describe my love for this book and what it has done for me
>> spiritual journey
any person on the journey of life will truely benefit by reading this book the words on these pages flow like poetry and will resonate with all