Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The Quickie


The Quickie

by James Patterson (Author), Michael Ledwidge (Author)


When Lauren Stillwell discovers her husband leaving a hotel room with another woman, she decides to beat him at his own game. But while she's sneaking around, her husband is hatching a plan of his own. After a torrid quickie with a co-worker, Lauren hears a struggle outside her window and looks out just in time to see her husband loading her lover's limp body into the trunk of a car. When the body shows up in a pool of shallow water, she races to the scene of the crime. But Lauren Stillwell is no regular wronged woman. She's a NYC cop--and she's just been assigned to this case. Unable to tell anyone what she saw and unwilling to turn her husband in, Lauren is paralyzed by a secret that will tear her life apart. But as she attempts to point fingers away from her husband, she uncovers something shocking: her husband didn't have an affair--what he did was far worse than she could have ever imagined. A gripping story of secrets and infidelities that begins where Adrian Lyne's movie Unfaithful leaves off, THE QUICKIE will have readers' hearts pounding to the very last page

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Just Who Will You Be?: Big Question. Little Book. Answer Within.


Just Who Will You Be?: Big Question. Little Book. Answer Within.

by Maria Shriver (Author)


From Publishers Weekly
This slender inspirational book is a candid self-portrait of a woman in transition. A longtime NBC anchorwoman, Shriver was thrown into a tailspin when asked to resign after her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was elected governor of California; she writes, My career was gone, and with it went the person I'd been for twenty-five years. With a combination of self-deprecation and chutzpah, Shriver describes herself as the consummate overachiever, a people-pleasing, legacy-carrying, perfection-seeking Good Girl, now realizing that asking ourselves not just what we want to be but who we want to be is important at every stage in our lives, not just when we're starting out in the world. That's because, in a way, we're starting out fresh in the world every single day. Reprinted in full in this book is the speech Shriver made at her nephew's high school graduation—a humorous meditation on fame, achievement and self-worth—that inspired the writing of this book. Shriver's earnest self-inquiry and her humility and readiness to regard herself as a 50-year-old work-in-progress make for a charming and genuinely inspiring read.


Book Description

"Maria Shriver is wise, funny and caring--and it all comes through in her winning guide to life, JUST WHO WILL YOU BE? We're lucky to have her show us the way." -- Tom Brokaw
"Maria teaches all of us in the graduate program of life to seek meaning through the joy of following your heart. Just the kind of advice a heart surgeon cherishes." --Mehmet Oz, M.D.
"Everything Maria Shriver does is a testament to how deeply she respects and cares about people; all people, all over the world. She really does. She is as charming and funny as she is brilliant and profoundly humane." --Anne Lamott
"Maria Shriver is real, vulnerable, humble, honest (just like her book) and not afraid to say so. A lovely book by a lovely person." --Danielle Steel
"This honest, straight-talking, profound little book is worth a lifetime of reflection. It calls readers of all ages to think again-and differently-about who they've been in the past and who they want to be now. This book is a life-stopper, a truly universal piece. It's a must for everyone-of any age." --Sister Joan Chittister
"Every graduate (of anything) ought to be given a copy of this book along with their diploma. There's wisdom, compassion and truth between these covers. For anyone -- at any age." --Linda Ellerbee, Executive Producer, "Nick News"
"I've learned that asking ourselves not just what we want to be, but who we want to be is important at every stage of our lives, not just when we're starting out in the world. That's because in a way, we're starting out fresh in the world every single day."
Just Who Will You Be? is a candid, heartfelt, and inspirational book for seekers of all ages. Inspired by a speech she gave, Maria Shriver's message is that what you do in your life isn't what matters. It's who you are. It's an important lesson that will appeal to anyone of any age looking for a life of meaning.
In her own life, Shriver always walked straight down her own distinctive path, achieving her childhood goal of becoming "award-winning network newswoman Maria Shriver". But when her husband was elected California's Governor and she suddenly had to leave her job at NBC News, Maria was thrown for a loop. Right about then, her nephew asked her to speak at his high school graduation. She resisted, wondering how she could possibly give advice to kids, when she was feeling so lost herself. But in the end she relented and decided to dig down and dig deep, and the result is this little jewel.
Just Who Will You Be? reminds us that the answer to many of life's question lie within -- and that we're all works in progress. That means it's never too late to become the person you want to be.
Now the question for you is this: Just who will you be?

Monday, June 16, 2008

Big Russ and Me: Father and Son: Lessons of Life


Big Russ and Me: Father and Son: Lessons of Life
by Tim Russert (Author)

Meet the newsman's father in this stupendously entertaining book. The senior Tim Russert served in WWII, married and settled in South Buffalo, N.Y., worked days for the Sanitation Department, drove a night truck for the local evening paper and raised four kids. The younger Russert's memoir begins as a tribute to his dad and the lessons he taught through the years, but also takes ample time to tell how Russert junior grew up and became the moderator of Meet the Press. His neighborhood in the 1950s was tightly knit, Irish Catholic and anchored by the institutions of marriage, family, church and school. Nuns and Legionnaires shaped young Russert's character; in high school, his Jesuit instructors strengthened and solidified it. John Kennedy's short life and career still resonated when Russert began law school in 1970. He worked on Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1976 campaign, then on the senator's staff. A friend of Moynihan provided the link that brought Russert to NBC and the Today show. He first appeared as a panelist on Meet the Press in 1990, becoming moderator in 1991. Throughout his private and public life, Russert continually turned to his father for advice, and the older man's common sense served the younger pretty much without fail. The memoir is candid and generous, so warm-hearted that readers should forgive the occasional didactic touch (and it's a soft touch). There are hard ways to learn life lessons; fortunately, readers have Russert to thank for sharing his with them.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons


Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons
by Tim Russert (Author)

Surprised by the overwhelming and heartfelt reception to Big Russ and Me(2004), Russert follows that memoir of his relationship with his father with a collection of letters he received recounting relationships between fathers and their sons and daughters. Russert, host of NBC's Meet the Press, received 60,000 letters and e-mails from readers with their own touching memories of filial love. Interspersed throughout, Russert recollects moments as a son and as a father, as well as conversations with famous figures, including Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and news reporter Maria Shriver, about their fathers. But the contributors are decidedly ordinary Americans, many with recollections that highlight generational differences of a time when fathers were less than demonstrative. Many recall taciturn fathers who couldn't bring themselves to tell their children they loved them but showed it in myriad ways. Many write of lessons learned about honor from fathers. A man recalls going to a New York Giants game with his father, who passed up an opportunity to sell extra tickets to scalpers and instead sold them--at cost--to another father with his son. Women recall how ties to their father set the tone for later relationships with men. One contributor recalls her father's tolerance as she and her sisters practiced applying makeup on him, going so far as to paint his toenails. Once again, Russert celebrates the relationship between fathers and their children in this heartwarming book. Vanessa Bush

Nothing to Lose


Nothing to Lose
by Lee Child (Author)


From Publishers WeeklyAt the start of bestseller Child's solid 12th Jack Reacher novel (after Bad Luck and Trouble), the ex-military policeman hitchhikes into Colorado, where he finds himself crossing the metaphorical and physical line that divides the small towns of Hope and Despair. Despair lives up to its name; all Reacher wants is a cup of coffee, but what he gets is attacked by four thugs and thrown in jail on a vagrancy charge. After he's kicked out of town, Reacher reacts in his usual manner—he goes back and whips everybody's butt and busts up the town's police force. In the process, he discovers, with the help of a good-looking lady cop from Hope, that a nearby metal processing plant is part of a plan that involves the war in Iraq and an apocalyptic sect bent on ushering in the end-time. With his powerful sense of justice, dogged determination and the physical and mental skills to overcome what to most would be overwhelming odds, Jack Reacher makes an irresistible modern knight-errant.


Product Description

Two lonely towns in Colorado: Hope and Despair. Between them, twelve miles of empty road. Jack Reacher never turns back. It's not in his nature. All he wants is a cup of coffee. What he gets is big trouble. So in Lee Child’s electrifying new novel, Reacher—a man with no fear, no illusions, and nothing to lose—goes to war against a town that not only wants him gone, it wants him dead. It wasn’t the welcome Reacher expected. He was just passing through, minding his own business. But within minutes of his arrival a deputy is in the hospital and Reacher is back in Hope, setting up a base of operations against Despair, where a huge, seething walled-off industrial site does something nobody is supposed to see . . . where a small plane takes off every night and returns seven hours later . . . where a garrison of well-trained and well-armed military cops—the kind of soldiers Reacher once commanded—waits and watches . . . where above all two young men have disappeared and two frightened young women wait and hope for their return.Joining forces with a beautiful cop who runs Hope with a cool hand, Reacher goes up against Despair—against the deputies who try to break him and the rich man who tries to scare him—and starts to crack open the secrets, starts to expose the terrifying connection to a distant war that’s killing Americans by the thousand.Now, between a town and the man who owns it, between Reacher and his conscience, something has to give. And Reacher never gives an inch.