Sunday, August 21, 2011

Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God (and the unlikely people who help you)

Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God (and the unlikely people who help you) List Price: 13.99
List Price: $11.07
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Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Thomas Nelson (October 17, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0849913985
ISBN-13: 978-0849913983
Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

What does a Hip-Hop artist, Waffle House waitress, tire salesman, and disabled girl have to do with discovering spiritual truth? What if embracing authentic Christianity is a journey of unlearning? Welcome to Jim Palmer's world!
Don Miller meets Anne Lamott meets Brian McLaren in this tale of shedding religion and plunging into uncharted depths of knowing God. Jim Palmer, emergent pastor, shares his compelling off-road spiritual journey and the unsuspecting people who became his guides.
"Perhaps God's reason for wanting me," writes Palmer, "is much better than my reason for wanting him. Maybe God's idea of my salvation trumps the version I am too willing to settle for. Seeing I needed a little help to get this, God sent a variety pack of characters to awaken me." For all those hoping there's more to God and Christianity than what they've heard or experienced, each chapter of Divine Nobodies gives the reader permission and freedom to discover it for themselves. Sometimes comical, other times tragic, at times shocking, always honest; Jim Palmer's story offers an inspiring and profound glimpse into life with God beyond institutional church and conventional religion.
"I am tempted to say that Jim Palmer could well be the next Donald Miller, but what they have in common, along with an honest spirituality and extraordinary skill as storytellers, is a unique voice . . . Divine Nobodies is a delight to read, and it was good for my soul to read it."
-BRIAN MCLAREN
Author of The Secret Message of Jesus
"You hold in your hands an amazing story of a broken man finding freedom in all the right places-in God's work in the lives of some extraordinarily ordinary people around him. You will thrill to this delightful blend of gut-wrenching honesty and laugh-out-loud hilarity, and in the end you'll find God much closer, the body of Christ far bigger and your own journey far clearer than you ever dreamed."
-WAYNE JACOBSEN
Author of Authentic Relationships
Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God (and the unlikely people who help you)
Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God (and the unlikely people who help you)

Monday, August 15, 2011

Of Thee I Zing: America's Cultural Decline from Muffin Tops to Body Shots

Of Thee I Zing: America's Cultural Decline from Muffin Tops to Body Shots List Price: 25.00
List Price: $15.46
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Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Threshold Editions (July 12, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1451642040
ISBN-13: 978-1451642049
Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

While Laura Ingraham was walking through a Northern Virginia shopping mall one Saturday afternoon, it all became clear to her. Everywhere she turned, she saw signs of the impending disaster: zombie teens texting each other across a café table; a man having his eyebrows threaded at a kiosk; a fiftyish woman shoe-horned into a tube top and skinny jeans; and a storefront ad featuring a Victoria’s Secret model spilling out of her push-up bra and into the faces of young passersby. Ingraham wondered to herself, “Is this it? Is this what our forefathers fought for? What my parents struggled for? I wonder if Victoria’s Secret is still having that two-for-one sale?” A menacing force surrounds us. We see it, we feel it, we know it. The country we love is in grave peril. While politicians and “experts” prattle on about the debt crisis at home, and terrorism abroad, a more insidious homegrown threat is emerging. It endangers our future and undermines our present. The uncomfortable truth is: We have become our own worst enemy. The culture we have created is now turning on us. We’re on the verge of drowning in our ignorance, arrogance, gluttony . . . can you believe there are only three shots of vanilla in a Caramel Macchiato?!? Now in an act of patriotic intervention the most-listened-to woman in talk radio casts her satirical eye upon all that ails American society. In this sharp-witted, comic romp, Laura Ingraham takes you on a guided tour through ten levels of our cultural hell. You know we’re in trouble when . . . • Airplane seats shrink—just as the passengers expand. • Celebrity baby names go from the peculiar (Apple, Stetson, and Daisy Boo) to the pathetic (Bamboo, Blanket, and Bronx). • People meticulously tend their virtual crops on Farmville, while their children eat takeout. • “Breaking News” usually means it happened yesterday. • The weddings last longer than the marriages. • Facebook has become a verb and reading has become an ancient art form. Of Thee I Zing is cultural commentary too funny to ignore, igniting a national conversation long past due. America, your cultural recovery begins here. Of Thee I Zing: America's Cultural Decline from Muffin Tops to Body Shots
Of Thee I Zing: America's Cultural Decline from Muffin Tops to Body Shots

Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum, No. 11)

Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum, No. 11) List Price: 0.99
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Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press (June 20, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312985347
ISBN-13: 978-0312985349
Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Stephanie Plum, Trenton's favorite bondswoman, is having a career crisis, which gives Janet Evanovich plenty of opportunities to showcase her series heroine in a variety of alternative vocations, from dry cleaner to factory worker. Most of them don't last a full working day, which is good for the reader, since it plunges Stephanie back into the always seedy, often dangerous, and always colorful world of fugitives who'd rather flee than face their day in court. She may be tired of having her life threatened, her cars torched or blown up, and her apartment broken into, but one thing she can say about her job is that it's never boring... and neither is she. Despite her intentions of going straight at a job with a little more security and a bit less excitement, an old client won't let her--he keeps leaving her threatening notes, stalking and scaring her, and making sure she needs the protection of the two men in her life--Joe Morelli, the sexy cop who's been bedding her since high school, and Ranger, the even sexier tough guy who can take down the meanest fugitive around but has a tender spot in his heart for the plucky Ms. Plum. All Evanovich fans' favorite characters people this sprightly caper novel, including Lula, the fast-food-chomping former hooker who's hot to take over Stephanie's job but really belongs in a WWE Takedown; Grandma Mazur, who'd rather go to a wake than a fancy-dress ball; Grandma Bella, the matriarch of the Morelli family whose evil eye frightens even the indomitable Stephanie; and Valerie, Stephanie's sister, who's about to embark on another trip to the altar. A great beach read, Eleven on Top is a guilty pleasure that will delight readers of the author's 10 earlier novels and should win her even more fans. --Jane Adams Amazon.com Exclusive Content
Amazon.com's Significant Seven
Janet Evanovich kindly agreed to take the life quiz we like to give to all our authors: the Amazon.com Significant Seven.

Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?
A: Uncle Scrooge adventures by Carl Barks. They gave me a lifelong love of the adventure story both in film and literature. And I wouldn't mind pushing my quarters around with a bulldozer in real life, either.

Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?
A: Book: The Neiman Marcus holiday catalog (I can pretend I'm shopping.)
CD: MTV’s Grind, Volume 1 (Happy music and I love the samba.)
DVD: Shrek 2 (Happy movie.)

Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?
A: "No. Your butt doesn't look big in those pants." Said to myself.

Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: No phone. Locked door. Room service. Silence. My cat (Gus) on my lap.

Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
A: "Later, Dudes!"

Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?
A: Jim Henson (creator of the Muppets)

Q: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
A: The ability to eat Cheez Doodles and Krispy Kremes and never get fat.

The Stephanie Plum Series

One for the Money
Two for the Dough
Three to Get Deadly
Four to Score
High Five
Hot Six
See the entire Stephanie Plum series. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Publishers Weekly New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum (last seen in 2004's Ten Big Ones) stumbles out of the gate due to some forced humor, but she eventually hits her usual entertaining stride in a tale that includes exploding cars, volatile wedding preparations and heated romantic entanglements. Stephanie decides to quit her job and seek less dangerous work after receiving a couple of disquieting notes. But the notes turn to threats and attacks, and she learns that her ineptitude is not confined to bounty hunting but transfers well to a succession of low-paying, sometimes humiliating jobs. After taking on Stephanie's previous duties, sidekick Lula naturally calls on Stephanie to lend a hand so that her bounty hunting travails continue unabated. Foul-mouthed Lula proves to have some pretty brutal ideas about how to bring 'em back. Bestseller Evanovich may be performing the same tricks over and over at this point in the series (the bumbling sleuth act, sexual-tension jokes, etc.), but most readers will find this a pleasing romp. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum, No. 11)
Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum, No. 11)