March 2007
Monthly Archive
Sat 31 Mar 2007
When Laura Bush moved into the White House on January 20, 2001, everyone wanted to know what kind of first lady she would be. Would she be like Mamie Eisenhower? Would she follow in Barbara Bush’s footsteps? Would she be another Hillary Clinton?
“I think I’ll just be Laura Bush,” she would say.
On Saturday, April 30, 2005, the world got a glimpse of what that meant when she pushed aside the leader of the free world and stole the show at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Wearing a shimmering lime green Oscar de la Renta gown, Laura wisecracked that she was a “desperate housewife” married to a president who was always asleep at nine.
Replayed constantly on the air, the stand-up routine with its impeccable comedic timing turned the first lady into a glittering star. But while the performance catapulted her to new status, it did not answer the question of who this former teacher and librarian really is and just what role she plays in influencing her husband and shaping his administration. The Bushes are more effective than the FBI or CIA at keeping secret what goes on behind the scenes at the White House, the ranch, or Camp David.
Now, New York Times best-selling author Ronald Kessler draws back that curtain in the first biography of Laura Bush to be written with White House cooperation. Based on interviews with her closest friends and confidantes from childhood to the present, as well as family members and administration heavyweights like Condoleezza Rice and Andrew Card, Kessler paints a portrait of a woman who, even as she ascended to the heights of political fortune and power, never lost touch with the bedrock American values she absorbed in her youth.
Tags: laura bush: an intimate portrait of the first lady, ronald kessler, bios & memoirs, an intimate portrait of the first lady, george w. bush, white house, andrew card, condoleeza rice
Tue 27 Mar 2007
SuperFoods HealthStyle is the 21st century program for promoting vigor, preventing disease, and extending your lifespan.
If, up until now, you have relied on luck, genetics, and a few healthy practices to achieve this goal, SuperFoods HealthStyle will be your authoritative, engaging, introduction to a new, better life. Like SuperFoods Rx, the authors’ best-selling book, SuperFoods HealthStyle takes the most recent, cutting-edge research on what lifestyle practices have actually been proven to achieve disease prevention and improve daily functioning, both physically and mentally, and translates this information into simple recommendations that you can use to improve your physical and mental health now and in the future. It is about making simple, but significant changes to get the most out of life for the rest of your life.
SuperFoods Rx is based on a simple but profound premise: some foods are dramatically better than others for our health and longevity.
Steven Pratt, M.D., witnessed the positive results that occurred when his patients changed their diets to include certain powerhouse foods, those he has identified as SuperFoods. Backed by research on 14 of the most nutrient-dense foods, this audio gives you the tools to more energy, protection against disease, and a healthy lifestyle.
Tags: superfoods audio collection: superfoods heathstyle & superfoods rx, steven pratt and kathy matthews, health & fitness, nutrients, nutrition, food, eating habits, longevity, aging, health
Sun 25 Mar 2007
Twenty-eight-year-old Sean McGillin is the picture of health, until he fractures his leg while in-line skating in New York City’s Central Park. Within 24 hours of his surgery, he dies.
A 36-year-old mother, Darlene Morgan, has knee surgery to repair a torn ligament in her knee. And within 24 hours, she has died.
New York City medical examiners Dr. Laurie Montgomery and Dr. Jack Stapleton are back, in Robin Cook’s electrifying 25th novel. Last seen in Vector, the doctors confront a series of puzzling hospital deaths of young, healthy people after successful routine surgery.
Despite institutional resistance from her superiors, as well as from those at Manhattan General, Laurie doggedly pursues the investigation. Though it seems impossible to determine why and how the patients are dying, she comes to suspect that not only are the deaths related, they’re intentional, suggesting the work of a remarkably clever serial killer with a very unusual motive, involving frightening ties to both developing genomic medicine and the economics of modern-day health care.
Then Laurie is dealt a double blow: While coping with Jack’s inability to commit to their relationship, she discovers she carries a genetic marker for a breast-cancer gene. As her personal life continues to unravel, the need for answers becomes more urgent, especially when Laurie is pulled into the nightmare as a potential victim herself. With time winding down, she and Jack race to connect the dots, and save Laurie’s life.
With his signature blend of suspense and science, Robin Cook delivers an electrifying page-turner as vivid as today’s headlines.
Tags: marker, robin cook, mysteries & thrillers, thriller, suspense, medical examiners, dr. laurie montgomery, dr. jack stapleton, serial killer
Other books by the same author:
Sat 24 Mar 2007
Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch will be damned if he lets anyone disturb his city’s always tentative peace, and that includes a rabble-rousing dwarf from the sticks who’s been stirring up trouble on the eve of the anniversary of one of Discworld’s most infamous historical events.
Centuries earlier, in a hellhole called Koom Valley, trolls met dwarfs in bloody combat. Though nobody’s quite sure why they fought or who actually won, each species still bears the cultural scars and views the other with simmering animosity. Lately, an influential dwarf, Grag Hamcrusher, has been fomenting unrest among Ankh-Morpork’s more diminutive citizens. And it doesn’t help matters when the pint-size provocateur is discovered beaten to death, with a troll club lying nearby.
Vimes knows the well-being of his city depends on his ability to solve the Hamcrusher homicide. But there’s more than one corpse waiting for him in the vast mine network the dwarfs have been excavating beneath Ankh-Morpork’s streets. A deadly puzzle is pulling Sam Vimes deep into the muck and mire of superstition, hatred, and fear, and perhaps all the way to Koom Valley itself.
Tags: thud!: discworld #30, terry pratchett, science fiction and fantasy, trolls, dwarves, murder, racial tension, discworld
Fri 23 Mar 2007
Posted by bookworm under
NonfictionNo Comments
Informed by unparalleled access to still-secret documents, interviews with top field commanders, and a review of the military’s own internal after-action reports, Cobra II is the definitive chronicle of America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq, a conflict that could not be lost but one that the United States failed to win decisively. From the Pentagon to the White House to the American command centers in the field, the book reveals the inside story of how the war was actually planned and fought. Drawing on classified United States government intelligence, it also provides a unique account of how Saddam Hussein and his high command developed and prosecuted their war strategy.
Written by Michael R. Gordon, the chief military correspondent for The New York Times who spent the war with the Allied land command, and Bernard E. Trainor, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general and former director of the National Security Program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Cobra II traces the interactions among the generals, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and President George W. Bush. It dramatically reconstructs the principal battles from interviews with those who fought them, providing reliable accounts of the clashes waged by conventional and Special Operations forces. It documents with precision the failures of American intelligence and the mistakes in administering postwar Iraq.
Unimpeachably sourced, Cobra II describes how the American rush to Baghdad provided the opportunity for the virulent insurgency that followed. The brutal aftermath in Iraq was not inevitable and was a surprise to the generals on both sides; Cobra II provides the first authoritative account as to why. It is a book of enduring importance and incisive analysis, a comprehensive account of the most reported yet least understood war in American history.
Tags: cobra ii: the inside story of the invasion and occupation of iraq, michael r. gordon and bernard e. trainor, nonfiction, invasion, iraq, army, occupation, war on terror, insurgency, saddam hussein, baghdad, rumsfeld, bush
— Next Page »
Posts
