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Books: Computers: Computer Books For Dummies
Twelve Sharp (Stephanie Plum Novels)by Janet Evanovich List Price: $26.95 Available from Amazon $16.17 On 7-22-2006 
See Item's Page From Publishers Weekly The mixture of slapstick and gunplay that has put Evanovich's series about a sassy, less than competent New Jersey bounty hunter at the top of bestseller lists once again works its magic in Stephanie Plum's latest caper (after 2005's Eleven on Top). Stephanie, who freely admits her failings as a hunter of fugitives, faces a growing work backlog that threatens the continued existence of her job. Her clumsy efforts to clear some cases, along with the help of her outrageous colleague, Lula, result only in their adding another sad sack to the office payroll—a forlorn shoe salesman who's talked off a ledge by Stephanie's offer of a position as file clerk. Stephanie's ambivalence toward the two men in her life becomes harder to maintain when one of them, the mysterious Ranger, is accused of kidnapping his own daughter. Countless over-the-top scenes, including one at a funeral parlor, will delight longtime fans. Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist *Starred Review* In a manner almost elegant in its offhandedness, Stephanie Plum gets us up to speed on her life as a bounty hunter in Trenton, NJ; her ever-eccentric family; and her fellows in her cousin's bail-bond office. It doesn't take more than a few pages. Then someone who is mistaken for Ranger--one of the two men in and out of Stephanie's life (the other is Morelli the cop)--is accused of kidnapping his daughter. Evanovich uses all of her considerable arsenal here: wisecracking humor and set pieces about cars, neighborhoods, family matters, and the funeral parlor (now with new directors straight out of Queer Eye for the Burg Guy). Then, at one point, both Morelli and Ranger are living out of Stephanie's apartment (she flees to her childhood bedroom). Evanovich also deftly uses celebrity stalking and identity theft to sketch a quite scary bad guy, and she creates in Ranger's daughter, Julie, a spirited 10-year-old version of her mesmerizing father. The ending is downright terrifying, but the coda is soothing and features a cake with icing roses. Kids? Cupcakes? What could possibly be next? GraceAnne DeCandido Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved |
In Cold Bloodby Truman Capote List Price: $14.00 Available from Amazon $8.40 On 7-22-2006 
See Item's Page Product Review "Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans--in fact, few Kansans--had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there." If all Truman Capote did was invent a new genre--journalism written with the language and structure of literature--this "nonfiction novel" about the brutal slaying of the Clutter family by two would-be robbers would be remembered as a trail-blazing experiment that has influenced countless writers. But Capote achieved more than that. He wrote a true masterpiece of creative nonfiction. The images of this tale continue to resonate in our minds: 16-year-old Nancy Clutter teaching a friend how to bake a cherry pie, Dick Hickock's black '49 Chevrolet sedan, Perry Smith's Gibson guitar and his dreams of gold in a tropical paradise--the blood on the walls and the final "thud-snap" of the rope-broken necks. The New York Times Book Review, Conrad Knickerbocker The resulting chronicle is a masterpiece--agonizing, terrible, possessed, proof that the times, so surfeited with disasters, are still capable of tragedy. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
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1984 by George Orwell and Erich Fromm Available from Amazon $7.95 On 7-22-2006
See Item's Page Product Review "Outside, even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere." The year is 1984; the scene is London, largest population center of Airstrip One. Airstrip One is part of the vast political entity Oceania, which is eternally at war with one of two other vast entities, Eurasia and Eastasia. At any moment, depending upon current alignments, all existing records show either that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, or that it has always been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia. Winston Smith knows this, because his work at the Ministry of Truth involves the constant "correction" of such records. "'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'" In a grim city and a terrifying country, where Big Brother is always Watching You and the Thought Police can practically read your mind, Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. He knows the Party's official image of the world is a fluid fiction. He knows the Party controls the people by feeding them lies and narrowing their imaginations through a process of bewilderment and brutalization that alienates each individual from his fellows and deprives him of every liberating human pursuit from reasoned inquiry to sexual passion. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be. Newspeak, doublethink, thoughtcrime--in 1984, George Orwell created a whole vocabulary of words concerning totalitarian control that have since passed into our common vocabulary. More importantly, he has portrayed a chillingly credible dystopia. In our deeply anxious world, the seeds of unthinking conformity are everywhere in evidence; and Big Brother is always looking for his chance. --Daniel Hintzsche
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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The Book of the Deadby Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child List Price: $25.95 Available from Amazon $16.35 On 7-22-2006
See Item's Page From Publishers Weekly Bestsellers Preston and Child have come up with another gripping, action-packed page-turner in this concluding volume to a trilogy pitting their Holmesian hero, FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast, against his Mycroft-turned-Moriarty—his younger brother, Diogenes. Picking up shortly after the events of 2005's Dance of Death, the book opens with the arrival of a package of fine dust at the Museum of Natural History; Diogenes has returned the diamonds he stole earlier. Meanwhile, Aloysius is in prison, having been framed for a number of murders. As his friends plot to spring him, his adversary lays the groundwork for a crowning criminal achievement. A mysterious benefactor funds the restoration of an ancient Egyptian tomb at the museum, but the work is beset by the mayhem Preston and Child's readers have come to expect—gory murders and suggestions of the supernatural. This entry, tying up many loose ends from its predecessors, is less likely to work as well for first-time readers, but followers of Aloysius Pendergast's previous exploits will find it a satisfying read with a tantalizing, ominous twist at the end. 10-city author tour. (June) Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Book Description DESCRIPTION: The New York Museum of Natural history receives their pilfered gem collection background down to dust. Diogenes, the psychotic killer who stole them in Dance of Death, is throwing down the gauntlet to both the city and to his brother, FBI Agent Pendergast, who is currently incarcerated in a maximum security prison. To quell the PR nightmare of the gem fiasco, the museum decides to reopen the Tomb of Senef. An astounding Egyptian temple, it was a popular museum exhibit until the 1930s, when it was quietly closed. But when the tomb is unsealed in preparation for its gala reopening, the killings--and whispers of an ancient curse--begin again. And the catastrophic opening itself sets the stage for the final battle between the two brothers: an epic clash from which only one will emerge alive. |
The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Brokeby Suze Orman List Price: $24.95 Available from Amazon $15.72 On 7-22-2006
See Item's Page Product Review If you are tired of struggling to make ends meet but don't know a 401(k) from Special K, this book is for you. Aimed specifically at "Generation Broke"--those in their twenties and thirties who are working yet buried in credit card debt and student loans--this user-friendly guide offers a clear introduction to practical investing and money management techniques that can turn even a dismal financial situation around. Bestselling author Suze Orman has a knack for taking the fear out of money matters, and in The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous &: Broke, she shows readers how to set priorities and achieve goals, whether it is to buy a house or save for retirement or pay for a child's education. She also offers inspiration to readers to face their financial problems and get started on a solution. After all, there is good news: young people still have the time to correct problems so that they will never be broke again. Readers who find terms such as diversification and IRA rollover scary--or worse, unimportant--will learn much from this book. In these pages, Orman clearly and succinctly explains what a FICO score is and why it's so important, offers the lowdown on stocks and mutual funds, provides career advice, and offers lots of tips on dealing with student loan debt, saving money even when times are tight, debt consolidation strategies, and the safest way for newlyweds to merge their finances. She also offers information on credit cards, including why canceling cards is not a good idea, when it makes sense to use them, and the best strategies for paying them off. It may not be the only money book you'll ever need, but it's an excellent place to start. --Shawn Carkonen
All About Suze Orman
Suze Orman: The Bestsellers
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books on DVD From Publishers Weekly No narrator, no matter how skilled, could sell the advice of personal finance guru Orman as well as Orman herself, so it's fitting that she gives voice to this audiobook. In a tone that is commanding (but in a motherly way), Orman lays out money management basics for YF&Bers (the young, fabulous and broke), covering everything from maintaining good credit and investing in the future to building a career and buying a first house. This is the lecture every parent should give their adolescent, and with Orman's emphatic delivery, it certainly has a lecture-like feel. There's no danger of nodding off during this audiobook, however. Orman's just-the-facts approach and spirited reading make this a quick, informative listen—a perfect motivator for anyone who has thought about organizing their finances and then opted for the beach instead. Simultaneous release with the Riverhead hardcover (Forecasts, Feb. 14). (Mar.) Copyright © Reed business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition. |
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A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson List Price: $16.95 Available from Amazon $11.02 On 7-22-2006
See Item's Page Product Review From primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short history of Nearly Everything reports what happened and how humans figured it out. To accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson uses hundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews with luminaries in various fields. His aim is to help people like him, who rejected stale school textbooks and dry explanations, to appreciate how we have used science to understand the smallest particles and the unimaginably vast expanses of space. With his distinctive prose style and wit, Bryson succeeds admirably. Though A Short History clocks in at a daunting 500-plus pages and covers the same material as every science book before it, it reads something like a particularly detailed novel (albeit without a plot). Each longish chapter is devoted to a topic like the age of our planet or how cells work, and these chapters are grouped into larger sections such as "The Size of the Earth" and "Life Itself." Bryson chats with experts like Richard Fortey (author of Life and Trilobite) and these interviews are charming. But it's when Bryson dives into some of science's best and most embarrassing fights--Cope vs. Marsh, Conway Morris vs. Gould--that he finds literary gold. --Therese Littleton --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Publishers Weekly As the title suggests, bestselling author Bryson (In a Sunburned Country) sets out to put his irrepressible stamp on all things under the sun. As he States at the outset, this is a book about life, the universe and everything, from the Big Bang to the ascendancy of Homo sapiens. "This is a book about how it happened," the author writes. "In particular how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something turned into us, and also what happened in between and since." What follows is a brick of a volume summarizing moments both great and curious in the history of science, covering already well-trod territory in the fields of cosmology, astronomy, paleontology, geology, chemistry, physics and so on. Bryson relies on some of the best material in the history of science to have come out in recent years. This is great for Bryson fans, who can encounter this material in its barest essence with the bonus of having it served up in Bryson's distinctive voice. But readers in the field will already have studied this information more in-depth in the originals and may find themselves questioning the point of a breakneck tour of the sciences that contributes nothing novel. Nevertheless, to read Bryson is to travel with a memoirist gifted with wry observation and keen insight that shed new light on things we mistake for commonplace. To accompany the author as he travels with the likes of Charles Darwin on the Beagle, Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton is a trip worth taking for most readers. Copyright 2003 Reed business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. |
Real Estate Investing for Dummiesby Eric Tyson and Robert S. Griswold List Price: $21.99 Available from Amazon $14.29 On 7-22-2006
See Item's Page Book Description "This is simply the best book on the topic.” —Randall Bell, Author, Home Owner's Manual "Tyson and Griswold have truly opened the world of real estate investing to all by tackling often complex issues in this easy to understand and use book. I can't think of a better way to get smart about building wealth through rental properties than to read their excellent Real Estate investing For Dummies!" Non-prime time TV is cluttered with infomercials about how you can buy non-prime real estate for next to nothing and get rich quick. Common sense should tell you that’s an exaggeration. (If common sense doesn’t tell you, bankers will.) Nevertheless, it is possible to get rich gradually by investing in real estate. Long term, you can expect to realize an annual return of 8 to 10% a year. Real Estate investing for Dummies gives you the keys to successful real estate investment, whether it’s in single family homes and condos, apartments, vacation homes, commercial properties (office, industrial, and retail), raw land, or REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts). With guidance from authors Eric Tyson, MBA, a financial counselor, and Robert S. Griswold, a veteran real estate investor, you’ll discover how to:
Whether you’re interested in a fixer supper for rental, premier office space you can lease, or a vacation home you can enjoy and rent, when you become a buyer, you also become a landlord. That means you can hear from tenants any time, night or day. It means you may not hear from them when the rent is due. Real Estate investing for Dummies also helps you:
Remember, with any deal, you have to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. So Real Estate investing for Dummies gives you guidelines on when and how to sell and how to reinvest to build wealth. It also lists 10 real estate investments you shouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. Especially if you’re tempted by those late-night infomercials, that warning could save you a fortune!
With up-to-date information on all your mortgage options. Praise for Real Estate investing For Dummies. "Tyson and Griswold have truly opened the world of real estate investing to all by tackling often complex issues in this easy to understand and use book. I can't think of a better way to get smart about building wealth through rental properties than to read their excellent Real Estate investing For Dummies!" Discover how to:
Get Smart! @www.dummies.com
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Spanish for Dummiesby Susana Wald List Price: $24.99 Available from Amazon $15.74 On 7-22-2006 
See Item's Page Book Description Is speaking Spanish nothing more than a bad high school memory for you? Are the phrases "Yo quiero Taco Bell" and "Hasta la vista, baby" the extent of what you can say in Spanish? Whether you need a quick primer for an upcoming business trip or want to build on a basic understanding of the language, Spanish For Dummies can help. But the book is more than just a language text full of cool phrases and useful vocabulary -- it's also a cultural guide for those moments when you really need to know how and why things are done. Part of what makes this book so valuable is its whole-language approach to Spanish. Instead of burdening you with endless vocabulary lists and tricky grammar rules, Spanish For Dummies gives you the tools to take your Spanish on the road. Focus on everyday situations and hone your small-talk skills that help you with basic communication in Spanish. What's more, the authors have scattered throughout the book tidbits that contextualize the language so you understand the people, places, and things that are unique to Spanish-speaking cultures. An audio CD enables you to hear Spanish as it's really spoken by presenting dialogues between native Spanish speakers.
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